Earth's 'Fever' Breaks! Global temperatures 'have plunged .74°F since Gore released 'An Inconvenient Truth'

June 2009 saw another drop in global temps

Sunday, July 05, 2009By Marc Morano – Climate Depot

The latest global averaged satellite temperature data for June 2009 reveals yet another drop in the Earth's temperature. This latest drop in global temperatures means despite his dire warnings, the Earth has cooled .74°F since former Vice President Al Gore released "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2006.

According to the latest data courtesy of algorelied.com: "For the record, this month's Al Gore / 'An Inconvenient Truth' Index indicates that global temperatures have plunged approximately .74°F (.39°C) since Gore's film was released." (see satellite temperature chart herewith key dates noted, courtesy of www.Algorelied.com - The global satellite temperature data comes from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Also see: 8 Year Downtrend Continues in Global Temps)

Gore -- who is fond of saying the Earth has a "fever" -- has not yet addressed the simple fact that global temperatures have dropped since the release of his global warming film. (Gore has also not addressed this: Another Moonwalker Defies Gore: NASA Astronaut Dr. Buzz Aldrin rejects global warming fears: 'Climate has been changing for billions of years' - Moonwalkers Defy Gore's Claim That Climate Skeptics Are Akin To Those Who Believe Moon Landing was 'Staged')

A record cool summer has descended upon many parts of the U.S. after predictions of the "year without a summer." There has beenno significant global warming since 1995, no warming since 1998 and global cooling for the past few years.

In addition, New peer-reviewed scientific studies now predict a continued lack of global warming for up to three decades as natural climate factors dominate. (See: Climate Fears RIP...for 30 years!? - Global Warming could stop 'for up to 30 years! Warming 'On Hold?...'Could go into hiding for decades' study finds – Discovery.com – March 2, 2009 )

This means that today's high school kids being forced to watch Al Gore's “An Inconvenient Truth” – some of them 4 times in 4 different classes – will be nearly eligible for AARP (age 50) retirement group membership by the time warming resumes if these new studies turn out to be correct. (Editor's Note: Claims that warming will “resume” due to explosive heat in the "pipeline" have also been thoroughly debunked. See: Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. 'There is no warming in the pipeline' )

Buchanan: Climate Bill Is Transfer Of Wealth To World Government

Posted By admin On June 29, 2009 @ 5:05 am

Former presidential advisor slams fearmongering that led to passage of nightmare legislation

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com ^[1]
Monday, June 29, 2009

During an appearance on MSNBC, political commentator Pat Buchanan correctly defined the “Climate Bill” for what it really is, not just a new tax on the American people, but a complete transfer of power and wealth to a global government that is using the manufactured fear of global warming to grease the skids for total domination.

Referring to the passage of the climate bill and global warming in general, Buchanan said that the legislation was passed through the use of fear and that, “More and more scientists are coming forward to say this is a hoax and a scam which is designed to transfer wealth and power from the private sector to the government sector and from the government of the United States to a world government. Which is what we’re going to get in Copenhagen when we get this Kyoto two agreement.”

Buchanan labeled the legislation a “tax bill” that would raise the prices of utilities for every American, hammer the middle class and working class, “for a danger that we don’t even know is really there”.

The former senior advisor to three U.S. presidents accused the Obama administration of hyping the apocalyptic myth that the oceans will rise and that cities will be underwater in order to ram through the legislation.

Establishment left-wing blogs like Crooks and Liars and Media Matters are carrying the video of Buchanan’s remarks with little or no accompanying commentary, as if Buchanan’s comments alone are enough to discredit his position.

Those who act as shills for the climate change hoax may believe that anyone who dares challenge the authodoxy of the church of global warming is automatically a heretic and that no evidence whatsoever needs to even be presented to counter their sacrilege, but here in the real world we prefer to stick to the facts.

Empirical satellite data shows that mean global temperatures are the same that they were 30 years ago ^[2]and that global sea ice is also at similar levels. Following a spike in global temperatures at the end of the last century that coincided with the sun undergoing its most active period in recent times, the planet has now cooled to 1979 levels. At the end of summer last year, despite hysterical predictions that the North Pole would be free of ice for the first time in history, Arctic sea ice had actually expanded by 30 per cent ^[3], an area the size of Germany.

Coinciding with expanding ice sheets, there has been no rise in sea levels for the past three years. Tropical storms and extreme weather events attributed to global warming like hurricanes and typhoons are at a record low ^[4].

The United Nations’s IPCC, the heavily politicized organization that is often erroneously cited as an independent scientific body by climate change promoters, was last year caught citing fake data ^[5] to make the case that global warming is accelerating, a shocking example of mass public deception.

