Whither Global Warming?
Well I know that this is going to spark some debate here. Aaron has been chomping at the bit to take me on about Global Warming, so let’s get the party started. I’m going to start off with a chart.
This comes from the U.K.’s Climate Research Unit (CRU). This is the latest global average temperature data. A lot has been made of the tremendous peak in 1998 and then the noticeable drop in average temperature. Also worth noting is the increase towards the 1940’s then leveling off, then the increase kicking like gangbusters in the 1980’s.
So I caught a little debate over on some other science blogs about this.
What this comes down to for me (among many things) is that yes, weather is variable and the "climate" year to year looks rather erratic, but you can’t look at just one year or a couple years you have to look at decades to see patterns.
The Earth’s climate tries to achieve a balance or equilibrium point. Unfortunately the Earth also has bad aim. Okay 1998 was hot … correction time, cool ‘er down boys … whoops too far … Now this year-to-year varibility is normal and, thanks to chaos theory, you look at climate data you see similar patterns at many time scales from the day to the century. Lots of spikes, lots of wiggles.
What makes Global Warming problematic for us the changes in climate are going effect our daily lives significantly. Heck you don’t even have to believe in Global Warming to see that! Increasingly stronger hurricane seasons, less polar ice, intense weather events, flooding and drought. These aren’t random occurrences, these are the results of the Earth getting warmer.
Well now I’ve opened the door to this debate on this blog. I’m not going to let it take over, as much as I love to discuss Global Warming, it does get old after a while.
Regardless here are some great links to read (all from the U.K., the BBC has some great stuff) …
- Newsvine
- BBC Guide to Climate Change
- BBC Global Warming section
- Stark Warning over Climate Change (BBC)
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