2011 Global Temperatures

[skierinvermont]

I'm not convinced that the La Niña will be going away any time soon.

When you look at past El Niño/La Niña cycles.

Frequently a short, strong El Niño is followed by a multi-year La Niña.

So...

1972 - Strong El Niño, followed by about a 3 year La Niña.

1982 - Strong El Niño, followed by a 3 year La Niña.

1998 - Strong El Niño, followed by a 3 year La Niña.

Now... during the La Niña phases, the temperatures do tend to slowly rise.... over a time course of a couple of years as it returns back towards an El Niño.

Looking at the NOAA SST images:

The oceans do show up somewhat warm just west of Peru/Columbia/Central America.

However. there is a cool patch right on the Peru Coastline. Looking at past La Niña cycles, this cool patch seems to be important in feeding the La Niña currents.

The La Niña is also connected to Baja in the North, and Argentina in the south, also both associated with maintaining the La Niña.

It also continues to be warm on the East Coast of Australia... another sign of a strong La Niña.

I don't have the subsurface current analysis, but based on surface temperature patterns, I'd expect the La Niña to last into mid 2012 at least.

Temperature could moderate somewhat over that period as freqeuntly occurs during the 2nd or 3rd year of a La Niña cycle.

The current ENSO region OHC anomaly is right about zero. You can see the warmth growing:

The current model consensus is for around -.2 (neutral) by late fall early winter, but the model consensus has been rising slightly over the last month. Hard to forecast ENSO prior to late spring.

[skierinvermont]

I found the datasource.

Interesting page.

http://www.esrl.noaa.../timeseries1.pl

One should probably be using Specific Humidity rather than Relative Humidity for the greenhouse effect as it gives a better representation of the average quantity of water in the air, independent of temperature.

For many of the pressures, the specific humidity had bottomed out around 1980, and had somewhat gained since then.

I'd actually be somewhat concerned with a drop in humidity. Any idea of the cause? Aerosols & Particulates?

The precipitation also seems to have bottomed out around 1980 and increased since then, although one might need to smooth out the annual variability to get a better idea of the trend.

I would be wary of trying to interpret any raw data on specific humidity yourself. It is likely to be inaccurate prior to 1990 or so with the launch of the SSM/I satellite observations. You should probably refer to the peer-reviewed literature for a proper analysis of specific humidity trends.

The IPCC report specifically mentions that the source you are using (NCEP) is deficient and contains spurious trends:

Evaluations of clolumn integrated water vapor from the NASA water vapor project and reanalysis datasets from NRA, NCEP-2, ERA-15/ERA-40 reveal several deficiencies and spurious trends which limit their utility for climate monitoring (Zvaryaev and Chu, 2003; Trenberth et al. 2005, Uppala et al. 2005).

So the NCEP data you are using is inaccurate and you can refer to those three references for an explanation as to why. Prior to 1990 we really only have decent data for the surface. This is yet another classic example of why people in this forum need to be more careful with their data sources. Nobody bothered to check the accuracy of the source but several posters made wild outlandish conclusions based off of spurious data.

[Clifford]

1A) Only major volcanic eruptions taking place in the tropics need be considered.

1B) the 2010's will be warmer than the the period from Jan 1, 2001 to Dec 31 2010. Correct

2) Since there was no year "zero" the new decade begins Jan 1, 2011.

3) Use average of GISS, NOAA, HadCRUT3, RSS and UAH.

4) I'd say you have a bet... Your favorite beverage

5) I hope to loose and also to be alive in ten years!

I may have to make a trip to Massachusetts to dig you out of a snow drift in a decade

The truth is that what we all desire is stability in the climate as that is what we're most comfortable with. A warming climate would likely benefit some, cause little effect to others, and harm others.

If we enter a cooling phase, it could lead to massive hardship for humanity.

[ORH_wxman]

I may have to make a trip to Massachusetts to dig you out of a snow drift in a decade

The truth is that what we all desire is stability in the climate as that is what we're most comfortable with. A warming climate would likely benefit some, cause little effect to others, and harm others.

If we enter a cooling phase, it could lead to massive hardship for humanity.

A cooling similar to the LIA would be a total disaster. Whether we like or not, the climate is always changing. But a rapid cooling similar to the 1400-1850 period would be a total catastrophe for food on the global level. Its something we do NOT want.

