Global Warming Stopped 16 Years Ago

Global Warming Stopped 16 Years Ago, Reveals Met Office Report Quietly Released... and Here is the Chart to Prove It

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.
The
figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal
that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no
discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
This
means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted
for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose,
1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for
about 40 years.





global temperature changes






Research: The new figures mean that the 'pause'
in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous
period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. This picture shows an
iceberg melting in Eastern Greenland

The new data, compiled from
more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on
the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not
been reported.

This
stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous figures six
months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.

Ending
the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since
1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and
thus this trend is erased.


Some climate scientists, such
as Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the
University of East Anglia, last week dismissed the significance of the
plateau, saying that 15 or 16 years is too short a period from which to
draw conclusions.
Others
disagreed. Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate
science department at America’s prestigious Georgia Tech university,
told The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used
to predict future warming were ‘deeply flawed’.

Even
Prof Jones admitted that he and his colleagues did not understand the
impact of ‘natural variability’ – factors such as long-term ocean
temperature cycles and changes in the output of the sun. However, he
said he was still convinced that the current decade would end up
significantly warmer than the previous two.










Disagreement: Professor Phil Jones, left, from
the University of East Anglia, dismissed the significance of the
plateau. Professor Judith Curry, right, from Georgia Tech university in
America, disagreed, saying the computer models used to predict future
warming were ‘deeply flawed’





Warmer: Since 1880 the world has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius. This image shows floating icebergs in Greenland

The regular data collected on
global temperature is called Hadcrut 4, as it is jointly issued by the
Met Office’s Hadley Centre and Prof Jones’s Climatic Research Unit.
Since
1880, when worldwide industrialisation began to gather pace and
reliable statistics were first collected on a global scale, the world
has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius.

Some
scientists have claimed that this rate of warming is set to increase
hugely without drastic cuts to carbon-dioxide emissions, predicting a
catastrophic increase of up to a further five degrees Celsius by the
end of the century.
The new
figures were released as the Government made clear that it would ‘bend’
its own carbon-dioxide rules and build new power stations to try to
combat the threat of blackouts.
At
last week’s Conservative Party Conference, the new Energy Minister,
John Hayes, promised that ‘the high-flown theories of bourgeois
Left-wing academics will not override the interests of ordinary people
who need fuel for heat, light and transport – energy policies, you might
say, for the many, not the few’ – a pledge that has triggered fury from
green activists, who fear reductions in the huge subsidies given to
wind-turbine firms.
Flawed science costs us dearly



Here
are three not-so trivial questions you probably won’t find in your next
pub quiz. First, how much warmer has the world become since a) 1880
and b) the beginning of 1997? And what has this got to do with your
ever-increasing energy bill?
You
may find the answers to the first two surprising. Since 1880, when
reliable temperature records began to be kept across most of the globe,
the world has warmed by about 0.75 degrees Celsius.

From
the start of 1997 until August 2012, however, figures released last
week show the answer is zero: the trend, derived from the aggregate data
collected from more than 3,000 worldwide measuring points, has been
flat.





Surprising: News that the world has got no
warmer for the past 16 years will come as something of a shock. This
picture shows drifting ice in Canada

Not that there has been any
coverage in the media, which usually reports climate issues assiduously,
since the figures were quietly release online with no accompanying
press release – unlike six months ago when they showed a slight warming
trend.
The answer to the
third question is perhaps the most familiar. Your bills are going up, at
least in part, because of the array of ‘green’ subsidies being provided
to the renewable energy industry, chiefly wind.

They
will cost the average household about £100 this year. This is set to
rise steadily higher – yet it is being imposed for only one reason:
the widespread conviction, which is shared by politicians of all stripes
and drilled into children at primary schools, that, without drastic
action to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, global warming is certain
soon to accelerate, with truly catastrophic consequences by the end of
the century – when temperatures could be up to five degrees higher.
Hence
the significance of those first two answers. Global industrialisation
over the past 130 years has made relatively little difference.

And
with the country committed by Act of Parliament to reducing CO2 by 80
per cent by 2050, a project that will cost hundreds of billions, the
news that the world has got no warmer for the past 16 years comes as
something of a shock.
It poses a fundamental challenge to the assumptions underlying every aspect of energy and climate change policy.
This ‘plateau’ in rising temperatures does not mean that global warming won’t at some point resume.





