Br-r-r! Where did global warming go?
By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / January 6, 2008http://www.boston.com:80/bostonglobe/edit=

THE STARK headline appeared just over a year ago. "2007 to be 'warmest on
record,' " BBC News reported on Jan. 4, 2007. Citing experts in the Britis=

government's Meteorological Office, the story announced that "the world is=
likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007," surpassing the
all-time high reached in 1998.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the planetary hot flash: Much of
the planet grew bitterly cold.

In South America, for example, the start of winter last year was one of th=

coldest ever observed. According to Eugenio Hackbart, chief meteorologist =

the MetSul Weather Center in Brazil, "a brutal cold wave brought record lo=

temperatures, widespread frost, snow, and major energy disruption." In
Buenos Aires, it snowed for the first time in 89 years, while in Peru the
cold was so intense that hundreds of people died and the government declar=

a state of emergency in 14 of the country's 24 provinces. In August, Chile=

agriculture minister lamented "the toughest winter we have seen in the pas=

50 years," which caused losses of at least $200 million in destroyed crops=
and livestock.

Latin Americans weren't the only ones shivering.

University of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming, a specialist in
temperature and heat flow, notes in the Washington Times that "unexpected
bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007." Johannesburg
experienced its first significant snowfall in a quarter-century. Australia=
had its coldest ever June. New Zealand's vineyards lost much of their 2007=
harvest when spring temperatures dropped to record lows.

Closer to home, 44.5 inches of snow fell in New Hampshire last month,
breaking the previous record of 43 inches, set in 1876. And the Canadian
government is forecasting the coldest winter in 15 years.

Now all of these may be short-lived weather anomalies, mere blips in the
path of the global climatic warming that Al Gore and a host of alarmists
proclaim the deadliest threat we face. But what if the frigid conditions
that have caused so much distress in recent months signal an impending era=
of global cooling?

"Stock up on fur coats and felt boots!" advises Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow o=

the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and senior scientist at Moscow's
Shirshov Institute of Oceanography. "The latest data . . . say that earth
has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set=
in quite soon, by 2012."

Sorokhtin dismisses the conventional global warming theory that greenhouse=
gases, especially human-emitted carbon dioxide, is causing the earth to gr=

hotter. Like a number of other scientists, he points to solar activity -
sunspots and solar flares, which wax and wane over time - as having the
greatest effect on climate.

"Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change," Sorokhtin writ=

in an essay for Novosti. "Solar activity is many times more powerful than
the energy produced by the whole of humankind." In a recent paper for the
Danish National Space Center, physicists Henrik Svensmark and Eigil
Friis-Christensen concur: "The sun . . . appears to be the main forcing
agent in global climate change," they write.

Given the number of worldwide cold events, it is no surprise that 2007
didn't turn out to be the warmest ever. In fact, 2007's global temperature=
was essentially the same as that in 2006 - and 2005, and 2004, and every
year back to 2001. The record set in 1998 has not been surpassed. For near=

a decade now, there has been no global warming. Even though atmospheric
carbon dioxide continues to accumulate - it's up about 4 percent since
1998 - the global mean temperature has remained flat. That raises some
obvious questions about the theory that CO2 is the cause of climate change=

Yet so relentlessly has the alarmist scenario been hyped, and so
disdainfully have dissenting views been dismissed, that millions of people=
assume Gore must be right when he insists: "The debate in the scientific
community is over."

But it isn't. Just last month, more than 100 scientists signed a strongly
worded open letter pointing out that climate change is a well-known natura=

phenomenon, and that adapting to it is far more sensible than attempting t=

prevent it. Because slashing carbon dioxide emissions means retarding
economic development, they warned, "the current UN approach of CO2 reducti=

is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather th=

to decrease it."

Climate science isn't a religion, and those who dispute its leading theory=
are not heretics. Much remains to be learned about how and why climate
changes, and there is neither virtue nor wisdom in an emotional rush to
counter global warming - especially if what's coming is a global Big Chill=

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jac...@globe.com.

Br-r-r! Where did global warming go?