[WeatherRusty]

A cooling similar to the LIA would be a total disaster. Whether we like or not, the climate is always changing. But a rapid cooling similar to the 1400-1850 period would be a total catastrophe for food on the global level. Its something we do NOT want.

Looks like we have found some common ground in the recognition that climate change of even relatively minor scope would be disruptive. The range of temperature excursion represented by the LIA and MWP is very small in comparison to what climate change can and will do toward both warming and cooling into the future. AGW carries the potential to significantly exceed the greatest warmth yet experienced during the Holocene Period.

Food crops will decrease in yield as the temperature rises in a given location presently well suited for optimum growth. For instance, for each 1F increase in temperature corn yields decrease by about 7%. Same situation with soy beans. How would the U.S. economy be affected if the bread basket of the American plains shifts into Canada? How will the southwest adapt to a decrease in rainfall? How will areas which experience 20 days over 90F cope with that number climbing to over 50 days? Sea level rise of even one foot? Not to mention the additional negative impacts to wildlife beyond the damage being caused by the ever expanding human population. This includes ocean acidification.

And to think we will have brought this upon ourselves

Inadvertently at first, but now we stand a chance to minimize the disruption.

But will we? I doubt it. Apparently change is to difficult. We will just have to hope equilibrium climate sensitivity resides in the lower portion of the range 2C - 4.5C per doubling of CO2.

[Jesse]

Looks like we have found some common ground in the recognition that climate change of even relatively minor scope would be disruptive. The range of temperature excursion represented by the LIA and MWP is very small in comparison to what climate change can and will do toward both warming and cooling into the future. AGW carries the potential to significantly exceed the greatest warmth yet experienced during the Holocene Period.

Food crops will decrease in yield as the temperature rises in a given location presently well suited for optimum growth. For instance, for each 1F increase in temperature corn yields decrease by about 7%. Same situation with soy beans. How would the U.S. economy be affected if the bread basket of the American plains shifts into Canada? How will the southwest adapt to a decrease in rainfall? How will areas which experience 20 days over 90F cope with that number climbing to over 50 days? Sea level rise of even one foot? Not to mention the additional negative impacts to wildlife beyond the damage being caused by the ever expanding human population. This includes ocean acidification.

And to think we will have brought this upon ourselves

Inadvertently at first, but now we stand a chance to minimize the disruption.

But will we? I doubt it. Apparently change is to difficult. We will just have to hope equilibrium climate sensitivity resides in the lower portion of the range 2C - 4.5C per doubling of CO2.

He was actually talking about the possible negative effects of global cooling, but it was nice to read a condensed version of "An Inconvenient Truth".

[nzucker]

He was actually talking about the possible negative effects of global cooling, but it was nice to read a condensed version of "An Inconvenient Truth".

I'm sure the current .05C/decade warming trend will bring the number of 90-degree days here from 20 to 50 in a short while

Getting ready to plant the garden now, maybe is time for that lemon tree I always wanted.

[BethesdaWX]

The ENSO corrected trend since 2002 is about .06K/decade on UAH (more on Had/GISS) as Zucker, tacoman and I already discussed.

Not when applying the FEB 2011 anomaly unfortunately, ENSO is part of the climate in response often to changes in the PDO which is also part of the climate. March is starting very cold.

Hint: Removing ENSO makes no sense.

The atmosphere's response to each ENSO cycle is different depending on the Basis/duration of the ENSO event, AMO/PDO & the resulting Changes from the AO/NAO based on solar are another factor. Global temps will be affected by this, and no trend can be deciphered since the reactions will differ from eachother.

[WeatherRusty]

He was actually talking about the possible negative effects of global cooling, but it was nice to read a condensed version of "An Inconvenient Truth".

I know what he was talking about, but the point to take away is that human societies and biological systems are in sync with current climate conditions. Any significant change will present difficulties in terms of adaptation. You just don't think it will happen as a consequence of human activities.

[BethesdaWX]

I would be wary of trying to interpret any raw data on specific humidity yourself. It is likely to be inaccurate prior to 1990 or so with the launch of the SSM/I satellite observations. You should probably refer to the peer-reviewed literature for a proper analysis of specific humidity trends.

The IPCC report specifically mentions that the source you are using (NCEP) is deficient and contains spurious trends:

Evaluations of clolumn integrated water vapor from the NASA water vapor project and reanalysis datasets from NRA, NCEP-2, ERA-15/ERA-40 reveal several deficiencies and spurious trends which limit their utility for climate monitoring (Zvaryaev and Chu, 2003; Trenberth et al. 2005, Uppala et al. 2005).

