The cooling zombie strikes again

I was asked for my opinion on an article “Global Cooling - The REAL Inconvenient Truth” by Keith Schaefer, so here is a quick summary.

First, this is a reprint from “Oil and Gas Investments Bulletin,” which obviously is not a neutral source. All the alleged points are either zombie ideas (dead ideas that have already been shown false, but keep moving around), or just plain misinterpretations.

The author uses a strange mix of accepting the science and rejecting other tightly coupled knowledge learned the same way. The author accepts the historical record up to several decades ago, saying, “We know this because scientists have several methods to estimate historic weather…” But for recent years his facts are incorrect. His other points are simply things that have been included in the scientific consensus for years; they alter the temperature one way or another while still leaving the end result of human caused global warming.

Here is a partial list of problems in this article:

• No, warming hasn’t stopped.

• The terms “global warming” and “climate change” have both been used for decades. See, for example, the 1975 paper in Science, Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?.

• The Medieval Warm Period was a warm period in the northern hemisphere, but it was mostly balanced by the souther hemisphere, so it wasn’t that much of a difference globally.

• The Little Ice Age also has good explanations.

• One cause of the pause in warming after WWII is due to other forms of air pollution counteracting greenhouse gases. We have since done a lot to reduce some of these emissions, including the reduction of sulphate aerosols as part of the effort to combat acid rain. For more on aerosols, see the AR5 Summary for Policymakers.

• The statement about Arctic ice is false. It is important to consider the thickness and age of the ice as well as the area, all three of which are declining.

• One reason for the increase in ice in some parts of Antarctica is actually because those places are now warm enough for the air to hold enough moisture for snow. See, for example, Is Antarctica losing or gaining ice?.

• Once again, the old “Another Ice Age?” zombie strikes. See What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s? and The global cooling mole.