457 replies to this topic

[jaydfox]

Ask these people if they are aware that solar cycle 25 will have a sunspot count of less than 50, with a global cooling in the order of 1.5-2.0 C by 2022.

Got a link on that?

[jackinbox]

(mikelorrey)
Ask these people if they are aware that solar cycle 25 will have a sunspot count of less than 50, with a global cooling in the order of 1.5-2.0 C by 2022. Expect the ice to return in force. Greenland will be uninhabitable, once again.

the solar cycle duration is 11 years and none is able to predict more thant 20 years in advance.

"Many scientists have argued that the radiation change in a solar cycle - an increase of two to three tenths of a percent over the 20th century - are not strong enough to account for the observed surface temperature increases. The GISS model agrees that the solar increases do not have the ability to cause large global temperature increases, leading Shindell to conclude that greenhouse gasses are indeed playing the dominant role."


http://science.nasa....y_longrange.htm
http://www.scienceda...90412075538.htm

[mikelorrey]

http://www.nytimes.c...agewanted=print

GLOBAL DEATH! STUDY IN NATURE MAGAZINE LINKS EXTINCTION CYCLES TO
CHANGES IN EARTH's ORBIT, TILT OF ITS AXIS AND ITS NATURAL WOBBLE /
"PULSES OF TURNOVER" OCCUR FROM 1 - 2.5 MILLION YEARS ... WHEN WILL IT
BE MANKIND's TURN TO GO EXTINCT?! – By John Noble Wilford, Staff
Writer, New York Times, Thursday, October 12, 2006

If rodents in Spain are any guide, periodic changes in Earth's orbit may
account for the apparent regularity with which new species of mammals
emerge and then go extinct, scientists are reporting today.

It so happens, the paleontologists say, that variations in the course
Earth travels around the Sun and in the tilt of its axis are associated
with episodes of global cooling. Their new research on the fossil record
shows that the cyclical pattern of these phenomena corresponds to
species turnover in rodents and probably other mammal groups as well.

In a report appearing today in the journal Nature, Dutch and Spanish
scientists led by Jan A. van Dam of Utrecht University in the
Netherlands say the "astronomical hypothesis for species turnover
provides a crucial missing piece in the puzzle of mammal species- and
genus-level evolution."

In addition, the researchers write, the hypothesis "offers a plausible
explanation for the characteristic duration of more or less 2.5 million
years of the mean species life span in mammals."

Dr. van Dam and his colleagues studied the fossil record of rats, mice
and other rodents over the last 22 million years in central Spain. The
fossils are numerous and show a largely uninterrupted record of the rise
and fall of individual species. Other scientists say rodents, thanks to
their large numbers, are commonly used in studies of such evolutionary
transitions.

As the scientists pored over some 80,000 isolated molars, the most
distinct markers of different species, the patterns of turnovers
emerged. They seemed often to occur in clusters, which seemed unrelated
to biology. And they occurred in cycles of about 2.5 million and 1
million years.

The longer-term cycle, the scientists determined, peaks when Earth's
orbit is closer to being a perfect circle. The short cycle corresponds
to shifts in the tilt of Earth's axis. The "pulses of turnover," the
scientists determined, occurred mainly at times when the different
cycles left Earth a colder world.

Previous studies have invoked climate change to explain mammalian
species turnover, but they have been challenged or only partly supported
by other research.

Paleontologists and mammal experts not involved in the research said the
findings and interpretations were provocative and likely to inspire
other investigations. One objective, they said, was to extend the study
to small mammals beyond Spain, preferably to other continents.

"It's very intriguing," said John J. Flynn, a paleontologist at the
American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. "But this will be
controversial. Any time you invoke periodic and external forces to
explain patterns in biology and climate, it stirs up controversy."

Dr. Flynn said some recent research had led other scientists to conclude
that there was no strong correlation between climate changes and species
turnover.

While scientists go off looking for fossil rodents outside Spain, there
is no apparent cause for concern that another species turnover is nigh.
Dr. van Dam said the 2.5-million-year cycle "has entered the critical
stage corresponding to a relatively circular orbit."

But any period of high turnover may be tens of thousands of years away,
he said. And it may be good news for both mice and men that the climate
system has changed significantly in the last three million years.

