According to Daily Mail reports of 10th and 11th January 2010, we are now entering a phase of global cooling. However, there is an old saying about newspaper reports: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story."
I am not here to 'knock' the Daily Mail. My earliest recollections of reading news stories are recollections of the Daily Mail. I still read the Daily Mail on line and enjoy the generally high standard of reporting, so it came as something of a shock to discover that Daily Mail reporters have got their facts entirely wrong about global warming.
"The Mini Ice Age Starts Here", says David Rose. Er, no! Actually, it doesn't.
The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.
Only one scientist is actually named: Professor Mojib Latif. As shown below, Prof. Latif most definitely does not say any such thing!
David Rose goes on to say:
According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.
Here is the relevant quote from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre:
At the end of the Arctic summer, more ice cover remained this year than during the previous record-setting low years of 2007 and 2008. However, sea ice has not recovered to previous levels. September sea ice extent was the third lowest since the start of satellite records in 1979, and the past five years have seen the five lowest ice extents in the satellite record.Here is a more crucial quote:
NSIDC Director and Senior Scientist Mark Serreze said, “It’s nice to see a little recovery over the past couple years, but there’s no reason to think that we’re headed back to conditions seen back in the 1970s. We still expect to see ice-free summers sometime in the next few decades.”And now, the most crucial quote:
NSIDC Scientist Walt Meier said, “We've preserved a fair amount of
first-year ice and second-year ice after this summer compared to the
past couple of years. If this ice remains in the Arctic through the
winter, it will thicken, which gives some hope of stabilizing the ice
cover over the next few years. However, the ice is still much younger
and thinner than it was in the 1980s, leaving it vulnerable to melt
during the summer.”
"Could we be in for 30 years of global COOLING?", asks an un-named Daily Mail reporter.
Spoiler: the answer is NO!
Britain's big freeze is the start of a worldwide trend towards colder weather that seriously challenges global warming theories, eminent scientists claimed yesterday.
The world has entered a 'cold mode' which is likely to bring a global dip in temperatures which will last for 20 to 30 years, they say.
Summers and winters will all be cooler than in recent years, and the changes will mean that global warming will be 'paused' or even reversed, it was claimed.
Nah!
The whole Daily Mail global cooling story is based on a misunderstanding of a scientific research published in 2008 by Prof. Latif's team.
"It comes as a surprise to me that people would try to use my statements to try to dispute the nature of global warming. I believe in manmade global warming. I have said that if my name was not Mojib Latif it would be global warming."Prof. Mojib Latif, as reported in The Guardian.
Apart from the Daily Mail, the "global cooling" story has also been carried by FOXnews, the Daily Telegraph and others, and is being picked up across the web.
Despite Prof. Latif's rebuttal, you should expect the climate change deniers to be citing the "global cooling" articles as "evidence" for a long time to come.
Recommended for further reading:
Of Moles and Whacking: Mojib Latif predicted two decades of cooling.
"If your “global cooling” piece revolves around Dr. Latif, you probably have the entire story backwards" ethiopianreview.com
More on climate from the chatter_box
Global Cooling : How Wrong Can You Get?
Global Cooling : Beyond Parochialism
Join The Navy : See A Nuke
Himalayan Hype : Reading Between The Lines
Post Glacial Eustatic Sea Level Rise
GMST : Discovering Trends
How To Model A Smoking Gun
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Edit: added Jan 12 2010
A huge thank you to Kutsnob for posting a link to this article in the Netherlands, where the current extreme of cold weather is bringing out the climate change deniers in droves!
A huge thank you also to valkhorn for linking this article to AccuWeather.com.
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