So the NCEP data you are using is inaccurate and you can refer to those three references for an explanation as to why. Prior to 1990 we really only have decent data for the surface. This is yet another classic example of why people in this forum need to be more careful with their data sources. Nobody bothered to check the accuracy of the source but several posters made wild outlandish conclusions based off of spurious data.

Relative Humidity or Specific Humidity?

If you're speaking of my link using relative humidity, then there are issues.

Bad Response in this case.

1) Well first link the studies

2) It makies no sense to invalidate a dataset based on another dataset, of whom we cannot validate the data that was not gathered from such During the timeframeof interest. The data going back farther in time is preferrable for trends that are not covered otherwise.

This is the same thing you did reagrding UAH's "potential" error, which was debunked by Roy Spencerto be +/- 0.05C, which we had to bring to your attention. If the method for data regulation is not sound, you cannot use it to invalidate the opposing dataset.

Try reading thorugh this first, then I'll post the rebuttal.

Data description by Kalnay et al. (1996). Last month shown: January 2011. Last diagram update: 13 February 2011.

• Click here to download the raw data used to generate the above diagram. Use the following search parameters: Relative humidity, 90N-90S, 180W-180E, monthly values, area weighted grid.

Also, 2nd.........Remember to take cloud feedback into account regarding the effect on LT global temperature,

http://www.friendsof...tml#Correlation

Spencer has analyzed the temperature-radiative patterns of the NASA Terra satellite. The Terra data starts in March 2000, and its temperature-radiative plot is shown below.

The plot shows two types of patterns; linear striations and random spiral patterns. The usual interpretation of this data by climate modelers would be to use the best fit line which shows a slope of 0.7 W/m2/C, which is a very high positive feedback. The actual feedback should be determined by the slope of the linear striations, which is 8 W/m2/C, which is a very high negative feedback. A value of 3.3 W/m2/C corresponds to no feedback. (No feedback means if the temperature of the atmosphere were uniformly increased by 1 C and nothing else changed, the top of the atmosphere would radiate 3.3 W/m2 more radiation to space.) The feedback is observed to occur on shorter time scales in response to evaporation and precipitation events, which are superimposed upon a more slowly varying background of radiative imbalance due to natural fluctuation in cloud cover changing the rate of solar heating Earth’s surface.

The satellite data shows that over short time scales, clouds provide strong negative feedbacks. Spencer also analyzed the radiative flux and temperature variations from climate models used by the IPCC to determine if the short term negative feedback found in the satellite data is also applicable to long term feedback. He found that the short term linear striations and the spiral patterns show up all 18 climate models that he analyzed. Spencer says the slopes of the linear striations do indeed correspond to the long term feedbacks diagnosed from these models’ response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing. This strongly suggests that the short term negative feedback shown in satellite data also applies to long term global climate change.

The feedback estimate for a hypothetical doubling of carbon dioxide, using the Terra satellite data gives a climate sensitivity of 0.46 C.

See here for a more detailed discussion of cloud feedbacks.

[BethesdaWX]

The current ENSO region OHC anomaly is right about zero. You can see the warmth growing:

The current model consensus is for around -.2 (neutral) by late fall early winter, but the model consensus has been rising slightly over the last month. Hard to forecast ENSO prior to late spring.

Yes, Forecasting a healthy La Nina next yr is not smart IMO. Good news is it doesn't look very Nino-ish.

[Jesse]

Yes, Forecasting a healthy La Nina next yr is not smart IMO. Good news is it doesn't look very Nino-ish.

Bad news for anyone desperately praying for their catastropic AGW predictions to come to fruition.

[BethesdaWX]

Bad news for anyone desperately praying for their catastropic AGW predictions to come to fruition.

I certainlly hope no one is HOPING for AGW...that would be terrible.

Although I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

[BethesdaWX]

In other news, we just reached the Coldest Anomaly of the La Nina on AMSU, and are still falling as of last update.

Skier...didn't we bottom out or something? :

[skierinvermont]

Relative Humidity or Specific Humidity?

If you're speaking of my link using relative humidity, then there are issues.

Bad Response in this case.

1) Well first link the studies

2) It makies no sense to invalidate a dataset based on another dataset, of whom we cannot validate the data that was not gathered from such During the timeframeof interest. The data going back farther in time is preferrable for trends that are not covered otherwise.

