Alaska glaciers grew this year, thanks to colder weather
http://www.adn.com/news/environment/story/555283.html
`
The Global Warming Debate
- Thread starter Greed
- Start date
Alaska glaciers grew this year, thanks to colder weather
http://www.adn.com/news/environment/story/555283.html
`
<font size="5 "><Center>
Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof</font size></center>
National Post
October 20, 2008
by Lorne Hunter
In early September, I began noticing a string of news stories about scientists rejecting the orthodoxy on global warming. Actually, it was more like a string of guest columns and long letters to the editor since it is hard for skeptical scientists to get published in the cabal of climate journals now controlled by the Great Sanhedrin of the environmental movement.
Still, the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly. Because a funny thing is happening to global temperatures -- they're going down, not up.
On the same day (Sept. 5) that areas of southern Brazil were recording one of their latest winter snowfalls ever and entering what turned out to be their coldest September in a century, Brazilian meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart explained that extreme cold or snowfall events in his country have always been tied to "a negative PDO" or Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Positive PDOs -- El Ninos -- produce above-average temperatures in South America while negative ones -- La Ninas -- produce below average ones.
Dr. Hackbart also pointed out that periods of solar inactivity known as "solar minimums" magnify cold spells on his continent. So, given that August was the first month since 1913 in which no sunspot activity was recorded -- none -- and during which solar winds were at a 50-year low, he was not surprised that Brazilians were suffering (for them) a brutal cold snap. "This is no coincidence," he said as he scoffed at the notion that manmade carbon emissions had more impact than the sun and oceans on global climate.
Also in September, American Craig Loehle, a scientist who conducts computer modelling on global climate change, confirmed his earlier findings that the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) of about 1,000 years ago did in fact exist and was even warmer than 20th-century temperatures.
Prior to the past decade of climate hysteria and Kyoto hype, the MWP was a given in the scientific community. Several hundred studies of tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediment, ice cores and early written records of weather -- even harvest totals and censuses --confirmed that the period from 800 AD to 1300 AD was unusually warm, particularly in Northern Europe.
But in order to prove the climate scaremongers' claim that 20th-century warming had been dangerous and unprecedented -- a result of human, not natural factors -- the MWP had to be made to disappear. So studies such as Michael Mann's "hockey stick," in which there is no MWP and global temperatures rise gradually until they jump up in the industrial age, have been adopted by the UN as proof that recent climate change necessitates a reordering of human economies and societies.
Dr. Loehle's work helps end this deception.
Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University, says, "It's practically a slam dunk that we are in for about 30 years of global cooling," as the sun enters a particularly inactive phase. His examination of warming and cooling trends over the past four centuries shows an "almost exact correlation" between climate fluctuations and solar energy received on Earth, while showing almost "no correlation at all with CO2."
An analytical chemist who works in spectroscopy and atmospheric sensing, Michael J. Myers of Hilton Head, S. C., declared, "Man-made global warming is junk science," explaining that worldwide manmade CO2 emission each year "equals about 0.0168% of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration ... This results in a 0.00064% increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number."
Other international scientists have called the manmade warming theory a "hoax," a "fraud" and simply "not credible."
While not stooping to such name-calling, weather-satellite scientists David Douglass of the University of Rochester and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville nonetheless dealt the True Believers a devastating blow last month.
For nearly 30 years, Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe. In a paper co-written with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that while manmade emissions may be having a slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide."
Moreover, while the chart below was not produced by Douglass and Christy, it was produced using their data and it clearly shows that in the past four years -- the period corresponding to reduced solar activity -- all of the rise in global temperatures since 1979 has disappeared.
It may be that more global warming doubters are surfacing because there just isn't any global warming.
lgunter@shaw.ca
National Post
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...rty-years-of-warmer-temperatures-go-poof.aspx
Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof</font size></center>
National Post
October 20, 2008
by Lorne Hunter
In early September, I began noticing a string of news stories about scientists rejecting the orthodoxy on global warming. Actually, it was more like a string of guest columns and long letters to the editor since it is hard for skeptical scientists to get published in the cabal of climate journals now controlled by the Great Sanhedrin of the environmental movement.
Still, the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly. Because a funny thing is happening to global temperatures -- they're going down, not up.
On the same day (Sept. 5) that areas of southern Brazil were recording one of their latest winter snowfalls ever and entering what turned out to be their coldest September in a century, Brazilian meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart explained that extreme cold or snowfall events in his country have always been tied to "a negative PDO" or Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Positive PDOs -- El Ninos -- produce above-average temperatures in South America while negative ones -- La Ninas -- produce below average ones.
Dr. Hackbart also pointed out that periods of solar inactivity known as "solar minimums" magnify cold spells on his continent. So, given that August was the first month since 1913 in which no sunspot activity was recorded -- none -- and during which solar winds were at a 50-year low, he was not surprised that Brazilians were suffering (for them) a brutal cold snap. "This is no coincidence," he said as he scoffed at the notion that manmade carbon emissions had more impact than the sun and oceans on global climate.
Also in September, American Craig Loehle, a scientist who conducts computer modelling on global climate change, confirmed his earlier findings that the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) of about 1,000 years ago did in fact exist and was even warmer than 20th-century temperatures.
Prior to the past decade of climate hysteria and Kyoto hype, the MWP was a given in the scientific community. Several hundred studies of tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediment, ice cores and early written records of weather -- even harvest totals and censuses --confirmed that the period from 800 AD to 1300 AD was unusually warm, particularly in Northern Europe.
But in order to prove the climate scaremongers' claim that 20th-century warming had been dangerous and unprecedented -- a result of human, not natural factors -- the MWP had to be made to disappear. So studies such as Michael Mann's "hockey stick," in which there is no MWP and global temperatures rise gradually until they jump up in the industrial age, have been adopted by the UN as proof that recent climate change necessitates a reordering of human economies and societies.
Dr. Loehle's work helps end this deception.
Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University, says, "It's practically a slam dunk that we are in for about 30 years of global cooling," as the sun enters a particularly inactive phase. His examination of warming and cooling trends over the past four centuries shows an "almost exact correlation" between climate fluctuations and solar energy received on Earth, while showing almost "no correlation at all with CO2."
An analytical chemist who works in spectroscopy and atmospheric sensing, Michael J. Myers of Hilton Head, S. C., declared, "Man-made global warming is junk science," explaining that worldwide manmade CO2 emission each year "equals about 0.0168% of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration ... This results in a 0.00064% increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number."
Other international scientists have called the manmade warming theory a "hoax," a "fraud" and simply "not credible."
While not stooping to such name-calling, weather-satellite scientists David Douglass of the University of Rochester and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville nonetheless dealt the True Believers a devastating blow last month.
For nearly 30 years, Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe. In a paper co-written with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that while manmade emissions may be having a slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide."
Moreover, while the chart below was not produced by Douglass and Christy, it was produced using their data and it clearly shows that in the past four years -- the period corresponding to reduced solar activity -- all of the rise in global temperatures since 1979 has disappeared.
It may be that more global warming doubters are surfacing because there just isn't any global warming.
lgunter@shaw.ca
National Post
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...rty-years-of-warmer-temperatures-go-poof.aspx
<font size="5"><center>
How Arctic melting could benefit
shippers, oil companies</font size></center>
McClatchy Newspapers
By Renee Schoof
Friday, November 21, 2008
WASHINGTON — With global warming melting the Arctic's eons-old ice at an alarming rate, shipping and oil companies are looking ahead at how to exploit the new open waters.
For the past 30 years, the summer Arctic icepack has been shrinking. In 2007, the melt reached record levels. This past summer, the ice shrank to the second smallest area on record.
And while much of the discussions so far have been focused on dealing with global warming and on preserving habitat and protecting polar bears and walruses, another change is looming. When will commercial interests be able to develop the once-impregnable region?
Scientists say the Arctic's seas could be essentially free of ice in the summertime by mid-century.
"I'm convinced, based on models and observations, the trend is one of accelerated ice loss, and we're probably looking at a scenario, even with the best efforts to mitigate (global warming), that we'll continue to see loss," said Richard Spinrad, director of research for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Already, shipping already has increased within the Arctic Circle to serve the oil and gas industry.
The recent increase has been the result of a spike in commodity prices, not to capitalize on retreating sea ice, said Lawson Brigham, a former Coast Guard captain and climate scientist who made many voyages into the Arctic and around Antarctica.
The pull is strong in a world dependent on petroleum. In July, the U.S. Geological Survey issued the first public estimate of the petroleum resources north of the Arctic Circle. Its findings: 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Brigham is helping plan for the changes ahead as chairman of the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum of eight Arctic nations.
"We don't profess to know exactly how industry will move ahead, but we know there's an increase of ships in the Arctic Ocean, and maybe that increase hasn't been matched by policy responses from safety and environmental standpoint, so that's what we're working on," he said.
Brigham was the captain of the icebreaker Polar Sea in 1994 when it teamed in a scientific expedition with Canada's Louis S. St. Laurent to make the first ocean-to-ocean surface voyage over the North Pole. "There was a lot more ice there than there is today," he said. "Quite an extraordinary difference in 14 years."
Except for some cruise ships and icebreakers, the traffic in the Arctic now is regional — mostly ships going in and out to provide transportation for the oil and gas industry, he said.
Oil companies have been looking at Alaska's arctic waters as a new frontier.
And in the past two years, the Bush administration has leased large parts of those waters — the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.
Shell was the main buyer of the Chukchi leases in February, spending $2.1 billion.
"Shell, like many other national and international oil companies, is actively assessing Arctic opportunities," said Shell spokeswoman Darci Sinclair.
Conservation groups and Native communities challenged the Minerals Management Service's approval of a permit for Shell to drill exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea. On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the MMS did not conduct the "hard look" at environmental impacts required by law and canceled the permit.
"We're very concerned about the aggressiveness the Bush administration has shown about oil and gas leasing in polar bear habitat," said Mike Daulton, the legislative director of the National Audubon Society.
Alaska's oil mostly is produced on land. The U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates Alaska's offshore waters hold 26.6 billion barrels of oil that are technically recoverable, and that nearly 90 percent of it is in the Arctic.
Shell wants to drill in open water during the summer and fall seasons.
"We can only conduct exploratory drilling in open water conditions because of the mobile nature of our drill rigs," Sinclair said. "From season to season, as we drill exploratory wells, those wells will be capped over the winter and revisited when the open water allows."
"In the event the project moves in to the development and production stages, we envision putting in place a permanent structure that can withstand moving sea ice," she said. "We have yet to decide what that structure would look like."
There's also competition. Russia has claimed a vast territory in the Arctic Ocean by declaring that the undersea Lomonosov Ridge is its continental shelf, setting up a dispute with the U.S., Canada and other Arctic nations.
The U.S., Russia and other nations agreed earlier this year to use the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea to sort out competing claims. The U.S. can't bring any claims, however, because the Senate hasn't ratified it.
Development hasn't proved easy so far for Russia's national energy company, Gazprom, in the Shtokman gas field near Murmansk, even in open water of the Barents Sea, said William Chandler, an energy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"If there weren't almost insurmountable technical and financial challenges to get that stuff, why isn't it happening?" Chandler said.
Russia also has problems on land, where ice roads needed for development in the Western Siberian basin are melting earlier, leaving less time for exploration and development, Chandler said.
U.S. Navy Cmdr. Andrew Garlington, who works on maritime security policy, said the Navy is planning for increased use of the Arctic.
"But let me give you a caution," Garlington said. "When you hear ice-free waters in the Arctic, that doesn't mean it's free of all ice. That just means it's less than 10 percent coverage. It's still a very dangerous and dynamic environment up there."
The Coast Guard also is looking north and working with Canada and Russia on oil spill response plans.
The Northwest Passage between Baffin Bay and the Beaufort Sea was navigable for a period starting late last August, and also the year before. But Michael Storgaard, a spokesman for A.P. Moller-Maersk, the world's biggest shipping company, said it's shallow with many narrow straits, not fully mapped in detail and lacking large-scale rescue and repair facilities.
"For now, we do not see any immediate commercial possibilities in connection with the Northwest Passage," he said. "Our view is also that it will be some time, perhaps even decades, before we see a more consistent commercial utilization."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/56317.html
How Arctic melting could benefit
shippers, oil companies</font size></center>
McClatchy Newspapers
By Renee Schoof
Friday, November 21, 2008
WASHINGTON — With global warming melting the Arctic's eons-old ice at an alarming rate, shipping and oil companies are looking ahead at how to exploit the new open waters.
For the past 30 years, the summer Arctic icepack has been shrinking. In 2007, the melt reached record levels. This past summer, the ice shrank to the second smallest area on record.
And while much of the discussions so far have been focused on dealing with global warming and on preserving habitat and protecting polar bears and walruses, another change is looming. When will commercial interests be able to develop the once-impregnable region?
Scientists say the Arctic's seas could be essentially free of ice in the summertime by mid-century.
"I'm convinced, based on models and observations, the trend is one of accelerated ice loss, and we're probably looking at a scenario, even with the best efforts to mitigate (global warming), that we'll continue to see loss," said Richard Spinrad, director of research for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Already, shipping already has increased within the Arctic Circle to serve the oil and gas industry.
The recent increase has been the result of a spike in commodity prices, not to capitalize on retreating sea ice, said Lawson Brigham, a former Coast Guard captain and climate scientist who made many voyages into the Arctic and around Antarctica.
The pull is strong in a world dependent on petroleum. In July, the U.S. Geological Survey issued the first public estimate of the petroleum resources north of the Arctic Circle. Its findings: 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Brigham is helping plan for the changes ahead as chairman of the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum of eight Arctic nations.
"We don't profess to know exactly how industry will move ahead, but we know there's an increase of ships in the Arctic Ocean, and maybe that increase hasn't been matched by policy responses from safety and environmental standpoint, so that's what we're working on," he said.
Brigham was the captain of the icebreaker Polar Sea in 1994 when it teamed in a scientific expedition with Canada's Louis S. St. Laurent to make the first ocean-to-ocean surface voyage over the North Pole. "There was a lot more ice there than there is today," he said. "Quite an extraordinary difference in 14 years."
Except for some cruise ships and icebreakers, the traffic in the Arctic now is regional — mostly ships going in and out to provide transportation for the oil and gas industry, he said.
Oil companies have been looking at Alaska's arctic waters as a new frontier.
And in the past two years, the Bush administration has leased large parts of those waters — the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.
Shell was the main buyer of the Chukchi leases in February, spending $2.1 billion.
"Shell, like many other national and international oil companies, is actively assessing Arctic opportunities," said Shell spokeswoman Darci Sinclair.
Conservation groups and Native communities challenged the Minerals Management Service's approval of a permit for Shell to drill exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea. On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the MMS did not conduct the "hard look" at environmental impacts required by law and canceled the permit.
"We're very concerned about the aggressiveness the Bush administration has shown about oil and gas leasing in polar bear habitat," said Mike Daulton, the legislative director of the National Audubon Society.
Alaska's oil mostly is produced on land. The U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates Alaska's offshore waters hold 26.6 billion barrels of oil that are technically recoverable, and that nearly 90 percent of it is in the Arctic.
Shell wants to drill in open water during the summer and fall seasons.
"We can only conduct exploratory drilling in open water conditions because of the mobile nature of our drill rigs," Sinclair said. "From season to season, as we drill exploratory wells, those wells will be capped over the winter and revisited when the open water allows."
"In the event the project moves in to the development and production stages, we envision putting in place a permanent structure that can withstand moving sea ice," she said. "We have yet to decide what that structure would look like."
There's also competition. Russia has claimed a vast territory in the Arctic Ocean by declaring that the undersea Lomonosov Ridge is its continental shelf, setting up a dispute with the U.S., Canada and other Arctic nations.