Ever since the establishment of the northern ice cap, Dr. van Dam said,
the climate system has been reacting differently, as reflected in the
succession of ice ages. "So it is not easy to predict what the
2.5-million-year cycle will do," he said.
------------------------------------------
© 2006 The New York Times Company / Click below for "Printer Friendly
Version."

[mikelorrey]

(mikelorrey)
Ask these people if they are aware that solar cycle 25 will have a sunspot count of less than 50, with a global cooling in the order of 1.5-2.0 C by 2022. Expect the ice to return in force. Greenland will be uninhabitable, once again.

the solar cycle duration is 11 years and none is able to predict more thant 20 years in advance.

"Many scientists have argued that the radiation change in a solar cycle - an increase of two to three tenths of a percent over the 20th century - are not strong enough to account for the observed surface temperature increases. The GISS model agrees that the solar increases do not have the ability to cause large global temperature increases, leading Shindell to conclude that greenhouse gasses are indeed playing the dominant role."


http://science.nasa....y_longrange.htm
http://www.scienceda...90412075538.htm

This is not so. Scientists have been able to demonstrate accurate prediction of solar maxima as much as two cycles in advance by measuring the north-south drift rate of sunspots. Sunspot drift is a measurement of convection current rates, and given convection currents also produce electric currents that are the basis of solar magnetic activity, as there is a direct correlation. I've posted links to relevant papers on the forum by several folks on this. It is accurate and NASA accepts these predictions as accurate.

[jackinbox]

"accurate prediction of solar maxima as much as two cycles in advance".

That just what I said. The duration of a cycle is 11 years. Two cycle sum to 22 years. We don't know after that.

[Athanasios]

http://www.telegraph...lit/nwarm05.xml

This week, I'll show how the UN undervalued the sun's effects on historical and contemporary climate, slashed the natural greenhouse effect, overstated the past century's temperature increase, repealed a fundamental law of physics and tripled the man-made greenhouse effect.

Next week, I'll demonstrate the atrocious economic, political and environmental cost of the high-tax, zero-freedom, bureaucratic centralism implicit in Stern's report; I'll compare the global-warming scare with previous sci-fi alarums; and I'll show how the environmentalists' "precautionary principle" (get the state to interfere now, just in case) is killing people.

[william7]

'Doomsday Clock' Now Tracks Warming
Associated Press


Jan. 17, 2007 — Scientist Stephen Hawking described climate change Wednesday as a greater threat to the planet than terrorism.

Hawking made the remarks as other prominent scientists prepared to push the giant hand of its Doomsday Clock — a symbol of the risk of atomic cataclysm and now also of climate change — closer to midnight. Hawking warned that "as citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day."

It was the fourth time since the end of the Cold War that the clock has ticked forward, this time from 11:53 to 11:55, amid fears over what the trans-Atlantic group of scientists is describing as "a second nuclear age" prompted largely by atomic standoffs with Iran and North Korea.

But the organization added that the "dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons."

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded in 1945 as a newsletter distributed among nuclear physicists concerned by the possibility of nuclear war, has since grown into an organization focused more generally on manmade threats to the survival of human civilization.

"As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth," said Stephen Hawking, the renowned cosmologist and mathematician.

"As citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change."

The bulletin's clock, which for 60 years has followed the rise and fall of nuclear tensions, would now also measure climate change, the bulletin's editor Mark Strauss said.

"There's a realization that we are changing our climate for the worse," he said, "That would have catastrophic effects. Although the threat is not as dire as that of nuclear weapons right now, in the long term we are looking at a serious threat."

The threat of nuclear war, however, remains by far the organization's most pressing concern. "It's important to emphasize 50 of today's nuclear weapons could kill 200 million people," he said.

The decisions to move the clock is made by the bulletin's board, which is composed of prominent scientists and policy experts, in coordination with the group's sponsors.

Since it was set to seven minutes to midnight in 1947, the hand has been moved 18 times, including Wednesday's move.

