A report released at the end of January by British climate scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit showed that the Earth’s average temperatures have dropped to the same levels seen back in 1997 before the so-called “big warmup.”
The British scientists agree with many Russian and Japanese climate scientists that the world could be headed toward a mini ice age sometime in the near future.
The Czech Republic town of Kvilda on Feb. 4 logged an all-time record low temperature of minus 40 degrees. On the same morning, Graubuenden, Switzerland, plunged to minus 35 degrees, likewise a record low.
The record coldwave pushed all the way south into North Africa. One Saharan outpost reported 16 degrees. This trading station had never seen a minimum temperature below 25 degrees.
Clearly, the Brits at one of the focal points of the "climategate" email scandal have joined ranks with the Deniers of the Religion of Anthropogenic Global Warming. It's time to call Peter Gleick, so he can set them straight. He's good at faking documents.
Of course, forty years ago, we were all gonna die because of Anthropogenic Global Cooling. Today, the media dismiss it as mythology, but the fact of the matter is that in the 1970's, many of the people who today are profiting from the AGW scare were pushing AGC.
HERE is an excellent resource for explaining the fallacy of global warming to a layperson.
Posted by: g... | February 26, 2012 at 07:32 PM
That's a good link, thanks. There are a number of factors that, surprisingly or not, have been largely unpublicized:
CO2 is a relatively weak greenhouse gas, and atmospheric concentrations have never yet been found to precede temperature changes.
Water vapor is considerably more potent as a greenhouse gas, though it has the ameliorating effect of forming clouds in the atmosphere - which reflect rather than trap solar radiation.
The most potent greenhouse gas of which we're currently aware is methane, and almost none of that is attributable to human activity; it is a byproduct of cellulose breakdown, which occurs in bogs and marshes (protected wetlands). The primary animal source of methane on the planet is:
termites.
Posted by: Max | February 26, 2012 at 08:53 PM
I am not aware that the '70s Global Cooling prediction was predicated on man's efforts. And I don't see that conclusion in the articles linked.
Posted by: Sam L. | February 27, 2012 at 08:35 AM
If I recall correctly, that was one of the justifications for banning most cfc use - along with the ozone hole.
Posted by: Max | February 27, 2012 at 10:51 AM
Of course, they were wrong 40 years ago. But this time, ....
On the other hand, href="http://www.ask.com/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum"
"the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, alternatively "Eocene thermal maximum 1" (ETM1), and formerly known as the "Initial Eocene" or "Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum",[1] (IETM/LPTM)), was associated with rapid (in geological terms) global warming, profound changes in ecosystems, and major perturbations in the carbon cycle.
Global temperatures rose by about 6 °C (11 °F) over a period of approximately 20,000 years. That is a 0.0003 °C (.00055 °F) increase per year. Many benthic foraminifera [sea-floor dwellers, largely planktons] and terrestrial mammals went extinct..."
That'll teach them, for all that coal-burning, all those SUVs & such.
Posted by: ZZMike | February 27, 2012 at 03:59 PM
I had no idea that the Paleocynics were burning coal and driving SUV's. Just like the damn Martians, apparently - the global warming/cooling events there mirror those here.
Posted by: Max | February 27, 2012 at 08:40 PM