The U.S., Russia and other nations agreed earlier this year to use the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea to sort out competing claims. The U.S. can't bring any claims, however, because the Senate hasn't ratified it.
Development hasn't proved easy so far for Russia's national energy company, Gazprom, in the Shtokman gas field near Murmansk, even in open water of the Barents Sea, said William Chandler, an energy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"If there weren't almost insurmountable technical and financial challenges to get that stuff, why isn't it happening?" Chandler said.
Russia also has problems on land, where ice roads needed for development in the Western Siberian basin are melting earlier, leaving less time for exploration and development, Chandler said.
U.S. Navy Cmdr. Andrew Garlington, who works on maritime security policy, said the Navy is planning for increased use of the Arctic.
"But let me give you a caution," Garlington said. "When you hear ice-free waters in the Arctic, that doesn't mean it's free of all ice. That just means it's less than 10 percent coverage. It's still a very dangerous and dynamic environment up there."
The Coast Guard also is looking north and working with Canada and Russia on oil spill response plans.
The Northwest Passage between Baffin Bay and the Beaufort Sea was navigable for a period starting late last August, and also the year before. But Michael Storgaard, a spokesman for A.P. Moller-Maersk, the world's biggest shipping company, said it's shallow with many narrow straits, not fully mapped in detail and lacking large-scale rescue and repair facilities.
"For now, we do not see any immediate commercial possibilities in connection with the Northwest Passage," he said. "Our view is also that it will be some time, perhaps even decades, before we see a more consistent commercial utilization."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/56317.html
The Sun which is the primary engine of our weather production and the determinant of major weather cycles. The earth has gone through two ice ages! That means it cooled down and warmed up on its on. No human involvement! Its the Sun! The SUN! I have written before. The current global warming bull is about carbon taxes and other United Nations money redistribution policies. A warmer earth is also not the worst thing that could happen to the earth.
<font size="5"><center>
Global warming studies
often depend on average citizens</font size></center>
Japanese cherry blossoms flower every spring around
the Tidel Basin in Washington DC
McClatchy Newspapers
By Les Blumenthal
Sunday, February 8, 2009
WASHINGTON — It has to do with brown-headed cowbirds and clear-cut forests, lilacs and wildfires, vineyards in the Rhine Valley, marmots, dandelions, tadpoles, cherry trees around the Tidal Basin in Washington and musty old records stuffed in shoe boxes in people's closets and stacked on museum shelves.
As scientists track global warming, they're using sometimes centuries-old data to assess its impact on plants, animals, insects, fish, reptiles and amphibians. Increasingly, they're discovering that it can take only one seemingly insignificant change to disrupt an entire ecosystem.
"People talk about a 1- or 2-degree rise in temperature and it's inconsequential to us. Who cares?" said Greg Jones, an environmental studies professor at Southern Oregon University who's been studying wine grapes. "But in an ecosystem it can have dramatic effects."
As the study of phenology, or life cycles, attracts growing attention, researchers are turning more and more to citizen scientists for help.
Since 1954, more than 1,000 people nationwide have monitored lilacs, recording when they first develop leaves, buds and blossoms in a program that started in Montana and is now part of the National Phenology Network. The data now can be submitted online.
Another 3,500 or so people are monitoring 4,500 different plants as part of Project BudBurst, another online program. Eventually those involved in the project would like to have 40,000 people tracking plants, shrubs and trees from kinnikinick to chokecherry and wheat to Western columbine.
"The biggest hit has been dandelions," said Jake Weltzin, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey who's the executive director of the National Phenology Network. "Everyone cares about dandelions."
Besides scientists and professional land managers, kindergartners, master gardeners, farmers, fishermen and bird, frog and butterfly watchers have participated. Weltzin said that every time he spoke with a garden club, about one in every five people who attended had detailed records tucked away on their plants, trees and shrubs.
Next year, the phenology network is launching a program to monitor wildlife and track such things as bird, fish and mammal migration.
"It's easy to observe when the plants in your garden flower or when the birds arrive at the feeder in your yard," said Abraham Miller-Rushing of the Wildlife Society.
Stored in cabinets at the University of Washington's Burke Museum are 12,000 file cards dating to 1955. The cards, according to curator Sievert Rohwer, provide a gold mine of information on the birds of the Pacific Northwest. The museum receives hundreds of cards a year from people who are tracking more than 100 species of birds. The museum unsuccessfully sought a National Science Foundation grant to organize the information online.
"It's a critical database that is enormously valuable," Rohwer said.
For instance, Rohwer said the records showed that brown-headed cowbirds were somewhat rare in the Northwest in the 1960s and 1970s because the region was too forested. "But now they are everywhere," he said.
Technically, phenology is the study of the seasonal timing of plant and animal life cycles, including such things as animal and bird migrations, emergence from hibernation and blooming, leafing and flowering. Over the past 10 years it's increasingly become a mainstay in the study of climate change, as life cycles are thought to be among the most sensitive to global warming.
Using data from official and unofficial sources, scientists say that spring, on average, is arriving roughly a week earlier than it did 50 years ago. That's caused ripple effects in natural ecosystems. For instance, if plants bloom earlier, insects and birds must adjust. Some species may respond better than others. Those that don't could disappear.
"It's clear changes in phenology are an early warning sign of climate change," said Daniel Schindler, an associate professor at the University of Washington's School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences.
Using records dating to 1784, Southern Oregon University's Jones said that bud break for wine grapes in Europe's Rhine Valley was coming three weeks earlier than it did 50 years ago. Pests such as mites and aphids have to adjust to the new schedule, as do the ladybugs that eat them. Jones said the real problem, however, might be that the grapes were maturing earlier and had to be picked in the heat of late summer. That could affect quality. Wine grapes are best when they're harvested in fall temperatures.
Records for wine country in California, eastern Washington state and elsewhere in the United States are much sketchier. Even so, Jones said that the "same thing we are seeing in Europe we are seeing in the limited data here."
Perhaps the classic example of the impact of climate change on an ecological community is oak trees in the Netherlands, which are leafing out earlier. The winter moth caterpillars that feed on the leaves are coming out earlier. The pied flycatchers that eat winter moth caterpillars remain on the old schedule, however, as they migrate from central Africa to the Netherlands. In some areas, the populations of pied flycatchers have dropped 90 percent.
"There are similar stories everywhere," Miller-Rushing said.
The cherry trees in Washington, D.C., are flowering earlier, marmots in the Rocky Mountains are emerging earlier, butterflies are moving farther north and in some cases practically have become invasive species, and everything from prairie dogs to tadpoles and apples to peaches is being affected, Weltzin said.
Lilacs have been the star of the program so far, he said. They're a common plant, they grow almost everywhere and their life-cycle changes are easy to observe. As opposed to many plants, however, lilacs may be blooming later because of climate change. Weltzin said lilacs needed their winter sleep, and that the warmer and drier it was the later they woke up.
"It's very counterintuitive," he said.
In general, Weltzin said, if lilacs in the West bloom after May 20, it's going to be a major forest fire season.
"We need to know how all these organisms respond to climate change," Weltzin said. "We call it the pulse of our planet, or timing is everything."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/61702.html
Global warming studies
often depend on average citizens</font size></center>
Japanese cherry blossoms flower every spring around
the Tidel Basin in Washington DC
McClatchy Newspapers
By Les Blumenthal
Sunday, February 8, 2009
WASHINGTON — It has to do with brown-headed cowbirds and clear-cut forests, lilacs and wildfires, vineyards in the Rhine Valley, marmots, dandelions, tadpoles, cherry trees around the Tidal Basin in Washington and musty old records stuffed in shoe boxes in people's closets and stacked on museum shelves.
As scientists track global warming, they're using sometimes centuries-old data to assess its impact on plants, animals, insects, fish, reptiles and amphibians. Increasingly, they're discovering that it can take only one seemingly insignificant change to disrupt an entire ecosystem.
"People talk about a 1- or 2-degree rise in temperature and it's inconsequential to us. Who cares?" said Greg Jones, an environmental studies professor at Southern Oregon University who's been studying wine grapes. "But in an ecosystem it can have dramatic effects."
As the study of phenology, or life cycles, attracts growing attention, researchers are turning more and more to citizen scientists for help.
Since 1954, more than 1,000 people nationwide have monitored lilacs, recording when they first develop leaves, buds and blossoms in a program that started in Montana and is now part of the National Phenology Network. The data now can be submitted online.
Another 3,500 or so people are monitoring 4,500 different plants as part of Project BudBurst, another online program. Eventually those involved in the project would like to have 40,000 people tracking plants, shrubs and trees from kinnikinick to chokecherry and wheat to Western columbine.
"The biggest hit has been dandelions," said Jake Weltzin, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey who's the executive director of the National Phenology Network. "Everyone cares about dandelions."
Besides scientists and professional land managers, kindergartners, master gardeners, farmers, fishermen and bird, frog and butterfly watchers have participated. Weltzin said that every time he spoke with a garden club, about one in every five people who attended had detailed records tucked away on their plants, trees and shrubs.
Next year, the phenology network is launching a program to monitor wildlife and track such things as bird, fish and mammal migration.
"It's easy to observe when the plants in your garden flower or when the birds arrive at the feeder in your yard," said Abraham Miller-Rushing of the Wildlife Society.
Stored in cabinets at the University of Washington's Burke Museum are 12,000 file cards dating to 1955. The cards, according to curator Sievert Rohwer, provide a gold mine of information on the birds of the Pacific Northwest. The museum receives hundreds of cards a year from people who are tracking more than 100 species of birds. The museum unsuccessfully sought a National Science Foundation grant to organize the information online.
"It's a critical database that is enormously valuable," Rohwer said.
For instance, Rohwer said the records showed that brown-headed cowbirds were somewhat rare in the Northwest in the 1960s and 1970s because the region was too forested. "But now they are everywhere," he said.
Technically, phenology is the study of the seasonal timing of plant and animal life cycles, including such things as animal and bird migrations, emergence from hibernation and blooming, leafing and flowering. Over the past 10 years it's increasingly become a mainstay in the study of climate change, as life cycles are thought to be among the most sensitive to global warming.
Using data from official and unofficial sources, scientists say that spring, on average, is arriving roughly a week earlier than it did 50 years ago. That's caused ripple effects in natural ecosystems. For instance, if plants bloom earlier, insects and birds must adjust. Some species may respond better than others. Those that don't could disappear.
"It's clear changes in phenology are an early warning sign of climate change," said Daniel Schindler, an associate professor at the University of Washington's School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences.
Using records dating to 1784, Southern Oregon University's Jones said that bud break for wine grapes in Europe's Rhine Valley was coming three weeks earlier than it did 50 years ago. Pests such as mites and aphids have to adjust to the new schedule, as do the ladybugs that eat them. Jones said the real problem, however, might be that the grapes were maturing earlier and had to be picked in the heat of late summer. That could affect quality. Wine grapes are best when they're harvested in fall temperatures.
Records for wine country in California, eastern Washington state and elsewhere in the United States are much sketchier. Even so, Jones said that the "same thing we are seeing in Europe we are seeing in the limited data here."
Perhaps the classic example of the impact of climate change on an ecological community is oak trees in the Netherlands, which are leafing out earlier. The winter moth caterpillars that feed on the leaves are coming out earlier. The pied flycatchers that eat winter moth caterpillars remain on the old schedule, however, as they migrate from central Africa to the Netherlands. In some areas, the populations of pied flycatchers have dropped 90 percent.
"There are similar stories everywhere," Miller-Rushing said.
The cherry trees in Washington, D.C., are flowering earlier, marmots in the Rocky Mountains are emerging earlier, butterflies are moving farther north and in some cases practically have become invasive species, and everything from prairie dogs to tadpoles and apples to peaches is being affected, Weltzin said.
Lilacs have been the star of the program so far, he said. They're a common plant, they grow almost everywhere and their life-cycle changes are easy to observe. As opposed to many plants, however, lilacs may be blooming later because of climate change. Weltzin said lilacs needed their winter sleep, and that the warmer and drier it was the later they woke up.
"It's very counterintuitive," he said.
In general, Weltzin said, if lilacs in the West bloom after May 20, it's going to be a major forest fire season.
"We need to know how all these organisms respond to climate change," Weltzin said. "We call it the pulse of our planet, or timing is everything."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/61702.html
Global Ice Cap coverage underestimated
From freerepublic.com
If the polar ice cap was overestimated by this much, that shit would have been all over the news.
From freerepublic.com
If the polar ice cap was overestimated by this much, that shit would have been all over the news.
Global Warming is such a fraud. Ya'll debatin' the science, I'm peepin the game! Remember, Al Gore was the one who brought us NAFTA (see 1993 debates with Ross Perot). In the words of 'W'....Fool me once 
The EU president in the following clip is saying that it was being used as a tool to surpress human freedom . Klaus blames "alarmists" for misusing climate change information to try to expand the role of government. peace
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The EU president in the following clip is saying that it was being used as a tool to surpress human freedom . Klaus blames "alarmists" for misusing climate change information to try to expand the role of government. peace
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3A8yjGc8qWk&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3A8yjGc8qWk&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
From townhall.com
Special Report: Global Warming Gloom and Doom Cools Off
Roy Spencer
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Based solely on a far-Left agenda that includes a plan to control worldwide energy production, the climate change hysteria movement has jumped the shark. Now our leaders need to start asking tough questions of Al Gore, the United Nations IPCC and other alarmists.
Reducing your carbon footprint in the wake of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” was the hottest thing for liberal elites and celebrities alike, but their sell to the American people seems to have gotten stale.
It appears that politicians haven’t lost interest, though. Even though global temperatures stopped rising in 2001 and despite the almost total failure of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the European Union, President-elect Obama continues to make green energy and a new green economy one of his top agenda items. The Supreme Court’s 2008 decision that carbon dioxide is indeed a “pollutant”— and its instruction to the EPA that it must decide whether to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act—offers Obama the opportunity to force new and costly carbon emissions regulations on businesses large and small.
Even if the EPA decides not to regulate CO2, the Democrat-controlled Congress will at some point in the next two years be debating legislation that would cap carbon dioxide emissions and set up a mechanism for the trading of carbon emission permits between companies. A massive new government bureaucracy will be formed, and when it comes to something as ethereal as trying to document and limit the amount of carbon dioxide a company is allowed to emit, the opportunities for fraud and gaming the system will be limited only by one’s imagination.
Yet even as our country careens toward government-mandated reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, the scientifi c basis for doing so is gradually eroding away. Our new understanding of how the climate system operates will eventually lead to the realization that what Al Gore likes to call the “climate crisis” has been based upon the greatest scientifi c faux pas in history.
There are two new scientifi c fi ndings that will have a huge impact on the global warming debate—if they are allowed to see the light of day. The fi rst is compelling new evidence that suggests that global warming has been mostly natural, the result of an internally generated climate fl uctuation called the Pacifi c Decadal Oscillation. The second is the increasing amount of observational evidence that the climate system is largely insensitive to our greenhouse gas emissions.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
What all of this would mean is that Mother Nature doesn’t really care how big your carbon footprint is and that she is going to cause chaotic changes in climate whether or not we humans are around to blame it on ourselves.
But let’s fi rst examine how we got to the point where Western civilization now believes that the tailpipe emissions from SUVs are cooking the planet. Carbon dioxide is an odorless, colorless gas that is essential for life on Earth—it is required for a process called photosynthesis. And without photosynthesis, life on Earth is pretty much done for.
Despite its central role as an elixir of life, there is surprisingly little CO2 around us: only 39 CO2 molecules out of every 100,000 molecules of air. And it takes humanity fi ve years to increase that concentration by one more molecule of CO2 per 100,000 molecules of air.