“This was startling,” reported the London Telegraph ^[6]. “Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China’s official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its “worst snowstorm ever”. In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.”

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

^[7]

It soon came to light that the data produced by NASA to make the claim, and in particular temperature records covering large areas of Russia, was merely carried over from the previous month. NASA had used temperature records from the naturally hotter month of September and claimed they represented temperature figures for October.

As David Deming points out in his excellent article today ^[8], temperature data collected by weather stations is being artificially impacted by measuring systems placed nearby to sources of heat. This is why claims that global temperatures are still rising are completely contradicted by real world evidence of falling temperatures and what some scientists are warning ^[9] is the beginning of a new ice age.

“Why do people think the planet is warming?,” writes Deming. “One reason is that the temperature data from weather stations appear to be hopelessly contaminated by urban heat effects. A survey of the 1221 temperature stations in the US by meteorologist Anthony Watts and his colleagues is now more than 80 percent complete. The magnitude of putative global warming over the last 150 years is about 0.7 °C. But only 9 percent of meteorological stations in the US are likely to have temperature errors lower than 1 °C. More than two-thirds of temperature sensors used to estimate global warming are located near artificial heating sources such as air conditioning vents, asphalt paving, or buildings. These sources are likely to introduce artifacts greater than 2 °C into the temperature record.”

“Every year in the US, more than forty thousand people are killed in traffic accidents. But not one single person has ever been killed by global warming. The number of species that have gone extinct from global warming is exactly zero. Both the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets are stable. The polar bear population is increasing. There has been no increase in infectious disease that can be attributed to climate change. We are not currently experiencing more floods, droughts, or forest fires,” he concludes.

As we have attempted to warn ^[10], the major beneficiaries of the climate bill will be the elitists who own the carbon trading systems that will be used to handle the ‘cap and trade’ program, namely Al Gore and Maurice Strong, two figures intimately involved with a long standing movement to use the theory of man made global warming as a mechanism for profit and social engineering.

Gore’s investment company, Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offset opportunities, is the largest shareholder of The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX).

While Maurice Strong, who is regularly credited as founding father of the modern environmental movement, serves on the board of directors of CCX. Strong was a leading initiate of the Earth Summit in the early 90s, where the theory of global warming caused by CO2 generated by human activity was most notably advanced.

Watch the clip of Buchanan’s comments below.

---

Article printed from Alex Jones’ Prison Planet.com: http://www.prisonplanet.com

URL to article: http://www.prisonplanet.com/buchanan-climate-bill-is-transfer-of-wealth-to-world-government.html

URLs in this post:

[1] Prison Planet.com: http://prisonplanet.com

[2] mean global temperatures are the same that they were 30 years ago : http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/UAHMSUglobe.html

[3] Arctic sea ice had actually expanded by 30 per cent: http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/august2008/081908_arctic_ice.htm

[4] are at a record low: http://coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/global_running_ace.jpg

[5] was last year caught citing fake data: http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/november2008/111708_ipcc_caught.htm

[6] reported the London Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml

[7] Image: http://prisonplanet.tv/signup.html

[8] As David Deming points out in his excellent article today: http://lewrockwell.com/orig9/deming3.html

[9] some scientists are warning: http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/august2008/081908_ice_age.htm

[10] As we have attempted to warn: http://www.prisonplanet.com/flashback-obama-intimately-tied-to-carbon-trading-scam.html

Report: Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore At Congressional Hearing

Thursday, April 23, 2009By Marc Morano

'House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated'

Climate Depot Exclusive

Washington, DC -- UK's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.

“The House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face,” Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. “They are cowards.”

According to Monckton, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Ranking Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee, had invited him to go head to head with Gore and testify at the hearing on Capitol Hill Friday. But Monckton now says that when his airplane from London landed in the U.S. on Thursday, he was informed that the former Vice-President had “chickened out” and there would be no joint appearance. Gore is scheduled to testify on Friday to the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment's fourth day of hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The hearing will be held in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.

According to Monckton, House Democrats told the Republican committee staff earlier this week that they would be putting forward an unnamed 'celebrity' as their star witness Friday at a multi-panel climate hearing examining the House global warming bill. The "celebrity" witness turned out to be Gore. Monckton said the GOP replied they would respond to the Democrats' "celebrity" with an unnamed "celebrity" of their own. But Monckton claims that when the Democrats were told who the GOP witness would be, they refused to allow him to testify alongside Gore.

“The Democrats have a lot to learn about the right of free speech under the US Constitution. Congress Henry Waxman's (D-CA) refusal to expose Al Gore's sci-fi comedy-horror testimony to proper, independent scrutiny by the House minority reeks of naked fear,” Monckton said from the airport Thursday evening.

