What to Make of a Climate-Change Plateau - Justin Gillis - NYTimes.com
The slowdown is a bit of a mystery to climate scientists. True, the basic theory that predicts a warming of the planet in response to human emissions does not suggest that warming should be smooth and continuous. To the contrary, in a climate system still dominated by natural variability, there is every reason to think the warming will proceed in fits and starts.
But given how much is riding on the scientific forecast, the practitioners of climate science would like to understand exactly what is going on. They admit that they do not, even though some potential mechanisms of the slowdown have been suggested. The situation highlights important gaps in our knowledge of the climate system, some of which cannot be closed until we get better measurements from high in space and from deep in the ocean.
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Now, here is a crucial piece of background: It turns out we had an earlier plateau in global warming, from roughly the 1950s to the 1970s, and scientists do not fully understand that one either. A lot of evidence suggests that sunlight-blocking pollution from dirty factories may have played a role, as did natural variability in ocean circulation. The pollution was ultimately reduced by stronger clean-air laws in the West.
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4 comments:
Justin's problem seems to be he has gotten the old narrative confused with the new narrative. The old narrative, which he still mentions, is that deniers had cherry-picked 1998 and that the plateau was an illusion. That sorta wore out, and so the new narrative is the plateau is real, and there's a perfectly good explanation for it. In fact, there are half a dozen perfectly good explanations, one of which is almost certainly right. Problem is, Justin is still hearkening back to the old narrative, which made deniers look either stupid or deceitful, probably both. He liked that. The new explanation, unfortunately, means you have to admit to yourself, although certainly not publicly, that the deniers were actually right.
Settled science can be so unsettling, sometimes.
"climate system still dominated by natural variability" -- yep and be thankful that it is!
Is this a period of no warming or was the prior period a time of no cooling?
"Now, here is a crucial piece of background: It turns out we had an earlier plateau in global warming, from roughly the 1950s to the 1970s, and scientists do not fully understand that one either. A lot of evidence suggests that sunlight-blocking pollution from dirty factories may have played a role, as did natural variability in ocean circulation. The pollution was ultimately reduced by stronger clean-air laws in the West. "
I am trying to get this straight----according to the author all climate change of lack thereof is due to mankind and the glaciers of 18K years ago melted due to campfires.
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