Here is a few links on the ever growing problem-

http://www.stopglobalwarming.org

http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/action.asp

What????? There isn't really a consensus among scientists????
(science, btw, is NOT consensus. It's reproducable results. Religion is consensus. Politics is consensus.)

Here's some links, both pro and con, on some different facets of the global warming debate.

Hopefully, you can get through some of these before the polar bears, penguins, frogs, and millions of people all die from the planet warming a few degrees.....just like it was between 7000-4000 years ago.

Curiously, even Dr. Michael Mann (credited with the now famous Hockey Stick) discusses on his website the fact that temp goes up as many as 800 years BEFORE CO2 levels increase. No explanation as to how that happens, but he's quick to explain how the CO2 then drives temperature.

Stephen Schneider from Stanford warned us of an impending, and disastrous, ice age back in '74. He's now warning of the dangers of global warming.

Sorry, but I'm putting my money on guys like Lindzen, Michaels, and all the others that are trying to pull the reins in on this ridiculous global warming hysteria. The earth is warming. That's a good thing, especially when you're coming out of an ice age.

I'm just having a really hard time understanding how a gas's increase from .025% to .038% of the total atmosphere is going to cause a disastrous temperature rise, especially when the effect is logarithmic.

The atmospheric physicist I work with seems to agree.

http://www.climateaudit.org/index.php?p=205

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V8/N48/EDIT.jsp

http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=212

http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2005/pressRelease200509301/index.html

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA203.html

http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2005/10/10/sea-level-rise-how-high/#more-123

http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/400000yrfig.htm (note the temp rise BEFORE CO2 increasing)

http://ijolite.geology.uiuc.edu/02SprgClass/geo117/lectures/Lect18.html

http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/Resources/gcc/5-3-1-2.html

http://www.bbso.njit.edu/~epb/reprints/Palle_etal_EOS_2006.pdf

http://www.junkscience.com/

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/shindell_03/

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm

http://www.citizenreviewonline.org/april2006/15/warming.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml

http://errortheory.blogspot.com/2005/02/is-realclimate-part-of-reality-based.html

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html

http://www.junkscience.com/mar06/Time_AnotherIceAge_June241974.pdf

http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060523-105312-2838r.htm

http://www.paramountvantage.com/blog/?p=35

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=052506C

http://aslo.org/phd/disccrs/200209-2.html

http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

http://www.john-daly.com/

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-07/nsfc-tac072506.php

http://www.john-daly.com/solar/solar.htm

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001028misrepresenting_lite.html

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:TDJ9i9MwNfcJ:trmm.jpl.nasa.gov/qa.ps+greenhouse+soi&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4

.....and last, but not least......The IPCC TAR
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm

Disclaimer: I pay the same for my gas as you do.

Climate of Fear
Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.

BY RICHARD LINDZEN
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m.

There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?

The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.

But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.



To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.


If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.

So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.

Sadly, this is only the tip of a non-melting iceberg. In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.

And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are published, standards shift. When I, with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an "Iris Effect," wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2. Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the journal to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this case (and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming errors in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as "discredited." Indeed, there is a strange reluctance to actually find out how climate really behaves. In 2003, when the draft of the U.S. National Climate Plan urged a high priority for improving our knowledge of climate sensitivity, the National Research Council instead urged support to look at the impacts of the warming--not whether it would actually happen.

Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can stand up against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates and policymakers.

M. Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.

...The earth is warming. That's a good thing, especially when you're coming out of an ice age......

All very well for you to say living up there well away from the coast. Sea levels have risen something like 300 feet since the peak of the last ice age; another 1% more and I will need hip waders to do my gardening. :)

Classic.

1% of 300ft is ..uh...3ft. At the current rate of sea level rise of (depending on which data set used....I'll use some actual 20th century physical observations) some 1.8mm/yr (that's ~.071" for us non-metric types).

At that rate, it'll take (12/.071*3=507) about 500 years for that to happen. Sorry, I probably won't be around to witness it and share your agony.

You'd prefer the cooler times? Here's a little tidbit for all to ponder on the down side of a little ice age and it's effects on mankind..
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/little_ice_age.html

What I surmise from your post is typical global warming alarmism, with attendent exaggeration.

The real issue here, correct me if I'm wrong, is that of anthropogenic forcing. Is man causing global warming by "excessive" CO2 emmissions?

Maybe someone can explain why the ice caps on Mars have been in recession....all without the aid of SUVs.

The single largest greenhouse gas is .....drum roll.....H2O.
At any given time there is between .3% to 3% gasseous water in the atmosphere. We have NO idea how much the total is, where the concentrations lay, and the actual effect. It's a science in it's infancy. Clouds at one altitude reflect UV, clouds at a different altitude trap. It's complex, and it's massive. And it's not understood. (btw, recent work has revealed that cosmic rays affect cloud formation. Another little factor somewhat outside our control).

But noooooo......somehow we're all excited about a gas that comprises ..... .038% That's POINT Zero three eight percent!! On top of that a gas who's effect is logarithmic..Each increase in the gas level has less and less an effect on warming.

My personal take is that while we're puking pollutants into the air, which is a BAD thing no matter how you look at it, land use is every bit as bad, if not worse.

That said, my advice is to have your house moved back from the beach, buy some waders now while they're cheap, and stock up on some good seeds. Your growing season is getting better!


"...and wall impregnable of beaming ice. The race of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling vanish…"
--Percy Shelly

more links for ya'll!!

>melting arctic freezes europe and n. america:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/05mar_arctic.htm?list1080754

>check out the "Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time graph"!!
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

>In an even broader study based on mean monthly temperatures of 37 Arctic and 7 sub-Arctic stations, as well as temperature anomalies of 30 grid-boxes from the updated data set of Jones, HYPERLINK "http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V3/N24/C1.jsp" Przybylak (2000) found that (1) "in the Arctic, the highest temperatures since the beginning of instrumental observation occurred clearly in the 1930s," (2) "even in the 1950s the temperature was higher than in the last 10 years," (3) "since the mid-1970s, the annual temperature shows no clear trend," and (4) "the level of temperature in Greenland in the last 10-20 years is similar to that observed in the 19th century." These findings led him to conclude that the meteorological record "shows that the observed variations in air temperature in the real Arctic are in many aspects not consistent with the projected climatic changes computed by climatic models for the enhanced greenhouse effect," because, in his words, "the temperature predictions produced by numerical climate models significantly differ from those actually observed."
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/20060404_01/20060404_08.html

>The State Climatologist 2005 Annual Summary
ftp://ftp.wrcc.dri.edu/laurae/AASC2006TheStateClimatologist.pdf

>"....Inspection of the global atmospheric temperature changes during the last 1,000 years (Fig. 11) shows that the global average temperature dropped about 2°C over the last millennium. This means that we live in the cooling geologic epoch (which comprises most of the Holocene), and the global warming observed during the latest 150 years is just a short episode in the geologic history. The current global warming is most likely a combined effect of increased solar and tectonic activities and cannot be attributed to the increased anthropogenic impact on the atmosphere. Humans may be responsible for less than 0.01°C (of approximately 0.56°C (1°F) total average atmospheric heating during the last century) (Khilyuk and Chilingar 2003, 2004)....."
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t341350850360302/fulltext.html

>DR BENNY PEISER'S LETTER TO SCIENCE MAGAZINE AND THE STORY OF ITS REJECTION
May 4, 2005 (a story of the "consensus" of scientists)
http://www.cfact-europe.org/index1.html

>"To capture the public imagination,
we have to offer up some scary scenarios,
make simplified dramatic statements
and little mention of any doubts one might have.
Each of us has to decide the right balance
between being effective,
and being honest."

