6:50PM GMT 09 Mar 2013
Readers of this column do not need to be reminded why it is so important for
us to know whether the world is truly in the grip of runaway global warming,
or whether this belief has all been based on a colossal misreading of the
scientific evidence. One reason why it is so vital for us to understand
this, of course, has been all those devastating political responses to this
fear, which promise to change our way of life out of recognition.
Just in Britain alone, paying for our Climate Change Act is officially due to
cost us up to £18 billion a year. It is now driving our entire national
energy policy, threatening us with ever more crippling bills, power
blackouts, and the sight of our countryside being covered in ever more giant
wind factories. In convincing the world that we must make such a dramatic
response to man-made climate change, nothing has been more persuasive than
those graphs that purport to show global temperature soaring to dangerous
levels.
That iconic “hockey stick” graph, showing temperatures recently shooting up
into the stratosphere, may now have been discredited. But just as important
have been all those graphs showing how temperatures have changed in recent
decades. These have the effect of greatly exaggerating those changes, by
narrowly focusing just on what are called temperature “anomalies”, showing
how they have risen and fallen round their average level in the past 30-odd
years.
What the graphs do not show is the actual level of global temperature, as it
is measured above freezing point. In other words, they leave out by far the
greater part of the total picture. So the respected Canadian environmental
writer, Lawrence Solomon, recently had the bright idea of publishing in his
Financial Post newspaper column a graph showing the temperature changes of
the past 15 years in proper perspective, using figures from the most
prestigious of all official temperature records, compiled by the UK Met
Office and its Hadley Centre.
6:50PM GMT 09 Mar 2013
Readers of this column do not need to be reminded why it is so important for
us to know whether the world is truly in the grip of runaway global warming,
or whether this belief has all been based on a colossal misreading of the
scientific evidence. One reason why it is so vital for us to understand
this, of course, has been all those devastating political responses to this
fear, which promise to change our way of life out of recognition.
Just in Britain alone, paying for our Climate Change Act is officially due to
cost us up to £18 billion a year. It is now driving our entire national
energy policy, threatening us with ever more crippling bills, power
blackouts, and the sight of our countryside being covered in ever more giant
wind factories. In convincing the world that we must make such a dramatic
response to man-made climate change, nothing has been more persuasive than
those graphs that purport to show global temperature soaring to dangerous
levels.
That iconic “hockey stick” graph, showing temperatures recently shooting up
into the stratosphere, may now have been discredited. But just as important
have been all those graphs showing how temperatures have changed in recent
decades. These have the effect of greatly exaggerating those changes, by
narrowly focusing just on what are called temperature “anomalies”, showing
how they have risen and fallen round their average level in the past 30-odd
years.
What the graphs do not show is the actual level of global temperature, as it
is measured above freezing point. In other words, they leave out by far the
greater part of the total picture. So the respected Canadian environmental
writer, Lawrence Solomon, recently had the bright idea of publishing in his
Financial Post newspaper column a graph showing the temperature changes of
the past 15 years in proper perspective, using figures from the most
prestigious of all official temperature records, compiled by the UK Met
Office and its Hadley Centre.
