Are We Cooling Down?

It wasn’t a good year for gardening in New England. It’s been cold, and we had nearly record rainfall in June and July. All this cold and rainy weather may be a sign of a record snow year to come! Some people say we’re 10 years into a 30 year cooling period, driven by deep ocean currents. Ocean climatologists have studied this extensively. It's believed to be 30 years of cooling followed by 30 years of warming, on so on. It’s still warmer than ever, there’s no debate about that, but a natural cooling trend would be a blessing. It could decrease the rate of global warming and forestall some of the dire projections of the consequences of a warmer planet.

If the data does show a definite trend downward, and it becomes an accepted climate change, it will be interesting to see how everyone reacts. Will our attempts to have a greener planet get the credit? Will critics say anthropogenic global warming is a scam? Critics of global warming feel that way now. I’ve enclosed the most reputable climate history chart- it's produced by NOAA. The solid blue line is a 5 year average, so it lags the more recent temperatures changes, but it’s clearly flat or even tipping down a little? If you look at the chart in 30 year increments you can see there was a 30 year cooling period from 1880 – 1910, followed by a 30 year warming period to 1940, and another cooling period from 1940 – 1970, and finally a 30 year period of warming through 2000. The last cycle has been the cause of all the concern. One thing is certain- we’re in for interesting debates. Stay tuned over the next 10 years. The cooling cycle from 1940 – 1970 was slight, but it may have been working against man made global warming. The last 30 years were additive, the natural warming cycle augmented anthropogenic global warming- giving us unprecedented increases and causing world wide concern for the future.

The problem hasn’t gone away, but if it is modulated by this natural phenomenon, then we will likely have slower climate change than previous predictions.