- Leading greenhouse advocate, Dr Stephen Schneider
( in interview for "Discover" magagzine, Oct 1989)
http://www.john-daly.com/schneidr.htm

>Mars Emerging from Ice Age, Data Suggest
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age_031208.html

>"....These animations illustrate the physical process which the theory about the cosmic connection to Earth's climate proposes: 1) A giant star explodes in a supernova explosion and emits cosmic rays, 2) cosmic rays enter Earth's atmosphere, 3) rays release free electrons which act a catalysts for the building blocks for cloud condensation nuclei, 4) on which water vapour condenses into clouds. .."
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/(r2cx1555myc34345szcjooyt)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,5,19;journal,2,136;linkingpublicationresults,1:102023,1

....that should do it for the moment.

....What I surmise from your post is typical global warming alarmism, with attendent exaggeration. ....

I am sorry I thought my phrasing would be sufficient to give a reader an indication that I was not serious without having to resort to smilies. You need to relax a little.

Thanks for the clarification....please to understand I just spent 3 weeks with someone on the road that raved on about the impending doom, so maybe I'm overly sensitive.

Funny how this points out how sensitive an issue this can be.

Now that I'm more relaxed, here's a link on sea level change....

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/12/04/decelerating-the-sea-level-rise-scare/

The "Al Gore" effect......hehehehe

It is funny that the temperature on Mars is also rising like ours, linked to slight increases in sun output........

But that is science, and we cant believe science.

I am sure that all those SUV's in California has also raised the temperature on Mars. So, some how a hyperspacial warp was created with the landing of the Mars lander, that linked that Darned "Global Warming" to poor old Mars......

Some of you may remember not even 15 years ago, the big "Threat" was global cooling!!! Championed by the same "Nut jobs" as today's group of Tree Huggers.

It is so sad really,

A great number of the people pushing the agenda are not real scientists with adequate credentials to be opining on the theory. The media are so ignorant, they are not qualified to "report" on the idea. They spew opinions, scare tactics and faux science without facts to support them (just like everything else they report on :rolleyes: ). More importantly, rather than present useful unbiased information, the media presents stories to the public in such a way that the reader/viewer is supposed to form an emotional reaction and choose sides.

Despite the opinions of the chicken littles, that does not mean global warming is not a reality. It may be true.

My understanding is the Great Lakes of North America were formed by receding glaciers from the last ice age approx 10,000 years ago. Thus, the world has obviously been warming for the at least the last hundred centuries. All that we take for granted in modern civilization is thanks to global warming.

The heart of the issue is, does mankind's industry over the past century so destabilize the natural environmental cycles that catastrophic irreversible changes can ocur? It will take me a while to go through all the links listed above. Thanks for providing those.

The government here in the UK is going to introduce a Green Tax, higher parking charges for larger cars (when cars are parked do they produce any greenhouse gases?) and have already introduced the bigger the engine in your car the more road tax you pay. Happy days…Not.

You have opened my eyes, Thank You. I always knew that we weren’t being told the full truth about Global Warming.

Big Oil. Evil Big Oil.

Evil Big Oil (EBO) is behind the contrarian's efforts to discredit the "majority" of scientists who claim anthropogenic global warming. They fund guys like Lindzen, Michaels, Idso, etc, etc.....It's EBO that's trying to convince us that global warming isn't real.

At least that's what guys like Mann, Hansen, and AlGore would like you to believe.

There certainly could be some truth to that claim, but stop for a moment and think about the yin and yang idea....who's behind the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) side???? And why.

Here's a little taste....

January 18, 2007 -

"Indianapolis - In the latest move by the insurance industry to participate in reducing the effects of global warming, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) unveiled a new Web site this week: www.climateandinsurance.org. The site is designed to help address the increasing concerns about climate change and its impact on the property/casualty insurance industry...."
http://www.insurancenetworking.com/protected/article.cfm?articleId=4503&pb=ros

Ok, this is a no-brainer. The larger the risk from something, the higher the insurance premiums. So if the potential risk from something like, say, hurricane damage is high, you'll pay more money to the insurance company to cover their risk. How real is this claim? Watch this.

"Global warming is likely to affect cyclones and hurricanes, concludes a new statement from 125 experts, but they say the evidence for this to date is inconclusive.

"There could be an effect but it's impossible to say for sure," says Julian Heming of the UK Met Office. The statement was issued at the end of a workshop organised by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn10796

Emphasis added is mine, to point out the way the reporter has conveniently converted the word 'could' into 'likely'. Hmmmm........ I didn't know 'could' and 'likely' meant the same thing! A prime example of how the media slants things to their own benefit, which of course makes for better sales. People don't buy newspapers when the headline says "Nothing Unusual Happened Today".

Back on topic......some of the studies showing that hurricanes will likely be more severe due to AGW have been funded, at least in part, by none other than......the insurance industry. One company in particular, AIG, the world's largest insurance company.

More scare, more money. And that's one serious problem with science when it comes to grant funding. No problem, no money.

The same is true for politics. AlGore has brilliantly worked everyone into a frenzy with his ManBearPig. How convenient, it's all the republican's and EBO's fault. (never mind that AlGore has stock in Occidental Petroleum...)

Some links on the insurance industry's interests..

Summary: American International Group, the world's biggest insurance company, reported a more-than-doubling of Q3 earnings to $4.02bn, ahead of Street forecasts. Like its competitors, AIG was helped by the absence of any serious hurricanes or other weather catastrophes this season. EPS came in at $1.53 vs. analyst expectations of $1.43. Revenue, at $29.2 billion, also beat expectations by a whisker, and policy premiums rose 9.3%. Shares of AIG rose $0.81 to $68.85 on the news in after-hours trading.
http://financial.seekingalpha.com/article/20320

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4153/is_20051115/ai_n15835544

NET profits for AIG
'04 Q3 $2.69bn
'05 Q3 $1.7bn (note: they didn't LOSE money, they just didn't earn as much during this severe hurricane season)
'06 Q3 $4.02bn

Request For Proposals
"...The Risk Prediction Initiative is a program administered by the Bermuda Biological Station for Research, Inc. a not-for-profit research and educational institution. Funding for this program comes from charitable grants to BBSR from global insurance and reinsurance companies. These companies include: ACE Tempest Re, AIG/IPC Re, Montpelier Re, Renaissance Re, State Farm Insurance, Swiss Re, and XL Re...."
http://www.bbsr.edu/rpi/public/pubs/2002/surgeRFP.html

But the industry was resilient with insurance carriers' net income up 4.4 percent to $28.8 billion in the first nine months of the year (2005), according to the Insurance Services Office. And 2006 could spell even bigger profits as widespread rate hikes help boost gains for the industry, at least in the short-term.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/30/news/fortune500/insurance_2006/index.htm

Meanwhile, out in space.....Global Warming Infects Saturn!!
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has seen something never before seen on another planet -- a hurricane-like storm at Saturn's south pole with a well-developed eye, ringed by towering clouds.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=703

---------------------------------------------------
Over in Altfuels I'm posting a great article on ethanol (and ADM) I just stumbled on. Of course, insurance isn't the only industry with a vested interest in getting us worked up for a switch in lifestyles!

the simple of it = burning of fossil fuels ! the reduction of the worlds forests and farm lands ! the melting of polar ice caps ! the slowing of cold cooling oceanic currants to the equatorial ocean ! when it stops flowing we have instant super storm meaning ice age and the next three yrs will drive the survivers to equator to starve ! end of worries ! Mother nature will take care of all of it and make it right again !

...But then, what would these guys know??

7 Is Global Warming Responsible for the Large Upswing in 2004-2005 US Hurricane Landfalls?

The U.S. landfall of major hurricanes Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005 and the four Florida landfalling hurricanes of 2004 (Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne) raised questions about the possible role that global warming played in these two unusually destructive seasons.

The global warming arguments have been given much attention by many media references to recent papers claiming to show such a linkage. Despite the global warming of the sea surface that has taken place over the last 3 decades, the global numbers of hurricanes and their intensity have not shown increases in recent years except for the Atlantic (Klotzbach 2006).