So how did such a natural—indeed, essential—component of life get such a bad rap? Because the leadership of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been working for 20 years to build a scientifi c case for the view that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has caused the global warming we have experienced over the last 50 to 100 years and that warming is going to get much worse in the future. That carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas is indisputable— that it has caused global warming, though, is not.
The fear of global warming has resonated with a number of politicians and entertainers who needed something to worry about, something to fi ght for and to give their lives meaning—and to make lots of money on, too. Some climate scientists have even made statements to the effect that “reducing carbon dioxide emissions is the right thing to do anyway, no matter what the science says”.
But what is the basis for such a belief? It is bothersome that the debate over whether more CO2 in the atmosphere might actually be a good thing was never allowed to occur.
The belief that everything that mankind does is bad for the environment is arbitrary and religious. Change in nature is ubiquitous, and the idea that nature cannot handle human-induced change is a romantic notion that even scientists hold on to. When nature changes all by itself, there are always winners and losers. The existence of trees on the Earth no doubt changes the climate system; why should it be any different for the existence of humans?
Given the importance of carbon dioxide to life on Earth, I would never have imagined that we would see the day when the United States Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide is a “pollutant,” but here we are anyway. Gore claims we dump 70 millions tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every day as if it was an “open sewer.” I say we are enhancing the productivity of life on Earth, allowing it to breathe more freely than it has been able to since prehistoric times.
TIME FOR A REALITY CHECK
But even if global warming is entirely man made, the regulatory path we are traveling down ignores some very stark realities. The most important reality from a practical standpoint is the fact that there are still no largescale replacements for fossil fuels. As worldwide demand for energy continues to grow, the United States has been prevented by special interests from even keeping pace with our slowly increasing need for energy.
While renewable energy sources sound attractive, the fact is that we still need electricity when the sun doesn’t shine and when the wind doesn’t blow. The world needs food, and the diversion of crops into liquid fuel production pushes those around the world who were merely malnourished into starvation.
It’s hard to tell whether the proponents of the rush to biofuels are merely misguided or actively seeking to reduce the world’s population by starving poor people. Roy Innis, chairman of the Congress On Racial Equality, has written a new book titled “Energy Keepers, Energy Killers: The New Civil Rights Battle.” Innis makes the case that it is time for people to wake up to the reality that their guilt over using fossil fuels ends up killing people, mainly the poor.
You might think hydrogen power sounds really cool, but that hydrogen has to come from somewhere—there are no hydrogen mines—and it takes energy to make it. Where will that energy come from? Unless we begin embracing more nuclear power plants and stop blocking the construction of new coal-fi red power plants, energy will become increasingly expensive … and scarce. Brownouts and blackouts are almost inevitable in the coming years.
Plug-in hybrid cars seem like a good way to reduce our dependence on petroleum, but unless we start building more nuclear plants right now, we will be simply making the problem worse.
And if you think natural gas is the answer, you need to know that Vladimir Putin and Russian natural gas company Gazprom (the largest extractor of natural gas in the world) now have greater control of the world’s natural gas market than OPEC has of petroleum. Putin is trying to buy up natural gas companies all over the world—including right here in the United States. The national security of an increasing number of European countries heavily dependent upon natural gas is now in Putin’s hands.
The truth is that there are no zero-risk, environmentally neutral energy technologies. We probably need to be doing everything—drilling, pumping, building nuclear and coal-fi red power plants, and even building some solar and wind generation capabilities where they are economically viable. But the reality is that fossil fuels will dominate the world’s energy mix for many, many years to come.
It is true that fossil fuel supplies are being slowly depleted; they are not limitless. We will indeed need new energy technologies to replace fossil fuels, but new technologies cannot be simply legislated into existence. They will instead come through free market forces. Everyone needs energy, and whoever develops economic and widely deployable replacements for fossil fuels stands to make a lot of money.
Some people might “feel” like reducing carbon dioxide emissions is the right thing to do, but feelings will not create the energy supplies mankind needs on a daily basis.
Editors' note: This article is a free preview from Townhall Magazine. Click here to subscribe and receive a free copy of either Ann Coulter, Michael Yon, or Rebecca Hagelin's book.
BAD SCIENCE AND GREATER GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL
The IPCC has advertised itself to be the most authoritative scientifi c body for keeping the world informed on man-made climate change. But the IPCC is more of a policy-oriented body that uses cherry-picked scientifi c research to further its agenda. Their enlistment of most of the world’s leading climate researchers allows them to simply dismiss any other scientists who disagree with them. Their goal has always been to build the scientifi c case for global warming being man made and damaging, thereby enabling governmental control over the world’s energy supply. The free market will no longer be free.
The IPCC is supported by climate thugs who run the website RealClimate.org where they demonize any scientists who dare to disagree with the “scientifi c consensus” on global warming. These folks still don’t realize something that even the public knows: “Consensus” is a political term, not a scientifi c one.
And in the process of achieving their goals, the leaders of the IPCC have corrupted a scientifi c discipline for their own political, philosophical, fi nancial and career-enhancement reasons. The blame does not lie with the hundreds of climate scientists involved in the IPCC effort. They are largely along for the ride, being assured of continued government funding for research to work on a topic that everyone agrees sounds important— saving the Earth from climate change.
But whereas climatology used to involve collecting and analyzing observations of the Earth in order to fi gure out how nature works, most climate research money is now funneled into increasingly expensive and complex computerized climate models—which are claimed to be correct simply because they are so expensive and so complex.
The time has long passed for Americans to demand that the activities of the IPCC be reviewed. For instance, the IPCC never seriously investigated the possibility that climate change might be largely natural. After all, natural climate variability is its enemy: It distracts from the claim that mankind is now the main driver of the climate system.
The IPCC insists that increasing CO2 due to mankind is the only known reason for global warming. And it is right—it is the only one known to IPCC scientists because they have covered their eyes and ears whenever they are confronted with evidence to the contrary. The IPCC has never asked for government funding of research to see if, just maybe, there are natural reasons for global warming.
NEW FINDINGS IMPACT IPCC’S POWER
And this is where new science is chipping away at the house of cards the IPCC has built for itself. I now believe that the IPCC’s most signifi cant scientifi c blunder has been its continuing insistence that global cloud cover, the main determinant of global temperatures, always remains the same. For if global cloud cover can change naturally, then global temperatures can also change naturally, and that would open the door to the possibility that global warming is more natural than man made.
The IPCC knows full well that there are natural modes of climate variability, such as El Niño, La Niña, the Pacifi c Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation. But they have assumed that these forms of natural climate variability only rearrange the geographic distribution of weather patterns and clouds, not cause changes in global averages. That is presumably humanity’s job.
But now we have eight years of high-quality NASA Terra satellite data that have revealed that the PDO does indeed cause a change in global cloud cover. And when that satellite-measured change in cloud cover is put into a simple climate model and combined with the last 100 years of fl uctuations in the PDO, it can explain most of the global average temperature behavior over the last century—including 75 percent of the warming trend. It is particularly good at explaining why the period from 1940 to the late 1970s actually showed slight cooling, rather than warming, an event that has always been a thorn in the side of climate modelers.
What’s interesting about this alternative explanation for global warming is that it is based upon actual satellite observations of changes in the Earth’s radiative energy balance. In contrast, the change in the Earth’s energy balance due to increasing carbon dioxide has not been observed—instead, it must be computed theoretically.
Unfortunately, the results I just described are not yet “peer reviewed and published” science. My fi rst attempt at publication was swiftly killed in record time—two weeks after paper submission—by a single, rather hostile reviewer. It is highly unusual for peer review of a paper to come from only one peer.
So this new science can be temporarily dismissed. But it’s odd that I am one of the very few scientists who have actively researched the question: Could there be a natural explanation for global warming? The IPCC has purposely avoided the issue, and I am not aware of any government study that has been funded to answer that question.
The IPCC’s second major scientifi c blunder has been its use of computerized climate models as the ultimate authority to answer climate questions. Contrary to our actual observations of the climate system, these models predict that the little bit of warming from the extra CO2 we pump into the atmosphere will be greatly amplifi ed by changes in clouds. But the available satellite evidence of the real climate system, when interpreted properly, shows just the opposite: Clouds tend to reduce warming tendencies in the climate system, not amplify them.
The IPCC knows about this discrepancy between its models and the observations, but their explanation is that the models are right and the observations are wrong.
Without going into too much detail, it seems that much of its confusion in this regard has been due to a simple mix-up between cause and effect when observing cloud behavior. When researchers have observed fewer clouds accompanying warming, they have assumed the warming caused the cloud change—a feedback effect which would amplify warming.
But what they have ignored is the evidence that causation is actually working in the opposite direction: Fewer clouds cause the warming, not the other way around. In other words, they have not distinguished between forcing and feedback when observing cloud behavior. In very simple terms, they have mixed up cause and effect.
We have published evidence for some of this work in the scientifi c literature, but you probably never heard about it. This is presumably because the news media are not in the business of reporting good news—or of contradicting Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio.
If you are wondering why NASA’s James Hansen—the godfather of global warming research—thinks the climate system is hypersensitive to the extra CO2, it is because he ignores the observational evidence from today’s climate system. He instead relies upon speculative and unprovable interpretations of how the climate system was allegedly working hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago.
I am under no illusion that the new scientifi c evidence I have described will end the debate over whether mankind or nature is the primary driver of climate change. Quite the opposite, really. I am hoping that the debate will fi nally begin.
With economic hard times making any legislative efforts to punish energy use even more damaging, it is time for the public to demand some answers. We have now gone eight years without global warming, and the public is beginning to have doubts about the “scientifi c consensus”—as well it should. We cannot entrust our economic future to the political interests of the United Nations, which is misusing science in its attempt to lend scientifi c credibility to its efforts.
And if you happen to think the direction we are headed—global governance—is the way we should go anyway, then at least make your case based upon its merits, rather than through the misuse and distortion of my scientifi c discipline.
It is time for the public to tell our elected representatives to start asking some hard questions about our country’s reliance on the IPCC for defi nitive answers regarding global warming. The IPCC’s demand to be believed just because it has created the largest infrastructure and the biggest climate models should be tolerated no longer.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Special Report: Global Warming Gloom and Doom Cools Off
Roy Spencer
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Based solely on a far-Left agenda that includes a plan to control worldwide energy production, the climate change hysteria movement has jumped the shark. Now our leaders need to start asking tough questions of Al Gore, the United Nations IPCC and other alarmists.
Reducing your carbon footprint in the wake of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” was the hottest thing for liberal elites and celebrities alike, but their sell to the American people seems to have gotten stale.
It appears that politicians haven’t lost interest, though. Even though global temperatures stopped rising in 2001 and despite the almost total failure of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the European Union, President-elect Obama continues to make green energy and a new green economy one of his top agenda items. The Supreme Court’s 2008 decision that carbon dioxide is indeed a “pollutant”— and its instruction to the EPA that it must decide whether to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act—offers Obama the opportunity to force new and costly carbon emissions regulations on businesses large and small.
Even if the EPA decides not to regulate CO2, the Democrat-controlled Congress will at some point in the next two years be debating legislation that would cap carbon dioxide emissions and set up a mechanism for the trading of carbon emission permits between companies. A massive new government bureaucracy will be formed, and when it comes to something as ethereal as trying to document and limit the amount of carbon dioxide a company is allowed to emit, the opportunities for fraud and gaming the system will be limited only by one’s imagination.
Yet even as our country careens toward government-mandated reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, the scientifi c basis for doing so is gradually eroding away. Our new understanding of how the climate system operates will eventually lead to the realization that what Al Gore likes to call the “climate crisis” has been based upon the greatest scientifi c faux pas in history.
There are two new scientifi c fi ndings that will have a huge impact on the global warming debate—if they are allowed to see the light of day. The fi rst is compelling new evidence that suggests that global warming has been mostly natural, the result of an internally generated climate fl uctuation called the Pacifi c Decadal Oscillation. The second is the increasing amount of observational evidence that the climate system is largely insensitive to our greenhouse gas emissions.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
What all of this would mean is that Mother Nature doesn’t really care how big your carbon footprint is and that she is going to cause chaotic changes in climate whether or not we humans are around to blame it on ourselves.
But let’s fi rst examine how we got to the point where Western civilization now believes that the tailpipe emissions from SUVs are cooking the planet. Carbon dioxide is an odorless, colorless gas that is essential for life on Earth—it is required for a process called photosynthesis. And without photosynthesis, life on Earth is pretty much done for.
Despite its central role as an elixir of life, there is surprisingly little CO2 around us: only 39 CO2 molecules out of every 100,000 molecules of air. And it takes humanity fi ve years to increase that concentration by one more molecule of CO2 per 100,000 molecules of air.
So how did such a natural—indeed, essential—component of life get such a bad rap? Because the leadership of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been working for 20 years to build a scientifi c case for the view that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has caused the global warming we have experienced over the last 50 to 100 years and that warming is going to get much worse in the future. That carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas is indisputable— that it has caused global warming, though, is not.
The fear of global warming has resonated with a number of politicians and entertainers who needed something to worry about, something to fi ght for and to give their lives meaning—and to make lots of money on, too. Some climate scientists have even made statements to the effect that “reducing carbon dioxide emissions is the right thing to do anyway, no matter what the science says”.
But what is the basis for such a belief? It is bothersome that the debate over whether more CO2 in the atmosphere might actually be a good thing was never allowed to occur.
The belief that everything that mankind does is bad for the environment is arbitrary and religious. Change in nature is ubiquitous, and the idea that nature cannot handle human-induced change is a romantic notion that even scientists hold on to. When nature changes all by itself, there are always winners and losers. The existence of trees on the Earth no doubt changes the climate system; why should it be any different for the existence of humans?
Given the importance of carbon dioxide to life on Earth, I would never have imagined that we would see the day when the United States Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide is a “pollutant,” but here we are anyway. Gore claims we dump 70 millions tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every day as if it was an “open sewer.” I say we are enhancing the productivity of life on Earth, allowing it to breathe more freely than it has been able to since prehistoric times.
TIME FOR A REALITY CHECK
But even if global warming is entirely man made, the regulatory path we are traveling down ignores some very stark realities. The most important reality from a practical standpoint is the fact that there are still no largescale replacements for fossil fuels. As worldwide demand for energy continues to grow, the United States has been prevented by special interests from even keeping pace with our slowly increasing need for energy.
While renewable energy sources sound attractive, the fact is that we still need electricity when the sun doesn’t shine and when the wind doesn’t blow. The world needs food, and the diversion of crops into liquid fuel production pushes those around the world who were merely malnourished into starvation.
It’s hard to tell whether the proponents of the rush to biofuels are merely misguided or actively seeking to reduce the world’s population by starving poor people. Roy Innis, chairman of the Congress On Racial Equality, has written a new book titled “Energy Keepers, Energy Killers: The New Civil Rights Battle.” Innis makes the case that it is time for people to wake up to the reality that their guilt over using fossil fuels ends up killing people, mainly the poor.
You might think hydrogen power sounds really cool, but that hydrogen has to come from somewhere—there are no hydrogen mines—and it takes energy to make it. Where will that energy come from? Unless we begin embracing more nuclear power plants and stop blocking the construction of new coal-fi red power plants, energy will become increasingly expensive … and scarce. Brownouts and blackouts are almost inevitable in the coming years.
Plug-in hybrid cars seem like a good way to reduce our dependence on petroleum, but unless we start building more nuclear plants right now, we will be simply making the problem worse.
And if you think natural gas is the answer, you need to know that Vladimir Putin and Russian natural gas company Gazprom (the largest extractor of natural gas in the world) now have greater control of the world’s natural gas market than OPEC has of petroleum. Putin is trying to buy up natural gas companies all over the world—including right here in the United States. The national security of an increasing number of European countries heavily dependent upon natural gas is now in Putin’s hands.