It came closest to midnight — just two minutes away — in 1953, following the successful test of a hydrogen bomb by the United States. It has been as far away as 17 minutes, set there in 1991 following the demise of the Soviet Union.

http://dsc.discovery...=20070117140000

[JMorgan]

Fascinating video. Well worth your time in my opinion, regardless of which side you're on in the global warming debate. It's about 1 hr 15 min long, so relax and grab some popcorn and an open mind:

http://video.google....566792811497638

(It appears the link no longer works. Search for "Great Global Warming Swindle.")

Edited by JMorgan, 14 March 2007 - 01:59 PM.

[biknut]

Fascinating video. Well worth your time in my opinion, regardless of which side you're on in the global warming debate. It's about 1 hr 15 min long, so relax and grab some popcorn and an open mind:

http://video.google....566792811497638

I just watched the whole thing. Two thumbs up. Lot of good information here.

Every day another nail is driven into the coffin of GW.

The weather is driven by the clouds. The clouds are driven by cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are driven by the sun. It's the sun stupid.

CO2 rise always follows temperature rise, not the other way around.

I knew there was a reason why Global Warming kept setting off my commie-dar.

This makes me want to hop in my van and drive around burning a bunch of gas while looking for environmentalists to run over.

[JMorgan]

I thought the assertions made near the end of the film regarding Africa's development were particularly strong.

Also, I didn't have time to watch the entire thing last night. Did you happen to see any mention of Mars in the film? A professor I spoke with about this film mentioned that there is global warming taking place on Mars. So either the Martians are being careless about their environment or the sun is making a very significant impact on the climate, just like here on earth.

[biknut]

Also, I didn't have time to watch the entire thing last night. Did you happen to see any mention of Mars in the film? A professor I spoke with about this film mentioned that there is global warming taking place on Mars. So either the Martians are being careless about their environment or the sun is making a very significant impact on the climate, just like here on earth.

I don't remember any mention of GW on mars of other planets in this film.

It does seem that the alarmists backs are against the wall. They like to keep saying the output of the sun hasn't varied enough to cause GW. They don't want to talk about the suns affects on cosmic rays, or the research that's been done on it other than to just deny it could be responsible.

[mike250]

what about the effects of the moon? it has reached its closest distance ever to the earth if I'm not mistaken, and lately we've been having more storms/light blizzards in the southern part of Dunedin, NZ?

this issue was raised by a climatologist- sorry forgot his name- and he echoed the same idea.

[niner]

It does seem that the alarmists backs are against the wall. They like to keep saying the output of the sun hasn't varied enough to cause GW. They don't want to talk about the suns affects on cosmic rays, or the research that's been done on it other than to just deny it could be responsible.

Biknut, you just make this stuff up, don't you? "backs are against the wall" sheesh. Real scientists do talk about these things, just not in The Weekly World News, so you never see it. Here is a summary of the cosmic ray issue with references from http://www.realclima.../index.php?p=42

There is little evidence for a connection between solar activity (as inferred from trends in galactic cosmic rays) and recent global warming. Since the paper by Friis-Christensen and Lassen (1991), there has been an enhanced controversy about the role of solar activity for earth's climate. Svensmark (1998) later proposed that changes in the inter-planetary magnetic fields (IMF) resulting from variations on the sun can affect the climate through galactic cosmic rays (GCR) by modulating earth's cloud cover. Svensmark and others have also argued that recent global warming has been a result of solar activity and reduced cloud cover. Damon and Laut have criticized their hypothesis and argue that the work by both Friis-Christensen and Lassen and Svensmark contain serious flaws. For one thing, it is clear that the GCR does not contain any clear and significant long-term trend (e.g. Fig. 1, but also in papers by Svensmark).

Svensmark's failure to comment on the lack of a clear and significant long-term downward GCR trend, and how changes in GCR can explain a global warming without containing such a trend, is one major weakness of his argument that GCR is responsible for recent global warming. This issue is discussed in detail in Benestad (2002). Moreover, the lack of trend in GCR is also consistent with little long-term change in other solar proxies, such as sunspot number and the solar cycle length, since the 1960s, when the most recent warming started.

