The Reference Frame: Weather in the year 3000: once again

At any rate, in the year 3000, the atmosphere will clearly experience no impact of our temporary, multi-centennial usage of fossil fuels at all. However, it doesn't mean that the climate at all continents will be the same as it is today. The climate is always changing but in the long run, surely at the time scale of a millennium, this fact doesn't depend on the humans or anthropomorphic gods in any way. Most of the important changes of the climate will be local, of course. The very concept of a global climate is a deep misunderstanding of science.

Quadrant Online - Climate inquiry needed

Those familiar with the climate debate will naturally be aware that the rise in average official temperatures of 0.74C over the 20th century was an inherent component of IPCC’s conclusion of a future of dangerously high temperatures unless governments acted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But how to interpret the fall of 0.7C in the average Australian temperature for 2010? Clearly one year’s temperature doth not in itself maketh a new trend and believers in the IPCC’s conclusion are tending to portray it as either a one-off or even an unusual form of continued warming. But it is pertinent to give the development a perspective that differs from that conveyed by the believers.

For a start, the 2010 level was similar to average temperatures in 1914-15, 1928, 1938, 1959 and 1965, as well as in a number of subsequent years. It was also lower than in several years in the period since 1980. In short, it was not a one-off in terms of temperatures occurring over the past century.