The truth is that there are no zero-risk, environmentally neutral energy technologies. We probably need to be doing everything—drilling, pumping, building nuclear and coal-fi red power plants, and even building some solar and wind generation capabilities where they are economically viable. But the reality is that fossil fuels will dominate the world’s energy mix for many, many years to come.
It is true that fossil fuel supplies are being slowly depleted; they are not limitless. We will indeed need new energy technologies to replace fossil fuels, but new technologies cannot be simply legislated into existence. They will instead come through free market forces. Everyone needs energy, and whoever develops economic and widely deployable replacements for fossil fuels stands to make a lot of money.
Some people might “feel” like reducing carbon dioxide emissions is the right thing to do, but feelings will not create the energy supplies mankind needs on a daily basis.
Editors' note: This article is a free preview from Townhall Magazine. Click here to subscribe and receive a free copy of either Ann Coulter, Michael Yon, or Rebecca Hagelin's book.
BAD SCIENCE AND GREATER GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL
The IPCC has advertised itself to be the most authoritative scientifi c body for keeping the world informed on man-made climate change. But the IPCC is more of a policy-oriented body that uses cherry-picked scientifi c research to further its agenda. Their enlistment of most of the world’s leading climate researchers allows them to simply dismiss any other scientists who disagree with them. Their goal has always been to build the scientifi c case for global warming being man made and damaging, thereby enabling governmental control over the world’s energy supply. The free market will no longer be free.
The IPCC is supported by climate thugs who run the website RealClimate.org where they demonize any scientists who dare to disagree with the “scientifi c consensus” on global warming. These folks still don’t realize something that even the public knows: “Consensus” is a political term, not a scientifi c one.
And in the process of achieving their goals, the leaders of the IPCC have corrupted a scientifi c discipline for their own political, philosophical, fi nancial and career-enhancement reasons. The blame does not lie with the hundreds of climate scientists involved in the IPCC effort. They are largely along for the ride, being assured of continued government funding for research to work on a topic that everyone agrees sounds important— saving the Earth from climate change.
But whereas climatology used to involve collecting and analyzing observations of the Earth in order to fi gure out how nature works, most climate research money is now funneled into increasingly expensive and complex computerized climate models—which are claimed to be correct simply because they are so expensive and so complex.
The time has long passed for Americans to demand that the activities of the IPCC be reviewed. For instance, the IPCC never seriously investigated the possibility that climate change might be largely natural. After all, natural climate variability is its enemy: It distracts from the claim that mankind is now the main driver of the climate system.
The IPCC insists that increasing CO2 due to mankind is the only known reason for global warming. And it is right—it is the only one known to IPCC scientists because they have covered their eyes and ears whenever they are confronted with evidence to the contrary. The IPCC has never asked for government funding of research to see if, just maybe, there are natural reasons for global warming.
NEW FINDINGS IMPACT IPCC’S POWER
And this is where new science is chipping away at the house of cards the IPCC has built for itself. I now believe that the IPCC’s most signifi cant scientifi c blunder has been its continuing insistence that global cloud cover, the main determinant of global temperatures, always remains the same. For if global cloud cover can change naturally, then global temperatures can also change naturally, and that would open the door to the possibility that global warming is more natural than man made.
The IPCC knows full well that there are natural modes of climate variability, such as El Niño, La Niña, the Pacifi c Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation. But they have assumed that these forms of natural climate variability only rearrange the geographic distribution of weather patterns and clouds, not cause changes in global averages. That is presumably humanity’s job.
But now we have eight years of high-quality NASA Terra satellite data that have revealed that the PDO does indeed cause a change in global cloud cover. And when that satellite-measured change in cloud cover is put into a simple climate model and combined with the last 100 years of fl uctuations in the PDO, it can explain most of the global average temperature behavior over the last century—including 75 percent of the warming trend. It is particularly good at explaining why the period from 1940 to the late 1970s actually showed slight cooling, rather than warming, an event that has always been a thorn in the side of climate modelers.
What’s interesting about this alternative explanation for global warming is that it is based upon actual satellite observations of changes in the Earth’s radiative energy balance. In contrast, the change in the Earth’s energy balance due to increasing carbon dioxide has not been observed—instead, it must be computed theoretically.
Unfortunately, the results I just described are not yet “peer reviewed and published” science. My fi rst attempt at publication was swiftly killed in record time—two weeks after paper submission—by a single, rather hostile reviewer. It is highly unusual for peer review of a paper to come from only one peer.
So this new science can be temporarily dismissed. But it’s odd that I am one of the very few scientists who have actively researched the question: Could there be a natural explanation for global warming? The IPCC has purposely avoided the issue, and I am not aware of any government study that has been funded to answer that question.
The IPCC’s second major scientifi c blunder has been its use of computerized climate models as the ultimate authority to answer climate questions. Contrary to our actual observations of the climate system, these models predict that the little bit of warming from the extra CO2 we pump into the atmosphere will be greatly amplifi ed by changes in clouds. But the available satellite evidence of the real climate system, when interpreted properly, shows just the opposite: Clouds tend to reduce warming tendencies in the climate system, not amplify them.
The IPCC knows about this discrepancy between its models and the observations, but their explanation is that the models are right and the observations are wrong.
Without going into too much detail, it seems that much of its confusion in this regard has been due to a simple mix-up between cause and effect when observing cloud behavior. When researchers have observed fewer clouds accompanying warming, they have assumed the warming caused the cloud change—a feedback effect which would amplify warming.
But what they have ignored is the evidence that causation is actually working in the opposite direction: Fewer clouds cause the warming, not the other way around. In other words, they have not distinguished between forcing and feedback when observing cloud behavior. In very simple terms, they have mixed up cause and effect.
We have published evidence for some of this work in the scientifi c literature, but you probably never heard about it. This is presumably because the news media are not in the business of reporting good news—or of contradicting Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio.
If you are wondering why NASA’s James Hansen—the godfather of global warming research—thinks the climate system is hypersensitive to the extra CO2, it is because he ignores the observational evidence from today’s climate system. He instead relies upon speculative and unprovable interpretations of how the climate system was allegedly working hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago.
I am under no illusion that the new scientifi c evidence I have described will end the debate over whether mankind or nature is the primary driver of climate change. Quite the opposite, really. I am hoping that the debate will fi nally begin.
With economic hard times making any legislative efforts to punish energy use even more damaging, it is time for the public to demand some answers. We have now gone eight years without global warming, and the public is beginning to have doubts about the “scientifi c consensus”—as well it should. We cannot entrust our economic future to the political interests of the United Nations, which is misusing science in its attempt to lend scientifi c credibility to its efforts.
And if you happen to think the direction we are headed—global governance—is the way we should go anyway, then at least make your case based upon its merits, rather than through the misuse and distortion of my scientifi c discipline.
It is time for the public to tell our elected representatives to start asking some hard questions about our country’s reliance on the IPCC for defi nitive answers regarding global warming. The IPCC’s demand to be believed just because it has created the largest infrastructure and the biggest climate models should be tolerated no longer.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
<font size="5"><center>
Scientists: Global warming has
already changed oceans</font size></center>
McClatchy Newspapers
By Les Blumenthal
June 9, 2009
WASHINGTON — In Washington state, oysters in some areas haven't reproduced for four years, and preliminary evidence suggests that the increasing acidity of the ocean could be the cause. In the Gulf of Mexico, falling oxygen levels in the water have forced shrimp to migrate elsewhere.
Though two marine-derived drugs, one for treating cancer and the other for pain control, are on the market and 25 others are under development, the fungus growing on seaweed, bacteria in deep sea mud and sea fans that could produce life-saving medicines are under assault from changing the ocean conditions.
Researchers, scientists and Jacques Cousteau's granddaughter painted a bleak picture Tuesday of the future of oceans and the "blue economy" of the nation's coastal states.
The hearing before the oceans subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee was expected to focus on how the degradation of the oceans was affecting marine businesses and coastal communities. Instead, much of the testimony focused on how the waters that cover 70 percent of the planet are already changing because of global warming.
Ocean acidification or diseases that thrive in acidified, oxygen-depleted seawater could be responsible for oysters not reproducing in Washington state, said Brad Warren, who oversees the ocean health and acidification program of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership in Seattle. A federal study found that two-thirds of larval blue crabs died when exposed to acidity levels like those currently measured off the West Coast, he said.
Federal studies also found acidity levels in the North Pacific and off Alaska are unusually high compared to other ocean regions. The high acidity is already taking a toll of such tiny species as pteropods, which are an important food for salmon and other fish.
As greenhouse gas emissions increase, billions of tons of carbon dioxide from smokestacks and vehicle tailpipes are absorbed by the oceans. The result is carbonic acid, which dilutes the "rich soup" of calcium carbonate in the seawater that many species, especially on the low end of the food chain, thrive in, Warren said.
"If we lose it, it is gone forever," Warren said of the oceans' delicate chemical balance.
In the Gulf of Mexico, Alexandra Cousteau said, the runoff down the Mississippi River from farms in the Midwest has created a dead zone the size of New Jersey where few species can survive. Wetlands in Louisiana are disappearing at the rate of 33 football fields a day as hurricanes grow in strength and frequency because of climate change, she said.
"We must start to realize that there can be no standalone policies, especially as they relate to our water resources," Cousteau said. "Energy, transportation, climate change, infrastructure, agriculture, urban development: this is where our ocean policy must begin. It is all interconnected."
Others testified that the economic toll eventually could be enormous for fishing and other ocean-related industries and for the nation's coastal communities. Taken together, the ocean and coastal economies, including the Great Lakes, provide more than 50 million jobs and make up nearly 60 percent of the nation's economy.
"Significant environmental changes, such as sea level and sea temperature rise, oxygen depletion and ocean acidification, will dramatically change the landscape, restructuring an array of natural and physical assets as well as cultural and economic," said Judith Kidlow of the National Ocean Economics Program. "Over the next 30 years, the nation will see the most significant changes in the ocean and coastal economies since the arrival of industrialization and urbanization."
The subcommittee's chairman, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., suggested a doubling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration budget, which is now about $4 billion, and giving the agency additional responsibilities.
Cantwell, however, said the key has to be passing comprehensive climate change legislation to reduce carbon emissions.
"Protecting our oceans is an environmental and economic imperative," Cantwell said.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/69751.html
Scientists: Global warming has
already changed oceans</font size></center>
McClatchy Newspapers
By Les Blumenthal
June 9, 2009
WASHINGTON — In Washington state, oysters in some areas haven't reproduced for four years, and preliminary evidence suggests that the increasing acidity of the ocean could be the cause. In the Gulf of Mexico, falling oxygen levels in the water have forced shrimp to migrate elsewhere.
Though two marine-derived drugs, one for treating cancer and the other for pain control, are on the market and 25 others are under development, the fungus growing on seaweed, bacteria in deep sea mud and sea fans that could produce life-saving medicines are under assault from changing the ocean conditions.
Researchers, scientists and Jacques Cousteau's granddaughter painted a bleak picture Tuesday of the future of oceans and the "blue economy" of the nation's coastal states.
The hearing before the oceans subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee was expected to focus on how the degradation of the oceans was affecting marine businesses and coastal communities. Instead, much of the testimony focused on how the waters that cover 70 percent of the planet are already changing because of global warming.
Ocean acidification or diseases that thrive in acidified, oxygen-depleted seawater could be responsible for oysters not reproducing in Washington state, said Brad Warren, who oversees the ocean health and acidification program of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership in Seattle. A federal study found that two-thirds of larval blue crabs died when exposed to acidity levels like those currently measured off the West Coast, he said.
Federal studies also found acidity levels in the North Pacific and off Alaska are unusually high compared to other ocean regions. The high acidity is already taking a toll of such tiny species as pteropods, which are an important food for salmon and other fish.
As greenhouse gas emissions increase, billions of tons of carbon dioxide from smokestacks and vehicle tailpipes are absorbed by the oceans. The result is carbonic acid, which dilutes the "rich soup" of calcium carbonate in the seawater that many species, especially on the low end of the food chain, thrive in, Warren said.
"If we lose it, it is gone forever," Warren said of the oceans' delicate chemical balance.
In the Gulf of Mexico, Alexandra Cousteau said, the runoff down the Mississippi River from farms in the Midwest has created a dead zone the size of New Jersey where few species can survive. Wetlands in Louisiana are disappearing at the rate of 33 football fields a day as hurricanes grow in strength and frequency because of climate change, she said.
"We must start to realize that there can be no standalone policies, especially as they relate to our water resources," Cousteau said. "Energy, transportation, climate change, infrastructure, agriculture, urban development: this is where our ocean policy must begin. It is all interconnected."
Others testified that the economic toll eventually could be enormous for fishing and other ocean-related industries and for the nation's coastal communities. Taken together, the ocean and coastal economies, including the Great Lakes, provide more than 50 million jobs and make up nearly 60 percent of the nation's economy.
"Significant environmental changes, such as sea level and sea temperature rise, oxygen depletion and ocean acidification, will dramatically change the landscape, restructuring an array of natural and physical assets as well as cultural and economic," said Judith Kidlow of the National Ocean Economics Program. "Over the next 30 years, the nation will see the most significant changes in the ocean and coastal economies since the arrival of industrialization and urbanization."
The subcommittee's chairman, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., suggested a doubling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration budget, which is now about $4 billion, and giving the agency additional responsibilities.
Cantwell, however, said the key has to be passing comprehensive climate change legislation to reduce carbon emissions.
"Protecting our oceans is an environmental and economic imperative," Cantwell said.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/69751.html
Decades of Global Cooling Ahead?
Decades of Global Cooling Ahead?
By Investor's Business Daily
September 23, 2009
Global Warming: President Obama warns of planetary doom at the U.N. if we fail to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Meanwhile, a former warm-monger predicts decades of cooling as the sun stays nearly "spotless."
The president had hoped to address Tuesday's United Nations climate change summit in New York with a finished cap-and-trade bill. Failing that, he hoped he'd at least have a version of the Waxman-Markey bill that has passed the House on his desk before the Copenhagen talks in December to cobble together a follow-up to the failed Kyoto Protocol.
Not only did that not happen in the cool summer of 2009, but both science and circumstance have turned against the administration. The American people are in no mood in a recession with near double-digit unemployment to have their electricity rates "necessarily skyrocket" while our economic hole is dug deeper for microscopic, if detectable at all, reductions in global temperature.
The president paraphrased Al Gore's sentiment that the science is settled and the debate is over, saying that "after too many years of inaction and denial, there is finally widespread recognition of the urgency of the challenge before us. We know what needs to be done."
Actually, the science is not settled. Nor is it clear what, if anything, needs to be done to prevent what he called "irreversible catastrophe."
In a speech last week at the U.N.'s World Climate Conference in Geneva, Professor Mojib Latif of Germany's Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, one of the world's foremost climate modelers and a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledged that the Earth has been cooling and is likely to continue that trend for the next couple of decades. Al Gore, call your office.
Latif has been looking into the influence of cyclical changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the Atlantic, a feature known as the North American Oscillation. When he factored these natural fluctuations into his global climate model, Professor Latif found the results brought the allegedly endless rise in global temperatures to a screeching halt.
Latif conceded the planet has not warmed for nearly a decade and that we are likely entering "one or even two decades during which temperatures cool." Latif still believes in a warming trend and thinks it will resume. But he at least acknowledges the empirical evidence of cooling, that there are factors at work here other than your SUV, and that doom will not occur the day after tomorrow.
