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Post by philunderwood on Jan 17, 2011 15:36:46 GMT -5
Richard Lindzen: AGW movement driven by money, power and dubious science www.qando.net/?cat=19January 17th, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain That¡¯s the conclusion I gathered from a devastating essay Richard Lindzen published this past Saturday. Here are the lead 2 paragraphs: The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope. The fact that the developed world went into hysterics over changes in global mean temperature anomaly of a few tenths of a degree will astound future generations. Such hysteria simply represents the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, the susceptibility of the public to the substitution of repetition for truth, and the exploitation of these weaknesses by politicians, environmental promoters, and, after 20 years of media drum beating, many others as well. Climate is always changing. We have had ice ages and warmer periods when alligators were found in Spitzbergen. Ice ages have occurred in a hundred thousand year cycle for the last 700 thousand years, and there have been previous periods that appear to have been warmer than the present despite CO2 levels being lower than they are now. More recently, we have had the medieval warm period and the little ice age. During the latter, alpine glaciers advanced to the chagrin of overrun villages. Since the beginning of the 19th Century these glaciers have been retreating. Frankly, we don¡¯t fully understand either the advance or the retreat. For small changes in climate associated with tenths of a degree, there is no need for any external cause. The earth is never exactly in equilibrium. The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Recent work (Tsonis et al, 2007), suggests that this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century. One of the reasons I constantly ask those who believe in AGW what the ¡°perfect temperature¡± for the world is and how we can achieve it is I understand that the only constant in the earth¡¯s climate is change. The world¡¯s climate has always been changing in various cycles since its formation. History shows us that we¡¯ve had periods of more CO2 than now, warmer periods than now and neither of the events can be explained away by blaming man. How we got into this scared mode of screaming about gloom and doom if we don¡¯t do something is both interesting and constructive. But a couple of things first. Lindzen discusses the role of models in the current debate and why anyone seeing their output should be very skeptical of their conclusions. He first discusses the ¡°dominant role¡± of cumulus convection in the tropics and how the models handled that. His discussion is a scathing critique of the models used: For warming since 1979, there is a further problem. The dominant role of cumulus convection in the tropics requires that temperature approximately follow what is called a moist adiabatic profile. This requires that warming in the tropical upper troposphere be 2-3 times greater than at the surface. Indeed, all models do show this, but the data doesn¡¯t and this means that something is wrong with the data. It is well known that above about 2 km altitude, the tropical temperatures are pretty homogeneous in the horizontal so that sampling is not a problem. Below two km (roughly the height of what is referred to as the trade wind inversion), there is much more horizontal variability, and, therefore, there is a profound sampling problem. Under the circumstances, it is reasonable to conclude that the problem resides in the surface data, and that the actual trend at the surface is about 60% too large. Even the claimed trend is larger than what models would have projected but for the inclusion of an arbitrary fudge factor due to aerosol cooling. The discrepancy was reported by Lindzen (2007) and by Douglass et al (2007). Inevitably in climate science, when data conflicts with models, a small coterie of scientists can be counted upon to modify the data. Thus, Santer, et al (2008), argue that stretching uncertainties in observations and models might marginally eliminate the inconsistency. That the data should always need correcting to agree with models is totally implausible and indicative of a certain corruption within the climate science community. It turns out that there is a much more fundamental and unambiguous check of the role of feedbacks in enhancing greenhouse warming that also shows that all models are greatly exaggerating climate sensitivity. Here, it must be noted that the greenhouse effect operates by inhibiting the cooling of the climate by reducing net outgoing radiation. However, the contribution of increasing CO2 alone does not, in fact, lead to much warming (approximately 1 deg. C for each doubling of CO2). The larger predictions from climate models are due to the fact that, within these models, the more important greenhouse substances, water vapor and clouds, act to greatly amplify whatever CO2 does. This is referred to as a positive feedback. It means that increases in surface temperature are accompanied by reductions in the net outgoing radiation ¨C thus enhancing the greenhouse warming. All climate models show such changes when forced by observed surface temperatures. Satellite observations of the earth¡¯s radiation budget allow us to determine whether such a reduction does, in fact, accompany increases in surface temperature in nature. As it turns out, the satellite data from the ERBE instrument (Barkstrom, 1984, Wong et al, 2006) shows that the feedback in nature is strongly negative ¡ª strongly reducing the direct effect of CO2 (Lindzen and Choi, 2009) in profound contrast to the model behavior. This analysis makes clear that even when all models agree, they can all be wrong, and that this is the situation for the all important question of climate sensitivity. So there is your ¡°consensus¡± and, as Lindzen points out, the consensus is/was wrong. Furthermore: According to the