Damage: Global warming has been caused in part
by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels. This image shows smoke billowing out
of a power station

But according to increasing
numbers of serious climate scientists, it does suggest that the computer
models that have for years been predicting imminent doom, such as
those used by the Met Office and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, are flawed, and that the climate is far more complex
than the models assert.
‘The
new data confirms the existence of a pause in global warming,’
Professor Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric
Science at America’s Georgia Tech university, told me yesterday.

‘Climate
models are very complex, but they are imperfect and incomplete. Natural
variability [the impact of factors such as long-term temperature
cycles in the oceans and the output of the sun] has been shown over the
past two decades to have a magnitude that dominates the greenhouse
warming effect.

‘It is
becoming increasingly apparent that our attribution of warming since
1980 and future projections of climate change needs to consider natural
internal variability as a factor of fundamental importance.’
Professor
Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of
East Anglia, who found himself at the centre of the ‘Climategate’
scandal over leaked emails three years ago, would not normally be
expected to agree with her. Yet on two important points, he did.
The
data does suggest a plateau, he admitted, and without a major El Nino
event – the sudden, dramatic warming of the southern Pacific which takes
place unpredictably and always has a huge effect on global weather –
‘it could go on for a while’.
Like
Prof Curry, Prof Jones also admitted that the climate models were
imperfect: ‘We don’t fully understand how to input things like changes
in the oceans, and because we don’t fully understand it you could say
that natural variability is now working to suppress the warming. We
don’t know what natural variability is doing.’




Headache: The evidence is beginning to suggest
that global warming may be happening much slower than the catastrophists
have claimed - a conclusion with enormous policy implications for
politicians at Westminster, pictured

Yet he insisted that 15 or 16 years is not a significant period: pauses of such length had always been expected, he said.

Yet
in 2009, when the plateau was already becoming apparent and being
discussed by scientists, he told a colleague in one of the Climategate
emails: ‘Bottom line: the “no upward trend” has to continue for a
total of 15 years before we get worried.’
But
although that point has now been passed, he said that he hadn’t changed
his mind about the models’ gloomy predictions: ‘I still think that
the current decade which began in 2010 will be warmer by about 0.17
degrees than the previous one, which was warmer than the Nineties.’
Only
if that did not happen would he seriously begin to wonder whether
something more profound might be happening. In other words, though five
years ago he seemed to be saying that 15 years without warming would
make him ‘worried’, that period has now become 20 years.
Meanwhile,
his Met Office colleagues were sticking to their guns. A spokesman
said: ‘Choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very
misleading. Climate change can only be detected from multi-decadal
timescales due to the inherent variability in the climate system.’
He
said that for the plateau to last any more than 15 years was
‘unlikely’. Asked about a prediction that the Met Office made in 2009 –
that three of the ensuing five years would set a new world temperature
record – he made no comment. With no sign of a strong El Nino next year,
the prospects of this happening are remote.
Why
all this matters should be obvious. Every quarter, statistics on the
economy’s output and models of future performance have a huge impact on
our lives. They trigger a range of policy responses from the Bank of
England and the Treasury, and myriad decisions by private businesses.

Yet
it has steadily become apparent since the 2008 crash that both the
statistics and the modelling are extremely unreliable. To plan the
future around them makes about as much sense as choosing a wedding date
three months’ hence on the basis of a long-term weather forecast.
Few
people would be so foolish. But decisions of far deeper and more costly
significance than those derived from output figures have been and are
still being made on the basis of climate predictions, not of the next
three months but of the coming century – and this despite the fact that
Phil Jones and his colleagues now admit they do not understand the role
of ‘natural variability’.
The
most depressing feature of this debate is that anyone who questions
the alarmist, doomsday scenario will automatically be labelled a climate
change ‘denier’, and accused of jeopardising the future of humanity.
So
let’s be clear. Yes: global warming is real, and some of it at least
has been caused by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels. But the evidence is
beginning to suggest that it may be happening much slower than the
catastrophists have claimed – a conclusion with enormous policy
implications.

Source:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html?openGraphAuthor=%2Fhome%2Fsearch.html%3Fs%3D%26authornamef%3DDavid%2BRose