Global temperatures measured from the antarctic ice shows stable chaos and self-similarity.
The global climate is, as best I can tell, chaotic with 100,000 year ice-age cycles punctuated by smaller cycles of 1000 years, 100 years, etc. On the ice-age time scale shown at left, the temperature rise of the last century looks insignificant and very welcome; warm seems better than cold in my eyes. But the press and academic community has focused on the evils of warmth — global warming. They point out that temperatures have risen 1 1/2 °C since the little ice age of the early 1600s, and that 1/2 °C of this has occurred since 1900. Al Gore won a Nobel prize for his assertion that the rate of rise had accelerated to 4°C per century — a “hockey-stick change” caused by industrial CO2. This change was expected to bring disaster by 2015: The arctic was supposed to be ice-free, and Manhattan was expected to sink. I’ve posted a “Good Morning America” clip from 2008 highlighting this “inconvenient truth”.
Our 19 1/2 year global warming pause; plot from Andrew Watts with Al Gore’s prediction shown in red. So far, the prediction has not come to pass.
As it happens, not only hasn’t global warming accelerated, it seems to have paused. There have been no significant temperature changes since late 1997, as shown. The main explanations are clouds and solar variation: variations that the Obama administration claims will end any day now. The problem, as I see it, is that climate is fundamentally chaotic, and thus unpredictable except on the very long, ice-age, timescale. It will thus always make fools of those who predict.
This is not to say that pollution is good, or that CO2 is, but it suggests our models and remedies are flawed. The CO2 content of the air has increased 25% over the past 19 years. It now mostly comes from China and India, countries that enthusiastically endorse having us reduce our output. My thinking is that lowering US production will, in no way, protect us from the dire predictions below.
Despite pressure from China and India, the US pulled out of the Paris climate accord last month. It now seems several other countries will pull out as well.
Robert Buxbaum, July 27, 2017. I’ve also written about how the global warming of the mid 1800s lead us to have the president’s Resolute desk.
If the temperature were to go on like this, when would you declare the “pause” over? 2033?
https://imgur.com/a/gCoU7Fv
The pause would seem to have ended this year. That said, at least two of my other comments are still valid: (1) chaotic systems like this are remarkably immune to man-made modification, and (2) I’m not convinced that hot is worse than cold. In fact, my sense is still the opposite: the real worry is cold, even another small ice age would be a terror, and the real ice age would end civilization aw we know it. Given that alternative, warm is rather good, IMHO.