None of the alarmists and their supercomputer climate models ever predicted even a 30-year respite in their apocalyptic scenarios. Neither did they predict the sun, that thermonuclear furnace in the sky that has more influence on earth's climate than any number of Ford Explorers, would suddenly go quiet for an indefinite period.
Charles Perry, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Lawrence, Kan., says there's a growing sense in the scientific community that the earth may be entering into a "grand minimum" - an extended period with low numbers of sunspots that results in cooler planetary temperatures.
In July through August of this year, 51 consecutive days passed without a sunspot, one day short of the record. As of Sept. 15, the current solar minimum - with 717 spotless days since 2004 - ranks as the third longest on record.
Perry cites data indicating that global temperature fluctuations correspond to a statistically significant degree with the length of the sunspot cycle and variations in solar activity. 1816, the "year without a summer," was during an 1800 to 1830 grand minimum when Europe became significantly cooler.
Latif and others conclude that, at the very least, we have time to think about it and analyze and learn. We don't have to fight global warming by inflicting global poverty. More things on Earth affect climate than are dreamed up in computer models.
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/09/23/decades_of_global_cooling_ahead__97424.html
Decades of Global Cooling Ahead?
By Investor's Business Daily
September 23, 2009
Global Warming: President Obama warns of planetary doom at the U.N. if we fail to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Meanwhile, a former warm-monger predicts decades of cooling as the sun stays nearly "spotless."
The president had hoped to address Tuesday's United Nations climate change summit in New York with a finished cap-and-trade bill. Failing that, he hoped he'd at least have a version of the Waxman-Markey bill that has passed the House on his desk before the Copenhagen talks in December to cobble together a follow-up to the failed Kyoto Protocol.
Not only did that not happen in the cool summer of 2009, but both science and circumstance have turned against the administration. The American people are in no mood in a recession with near double-digit unemployment to have their electricity rates "necessarily skyrocket" while our economic hole is dug deeper for microscopic, if detectable at all, reductions in global temperature.
The president paraphrased Al Gore's sentiment that the science is settled and the debate is over, saying that "after too many years of inaction and denial, there is finally widespread recognition of the urgency of the challenge before us. We know what needs to be done."
Actually, the science is not settled. Nor is it clear what, if anything, needs to be done to prevent what he called "irreversible catastrophe."
In a speech last week at the U.N.'s World Climate Conference in Geneva, Professor Mojib Latif of Germany's Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, one of the world's foremost climate modelers and a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledged that the Earth has been cooling and is likely to continue that trend for the next couple of decades. Al Gore, call your office.
Latif has been looking into the influence of cyclical changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the Atlantic, a feature known as the North American Oscillation. When he factored these natural fluctuations into his global climate model, Professor Latif found the results brought the allegedly endless rise in global temperatures to a screeching halt.
Latif conceded the planet has not warmed for nearly a decade and that we are likely entering "one or even two decades during which temperatures cool." Latif still believes in a warming trend and thinks it will resume. But he at least acknowledges the empirical evidence of cooling, that there are factors at work here other than your SUV, and that doom will not occur the day after tomorrow.
None of the alarmists and their supercomputer climate models ever predicted even a 30-year respite in their apocalyptic scenarios. Neither did they predict the sun, that thermonuclear furnace in the sky that has more influence on earth's climate than any number of Ford Explorers, would suddenly go quiet for an indefinite period.
Charles Perry, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Lawrence, Kan., says there's a growing sense in the scientific community that the earth may be entering into a "grand minimum" - an extended period with low numbers of sunspots that results in cooler planetary temperatures.
In July through August of this year, 51 consecutive days passed without a sunspot, one day short of the record. As of Sept. 15, the current solar minimum - with 717 spotless days since 2004 - ranks as the third longest on record.
Perry cites data indicating that global temperature fluctuations correspond to a statistically significant degree with the length of the sunspot cycle and variations in solar activity. 1816, the "year without a summer," was during an 1800 to 1830 grand minimum when Europe became significantly cooler.
Latif and others conclude that, at the very least, we have time to think about it and analyze and learn. We don't have to fight global warming by inflicting global poverty. More things on Earth affect climate than are dreamed up in computer models.
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/09/23/decades_of_global_cooling_ahead__97424.html
Re: Decades of Global Cooling Ahead?
<font size="5"><center>
In the trenches on climate
change, hostility among foes</font size><font size="4">
Stolen e-mails reveal venomous feelings toward skeptics</font size></center>
The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming.
While few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world's climate -- nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal -- public debate persists. And the newly disclosed private exchanges among climate scientists at Britain's Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies.
Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who comes under fire in the e-mails, said these same academics repeatedly criticized him for not having published more peer-reviewed papers.
"There's an egregious problem here, their intimidation of journal editors," he said. "They're saying, 'If you print anything by this group, we won't send you any papers.' "
Mann, who directs Penn State's Earth System Science Center, said the e-mails reflected the sort of "vigorous debate" researchers engage in before reaching scientific conclusions. "We shouldn't expect the sort of refined statements that scientists make when they're speaking in public," he said.
Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute who has questioned whether climate change is human-caused, blogged that the e-mails have "the makings of a very big" scandal. "Imagine this sort of news coming in the field of AIDS research," he added.
The story of the hacking has ranked among the most popular on Web sites ranging from The Washington Post's to that of London's Daily Telegraph. And it has spurred a flood of e-mails from climate skeptics to U.S. news organizations, some likening the disclosure to the release of the Pentagon Papers during Vietnam.
Kevin Trenberth, who heads the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and wrote some of the pirated e-mails, said it is the implications rather than the content of climate research that make some people uncomfortable.
"It is incontrovertible" that the world is warming as a result of human actions, Trenberth said. "The question to me is what to do."
"It's certainly a legitimate question," he added. "Unfortunately one of the side effects of this is the messengers get attacked."
In his new book, "Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save the Earth's Climate," Stanford University climate scientist Stephen H. Schneider details the intense debate over warming, arguing that it has helped slow the nation's public policy response.
"I've been here on the ground, in the trenches, for my entire career," writes Schneider, who was copied on one of the controversial e-mails. "I'm still at it, and the battle, while looking more winnable these days, is still not a done deal."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...11/21/AR2009112102186.html?hpid=moreheadlines
<font size="5"><center>
In the trenches on climate
change, hostility among foes</font size><font size="4">
Stolen e-mails reveal venomous feelings toward skeptics</font size></center>
The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming.
While few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world's climate -- nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal -- public debate persists. And the newly disclosed private exchanges among climate scientists at Britain's Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies.
- In one e-mail, the center's director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University's Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science.
"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
- In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal <u>not</u> <u>to</u> accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">"Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal,"</span> Mann writes.
<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">"I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor,"</span> Jones replies.
Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who comes under fire in the e-mails, said these same academics repeatedly criticized him for not having published more peer-reviewed papers.
"There's an egregious problem here, their intimidation of journal editors," he said. "They're saying, 'If you print anything by this group, we won't send you any papers.' "
Mann, who directs Penn State's Earth System Science Center, said the e-mails reflected the sort of "vigorous debate" researchers engage in before reaching scientific conclusions. "We shouldn't expect the sort of refined statements that scientists make when they're speaking in public," he said.
Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute who has questioned whether climate change is human-caused, blogged that the e-mails have "the makings of a very big" scandal. "Imagine this sort of news coming in the field of AIDS research," he added.
The story of the hacking has ranked among the most popular on Web sites ranging from The Washington Post's to that of London's Daily Telegraph. And it has spurred a flood of e-mails from climate skeptics to U.S. news organizations, some likening the disclosure to the release of the Pentagon Papers during Vietnam.
Kevin Trenberth, who heads the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and wrote some of the pirated e-mails, said it is the implications rather than the content of climate research that make some people uncomfortable.
"It is incontrovertible" that the world is warming as a result of human actions, Trenberth said. "The question to me is what to do."
"It's certainly a legitimate question," he added. "Unfortunately one of the side effects of this is the messengers get attacked."
In his new book, "Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save the Earth's Climate," Stanford University climate scientist Stephen H. Schneider details the intense debate over warming, arguing that it has helped slow the nation's public policy response.
"I've been here on the ground, in the trenches, for my entire career," writes Schneider, who was copied on one of the controversial e-mails. "I'm still at it, and the battle, while looking more winnable these days, is still not a done deal."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...11/21/AR2009112102186.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Alleged CRU Emails - Searchable
Enter keywords to search (no need for quote marks)
On 20 November 2009, emails and other documents, apparently originating from with the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.
If real, these emails contain some quite surprising and even disappointing insights into what has been happening within the climate change scientific establishment. Worryingly this same group of scientists are very influential in terms of economic and social policy formation around the subject of climate change.
As these emails are already in the public domain, I think it is important that people are able to look through them and judge for themselves. Until I am told otherwise I have no reason to think the text found on this site is true or false. As of today, Saturday 21 November, there have been no statements that I have seen doubting the authenticity of these texts. It is here just as a curiosity!
some minor tweaks to the search and browsing functions:
You can now search for a filename by typing the number (with or without the .txt extension)
Results have had some tweaks to the weighting, you still get exact matches first, and then keywords from your phrase. Still removing some common English words from this, but getting there!
Added a basic keyword counter which will show you the kind of the texts that are being looked for.
There is an option when browsing to show 10, 25, 50 or 100 emails at a time. (Hint, you can put any number less than 100 in the pp= part of the query to get that number of results. I'm limiting this to 100 at the moment, on current usage the search will use about 2Gb transfer per day, I don't want it to go much farther than this.
I really just made this because I really couldn't see me going through the sheer number of text files in any realistic fashion. This will help me find emails that are being discussed on forums and blogs I read.
But this page is now being hit a lot, so I feel it only fair that I tell you what I am hoping to get done - and for you to send me suggestions or ideas (or tips). I'm hoping to get the time tomorrow to also make the various Word and Excel files online and searchable, and also to do what I can with the text from the PDF files (some might be easier than others). I am also hoping to get some improvements done to the overall search box to make the results weighted to number of hits for main keywords / filter out unimportant words (you, me and I) and make the tool more useful.
The entire thing is running off a single mysql database and three main php scripts, the emails are parsed automatically into the database and there is also another file that I made earlier that generated hard copy html files just to get something online.
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/
Enter keywords to search (no need for quote marks)
On 20 November 2009, emails and other documents, apparently originating from with the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.
If real, these emails contain some quite surprising and even disappointing insights into what has been happening within the climate change scientific establishment. Worryingly this same group of scientists are very influential in terms of economic and social policy formation around the subject of climate change.
As these emails are already in the public domain, I think it is important that people are able to look through them and judge for themselves. Until I am told otherwise I have no reason to think the text found on this site is true or false. As of today, Saturday 21 November, there have been no statements that I have seen doubting the authenticity of these texts. It is here just as a curiosity!
some minor tweaks to the search and browsing functions:
You can now search for a filename by typing the number (with or without the .txt extension)
Results have had some tweaks to the weighting, you still get exact matches first, and then keywords from your phrase. Still removing some common English words from this, but getting there!
Added a basic keyword counter which will show you the kind of the texts that are being looked for.
There is an option when browsing to show 10, 25, 50 or 100 emails at a time. (Hint, you can put any number less than 100 in the pp= part of the query to get that number of results. I'm limiting this to 100 at the moment, on current usage the search will use about 2Gb transfer per day, I don't want it to go much farther than this.
I really just made this because I really couldn't see me going through the sheer number of text files in any realistic fashion. This will help me find emails that are being discussed on forums and blogs I read.
But this page is now being hit a lot, so I feel it only fair that I tell you what I am hoping to get done - and for you to send me suggestions or ideas (or tips). I'm hoping to get the time tomorrow to also make the various Word and Excel files online and searchable, and also to do what I can with the text from the PDF files (some might be easier than others). I am also hoping to get some improvements done to the overall search box to make the results weighted to number of hits for main keywords / filter out unimportant words (you, me and I) and make the tool more useful.
The entire thing is running off a single mysql database and three main php scripts, the emails are parsed automatically into the database and there is also another file that I made earlier that generated hard copy html files just to get something online.
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/
<font size="5"><center>
Russian fires prompt Kremlin to make
u-turn and embrace climate change</font size></center>
The full health impact of the heatwave nationwide has not been reported
Residents and visitors to Moscow have been
forced to cover their faces from the smog
The view from an office in Moscow
The Christian Science Monitor
By Fred Weir
August 9, 2010
MOSCOW — Russia's heat wave, along with its disastrous fallout, finally may have persuaded the Kremlin to combat climate change.
Russian officials, who until now have resisted dramatic action out of fears it would dampen economic growth, lately have issued strong statements linking global warming to the emergency Russia is facing. Some hope the abrupt change of tune will result in more effective environmental policies, even after the smog dies down.
"There is no question that we need to get ahead of climate change," said Vladimir Slivyak, a co-chair of Ecodefense, a grassroots Russian environmental group. "This is a wake-up call."
The crisis, which seems to have taken the Kremlin by surprise, features a fierce and unremitting heat wave that's now well into its second month, a drought that's ruined as much as a third of the vitally important grain crop and a wave of seemingly uncontrollable wildfires that have blanketed half of European Russia, including the capital Moscow, in a cloud of smoke.
Russia's state meteorological service said smog conditions in Moscow have eased from a Saturday peak, but the Ministry of Emergency Services warned that Moscow-region fires have tripled size in the past week, spreading from 65 to 210 hectares. Meanwhile, an average of 700 people are dying per day in Moscow, double the average rate, which health officials blamed on the smog.
"Our country has not experienced such a heat wave in the last 50 or even 100 years," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said last week in a speech published in English on the Kremlin's website. "We need to learn our lessons from what has happened, and from the unprecedented heat wave that we have faced this summer.
"Everyone is talking about climate change now," he continued. "Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past. This means that we need to change the way we work, change the methods that we used in the past."
Those are arguably the strongest words about climate change that a Kremlin leader has ever delivered to a domestic audience.
Moscow has taken a strong rhetorical stand at international meetings since Prime Minister Vladimir Putin threw Russia's support behind the Kyoto climate change treaty six years ago, when he was president.
At home last year, however, Medvedev said Russia probably would be generating 30 percent more carbon dioxide by 2020, in line with the country's rapid industrial "modernization" program, and added that, "We will not let anyone cut our development potential."
Kremlin leaders also have suggested that climate change might turn out to Russia's benefit, for example in the race for natural resources previously trapped beneath the melting Arctic icecap, or by opening a new northeast navigation channel from Asia to Europe across the top of Siberia.
"This same president (Medvedev) recently told an audience in Siberia that Russia didn't need to restrict its carbon emissions, that it hampered our development and was a scheme that favored Western countries," said Slivyak, who noted that the Kremlin's official Climate Doctrine, prepared for the Russian delegation to last December's Copenhagen conference on climate change, had no practical guide to action.
"Until this crisis, the official view of climate change was ambivalent," he said. "Now we hear many officials talking about it as the cause of what's happening, and that's progress. But I fear that once the emergency has passed, they will forget all about it."
Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Center in Moscow agreed that the traditional laxity of Russian officialdom is likely to squelch the impulse to take long-term measures once the present crisis has abated.
One painfully relevant precedent, he says, is what happened after the peat bogs surrounding Moscow caught fire in 1972, suffocating the city under a similar blanket of smog for many days. In the wake of that disaster, Soviet authorities acknowledged that their policy of draining marshes in order to harvest peat for fuel was to blame, and they pledged to take steps to avoid any repetition.
"Those same peat bogs are burning today, with the same terrible consequences, because Soviet leaders let it go," Petrov said. "Although the problem in 1972 was relatively simple and easily solvable, they set it aside as soon as the immediate trouble passed. Today the threat is long-term and complex, and it will require major policy and behavioral changes. I wouldn't bet that this change of official mood will last long."
