Global Warming???

As someone who forecasts weather for a living, I get asked a lot what my opinion is about global warming. Of course, today is a funny day to talk about the topic, as you won't hear much about this on a day when places like Chicago are seeing their coldest temperatures in almost 13 years (17 below zero!), and some places in Iowa set all time record lows (as much as 34 below zero!). That is cold!

Anyway, it has always been my view that a warming trend is pretty clear if you look at the data over the last 100+ years, as shown by this chart:

























Focus more on the top chart, which averages the ocean and land, thus giving a true measure of the global temperature. It's pretty clear that the trendline is up from 1900 onward, so to me it seems silly to assert that we are not in a warmer world than what we were 100 years ago. The causes of this are what the real issue is. Obviously the media leads you to believe that mankind is responsible for "runaway warming" and thus we need to take actions to stop it before the world as we know it ends. Well, truth be known, all the junk we spew into the atmosphere probably isn't helping, and probably is responsible for some of the warming, but it is tough to say how much of it. Is it 90%? 50%? Only 10%? I personally believe that natural cycles are responsible for a good deal of the temperature trends, and may actually be pointing toward a cooling trend globally. Now there is something that may shock Al Gore and the mainstream folks! Anyway, I will make my case here, keeping things as simple as I can so as to not get too technical. The following graph is a chart of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Don't worry about what this technically is, as the important thing to know is that when it is negative, the Pacific Ocean is cooler overall, and when it is positive, the Pacific is warmer, and each phase tends to run 20-30 years (thus the term "decadal). This is a natural phenomenon driven in part by things like el nino and la nina, solar cycles, oceanic circulations, and probably other things we are not even aware of yet.













Notice how from the 1940s to the 1970s, this oscillation was negative. Then go back and look at the temperature graph above, and what do you know? The global temperatures actually trended down during that 30 year period as well, and once the Pacific warmed again after the 70s, the warming trend came back. But notice at the end of this graph, around 2000, changes began again, and the last few years have seen cooler trends in the Pacific once again, which is very natural and we were due for this. Now here is something else you don't see reported, which are the global temperatures since 1998, according to the Hadley Centre in the U.K.























Click on the image to see it clearer. You will see that the last few years have actually been trending cooler globally despite some of the global warming hysteria. Now, anyone who knows a lick about statistics will correctly point out that in any long term trend there are fluctuations, so we cannot use this to say for sure we are entering a period of global cooling, but assuming the cooler oceanic phases for the next couple of decades, coupled with a weaker sun (which I haven't even mentioned so far), it stands to reason that the warming should at least slow down, if not reverse some in the coming years. So yes, I do believe the doom and gloom predictions are mostly just a means to create panic and play on our fears. Oh the irony here. I should find the video clip where Al Gore rants about President Bush playing on our fears, when he is doing the very same thing with the whole climate issue, but who am I to argue with such an expert on the subject (sarcasm intended!).

So I am not a skeptic of global warming, as it has been occurring, but I am a very skeptical of those who claim they have the causes all figured out, as I have yet to read anything that invalidates some of the natural cycles I have mentioned here as possible drivers of climate change. Maybe it will turn out that they are right. I definitely don't have all the answers myself, but know enough to see that the debate doesn't appear to be settled. The next several years will be interesting to watch.

Having said all of this, I am 100% in favor of looking for cleaner / alternative energy sources because, well, spewing crap in the air isn't healthy for anyone regardless of any warming it causes or doesn't cause, and of course we cannot rely on fossil fuels forever, so in that sense I'm all for going green!