Not so hot air

There's an interesting story on the BBC website about a new climate study, one which investigates the fact that there hasn't been any actual global warming in almost two decades, and revises down estimates for how much temperatures are forecast to rise in the coming decades.  I haven't seen this story anywhere else.  There's a surprise.

If there's been no global warming since 1996, as this study (and others) suggest, then you have to think that scientists will need to find alternative explanations for all of the natural disasters, from melting icecaps to Superstorm Sandy, that have been attributed to man's depredations.  I wouldn't advise you to hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

You might also think that the fact that they have been so spectacularly wrong about the short term would make scientists a little more uncertain about the reliability of their long term forecasts.  And in a sense, they are: the forecast range for temperature change is now wider than before.  However, despite the fact that things are not panning out as predicted, nobody seems willing to contemplate that maybe, just maybe, the whole model may be wrong.  Far from it -- the tone is downright defiant, as this quote from the BBC piece suggests:

"We would expect a single decade to jump around a bit but the overall trend is independent of it, and people should be exactly as concerned as before about what climate change is doing," said Dr Otto.

Is there any succour in these findings for climate sceptics who say the slowdown over the past 14 years means the global warming is not real?

"None. No comfort whatsoever," he said.

I'm willing to be convinced about anthropogenic climate change, I really am.  But these smug climate change scientists make it damnably difficult for me.