Has Global Warming Stopped?

Question

I've been seeing a lot of people making the claim that global warming has "stalled" or stopped over the past few years (some say it stopped just last year). But I haven't seen any data yet.

So where is it? Which data shows a negative or absent trend over the past few years (be it ten, eight, five, or whatevs)? Is it GISS? HadCRU? NCDC? RSS? And also, perhaps more importantly, what level of significance can we assign to this trend?

Also, is there a physical basis for believing that this trend (if it is statistically significant) marks the end of 20th century warming?

Answer 1

Geez now some of them are even saying it never started! I don't know what you would call a ~0.9°C warming of the planet over 100 years if not global warming!



To answer your question, no, it has clearly not stopped. In fact, since 1998 (when the warming supposedly stopped), the 5-year average temperature has increased ~0.15°C.



http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif



Examining the data over that period and a statistical best fit line also reveals that the warming has clearly not stopped:



http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/t1998.jpg

http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/t2000.jpg



Although as you note, a 10-year trend is not much of a trend. That's why scientists graph the 5-year running mean over long periods of time.



Any argument that global warming has stopped because 1998 was an abnormally warm El Nino year is based on analyzing noise while ignoring the clear warming signal



https://answersrip.com/question/index?qid=20080124124728AAqNR8n



So in the absence of genuinely sound scientific arguments, the deniers are forced to resort to amateurish claims and outright lies.

Answer 2

Sorry I couldn't put on a blog site or a news paper to support my view that global warming is happening I could only find the official University of Norwich 'climate research centre' the graph on the front page of their site shows temp going back to 1850 and while it does show some dips at the turn of last century and the 1940s, the trend is temp rise. While I find a lot of what’s in the media inflated, I actually work in a climate research group and find it bizarre how scientists keep saying these changes are going to happen over the next 50-100 years, and then seeing entries in blogs & sites like this, saying its cold 'here' today that proves there’s no global warming, silly!

Answer 3

For decades, environmentalism has been the Left's best excuse for increasing government control over our actions in ways both large and small. It's for Mother Earth! It's for the children! It's for the whales! But until now, the doomsday-scenario environmental scares they've trumped up haven't been large enough to give the sinister prize they want most of all: total control of American politics, economic activity, and even individual behavior. With global warming, however, greenhouse gasbags can argue that auto emissions in Ohio threaten people in Paris, and that only global government can tackle such problems. National sovereignty? Democracy? Forget it: global warming has now brought the Left closer to global government, statism, and the eradication of individual rights than it has ever been before.

Answer 4

Well obviously global warming hasn’t stopped. The only evidence that it has is a few opinion pieces in newspapers. This is hardly convincing and is one more reason why one should not reply on the mass media if there are better sources.



People who argue that global warming has stopped confuse a fundamental difference between year-to-year variability and long term averages. Atmospheric CO2 levels have steadily increased each year, but no one has ever claimed that the average global temperature should do the same. Earth’s climate is very complex and chaotic, and greenhouses gases are not the only influence.



Prove to me that greenhouse gases do not cause the greenhouse effect, that is, that greenhouse gases do not absorb outgoing infrared radiation, and then maybe I’ll consider the argument that global warming has stopped.



Other than the mass media, NASA would be a better source of climate information:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif



Or if you don’t believe NASA, then ask Great Brittan’s Hadley Centre:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif



The simple fact is, not only is the global warming, Global Warming is accelerating:

http://www.realclimate.org/images/giss-15yr.jpg

Answer 5

Yeah, global warming stopped. First in 1950, then in 1965, then in 1975, then in 1985, 1993, and finally in the year 2000. Or was that 2005.



The only thing you can be confident of is that at every little short-term drop in the global average temperature, a bunch of AGW doubters will start proclaiming victory.



None of the datasets show a negative trend, because the scientists working with them understand the difference between short-term weather fluctuations (known as noise by those familiar with analyzing large datasets) and long-term climate trends.

Answer 6

Global warming is a long-term trend. It can't "stop" in a year. In order to say that it has stopped or stalled, you would need at least 10-20 years' data.