This is the same thing you did reagrding UAH's "potential" error, which was debunked by Roy Spencerto be +/- 0.05C, which we had to bring to your attention. If the method for data regulation is not sound, you cannot use it to invalidate the opposing dataset.

Try reading thorugh this first, then I'll post the rebuttal.

Data description by Kalnay et al. (1996). Last month shown: January 2011. Last diagram update: 13 February 2011.

• Click here to download the raw data used to generate the above diagram. Use the following search parameters: Relative humidity, 90N-90S, 180W-180E, monthly values, area weighted grid.

Also, 2nd.........Remember to take cloud feedback into account regarding the effect on LT global temperature,

http://www.friendsof...tml#Correlation

Spencer has analyzed the temperature-radiative patterns of the NASA Terra satellite. The Terra data starts in March 2000, and its temperature-radiative plot is shown below.

The plot shows two types of patterns; linear striations and random spiral patterns. The usual interpretation of this data by climate modelers would be to use the best fit line which shows a slope of 0.7 W/m2/C, which is a very high positive feedback. The actual feedback should be determined by the slope of the linear striations, which is 8 W/m2/C, which is a very high negative feedback. A value of 3.3 W/m2/C corresponds to no feedback. (No feedback means if the temperature of the atmosphere were uniformly increased by 1 C and nothing else changed, the top of the atmosphere would radiate 3.3 W/m2 more radiation to space.) The feedback is observed to occur on shorter time scales in response to evaporation and precipitation events, which are superimposed upon a more slowly varying background of radiative imbalance due to natural fluctuation in cloud cover changing the rate of solar heating Earth’s surface.

The satellite data shows that over short time scales, clouds provide strong negative feedbacks. Spencer also analyzed the radiative flux and temperature variations from climate models used by the IPCC to determine if the short term negative feedback found in the satellite data is also applicable to long term feedback. He found that the short term linear striations and the spiral patterns show up all 18 climate models that he analyzed. Spencer says the slopes of the linear striations do indeed correspond to the long term feedbacks diagnosed from these models’ response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing. This strongly suggests that the short term negative feedback shown in satellite data also applies to long term global climate change.

The feedback estimate for a hypothetical doubling of carbon dioxide, using the Terra satellite data gives a climate sensitivity of 0.46 C.

See here for a more detailed discussion of cloud feedbacks.

It's funny how your posts always end in something completely different than they start with.

I am not "debunking" another data set with a different dataset. NOBODY believes in the accuracy of the NCEP humidity reanalysis, including NCEP itself. The humidity data you and clifford posted is not accurate, just like the ISCCP cloud data you posted is not accurate, as the lead publisher of the data has said publicly and in a confirming personal email that I posted.

And nobody "brought to my attention" that the UAH error bars are +/-.05C decade. I was the one that posted that originally. That is the statistical sampling error, which is large enough as it is, and does not include any further methodological errors like satellite drift.

[skierinvermont]

Bad news for anyone desperately praying for their catastropic AGW predictions to come to fruition.

Nobody is hoping for catastrophic AGW, and ENSO doesn't make an ounce of difference in the long run.

What a terrible post.

[BethesdaWX]

It's funny how your posts always end in something completely different than they start with.

I am not "debunking" another data set with a different dataset. NOBODY believes in the accuracy of the NCEP humidity reanalysis, including NCEP itself. The humidity data you and clifford posted is not accurate, just like the ISCCP cloud data you posted is not accurate, as the lead publisher of the data has said publicly and in a confirming personal email that I posted.

And nobody "brought to my attention" that the UAH error bars are +/-.05C decade. I was the one that posted that originally. That is the statistical sampling error, which is large enough as it is, and does not include any further methodological errors like satellite drift.

You don't know what you're talking about, do you... Its not different at all, because we're discussing the CO2 net warming effect from CO2 in WV feedbacks...GCC is a part of that.

The ISCCP email stated the data cannot be used to analyze long term trends...did he even define "long term", as in, outside of the data measurement or inside the timeframe? He even stated the study you posted attempting to tear the data Apart was inadequate. I stated the fact that there is no other GCC data measured by standards of that satellite...so while GCC measurement is New, and most likely error filled, the best data, the only data, is what we need to use. UAH is another example of Superiority IMO in satellite/GT measurement.