Weir is a Christian Science Monitor correspondent.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/09/98851/russian-fires-prompt-kremlin-to.html
<font size="4">
How peat bog fires spread
</font size>
1.Peat is formed from decayed vegetation in bogs, moors or swamps.
2.Deliberate drainage or drought can expose peat to air.
3.Peat can then be ignited by wildfires or spontaneously combust. The air flow allows the peat to continue burning.
4.Once alight, the smouldering fire spreads slowly through the peat and can cause the ground above to collapse
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10912658
Russian fires prompt Kremlin to make
u-turn and embrace climate change</font size></center>
The full health impact of the heatwave nationwide has not been reported
Residents and visitors to Moscow have been
forced to cover their faces from the smog
The view from an office in Moscow
The Christian Science Monitor
By Fred Weir
August 9, 2010
MOSCOW — Russia's heat wave, along with its disastrous fallout, finally may have persuaded the Kremlin to combat climate change.
Russian officials, who until now have resisted dramatic action out of fears it would dampen economic growth, lately have issued strong statements linking global warming to the emergency Russia is facing. Some hope the abrupt change of tune will result in more effective environmental policies, even after the smog dies down.
"There is no question that we need to get ahead of climate change," said Vladimir Slivyak, a co-chair of Ecodefense, a grassroots Russian environmental group. "This is a wake-up call."
The crisis, which seems to have taken the Kremlin by surprise, features a fierce and unremitting heat wave that's now well into its second month, a drought that's ruined as much as a third of the vitally important grain crop and a wave of seemingly uncontrollable wildfires that have blanketed half of European Russia, including the capital Moscow, in a cloud of smoke.
Russia's state meteorological service said smog conditions in Moscow have eased from a Saturday peak, but the Ministry of Emergency Services warned that Moscow-region fires have tripled size in the past week, spreading from 65 to 210 hectares. Meanwhile, an average of 700 people are dying per day in Moscow, double the average rate, which health officials blamed on the smog.
"Our country has not experienced such a heat wave in the last 50 or even 100 years," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said last week in a speech published in English on the Kremlin's website. "We need to learn our lessons from what has happened, and from the unprecedented heat wave that we have faced this summer.
"Everyone is talking about climate change now," he continued. "Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past. This means that we need to change the way we work, change the methods that we used in the past."
Those are arguably the strongest words about climate change that a Kremlin leader has ever delivered to a domestic audience.
Moscow has taken a strong rhetorical stand at international meetings since Prime Minister Vladimir Putin threw Russia's support behind the Kyoto climate change treaty six years ago, when he was president.
At home last year, however, Medvedev said Russia probably would be generating 30 percent more carbon dioxide by 2020, in line with the country's rapid industrial "modernization" program, and added that, "We will not let anyone cut our development potential."
Kremlin leaders also have suggested that climate change might turn out to Russia's benefit, for example in the race for natural resources previously trapped beneath the melting Arctic icecap, or by opening a new northeast navigation channel from Asia to Europe across the top of Siberia.
"This same president (Medvedev) recently told an audience in Siberia that Russia didn't need to restrict its carbon emissions, that it hampered our development and was a scheme that favored Western countries," said Slivyak, who noted that the Kremlin's official Climate Doctrine, prepared for the Russian delegation to last December's Copenhagen conference on climate change, had no practical guide to action.
"Until this crisis, the official view of climate change was ambivalent," he said. "Now we hear many officials talking about it as the cause of what's happening, and that's progress. But I fear that once the emergency has passed, they will forget all about it."
Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Center in Moscow agreed that the traditional laxity of Russian officialdom is likely to squelch the impulse to take long-term measures once the present crisis has abated.
One painfully relevant precedent, he says, is what happened after the peat bogs surrounding Moscow caught fire in 1972, suffocating the city under a similar blanket of smog for many days. In the wake of that disaster, Soviet authorities acknowledged that their policy of draining marshes in order to harvest peat for fuel was to blame, and they pledged to take steps to avoid any repetition.
"Those same peat bogs are burning today, with the same terrible consequences, because Soviet leaders let it go," Petrov said. "Although the problem in 1972 was relatively simple and easily solvable, they set it aside as soon as the immediate trouble passed. Today the threat is long-term and complex, and it will require major policy and behavioral changes. I wouldn't bet that this change of official mood will last long."
Weir is a Christian Science Monitor correspondent.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/09/98851/russian-fires-prompt-kremlin-to.html
<font size="4">
How peat bog fires spread
</font size>
1.Peat is formed from decayed vegetation in bogs, moors or swamps.
2.Deliberate drainage or drought can expose peat to air.
3.Peat can then be ignited by wildfires or spontaneously combust. The air flow allows the peat to continue burning.
4.Once alight, the smouldering fire spreads slowly through the peat and can cause the ground above to collapse
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10912658
Where day at, especially Lamarr QueEx?
I know TRUE free market capitalism will fix it!
I know TRUE free market capitalism will fix it!
<font size="5"><center>
Leaking Siberian ice raises a tricky climate issue</font size></center>
Gas locked inside Siberia's frozen soil and under its lakes has
been seeping out since the end of the last ice age 10,000
years ago. But in the past few decades, <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">as the Earth has
warmed, the icy ground has begun thawing more rapidly,
accelerating the release of methane — a greenhouse gas 23
times more powerful than carbon dioxide — at a perilous rate.</span>
Associated Press
By ARTHUR MAX
November 22, 2010
CHERSKY, Russia – The Russian scientist shuffles across the frozen lake, scuffing aside ankle-deep snow until he finds a cluster of bubbles trapped under the ice. With a cigarette lighter in one hand and a knife in the other, he lances the ice like a blister. Methane whooshes out and bursts into a thin blue flame.
Gas locked inside Siberia's frozen soil and under its lakes has been seeping out since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. But in the past few decades, as the Earth has warmed, the icy ground has begun thawing more rapidly, accelerating the release of methane — a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide — at a perilous rate.
Some scientists believe the thawing of permafrost could become the epicenter of climate change. They say 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, locked inside icebound earth since the age of mammoths, is a climate time bomb waiting to explode if released into the atmosphere.
"Here, total carbon storage is like all the rain forests of our planet put together," says the scientist, Sergey Zimov — "here" being the endless sweep of snow and ice stretching toward Siberia's gray horizon, as seen from Zimov's research facility nearly 350 kilometers (220 miles) above the Arctic Circle.
FULL STORY
Leaking Siberian ice raises a tricky climate issue</font size></center>
Gas locked inside Siberia's frozen soil and under its lakes has
been seeping out since the end of the last ice age 10,000
years ago. But in the past few decades, <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">as the Earth has
warmed, the icy ground has begun thawing more rapidly,
accelerating the release of methane — a greenhouse gas 23
times more powerful than carbon dioxide — at a perilous rate.</span>
Associated Press
By ARTHUR MAX
November 22, 2010
CHERSKY, Russia – The Russian scientist shuffles across the frozen lake, scuffing aside ankle-deep snow until he finds a cluster of bubbles trapped under the ice. With a cigarette lighter in one hand and a knife in the other, he lances the ice like a blister. Methane whooshes out and bursts into a thin blue flame.
Gas locked inside Siberia's frozen soil and under its lakes has been seeping out since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. But in the past few decades, as the Earth has warmed, the icy ground has begun thawing more rapidly, accelerating the release of methane — a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide — at a perilous rate.
Some scientists believe the thawing of permafrost could become the epicenter of climate change. They say 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, locked inside icebound earth since the age of mammoths, is a climate time bomb waiting to explode if released into the atmosphere.
"Here, total carbon storage is like all the rain forests of our planet put together," says the scientist, Sergey Zimov — "here" being the endless sweep of snow and ice stretching toward Siberia's gray horizon, as seen from Zimov's research facility nearly 350 kilometers (220 miles) above the Arctic Circle.
FULL STORY
@@@@@@@
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5aPlqGf_wfU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
1. What climate change promoters like to cite is the planet Venus and the density of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide which cause the temperature to spike up to 462 degrees. What isn't discussed, is the length of day on Venus is 116 Earth days, allowing the Sun to buildup temperatures since the surface is exposed to the Sun for many days. The length of day on Mercury is 58, which is also cited as an example of the effect of carbon dioxide since it is closer to the Sun and has lower temperature than Venus. However, it is facing the Sun for half the amount of time, which doesn't allow temperatures to increase as much.
This buildup of temperatures occurs on the Moon which faces the Sun for 13 days and reach temperatures up to 250 degrees! The Moon atmosphere is considered to be a vacuum or non existent, carbon dioxide can't be blame for this high temperature. The effect of carbon dioxide is inconclusive based on a comparison of temperatures between Mercury and Venus...
2. The GreenHouse Effect- A poor choice of words:
A greenhouse has high temperatures inside because dense low energy molecules of air is blocked; however, photons of light can easily pass through the glass! However, the Earth has a side facing the Sun and the other side facing cold empty space. These molecule of air & water that range in energy states intermix, reducing the temperature of the Earth. A greenhouse does not have this interaction between one side facing the Sun and one side facing cold empty space, it is facing the Sun, with the outside air blocked allowing temperature buildup.
The air molecules inside can buildup temperatures and be insulated from the colder air outside. It isn't the heat that is being trapped, it is low temperature air molecules being blocked that could reduce temperatures. This is a poor choice of words to describe the Earth and the effect of carbon dioxide. A better model would be to take spherical glass with a ball inside that represent the planet. This spherical glass would be rotated, one end facing a warm lamp of light that simulated the Sun, while the other end facing cold empty space. The side facing cold empty space would be able to cool the warmer air with water (oceans) and air, it isn't being blocked by glass. The temperature would not be able to buildup based on the speed of the rotation of the glass.
There is also heat transfer in the oceans from the side facing the sun and the side facing empty space that is extremely cold that moderate temperatures. This is something that does not happen in a greenhouse. Therefore this notion that heat is trapped by the atmosphere is highly unlikely.
Finally the construction of many greenhouses use a metal frame, that convert light into heat more effectively
3. There is limited data on the surface temperatures not facing the Sun on Venus, I would imagine the side facing empty space with a temperature of -200 degrees, it would be cold. Before citing Venus as an example of the effect of carbon dioxide, we should have better temperature data on the side facing the Sun and the dark side - minimum surface temperature. Is it an average of temperatures when the planet is facing the Sun? I was unable to find data on NASA website regarding minimum surface temperatures on Venus. There was average temperatures, which may be the maximum temperature. The other planets had this range of temperatures; one website indicated the minimum surface was unavailable! NASA should have this information readily available to assess the impact of global warming if you are using Venus as an example of too much carbon dioxide.
4. I believe increased density of the atmosphere can cause energy from the Sun to concentrate in a smaller area, that receives an intense blast of heat energy for a short period of time. The atmosphere acts like a lense to light causing solar energy to concentrate in a smaller area. You have experienced this effect with high humidity.
The central tower temperatures is 3000 degrees; however, the ground under the reflecting dishes is much cooler as a result. As light travels through the atmosphere, it begins to concentrate into a smaller area. If the planet Earth had no atmosphere, the difference in area covered by the light in the atmosphere and the ground would be minimal. Global warming creates a greater difference causing a solar tower effect.
5. The composition of the surface of Venus is different than the Earth. The Earth is covered by water which is reflective and has a lower ability to convert to Sunlight into heat. While the surface of Venus is rocky with no water or vegetation. You can see this difference between wood and steel frame houses that get extremely hot when exposed to Sunlight. The loss of vegetation from human existence could be raising temperatures on Earth rather than carbon dioxide! Many areas of the Earth are now covered with asphalt roads, metal buildings, asphalt roofs that were once vegetation that was highly reflective. This area of land covered by these objects are probably larger than the exposed land in Greenland from receding ice!
6. As the planet rotates, the Earth may spike in temperature to 200 degrees than crash as it rotates on its axis. However, a greater area of the planet will not receive as much solar radiation, it will be concentrated into a smaller area. The temperatures at the axis of the Earth may be getting colder, while solar radiation near Greenland is being concentrated, causing ice melt.
Heat energy from the equator may also transfer more effectively to colder climates when the density of the atmosphere increases. *
8. Average temperature data can be manipulated easily to show a rise in temperatures. The average temperature on Earth does not record temperatures from many places on Earth such as the North or South Pole that would reduce these averages. These locations are more likely to experience decreased temperature from any solar tower effect from the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
In summary, there is still much research that needs to be done to verify global warming and what actions need to be taken.
1. What climate change promoters like to cite is the planet Venus and the density of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide which cause the temperature to spike up to 462 degrees. What isn't discussed, is the length of day on Venus is 116 Earth days, allowing the Sun to buildup temperatures since the surface is exposed to the Sun for many days. The length of day on Mercury is 58, which is also cited as an example of the effect of carbon dioxide since it is closer to the Sun and has lower temperature than Venus. However, it is facing the Sun for half the amount of time, which doesn't allow temperatures to increase as much.
This buildup of temperatures occurs on the Moon which faces the Sun for 13 days and reach temperatures up to 250 degrees! The Moon atmosphere is considered to be a vacuum or non existent, carbon dioxide can't be blame for this high temperature. The effect of carbon dioxide is inconclusive based on a comparison of temperatures between Mercury and Venus...
2. The GreenHouse Effect- A poor choice of words:
A greenhouse has high temperatures inside because dense low energy molecules of air is blocked; however, photons of light can easily pass through the glass! However, the Earth has a side facing the Sun and the other side facing cold empty space. These molecule of air & water that range in energy states intermix, reducing the temperature of the Earth. A greenhouse does not have this interaction between one side facing the Sun and one side facing cold empty space, it is facing the Sun, with the outside air blocked allowing temperature buildup.
The air molecules inside can buildup temperatures and be insulated from the colder air outside. It isn't the heat that is being trapped, it is low temperature air molecules being blocked that could reduce temperatures. This is a poor choice of words to describe the Earth and the effect of carbon dioxide. A better model would be to take spherical glass with a ball inside that represent the planet. This spherical glass would be rotated, one end facing a warm lamp of light that simulated the Sun, while the other end facing cold empty space. The side facing cold empty space would be able to cool the warmer air with water (oceans) and air, it isn't being blocked by glass. The temperature would not be able to buildup based on the speed of the rotation of the glass.
There is also heat transfer in the oceans from the side facing the sun and the side facing empty space that is extremely cold that moderate temperatures. This is something that does not happen in a greenhouse. Therefore this notion that heat is trapped by the atmosphere is highly unlikely.
Finally the construction of many greenhouses use a metal frame, that convert light into heat more effectively
3. There is limited data on the surface temperatures not facing the Sun on Venus, I would imagine the side facing empty space with a temperature of -200 degrees, it would be cold. Before citing Venus as an example of the effect of carbon dioxide, we should have better temperature data on the side facing the Sun and the dark side - minimum surface temperature. Is it an average of temperatures when the planet is facing the Sun? I was unable to find data on NASA website regarding minimum surface temperatures on Venus. There was average temperatures, which may be the maximum temperature. The other planets had this range of temperatures; one website indicated the minimum surface was unavailable! NASA should have this information readily available to assess the impact of global warming if you are using Venus as an example of too much carbon dioxide.
4. I believe increased density of the atmosphere can cause energy from the Sun to concentrate in a smaller area, that receives an intense blast of heat energy for a short period of time. The atmosphere acts like a lense to light causing solar energy to concentrate in a smaller area. You have experienced this effect with high humidity.
The central tower temperatures is 3000 degrees; however, the ground under the reflecting dishes is much cooler as a result. As light travels through the atmosphere, it begins to concentrate into a smaller area. If the planet Earth had no atmosphere, the difference in area covered by the light in the atmosphere and the ground would be minimal. Global warming creates a greater difference causing a solar tower effect.
