Maggie's Farm

"for how many years?"

Answer: not in my lifetime and probably not yours.

Global Warming, aka Climate Change, is fact; the universe changes and so does Earth. How much influence man is the unknown fact.

If man is causing, or about to cause dramatic, a disastrous temperature rise, then global government will attempt to regulate every aspect of life.

e.g. Talk of an individual carbon ration for each person is already taken seriously by some politicians.

Many believe global government should dominate anyway. They are thus inclined to believe in AGW is real, severe, and justifies immediate and mandatory actions

The fact that some will gain greatly in prestige, power, or wealth while others see their traditional political and/or religious beliefs crushed frames the arguments.

And to believe all scientists can be detached and objective about the biggest event (or non-event if you will) in the history of man is naive.

Oh, the Earth has not been cooling ever since 1998. That year was the hottest ever measured. (And we can't even be sure about that.)

Since then no trend is seen (except in arguments, arguments keep increasing.)

MM: your reply illustrates several of my points. We don't really know enough. And that promotes arguments which are as likely to reflect a POV about life as about temperature.

Officially 1934 is acknowledged as the warmest in the US. 1998 is said to have the warmest for the World.

Temperature history means something at a given point, such as Death Valley. History and global temperature means little for the whole world because records are not accurate enough for long enough. Eventually they will be.

And it is air temperature we cite but air is only part of what we must consider.

Ultimately sea and ground temperatures are more important simply because the atmosphere doesn't weigh much in comparison. We notice the air temperature but the big heat storage is elsewhere.

What is this careful unbiased study? It would take me a lifetime to perform my own and I would still be using data and information from others. Some would be old, I would have to guess about calibration, diligence, and many other factors.

All that data collection and evaluation is now done by world organizations and they apply weights and bias. And I cannot know if, or when, they are honest, mostly honest, or fabricating convenient facts as needed.

Thus, I weigh competing claims and arguments but from them I make my best guess. If others somehow "know" I admire their brilliance.

From the information and analysis I have seen there is nothing I can call rushing downhill ever since 1998. If a trend seems definite to you that is fine. I don't see it.