UN¡¯s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the greenhouse forcing from man made greenhouse gases is already about 86% of what one expects from a doubling of CO2 (with about half coming from methane, nitrous oxide, freons and ozone), and alarming predictions depend on models for which the sensitivity to a doubling for CO2 is greater than 2C which implies that we should already have seen much more warming than we have seen thus far, even if all the warming we have seen so far were due to man. This contradiction is rendered more acute by the fact that there has been no statistically significant net global warming for the last fourteen years. Modelers defend this situation, as we have already noted, by arguing that aerosols have cancelled much of the warming (viz Schwartz et al, 2010), and that models adequately account for natural unforced internal variability. However, a recent paper (Ramanathan, 2007) points out that aerosols can warm as well as cool, while scientists at the UK¡¯s Hadley Centre for Climate Research recently noted that their model did not appropriately deal with natural internal variability thus demolishing the basis for the IPCC¡¯s iconic attribution (Smith et al, 2007). The basic reason we¡¯re still battling this nonsense? Uh, would you believe the usual ¨C power and money: When an issue like global warming is around for over twenty years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue. The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence, and donations are reasonably clear. So too are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of CO2 is a dream-come-true. After all, CO2 is a product of breathing itself. Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted because it is necessary for ¡®saving¡¯ the earth. Nations have seen how to exploit this issue in order to gain competitive advantages. But, by now, things have gone much further. The case of ENRON (a now bankrupt Texas energy firm) is illustrative in this respect. Before disintegrating in a pyrotechnic display of unscrupulous manipulation, ENRON had been one of the most intense lobbyists for Kyoto. It had hoped to become a trading firm dealing in carbon emission rights. This was no small hope. These rights are likely to amount to over a trillion dollars, and the commissions will run into many billions. Hedge funds are actively examining the possibilities; so was the late Lehman Brothers. Goldman Sachs has lobbied extensively for the ¡®cap and trade¡¯ bill, and is well positioned to make billions. It is probably no accident that Gore, himself, is associated with such activities. The sale of indulgences is already in full swing with organizations selling offsets to one¡¯s carbon footprint while sometimes acknowledging that the offsets are irrelevant. The possibilities for corruption are immense. Archer Daniels Midland (America¡¯s largest agribusiness) has successfully lobbied for ethanol requirements for gasoline, and the resulting demand for ethanol may already be contributing to large increases in corn prices and associated hardship in the developing world (not to mention poorer car performance). And finally, there are the numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view of anthropogenic climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue. For them, their psychic welfare is at stake. So essentially, Lindzen is appealing for us all to stop this madness and, in a calm, rational way, discuss what we do know and why it isn¡¯t a threat that needs drastic and expensive intervention ¨C for instance: Given that the evidence (and I have noted only a few of many pieces of evidence) strongly implies that anthropogenic warming has been greatly exaggerated, the basis for alarm due to such warming is similarly diminished. However, a really important point is that the case for alarm would still be weak even if anthropogenic global warming were significant. Polar bears, arctic summer sea ice, regional droughts and floods, coral bleaching, hurricanes, alpine glaciers, malaria, etc. etc. all depend not on some global average of surface temperature anomaly, but on a huge number of regional variables including temperature, humidity, cloud cover, precipitation, and direction and magnitude of wind. The state of the ocean is also often crucial. Our ability to forecast any of these over periods beyond a few days is minimal (a leading modeler refers to it as essentially guesswork). Yet, each catastrophic forecast depends on each of these being in a specific range. The odds of any specific catastrophe actually occurring are almost zero. This was equally true for earlier forecasts of famine for the 1980¡äs, global cooling in the 1970¡äs, Y2K and many others. Regionally, year to year fluctuations in temperature are over four times larger than fluctuations in the global mean. Much of this variation has to be independent of the global mean; otherwise the global mean would vary much more. This is simply to note that factors other than global warming are more important to any specific situation. This is not to say that disasters will not occur; they always have occurred and this will not change in the future. Fighting global warming with symbolic gestures will certainly not change this. However, history tells us that greater wealth and development can profoundly increase our resilience. Trying to claim there is a ¡°global climate¡± and define it with a perfect temperature seems a fools errand in light of what Lindzen points out above about regional variability. The models don¡¯t explain those regional variables or their effects very well at all. In fact, they insist on a ¡°global¡± view vs. the view Lindzen gives us, and that makes the attempt to globalize regional events even more suspect. My favorite paragraph though, is Lindzen¡¯s parting shot , er, conclusion: With all this at stake, one can readily suspect that there might be a sense of urgency provoked by the possibility that warming may have ceased and that the case for such warming as was seen being due in significant measure