January 2010 was globally the 4th hottest ever despite the cold snap

After the debacle that was Copenhagen, the stalling of vital emissions trading bills in both the US and Australia, the IPCC chaos, climate gate and the public’s cooling towards the man made climate change argument, there is plenty of sceptically suddenly appearing in regards to climate change.

On top of that, the UK, the USA and parts of Asia have had record low temperatures and record cold-snaps. This is has inevitably led to further questions about global warming. The answer to that question is two fold. Firstly, scientists have always suggested that climate change does what it says on the tin, changes climate. That includes record cold as well as record hot. Rush Limbaugh has been caught out stating that the record snows in the US North East are proof that climate change is bunk.

The table below from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the scientific arm of the US Department of Commerce shows the second answer to the question of “what global warming?” According to this info, Russia, the US North East and Northern Europe and the UK have had significantly below average temperatures, but clearly, the surface temperature almost everywhere else has suffered from significant above average heat. In fact from the data underneath the image shows that January was the 4th warmest January on record.

Basically, it shows that people such as Limbaugh have an incredibly localised viewpoint. While that is no surprise for people of his ilk, it is important that Governments highlight this to the wider population. Just because it is cold here, doesn’t mean it isn’t going to be abnormally hot somewhere else. Australia had record setting temperatures over the summer and it doesn’t take much to turn on the television and watch all of the warm weather that is severely hampering the Vancouver Winter Olympics at the moment.

Global Highlights

• The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for January 2010 was 0.60°C (1.08°F) above the 20^th century average of 12.0°C (53.6°F). This is the fourth warmest January on record.
• The global land surface temperature for January 2010 was 0.83°C (1.49°F) above the 20^th century average of 2.8°C (37.0°F)—the twelfth warmest January on record. Land areas in the Southern Hemisphere were the warmest on record for January. In the Northern Hemisphere, which has much more land, comparatively, land surface temperatures were 18^th warmest on record.
• The worldwide ocean surface temperature for January 2010 was the second warmest—behind 1998—on record for January, 0.52°C (0.94°F) above the 20^th century average of 15.8°C (60.5°F). This can be partially attributed to the persistence of El Niño across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. According to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC), El Niño is expected to continue through the Northern Hemisphere spring 2010.

Climate change debate is more akin to abortion debate, not the holocaust

Many journalists, generally the ones who fit into this category, complain about being called climate change denialists. It doesn’t help when denialists like Clive James tries to make the link as well. They complain that the choice of words links to offensive individuals that deny the Holocaust.  Whether or not the first person who used the term had this in mind is beside the point. I do think denialists are causing harm, but I don’t think they are necessarily going to cause a new holocaust. If anything does happen, we are all to blame because even if we did believe in man-made climate change, we haven’t swift and significant enough demanded action from our elected leaders.

But, after watching Melanie Phillips on Question Time and her horrendously arrogant display, I think the debate is more akin the pro-choice and pro-life abortion debate in the US.  Phillips complains that the climate change believers (which makes us sound like some kind of sect, such as the scientologists), are running some kind of totalitarian scam and swindle. But the fact is, she was quite happy to laugh, patronise and rudely dismiss the public and other panelists who believe in man-made climate change. Practice what you preach Ms Phillips.

To be fair though, climate change believers do dismiss the denialists just as badly. This is why I think the issue is similar to the abortion debate. No one will talk or listen to the other side and will never take each other seriously. In this particular debate,  I don’t think the eveidence will ever convince a sceptic or believer to cross sides.

However, what is definetly true is that while the denialists want to debate the issue, journalists like Philips give the denialists a bad name.

I think we are all guilty of refusing to listen to the other side. While I don’t agree with David Davis’s point of view, I was impressed with his point of view on Question Time; that while he is sure climate change is happening and is 80% that it is caused by human intervention, he still feels there is room for debate and it is important not to vilify each other.