The fact that there is little recent trend in the GCR and solar activity does not mean that solar activity is unimportant for earth's climate. There are a large number of recent peer-reviewed scientific publications demonstrating how solar activity can affect our climate (Benestad, 2002), such as how changes in the UV radiation following the solar activity affect the stratospheric ozone concentrations (1999) and how earth's temperatures respond to changes in the total solar irradiance (Meehl, 2003). Furthermore, the lack of trend in GCR does not falsify the mechanism proposed by Svensmark, i.e. that GCR act as a trigger for cloud condensation nuclei and are related to the amount of low clouds. As for this latter issue, the jury is still out.
References:

Benestad, R.E. (2002) Solar Activity and Earth's Climate, Praxis-Springer, Berlin and Heidelberg, 287pp, ISBN: 3-540-43302-3

Damon, P.E. and P. Laut (2004), Pattern of Strange Errors Plagues Solar Activity and Terrestrial Climate Data, Eos, vol 85, num 39, p. 370

Friis-Christensen, E. and K. Lassen (1991), Length of the solar cycle: an indicator of solar activity closely associated with climate, Science 254: 698-700

Meehl, G.A., W.M. Washington, T.M.L. wigley, J.M. Arblaster, A. Dai (2003): Solar and Greenhouse Gas Forcing and Climate Response in the Twentieth Century, J. Climate, 6: 426-444

Shindell, D., D. Rind, N. Balachandran, J. Lean and P. Lonergan (1999): Solar Cycle Variability, Ozone and Climate, Science, 284: 305-308

Svensmark, H. (1998), Influence of Cosmic Rays on Earth's Climate, Physical Review Letters, vol 81, num 22, 5027-5030

[bgwowk]

what about the effects of the moon? it has reached its closest distance ever to the earth if I'm not mistaken...

You are mistaken. The moon has been moving away from the Earth for billions of years, and continues to do so at a rate of several inches per year due to tides on the Earth.

[JonesGuy]

I can't open JMorgan's link. Is it the "Swindle" video?

If so, it has serious, serious problems:

One interviewee has given a public statement saying that he was taken entirely out of context and edited to say something that he did not intend to say; that the film represents the opposite of his views.

Another interviewee (Christy) is quoted making a statement about his own theory. In between the filming and the airing of the film, Christy has disproven his own alternate explanation. He published his disproof himself (which is a great way to do science).

There's a physicist who talks about the solar winds and shows his correlation graphs. There's a reason why his chart stops at 1975 (though the temperature does not); because at that point, his model is no longer predictive.

When talking about the cooling starting in the 40s, they make no mention of the sulphates. There's a reason the cooling stopped when we stopped pumping sulphates into the air - they have a cooling effect. It's the dominant theory for the cooling, and it wasn't even mentioned.

The entire piece is a propaganda piece.

[JonesGuy]

Yes, the sun's cycles has an effect on temperature. Everyone knows that. It's strongly correlated and nobody would deny a causal link. However, the fluctuations from the sun are much, much smaller than what we're experiencing

[JMorgan]

Yes, it is the Global Warming Swindle video. The link I pointed to had more 3700 ratings ranking it between 4-5 stars. I wonder if it was taken down due to traffic. There are lower quality versions in its place as well as the video broken up into smaller segments.

I don't deny that the documentary is biased in its assertions about global warming, though I still think it is worth viewing. It brings up some very interesting points that deserve to be heard.

[JonesGuy]

It's like watching a Hovind video. The only value in watching it is to collect information to discredit it.

[biknut]

There is little evidence for a connection between solar activity (as inferred from trends in galactic cosmic rays) and recent global warming. Since the paper by Friis-Christensen and Lassen (1991), there has been an enhanced controversy about the role of solar activity for earth's climate. Svensmark (1998) later proposed that changes in the inter-planetary magnetic fields (IMF) resulting from variations on the sun can affect the climate through galactic cosmic rays (GCR) by modulating earth's cloud cover. Svensmark and others have also argued that recent global warming has been a result of solar activity and reduced cloud cover. Damon and Laut have criticized their hypothesis and argue that the work by both Friis-Christensen and Lassen and Svensmark contain serious flaws. For one thing, it is clear that the GCR does not contain any clear and significant long-term trend (e.g. Fig. 1, but also in papers bySvensmark).

This is BS. There is very clear irrefutable evidence going back thousands of years. GCR and temperature always go hand and hand.