“Waxman knows there has been no 'global warming' for at least a decade. Waxman knows there has been seven and a half years' global cooling. Waxman knows that, in the words of the UK High Court judge who condemned Gore's mawkish movie as materially, seriously, serially inaccurate, 'the Armageddon scenario that he depicts is not based on any scientific view,'” Monckton explained. Monckton has previously testified before the House Committee in March. (See: Monckton: Have the courage to do nothing...US Congress told climate change is not real ) Monckton has also publicly challenged Gore to a debate. (See: Al Gore Challenged to International TV Debate on Global Warming By Lord Monckton - March 19, 2007 )

Obama Earth Day Flights Burned More Than 9,000 Gallons Of Fuel

Posted by Mark Knoller | 

(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

It happens every time a president leaves town to make an Earth Day speech. Reporters scramble to point out how much fuel was expended so the President could talk about conserving energy and using alternative fuels. 

In flying to and from Iowa today, President Obama took two flights on Air Force One and four on Marine One. 

The press office at Andrews AFB wouldn’t give me the fuel consumption numbers for the 747 that serves as Air Force One without the approval of the White House Press Office, which as I write this has yet to be given. 

But Boeing says its 747 burns about 5 gallons of fuel per mile. It’s 895 miles from Washington to Des Moines, so a round trip brings the fuel consumption for the fixed-wing portion of the President’s trip to 8,950 gallons. 

(AP )

The trip also put President Obama on Marine One for round-trip flights between the White House and Andrews AFB and between Des Moines International Airport and Newton, Iowa, site of his Earth Day speech. It totaled about an hour of flight time. The VH-3D that serves as Marine One consumes about 1200 pounds of fuel per hour which comes out to about 166 gallons consumed flying the President today. 

Not included in these calculations are the presidential vehicles that took him the short distance from the landing zone in Newton to the event site at the Trinity Structural Towers Manufacturing Plant. 

In his speech there, President Obama called for a “new era of energy exploration in America.” 

At a plant that manufactures the towers for wind turbines, he urged Americans to support his plan for promoting expanded use of alternative and renewable fuels. 

And he announced that for the first time, the Interior Department would be leasing federal waters for projects to generate electricity from wind and ocean currents. 

President Obama could have saved at least 9,116 gallons of fuel by giving his speech at the White House – but no wind turbines are manufactured here. 

Science Adviser Lays Out Climate and Energy Plans

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Keith Srakocic/Associated Press John Holdren, the White House science adviser.

John Holdren, President Obama’s science adviser, began speaking to the media on Wednesday for the first time. The Associated Press emphasized some statements he made in support of testing ways to counteract global warming through what has become known as “geo-engineering” — emergency interventions to cool the atmosphere should less drastic measures fail. Dr. Holdren said that the Associated Press article implied incorrectly that this strategy for climate management was under serious consideration at the White House. This is not the case, he said in an email distributed to a variety of scientists and other contacts last night:

I said that the approaches that have been surfaced so far seem problematic in terms of both efficacy and side effects, but we have to look at the possibilities and understand them because if we get desperate enough it will be considered. I also made clear that this was my personal view, not Administration policy. Asked whether I had mentioned geo-engineering in any White House discussions, though, I said that I had. This is NOT the same thing as saying the White House is giving serious consideration to geo-engineering – which it isn’t — and I am disappointed that the headline and the text of the article suggest otherwise.

Dr. Holdren’s support for research on geo-engineering aligns him with Ralph Cicerone, the president of the National Academy of Sciences, who told The Times in 2006, “We should treat these ideas like any other research and get into the mind-set of taking them seriously.” Their notion is to have a “Plan C” if emissions trajectories are not bent downward and the higher end of warming projections comes to pass. (Join the geo-engineering googlegroup to track daily discussions on this question.)

But this is a charged issue for many environmentalists and some scientists (including Jane Lubchenco, the new under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere) who oppose such interventions with nature because they could produce unintended harms, falsely imply that we can engineer our way out of any problem or blunt efforts to cut emissions of greenhouse gases at the source. Here’s more on Dr. Holdren’s statements.

In a telephone interview Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Holdren told me he felt personally that geo-engineering should be a focus of any smart research menu on climate, as a hedge, but in no way obviated the need for curbing heat-trapping emissions. Here are some points he made about the energy challenge underlying the climate challenge:

When asked what steps could propel a broad quest for ways to expand the world’s energy choices without increasing climate risks, he said:

The stimulus package has made a big down payment on this. A further down payment is in the form of the research and experimentation tax credit. Ideally that should be made permanent. The trouble with it now is that it’s only been renewed on a year-at-a-time basis. There have been periods when it was allowed to lapse entirely before being reinstated. What you need with that sort of thing for it to have the desired effect is for the private sector to be able to count on it.

