Is global warming going the way of global cooling?

A BBC headline from last week has itself made headlines. Titled “What happened to global warming?”, the article‘s zinger was that the hottest year on record was 1998. It goes on to cite two scientists who have long doubted the theory of man-made climate change (to be clear, this theory does not claim that the climate has stopped all variability not caused by human activity; rather, it posits that human activity is driving a warming trend that exists alongside natural variability.)

Piers Corbyn claims that changes in solar activity have driven warming trends, rejecting studies that have concluded that “Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity.” The BBC points to possible future research by Cobyn that might pose a challenge to those findings.

The BBC article also points to research related to ocean cycles. Dan Easterbrook of Western Washington University claims that the Pacific decadal oscillation has just flipped, and will lead to 30 years of cooler temperatures. (The PDO is akin to the El Niño and La Niña cycles.)

Climate skeptics are all over the internet claiming victory for their cause. Even SFGate’s Debra Saunders seems to take this view.

But there’s nothing new in the BBC article. Both Corbyn and Easterbrook have long been outlier scientists who don’t accept the theory of man-made global warming. Corbyn has only the promise of future findings to back him up. Easterbrook simply points to a natural cooling trend that coexists with the anthropogenic warming trend.

Nor have climate scientists been scooped by the BBC’s zinger that 1998 was the hottest year yet…according to British data—which Real Climate says undercounts Arctic temperatures—but not according to American data.

Actually, I take Easterbrook’s research as good news: If a natural cooling trend will offset man-made warming for another few decades, as the IPCC’s Mojib Latif claims, we might have a chance to get our act together before things get really bad. After two years of dire warnings, the international community has made almost no reduction in greenhouse emissions, so we could use some additional time.

The only real question that remains after reading the article is, why did the BBC “sex up” its headline?

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