The Atlantic has seen a very large increase in major hurricanes during the 12-year period of 1995-2006 (average 3.9 per year) in comparison to the prior 25-year period of 1970-1994 (average 1.5 per year). This large increase in Atlantic major hurricanes is primarily a result of the multi-decadal increase in the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation (THC) that is not directly related to global temperature increase. Changes in ocean salinity are believed to be the driving mechanism. These multi-decadal changes have also been termed the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO).

There have been similar past periods (1940s-1950s) when the Atlantic was just as active as in recent years. For instance, when we compare Atlantic basin hurricane numbers over the 15-year period (1990-2004) with an earlier 15-year period (1950-1964), we see no difference in hurricane frequency or intensity even though the global surface temperatures were cooler and there was a general global cooling during 1950-1964 as compared with global warming during 1990-2004.

Although global surface temperatures have increased over the last century and over the last 30 years, there is no reliable data available to indicate increased hurricane frequency or intensity in any of the globe’s seven tropical cyclone basins. Meteorologists who study tropical cyclones have no valid physical theory as to why hurricane frequency or intensity would necessarily be altered significantly by small amounts (< ±1oC) of global mean temperature change.

In a global warming or global cooling world, the atmosphere’s upper air temperatures will warm or cool in unison with the sea surface temperatures. Vertical lapse-rates will not be significantly altered. We have no plausible physical reasons for believing that Atlantic hurricane frequency or intensity will change significantly if global ocean temperatures continue to rise. For instance, in the quarter-century period from 1945-1969 when the globe was undergoing a weak cooling trend, the Atlantic basin experienced 80 major (Cat 3-4-5) hurricanes and 201 major hurricane days. By contrast, in a similar 25-year period of 1970-1994 when the globe was undergoing a general warming trend, there were only 38 major hurricanes (48% as many) and 63 major hurricane days (31% as many) in the Atlantic basin. Atlantic sea-surface temperatures and hurricane activity do not necessarily follow global mean temperature trends.

http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/2006/dec2006/

Then, just to show there IS NOT a consensus....

Atlantic Hurricane Trends Linked
to Climate Change
http://www.discover.com/images/issues/aug-06/eoshurricanes.pdf

Consensus...NOT!!

From the Jan 19th 2007 weblog of Roger Pielke Sr., under Misconceptions:
http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/


Consequences Of Missing Climate Forcings In Analyses Of Attribution Of Multi-decadal Surface Temperature Trends

There is a recent paper that illustrates how an extensive analysis of surface temperature change can miss critically important information. The paper by M. R. Allen , N. P. Gillett, J. A. Kettleborough, G. Hegerl, R. Schnur, P. A. Stott, G. Boer, C. Covey, T. L. Delworth, G. S. Jones, J. F. B. Mitchell and T. P. Barnett is

“Quantifying anthropogenic influence on recent near-surface temperature change” in Journal Surveys in Geophysics in the September, 2006 issue of Surveys in Geophysics Springer Netherlands ISSN 0169-3298 (Print) 1573-0956 (Online) Subject Earth and Environmental Science Issue Volume 27, Number 5.

Roger notes:


"....However, this paper suffers from a neglect of important information on issues with the robustness of the surface air temperature trend data that they used, as well as the absence in their study of recognized first order climate forcings and feedbacks. Thus their attribution study perpetuates the incorrect view that the first order human climate forcings are dominated by the well-mixed greenhouse gases and anthropogenic sulphate aerosols..."

--------------------------
So, it would seem that 'experts' don't always agree!!!

Undoubtedly there are still plenty of ya convinced that it's all my fault for drivin' my SUV and burnin' diesel in my BBQ. So, just in case I run the risk of making you actually question both sides of the argument, here's the link for YOU!!!

http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics

"....However, this paper suffers from a neglect of important information on issues with the robustness of the surface air temperature trend data that they used, as well as the absence in their study of recognized first order climate forcings and feedbacks. Thus their attribution study perpetuates the incorrect view that the first order human climate forcings are dominated by the well-mixed greenhouse gases and anthropogenic sulphate aerosols..."

Okay if you really know what you are talking about give an analysis of this in layman's terms.

A) Robustness = validity, integrity, applicability,

B) First Order (in context) = primary, most influencial

....therefore, he questions first the data, then the presumption that "well mixed greenhouse gasses" (meaning CO2) and aerosols (meaning stuff floating around in the air) that are man-made are the principle cause of global warming.

Whether I understand it or not, whether or not I can explain it, doesn't mean a thing. I'm not a climate scientist, and don't pretend to be one. I just work with 'em. What I present here is based on my own research into the subject, discussions with an atmospheric physicist, and is intended to show that there really is two sides to the story, and the story is still out to the jury.

In discussions with our resident atmospheric physicist I've had my eyes opened to a whole raft of contridictions and unknowns that exist within the science. The claim that man's CO2 production is primarily the cause for global warming is questionable at best, and has yet to be proven.

Bottom line....don't take my word for anything. Read for yourself, and make your own conclusions. Just one caveat: Don't make your conclusions based on what you read in Newsweek, People, Sports Illustrated, The Wall Street Journal, or any other commercial periodical.

Okay if you really know what you are talking about give an analysis of this in layman's terms.

Translation:

They picked and chose data to support their pre-ordained conclusion, giving more weight to the data they chose. They ignored existing data that would invalidate their pre-ordained conclusion. Thus their conclusion is not only erroneous, it is a deliberate lie.

It is, however, a nice example of "how to play by the rules to get government money for State Science research".

The older I get, the less I trust anyone who is willing to get their paycheck from those who collect their money at the point of a gun.

--97T--

Fizz, here's a link I think you missed.

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

Consensus? 17,000 scientists disagree.

--97T--

Yup. Missed that one!

I particularly liked fig. 3, 'cause it shows what I've been trying to warn everyone about all along....earth's temperatures drive solar cycles. If we don't take responsibility NOW and stop global warming, we're going to ruin the sun.

Fig. 11 is my other fav.....it shows a growth trend in IPCC stocks unmatched in any other sector. Through the use of their unique GCMs, they can chart like no one else. Not even Mann's 4th quarter hockey stick with it's tree-ring penny stocks will hold up to the long term IPCC growth.

(for those just joining in, a GCM is a "general circulation model", a computer program that predicts climate based on input parameters. There's a bunch of 'em, and none of 'em work. They can't even predict what HAS happened based on known data.)

Okay go and ask your atmospheric fizzizzist what she/he knows about solar activity as indicated by sunspots, the solar wind, cosmic ray flux, methane scavenging, hydroxyl radicals, high altitude sulphate aerosol formation or use these as search terms and do a bit of alternate research. They are all pertinent to global warming/cooling and they all seem to be studiously ignored by the anthropogenic warming crowd.

...Wuz just kidding!!!!

As a matter of fact, I just got off the phone with him, he'll be here after lunch to go over an ongoing project....

You, me, 97T, and him are all on the same page.

We did talk briefly about a great book on the subject, Meltdown, by Patrick Michaels. I just finished it, and it's got some good meaty info in it. He highly recommends it too.

[QUOTE=fizzissist;248522...You, me, 97T, and him are all on the same page. .....[/QUOTE]

Correct I think, just taking different approaches.

But do what I suggest. Although being physicists you might have to consult with a chemist to get some of the fine detail.:)

The Mann graph that shows the up curve in the past thiry years may be, actually probably is, correct; attributing it to human generated CO2 is I think almost certainly wrong. However, there is an alternate explanation within the stuff I suggested searching on.

...don't remember saying anywhere I was a physicist.... :)

"The Mann graph that shows the up curve in the past thiry years may be, actually probably is, correct.."

Is actually probably wrong, and that's not just my opinion.

David R. Legates, Director of the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Delaware had this to say...