He said the Obama administration’s first steps aimed at repairing the country’s innovation pipeline were lauded in a letter sent to the White House by the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, a coalition including a wide range of universities, scientific societies and businesses.

I asked him how much direct federal investment in energy research and development would be sufficient.

I think every serious group that has looked at how much the United States is spending on energy technology and innovation ends up with the conclusion that we need to be spending somewhere between 2 and 10 times as much as we are now if we really want to get the pace of improvement in the energy portfolios we’re going to need. My judgment is that the right number is probably in the middle. I doubt we need a factor of 10 rise. President Obama’s plant for $15 billion a year over the next decade in the U.S. is as good a judgment as any.

Is climate change the prime issue of our time?

Before I was appointed, I was saying that the intersection of energy, climate and the economy is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Obviously another is avoiding blowing up substantial chunks of our society and others with nuclear weapons….

Without energy there is no economy. Without climate, there is no environment. Without the economy and environment there is no well-being. We’ve got to get this right as an intersection of problems. Right now, we’re getting energy and an economy in ways that are wrecking the climate.

There are going to be ultimately some difficult debates about how much we need to do and how fast in climate, and over which approaches will be more difficult from an economic standpoint.

The president sees this as an integrated set of issues. The economic part and energy part are crucial. But you’ve got to get climate right, too.

Obama looks at climate engineering

By SETH BORENSTEIN – 3 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The president's new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air.

John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

"It's got to be looked at," he said. "We don't have the luxury of taking any approach off the table."

Holdren outlined several "tipping points" involving global warming that could be fast approaching. Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, it increases chances of "really intolerable consequences," he said.

Twice in a half-hour interview, Holdren compared global warming to being "in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog."

At first, Holdren characterized the potential need to technologically tinker with the climate as just his personal view. However, he went on to say he has raised it in administration discussions.

Holdren, a 65-year-old physicist, is far from alone in taking geoengineering more seriously. The National Academy of Science is making climate tinkering the subject of its first workshop in its new multidiscipline climate challenges program. The British parliament has also discussed the idea.

The American Meteorological Society is crafting a policy statement on geoengineering that says "it is prudent to consider geoengineering's potential, to understand its limits and to avoid rash deployment."

Last week, Princeton scientist Robert Socolow told the National Academy that geoengineering should be an available option in case climate worsens dramatically.

But Holdren noted that shooting particles into the air — making an artificial volcano as one Nobel laureate has suggested — could have grave side effects and would not completely solve all the problems from soaring greenhouse gas emissions. So such actions could not be taken lightly, he said.

Still, "we might get desperate enough to want to use it," he added.

Another geoengineering option he mentioned was the use of so-called artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide — the chief human-caused greenhouse gas — out of the air and store it. At first that seemed prohibitively expensive, but a re-examination of the approach shows it might be less costly, he said.

Rise of sea levels is 'the greatest lie ever told'

The uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story, writes Christopher Booker.

Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 6:31PM GMT 28 Mar 2009

If one thing more than any other is used to justify proposals that the world must spend tens of trillions of dollars on combating global warming, it is the belief that we face a disastrous rise in sea levels. The Antarctic and Greenland ice caps will melt, we are told, warming oceans will expand, and the result will be catastrophe.
Although the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only predicts a sea level rise of 59cm (17 inches) by 2100, Al Gore in his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth went much further, talking of 20 feet, and showing computer graphics of cities such as Shanghai and San Francisco half under water. We all know the graphic showing central London in similar plight. As for tiny island nations such as the Maldives and Tuvalu, as Prince Charles likes to tell us and the Archbishop of Canterbury was again parroting last week, they are due to vanish.

