Global Temperatures Have Been Falling Since 1999

Natural climate cycles have changed from their warming phase to cooling phase, and this means that contrary to popular belief the global temperature has been declining for more than 10 years, and will continue to decline for another 20 or so.

This evidence was presented last week at the seventh International Climate Change Conference sponsored by the Heartland Institute. Several prominent natural scientists provided serious and credible evidence in calm, dispassionate presentations, based on reams of factual data. In sharp contrast to the manner of these presentations, climate alarmists have been unable to provide sufficient data to defend their claims that humans are causing catastrophic global warming.

A look at the temperature record throughout the 20th century shows that the up and down pattern does not follow the rise of the industrial revolution and the resulting increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, but instead follows the pattern of naturally caused climate cycles.

Between the 1940s and the 1970s the climate cycle was in a cooling phase, and the global temperatures steadily dropped, with the press hailing the approach of a new ice age. Then in the late 1970s the climate cycle switched to its warming phase which continued until the 1990s.

The main contributor to these natural cycles is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) which undergoes a 25 – 30 year cycle where cold water from the depths rises up to replace the warmer water at the surface. This change is enough to affect the global temperatures by the few degrees that we are witnessing. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) also affects the global temperatures in a similar fashion.

In the period between the 1940s and 1970s both the PDO and AMO were in a cold phase, and then between the 1970s and the 1990s they were in a warm phase, explaining the patterns of the changes in global temperature.

Back in 2000 the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted that global temperatures could rise by an average of 1 degree Celsius by 2010. Don Easterbrook, the Professor Emeritus of Geology at Western Washington University, predicted that global temperatures would actually decline by 2010, based on his knowledge of the PDO and that it had change to a cooling phase in 1999.

Eastbrook was one of the speakers at the Heartland conference last week where he provided evidence which proved his prediction correct, that global temperatures have actually declined over the last decade. The IPCC’s prediction was out by well over a degree, a huge gap for a 10 year forecast when we are meant to trust their 100 year predictions.

The PDO cycle last for about 25 – 30 years and therefore Eastbrook has stated that the current cooling pattern will continue for another two decades, and at a faster rate as he expects the AMO to switch to a cooling period soon.

By. James Burgess of Oilprice.com