Quote:
Originally Posted by N1
Completely agree.
Hm. Could there be a lag effect here too? In which case I wouldn't expect the planet to heat up instantaneously. Would you?  |
Lag effect and trends are interesting. The trend from the 1940s to mid 70s was down, and the big predicted catastrophe was Global Cooling.
The 15 or 16 years of global warming from mid 70s to early 90s, was sufficent to whip alarm and start the whole stop global warming bandwagon.
And now we have had 16 years of no temperature increase.
When 16 years of one trend (lags included) is sufficient to overturn the previous 30 year trend, then when a new 16 year shows up, it cannot be so easily dismissed.
In 1977, as part of my undergraduate degree I did a course called Applied Ecology and Conservation at Monash University. The big threat taught was Global Cooling. The effects of CO2 in warming the atmosphere was mentioned, but the general view was that it could not stop Global Cooling.
It transpired that one of the gurus of the Global Cooling catastrophe, Stephen Schneider, had written a scientific paper addressing the issue, and he demonstrated that one could increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere 8 fold, and it would have neglible effect on stopping global cooling.
Of course, Dr. Stephen Schneider later went on to become the guru for Global Warming. When questioned about his earlier paper demonstrating how ineffectual CO2 was, he had a simple answer, namely that he was wrong.
I tend to take everything I read about this issue with a grain of salt.
Regards,
Renato
References:
Schneider , Stephen and Rasool, N "Atmospheric carbon dioxide and aerosols. Effects of large increases on global climate"
Science July 9 1971.
Schneider, Stephen "On the carbon dioxide climate confusion",
Journal of Atmospheric Sciences. Nov 19754