The actual data on climate change

This note is in reference to Michael Ivey’s letter “Carbon Dioxide Does Not Cause Global Warming” [Dec. 25 Xpress]. Mr. Ivey states, “Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admits that there has been no warming over the last 16 years.”

Please see the excerpt below, from the report “Climate Change 2013: The physical science basis Working group 1 contribution to the IPCC fifth assessment report.” The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that was mentioned. I thought people might want to see the actual data.


Fig. SPM. 1a, Anomaly (C) relative to 1961-1990:

“Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983–2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years (medium confidence).”

— Tom Gallo
Asheville

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2 thoughts on “The actual data on climate change

  1. bkepley

    This doesn’t address the point. It has increased but now has seemingly stopped which was not predicted. In any case if the warming is going to continue it had better hurry since now it appears that two ice-breakers may be stuck in the antarctic ice which Al Gore assured us would be all but gone by now.

    • cunning

      Bk, 9 out of the 10 hottest years occurred in the last decade. Yes, 1998 was the hottest- but that’s not the same thing as saying the warming has stopped. Check out this link: https://na.unep.net/geas/getUNEPPageWithArticleIDScript.php?article_id=53

      Warming does not occur on a steady trajectory- it’s expected that there will be ups and downs. Warming also does not occur equally around the globe- Antarctic ice has, in general been
      increasing in some areas, while Alaska’s temperatures have soared.The last decade saw 9 record warm years- hardly grounds to say it’s getting cooler- yet that is what many deniers want you to believe.

      Another factor that has to be considered is that, during the last decade, the sun has been relatively inactive- the “solar maximum” is less, so it would be expected that there would be some cooling as we lose some solar radiance. The sun is now entering a more active phase. This is a serious, complicated issue that needs to be addressed.

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