"...Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick also pinpointed methodological problems (Energy and the Environment, 2003) that plagued the version of the “hockey stick” used by the IPCC. McIntyre and McKitrick found errors in the collection and use of varying data from multiple sources. They contend that Mann and his colleagues in their 1998 and 1999 papers unjustifiably truncated or extrapolated trends from source data, used obsolete data, made incorrect calculations, and associated data sets with incorrect geographical locations. More recently, David Chapman, Marshall Bartlett and Robert Harris (Geophysical Research Letters, 2004) identified methodological problems in a 2003 Geophysical Research Letters study by Mann and G. Schmidt. Specifically, Mann and Schmidt eliminated specific proxy records (data from bore holes) they thought were inaccurate. Chapman et al. showed that Mann and Schmidt had unjustifiably excluded the bore-hole data and concluded that their methods were “just bad science” and that they presented a “selective and inappropriate presentation” of results. Jan Esper, David Frank and Robert Wilson (EOS Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 2004) further argued that the fatal flaw with Mann, Bradley and Hughes’ temperature reconstruction is its incorrect representation of longer-term trends. They observed that the statistical methods used inappropriately remove trends over long time periods. Basically, to construct their climate trend data, Mann and his colleagues used proxies with very limited data sets based on only one or two trees for the early part of the record and a methodology that removed long-term cooling trends by erroneously correlating temperature trends with the age of the tree.

This flaw in methodology was also highlighted by Henry Pollack and Jason Smerdon (Journal of Geophysical Research, 2004) and led to a retraction by Mann (and Scott Rutherford) in the Journal of Geophysical Research (June 2004). In this article they admit to underestimating the temperature variations indicated by the proxy data since 1400 by more than one-third, which explains why their previous work failed to track the Little Ice Age. While admitting this error, Mann and Rutherford fail to recognize the extent to which it undermines their historical reconstruction and its relation to present temperature trends.... "

...and that ain't the half of it.

I could bury you with URLs in my bookmark files on 3 different computers. I've spent countless hours researching the physics, ...and chemistry (which I admittedly am not real keen on), the climatology, etc., etc. This is a subject I've taken quite an interest in, and am fortunate in that I work with an atmospheric physicist who DOES understand that which I don't. I've also actually READ much of the IPCC's TAR, and have actually READ many peer reviewed publications....by both sides of the AGW issue.

I'm going to assume you've read all the URLs I posted in the "Links" thread??

In the link I gave, check out figure 14.

This is the basis upon which we are supposed to destroy our standard of living. The avalanche of data in 'support' of the global warming hypothesis contains an awful lot of this.

--97T--

Wish I could remember where I saw it, I'd post it here....An excellent demonstration of how varying the Y, varying the interval, and varying the time scale can lead to very different views of the exact same data. You can see from fig. 14 how changing the start and end points lead to different conclusions.

What do you get when you start at 1960 and end at 1972?? IMPENDING ICE DOOM!!!

Gee. I remember that one.

I was in grade school, that first Earth Day. They took all the kids into the gymansium, where they had a stage, and someone talked about the population bomb, and the coming ice age, and pollution. Then they made us all go outside and pick up litter on the school grounds. It was surreal.

I came away with an entirely different lesson than they intended. Being a stoopid noob, I asked out loud whether they didn't have people that got paid to keep the school nice. So they told me it was a lesson in 'community' or something. It didn't help when I pointed out that I didn't put the litter there. And it didn't help when I wondered aloud whether the earth was really going to freeze over, and the population bomb was going to make it so everyone starved. So I learned that 'community lesson' means being made to clean up other people's messes even though someone else gets paid to do it, and being made to just shut up and do what you're told instead of asking all those stoopid questions. I guess I was just sort of an inconvenience to all those nice teachers who were just trying to do the right thing and teach us all the right values. Some of us never learn.

The goody-two-shoes in the group were all too happy to join in a chorus to keep the lone voice silent. I'm kinda glad I landed on the other side of that imaginary line. They can't imagine being like me, and I can't imagine being like them.

--97T--

Oh, yeah, the data in that chart. The contradictory evidence was left out on purpose. And it was used in the context of, "we have to do something to curb industry right now!", in Nature. That crap gets printed in the scientific press, because the scientific press organizations have all been overrun with socialists. For evidence, besides Nature, look at Scientific American, which for the last twenty years has been neither.

And Oh, yeah, the big boss at work is addicted to the financial news channels, even though he yells at the TV every day because of their inanity. But there is a pretty good example of chart myopia, when they show 'big' gains' in the last hour, then later you see the chart for a year or ten years. They have to manipulate both X and Y pretty imaginatively to make it dramatic.

...I could bury you with URLs in my bookmark files on 3 different computers. I've spent countless hours researching the physics, ...and chemistry (which I admittedly am not real keen on), the climatology, etc., etc. This is a subject I've taken quite an interest in, and am fortunate in that I work with an atmospheric physicist who DOES understand that which I don't. I've also actually READ much of the IPCC's TAR, and have actually READ many peer reviewed publications....by both sides of the AGW issue...

I'm going to assume you've read all the URLs I posted in the "Links" thread??

Have you read anything related to the subjects I mention? I am not interested in a "number of urls" competition I am interested to see if someone who mouths off (figuratively speaking) in one direction is willing to take a deeper look in another. And don't try to invert this and throw it back at me with any validity; read my posts and compare the tone with yours I am not mouthing off.

IT"S OUT....almost....

From Steve Milloy's website:
IPCC Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC
Second-Order Draft

Despite the exhortation:
"PLEASE DO NOT CITE, QUOTE, OR DISTRIBUTE THE DRAFT REPORT"
we feel we have been left with no choice by the bizarre actions of the IPCC. What kind of "science" distributes a summary and then withholds the underlying report for a further three months editing to make it concur with the already distributed summary? Don't believe it? Neither did we but the plain language statement of intent is here (search for "grammatical" -- it's on page 4 of 15) and the original IPCC procedures document is (was) here -- in their words:
"Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter."
Surely science has not degenerated to the point that research must now conform to pre-released summaries, even in the purely political IPCC.

If climate change is supposed to be such an urgent problem then what possible justification can there be for hiding the supporting evidence? We can think of none and, after some agonizing (we most assuredly do not want the draft review process to become any more secretive than it already is), we have decided to make the draft publicly available so that you can decide for yourselves whether the much-leaked hysterics of recent weeks truly represent the best available research and opinion. Reluctantly then, here is the draft form AR4 WG1 contribution:

-----go get it here!
http://www.junkscience.com/draft_AR4/

Here is a link for you guys I hope it was not up their already.

http://www.kansasenergy.org/documents/Gerhard_Climate_Change.pdf

Oh, that pesky climate scientist from Denmark!!

from the Feb 2007 issue of Astronomy and Geophysics

Henrik Svensmark draws
attention to an overlooked
mechanism of climate change:
clouds seeded by cosmic rays.

"......Here is prima facie evidence for suspecting
that much of the warming of the world during
the 20th century was due to a reduction in
cosmic rays and in low-cloud cover. But distinguishing
between coincidence and causal action
has always been a problem in climate science.
The case for anthropogenic climate change
during the 20th century rests primarily on the
fact that concentrations of carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases increased and so did
global temperatures. Attempts to show that certain
details in the climatic record confirm the
greenhouse forcing (e.g. Mitchell et al. 2001)
have been less than conclusive. By contrast, the
hypothesis that changes in cloudiness obedient
to cosmic rays help to force climate change predicts
a distinctive signal that is in fact very easily
observed, as an exception that proves the rule...."

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-4004.2007.48118.x?cookieSet=1

Now, just wait until I have my cosmic ray generator perfected. Sales should be brisk!

--97T--

[1] Recently documented trends in the existing records of
hurricane intensity and their relationship to increasing sea
surface temperatures suggest that hurricane intensity may be increasing due to global warming. However, it is presently being argued that the existing global hurricane records are too inconsistent to accurately measure trends. As a first step in addressing this debate, we constructed a more homogeneous global record of hurricane intensity and
found that previously documented trends in some ocean basins are well supported, but in others the existing records contain trends that may be inflated or spurious. Citation: Kossin,
J. P., K. R. Knapp, D. J. Vimont, R. J. Murnane, and B. A. Harper
(2007), A globally consistent reanalysis of hurricane variability
and trends, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L04815, doi:10.1029/
2006GL028836.

