Not So Much Consensus on Global Warming Anymore

An editorial in the Examiner tells us that the great scientific consensus on global warming is beginning to break down:

WASHINGTON - Al Gore’s cinematic sermons on inconvenient truths to the contrary notwithstanding, it is becoming clearer by the day that major cracks are appearing in the supposed consensus among scientists that global warming caused by carbon emissions is an urgent problem that government must address with drastic measures. Among the most significant cracks are these:

- New data produced by more than 3,000 sophisticated ocean buoys scattered across the world’s oceans indicate average water temperatures have been decreasing since 2003, not increasing as would be the case in Gore’s globally warming world. NASA’s Josh Willis, who studies the output of the sophisticated buoys that take temperature readings from thousands of feet below the surface, says the significance of the new data is unclear.

- The average land temperature of the globe dropped precipitously last year, according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. The temperature drop — more than enough to “wipe out most of the global warming of the past 100 years,” according to the online technology publication Daily Tech — was also recorded by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

- The severity of this global temperature drop was reflected in the fact the average U.S. temperature in January was lower than the average for the previous century, according to the U.S. Climactic Data Center. Also, the Canadian Ice Service reports the Arctic ice pack is 10 to 20 centimeters thicker in many places this year than it was in 2007.

- Professor Oleg Sorokhtin of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences is advising people “to stock up on fur coats” because he expects an extended period of global cooling, an assessment that is echoed by Kenneth Tapping of the U.S. National Academy of Science’s National Research Council. Both scientists contend solar activity explains most of the temperature variation in the Earth’s atmosphere.

- A peer-reviewed study published recently in the journal Nature suggests there will be no global warming until 2015, due to the effects of the Meridional Overturning Circulation, a giant oceanic conveyor belt that moves warmer water into the North Atlantic in a 70- to 80-year cycle, according to the London Telegraph.

At the very least, these developments ought to give pause to legislators and policymakers who are otherwise hell-bent on accepting Gore’s apocalyptic warnings and imposing on the U.S. draconian measures designed to stall or reduce economic growth; forcing widespread conversion to unproven alternative fuels for transportation, home and commercial uses; and severely limiting or even stopping suburban new-home construction. Adopting such measures would mean the loss of millions of jobs and a significantly reduced standard of living for most Americans. It’s time to take a step back on this issue.

And yet, despite all of this, we still have the Bush administration declaring polar bears to be "threatened" because of global warming, and John McCain and every Democrat calling for drastic action to stop a crisis that may not be occurring. Unlike other subjects, when new information comes to light, the proponents are not willing to consider it and modify their views. They've locked into globaloney and don't you dare challenge it or provide any facts that don't support it.