Cooling Down

[Guest Mike W]

32 year gap between starting to remove aerosoels and worrying about CO2 and other warming emmisions, ie.e 1956 and 1988. Doesn't give much time really, especially when the coolingones are couple of weeks to a couple of months and the warming ones, CO2 in particluar saty up their for decades, the diffrence is somwhat noticeable. What I find hard to believe is that it took 32 years to notice how potent CO2 is.

Edited May 14, 2006 by Mike W

[Guest Mike W]

I can't see where we can get any cooling from. All I will say is this, winter of 1963 is a case in point, solar activity was high not low at the time and the guklf stream/ NAD was working fine aswell so it wasn't any of those, their was no big volcanic eruption previously either, in fact heir was no natural reason for that winter at all, the only thing left is the high amounts of SO2 and soot that we were emmiting at the time, doing a volcanos wok for it basically. In fact to ram the point home the last pea souper in London occured on the eve of that famous winter, so game set and match really. Now I'm not saying the clean air act is a bad thing at all, but when you look at the timeing of this warming and the rate of decline in aerosoles and the rate of increase in CO2 levesl, it prettyl much fits and speaks for itself. I think it the time lag between concern over aerosoles back in 1956 and 32 years later concern over CO2, both should have been given equal concern at the same time.

Edited May 14, 2006 by Mike W

[wolves78]

put it simple solar activity down but volcanic activity is up

[Methuselah]

...but volcanic activity is up

But is it?

[Dawlish]

But is it?

The Smithsoniain says no and I agree. Much of the dramatic rise in reporting of volcanic activity in the recent past has been down to population increase in remoter areas and satellite monitoring.

volcanichttp://www.volcano.si.edu/faq/index.cfm?faq=06

Similarly, there has been no increase in major earthquake avtivity this century. The cataclysm, end-of-the-world, lobby are just going to have to wait another few generations!

[Methuselah]

Thank you, Paul...I didn't think it was, either...It must be down to as yet undiscovered activity; the mainstay of most conspiracy theories IMO...

[West is Best]

I'm always amazed by how one slightly cooler than average winter in the UK, a tiny, tiny area of the world, can suggest to anyone that a cooling trend has, or is about to be established. last year was (just) the warmest ever recorded (since Victoria still had 20-odd years left to reign). How about January in the USA being the warmest since records began? Globally, both Feb and March 2006 were in the top 10 warmest. Almost every month that goes by, especially with ocean temps shows this. (search the NOAA site for the stats - it is fascinating! http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/monitoring.html

There are no indications whatsoever that the Gulf Stream is weakening. The Southampton Uni study found that one of the N/S currents, that had been only infrequently measured before, was 30% weaker than the last measure, 5 years ago. It did not find any reduction in S/N currents, especially the Gulf Stream. Indeed last summer showed arctic ice as being at its lowest measured extent - due to warmer sea temps, as well as warmer land temps. Have you seen the amount of Ice in the Brents sea and the Greenland sea right now, compared to 30 year means? have a look on Cryosphere today, then tell me that a global cooling phase has been established!

An interruption to the North Atlantic Circulation is no more than pure speculation, I'm afraid.

The reality is that the world has been warming for the last 50 years, the UK has shown the same trend since the early 1980s, but the UK matters hardly a jot when Global Warming is discussed!

Paul

A perfect response Paul.

[Optimus Prime]

I noticed this for March;

Only one state - California - was significantly colder than average with several towns, such as Redding, Sacramento and San Francisco, having their coldest March on record.

Local variations.

Also, it wasn't just Britain that experienced a colder than average winter, Germany had it's coldest winter ever, Korea and Japan both saw exceptional cold and snowfalls and as did Russia. Russia had one of the most severe cold snaps ever. Even Europe's cold spell came close in severity to that off January 1987.

Global

The average global temperature anomaly for combined land and ocean surfaces during March 2006 (based on preliminary data) was 0.97°F (0.54°C) above the 20th century mean. This was the 7th warmest March since 1880 (the beginning of reliable instrumental records) as the cold phase of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (La Niña) persisted in the equatorial Pacific. Anomalously warm land surface temperatures covered much of central Asia and northern Africa, while cooler than average temperatures were widespread across much of Europe.

Warm and cold areas are still localised with many areas having a severe winter while others having a warm one. I certainly agree that global warming probably took some of the severiuty out of the cold snap across Europe and added the warmth to the mild weather across America.

[Dawlish]

A perfect response Paul.

Thanks Westie!...........Apart from the fact that I can't spell Barents!

*>))