Sir George Knibbs
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Here we go, more climate denier claptrap. Disappointing for a site that does from time to time have intelligent commentary. Interested readers might want to check the detailed discussion on sun cycles, by real climate scientists: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/11/record-heat-despite-a-cold-sun/
Global temperature goes from heat record to heat record, yet the sun is at its dimmest for half a century.
For a while, 2010 was the hottest year on record globally. But then it got overtopped by 2014. And 2014 was beaten again by 2015. And now 2016 is so warm that it is certain to be once again a record year. Three record years in a row – that is unprecedented even in all those decades of global warming.
Strangely, one aspect of this gets barely mentioned: all those heat records occur despite a cold sun (Figs. 1 and 2). The last solar minimum (2008-2010) was the lowest since at least 1950, while the last solar maximum (2013-2015) can hardly be described as such. This is shown, among others, by the sunspot data (Fig. 1) as well as measurements of the solar luminosity from satellites (Fig. 2). Other indicators of solar activity indicate cooling as well …
Illargi, I agree WMD is a good candidate for ‘fake news’. Or in old parlance, disinformation.
The recent stories about Russian ‘active measures’ against the US, it is still unclear to me whether this is disinformation or is based on genuine intelligence. A lot of people these days seem to want to rush to judgement.
I agree with rapier that some definitional precision is preferred, despite (or because of) these outrageous times. There has been more than a century of study of phenomena such as white propaganda, black propaganda, disinformation, misinformation, ideology, and bias in news. There are important nuances here. It is a big step backwards in critical thought, to just lump everything together as ‘fake news’. As far as the Russian involvement in the US election goes, methinks that many on the left have a knee-jerk rejection of this possibility — with no credible evidence presented for this rejection, unless someone has a direct connection to the situation room in the Kremlin?
More correctly the possibility of Russian involvement is matter of dispute or contestation. That I accept. But it has not yet been demonstrated to be fake.
Illargi I have a lot of time for your commentary in general, but is there a tone of exasperation creeping in, because the ‘collapse’ is not coming fast enough?
I am just a humble blog reader, not a Big Expert on these matters. However I have some sympathy with the points made by Professorlocknload and Ken Barrows. Yes we can see there are massive, contradictory and unstable forces at work. The question is one of timing. The history of the past 7 years shows these contradictions can be papered over, at the expense of most of the ordinary folks who don’t have millions of $$ stashed away. Who is to say they cannot be papered over for another 7 years?