Svensmark's failure to comment on the lack of a clear and significant long-term downward GCR trend, and how changes in GCR can explain a global warming without containing such a trend, is one major weakness of his argument that GCR is responsible for recent global warming. This issue is discussed in detail in Benestad (2002). Moreover, the lack of trend in GCR is also consistent with little long-term change in other solar proxies, such as sunspot number and the solar cycle length, since the 1960s, when the most recent warming started.

This is total BS. Whoever's writing this doesn't even seem to understand the concept of GCR warming.

The fact that there is little recent trend in the GCR and solar activity does not mean that solar activity is unimportant for earth's climate. There are a large number of recent peer-reviewed scientific publications demonstrating how solar activity can affect our climate (Benestad, 2002), such as how changes in the UV radiation following the solar activity affect the stratospheric ozone concentrations (1999) and how earth's temperatures respond to changes in the total solar irradiance (Meehl, 2003). Furthermore, the lack of trend in GCR does not falsify the mechanism proposed by Svensmark, i.e. that GCR act as a trigger for cloud condensation nuclei and are related to the amount of low clouds. As for this latter issue, the jury is still out.

This is apparently and old article. (2003?) The relationship between GCR and cloud formation was established in 2005. You know this because I showed you in an earlier post. This whole article is a dodge to try to confuse the issue of GCR warming. there's no real information here. At the end they admit they don't know what they're talking about.

Edit: I fixed the quotes for ya. Make sure to end what you wanted quoted ends with [ / QUOTE ] (without spaces). [thumb]

Edited by elrond, 22 November 2007 - 08:49 PM.

[william7]

Stark climate change warning By Jeff Mason


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Climate experts issued their starkest warning yet about the impact of global warming, ranging from hunger in Africa to a fast thaw in the Himalayas, in a report on Friday that increased pressure on governments to act.

More than 100 nations in the U.N. climate panel agreed a final text after all-night talks during which some scientists accused governments of watering down conclusions that climate change was already under way and damaging nature.

"Conflict is a hard word, tension is a better word," Gary Yohe, one of the lead authors, said of the mood at the talks.

The report said warming, widely blamed on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, would cause desertification, droughts and rising seas and would hit hard in the tropics, from sub-Saharan Africa to Pacific islands.

"It's the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

"This does become a global responsibility in my view."

The IPCC, which groups 2,500 scientists and is the world authority on climate change, said all regions of the planet would suffer from a sharp warming.

Its findings are approved unanimously by governments and will guide policy on issues such as extending the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, the main U.N. plan for capping greenhouse gas emissions, beyond 2012.

CUT, ADAPT

Friday's study said climate change could cause hunger for millions with a sharp fall in crop yields in Africa. It could also rapidly thaw Himalayan glaciers that feed rivers from India to China and bring heatwaves for Europe and North America.

"This further underlines both how urgent it is to reach global agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and how important it is for us all to adapt to the climate change that is already under way," said European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.

"The urgency of this report...should be matched with an equally urgent response by governments," said Hans Verolme of the WWF conservation group.

Scientists said China, Russia and Saudi Arabia raised most objections overnight and sought to tone down the findings, including those about the likely pace of extinctions.

Other participants said the United States, which pulled out of Kyoto in 2001 and denounced it as too costly, also opposed a suggested text that parts of North America could suffer "severe economic damage" from climate change.

China, the second largest source of greenhouse gases after the United States, insisted on cutting a reference to "very high confidence" that climate change was already affecting "many natural systems, on all continents and in some oceans."

But delegates sharpened other sections, including adding a warning that some African nations might have to spend 5 to 10 percent of gross domestic product on adapting to climate change.

Overall, the report was the strongest U.N. assessment yet of the threat of climate change, predicting water shortages that could affect billions of people and a rise in ocean levels that could go on for centuries.

Its review of the regional impact of change built on an IPCC report in February saying that human greenhouse gas emissions were more than 90 percent sure to have stoked recent warming.

That report also forecast that temperatures could rise by 1.8 to 4.0 Celsius (3.2 to 7.2 F) this century.

(With additional reporting by David Lawsky in Brussels)

http://news.yahoo.co...lobalwarming_dc

Put me down as being in favor of adapting to global warming through Christian communism and eco-communalism. See http://www.imminst.o...70&t=15317&st=0. As conditions worsen, I believe these strong measures will prove to be the only logical solution.