to man, disintegrating. For those committed to the more venal agendas, the need to act soon, before the public appreciates the situation, is real indeed. However, for more serious leaders, the need to courageously resist hysteria is clear. Wasting resources on symbolically fighting ever present climate change is no substitute for prudence. Nor is the assumption that the earth¡¯s climate reached a point of perfection in the middle of the twentieth century a sign of intelligence. I¡¯m still laughing over the last sentence. Given any intelligence and a smattering of curiosity about climate history, even a cursory examination of that history makes one immediately suspicious of the claims by the AGW crowd and very skeptical of the science. For those who Lindzen describes as ¡°well meaning individuals who have allowed propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view of anthropogenic climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue¡±, he¡¯s saying it is neither intelligent or virtuous. All I can say is, ¡°agreed¡±. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Jan 28, 2011 9:42:30 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?cat=44Another alarmist claim bites the dust January 28th, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain OK, perhaps not the perfect metaphor for this but another in a long line of claims made by the UN’s IPCC report has been found to be totally false. In fact, in the case of this particular claim, there appears to be no foundation whatsoever for the claim and in reality it appears exactly the opposite of what was claimed appears to be true. The claim? Himalayan glaciers were melting because of global warming climate change. The facts? Researchers have discovered that contrary to popular belief half of the ice flows in the Karakoram range of the mountains are actually growing rather than shrinking. You have to love that sentence – “contrary to popular belief”? Is that what the so-called “science” of global warming climate change has been reduced too? Even more damning: The new study by scientists at the Universities of California and Potsdam has found that half of the glaciers in the Karakoram range, in the northwestern Himalaya, are in fact advancing and that global warming is not the deciding factor in whether a glacier survives or melts. “Global warming” isn’t the deciding factor? But, but there was “scientific consensus” that global warming climate change was indeed causing the glaciers to melt. And now scientists are saying that not only are the glaciers not melting – they’re instead growing – but that global warming climate change isn’t even the “deciding factor” in either case? In fact, the study says, the real reason for advancing or retreating glaciers is much simpler than global warming climate change. It has to do with debris fields: Their report, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found the key factor affecting their advance or retreat is the amount of debris – rocks and mud – strewn on their surface, not the general nature of climate change. […] "Our study shows that there is no uniform response of Himalayan glaciers to climate change and highlights the importance of debris cover for understanding glacier retreat, an effect that has so far been neglected in predictions of future water availability or global sea level," the authors concluded. Dr Bookhagen said their report had shown "there is no stereotypical Himalayan glacier" in contrast to the UN’s climate change report which, he said, "lumps all Himalayan glaciers together." In fact, the science of global warming climate change lumps a whole bunch of things together it shouldn’t be lumping together, while it leaves off a whole mess of things it should be considering depending on the model such as clouds, sun, water vapor, etc. By the way, a reminder of the base for the IPCC “scare-science”: Dr Pachauri, head of the Nobel prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has remained silent on the matter since he was forced to admit his report’s claim that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 was an error and had not been sourced from a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It came from a World Wildlife Fund report. He angered India’s environment minister and the country’s leading glaciologist when he attacked those who questioned his claim as purveyors of "voodoo science". Of course, now we know who the real purveyor of “voodoo science” is, don’t we? ~McQ
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Post by Ritty77 on Jan 28, 2011 13:43:37 GMT -5
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Post by philunderwood on Jan 28, 2011 14:17:34 GMT -5
Great article. It illustrates what is happening in the world of science since government started getting involved with their grants and political spin.
The solution is to get government out of science. And that includes education.
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Post by Ritty77 on Feb 2, 2011 18:07:44 GMT -5
On Fox and Friends today, Joe Bastardi had this exchange with host Steve Doocy: DOOCY: You know, Al Gore came out within the last 48 hours on his website and he said that scientists have said that the -- you know, all these storms are indicative of the Earth getting warmer. You got evaporation up there and more precipitation and hence, what's going on here. You say that's not right.
BASTARDI: What it is is the atmosphere is beginning to cool, that creates more clashes. You know what this is like with those folks? I don't mean to demean you, but Dooce, you used to wrestle. It's like the more your opponent scores, the more points you get. The fact of the matter is these guys are sitting here -- is there any answer they don't own? Four, five years ago, we're hearing no winters, lots of hurricanes, everything else. When the opposite happens, they say well, we're right about that. Exactly right. Whatever happens, the Leftist's policies are true, actual, factual, and wonderful. They know better than even reality.