And No, do you need me to bring up your UAH debate? +/- .05C per decade was revealed in your argument...which you interpreted Roy Spencer as "bashing" his own project (lol), and got the meaning backwards! You posted error bars of all data measurement systems...which clearly falsely represented UAH.

[Snow_Miser]

Nobody is hoping for catastrophic AGW, and ENSO doesn't make an ounce of difference in the long run.

What if their billions of dollars of funding goes away if they stop making CAGW predictions?

[BethesdaWX]

And skier has yet to admit His False assumption of "bottoming out" on the AMSU.....oops.

We reached the lowest anom of the nina today, on AMSU.

[Clifford]

Yes, Forecasting a healthy La Nina next yr is not smart IMO. Good news is it doesn't look very Nino-ish.

I don't think we've bottomed out yet.

Looking at prior La Niña episodes In 2000 and 2008, we had Global TLT anomaly temperatures below -0.4

In fact, the lowest temperatures in January 2000 were over a year into the La Niña.

Today we are just hitting the lowest for this year... so far of UAH TMT (14K) anomaly at -0.307, March 7.

The UAH SST Anomaly has reached its peak on March 6 +0.032 (2003 to 2011 avg), and has started falling again, March 8, of -0.006.

The JRA-25 has also been oscillating a lot, but seems to be generally trending downward.

http://www.coaps.fsu...e_anomalies.jpg

http://www.coaps.fsu...malies_2005.jpg

By definition, after we truly hit bottom, the temperatures will trend upwards .

But, even so, multiple peaks/valleys are not uncommon.

Oops.

I see by the time I hit "submit"... you had already noted that.

As far as El Niño / La Niña, it shouldn't have a major effect overall on global warming.

However, it tosses our temperatures all over the place.

The early 90's certainly were heavily weighted towards El Niño.

I've been trying to get a good trend line match to the RSS/UAH temperatures from 97/98 to present, and again the multi-year El Niño/La Niña variability tosses the temperatures around enough that it is impossible to get an accurate, non biased trend line match.

[Snow_Miser]

And skier has yet to admit His False assumption of "bottoming out" on the AMSU.....oops.

We reached the lowest anom of the nina today...aka, a new bottom...on AMSU.

On AMSU we've gone below 2008....... curious.... there was an alarmist on another forum that was bashing me about it being so warm at 14,000 feet, but now he's totally silent about it. He likes to cherry pick the warm areas... maybe that's why he's called a warmist...

[BethesdaWX]

On AMSU we've gone below 2008....... curious.... there was an alarmist on another forum that was bashing me about it being so warm at 14,000 feet, but now he's totally silent about it. He likes to cherry pick the warm areas... maybe that's why he's called a warmist...

It was probably yitterbium. I still wonder if "IceIceByeBye" (lol on that) is Yitterbium.

[tacoman25]

It was probably yitterbium. I still wonder if "IceIceByeBye" (lol on that) is Yitterbium.

No way. IceIceByeBye is a much better poster than Ytterbium was, actually.

[skierinvermont]

You don't know what you're talking about, do you... Its not different at all, because we're discussing the CO2 net warming effect from CO2 in WV feedbacks...GCC is a part of that.

The ISCCP email stated the data cannot be used to analyze long term trends...did he even define "long term", as in, outside of the data measurement or inside the timeframe? He even stated the study you posted attempting to tear the data Apart was inadequate. I stated the fact that there is no other GCC data measured by standards of that satellite...so while GCC measurement is New, and most likely error filled, the best data, the only data, is what we need to use. UAH is another example of Superiority IMO in satellite/GT measurement.

And No, do you need me to bring up your UAH debate? +/- .05C per decade was revealed in your argument...which you interpreted Roy Spencer as "bashing" his own project (lol), and got the meaning backwards! You posted error bars of all data measurement systems...which clearly falsely represented UAH.

Well I am not going to argue with your Bethesda because there is no point.

But to any semi-reasonable readers out there - please be aware that the peer reviewed literature says that the NCEP specific humidity data and the ISCCP cloud cover data posted by Bethesda and Clifford is inaccurate and not designed for climate monitoring.

[tacoman25]

And skier has yet to admit His False assumption of "bottoming out" on the AMSU.....oops.

We reached the lowest anom of the nina today, on AMSU.

I don't really understand why skiier so confidently asserted we had bottomed out and that March/April would be warmer than 2008. There was plenty of reason to think that might not be the case.

