The latest global-warming story from the Research Council of Norway: things aren’t as bad, perhaps, as Mr. Gore, IPCC, and the rest of the AGW syndicate might have you believe.
Excerpt:
After Earth’s mean surface temperature climbed sharply through the 1990s, the increase has levelled off nearly completely at its 2000 level. Ocean warming also appears to have stabilised somewhat, despite the fact that CO2 emissions and other anthropogenic factors thought to contribute to global warming are still on the rise.
Didn’t Lord Monckton just get frog-marched out of a climate conference for pointing this out? Whoops…
A number of factors affect the formation of climate development. The complexity of the climate system is further compounded by a phenomenon known as feedback mechanisms, i.e. how factors such as clouds, evaporation, snow and ice mutually affect one another.
Uncertainties about the overall results of feedback mechanisms make it very difficult to predict just how much of the rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature is due to manmade emissions.
Uncertainties! Complexity! “Difficult to predict”!! Who knew??
Jeez, you could knock me down with a feather.
More:
Professor [Terje] Berntsen explains the changed predictions:
“The Earth’s mean temperature rose sharply during the 1990s. This may have caused us to overestimate climate sensitivity.
“We are most likely witnessing natural fluctuations in the climate system ”“ changes that can occur over several decades ”“ and which are coming on top of a long-term warming. The natural changes resulted in a rapid global temperature rise in the 1990s, whereas the natural variations between 2000 and 2010 may have resulted in the levelling off we are observing now.
Crikey — “natural variations”! Whoever could have imagined such a thing? (Well, that is, aside from those detested kuffar who’ve insisted on pointing out that the Earth has gone through many cycles of warming and cooling in the distant past, long before we arrived on the scene.)
Boy, if this keeps up, we might even have to cancel that whole subjugate-the-world’s-economy thing we’ve all been looking forward to, dang it.
More here.