1. Introduction
[2] The relationship between global warming and trends
in hurricane activity is presently a topic of active research
and debate, and much of the debate is rooted in questions
about the suitability of the hurricane records that have been
used to identify these trends [Landsea et al., 2006]. These
‘‘best track’’ records [Jarvinen et al., 1984; Chu et al.,
2002] comprise global historical measures of hurricane
position and intensity. Intensity is defined in terms of
sustained surface wind speed, although the details of this
definition can vary according to the protocols of individual
forecast offices. Teams of forecasters update the best track
data at the end of the hurricane season in each ocean basin
using data collected during and after each hurricane’s
lifetime (tropical cyclones are known by different names
in the various ocean basins, but here we are using the term
‘‘hurricane’’ in a generic sense). The variability of the
available data combined with long time-scale changes in
the availability and quality of observing systems, reporting
policies, and the methods utilized to analyze the data make
the best track records inhomogeneous by construction.
Temporal consistency is sacrificed in favor of best possible
absolute accuracy at every period during the lifetime of each hurricane.

[3] After the advent of global monitoring with geostationary
satellites in the mid to late 1970’s, metrics related to
hurricane frequency are generally considered accurate, but
the known lack of homogeneity in both the data and
techniques applied in the post-analyses has resulted in
skepticism regarding the consistency of the best track
intensity estimates. As a first step toward addressing this
shortcoming, we constructed a more homogeneous data
record of hurricane intensity by first creating a new consistently analyzed global satellite data archive from 1983 to 2005 [Knapp and Kossin, 2007] and then applying a new objective algorithm to the satellite data to form hurricane intensity estimates. Our new homogeneous record of hurricane intensity is denoted as the UW/NCDC (University of Wisconsin-Madison/National Climatic Data Center) record.
Where the best track records sacrifice consistency in lieu of
best possible absolute accuracy, our new record sacrifices
best possible absolute accuracy for temporal consistency. It
is important then to note that the UW/NCDC record serves
as a complement to the best track, and not as a replacement.

4. Concluding Remarks
[22] The time-dependent differences between the UW/
NCDC and JTWC best track records underscores the
potential for data inconsistencies to introduce spurious (or
spuriously large) upward trends in longer-term measures of
hurricane activity. Using a homogeneous record, we were
not able to corroborate the presence of upward trends in
hurricane intensity over the past two decades in any basin
other than the Atlantic. Since the Atlantic basin accounts for
less than 15% of global hurricane activity, this result poses a
challenge to hypotheses that directly relate globally increasing
tropical SST to increases in long-term mean global
hurricane intensity.
[23] Efforts are presently underway to maximize the
length of our new homogeneous data record but at most
we can add another 6–7 years, and whether meaningful
trends can be measured or inferred in a 30-year data record
remains very much an open question. Given these limitations
of the data, the question of whether hurricane intensity
is globally trending upwards in a warming climate will
likely remain a point of debate in the foreseeable future.
Still, the very real and dangerous increases in recent
Atlantic hurricane activity will no doubt continue to provide
a heightened sense of purpose to research addressing how
hurricane behavior might change in our changing climate,
and further efforts toward improvement of archival data
quality are expected to continue in parallel with efforts to
better reconcile the physical processes involved. If our
23-year record is in fact representative of the longer record,
then we need to better understand why hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin is varying in a fundamentally different
way than the rest of the world despite similar upward
trends of SST in each basin.

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~kossin/articles/Kossin_2006GL028836.pdf
-----------------------------------------
Temporal consistency sacrificed??? The Heisenberg uncertainty principle maybe???

"our new record sacrifices best possible absolute accuracy for temporal consistency"

"known lack of homogeneity in both the data and techniques applied in the post-analyses"

First, the predictions of a huge hurricane season this last year were completely wrong, despite a warm season. Second, this paper is a literal confession that the data they are measuring is not predictive of future hurricane activity. But, as long as it sounds like it's ringing the global warming bell, it will be all right to expropriate people's money from their wages to support more of this.

--97T--

El Neenyo gave us a big hurricane season last year...according to the predictions.... LOL!!

Now, La Neenya is going to give us a big hurricane season this year...according to the predictions... (yup...stick another LOL here!!)

Get this....from Reuters.... :)

US: March 3, 2007 (is it the 3rd ALREADY???)


WASHINGTON - The return of a La Nina weather pattern this year could trigger a higher-than-normal number of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, US government weather forecasters said Tuesday.
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/40593/story.htm

...but on the flip side,,,,,
"Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the official end of a brief and mild El Nino that started last year. That El Nino was credited with partially shutting down last summer's Atlantic hurricane activity in the midst of what was supposed to be a busy season.

"We're seeing a shift to the La Nina, it's clearly in the data," NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher said. La Nina, a cooling of the mid-Pacific equatorial region, has not officially begun because it's a process with several months with specific temperature thresholds, but the trend is obvious based on satellite and ocean measurement data, he said.

"It certainly won't be welcome news for those living off the coast right now," Lautenbacher said. But he said that doesn't mean Atlantic seaboard residents should sell their homes...."

http://www.physorg.com/news91872784.html

Yes folks, it's really bad, no matter how you look at it!!

Petr Chylek, in a letter to PhysicsToday.org discusses the ocean circulation slowing claimed by Gore and others is, in fact, not being seen.

"....The conclusion that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation has decreased by 30% does not follow from the data presented by Bryden and coauthors, but is based on an incorrect treatment of measurement errors....
....Research also failed to detect any slowing,3,4 and one of the relevant papers4 concludes that "there is no sign of any Meridional Overturning Circulation slowdown trend over the past decade, contrary to some recent suggestions....."

http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_60/iss_3/14_1.shtml

Petr notes too in the letter that he spoke with Bryden, and was told that Bryden's article in Nature had a title that was, on the requirement of the editor, shown without a question mark. That question mark's removal substantively changed the character of the title to a positive statement from the obvious question it was intended to be.

Much of the current stuff written about this confuses me. Many years back when I took a few college courses in Physical Geography the explanation for ocean currents was that they were driven by wind. Now it is possible to find statements to the effect that the 'Ocean Conveyor Belt' is driven by the cold descending water in the North Atlantic and if this water becomes warmer the circulation may slow or stop. So which is it?

You're not confused....there's different currents driven by different forces.

Wind, tide, earth's rotation, and some temperature differences drive some currents, and the thermohaline cycle is driven by temperature and salinity.

MIT researcher finds evidence of global warming on Neptune's largest moon
June 24, 1998


CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- We're not the only ones experiencing global warming. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher has reported that observations obtained by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based instruments reveal that Neptune's largest moon, Triton, seems to have heated up significantly since the Voyager space probe visited it in 1989. The warming trend is causing part of Triton's surface of frozen nitrogen to turn into gas, thus making its thin atmosphere denser......"
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/triton.html

Oh No, Mr. Bill!!! We're melting the Moons!!!!

....so much for the AGW argument.

You're not confused....there's different currents driven by different forces.

Wind, tide, earth's rotation, and some temperature differences drive some currents, and the thermohaline cycle is driven by temperature and salinity.

But the water that enters the thermohaline flow is initially driven Northwards by a combination of winds, Easterly Trades I think, the configuration of the sea floor and coastline and the Coriolis effect. Even if the thermohaline part of the flow diminished or turned off the Northward delivery would continue. So if return flow via deep water is taken out of the picture where does the return flow go? A portion of the return flow already loops back via the Labrador Current and some goes over and loops down the North Sea and splits around the British Isles. So these flows would have to increase to compensate for the reduction in return flow via deep circulation. This could mean a greatly increased incidence of Icebergs down the Atlantic Coast. It may not mean much difference in coastal temperatures in Norway and Great Britain because the flow past here would simply be increased at the same or even higher temperature; the higher temperature being predicated on the thermohaline flow being turned off by higher temperature. Or alternatively will the Northward flow into the Arctic Ocean via Baffin Bay or the Barents Sea increase? This could have very interesting effects with regards to reducing Arctic sea ice cover.