But if there is one scientist who knows more about sea levels than anyone else in the world it is the Swedish geologist and physicist Nils-Axel Mörner, formerly chairman of the INQUA International Commission on Sea Level Change. And the uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner, who for 35 years has been using every known scientific method to study sea levels all over the globe, is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story.
Despite fluctuations down as well as up, "the sea is not rising," he says. "It hasn't risen in 50 years." If there is any rise this century it will "not be more than 10cm (four inches), with an uncertainty of plus or minus 10cm". And quite apart from examining the hard evidence, he says, the elementary laws of physics (latent heat needed to melt ice) tell us that the apocalypse conjured up by
Al Gore and Co could not possibly come about.
The reason why Dr Mörner, formerly a Stockholm professor, is so certain that these claims about sea level rise are 100 per cent wrong is that they are all based on computer model predictions, whereas his findings are based on "going into the field to observe what is actually happening in the real world".
When running the International Commission on Sea Level Change, he launched a special project on the Maldives, whose leaders have for 20 years been calling for vast sums of international aid to stave off disaster. Six times he and his expert team visited the islands, to confirm that the sea has not risen for half a century. Before announcing his findings, he offered to show the inhabitants a film explaining why they had nothing to worry about. The government refused to let it be shown.
Similarly in Tuvalu, where local leaders have been calling for the inhabitants to be evacuated for 20 years, the sea has if anything dropped in recent decades. The only evidence the scaremongers can cite is based on the fact that extracting groundwater for pineapple growing has allowed seawater to seep in to replace it. Meanwhile, Venice has been sinking rather than the Adriatic rising, says Dr Mörner.
One of his most shocking discoveries was why the IPCC has been able to show sea levels rising by 2.3mm a year. Until 2003, even its own satellite-based evidence showed no upward trend. But suddenly the graph tilted upwards because the IPCC's favoured experts had drawn on the finding of a single tide-gauge in Hong Kong harbour showing a 2.3mm rise. The entire global sea-level projection was then adjusted upwards by a "corrective factor" of 2.3mm, because, as the IPCC scientists admitted, they "needed to show a trend".
When I spoke to Dr Mörner last week, he expressed his continuing dismay at how the IPCC has fed the scare on this crucial issue. When asked to act as an "expert reviewer" on the IPCC's last two reports, he was "astonished to find that not one of their 22 contributing authors on sea levels was a sea level specialist: not one". Yet the results of all this "deliberate ignorance" and reliance on rigged computer models have become the most powerful single driver of the entire warmist hysteria.
•For more information, see Dr Mörner on YouTube (Google Mörner, Maldives and YouTube); or read on the net his 2007 EIR interview "Claim that sea level is rising is a total fraud"; or email him – morner@pog.nu – to buy a copy of his booklet 'The Greatest Lie Ever Told'
Fined, frozen and now jailed
The Marine Fisheries Agency was certainly onto a winner when it enlisted the aid of the Assets Recovery Agency in its ruthless war against our fishermen. In December 2007 Charles McBride and his son Charles, from Kilkeel in Northern Ireland, were fined £385,000 for under-declaring catches of whitefish and prawns in the Irish Sea, threatening the loss of their homes and boat. But the Assets Recovery Agency, using powers designed to recover money from drug dealers, also froze all their assets. To pay the fines, the McBrides tried to borrow against their assets. Now, for this effort to pay the fines, Liverpool Crown Court has sentenced the two men to two and three months in gaol for “contempt of court”.
Blown away
The Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, timed his jibe impeccably last week when he said that opposing wind farms is as “socially unacceptable” as “not wearing a seatbelt”. Britain’s largest windfarm companies are pulling out of wind as fast as they can. Despite 100 per cent subsidies, the credit crunch and technical problems spell an end to Gordon Brown’s £100 billion dream of meeting our EU target to derive 35 per cent of our electricity from “renewables” by 2020.
Meanwhile the Government gives the go-ahead for three new 1,000 megawatt gas-fired power stations in Wales. Each of them will generate more than the combined average output (700 megawatts) of all the 2,400 wind turbines so far built. The days of the “great wind fantasy” will soon be over.

Shocker: 'Global warming' simply no longer happening

Temperatures dropping, fewer hurricanes,
arctic ice growing, polar bear population up
Posted: March 22, 2009
9:56 pm Eastern

WorldNetDaily
WASHINGTON – This may come as bad news for Al Gore.

The modest global warming trend has stopped – maybe even reversed itself.

And it's not just the record low temperatures experienced in much of the world this winter.

For at least the last five years, global temperatures have been falling, according to tracking performed by Roy Spencer, the climatologist formerly of NASA.

"Global warming" was going to bring more and more horrific hurricanes, climate change scientists and the politicians who subscribed to their theories said. But since 2005, only one major hurricane has struck North America.

No need to get overheated. Read "Global Warming or Global Governance? What the media refuse to tell you about so-called climate change" for just $4.95 today!

A new study by Florida State University researcher Ryan Maue shows worldwide cyclone activity – typhoons, as well as hurricanes – has reached at least a 30-year low.

Two more studies – one by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science and the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Germany and another by the University of Wisconsin – predict a slowing, or even a reversal of warming, for at least the next 10 to 20 years.

The Arctic sea ice has grown more on a percentage basis this winter than it has since 1979.

The number of polar bears has risen 25 percent in the past decade. There are 15,000 of them in the Arctic now, where 10 years ago there were 12,000.