[WeatherRusty]

You don't know what you're talking about, do you... Its not different at all, because we're discussing the CO2 net warming effect from CO2 in WV feedbacks...GCC is a part of that.

The ISCCP email stated the data cannot be used to analyze long term trends...did he even define "long term", as in, outside of the data measurement or inside the timeframe? He even stated the study you posted attempting to tear the data Apart was inadequate. I stated the fact that there is no other GCC data measured by standards of that satellite...so while GCC measurement is New, and most likely error filled, the best data, the only data, is what we need to use. UAH is another example of Superiority IMO in satellite/GT measurement.

And No, do you need me to bring up your UAH debate? +/- .05C per decade was revealed in your argument...which you interpreted Roy Spencer as "bashing" his own project (lol), and got the meaning backwards! You posted error bars of all data measurement systems...which clearly falsely represented UAH.

As an aside, why do you always have to include denigrating language in your posts? You incite argumentation that way. Cool it, please.

You may not realize it, but you are not discussing CO2's warming effect from water vapor feedback or any other of the feedbacks. The feedback mechanism is a response by the system to warming regardless of the source of that warming. CO2 does not have it's own set of feedbacks. How in the world could the climate ever warm if feedback were so strongly negative as you try to suggest? How could the greenhouse effect have brought about a 33C warming over that of Earth's effective solar induced temperature of -18C? A net negative feedback to warming makes no sense at all.

[BethesdaWX]

As an aside, why do you always have to include denigrating language in your posts? You incite argumentation that way. Cool it, please.

You may not realize it, but you are not discussing CO2's warming effect from water vapor feedback or any other of the feedbacks. The feedback mechanism is a response by the system to warming regardless of the source of that warming. CO2 does not have it's own set of feedbacks. How in the world could the climate ever warm if feedback were so strongly negative as you try to suggest? How could the greenhouse effect have brought about a 33C warming over that of Earth's effective solar induced temperature of -18C? A net negative feedback to warming makes no sense at all.

what? I didn't say anything like that.

I stated the decrease seen in humidity between 300-700mb was a negative feedback. Regardless of the datasource, we see the decrease in all measured datasets since 1990, and the ones that go back to 1950 have it near 20% in 60yrs...there will always be attempts to discard data based on "unlikely" scenario's. The IPCC/AGW hypothesis uses the base CO2 enhanced warming (aka, warmer atmosphere allowing for more WV to be present), and the two feed-back off eachother to produce the 6C in the next 100yrs hypothesis.

The feedback estimate for a hypothetical doubling of carbon dioxide, using the Terra satellite data gives a climate sensitivity of 0.46 C.

We know very little about our climate and how it will react to such feebacks/forcings, predictions are not likely to be accurate.

[BethesdaWX]

I don't really understand why skiier so confidently asserted we had bottomed out and that March/April would be warmer than 2008. There was plenty of reason to think that might not be the case.

Yeah it made no sense, and he virtually either didn't know about/or ignored the signals in the stratosphere.

The trend has been down, overall, even with the regular spikes. It was a clear pattern of 1 step up, 2 steps down.

[BethesdaWX]

Well I am not going to argue with your Bethesda because there is no point.

But to any semi-reasonable readers out there - please be aware that the peer reviewed literature says that the NCEP specific humidity data and the ISCCP cloud cover data posted by Bethesda and Clifford is inaccurate and not designed for climate monitoring.

There is peer reviewed literature stating the opposite is true as well, as I posted above.

Its really pointless to keep bringing up peer reviewed literature, because there is support on both sides of the issue.

See the "850 peer reviewed articles supporting Skeptical positions on AGW". Critics who tried to throw it under the bus were refuted, just as were your ISCCP links.

[Jesse]

Nobody is hoping for catastrophic AGW, and ENSO doesn't make an ounce of difference in the long run.

What a terrible post.

I disagree.

I've visited a lot of climate change forums, and on all of them, this one included, there are a few that seem pretty happy when temps go up. It offers validation of the way they believe the world to work, who woudn't be happy getting that?

Something tells me that if temps really starting plummeting over the next 5-10 years (not saying that will happen, just a hypothetical) you wouldn't be a very happy camper, and you'd be scrambling for anything and everything you could find to downplay it, despite that very thing moving us away from "global catastrophe" in the words of some. Please correct me if I'm completely off base.