Global Warming
Or
Global Cooling
Is Poland's Climate Change Counter To World Climate Change?
Warsaw, Poland - 10 March, 2008 In spite of a drop in world temperature averages over the last year, Poland, and other countries in Northern Europe, experienced a warmer than normal winter with temperatures in some cases at record levels. Do these countries offer evidence of global warming or has their weather been an anomaly in a pattern that may be showing global cooling? How should the Polish Government proceed?
Northern European countries, including Poland, seem to have escaped a severe winter. To the North, South East and West, the world is cold.
To the immediate North, the winter has been severe. So severe, in fact that the Arctic Ice Sheet is back to where it was at 5 million square miles.
"Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year." Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age
Northern Europe escaped the cold weather "partly ... from strong southerly and westerly air currents caused by exceptionally warm surface temperatures of the Atlantic." http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8449896?nclick_check=1 Record warm winter for northern Europe
But while the Atlantic's surface is warm, Australia has been suffering from a cooling of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean.
This cooling has caused Sydney to experience its coolest summer in 50 years . "After four years of water restrictions, Sydney saw about 50 percent more rain than usual this summer... No day topped 31 degrees celsius (88 degrees fahrenheit) for the first time since 1956. Average daily sunshine totaled 6.7 hours, an hour less than normal and the lowest since 1991-92. The average maximum temperature was 25.2, the coolest since 1996-97." Sydney's Coolest Summer in 50 Years Leaves Empty Cafes, Gloom
Areas not as affected by ocean currents, people are suffering from the cold.
In Afghanistan, where they have lost 300,000 cattle, the human death toll has risen above 1,500. In China, the havoc created by what its media call the Winter Snow Disaster" has continued, not least in Tibet, where six months of snow and record low temperatures have killed 500,000 animals, leaving 3 million people on the edge of starvation.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/03/09/do0902.xml Climate dissent grows hotter as chill deepens
When looked at on the global level, Poland's weather stands out as more than remarkably warm.
Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
... The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it. Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling
Also see a graph of World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction at Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling
The conflicting data and opinions leave the Polish Government with some long term planning problems.
On one hand there are those that say Nature, Not Human Activity Rules The Climate
On the other hand, the European Union, following the popular notion that humans can control climate change, is moving forward in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.
And in spite of the European Union and a localized warm winter that might indicate global warming, or global temperature drops that might indicated global cooling, Poland is resisting the imposition of new rules.
"The (European Union) plan "would have a negative impact on the living standards of Poles and for the competitiveness and for our businesses," said Polish Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki, warning energy costs could rise by 50-70 percent. Coal-rich Poland specifically called for the package to afford a bigger role for investments in cleaner ways of extracting energy from fossil fuel." EU nations voice objections to climate change plan
The Polish Government is in a difficult position. The ability to have a rational public debate has been effectively foreclosed by the partisans who have reached their conclusions and do not want to have their judgements questioned.
With computer models of global warming not even able to predict past weather patterns, their ability to predict future weather patterns is less than assuring. According to one commentator, "the results that they give do not even rise to the level of scientific wild a*s guess".
One that follows the "debate" soon notes that many of the arguments pro and con are often diatribes that do nothing to help a serious thinker.
And to the every day person whose life is dependent on Government decisions, good information and serious thought is essential.
So does the Polish Government look at the current warm winter as an anomaly in a rapidly cooling world and ignore the rules on greenhouse gas emissions? Or does it agree that the winter is definite proof of global warming and that its economic growth should be curtailed for the benefit of those countries that have no emissions standards placed on them?
Or does it agree that the climate is changing and something must be done, but it does not have enough good information to make decisions that would slow its economic growth and will sit back and wait for more data?