"The most recent global warming that began in 1977 is over, and the Earth has entered a new phase of global cooling," says Don Easterbrook, professor of geology at Western Washington University in Bellingham, confidently. He maintains a switch in Pacific Ocean currents "assures about three decades of global cooling. New solar data showing unusual absence of sun spots and changes in the sun’s magnetic field suggest ... the present episode of global cooling may be more severe than the cooling of 1945 to 1977."

Climatologist Joe D’Aleo of the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project, says new data "show that in five of the last seven decades since World War II, including this one, global temperatures have cooled while carbon dioxide has continued to rise."

"The data suggest cooling not warming in Earth's future," he says.

Global and Northern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Activity [still] lowest in 30-years

Tropical cyclone (TC) activity worldwide has completely and utterly collapsed during the past 2 to 3 years with TC energy levels sinking to levels not seen since the late 1970s. This should not be a surprise to scientists since the natural variability in climate dominates any detectable or perceived global warming impact when it comes to measuring yearly integrated tropical cyclone activity. With the continuation (persistence) of colder Pacific tropical sea-surface temperatures associated with the effects of La Nina, the upcoming 2009 Atlantic hurricane season should be above average, as we saw in 2008. Nevertheless, since the Atlantic only makes up 10-15% of overall global TC activity each year (climatological average during the past 30 years), continued Northern Hemispheric and global TC inactivity as a whole likely will continue.

As previously reported here and here at Climate Audit, and chronicled at my Florida State Global Hurricane Update page, both Northern Hemisphere and overall Global hurricane activity has continued to sink to levels not seen since the 1970s. Even more astounding, when the Southern Hemisphere hurricane data is analyzed to create a global value, we see that Global Hurricane Energy has sunk to 30-year lows, at the least. Since hurricane intensity and detection data is problematic as one goes back in time, when reporting and observing practices were different than today, it is possible that we underestimated global hurricane energy during the 1970s. See notes at bottom to avoid terminology discombobulation.

Using a well-accepted metric called the Accumulated Cyclone Energy index or ACE for short (Bell and Chelliah 2006), which has been used by Klotzbach (2006) and Emanuel (2005) (PDI is analogous to ACE), and most recently by myself in Maue (2009), simple analysis shows that 24-month running sums of global ACE or hurricane energy have plummeted to levels not seen in 30 years. Why use 24-month running sums instead of simply yearly values? Since a primary driver of the Earth's climate from year to year is the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) acts on time scales on the order of 2-7 years, and the fact that the bulk of the Southern Hemisphere hurricane season occurs from October - March, a reasonable interpretation of global hurricane activity requires a better metric than simply calendar year totals. The 24-month running sums is analogous to the idea of "what have you done for me lately".

During the past 6 months, extending back to October of 2008 when the Southern Hemisphere tropical season was gearing up, global ACE had crashed due to two consecutive years of well-below average Northern Hemisphere hurricane activity. To avoid confusion, I am not specifically addressing the North Atlantic, which was above normal in 2008 (in terms of ACE), but the hemisphere (and or globe) as a whole. The North Atlantic only represents a 1/10 to 1/8 of global hurricane energy output on average but deservedly so demands disproportionate media attention due to the devastating societal impacts of recent major hurricane landfalls.

Why the record low ACE?

During the past 2 years +, the Earth's climate has cooled under the effects of a dramatic La Nina episode. The Pacific Ocean basin typically sees much weaker hurricanes that indeed have shorter lifecycles and therefore -- less ACE . Conversely, due to well-researched upper-atmospheric flow (e.g. vertical shear) configurations favorable to Atlantic hurricane development and intensification, La Nina falls tend to favor very active seasons in the Atlantic (word of warning for 2009). This offsetting relationship, high in the Atlantic and low in the Pacific, is a topic of discussion in my GRL paper, which will be a separate topic in a future posting. Thus, the Western North Pacific (typhoons) tropical activity was well below normal in 2007 and 2008 (see table). Same for the Eastern North Pacific. The Southern Hemisphere, which includes the southern Indian Ocean from the coast of Mozambique across Madagascar to the coast of Australia, into the South Pacific and Coral Sea, saw below normal activity as well in 2008. Through March 12, 2009, the Southern Hemisphere ACE is about half of what's expected in a normal year, with a multitude of very weak, short-lived hurricanes. All of these numbers tell a very simple story: just as there are active periods of hurricane activity around the globe, there are inactive periods, and we are currently experiencing one of the most impressive inactive periods, now for almost 3 years.

