Despite a very cold winter, Global Warming is continuing
Despite a very cold winter, Global Warming is continuing
Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC
The winter of 2009 and early spring of 2010 were unusually cold in the Northern Hemisphere. Many people of my generation claim that was the coldest winter for over 50 years. In many areas of Britain and Ireland the snow remained on the ground for more than ten days at a time, a throw back to what life was like when I was growing up in the 1950s. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the winters were cold. I, and many of my contemporaries, suffered from chilblains on our hands and feet because of exposure to cold and damp weather. During the prolonged cold spell, some of my friends have begun to joke about climate change and global warming. According to them the winter and early spring of 2009/2010 pointed in the direction of the Earth moving more towards an ice-age rather than forward into an unprecedented warm spell.
The reality is that, while temperatures dipped in the Northern hemisphere, the world as a whole is continuing to warm up. In December 2009, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released data showing that the decade between 2000 and 2009 was the warmest decade since records began around 1850. In addition, Professor Neville Nicholls from Monash University in Melbourne claimed that global satellite data for the period November 2009 to January 2010 showed that it was the hottest November to January period since records began. This means that the popular understanding of climate change, that every place will experience a significant temperature rise, is not correct. The truth is that global warming is not uniform in all parts of the world. The temperature rise is much higher in the Arctic region. In fact, climate models predict that global warming will lead to greater extremes of cold and heat and floods and drought. Professor Kevin Walsh, associate professor of meteorology at the University of Melbourne, makes the point that "global warming is a trend superimposed upon natural variability, variability that still exists despite global warming. It would be much more surprising if the global average temperature just kept on going up, year after year, without some years of slightly cooler temperatures."(1)
Probably as a result of the cold winter and the constant challenges from climate sceptics which received extensive coverage in the media, the number of people who now believe climate change is happening has dropped significantly in Britain. In January 2010, representative from the Ipsos Mori poll surveyed over 1,000 people in Britain about their views on climate change. The proportion of adults who were convinced that climate change is happening had dropped by 30 percent from 44 percent in the previous poll to 31 percent in February 2010. The pollsters consider that the true number of sceptics is actually larger, since the survey was confined to the 16 to 64 year-old bracket. (the pollsters assume that those over 64 years old would be more sceptical). 31 percent of those polled said that global warming had probably been exaggerated. This represented a 50 percent drop in this category since the previous poll.
Furthermore, climate change had slipped down the priority list of many people. Only 17 percent thought that it was one of the top three political issues. This again represented a drop of 50 percent from the number who thought it was very serious in the wake of the publication of the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007. The drop in public support is particularly worrying in a country such as Britain where politicians like Ed Miliband have been so outspoken about the dangers of climate change and the questionable methods which sceptics are using to discredit climate sciences. In January 2010, Ed Miliband urged the public not to "turn against the overwhelming evidence that global temperature is rising faster than before and that human actions, particularly burning fossil fuels, are largely to blame."(2)
The fall off in support for the science of climate change will have a major effect on policy decisions. It is going to make it much more difficult for politicians to sell a climate stabilization package to a sceptical public, particularly since this will involve major changes in how people will use fossil fuel in the future. It will also undermine the resolve of rich countries such as Britain to make substantial payments to an Adaptation Fund designed to help people in economically poor countries to cope with the disruptive consequences of climate change.
February 26th, 2010