Where's The WARMING?- World Temperatures Fall Again In 2008

So where is all the hot weather? According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) the first half of 2008 is the coldest in five years.

The average of the four main temperature measuring methods is slightly cooler since 2002 [except for a brief el Nino interruption] and record breaking cooling this winter. The argument that this is too short a time period to be meaningful would be valid were it not for the fact that this cooling exactly fits the pattern of timing of warm/cool cycles over the past 400 years, Easterbrook wrote on March 1

But wait ! If temperatures have fallen over the past six years, whey are all the fuss about global warming? Isn't that supposed to mean temperatures go UP? Read more about Easterbrook's findings below:

Global Warming's Kaput; 2008 Coolest in 5 Years

By: Phil Brennan

The global warming theory is going into the freezer, some climate experts say.

The first half of this year was the coolest in at least five years, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). And the global warming that has taken place during the past 30 years is over, says geologist Don J. Easterbrook, a professor emeritus at Western Washington University.

Easterbrook, who has written eight books and 150 journal publications, predicts that temperatures will cool between 2065 and 2100 and that global temperatures at the end of the century will be less than 1 degree cooler than now. This is in contrast to other theories saying that temperatures will warm by as much as 10 degrees by 2100.

In March, Easterbrook said he was putting his reputation on the line by predicting global cooling.

The average of the four main temperature measuring methods is slightly cooler since 2002 [except for a brief el Nino interruption] and record breaking cooling this winter. The argument that this is too short a time period to be meaningful would be valid were it not for the fact that this cooling exactly fits the pattern of timing of warm/cool cycles over the past 400 years, Easterbrook wrote on March 1.

Added to his assertion was the WMO revelation that the first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years and that the rest of the year almost will certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average.

The global mean temperature to the end of July was 0.28 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, Britain's Met Office Hadley Centre for climate change research said Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008 the coolest since 2000. Chillier weather this year is partly because of a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El Nino.

"We can expect with high probability this year will be cooler than the previous five years," said Omar Baddour, responsible for climate data and monitoring at the WMO. "Definitely the La Nina should have had an effect, how much we cannot say. Up to July 2008, this year has been cooler than the previous five years at least. It still looks like it's warmer than average...."

.....Ivy League geologist Robert Giegengack, a professor of Earth and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania, told phillymag.com that the history over the last 1 billion years on the planet reveals "only about 5 percent of that time has been characterized by conditions on Earth that were so cold that the poles could support masses of permanent ice."

Giegengack also noted that, "for most of Earth's history, the globe has been warmer than it has been for the last 200 years. It has rarely been cooler."

Further ammunition for global warming skeptics came from south of the border, where a Mexican scientist warns that Earth will enter a little ice age for up to 80 years because of a decrease in solar activity.

Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics at Mexico's National Autonomous University, predicts that the ice period will begin in about 10 years.

Predictions of a gradual increase in temperatures called global warming are erroneous, Velasco Herrera told a conference at the Centre for Applied Sciences and Technological Development regarding predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC models and forecasts are wrong because they are based only on "mathematical" models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity," he said.

The phenomenon of climate change should include other kinds of factors, both internal, such as volcanoes and human activity, and external, such as solar activity, he said.

"In this century, glaciers are growing," as seen on the Perito Moreno mountain in the Andes; on Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada; and on Franz-Josef Glacier, New Zealand, Velasco Herrera said.

Satellite data indicate that a period of global cooling may have begun in 2005, he said.