Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995

Stupid

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7026317.ece

In an interview that came out over the weekend, Jones spilled the beans. Asked whether "the rates of global warming from 1860–1880, 1910–1940, and 1975–1998 were identical," he agreed that "the warming rates for all 4 periods"—he also threw in, for no apparent reason, the period 1975–2009—"are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other." Remember that a key claim of the global warming hysteria—a claim that the Climategate conspiracy was meant to protect from criticism—was that the recent rate of warming was "unprecedented" and therefore outside the range of natural variability. Jones is now admitting that this isn't true.

Moreover, asked whether "from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming," Jones replied that this was also true—but with the excuse that the tiny upward trend for that period is almost statistically significant, which is a bit like being almost pregnant. Asked about the temperature trend from 2002 to present, he admits that "the trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant." So he has been forced to admit that global warming hasn't occurred for the past 15 years.

But the blockbuster in the interview is a question about the Medieval Warm Period (MWP)—a period of several centuries, about a thousand years ago, in which global temperatures are believed to have been several degrees warmer than today. Again, a central goal of the Climategate conspiracy was to deny the existence of the MWP by propping up Penn State professor Michael Mann's infamous "hockey stick" graph, which showed global temperatures remaining flat for the past two thousand years, then suddenly shooting up in the last 50 years. Asked about the Medieval Warm Period, however, Jones replied:

"There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not…. Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the [Northern Hemisphere] and [Southern Hemisphere]) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented."

Jones doesn't say that the MWP actually happened—but he admits that it is a legitimate theory and a subject for debate.

It is important to grasp what an enormous concession this is. If global temperatures were warmer a thousand years ago, that implies two things. First, a Medieval Warm Period was obviously not caused by human emissions of carbon dioxide, since there were no automobiles or industrial smokestacks. So it must have been a naturally occurring fluctuation in climate—which means that current temperatures are also well within the range of natural variation. Second, the Medieval Warm Period was a period of relatively hospitable weather that helped Western civilization claw its way out of the Dark Age. Sea levels didn't rise, storms and droughts didn't lay waste to the countryside—in short, none of the disasters predicted for current warming. And there was no runaway global warming. Within a few centuries, temperatures fell down again and slid into a "Little Ice Age" that lasted until 1850, when the recent warming trend began again.

So if the existence of the Medieval Warm Period is still up for debate, then the whole theory of man-made global warming is still up for debate.

thats two 12 gauge shells to shoot the messenger for "asleep in the dirt"....listen to Jimmy. Maybe we should make you "do" miss piggy as punishment. You have the same skin ? All in fun......see you guys on the Moon, as I'm outta fuel

I don't need a scientist to tell me this. Humans are so very full of themselves to believe that the Earth won't just adapt to us or wipe us out.

A "newspaper" that is fully discredited due to political bias.

For the academic and journalist John Lloyd, Dacre is presently the only "British newspaper editor who stamps himself on his newspaper every morning" reflecting "his unique blend of libertarian-authoritarian Conservatism"