Stuck in the office on a chilly Monday. Ouch.
Here are a few odds and ends to ease the pain of your afternoon in the office.
Alex is now dispensing first aid training…..
From Yves at Naked Capitalism…..
Finally, two years ago when I offered commentary on anthropogenic global warming (on the now defunct Best Fly Fishing Yellowstone) I was reminded by a ‘gracious’ reader that the NY Times had at that time recently published the definitive work on AGW – humankind was fully at fault and the debate was over. The gentleman went on to note that if I was too much of a dumbass to appreciate the definitive word on the subject as provided by the Times, I should hang up my blogger’s keyboard, crawl out from my cave in Montana and learn to read. He went on to ponder how could anyone not understand that the Times was /is in fact the definitive word on any subject.
Yawn.
Apparently the BBC doesn’t read the NYT as evidenced by their recent article (Friday the 9th): What Happened to Global Warming? Their article was interesting from a couple of different standpoints.
First, their opening salvo –
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
The author goes on to discuss disputed solar warming data, though then ventures into an area of discussion of much greater interest to fly fishers – the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) and its probable impact on global temps as well as weather.
What is really interesting at the moment is what is happening to our oceans. They are the Earth’s great heat stores.
According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated.
The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).
For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too.
But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down.
These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years….
Easterbrook’s data is quite interesting and appears compelling enough to warrant serious review; interesting that it’s not garnering any traction / attention in the US.
Somebody should call the NY Times…..
Tags: Culture, Books, Art
