Global warming to stop

As the global warming fraternity seeks to explain away the lack of any actual observable warming, they've come up with a whole new explanation - that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation will wipe out any warming for the next few decades. Even the most observant followers of the climate debate will have failed to notice anyone mentioning that the AMO might have been boosting temperatures in recent decades. And neither will they have seen any inkling of this fall in temperatures being predicted by the IPCC.

Which brings us on to this quote from the climatologist Roger Pielke Snr (via CCNet):

If global cooling over the next few decades is consistent with model predictions, then so too is pretty much anything and everything under the sun. This means that from a practical standpoint climate models are of no practical use beyond providing some intellectual authority in the promotional battle over global climate policy.

Looks like all the IPCC projections may just be bunk. 

Comments

[agn]

This is quite a clever stunt, because it's win-win for the alarmists:
If temperatures go up, then it's despite the cooling effect of the AMO, and this proves that AGW is even stronger then we thought, so lots more must be done (=we must get much more money for "research");
If temperatures go down, then it's just as we said and we now have a very short window of opportunity to do lots more (=give us more money for "research") because when the cooling effect stops, AGW will hit all the more.
You are quite right that it needs to be pointed out that if the AMO is turning cold, then it means it has been warm until now. But what else can we do to counter this alarmist gambit?

[Frederick Davies]

How stupid do these people think we are!? First it was the soot, now it is the Atlantic, and in 2020, when the temperatures will not shoot up as predicted again, what will it be? Al Gore's farting? At which point do we stop taking these people seriously and just laugh?

[Kit]

Richard Black at the BBC is entertaining as usual:

"The projection does not come as a surprise to climate scientists, though it may to a public that has perhaps become used to the idea that the rapid temperature rises seen through the 1990s are a permanent phenomenon."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7376301.stm

I can't wait for RealClimate's response.

[Kit]

Not to be out done Charles Clover at The Telegraph:

"What ordinary people understand by global warming is the world getting hotter - average temperatures rising."

"What scientists mean by global warming, though, is the sun's radiation being trapped near the Earth's surface by greenhouse gases. This has been going on for millions of years and is now happening at a faster rate thanks to rising emissions of fossil fuels. Clearly what scientists call global warming will continue through this decade."

You don't need to be stupid to be a Environmental Correspondent but it clearly helps.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/05/01/earthlog101.xml

[Umbongo]

"You don't need to be stupid to be a Environmental Correspondent but it clearly helps."

Clover is not alone in pumping out catastrophist propaganda in the "quality" rags. Paul Simons on the Times <a href=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article3857917.ece>tells us</a> that "1998 was the warmest year on record across the world", a factoid which even Hansen finally admitted was wrong.