[william7]

It looks like water is going to get really scarce under global warming. See http://news.yahoo.co...6S3wX4X_QGzvtEF. Ways to conserve on water and distribute it equitably will be needed badly when conditions worsen.

Also see http://www.ens-newsw...06-03-22-01.asp and http://dsc.discovery...=20070322094530.

Edited by elijah3, 27 May 2007 - 01:29 PM.

[Athanasios]

Article on using computer evolution techniques allows for better climate models. They developed an evolution model for phytoplankton that correlates with real world data.

http://www.wired.com...5/phytoplankton

To me, it shows how immature the climate models are currently. Yet, I am glad that people are working on this type of simulation.

[Ganshauk]

I didnt read any of the preceding posts. I thought maybe it would be better to give a fresh and unbiased opinion on this subject.

I live in Texas. I usually spend my summers near the Colorado/New Mexico border.

In the 70's and early 80's the "monsoon season" would hit on August 13th. Every year. I called it monsoon season because I knew what it was. Everyone else just called it "when the rains came"

It was beautiful. The entire day would be hot. (90+ deg. F). About 3 PM clouds would suddenly appear over the western mountains and it would rain lightly until an hour before sunset. Almost magically, they would dissipate.

It would do this everyday for a month and then turn colder than a witches tit.

Sometime around 1985, it stopped. Thats not to say it didnt rain, but it no longer had the sort of regularity you could set your watch to. It became jilted. Finally, in the early 90's it didnt rain at all. Our well went dry for years. The forest even caught fire and burned itself into ashes.

Two years ago, the monsoon had a spasm. In 2005 it rained every day almost, during summer. The next year it was a deluge. The winter of 2006-2007 saw record breaking snowfalls. Im talking HUGE snowfalls. Our deck caved in under the weight of it. My brother was snowed in for four weeks, unable to open the door. It hasn't stopped snowing/raining since. I was there last week and we got six inches of sleet the first day we were there.

Spring has barely hit there, yet. And this is freaking June!

Back in Texas, we hit the same dry spell until 2004. I can't even mow my lawn because it wont stop raining long enough. Our pond overflowed and washed out our road.

Everything is getting cooler and wetter.

Global warming? Bah!

I feel an ice age coming on.

The liberal media can roust out all the scientists they wish but im here to tell you, there aint no global warming. Its getting colder and wetter.

BTW, the temp dropped 4 degrees and the rain is once again pummeling my window while I was writing this. Rain in June. In Texas. Again. LOL.

[Live Forever]

Just to keep in mind, Ganshauk, local weather over a short period of time is not an indication of a global phenomenon. (neither for or against) In fact, in the standard model of global warming that is being touted, some places will actually get cooler as a result of the climate shift. You have to look at average temperatures across the planet (or other indicators, like CO2 levels in the atmosphere or whatever else) to spot a trend one way or the other.

Not making an argument either way, it is just a pet peeve of mine when people say that the weather in their back yard is going up or down, (or the worst is when the global warming folks mention an especially hot summer or the global warming deniers mention an especially cold winter) and this is an indication of global warming or not of global warming. You have to look at global averages and not local phenomena to find an indication of warming or cooling.

[biknut]

For those not familiar with the technology an air conditioning exhaust vent increases the the ambient temperature 30 degrees.

Helping along global warming

By Bill Steigerwald
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, June 17, 2007

Remember in January when the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its good friends in media trumpeted that 2006 was the warmest year on record for the contiguous United States?
NOAA based that finding - which allegedly capped a nine-year warming streak "unprecedented in the historical record" - on the daily temperature data that its National Climatic Data Center gathers from about 1,221 mostly rural weather observation stations around the country.

Few people have ever seen or even heard of these small, simple-but-reliable weather stations, which quietly make up what NOAA calls its United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN).

But the stations play an important role in detecting and analyzing regional climate change. More ominously, they provide the official baseline historical temperature data that politically motivated global-warming alarmists like James Hansen of NASA plug into their computer climate models to predict various apocalypses.

