Real Climate has the answers on why I'm thinking about wearing shorts to work tomorrow even though it's freaking mid-January.

Two things that should be continually emphasized when talking about global warming.

1. Global Warming refers to mean global surface temperature. It seems every jackass can stick their arm about the window and say whether or not a global phenomenon exists. This is not how it works. At any given time the temperature in various places in the globe will me exceptionally warm or cool, this has nothing to do with global averages.
   
2. Global Warming is not going to take effect over the course of one freaking year. We're talking decades of high carbon levels are going to cause a disaster, and insane temperatures this winter (cause by El Nino as described by Real Climate) have nothing to do with long term trends.

So, chill out. Yes we are melting the planet, but our current insane whether is from El Nino pushing the jetstream way north, not some insane rapid effect from carbon increasing the mean temperature of the earth. That being said, El Nino combined with global warming will likely make 2007 the warmest year yet, but that doesn't mean that we're all going to die.

Labels: alarmism, global warming