But the water that enters the thermohaline flow is initially driven Northwards by a combination of winds, Easterly Trades I think, the configuration of the sea floor and coastline and the Coriolis effect. Even if the thermohaline part of the flow diminished or turned off the Northward delivery would continue. So if return flow via deep water is taken out of the picture where does the return flow go? A portion of the return flow already loops back via the Labrador Current and some goes over and loops down the North Sea and splits around the British Isles. So these flows would have to increase to compensate for the reduction in return flow via deep circulation. This could mean a greatly increased incidence of Icebergs down the Atlantic Coast. It may not mean much difference in coastal temperatures in Norway and Great Britain because the flow past here would simply be increased at the same or even higher temperature; the higher temperature being predicated on the thermohaline flow being turned off by higher temperature. Or alternatively will the Northward flow into the Arctic Ocean via Baffin Bay or the Barents Sea increase? This could have very interesting effects with regards to reducing Arctic sea ice cover.


Just reading and have to say that this thread is very informative. Geof, are you sure you just want to be a Machinist? Your knowledge could be used for even better things than making parts.

BTW: Did you buy that other HAAS Mill for your Shop?:)

The rate of sea level rise in from 1904-1953 was 1.91 mm/yr, but from '54-2005 it lowered to 1.42mm/yr.

"The mean rate for the twentieth century calculated in this way is 1.67±0.04 mm/yr. The first half of the century (1904-1953) had a slightly higher rate (1.91±0.14 mm/yr) in comparison with the second half of the century (1.42±0.14 mm/yr 1954-2003)."

http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Holgate/sealevel_change_poster_holgate.pdf

This is consistent with other sea level rate-of-change data I've seen, and begs the simple question....Why is the rate-of-change SLOWER when it should be higher, if all the IPCC prognostications are true?

The glaciers are melting at ever increasing rates, Greenland is losing ice mass at ever increasing rates, the penguins and polar bears have nowhere to stand, yet, the rate of sea level increase has decreased.

I guess it means that progressively less ice-bound water is melting quicker.

Hey! I just figured it out all by myself!!

....the penguins and polar bears have nowhere to stand,....

Don't know about Polar Bears but Penguins got plenty of places to stand.

Don't know about Polar Bears but Penguins got plenty of places to stand.

Geof,

Thats hilarious! :)


.

Evan, A.T., A.K. Heidinger and D.J. Vimont, 2007. Arguments against a physical long-term trend in global ISCCP cloud amounts. Geophysical Research Letters, 34:LO4701.

Abstract

The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) multi-decadal record of cloudiness exhibits a well-known global decrease in cloud amounts. This downward trend has recently been used to suggest widespread increases in surface solar heating, decreases in planetary albedo, and deficiencies in global climate models. Here we show that trends observed in the ISCCP data are satellite viewing geometry artifacts and are not related to physical changes in the atmosphere. Our results suggest that in its current form, the ISCCP data may not be appropriate for certain long-term global studies, especially those focused on trends.”
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GL028083.shtml

(also referred to at the WCR website: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/03/20/what-do-we-know-about-clouds/ )

Ok, by a show of hands....anybody get the implications of this????

Dust storms in the Sahara can have profound effects on hurricane formation. They can make them more powerful, or decrease the likelyhood of their formation by affecting ocean surface temperatures.

The mild hurricane season of 2006 could be an excellent example of this.....since it humbled most all of the forecasters.

http://www.physorg.com/news94308723.html

First we drown, then we bake. Depending on whom you believe...

Computer Model Suggests Future Crop Loss Due to Potential Increase in Extreme Rain Events Over Next Century

Oct. 28, 2002


"....Global climate model simulations used in the study project increases in total precipitation and in the number of extreme precipitation events in the Corn Belt and on average for the continental United States. Over the Corn Belt states, the average number of extreme precipitation events was 30 percent above present levels in the 2030s, and 65 percent higher in the 2090s. The same climate projections were used for a 2001 U.S. national assessment report on potential consequences of climate change......"
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20021028/

Oh wait....now we're gonna bake....



NASA Study Finds Warmer Future Could Bring Droughts

Feb. 12, 2007

"NASA scientists may have discovered how a warmer future climate could increase droughts in certain parts of the world, including the Southwest United States.......

.....The same model showed that greenhouse-gas warming has similar effects on the atmosphere, suggesting drier conditions may become more common in the subtropics. Rainfall could decrease further in already water-stressed regions such as the Southwest United States, Mexico, parts of North Africa, the Middle East, and Australia. Meanwhile, precipitation may increase across the western Pacific, along much of the equator and in parts of Southeast Asia.


GISS Website Curator: Robert B. Schmunk
Responsible NASA Official: James E. Hansen
Page updated: 2007-02-16
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070212/

....and lookey who the responsible officio is!!!

But wait, look at this tidbit from the latter story!!!

"....Researchers also considered numerous tree-ring, fire, and lake sediment records from across the Americas, including Mexico, Peru, and the Yucatan Peninsula. These data are reliable indicators of historical climate and confirm a pronounced increase in drought frequency in the southern United States, Mexico, and other subtropical locations during periods of increased solar output over the past 1200 years. This long-term record of solar output is based on chemical isotopes whose production is related to the sun's brightness. Conversely, in parts of the tropics, ocean sediment data, key indicators of precipitation changes, reflect increased rainfall.

The same processes identified by this new research very likely also affected past civilizations, such as the Pueblo people of New Mexico and Arizona who abandoned cities in the 1300s, according to the researchers."

This actually is consistent with the theory of solar wind shielding us from cosmic rays, which in turn provide the nuclei for cloud formations that cool us. ....Now THERE'S a marriage of astrophysics and planetary science!!!

What isn't discussed is the fact that AGW CO2 was clearly NOT a factor in the 1300s, according to the researchers....

"...Introducing this new factor could lead climate scientists to recalculate their best estimates of how Earth's atmosphere holds and reflects solar energy -- the key to accurately predicting the future of global warming. "Current estimates of the effect of aerosols on global temperatures, which is primarily cooling, may be too small because the large contribution from this transition zone has been overlooked," Remer said. "If aerosols are offsetting warming more than we thought, it's possible that warming could increase more than expected in the future if aerosols continue to decline, as has been reported recently."...

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/twilightzone_particles.html

WOW!!!!, Is this thread still going???? A lot of good reading here. It kind of makes you feel like this:)

Before you light yourself on fire, think about climbing Kilimanjaro to see the penguins before they all go extinct..

MODERN GLACIER RETREAT ON KILIMANJARO AS EVIDENCE
OF CLIMATE CHANGE: OBSERVATIONS AND FACTS

http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/kaser2004.pdf

Here is a link to an author's site that I find interesting.

http://www.jamesphogan.com/bb/

He is mainly a Sci-Fi writer, but pick up one of his non fiction works (they are chock full of references to lots of numbers and reports, by the way) and you will really want to bang you head into a wall. He loves to point out holes in all the hysteria. Aside from global warming, he hits on AIDS, evolution, galactic expantion, and other areas where science fact tends to get forgotten in all the pop culture fiction. After reading one of his books I wanted to stick my head out the window and scream "Would everybody just wake up and stop following the crowd!!!"
Also a list of referances he uses:

http://www.jamesphogan.com/heretics/

I'm not sure if I agree with everything he says, but he makes me question what is accepted as "common knowledge" and think for myself.

Great link!

--97T--
I already have a few of the books on that list.

And from that treasure trove of information, another link:

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

A list of things caused by global warming. Just hilarious.

--97T--

And from that treasure trove of information, another link:

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

A list of things caused by global warming. Just hilarious.

--97T--

That's not funny, Niner....it's all true.
If we could only cut back on man-made CO2, we could reduce that annual increase to .00598 deg C.

Together, we CAN make a difference!!!

