I am sure the Stanford Department of Environmental Earth System Science is of course being entirely objective and scientific and not at all influenced by the large tranches of money it receives annually from the US Government, enabling Assistant Professors to spout complete garbage - all based on futuristic climate models rather than on real data.
In most other walks of life this is called "crystal ball gazing", aka charlatanism. Sadly, in climate science it appears to be the norm.
Over the past 160 years of reasonably reliable temperature instrumentation, the Earth on average has warmed at the gentle and completely unalarming rate of about 0.4degC per century. Most sane scientists recognise this to be due to the upward swing of a very long term natural ~1000 year temperature cycle whose last high point occurred around 1000AD and whose last low point occurred around 1500AD.
Climate alarmism has risen to a crescendo because between 1970 and 2000 there was an additional temperature effect, caused by the upswing half of a medium term and also entirely natural ~67 year temperature oscillation. This added another 0.25degC which, added to the historic upward trend, did look a bit alarming - at least to those who wished for it to be so.
But unfortunately for the alarmists, that additional temperature excursion is now well over its peak and into its downswing phase. Over the next 25 years it will subtract about 0.25degC, thus balancing the previous 0.25degC rise and ensuring that the very long term average rise of around 0.4degC per century will carry on unalarmingly exactly as before.
I have not made this up. It is based on the official HadCRUT3 world temperature data series. Just take a look at:
http://www.thetruthaboutclimatechange.org/tempsworld.htmlDo you see the red line rising and falling over the ~67 cycle, looking alarming (to some) during its steep rise between 1970 and 2000? And then do you see the long term blue trend line, carrying on at the unalarming rate of 0.4degC per century, as it always has done.
Come on Smart Planet. You can surely do better than allow rubbish like this into your otherwise fascinating publication.
