The "Warmest decade" claim

Don Easterbrook shows below that even if we accept the "massaged" figures from the Warmists, the claim is still misleading


Figure 1. Atmospheric temperatures 1900 to 2009. The blue line shows global cooling for the past decade; the red line shows the length of the decade

The decade of 2000 to 2009 appears to be the warmest one in the modern record, the World Meteorological Organization reported in a new analysis on Tuesday. Does that mean that the past decade has been cooling? No—of course not. Comparison of the red line in Fig. 1 with pre-1998 decades shows that the past decade is warmer, but the blue line shows cooling during the past decade—although the decade is warmer than previous decades, the climate did cool during the decade.

Thus, the claim that this proves no global cooling during the past decade is totally false. This is a difficult concept for non-scientists (and apparently some scientists!) to grasp. An analogy would be riding a bicycle up a long hill for a century, going over the crest of the hill and coasting downhill for a decade. Even though you have been going downhill for a decade, you are still higher up the hill than previous decades.

SOURCE


Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

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