{"id":7,"date":"2007-02-06T17:03:32","date_gmt":"2007-02-06T22:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/02\/06\/its_cold_outside\/"},"modified":"2007-02-06T17:03:32","modified_gmt":"2007-02-06T22:03:32","slug":"its_cold_outside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/02\/06\/its_cold_outside\/","title":{"rendered":"Brrr&#8230; this is global warming??"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you live in the Northeast or upper Midwest of the United States, it\u2019s cold outside \u2013 <em>very<\/em> cold. I did a series of radio interviews on global warming yesterday, and I kept getting the same question: \u201cHow can there be global warming when it\u2019s so <em>cold<\/em> outside??\u201d Indeed, some talk radio hosts are now proclaiming that global warming is clearly a myth, given the current cold snap.<\/p>\n<p>The science skeptics are at it again, so let\u2019s go over the facts.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><em>Global warming<\/em> is about the long-term, decade-to-decade increase in the average temperature around the globe.<\/p>\n<p>This cold snap is only in our corner of the world. While we are experiencing frigid temperatures, other folks are getting unseasonably warm temperatures:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In Beijing, February temperatures are higher than at any time in recorded history. Trees are blooming and skating on the city\u2019s normally solid lakes has been banned. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.france24.com\/france24Public\/en\/administration\/afp-news.html?id=070206031723.8jaclbk8&amp;cat=null\">More from AFP<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>In Sweden, the Alpine Skiing World Championships postponed the women\u2019s Super G race because parts of the course were dangerously soft due to high temperatures. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.contracostatimes.com\/mld\/cctimes\/news\/local\/states\/california\/16625826.htm\">More from wire services<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>In southern Europe, a yearly dog sled race was cancelled last week because the Pyrenees Mountains have too little snow. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/news\/World\/Warm-weather-stops-Pyrenean-sled-race\/2007\/01\/30\/1169919306703.html\">More from Reuters<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Just as important, a short-term drop in temperatures does not add up to a climate trend. Just as the stock market can tick up and down during a general upward trend, local temperatures can move up and down during a general upward trend.<\/p>\n<p>The long-term trend in temperatures is upward. The IPCC (see <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/02\/05\/what-is-the-ipcc-anyway\/\">yesterday\u2019s post<\/a>) reported that global warming is \u201cunequivocal\u201d and \u201c11 of the last 12 years (1995-2006) rank among the warmest years in the instrumental record.\u201d A week of bitter cold in certain parts of the U.S. doesn\u2019t change any of this.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, it\u2019s not just skeptical radio hosts who make this mistake. For another look at flawed logic mistaking a short-term variation for a long-term trend, see the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.opinionjournal.com\/editorial\/feature.html?id=110009625\">Wall Street Journal article<\/a> I mentioned yesterday. It says: \u201cThe models didn&#8217;t predict the significant cooling the oceans have undergone since 2003 \u2013 which is the opposite of what you&#8217;d expect with global warming.\u201d But look at these graphs of air temperatures from NASA (see <a href=\"http:\/\/data.giss.nasa.gov\/gistemp\/graphs\/Fig.A2.txt\">original data<\/a>) and ocean temperatures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.agu.org\/pubs\/crossref\/2005\/2004GL021592.shtml\">original article<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Air Temperatures\" src=\"\/climate411\/wp-content\/files\/2007\/02\/air_temps.gif\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ocean Temperatures\" src=\"\/climate411\/wp-content\/files\/2007\/02\/ocean_temps.gif\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Every once in a while temperatures do dip for a few years. But those year-to-year variations are not related to a climate trend and cannot be predicted by a climate model. Climate models <em>can<\/em> be used to predict the longer-term trends in temperatures \u2013 which are clearly upward \u2013 and the models do this quite well.<\/p>\n<p>The globe is heating up \u2013 scientists agree on that. In the meantime, if you\u2019re in the Northeast or Midwest, pile on the sweaters to keep warm, but keep the thermostat low to help the planet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you live in the Northeast or upper Midwest of the United States, it\u2019s cold outside \u2013 very cold. I did a series of radio interviews on global warming yesterday, and I kept getting the same question: \u201cHow can there be global warming when it\u2019s so cold outside??\u201d Indeed, some talk radio hosts are now &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Brrr&#8230; this is global warming?? - Climate 411<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/02\/06\/its_cold_outside\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Brrr&#8230; this is global warming?? - Climate 411\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you live in the Northeast or upper Midwest of the United States, it\u2019s cold outside \u2013 very cold. 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