With snow falling across the US last week, ‘tis the season for the dumbest of denier memes: snow means no warming!
Ol’ reliable Marc Morano trotted out that sort of predictable nonsense for the Washington Times, for example, but the real action comes from those who took things a step further.
According to some (like DRUDGE, who linked to a story in the UK’s free daily tabloid Metro), NASA is forecasting a new mini-ice age. Apparently, a record cooling is coming for us “in a matter of months” because of a lack of sunspots (a bizarre theory we’ve discussed before).
The difference this time is that instead of coming from foreign, fringe researchers, this “news” is coming from NASA! What’s going on? Has Trump so thoroughly scared scientists that they’re publishing alternative facts? Has the constant stress of doing science in an anti-science administration driven them mad? Are we actually heading into a new ice age?!
The news has generated more than 200 comments over at denier blog IceAgeNow, and only a handful spotted the real story behind the hype.
Incredibly, Charles the Moderator over at WUWT was one who took note of the reality.
The findings laid out in the Metro story weren’t discussing the temperatures here at the surface of the planet where people live and experience weather, but instead looked at the most outer reaches of our atmosphere, where this sort of thing is completely normal and totally expected.
The temperatures miles above the Earth’s surface, right at the edge of space, are what’s being measured and discussed. This has basically zero relevance to our everyday lives, and because a cooling upper atmosphere is already expected to be a result of climate change, it in no way offers any evidence against the fact that burning fossil fuels is causing global warming.
So yes, for those who aren’t fighting for survival in a burning California, things might get chilly. But only those who live on the edge of space itself should worry about bundling up for a new ice age…
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