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Copenhagen diary: Tuesday 8 December 2009

Susan Watts | 15:59 UK time, Tuesday, 8 December 2009

Written at 4pm, Tuesday 8 December

Quick note today. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has said that 2009 looks set to rank as the fifth warmest year, and the "Noughties" the hottest decade since records began in 1850:

https://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/index_en.html

The WMO's final analysis for 2009 isn't due until early next year, but according to Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the WMO, speaking at the Copenhagen conference today: "the decade 2000-2009 is very likely to be the warmest on record. So, in other words, this decade is going to be warmer than the 1990s, which itself were warmer than the 1980s and so on."

The organisation said it estimates the global combined sea surface and land surface air temperature for 2009 (January-October) as 0.44°C ± 0.11°C above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14.00°C.

Above-normal temperatures were recorded in most parts of the continents. Only North America (United States and Canada) experienced conditions that were cooler than average. They went on to say that given current figures, large parts of southern Asia and central Africa are likely to experience their warmest year on record.

Three data sets feed into the WMO temperature analysis. Data from the Met Office/University of East Anglia (subject of the recent e-mail row), along with that from Nasa and the US NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).

Vicky Pope, head of climate research at the Met Office told the ±«Óãtv: "In terms of the rates of warming, we do expect the rate of warming to change from one decade to the next, just because of natural variations. So even though there's a long-term warming trend because of global warming, we get things like El Nino happening, things like volcanic eruptions, which mean that we get variations from one year to the next, and one decade to the next."

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    HOW DO YOU EXTRACT A PREDICTIVE GRAPH FROM A CHAOTIC SYSTEM?

    'Vicky Pope, head of climate research at the Met Office told the ±«Óãtv: "So even though there's a long-term warming trend because of global warming". (Extract from above text.)

    Between Boxing Day 1962 and the beginning of March 1963, much of the UK was covered in snow. You had to be there. No one knows what weather will do next, THERE ARE TOO MANY FACTORS, many misunderstood, many more unknown.

    To my mind, there is too much unscientific certainty and prediction going on. Preparation for a flexible response should be our stance. That, and a move to elegant problem solving in place of hidden agendas shared with vested interests, and wild schemes from fevered (ignorant) politicians.



  • Comment number 2.

  • Comment number 3.

    STILL WAITING FOR SPECIFIC INFO ON HIGH ALTITUDE EXHAUST EFFECTS.

    No takers last time I raised this.

  • Comment number 4.

    climate climb line
    tree cut line to warm time line
    lie intertwined melt climb
    line

  • Comment number 5.

    'The' lefties like their definitive article.

    THE poor
    THE rich
    THE world

    ...Those who do care about the planet held a die-in on Monday...



    did they? why are they still here then?

    THE ones they missed out were

    THE Propaganda
    THE Stupidity
    THE Delusion
    THE Generalisations.

  • Comment number 6.

    this article calls such dogmatic no doubters as the pop version and says the science version is more nuanced with guesstimates made on imperfect models. This inexactitutde in the models explains why we cannot tell precisely what the temperature will be in 10 years time nor even 10 days times. A true model has the power of prediction. The climate models cannot predict so they are not even models.

    ...The scientific version of the global warming story (we need an insurance policy) is less dramatic than the pop version (we must penalise the sinners)....

  • Comment number 7.

    guess we won't we told much about the

    ...alternative "sceptics' conference" in Copenhagen. ..




    ...Soros says money managers and Wall Street bankers would find ways to (shock, horror!) manipulate any new North American cap-and-trade market.
    "The system can be gamed. That's why financial types like me like it --because there are financial opportunities," he told a conference in London in July.

    By creating a massive new derivatives market for carbon, using the same financial instruments--futures, options, swaps, and bundled securities--that nearly destroyed the global banking system a year ago, we'd only be setting the stage for another implosion....



    gamed? that is polite word for it. i would have used a shorter bit of anglo saxon.
    so one might say the climate establishment are trying to 'game' us?

  • Comment number 8.

    Sorry off topic but I feel the need to share a thought.

    Ive been wondering if there is a correlation between flu and/or common cold and migraine. Looking through my migraine diary of some 25 years I notice Ive never had a cold or the flu and migraine at the same time. On Monday my head was set for a migraine - well versed in knowing this and did all I could to limit it fully expecting to be up all night in head hell, but it didn't happen and next day I felt fine. This is either a miracle or I missed something. What happened ? The only thing that was different in my life over the few days was being close to someone with a common cold.


    Anyone done research on this ?

  • Comment number 9.

    REPLY TO #8 STREETPHOTOBEING

    Decades ago there was a book (one of the fringe health presses) with a title (approximately) HYPOGLYCAEMIA - THE MODERN EPIDEMIC. (Probably mid 80s)

    I gave mine away and can't bring it up on the web. A specialist book-finder might.

    Anyway: it's theme was that many of us swing in and out of a hypoglycaemic state and it triggers A RANGE of ailments from asthma to migraine (via belly ache, as I remember). You could be on to something.

    Good luck.

  • Comment number 10.

    Nos 9

    Thank you barrie, I will be looking into that.

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