Answer 7

Yes EnragedParrot it has indeed stalled, and the trend has been steady since 2003. The mid troposphere in the tropics is the primary piece of data to monitor the Earths global greenhouse process. In fact all climate models that support the AGW theory predict the mid troposphere should warm 1.6 times more than the surface temperatures, but a look at the data and it is clear that the troposphere has been cooling as well as ocean surface temperatures and a drop in the amount of water vapor.



http://www.ssmi.com/rss_research/climate_change_in_the_tropics.html

Answer 8

Global Warming had definitely NOT stopped. As a matter of fact, the C02 levels are still incredibly high. This is quite sad, that is why environmentalists, such as myself, are trying to get more people involved in the cause:)

Answer 9

the global warming thing really gets on my nerves, because the way the government & media describe it is totally ridiculous & just there to scare people into investing a hell-of-a-lot of money into it.



The conditions on earth is ever changing, as it always has been. Best way to show this is go to google image, and type in "global temperture charts" - the majority of them will be 1860-present day, and shows a rise in global temperature in the last 20 years in some areas.



However, this is not relevent to all areas.



Once you've done that, type in "global temperatures pre-1860" and you will notice that the temperature in the last few thousand years, is actually stable, with v.slight fluctuations in temperature.



Another thing to remember is that the polar ice caps (which are melting "sooooo fast" apparently) have actually been melting for the last 6,000 years.



And finally, all local weather stations will only predict weather 10 days in advance becasue they all agree they could not possibly predict the weather any later than that.



Yet they will somehow be able to tell you the Global Temperature (a tremedously larger & more unpredictable scale than your local weather channel covers) believe they can accurately predict the weather for the next 50, 100 or 1,000 years?



In conclusion, don't stress about what they say about global warming, they're talking out their a*rses.

Answer 10

I don't know of any source by the knowledge I have global warming is still going on and the sea levels are rising rapidly in 5 or so years lots of small islands will disappear.

Answer 11

Dang! Ever heard of TMI= Too Much Information.

Stop writing term papers.



Yes, global warming does exist, and it's going to kill us all!!!

Either that, or the Pandemic Flu, or is that fake too?

Answer 12

The data does not show a drop in the last few years. But even if it did, a few years does not make a trend. You need a 10 or 50 or 100 year average to show a climate trend.

Answer 13

Here are a few sites that say the trend is flat or even on it's way down.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml





http://www.newstatesman.com/200712190004



http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21920043-27197,00.html



Don't EVER get into an argument with Frances O!

Answer 14

You don't know how bad it's going to be for Al gore if the word gets out. Beside no one seems to be talking about their cause as much as Al gore. Which makes some people assume he's right. Don't worry if it does warm up I'll just take off my Artic suit, long under wear, and the electric seat warmers on my car. Better hope he's right though, otherwise the polar bears might die of the cold.

Answer 15

Those that pretend climate is stable are ignorant of the facts. Those that pretend that warming is necessarily bad are paranoid.

Answer 16

I hope NOT, because then we are bound for the major swing in global COOLING, which has already happened, probably due to a major asteroid collision with earth(which could happen again....good movie material)...as long as the sun is shining...we are going to be warming....be thankful, otherwise, we are going to need all those bovinicide pelts to wrap up in......

Answer 17

its kind of up to you to believe what you want..i think that its real , if the extra green house gases we keep chugging into the sky do what they're meant to do, trap the heat which they are the earth's climate should rise which it is...also this happens in the earth's cycle but it happens gradually, right now we are shooting up much faster than ever in the past

Answer 18

Hey, I've got 30 right wing blogs/newspaper columnists that say it has. And any number of people mindlessly copying them.



The fact that the data proves them wrong just doesn't even slow them down. Some feel so excited they post the same stuff under different names, which is a lot of work to spout nonsense.



Anyway, since no one else has posted real data, here's some.



http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20080114_GISTEMP.pdf

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/



Yep, temperature is still going up. 99+% of scientists around the world re not surprised.

Answer 19

NOW WE ARE GOING INTO GLOBAL COOLING.

http://www.spaceandscience.net/id16.html



please do not tell Al Gore.we want to see how long it takes for him to freeze when standing outdoors and preaching global warming.



how long before the coming global cooling is blamed on man.

Answer 20

It's hard to say. I think it is slowly rising, year after year. We never received snow till December this year, very odd.

Answer 21

it hasent stalled!!!

there must be some crazy people out there

Answer 22

Its reversed here. 19 in the morning



j

Answer 23

nope people keep polluting the air which is makin the ozone layer disappear.

Answer 24

Well... in order to stop, it would have to have started... and since it never started... it couldn't have stopped.

Answer 25

nope, we're still doomed

Answer 26

Did it stop, or was it even there?