Russ Steele
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project has received a lot of interest in the lame stream press and on the lefty blogs making all kinds of claims the BEST press releases support human caused climate change. Well yes, the plant is warming, but then again it has since the last ice age, with some ups during Medieval Warm Period and downs during the Little Ice Age. The BEST project did not assess the cause of the warming, only that it has been warming from about 1977 to 2002.
My interest in the BEST results was that it confirmed the temperatures during the Dalton Minimum, our last Grand Minimum.
If you are interested in critiques of the BEST project look here:
Willis Eschenbach: A preliminary assessment of BEST’s decline
Anthony Watts: BEST: What I agree with and what I disagree with – plus a call for additional transparency to prevent “pal” review
Steve McIntyre: First Thoughts on BEST
William Briggs: D.J. Keenan’s And My BEST Methodology Reviews
While the focus is on the warming, in the last ten year the temperatures have been declining.
And we are beginning to see some of the early preliminary results, shorter grape growing seasons and extended ski seasons. I say preliminary, because we are looking at only a few events, we need a longer period of a more positive assessment.
The Next Grand Minimum 