(btw, the list is not complete. It doesn't mention warts)

I didn't read any, just skimmed the link titles and they support my contention that the average of everything is zero. Its seems like there is a counter to every point so Global Warming will have no net effect.

I didn't read any, just skimmed the link titles and they support my contention that the average of everything is zero. Its seems like there is a counter to every point so Global Warming will have no net effect.

Since you brought up zero..(and I'm actually being serious)..there's a lot of research papers showing temperature records with increases, but the error is itself well within the natural variability. That leaves a big gap in the question of the net climate really warming.

My take is that we are having a net warming, offset by manmade AND natural effects to some unknown degree. What is really interesting to note is the IPCC's different scenarios in their SPM. Have you read 'em? About as 'blue-sky' as you can get.

...and speaking of blue sky....
You mentioned that the atmosphere isn't a vacuum, which is partially correct. Starting out at sea level you've got about 760 Torr. You lose Torrs by a factor of 10 for each 15km in altitude, up to about 100km. That means you're in the x10-3s by 90km. Not a great vacuum, but Torrs are getting fewer and further between.

We're learning a lot about high altitude chemistry (I'm not, since I'm still struggling with why vinegar and salt won't blow up when you mix 'em, but make for a good salad dressing) where there's low pressures and cold temps...in the range of -50deg C....+/- a lot...

One fascinating thing about lightning is that it seems to take about 300kV for us to make it in the lab, but it happens in nature at a third of that.

I didn't read any, just skimmed the link titles and they support my contention that the average of everything is zero. Its seems like there is a counter to every point so Global Warming will have no net effect.

I've always felt Earth is pretty big and been around alot longer than humans and is really good at self correcting. (not that we should TRY to make it worse!)

I think it was George Carlin that said maybe the earth wanted plastic (etc.) for itself and humans came along just to create it. When it gets tired of us, it will just shake us off like a bunch of flees.

...One fascinating thing about lightning is that it seems to take about 300kV for us to make it in the lab, but it happens in nature at a third of that.

I think it was this sort of thing that lead to the idea that Mother Nature uses a trick.

Regarding net warming, man made or otherwise, having stood or sailed in locations that a hundred years ago were under many tens or hundreds of feet of ice I am sure warming has taken place. There is so much natural evidence in glacier melt back and other areas that anyone who denies the warming has been inhaling the wrong substances. Whether humans are to cause is debatable, thinking we can do anything about it is utter stupidity.

Fizz,

Didn't you know the lightning voltage breakdown potential is lower outdoors because of the Chemtrails? (Or it could be due to cosmic ray breakdown in the atmosphere.)

Geof,

What do you think of this article?

http://www.jamesphogan.com/bb/bulletin.php?id=1076

--97T--

Fizz,

Didn't you know the lightning voltage breakdown potential is lower outdoors because of the Chemtrails? (Or it could be due to cosmic ray breakdown in the atmosphere.)

Geof,

What do you think of this article?

http://www.jamesphogan.com/bb/bulletin.php?id=1076

--97T--

I had not seen this article but I had seen something quoting it and then if I recall correctly giving a correction to the "...is 80 times the heat needed to raise it through every degree..." claim. It is actually 160 times or so the correction said.

The part at the bottom I find interesting:

"In addition, it would appear that some 2000 years ago the Larsen-A and B ice shelves likely were altogether absent, and that temperatures of that time were likely as warm as, or even warmer than, they have been recently. Furthermore, there was approximately 100 ppm less CO2 in the air of that time than there is in the air of today; and this fact suggests that something other than anthropogenic CO2 emissions was the cause of the earlier "balmy" conditions of northeast Antarctica, which implies that that same something else, or something different yet, could well be responsible for the current warmth of the region."

I read something about the Antarctic Regions and the Circumpolar Current recently, not online on paper but I cannot recall the exact source, describing the Current it said the time for a full circulation is around 3000 years and recently there have been discovered some large gyres in the Current that can be several degrees warmer than the surrounding water. Large being a few thousand miles across and warmer being 4 - 6 degrees or something in that region. What the article did not comment on was where any of the gyres are presently located. I think before anyone can say anything definitive about warming or cooling around the Antarctic Continent they need to know how long the gyres persist, where they were in the past and now, and whether their passing a particular region correlates with different temperature records in that region.

Geof,

The enthalpy of fusion for water is given at 79.72 cal/gm, where the calorie is given as the amount of heat to raise one gm of water one degree C.

That must be where that '80 times' assertion came from.

3000 years is a long, long time. And that's a huge heat sink. I agree, there is a lot we don't know. Our history of being able to measure things is but a blip in time.

--97T--

Geof,

The enthalpy of fusion for water is given at 79.72 cal/gm, where the calorie is given as the amount of heat to raise one gm of water one degree C.

That must be where that '80 times' assertion came from....

--97T--

I probably remembered it backwards; 160 being corrected to 80 not the other way around as I mentioned.

Notice the temperature increase between 1918 and 1928....3.8deg C in just 10 years??

Sure looks like a hockey stick to me!...of course it's an antique hockey stick so it don't count....

The area shown just happens to be ...uh...Greenland

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/gcag/GCAGdeal?sbeX=-75&sbeY=85&senX=-15&senY=60&nzi=-1&mon1=1&monb1=1&mone1=12&bye1=1880&eye1=2006&graph=Lineplot&klu=1&dat=GHCN&mon2=00&bye2=00&eye2=00&mon3=00&ye=00&param=Temperature&proce=80&puzo=0&ts=6&non=1&begX=0&begY=0&endX=71&endY=35

A brief summary of the evidence for a cosmic ray climate link.
Svensmark (1998) finds that there is a clear correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover. Since the time he first discovered it, the correlation continued as it should (Svensmark, 2007). Here is all the other evidence which demonstrates that the observed solar/cloud cover correlation is based upon a real physical link.

1) Empirical Solar / CRF / Cloud Cover correlation: In principle, correlations between CRF variations and climate does not necessarily prove causality. However, the correlations include telltale signatures of the CRF-climate link, thus pointing to a causal link. In particular, the cloud cover variations exhibit the same 22-year asymmetry that the CRF has, but no other solar activity proxy (Fichtner et al., 2006 and refs. therein). Second, the cloud cover variations have the same latitudinal dependence as the CRF variations (Usoskin et al. 2004). Third, daily variations in the CRF, and which are mostly independent of the large scale activity in the sun appear to correlated with cloud variations as well (Harrison and Stephenson, 2006).

2) CRF variations unrelated to solar activity: In addition to solar induced modulations, the CRF also has solar-independent sources of variability. In particular, Shaviv (2002, 2003a) has shown that long term CRF variations arising from passages through the galactic spiral arms correlate with the almost periodic appearance of ice-age epochs on Earth. On longer time scales, the star formation rate in the Milky Way appears to correlate with glacial activity on Earth (Shaviv, 2003a), while on shorter time scale, there is some correlation between Earth magnetic field variations (which too modulate the CRF) and climate variability (Christl et al. 2004).

3) Experimental Results: Different experimental results (Harrison and Aplin, 2001, Eichkorn et al., 2003, Svensmark et al. 2007) demonstrate that the increase of atmospheric charge increases the formation of small condensation nuclei, thus indicating that atmospheric charge can play an important role (and bottleneck) in the formation of new cloud condensation nuclei.

4) Additional Evidence: Two additional results reveal consistency with the link. Yu (2002), carried out a theoretical analysis and demonstrated that the largest effect is expected on the low altitude clouds (as is observed). Shaviv (2005) empirically derived Earth's climate sensitivity through comparison between the radiative forcing and the actual temperature variations. It was found that if the CRF/cloud cover forcing is included, the half dozen different time scales which otherwise give inconsistent climate sensitivities, suddenly all align with the same relatively low climate sensitivity, of 0.35±0.09°K/(W/m2).

http://www.sciencebits.com/RealClimateSlurs

Fizz,

Just to give a little background -- CRF = Cosmic Ray Flux. I think.

