Timeblog.net

In a recent article, RealClimate discusses what we experience whenever we go outside: It’s uncharacteristically warm for wintertime.
Now, RealClimate is very careful about the words and arguments they use, so I try not to stomp too much on their meticulously chosen words. They put two possible arguments for this warm phase to the trial: Influence of a current El Nino phenomenon or of climate change.
The El Nino argument seems pretty weak, as this warm phase looks like a stronger repeat of last year’s weather, while no El Nino but the opposite phenomenon was present. Also, the current warming is so big that it can not be explained just by the influence of a modestly strong El Nino.
But the climate models predict influences of human’s attribution to global warming that agree with what we experience. That said, we also have to stay clear on the fact that climate is a long-year average, long-year being at least 30 years. So not only can a local weather not be directly linked to climate, neither can two years of weather phenomena. But, that global trend we expect and the measured facts agree, that’s already a strong point.
That said, it’s also what most scientists expect and agree on; and whether this warm winter is now only a spatially or temporarily limited weather phenomenon or a direct consequence of climate warming; the anthropogenic influence is what causes both climate warming and stronger and more frequent weather phenomena.