Climate change believes say there is no time for debate. I disagree. There is enough action currently going on, to increase renewables, to decrease fossil fuel use, to create carbon sinks, that there is still room for debate but at the same time we can begin the process of saving the earth. Debates like COP15 aren’t going to stop and we will still make a huge effort to cut emmissions. Even in the worse case scenario, that we are wrong on climate change, it is never going to harm to lower energy costs, make the air less polluted and generally improve the health of the planet.

But refusing to listen to each other and complaining about it isn’t going to help.

Will Copenhagen be a failure?

Thoroughly depressing news to wake up to this morning. It looks like our feared about the Copenhagen climate change talks have come true. World leaders have admitted that there is likely to be no final resolution and that the Copenhagen talks are most likely to be a starting point to talks rather than an end point.

At the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum leaders including Barack Obama, Hu Jintao and Kevin Rudd, who have all drawn up significant plans for ETS deals and other environmental strategies in their own nations, appear to have given up on uniting world nations’ to come up with a meaningful deal.

This is disappointing, but not unexpected. There has been some intense expectation management over the last few weeks and it seemed almost inevitable that there was to be no lasting strategy to come out of this meeting. The EU has set out strategies to help nations meet their climate change targets,  but nothing has been set in stone, especially in regards to money being set-aside. Developing world nations have been consistently threatening to walk out of talks due to the lack of agreed funding from the developed world to help developing nations fund anti-climate change projects.

Personally, I never really had much faith in the COP15 meeting to come up with any large-scale meaningful treaty. The fact is though, Kyoto formally ends at the end of 2011, begining of 2012. This obviously leaves a couple of years to create a meaningful and effective post-Kyoto deal.

The significance of a no-deal result in Copenhagen, is the number of nations that have created emission reduction schemes that will only be meaningful if there is a result in Copenhagen, the EU is one of these nations. Currently the EU has committed to a 20% reduction in carbon emissions, but it would be 30% if a deal was met in COP15.

Therefore, not reaching a result in Copenhagen will obviously be a failure. Hopefully, world leaders have something up their sleeves and will be able to swoop in at the last-minute to come up with something. In my wildest dreams I can imagine Obama, Rudd or Brown flying in at the last moment and saving the day, but realistically, I think we will still be looking forward into 2010 before a post-Kyoto deal is reached.

Thoughts?

Australian PM kicks out at climate change skeptics

By Nick Osborne

Hats off to Kevin Rudd, the Australian PM who has recently had a go at organisations and individuals trying to derail talks in the run up to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. I applaud him for standing up and speaking out against these naysayers, he is taking a viewpoint that is steadily increasing. I have heard David Miliband and Gordon Brown make similar statements.

Australian PM warns of fossil conspiracy

The upcoming climate negotiations in Copenhagen are threatened by a conglomerate of opponents “driven by vested interests” aiming “to erode just enough political will that action becomes impossible”, says Kevin Rudd.

Morten Andersen 06/11/2009 13:10

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd sees the current UN negotiations on climate hampered by a mixture of “do-nothing skeptics, deniers and a gaggle of conspiracy theorists”, according to Bloomberg.

Australia itself is at a crossroads as the approval of a cap-and-trade scheme suggested by the government has been delayed. According to Kevin Rudd’s analysis, it is a global strategy by forces trying to obstruct climate policy to have action in individual countries delayed.

“Their aim is to erode just enough political will that action becomes impossible. By hampering decisive action at a national level, they aim to make it impossible at an international level (…) it is an endless cycle of delay, and I am sure that with December almost upon us, the eighth excuse cannot be far away, which will be to wait until the next year or the year after until all the rest of the world has acted,” Kevin Rudd says according to Reuters, while adding:

“They are a minority. They are powerful, and invariably they are driven by vested interests. They are powerful enough to threaten a deal on global climate change both in Copenhagen and beyond.”

With a parliament vote due by late November, Australia may still make an approval of the cap-and-trade scheme before the UN conference in Copenhagen this December. Should this not happen, however, “then it will be a failure that will echo through future generations,” Rudd says according to Bloomberg.

http://en.cop15.dk/news/view%20news?newsid=2528