The Declines Incline

Sceptical Science has a very nice graphic showing how a global temperature decline, or series thereof, is confected from the obvious long term trend.

Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 1



Right now we're in the  midst of a period where most short-term effects are acting in the cooling direction, dampening global warming.  Many climate "skeptics" are trying to capitalize on this dampening, trying to argue that this time global warming has stopped, even though it didn't stop after the global warming "pauses" in 1973 to 1980, 1980 to 1988, 1988 to 1995, 1995 to 2001, or 1998 to 2005 (Figure 1).

As Figure 1 shows, over the last 37 years one can identify overlapping short windows of time when climate "skeptics" could have argued (and often did, i.e. here and here and here) that global warming had stopped.  And yet over the entire period question containing these six cooling trends, the underlying trend is one of rapid global warming (0.27°C per decade, according to the new Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature [BEST] dataset).  And while the global warming trend spans many decades, the longest cooling trend over this period is 10 years, which proves that each was caused by short-term noise dampening the long-term trend.
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Other Physical Evidence of Continued Warming

It's also important to point out that global temperature measurements aren't our only evidence of the long-term global warming trend.  We've observed many physical indicators of global warming (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Physical Indicators of a Warming World

See the original post for a detailed account.

Dear Vice-Chancellor

Academic enrollments are falling, placing some universities and departments under some stress. If you want to focus your displeasure at continued deliberate obfuscation (there can be no other term) then a letter to the VC of Charles Cook or Adelaide Uni might have a small influence. Target the bottom line – enrolments. Draft letters and contact details are provided below.

There are two prominent academic “skeptics” in Australia,  Dr Ian Plimer and Dr Bob Carter. Interestingly both from the fields of geology, both highly praised and both at the ends of their respective careers. Dr Plimer is not a disinterested party personally when it comes to climate change as he is in fact on the boards of several mining companies.

Both are also members or affiliates of that well known defender of the public good the IPA (Plimer, Carter).

Dr Carter recently had another opinion piece in The Age. It’s a sadly amusing read.

While both are free to express “their” opinion as they wish, so to are you. Should you need an avenue to do so I suggest the Vice Chancellors of the venerable institutes at whose publicly funded teat they are still attached – kind of hypocritical given the views of IPA.

Neither of these gentlemen need necessarily be “muzzled” from voicing their opinion, but on every such occasion that they do speak a disclaimer should be attached. They should be required to state publicly that their opinions are not supported by the universities that they represent nor the overwhelming majority of research on the issue. My thinking follows from Milgrams classic experiment on the acceptance of “authorities”.

Carters views were rebuffed later in the same paper.