NOAA says it uses these 1,221 weather stations -- which like the ones in Uniontown and New Castle are overseen by local National Weather Service offices and usually tended to by volunteers -- because they have been providing reliable temperature data since at least 1900.
But Anthony Watts of Chico, Calif., suspects NOAA temperature readings are not all they're cracked up to be. As the former TV meteorologist explains on his sophisticated, newly hatched Web site surfacestations.org, he has set out to do what big-time armchair-climate modelers like Hansen and no one else has ever done - physically quality-check each weather station to see if it's being operated properly.

To assure accuracy, stations (essentially older thermometers in little four-legged wooden sheds or digital thermometers mounted on poles) should be 100 feet from buildings, not placed on hot concrete, etc. But as photos on Watts' site show, the station in Forest Grove, Ore., stands 10 feet from an air-conditioning exhaust vent. In Roseburg, Ore., it's on a rooftop near an AC unit. In Tahoe, Calif., it's next to a drum where trash is burned.

Watts, who says he's a man of facts and science, isn't jumping to any rash conclusions based on the 40-some weather stations his volunteers have checked so far. But he said Tuesday that what he's finding raises doubts about NOAA's past and current temperature reports.

"I believe we will be able to demonstrate that some of the global warming increase is not from CO2 but from localized changes in the temperature-measurement environment."

Meanwhile, you probably missed the latest about 2006. As NOAA reported on May 1 - with minimum mainstream-media fanfare - 2006 actually was the second- warmest year ever recorded in America, not the first. At an annual average of 54.9 degrees F, it was a whopping 0.08 degrees cooler than 1998, still the hottest year.

NOAA explained that it had updated its 2006 report "to reflect revised statistics" and "better address uncertainties in the instrumental record." This tinkering is standard procedure. NOAA always scientifically tweaks temperature readings for various reasons -- weather stations are moved to different locations, modernized, affected by increased urbanization, etc.

NOAA didn't say whether it had adjusted for uncertainties caused by nearby burn barrels.

http://www.pittsburg...d/s_513013.html

[biknut]

High price for load of hot air

June 18, 2007 12:00am

On the same day, NASA chief Michael Griffin commented in a US radio interview that "I am not sure that it is fair to say that (global warming) is a problem that we must wrestle with".

NASA is an agency that knows a thing or two about climate change. As Griffin added: "We study global climate change, that is in our authorisation, we think we do it rather well.

"I'm proud of that, but NASA is not an agency chartered to, quote, battle climate change."

Such a clear statement that science accomplishment should carry primacy over policy advice is both welcome and overdue.

Nonetheless, there is something worrying about one of Griffin's other statements, which said that "I have no doubt . . . that a trend of global warming exists".

Griffin seems to be referring to human-caused global warming, but irrespective of that his opinion is unsupported by the evidence.

The salient facts are these. First, the accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998. Oddly, this eight-year-long temperature stasis has occurred despite an increase over the same period of 15 parts per million (or 4 per cent) in atmospheric CO2.

Second, lower atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements, if corrected for non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, show little if any global warming since 1979, a period over which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 55 ppm (17 per cent).

Third, there are strong indications from solar studies that Earth's current temperature stasis will be followed by climatic cooling over the next few decades.

How then is it possible for Griffin to assert so boldly that human-caused global warming is happening?

Well, he is in good company for similar statements have been made recently by several Western heads of state at the G8 summit meeting. For instance, German Chancellor Angela Merkel asserts climate change (i.e. global warming) "is also essentially caused by humankind".

In fact, there is every doubt whether any global warming at all is occurring at the moment, let alone human-caused warming.

For leading politicians to be asserting to the contrary indicates something is very wrong with their chain of scientific advice, for they are clearly being deceived. That this should be the case is an international political scandal of high order which, in turn, raises the question of where their advice is coming from.

In Australia, the advice trail leads from government agencies such as the CSIRO and the Australian Greenhouse Office through to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations.

As leading economist David Henderson has pointed out, it is extremely dangerous for an unelected and unaccountable body like the IPCC to have a monopoly on climate policy advice to governments. And even more so because, at heart, the IPCC is a political and not a scientific agency.

Australia does not ask the World Bank to set its annual budget and neither should it allow the notoriously alarmist IPCC to set its climate policy.