Bottom Line

Under global warming scenarios, hurricane intensity is expected to increase (on the order of a few percent), but MANY questions remain as to how much, where, and when. This science is very far from settled. Indeed, Al Gore has dropped the related slide in his PowerPoint (btw, is he addicted to the Teleprompter as well?) Many papers have suggested that these changes are already occurring especially in the strongest of hurricanes, e.g. this and that and here, due to warming sea-surface temperatures (the methodology and data issues with each of these papers has been discussed here at CA, and will be even more in the coming months). The notion that the overall global hurricane energy or ACE has collapsed does not contradict the above papers but provides an additional, perhaps less publicized piece of the puzzle. Indeed, the very strong interannual variability of global hurricane ACE (energy) highly correlated to ENSO, suggests that the role of tropical cyclones in climate is modulated very strongly by the big movers and shakers in large-scale, global climate. The perceptible (and perhaps measurable) impact of global warming on hurricanes in today's climate is arguably a pittance compared to the reorganization and modulation of hurricane formation locations and preferred tracks/intensification corridors dominated by ENSO (and other natural climate factors). Moreover, our understanding of the complicated role of hurricanes with and role in climate is nebulous to be charitable. We must increase our understanding of the current climate's hurricane activity.

Background:

During the summer and fall of 2007, as the Atlantic hurricane season failed to live up to the hyperbolic prognostications of the seasonal hurricane forecasters, I noticed that the rest of the Northern Hemisphere hurricane basins, which include the Western/Central/Eastern Pacific and Northern Indian Oceans, was on pace to produce the lowest Accumulated Cyclone Energy or ACE since 1977. ACE is the convolution or combination of a storm's intensity and longevity. Put simply, a long-lived very powerful Category 3 hurricane may have more than 100 times the ACE of a weaker tropical storm that lasts for less than a day. Over a season or calendar year, all individual storm ACE is added up to produce the overall seasonal or yearly ACE. Detailed tables of previous monthly and yearly ACE are described below.
The table does not include the Northern Indian Ocean, which can be deduced as the portion of the Northern Hemisphere total not included in the three major basins. Nevertheless, 2007 saw the lowest ACE since 1977. 2008 continued the dramatic downturn in hurricane energy or ACE. The following stacked bar chart demonstrates the highly variable, from year-to-year behavior of Northern Hemisphere (NH) ACE. The smaller inset line graph plots the raw data and trend (or lack thereof). Thus, during the past 60 years, with the data at hand, Northern Hemisphere ACE undergoes significant interannual variability but exhibits no significant statistical trend.
So what to expect in 2009? Well, the last Northern Hemisphere storm was Typhoon Dolphin in middle December of 2008, and no ACE has been recorded so far. The Southern Hemisphere is below normal by just about any definition of storm activity (unless you have access to the Elias sports bureau statistic creativity department), and the season is quickly running out. With La Nina-like conditions in the Pacific, a persistence forecast of below average global cyclone activity seems like a very good bet. Now if only the Dow Jones index didn't correlate so well with the Global ACE lately...

Notes: Hurricane is the term for Tropical Cyclone specific to the North Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii eastward to the Mexican coast. Other names around the world include Typhoon, Cyclone, and Willy-Willy (Oz) but hurricane is used generically to avoid confusion. Accumulated Cyclone Energy or ACE: is easily calculated from best-track hurricane datasets, with the one-minute maximum sustained wind squared and summed during the tropical lifecycle of a tropical storm or hurricane.
Global Infrared Satellite: Tropical Sectors




Global Tropical Cyclone ACE through Mar 17, 2009 00z

BASIN 2009 ACE CLIMO YEARLY ACE* NORMAL TO DATE % of NORMAL
Northern Hemisphere 0 557 4 -
North Atlantic 0 104 0 -
Western Pacific 0 280 3 -
Eastern Pacific 0 156 0 -
Southern Hemisphere 79.33 229 142+ 56%

* Climatological Values based upon 1982-2008 calendar year activity except for Southern Hemisphere.
+ Normal to date for Southern Hemisphere, 1981-2008 October-Februrary. Includes Southern Indian and Southern Pacific basins.

V max is maximum sustained 1-minute wind (knots) throughout the tropical lifecycle of each TC

Previous Basin Activity

BASIN 2005 ACE 2006 ACE 2007 ACE 2008 ACE 1982-2008 AVERAGE
Northern Hemisphere 655 576 383 408 557
North Atlantic 243 83 72 142 104
Western Pacific 301 274 212 167 280
Eastern Pacific 97 204 55 83 156
Southern Hemisphere* 285 182 191 164 229

* Southern Hemisphere peak TC activity occurs between October and April. Thus, 2008 values represent the period October 2007 - April 2008.
Note: 1981-2008 March and April Southern Hemisphere ACE has averaged 84 with a standard deviation of 27, with a minimum of 47 in 1987 and maximum of 154 in 1992.
Current Global TC Graphics