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Post by Ritty77 on Feb 8, 2011 20:11:21 GMT -5
A friend sent me this email. And, yes, this would make me happy! ;D AND WE THINK WE HAVE IT BAD!!!They were lucky! It could have been a real disaster. Go to North Dakota! This text is from a county emergency manager in Minot, North DakotaMinot Daily News. WEATHER BULLETIN: Up here in the Northern part of North Dakota we just recovered from a Historic event --- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 25' of snow and winds to 50 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands. FYI: o Obama did not come. o FEMA did nothing. o No one howled for the government to come or help. o No one blamed the government. o No one uttered an expletive on TV. o Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit. o Our Mayors did not blame Obama or anyone else. o Our Governor did not blame Obama or anyone else. o CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX, or NBC did not visit - or even report on this Category 5 snow storm. o Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards. o No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House. o No one looted. o Nobody - I mean nobody - demanded or expected the government to do anything. o No Larry King, no Bill O'Reilly, no Oprah, no Chris Mathews and no Geraldo Rivera. o No Shaun Penn, no Barbara Striesand, no Brad Pitt, no other Hollywood types to be found. o Nope, we just melted the snow for water. o Sent out caravans of SUVs to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars. o Our truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny. o Local restaurants made food, and the police and fire department delivered it to snow bound families. o Our families took in stranded people - total strangers. o We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal-oil lanterns and Coleman lanterns. o We wore extra layers of clothes because up here it is Work Or Die!! o We did not wait for the same affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by our being immobilized by their own non-productive welfare programs. o Even though a Category 5 Blizzard of this scale is unusual, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves. I hope this gets passed on. Maybe.....SOME people will get the message ...... The government does NOT owe you a living!!! You owe yourself that living and the government owes you the right to earn it by getting out of your way!!!
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Post by relenemiller on Feb 8, 2011 23:13:54 GMT -5
Keith, too funny.......not the snow.....the reaction of the state.
Oh and by the way, Keith.....would that type of a crippler make you happy? ;D
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Post by philunderwood on Mar 4, 2011 9:44:44 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?p=10441How alarmists have hurt their AGW cause March 4th, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain Science is about discovery, the expansion of knowledge, how things work and what that means. What it is not, or shouldn’t be, is an accessory to politics. Politics isn’t about any of those things. Politics is about the application of power to move things in a particular direction. So when pure science teams up with politics to become advocacy “science” bad things are most likely to happen. The IPCC report specifically, and climate science in general, are learning that the hard way. James Taylor, who seems open to the AGW arguments, asks the salient questions generated by the last IPCC report and subsequent findings. Using Godfather II as an analogy, he sets up the point: The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report was as straightforward as Frank Pentangeli’s earlier confession that he had killed on behalf of Michael Corleone. “Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms,” IPCC reported. That was in 2001. Now, however, with an unprecedented number of major winter snowstorms hitting the northeastern U.S. during the past two winters, the alarmists are clamming up and changing their tune faster than Tom Hagen can fly in Vincenzo Pentangeli from Italy to aid his brother in his time of trouble. He’s absolutely right – there was no equivocation in the report. A leads to B. They said the same thing about hurricanes – warming would lead to many more and much more powerful storms. Instead they’re at a historically lower level. Glaciers, snowcaps, all sorts of predictions have been found to be false. When James confronted the IPCC on this, he got the sort of mushy answer you might expect: During the question and answer portion of the UCS press conference, I quoted the IPCC Third Assessment Report and asked Masters and Serreze if they were saying IPCC was wrong on the science. “I would say that we always learn,” replied Serreze. “Have we learned a great deal since the IPCC 2001 report? I would say yes, we have. Climate science, like any other field, is a constantly evolving field and we are always learning.” Really? What happened to “the debate is over” and “the science is settled”? So: For years, alarmists have claimed “the science is settled” and “the debate is over.” Well, when was the science settled? When global warming would allegedly cause Himalayan glaciers to melt by 2035, or now that it won’t? When global warming would allegedly cause fewer heavy snow events, or now that it will allegedly cause more frequent heavy snow events? You can’t have it both ways and be called “science” can you? ~McQ
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Post by Ritty77 on Mar 16, 2011 20:57:20 GMT -5