5. The composition of the surface of Venus is different than the Earth. The Earth is covered by water which is reflective and has a lower ability to convert to Sunlight into heat. While the surface of Venus is rocky with no water or vegetation. You can see this difference between wood and steel frame houses that get extremely hot when exposed to Sunlight. The loss of vegetation from human existence could be raising temperatures on Earth rather than carbon dioxide! Many areas of the Earth are now covered with asphalt roads, metal buildings, asphalt roofs that were once vegetation that was highly reflective. This area of land covered by these objects are probably larger than the exposed land in Greenland from receding ice!
6. As the planet rotates, the Earth may spike in temperature to 200 degrees than crash as it rotates on its axis. However, a greater area of the planet will not receive as much solar radiation, it will be concentrated into a smaller area. The temperatures at the axis of the Earth may be getting colder, while solar radiation near Greenland is being concentrated, causing ice melt.
Heat energy from the equator may also transfer more effectively to colder climates when the density of the atmosphere increases. *
8. Average temperature data can be manipulated easily to show a rise in temperatures. The average temperature on Earth does not record temperatures from many places on Earth such as the North or South Pole that would reduce these averages. These locations are more likely to experience decreased temperature from any solar tower effect from the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
In summary, there is still much research that needs to be done to verify global warming and what actions need to be taken.
Last edited:
Finally, we have no instrumentation in deep space looking at reflected light from the Earth to assess global warming definitively and in real time.
An incandescent bulb vs a florescent bulb will output energy at 10 watts in a different manner. The incandescent bulb will produce more heat rather than light, while the florescent bulb will produce more light and little heat. Based on the light levels, you can infer whether the Earth on an entire hemisphere basis is producing more heat because of carbon or water vapor. A dark object vs a light object will reflect more light and be cooler while a dark object will get warmer and reflect little light.
The same thing can be done with the Earth, knowing the amount of energy input from the Sun, you can determine whether the planet is converting more light into heat.
An incandescent bulb vs a florescent bulb will output energy at 10 watts in a different manner. The incandescent bulb will produce more heat rather than light, while the florescent bulb will produce more light and little heat. Based on the light levels, you can infer whether the Earth on an entire hemisphere basis is producing more heat because of carbon or water vapor. A dark object vs a light object will reflect more light and be cooler while a dark object will get warmer and reflect little light.
The same thing can be done with the Earth, knowing the amount of energy input from the Sun, you can determine whether the planet is converting more light into heat.
Last edited:
I have outlined many problems, in the global warming promoters points. Even the use of 'greenhouse effect' is misleading and does not represent the conditions on the Earth.
Before trillions of dollars are spent, carbon trading between nations, treaties signed, and other measures are taken to combat global warming, there should be more effective research undertaken. There is no research, looking at reflected light from the Earth that could provide a better picture on global warming.
Before trillions of dollars are spent, carbon trading between nations, treaties signed, and other measures are taken to combat global warming, there should be more effective research undertaken. There is no research, looking at reflected light from the Earth that could provide a better picture on global warming.
Last edited:
For scientists studying summer sea ice in the Arctic,
it’s not a question of “if” there will be nearly ice-free summers, but “when.”
And two scientists say that “when” is sooner than many thought —
before 2050 and possibly within the next decade or two.
<IFRAME SRC="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20130412_arcticseaice.html" WIDTH=780 HEIGHT=1500>
<A HREF="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20130412_arcticseaice.html">link</A>
</IFRAME>
Climate changing for global warming journalists
Climate changing for global warming journalists
Lawrence Solomon
13/04/12 | Last Updated: 13/04/16 3:05 PM ET
The Economist and other journalism icons are beginning to reassess their position on global warming
The overwhelming consensus on global warming among journalists may be cracking. Last week, the world’s most prestigious newsmagazine – The Economist – backed away from its past alarmist position, saying that “If climate scientists were credit-rating agencies, climate sensitivity would be on negative watch.” The Economist now discounts the high-end estimates of warming coming from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as being unlikely if not far-fetched.
And now the London Telegraph’s venerable Geoffrey Lean concurs, in an article entitled “Global warming: time to rein back on doom and gloom?” Says this pioneer of environmental journalism at the peak of his 40-year career: “climate change might not be as catastrophic as the gloomiest predictions suggest.” To the contrary, he says, the warming now expected could be “less than the 2C danger level.”
In both cases, these journalistic icons’ reassessment was based not on ideology but on fact. Temperatures have not risen over the past 15 years, making a mockery of the computer programs that showed temperatures rising in lockstep with carbon dioxide. “When my information changes, I alter my conclusions,” economist John Maynard Keynes famously said.
The information changed for both The Economist magazine and for Lean, and both then altered their conclusions. The Economist points to various reputable scientific bodies that have far less scary projections than the IPCC, including the government-funded Research Council of Norway, and it is clearly troubled by the failure of the computer models to match reality. One possibility, it says quite reasonably, is that the last decade of no warming has been an anomaly, and that warming will soon resume. “Or it might be that the 1990s, when temperatures were rising fast, was the anomalous period,” it states, meaning that we all got worked up over what amounted to nothing more than a temporary hot spell.
The Economist and Lean join a small group of prestigious colleagues who have long been skeptical of warnings of doom, among them writers and editors at the Wall Street Journal in the U.S., at Lean’s own Telegraph in the U.K., at Der Spiegel in Germany, at The Australian in Australia and at National Post in Canada. Other journalists are now also likely to take a second look at the IPCC’s assertions, both because a change of heart on the part of The Economist cannot easily be dismissed and because no journalist wants to be in the embarrassing position of being the last to know.
For the journalists who are now reading this, and especially for those without a scientific grounding who understandably feel they must rely on authority, here is what needs to be known to cut through the scientific bafflegab and be confident as skeptics.
1. All of the scary global warming scenarios are based on computer models.
2. None of the models work.
3. There is and has been no scientific consensus.
The most common reason for believing in a scientific consensus is the claim made in the previous decade, and then routinely repeated, that 2500 scientists have endorsed the IPCC’s findings (the Internet has countless references to this effect, with the number of scientists sometimes reported as 3000 or 4000.) This claim stems from a misunderstanding. The 2500 scientists associated with the IPCC were not endorsers, they were peer reviewers. Anyone can confirm this easily, as I have, by simply contacting the Secretariat of the IPCC.
The other common reason for believing in the existence of a scientific consensus was a widely reported survey that showed 97% of scientists believe in global warming. That number came from an online survey of 10,257 earth scientists conducted by two researchers who for various reasons decided to disqualify all but 77 of the 3146 who responded. The 77 accepted had unknown qualifications – a PhD or even a Master’s degree was not required for inclusion in the survey. Of those 77, 75 thought humans contributed to climate change; the ratio 75 over 77 yields the 97% figure. Another study also brandished a 97% figure, this one produced not by a scientist but by a computer administrator doing Google Scholar searches.
To keep track of, and follow, the journalists who are becoming more skeptical of anthropogenic global warming, I have created a Twitter list, entitled Newly Skeptical AGW Media, that anyone on the Internet can see. The list now has three members: Geoffrey Lean, The Economist and Oliver Morton, a journalist who participated in an Economist podcast describing its new position. As other prominent journalists become more skeptical in their views on climate change, I’ll add them to the list, creating a record of sorts of the media’s evolution in thinking on climate change (feel free to email me with names of other journalists who belong on this list). I’ll also report on the progress of the list, or lack thereof, in future columns.
An evolution in thinking among journalists would bring journalists into the mainstream of society – journalists today are among the few groups that overwhelmingly subscribe to the view that global warming is both manmade and represents a major danger. The public certainly does not. According to a Pew report released earlier this month, among Americans global warming ranks last among 21 public policy priorities that the government should deal with. European polls show similar results. This skepticism among the public – quite remarkable considering the steady diet of imminent danger that most of the western world’s press has dished out – would only increase should journalists start questioning climate change orthodoxy, as The Economist has, ending the overwhelming consensus on climate change in the media.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/20...n-media-consensus-on-global-warming-cracking/
Climate changing for global warming journalists
Lawrence Solomon
13/04/12 | Last Updated: 13/04/16 3:05 PM ET
The Economist and other journalism icons are beginning to reassess their position on global warming
The overwhelming consensus on global warming among journalists may be cracking. Last week, the world’s most prestigious newsmagazine – The Economist – backed away from its past alarmist position, saying that “If climate scientists were credit-rating agencies, climate sensitivity would be on negative watch.” The Economist now discounts the high-end estimates of warming coming from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as being unlikely if not far-fetched.
And now the London Telegraph’s venerable Geoffrey Lean concurs, in an article entitled “Global warming: time to rein back on doom and gloom?” Says this pioneer of environmental journalism at the peak of his 40-year career: “climate change might not be as catastrophic as the gloomiest predictions suggest.” To the contrary, he says, the warming now expected could be “less than the 2C danger level.”
In both cases, these journalistic icons’ reassessment was based not on ideology but on fact. Temperatures have not risen over the past 15 years, making a mockery of the computer programs that showed temperatures rising in lockstep with carbon dioxide. “When my information changes, I alter my conclusions,” economist John Maynard Keynes famously said.
The information changed for both The Economist magazine and for Lean, and both then altered their conclusions. The Economist points to various reputable scientific bodies that have far less scary projections than the IPCC, including the government-funded Research Council of Norway, and it is clearly troubled by the failure of the computer models to match reality. One possibility, it says quite reasonably, is that the last decade of no warming has been an anomaly, and that warming will soon resume. “Or it might be that the 1990s, when temperatures were rising fast, was the anomalous period,” it states, meaning that we all got worked up over what amounted to nothing more than a temporary hot spell.
The Economist and Lean join a small group of prestigious colleagues who have long been skeptical of warnings of doom, among them writers and editors at the Wall Street Journal in the U.S., at Lean’s own Telegraph in the U.K., at Der Spiegel in Germany, at The Australian in Australia and at National Post in Canada. Other journalists are now also likely to take a second look at the IPCC’s assertions, both because a change of heart on the part of The Economist cannot easily be dismissed and because no journalist wants to be in the embarrassing position of being the last to know.
For the journalists who are now reading this, and especially for those without a scientific grounding who understandably feel they must rely on authority, here is what needs to be known to cut through the scientific bafflegab and be confident as skeptics.
1. All of the scary global warming scenarios are based on computer models.
2. None of the models work.
3. There is and has been no scientific consensus.
The most common reason for believing in a scientific consensus is the claim made in the previous decade, and then routinely repeated, that 2500 scientists have endorsed the IPCC’s findings (the Internet has countless references to this effect, with the number of scientists sometimes reported as 3000 or 4000.) This claim stems from a misunderstanding. The 2500 scientists associated with the IPCC were not endorsers, they were peer reviewers. Anyone can confirm this easily, as I have, by simply contacting the Secretariat of the IPCC.
The other common reason for believing in the existence of a scientific consensus was a widely reported survey that showed 97% of scientists believe in global warming. That number came from an online survey of 10,257 earth scientists conducted by two researchers who for various reasons decided to disqualify all but 77 of the 3146 who responded. The 77 accepted had unknown qualifications – a PhD or even a Master’s degree was not required for inclusion in the survey. Of those 77, 75 thought humans contributed to climate change; the ratio 75 over 77 yields the 97% figure. Another study also brandished a 97% figure, this one produced not by a scientist but by a computer administrator doing Google Scholar searches.
To keep track of, and follow, the journalists who are becoming more skeptical of anthropogenic global warming, I have created a Twitter list, entitled Newly Skeptical AGW Media, that anyone on the Internet can see. The list now has three members: Geoffrey Lean, The Economist and Oliver Morton, a journalist who participated in an Economist podcast describing its new position. As other prominent journalists become more skeptical in their views on climate change, I’ll add them to the list, creating a record of sorts of the media’s evolution in thinking on climate change (feel free to email me with names of other journalists who belong on this list). I’ll also report on the progress of the list, or lack thereof, in future columns.
An evolution in thinking among journalists would bring journalists into the mainstream of society – journalists today are among the few groups that overwhelmingly subscribe to the view that global warming is both manmade and represents a major danger. The public certainly does not. According to a Pew report released earlier this month, among Americans global warming ranks last among 21 public policy priorities that the government should deal with. European polls show similar results. This skepticism among the public – quite remarkable considering the steady diet of imminent danger that most of the western world’s press has dished out – would only increase should journalists start questioning climate change orthodoxy, as The Economist has, ending the overwhelming consensus on climate change in the media.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/20...n-media-consensus-on-global-warming-cracking/
Re: Climate changing for global warming journalists
Public anxious on climate, to a point
Many climate change polls suggest a clear enough overall
trend: Majorities of Americans believe global warming is
real and the federal government should act. But,
Polls say it’s a wise political move to address climate change rather than be a skeptic
SOURCE
Public anxious on climate, to a point
Many climate change polls suggest a clear enough overall
trend: Majorities of Americans believe global warming is
real and the federal government should act. But,
Polls say it’s a wise political move to address climate change rather than be a skeptic
Many climate change polls suggest a clear enough overall trend: Majorities of Americans believe global warming is real and the federal government should act.
But that fact can offer little help for some policymakers trying to gauge public opinion, thanks to variations in how the polls are worded, along with people’s deeply rooted perceptions of how others view the topic.
Three-quarters of the public believe that global temperatures have “probably” slowly increased during the past century — a finding that Jon Krosnick, a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, says has been consistent throughout 15 years of surveys he has conducted on the topic.
“We’ve seen almost no movement,” he told POLITICO, adding that about the same percentage say humans are contributing to climate change. And the percentage of people who say the federal government should do more to address the problem has grown from 49 percent in 1997 to 61 percent in 2008 and 2012, Krosnick found.
Belief in global warming is strong even in politically deep-red states housing some of the biggest climate skeptics in Congress, says Krosnick, who compiled state-by-state results from about a dozen surveys he has conducted in partnership with media outlets over the past five to 10 years.
For example, 85 percent of people surveyed during the past decade in GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe’s state of Oklahoma believe that global warming has probably been happening — second only to Arizona’s 86 percent, Krosnick said. In nearly all states, he concluded that majorities believe humans are causing warming and that the federal government should do more — and in no states did skeptics come close to outweighing the believers.
Meanwhile, Democrats looking for more aggressive federal action may be heartened by poll results suggesting it’s a wise move politically to address climate change rather than be a skeptic.
“There’s been a certain myth that’s been created about climate change becoming the third rail of modern politics,” said Edward Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication, who has briefed Democrats on his findings.
In January, Maibach’s center released the third in a series of polls underscoring his point that many Democrats and independents want action on climate change. He later discussed his findings with an informal group of Senate Democrats led by Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
Since early November, polls by Rasmussen, the National Wildlife Federation, the University of Michigan, Duke University, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pew Research Center and others have found that most people agree with some language stating that climate change is a problem or is at least occurring.
But Republicans are skeptical that the polls are so conclusive, noting that Democrats remain skittish about taking steps on climate legislation.
“If it’s such a good concrete slam-dunk issue, why aren’t Senate Democrats doing anything about it?” one senior Senate GOP aide said. “And I think the reason is the cost implications. And nobody is addressing that. That is what all of these surveys fail to account.”
But other possible explanations exist for Congress’s inaction.
For one thing, people underestimate how many others believe climate change is a problem that should be dealt with, as well as the partisan divide on the issue, Krosnick said.
“The country really doesn’t know how green it truly is,” he said. “If that misperception in the general public is shared here [in Washington], that might be an explanation for decisions on policymaking.”
Another wrinkle: While the percentage of people who trust the consensus of climate scientists has remained high and stable, polls have found varying answers on how many people who distrust the scientists still believe that global warming is happening.