Northern Hemisphere Hurricane Days & Global Major H Days -- 24 month running sum Excel Data File


Global and NH TC Accumulated Cyclone ACE -- 24 month running sum



Analysis shown in the figure depicts tropical cyclone energy continuously summed over 24-month periods from 1973 through 28, February 2009. The top green time series shows the evolution of global Accumluated Cyclone Energy (ACE). Global ACE is at historical low levels -- the lowest in 30-years. The Earth is experiencing a prolonged period of severely depressed cyclone activity. The Northern Hemisphere is responsible for 70% of global tropical cyclone ACE on average since 1973. Thus, it is no surprise that Northern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone activity is also at 30-year lows.
MONTH/YEAR NH ACE SH ACE NH HDAYS [INTENSE *] SH HDAYS [INTENSE *] GLOBAL 24-MONTH RUNNING ACE NH 24-MONTH RUNNING ACE
JAN06 5.45 20.75 0 3 1863.0 1408.1
FEB06 15.41 42.91 0 9.25 [2] 1851.3 1407.9
MAR06 0.58 61.63 0 13.25 [4.75] 1840.8 1407.1
APR06 10.33 36.14 2.25 [1.25] 5.5 [3.25] 1850.4 1381.1
MAY06 25.27 0 6.75 [2.75] 0 1836.1 1369.2
JUN06 4.17 0 0 0 1763.6 1296.7
JUL06 101.15 0 22.25 [8] 0 1820.8 1353.9
AUG06 150.91 0 28 [13] 0 1796.5 1329.6
SEP06 166.45 0 44.75 [14.25] 0 1702.8 1237.9
OCT06 47.27 10.71 11.75 [1.25] 2.75 [1] 1688.8 1214.1
NOV06 39.71 4.89 8.75 [3.5] 1 1677.5 1227.2
DEC06 25.20 27.29 8.5 6.75 [3.25] 1690.7 1231.2
JAN07 0 17.6 0 3.25 1669.9 1225.8
FEB07 0 71.4 0 16.75 [4.75] 1655.4 1225.8
MAR07 0.13 46.3 0 10 [2.75] 1617.9 1222.2
APR07 8.0 12.7 2.25 2.5 [1.25] 1590.2 1217.5
MAY07 18.8 0.37 4 [2] 0 1606.2 1233.1
JUN07 21.7 0 3.5 [2] 0 1591.9 1218.8
JUL07 32.0 0 7 [2.25] 0 1522.0 1148.9
AUG07 108.3 0 21.75 [11.75] 0 1501.9 1128.8
SEP07 85.5 0 19.25 [4.75] 0 1363.2 990.1
OCT07 53.9 0 8.75 [4.25] 0 1317.1 944.6
NOV07 57.2 8.4 13.5 [3.25] 0.25 1344.1 982.5
DEC07 1.0275 15.6 0 2.5 [1] 1339.5 962.9
JAN08 0.3675 35.5 0 6.75 [1.75] 1349.2 957.8
FEB08 0 67.7 0 15 [5.25] 1374.0 957.8
MAR08 0 33.1 0 7.75 [2.5] 1344.9 957.3
APR08 15.59 3.33 5.5 0 1317.4 962.5
MAY08 45.6 0 10 [4.5] 0 1337.7 982.8
JUN08 20.1 0 5.25 0 1353.6 998.7
JUL08 81.14 0 20.75 [0.5] 0 1333.6 978.8
AUG08 49.5 0 10 [2.25] 0 1232.3 877.4
SEP08 130.45 0 26.75 [10.75] 0 1196.3 841.4
OCT08 42.085 4.645 9 [2.25] 0 1185.0 836.2
NOV08 16.0475 0.565 2.5 [1.25] 0 1157.0 812.5
DEC08 9.0825 16.25 2 3 [1.25] 1129.9 796.4
JAN09 0 10.1725 0 1.75 [0.25] 1122.4 796.4
FEB09 0 24.2925 0 4.5 [2] 1075.4 796.4
MAR09 0 23.405 0 4.75 [2.5] 1052.36 796.3
1979-2008 CLIMO - - - - 1570.4 1108.3

HDAYS are hurricane days [64 kts +]; Intense [96 kts+] or Category 3 and higher on the Saffir Simpson Scale
2009 Southern Hemisphere Operational Tracks Used in Table --> SH09_tracks
2008 Northern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Year in Review

Upon examination of all tropical cyclone activity in the basins throughout the Northern Hemisphere for the past 2 years, a remarkable downward trend in cyclone energy has continued and reached historic levels of inactivity.