When Catastrophes Don't Come True

Here is an interesting posting on a blog by Eric Berger at the Houston Chronicle:

It seems pretty clear that the models forecast a steady upward trend in global temperatures as long as carbon dioxide levels rise. (Which they have). Yet according to satellite and surface temperature measurements the global average temperature has essentially remained flat for the last 12 years. This strikes me as somewhat curious.

When An Inconvenient Truth came out I believed the movie to be scientifically accurate. Carbon dioxide levels were rising and so were temperatures. And hurricane activity, especially after the disastrous 2005 season, was out of control.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the end of the world: hurricane activity on the global scale is near historical lows. And the Earth seems to have, at least temporarily, stopped warming.

This, despite the fact that some of the country's leading climate scientists say there is unequivocally a link between major hurricanes and climate change. And despite the fact that other leading climate scientists predicted 2009 or 2010 will go down as the warmest year in recorded history. Either prediction, if true, would be alarming.

Yet both of these predictions seem, at the present moment, to be off.

...

For the last few years some scientists and environmentalists have been telling us a lot about what "will" happen in the future if carbon dioxide emissions continue unabated. It perhaps would have been a lot better if they talked about what "may" happen.

There's more in the posting, go read it. For example, he cites scientists saying that we may be in a two decade cooling trend. Berger says he believes the global warming camp, but he is nervous about their dire predictions of doom not coming true.

As for the predictions of disaster because global warming will mean hotter seas and therefore more and bigger hurricanes. Here's the data from Wikipedia showing that this year is a near record low for Atlantic hurricanes.

As for scientific viewpoints, apparently they are overwhelmingly pro global warming. In today's climate you have to have a death wish if you are a scientist and dissent from the "politically correct" viewpoint that we are in the grip of deadly runaway global warming. But a few brave souls have stood up to be counted as noted by Wikipedia. These are mostly scientists who have retired or near retirement. Their careers are over, so they won't suffer the vindictive actions taken against those honest enough to question the "official" view on global warming.