--97T--

Instant State-by-State Fuel Mix Map!! (it's Cool!!)

http://www.getenergyactive.org/fuel/state.htm

You can see by rolling your mouse over your state what % of what energy source your state uses.

....Amazing irony.....I'm in Nevada (that's NUH-VADD-UH) and we get ZERO nuclear power, yet we are home to the Yucca Mountain Nuclear (NOT KNU-KYA-LER) Waste Repository (Repository=Dump)

Sorry, N7T, but CRF doesn't show up as Cosmic Ray Flux (even though I agree with you) :)

http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/CRF

Heya Fizz,

I'm pretty durned sure that's what they mean by CRF in that article. It looks to be the most likely culprit so far.

--97T--

Cosmic rays are becoming more and more a focus of research on clouds AND lightning...seems they provide far more of a seed for the formation of clouds and a charged path for lightning.

What's amazing is the energy in them, when you're talking about Mev and Tev vs. what our sun puts out.

This guy is doing some fascinating work on clouds, ice crystals, and lightning using a chamber on a machine that discharges huge amounts of current in a very short time regime.....his work is revealing some really amazing phenomena that is yet to be understood.

Bailey, working in conjunction with the UNR Physics Department and the Nevada Terawatt Facility, creates laboratory simulations of atmospheric lightning discharge. The work is perhaps the most realistic study ever undertaken of this most dramatic and powerful of Nature's phenomena. "Lightning is poorly understood," explains Bailey. "There haven't been any really realistic laboratory studies performed in the presence of ice crystals and aerosols-the kinds of things that are around when lightning really strikes-before this."
http://newsletter.dri.edu/2001/fall/fall01_profiles.htm

"...To emphasize this latter point, Holzhauser et al. concluded their paper by noting that "a comparison between the fluctuations of the Great Aletsch glacier and the variations in the atmospheric residual 14C records supports the hypothesis that variations in solar activity were a major forcing factor of climate oscillations in west-central Europe during the late Holocene." All we would add to these conclusions is that because the current warmth of the study region has not yet resulted in a shrinkage of the Great Aletsch glacier equal to what it experienced during the Bronze Age Optimum of a little over three thousand years ago, or what it experienced during the Roman Warm Period of two thousand years ago, there is nothing unusual or "unprecedented," as climate alarmists like to claim, about the region's current warmth. In addition, we note that the warmth of the modern era is occurring at just about the time one would expect it to occur, in light of the consistent time intervals that have separated prior warm nodes of the millennial-scale climatic oscillation that produced them, which further suggests that our current warmth, like that of prior Holocene warm periods, is likely solar-induced, which pretty much leaves CO2 "out in the cold," as far as being responsible for twentieth-century global warming is concerned...."

http://www.co2science.org/subject/r/summaries/rwpeuropecentral.jsp

The link has an excellent outline of climate change and the non-relationship of CO2 to warming/cooling. Take particular note of the glacier references.

Supplementary material to “Updated 2008 Surface Snowmelt Trends in Antarctica”
Marco Tedesco, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, City College of New York; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland; Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, University of Maryland Baltimore County

http://www.agu.org/eos_elec/2008/Tedesco_89_13.html

Surface snowmelt in Antarctica in 2008, as derived from spaceborne passive microwave observations at 19.35 gigahertz, was 40% below the average of the period 1987–2007. The melting index (MI, a measure of where melting occurred and for how long) in 2008 was the second-smallest value in the 1987–2008 period, with 3,465,625 square kilometers times days (km2 × days) against the average value of 8,407,531 km2 × days (Figure 1a). Melt extent (ME, the extent of the area subject to melting) in 2008 set a new minimum with 297,500 square kilometers, against an average value of approximately 861,812 square kilometers. The 2008 updated melting index and melt extent trends over the whole continent, as derived from a linear regression approach, are –164,487 km2 × days per year (MI) and –11,506 square kilometers per year (ME), respectively.

Negative trends for the period 1987–2008 of the number of melting days (Figure 1b) over the Antarctic Peninsula are observed at a rate down to –2 days per year for internal areas and about –0.7 days per year for coastal areas. Contrarily, positive trends (up to approximately +0.25 days per year) are observed on part of the Larsen Ice Shelf.

In East Antarctica, positive trends are observed over the Amery, West, Shackleton, and Voyeykov ice shelves, with values of up to +0.7 days per year for Shackleton and +0.8 days per year for Amery. Interestingly, the latter shows negative trends (down to –0.3 days per year) for internal areas but positive values for coastal areas.

How not to measure temperature, part 58 - Sacramento’s rooftop weather stations
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-58/

Whoops there goes,
another rubber tree..
Whoops there goes,
another rubber tree ring.

Rubber Tree Rings?? Kinda looks that way, if you're using Draper & Smith....


MBH99 and Proxy Calibration
By Steve McIntyre
"In total, 10 of the 14 series in the MBH99 failed this chapter 1 calibration test. In addition to the above 3 series, other failed series were: the fran010 tree ring series, Quelccaya 1 dO18, Quelccaya 2 dO18 (why are there 4 different Quelccaya series??), a Patagonia tree ring series, the Polar Urals reconstruction and the West Greenland dO18 series. ..."

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3020

...for those just tuning in, this is all about the root paper that was used to base the famous Hockey Stick (HS) claims upon, Michael Mann's 1998 MBH98, now also famously debunked as useless.

Just went through the area the other day...was wondering why there were patches of dead trees...

"Mammoth Mountain, a young volcano in eastern California, sits on the southwest rim of Long Valley Caldera. In 1994, scientists detected high concentrations of CO2 gas in the soil on Mammoth Mountain. This invisible gas, seeping from beneath the volcano, is killing trees on the sides of the mountain and can pose a threat to humans. Recent measurements indicate that the total rate of CO2 gas emission at Mammoth Mountain is close to 300 tons per day. In this photo, large areas of dead and dying trees are visible near Horseshoe Lake, on the southeast flank of Mammoth Mountain."

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs172-96/

....."Mammoth Mountain, a young volcano in eastern California, sits on the southwest rim of Long Valley Caldera. In 1994, scientists detected high concentrations of CO2 gas in the soil on Mammoth Mountain. ......"

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs172-96/

If Mammoth Mountain decides to wake up the least of our worries will be CO2 seeping out of the ground. Try and imagine the havoc to the North American economy if air travel was not possible. How about World economy? It would certainly demonstrate how crucially dependent we are on air travel.

No more skiing the cornice!!!
No more Whoa Nellie Deli!!
No more kayaking 'round the tufa from Navy Beach!!
No more of the best tasting spring water I've ever had in my LIFE at a little-known campground south-east of Mono Lake!!

....But the worst thing of all.....What about the Coach outlet store in Mammoth??? Oh NO!!!!

Bob Carter from Australia debunks AGW...and debunks it well!!
In 4 parts.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/videos/bobcarter.html

If you don't get the picture in the first 5 minutes of part 1, you're hopeless.

More Hurricanes
2005
“...We can say with confidence that the trends in sea surface temperatures and hurricane intensity are connected to climate change,” says Webster’s co-author Judy Curry, also of the Georgia Institute of Technology. The team looked at the incidence of intense tropical storms and the study results are the strongest affirmation yet that Katrina-level hurricanes are becoming more frequent in a warmer world...."

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn8002-warming-world-blamed-for-more-strong-hurricanes.html


We have no clue....(ok, the IPCC has no clue)
"...Changes in tropical storm and hurricane frequency and intensity are masked by large natural variability..."
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/FAQ/wg1_faq-3.3.html

Less Hurricanes
2008
"...Not only that, warmer temperatures will actually reduce the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic and those making landfall, research meteorologist Tom Knutson reported in a study released Sunday..."
(According to NOAA scientist Tom Knutson...)
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j9YzbkbPjYwP_3-9wZhTNbMcZSAQD90OC2T80

Gall durn it. Scratch anuther one from Algore's list of posterchild causes.