It is past time for those who have deceived governments and misled the public regarding dangerous human-caused global warming to be called to account. Aided by hysterical posturing by green NGOs, their actions have led to the cornering of government on the issue and the likely implementation of futile emission policies that will impose direct extra costs on every household and enterprise in Australia to no identifiable benefit.

Not only do humans not dominate Earth's current temperature trend but the likelihood is that further large sums of public money are shortly going to be committed to, theoretically, combat warming when cooling is the more likely short-term climatic eventuality.

In one of the more expensive ironies of history, the expenditure of more than $US50 billion ($60 billion) on research into global warming since 1990 has failed to demonstrate any human-caused climate trend, let alone a dangerous one.

Yet that expenditure will pale into insignificance compared with the squandering of money that is going to accompany the introduction of a carbon trading or taxation system.

The costs of thus expiating comfortable middle class angst are, of course, going to be imposed preferentially upon the poor and underprivileged.

Professor Bob Carter is an environmental scientist at James Cook University who studies ancient climate change

http://www.news.com....3-27197,00.html

[dave111]

I do think we should try to make costs of expiating comfortable middle class angst as rational as possible. For example, if an element of that drives "global warming" ameliorative efforts, and these efforts are as irrational asw Bob Carter suggests, perhaps that void could be filled by SENS ameliorative efforts as well as efforts against more rationally determined existential threats.

[biknut]

Oldest DNA ever recovered shows warmer planet: report

Jul 5 03:14 PM US/Eastern

Scientists who probed two kilometers (1.2 miles) through a Greenland glacier to recover the oldest plant DNA on record said Thursday the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years ago than is generally believed.
DNA of trees, plants and insects including butterflies and spiders from beneath the southern Greenland glacier was estimated to date to 450,000 to 900,000 years ago, according to the remnants retrieved from this long-vanished boreal forest.

That contrasts sharply with the prevailing view that a lush forest of this kind could only have existed in Greenland as recently as 2.4 million years ago, according to a summary of the study, which is published Thursday in the journal Science.

The samples suggest the temperature probably reached 10 degrees C (50 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer and -17 C (1 F) in the winter.

They also indicated that during the last period between ice ages, 116,000-130,000 years ago, when temperatures were on average 5 C (9 F) higher than now, the glaciers on Greenland did not completely melt away.

"These findings allow us to make a more accurate environmental reconstruction of the time period from which these samples were taken," said Martin Sharp, a glaciologist at the University of Alberta, Canada, and a co-author of the paper.


"What we've learned is that this part of the world was significantly warmer than most people thought."

In a separate paper, also published in Science, European experts said they had analysed the world's deepest ice core, enabling them to reconstruct patterns of warming and glaciation over the past 800,000 years.

The 3,260-metre (10,595-feet) core was drilled into the East Antarctica icesheet at the Franco-Italian base, Dome C. The drillers, gathered in a venture called the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) stopped just 15 metres (48.75 feet) short of the bedrock.

Using traces of the hydrogen isotope deuterium in air bubbles trapped in the ice layers, the scientists built a record of greenhouse-gas concentrations over the aeons, which in turn provides a record of temperature.

They found the temperature varied widely, by as much as 15 C (27 F) over the 800,000 years. In the last Ice Age, which ended around 11,000 years ago, the temperature was 10 C (18 F) lower than today.

The EPICA team had previously analysed the Dome C core to a depth equivalent to 650,000 years ago.


http://www.breitbart...&show_article=1

[william7]

What does anyone think about these Live Earth concerts scheduled for 7/7/07? The concerts are suppose to kick off a mass persuasion campaign to make people aware of global climate change. In this MSN video, at http://entimg.msn.co...4f-ba283b547687, Al Gore says we only have a 10 year window of opportunity to avert the worst consequences of global warming.

[biknut]

What does anyone think about these Live Earth concerts scheduled for 7/7/07? The concerts are suppose to kick off a mass persuasion campaign to make people aware of global climate change. In this MSN video, at http://entimg.msn.co...4f-ba283b547687, Al Gore says we only have a 10 year window of opportunity to avert the worst consequences of global warming.

Based on the fact that it's been 10 years since there's been any global warming, and that every other day a news report comes out casting new doubt on man as the cause of the warming we've already seen, very little.