According to the LLS theory, anything one may observe on LLS’s in a short term, i.e., a few months or years, would most likely be noises rather than a trend, because their life span is much longer and their changing cycle is much slower than the observers’. One should not expect a significant rapid change in a short period in the unit of year. Otherwise, we’ll hear from an official organization that the global climate is warming and cooling as a flip-flop from time to time in a so short-term period.

This is a quite "amusing" question. However, it lacks a good scientific foundation. Most probably I should not answer her. However,

1.)The earth climate system is a long term trend and is not influenced by any short term variability like your assume and refer to here.

2.) Every thing will change in an unlimited time span. However, the very physical existence of life on earths (as we know it today) is limited and will come to an end in around 4 billion years (when the sun is switched off) . Until than, the remaining human population may even have the chance to experience warming of the climate system many times, if human kind is not extinguished until then by its own unbalanced way of utilising the earths resources. But the existence or non-existence of humans on earth will only have a minor statistical influence on the development of life or even on the existence of the physical planetary system EARTH which will most probably go far beyond the existence of the sun. . However, If the "human experiment" is failing, other species just wait to take over immediately. And this includes also arthropods incl. insects, which are obviously better fit to cope with changing environmental conditions.

If it is so, then this is quite amusing. But the long-term temperature data records (100+ years) are showing warming trends in many parts of the world. Arctic ice melting is taking place at a rapid pace. If IPCC takes up global cooling, it will confuse the policy makers and will affect many decisions required to save the environment. Wait and watch!

According to the LLS theory, anything one may observe on LLS’s in a short term, i.e., a few months or years, would most likely be noises rather than a trend, because their life span is much longer and their changing cycle is much slower than the observers’. One should not expect a significant rapid change in a short period in the unit of year. Otherwise, we’ll hear from an official organization that the global climate is warming and cooling as a flip-flop from time to time in a so short-term period.

Climate is not weather:

Climate is the "weather" averaged over a period of (at least) 30 years

Echoing the comments above - the evidence for global climate warming is strong (and readily available), and yes, climate is 'average weather' - a short or localised cooling does not indicate a broader/longer-term cooling, despite what some tabloid newspapers or climate change denialists might like to think.

Guilermo

please advice then how a sudden change should be modeled and when this happens in the coming centuries; this is the time frame of the IPCC projections?

A link of the recent Telegraph report on Sept. 8 is at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10294082/Global-warming-No-actually-were-cooling-claim-scientists.html

Dear Roland:

>> “… the physical planetary system EARTH which will most probably go far beyond the existence of the sun.”

Because almost all energy on the earth directly or indirectly (cumulatively) comes from the sun, how would you reason that the earth may survive without the sun?

Kind regards,

Yingxu

Thank you for your opening question, Yingxu. From a number of the answers, I have the impression that the concept of Global Cooling is not entirely welcome. And I don't think that using terms such as "denialism" or "asinine" are helpful at all.

However, the global temperature doesn't yet appear to be in a cooling phase, but appears to be at a standstill that models did not project. Time will tell, and will highlight the uncertainty inherent in the climate system, which is something that the IPCC needs to be more open about.

René, thank you for the figure you attached. I would like your comment on the following graph...

http://www.climate4you.com/images/NSIDC%20GlobalArcticAntarctic%20SeaIceArea.gif

...particularly about Antarctic sea ice extent, which appears to be in an anti-phase relationship with Arctic sea-ice, which I believe is something of an established pattern. And in this connection, what privileges Arctic over Antarctic sea-ice as a "state of the climate" indicator?

Thank you all,

Paul Farquharson.

Paul

Even though you do not like qualifications I must call you an amateur. Climate change means change over periods of (at least) 30 years. The current stand still is over a period of 15 years. So YOU have to explain what this has to do with climate change stand still.

The thirty year span used to distinguish climate from weather is not deriving from a natural law and is not a physical constant like the speed of light, it is a statistical convention agreed upon by scientists and stated by WMO in order to make meaningful comparisons between the average or extreme conditions experienced in different periods. For instance when you say this was an unusually cool or warm year, you must compare it to a reference average (e.g. the mean 1961-1990 temperature of your place). Of course if you experience a row of unusually cold or warm years, say for 15 years, this will surely affect the new 30 yr mean and so you can suspect some change is happening to climate.

Hello All,

Harry, if I'm an amateur, then I suppose that I'm in good company, considering the contributions that many amateurs have made since the beginning of the Scientific Revolution.

I'm merely pointing out an observable fact: that temperatures have stopped rising, and this was not modelled. Surely climate models are a valuable tool for testing our understanding of the climate system, and their failure to project the current temperature trend indicates that our understanding of the climate system is incomplete. This has to be a good thing, since it may highlight areas of research that need to be incorporated in global change climatology, such as sea-floor volcanism, and galactic cosmic ray influence on cloud formation and on silicic volcanism, to name just a few areas of research.

Thank you Albert and Vittorio for your comments.

All the best,

Paul Farquharson.

Our understanding of climate is still not complete or may not be 100% ever in future also. That is why many climate projections of IPCC are not coming true. Models are based on our understandings only where we compromise a lot in reducing errors of the estimates. These so called residues are the real problem which will remain difficult to understand. That is why the sudden change in climate trends will not be captured by the models. We have still miles and miles to go to understand true behaviour of many known and still 'unknown' climate variables.

Paul

Calling you an amateur because you calling names to others. As for the contribution to science: the projection of future climate is unfortunately highly specialised computer modeling and interpretation. This also unfortunately the case in many other disciplines of natural science. This leaves little for the individual "amateur" (in the original French meaning of lover). And I have to modify specialist: when you look at the publications you will see that these are quite often done by a very large list of people specialized in one of the aspects of the issue

Climatic prediction is changing, new science is being done, there are not only long term Ipcc style climatic projections, but also so called seasonal to decadal climate forecasts. An interesting example is the 2008 paper by Noel Keenlyside at al. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7191/full/nature06921.html) predicting that "global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming". The paper was also commented on the Guardian web site, http://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/may/01/climate.change

if we nuke it it shall be a flip flop though I have writen and documented and discovered the mechanisms driving climate variability to be of solar origin

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dimis_Poulos

First of all, IPCC does not investigate into global warming, but into climate change. The expression global warming is out since many years as it is acknowldeged that it is much more than around temperature change. Global cooling, if it exists is also climate change.

Interesting debate, which however misses some issues. In Germany we can have temperatures in winter of minus 20 degrees Celsius. That is winter and we call this winter weather. Some years winters are mild, other years very harsh, long and very cold. Weather and climate are different things, and the weather is never the same. It changes and also if the sun energy received on January 1 at a particular place would be the same every year (which is not the case as the sender (sun) sends not always the same) it still would result in different weather as the energy received is only one from many, many factors that makes the weather.

I think that the cooling effect due to reduced sun activity (if it exists) moderates anthropogenic warming impacts, the same other natural impacts on the climate would such as volcanic eruptions etc.

We should realise that something as complex as climate has many contributing factors that lead to change. To assume that everything is caused by humans or everything by natural causes is far too simplistic. For that reason it is rather difficult to make any precise predictions of the future. So both (processes that contribute to warming and such contributing to cooling) not only can happen, but they do, and they always did. What now is sold as new ideas and change to previous scientific knowledge is actually nothing really new other than that one aspect from an extremely complex process is taken out and displayed as the whole truth.