Many who are skeptical of scientists base their judgment in part on news reports of what the average global temperature was the year before the survey was conducted, Krosnick found. For example, surveys found a higher percentage of climate change believers among the scientist-skeptic crowd in 2011, after records had been broken the year before. A lower percentage believed in 2009, following news reports about 2008 being the coolest year in a decade.
Leah Christian, who until recently was a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center, cautioned that it’s all about how the survey questions are worded.
The Pew Center’s surveys have asked whether “solid evidence” exists that climate change is occurring. “That’s a pretty high bar in my opinion,” Christian said.
The upshot, she said, is that only 42 percent of people say both that climate change is happening and that it is mostly caused by human activity.
The Columbus, Ohio-based The Strategy Team released an analysis in November of 150 climate change and global warming surveys since 1986 and noted that “small differences” in the wording of questions lead “to substantially different measurements.” That “has great implications for policymakers who need to know, as accurately as possible, what the public thinks and feels on this issue,” according to the group’s analysis.
But that analysis echoed Krosnick in showing about 75 percent of people now believe global warming is happening, a percentage that is continuing upward after dipping in recent years.
Still, the Pew findings underscore stark partisan differences that resemble the divide on Capitol Hill: An overwhelming majority of Democrats — 87 percent — believe there is solid evidence that the Earth is warming, compared with 69 percent of independents and 44 percent of Republicans.
Fifty-seven percent of Democrats say warming is mostly due to human activity, compared with 43 percent of independents and 19 percent of Republicans, Pew found.
In Washington, House and Senate Republican leaders have shown no interest in addressing climate change, aside from holding symbolic votes aimed at showing the unpopularity of potential steps like a carbon tax. And other polls back up GOP arguments that the potential costs of climate action turn off the public.
A poll in November by The Huffington Post and YouGov found that only one in five people was willing to pay 50 percent more for gasoline or electricity even if doing so meant solving climate change.
Not even Hurricane Sandy led to a lasting change in attitudes, Krosnick said. He noted that the public desire for federal action on climate change went down after the storm struck, as did the perceived personal impact and importance of the issue.
“For those who believe extreme weather is the ticket to Americans recognizing the seriousness of this problem, you can’t look at these data to see support for that,” he said. “If there is a notable change, it is a sense in which maybe this is New York and New Jersey and Connecticut’s problem, it’s not the country’s problem.”
But that fact can offer little help for some policymakers trying to gauge public opinion, thanks to variations in how the polls are worded, along with people’s deeply rooted perceptions of how others view the topic.
Three-quarters of the public believe that global temperatures have “probably” slowly increased during the past century — a finding that Jon Krosnick, a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, says has been consistent throughout 15 years of surveys he has conducted on the topic.
“We’ve seen almost no movement,” he told POLITICO, adding that about the same percentage say humans are contributing to climate change. And the percentage of people who say the federal government should do more to address the problem has grown from 49 percent in 1997 to 61 percent in 2008 and 2012, Krosnick found.
Belief in global warming is strong even in politically deep-red states housing some of the biggest climate skeptics in Congress, says Krosnick, who compiled state-by-state results from about a dozen surveys he has conducted in partnership with media outlets over the past five to 10 years.
For example, 85 percent of people surveyed during the past decade in GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe’s state of Oklahoma believe that global warming has probably been happening — second only to Arizona’s 86 percent, Krosnick said. In nearly all states, he concluded that majorities believe humans are causing warming and that the federal government should do more — and in no states did skeptics come close to outweighing the believers.
Meanwhile, Democrats looking for more aggressive federal action may be heartened by poll results suggesting it’s a wise move politically to address climate change rather than be a skeptic.
“There’s been a certain myth that’s been created about climate change becoming the third rail of modern politics,” said Edward Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication, who has briefed Democrats on his findings.
In January, Maibach’s center released the third in a series of polls underscoring his point that many Democrats and independents want action on climate change. He later discussed his findings with an informal group of Senate Democrats led by Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
Since early November, polls by Rasmussen, the National Wildlife Federation, the University of Michigan, Duke University, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pew Research Center and others have found that most people agree with some language stating that climate change is a problem or is at least occurring.
But Republicans are skeptical that the polls are so conclusive, noting that Democrats remain skittish about taking steps on climate legislation.
“If it’s such a good concrete slam-dunk issue, why aren’t Senate Democrats doing anything about it?” one senior Senate GOP aide said. “And I think the reason is the cost implications. And nobody is addressing that. That is what all of these surveys fail to account.”
But other possible explanations exist for Congress’s inaction.
For one thing, people underestimate how many others believe climate change is a problem that should be dealt with, as well as the partisan divide on the issue, Krosnick said.
“The country really doesn’t know how green it truly is,” he said. “If that misperception in the general public is shared here [in Washington], that might be an explanation for decisions on policymaking.”
Another wrinkle: While the percentage of people who trust the consensus of climate scientists has remained high and stable, polls have found varying answers on how many people who distrust the scientists still believe that global warming is happening.
Many who are skeptical of scientists base their judgment in part on news reports of what the average global temperature was the year before the survey was conducted, Krosnick found. For example, surveys found a higher percentage of climate change believers among the scientist-skeptic crowd in 2011, after records had been broken the year before. A lower percentage believed in 2009, following news reports about 2008 being the coolest year in a decade.
Leah Christian, who until recently was a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center, cautioned that it’s all about how the survey questions are worded.
The Pew Center’s surveys have asked whether “solid evidence” exists that climate change is occurring. “That’s a pretty high bar in my opinion,” Christian said.
The upshot, she said, is that only 42 percent of people say both that climate change is happening and that it is mostly caused by human activity.
The Columbus, Ohio-based The Strategy Team released an analysis in November of 150 climate change and global warming surveys since 1986 and noted that “small differences” in the wording of questions lead “to substantially different measurements.” That “has great implications for policymakers who need to know, as accurately as possible, what the public thinks and feels on this issue,” according to the group’s analysis.
But that analysis echoed Krosnick in showing about 75 percent of people now believe global warming is happening, a percentage that is continuing upward after dipping in recent years.
Still, the Pew findings underscore stark partisan differences that resemble the divide on Capitol Hill: An overwhelming majority of Democrats — 87 percent — believe there is solid evidence that the Earth is warming, compared with 69 percent of independents and 44 percent of Republicans.
Fifty-seven percent of Democrats say warming is mostly due to human activity, compared with 43 percent of independents and 19 percent of Republicans, Pew found.
In Washington, House and Senate Republican leaders have shown no interest in addressing climate change, aside from holding symbolic votes aimed at showing the unpopularity of potential steps like a carbon tax. And other polls back up GOP arguments that the potential costs of climate action turn off the public.
A poll in November by The Huffington Post and YouGov found that only one in five people was willing to pay 50 percent more for gasoline or electricity even if doing so meant solving climate change.
Not even Hurricane Sandy led to a lasting change in attitudes, Krosnick said. He noted that the public desire for federal action on climate change went down after the storm struck, as did the perceived personal impact and importance of the issue.
“For those who believe extreme weather is the ticket to Americans recognizing the seriousness of this problem, you can’t look at these data to see support for that,” he said. “If there is a notable change, it is a sense in which maybe this is New York and New Jersey and Connecticut’s problem, it’s not the country’s problem.”
SOURCE
Warming lull haunts authors of key climate report
Warming lull haunts authors of key climate report
By KARL RITTER | Associated Press
23 hrs ago
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Scientists working on a landmark U.N. report on climate change are struggling to explain why global warming appears to have slowed down in the past 15 years even though greenhouse gas emissions keep rising.
Leaked documents obtained by The Associated Press show there are deep concerns among governments over how to address the issue ahead of next week's meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Climate skeptics have used the lull in surface warming since 1998 to cast doubt on the scientific consensus that humans are cooking the planet by burning fossil fuels and cutting down CO2-absorbing forests.
The IPCC report is expected to affirm the human link with greater certainty than ever, but the panel is under pressure to also address the recent lower rate of warming, which scientists say is likely due to heat going deep into the ocean and natural climate fluctuations.
"I think to not address it would be a problem because then you basically have the denialists saying, 'Look the IPCC is silent on this issue,'" said Alden Meyer, of the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists.
In a leaked June draft of the report's summary from policy-makers, the IPCC said the rate of warming in 1998-2012 was about half the average rate since 1951. It cited natural variability in the climate system, as well as cooling effects from volcanic eruptions and a downward phase in solar activity.
But several governments that reviewed the draft objected to how the issue was tackled, in comments to the IPCC obtained by the AP.
Germany called for the reference to the slowdown to be deleted, saying a time span of 10-15 years was misleading in the context of climate change, which is measured over decades and centuries.
The U.S. also urged the authors to include the "leading hypothesis" that the reduction in warming is linked to more heat being transferred to the deep ocean.
Belgium objected to using 1998 as a starting year for any statistics. That year was exceptionally warm, so any graph showing global temperatures starting with 1998 looks flat, because most years since have been cooler. Using 1999 or 2000 as a starting year would yield a more upward-pointing curve.
Hungary worried the report would provide ammunition for skeptics.
Many skeptics claim that the rise in global average temperatures stopped in the late 1990s and their argument has gained momentum among some media and politicians, even though the scientific evidence of climate change is piling up: the previous decade was the warmest on record and, so far, this decade is even warmer. Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice melted to a record low last year and the IPCC draft said sea levels have risen by 7.5 inches (19 centimeters) since 1901.
Many researchers say the slowdown in warming is related to the natural ocean cycles of El Nino and La Nina. Also, a 2013 study by Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research found dramatic recent warming in the deeper oceans.
Stefan Rahmstorf, a German climate scientist, said it was possible that the report's authors were feeling pressured to address the warming slowdown because it's received so much attention recently.
"I think a lot of the interest in this topic in the science community has been triggered by the public debate about it," said Rahmstorf, who was a reviewer for the report's chapter on sea levels.
Jonathan Lynn, a spokesman for the IPCC, declined to comment on the content of the report because it hasn't been finalized, but said it would provide "a comprehensive picture of all the science relevant to climate change, including the thousands of pieces of scientific research published since the last report in 2007 up to earlier this year."
The IPCC draft report says it's "extremely likely" that human influence caused more than half of the warming observed since the 1950s, an upgrade from "very likely" in the last IPCC report in 2007.
The panel also raised its projections for sea level rise to 10-32 inches (26-81 centimeters) by the end of the century. The 2007 report predicted a rise of 7-23 inches (18-59 centimeters).
Continued carbon emissions at or above current rates "would induce changes in all components in the climate system, some of which would very likely be unprecedented in hundreds to thousands of years," the IPCC said in the draft. A final version will be presented at the end of the panel's meeting in Stockholm next week.
The IPCC's conclusions are important because they serve as the scientific underpinnings of U.N. negotiations to rein in emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. A global climate treaty is supposed to be adopted in 2015.
http://news.yahoo.com/warming-lull-haunts-authors-key-climate-report-121638103.html
Warming lull haunts authors of key climate report
By KARL RITTER | Associated Press
23 hrs ago
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Scientists working on a landmark U.N. report on climate change are struggling to explain why global warming appears to have slowed down in the past 15 years even though greenhouse gas emissions keep rising.
Leaked documents obtained by The Associated Press show there are deep concerns among governments over how to address the issue ahead of next week's meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Climate skeptics have used the lull in surface warming since 1998 to cast doubt on the scientific consensus that humans are cooking the planet by burning fossil fuels and cutting down CO2-absorbing forests.
The IPCC report is expected to affirm the human link with greater certainty than ever, but the panel is under pressure to also address the recent lower rate of warming, which scientists say is likely due to heat going deep into the ocean and natural climate fluctuations.
"I think to not address it would be a problem because then you basically have the denialists saying, 'Look the IPCC is silent on this issue,'" said Alden Meyer, of the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists.
In a leaked June draft of the report's summary from policy-makers, the IPCC said the rate of warming in 1998-2012 was about half the average rate since 1951. It cited natural variability in the climate system, as well as cooling effects from volcanic eruptions and a downward phase in solar activity.
But several governments that reviewed the draft objected to how the issue was tackled, in comments to the IPCC obtained by the AP.
Germany called for the reference to the slowdown to be deleted, saying a time span of 10-15 years was misleading in the context of climate change, which is measured over decades and centuries.
The U.S. also urged the authors to include the "leading hypothesis" that the reduction in warming is linked to more heat being transferred to the deep ocean.
Belgium objected to using 1998 as a starting year for any statistics. That year was exceptionally warm, so any graph showing global temperatures starting with 1998 looks flat, because most years since have been cooler. Using 1999 or 2000 as a starting year would yield a more upward-pointing curve.
Hungary worried the report would provide ammunition for skeptics.
Many skeptics claim that the rise in global average temperatures stopped in the late 1990s and their argument has gained momentum among some media and politicians, even though the scientific evidence of climate change is piling up: the previous decade was the warmest on record and, so far, this decade is even warmer. Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice melted to a record low last year and the IPCC draft said sea levels have risen by 7.5 inches (19 centimeters) since 1901.
Many researchers say the slowdown in warming is related to the natural ocean cycles of El Nino and La Nina. Also, a 2013 study by Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research found dramatic recent warming in the deeper oceans.
Stefan Rahmstorf, a German climate scientist, said it was possible that the report's authors were feeling pressured to address the warming slowdown because it's received so much attention recently.
"I think a lot of the interest in this topic in the science community has been triggered by the public debate about it," said Rahmstorf, who was a reviewer for the report's chapter on sea levels.
Jonathan Lynn, a spokesman for the IPCC, declined to comment on the content of the report because it hasn't been finalized, but said it would provide "a comprehensive picture of all the science relevant to climate change, including the thousands of pieces of scientific research published since the last report in 2007 up to earlier this year."
The IPCC draft report says it's "extremely likely" that human influence caused more than half of the warming observed since the 1950s, an upgrade from "very likely" in the last IPCC report in 2007.
The panel also raised its projections for sea level rise to 10-32 inches (26-81 centimeters) by the end of the century. The 2007 report predicted a rise of 7-23 inches (18-59 centimeters).
Continued carbon emissions at or above current rates "would induce changes in all components in the climate system, some of which would very likely be unprecedented in hundreds to thousands of years," the IPCC said in the draft. A final version will be presented at the end of the panel's meeting in Stockholm next week.
The IPCC's conclusions are important because they serve as the scientific underpinnings of U.N. negotiations to rein in emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. A global climate treaty is supposed to be adopted in 2015.
http://news.yahoo.com/warming-lull-haunts-authors-key-climate-report-121638103.html
Arctic Ice Makes Comeback From Record Low,
but Long-Term Decline May Continue
New York Times
By JUSTIN GILLIS
September 20, 2013
Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean underwent a sharp recovery this year from the record-low levels of 2012, with 50 percent more ice surviving the summer melt season, scientists said Friday. It is the largest one-year increase in Arctic ice since satellite tracking began in 1978.
The experts added, however, that much of the ice remains thin and slushy, a far cry from the thick Arctic pack ice of the past. Because thin ice is subject to rapid future melting, the scientists said this year’s recovery was unlikely to portend any change in the relentless long-term decline of Arctic sea ice.
When satellite monitoring began in the late 1970s, about half the surface of the Arctic Ocean would be covered by ice at the end of the melt season, which usually occurs in September. By last year, that figure had fallen to 24 percent of the ocean surface, rising this year to 36 percent.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center announced Friday that the low point in sea ice this year had occurred on Sept. 13. The timing varies from year to year, and the agency always waits several days before making an announcement to be certain the ice pack has begun to regrow.
Lately, a new low in summer sea ice has been set every few years, followed by a few years of recovery, followed by yet another low that typically exceeds the previous one by a substantial margin.
FULL STORY: HERE