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Post by philunderwood on Apr 13, 2011 13:22:57 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?cat=509Prediction FAIL–what happened to all the “climate refugees”? April 13th, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain You perhaps recall that the AGW doomsayers, via the UN, announced in 2005 that by 2010 there would be 50 million “climate refugees” driven from their homes by the adverse effect of global warming. It’s always nice to check up on the accuracy of such predictions to gauge how well they jibe with reality. In this case, it’s a complete miss. As most of us know, the measured “global temperature” has been steadily going down (as the natural cycles of the earth again do what they’ve done for billions of years). So what’s the status of all of those refugees? Well, Gavin Atkinson gives us a nice little update based on the recent census data from various “at risk” places. Remember, we were supposed to see the first effects of warming on the “very sensitive low lying islands of the Pacific and Caribbean”. Reality"? Bahamas: Nassau, The Bahamas – The 2010 national statistics recorded that the population growth increased to 353,658 persons in The Bahamas. The population change figure increased by 50,047 persons during the last 10 years. St Lucia: The island-nation of Saint Lucia recorded an overall household population increase of 5 percent from May 2001 to May 2010 based on estimates derived from a complete enumeration of the population of Saint Lucia during the conduct of the recently completed 2010 Population and Housing Census. Seychelles: Population 2002, 81755 Population 2010, 88311 Solomon Islands: The latest Solomon Islands population has surpassed half a million – that’s according to the latest census results. It’s been a decade since the last census report, and in that time the population has leaped 100-thousand. How about all those cities that were going to be underwater because of melting glaciers and ice packs? Meanwhile, far from being places where people are fleeing, no fewer than the top six of the very fastest growing cities in China, Shenzzen, Dongguan, Foshan, Zhuhai, Puning and Jinjiang, are absolutely smack bang within the shaded areas identified as being likely sources of climate refugees. Similarly, many of the fastest growing cities in the United States also appear within or close to the areas identified by the UNEP as at risk of having climate refugees. When it all comes down to it, AGW increasingly appears to fall in the category of the usual lefty doomsaying that never lives up to the fear factor with which its proponents attempt to radically change the way we live in order to supposedly save us from ourselves. Think the population bomb with fossil fuel as the target instead of government mandated population control. Of course the unfortunate thing is many of our politicians on the left and a whole raft of politicians throughout the world (and particularly in the UN) continue to push this farce. The reason is simple. There’s a whole lot of money to be extracted from this scare. World governments can cash in on a “problem” they’ve literally invented out of thin air. So don’t look for it to go quietly into the night. All that crap about putting science first is just that. They’ve picked their side for obvious reasons and intend to push it all the way to the bank. That’s one of the reasons stories like this need to be highlighted – so when they inevitably try to get in you wallet again, you have something to fight back with. This is the reality of their predictions – and it is completely the opposite of what their “science” told them would happen. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on May 12, 2011 8:15:42 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?cat=45Anthropogenic Global Warming is false science former "alarmist" scientist says May 12th, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain David Evans is a scientist. He also has worked in the heart of the AGW machine and consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modeling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. He has six university degrees, including a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. The other day he said: The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. And with that he begins a demolition of the theories and methods by which the AGW scare has been foisted on the public. The politics: The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant. He makes clear he understands that CO2 is indeed a "greenhouse gas", and makes the point that if all else was equal then yes, more CO2 in the air should and would mean a warmer planet. But that’s where the current "science" goes off the tracks. The science: But the issue is not whether carbon dioxide warms the planet, but how much. Most scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet’s temperature, if just the extra carbon dioxide is considered. These calculations come from laboratory experiments; the basic physics have been well known for a century. The disagreement comes about what happens next. The planet reacts to that extra carbon dioxide, which changes everything. Most critically, the extra warmth causes more water to evaporate from the oceans. But does the water hang around and increase the height of moist air in the atmosphere, or does it simply create more clouds and rain? Back in 1980, when the carbon dioxide theory started, no one knew. The alarmists guessed that it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moist air is also a greenhouse gas. [emphasis mine] But it didn’t increase the height of the moist air around the planet as subsequent studies have shown since that time. However, that theory or premise became the heart of the modeling that was done by the alarmist crowd: This is the core idea of every official climate model: For each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three — so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors); only one-third is due to extra carbon dioxide. That’s the core of the issue. All the disagreements and misunderstandings spring from this. The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism. What did they find when they tried to prove this theory? Weather balloons had been measuring the atmosphere since the 1960s, many thousands of them every year. The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10 kilometres up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above. During the warming of the late 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, the weather balloons found no hot spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide. This evidence first became clear around the mid-1990s. Evans is not the first to come to these conclusions. Earlier this year, in a post I highlighted, Richard Lindzen said the very same thing. For warming since 1979, there is a further problem. The dominant role of cumulus convection in the tropics requires that temperature approximately follow what is called a moist adiabatic profile. This requires that warming in the tropical upper troposphere be 2-3 times greater than at the surface. Indeed, all models do show this, but the data doesn’t and this means that something is wrong with the data. It is well known that above about 2 km altitude, the tropical temperatures are pretty homogeneous in the horizontal so that sampling is not a problem. Below two km (roughly the height of what is referred to as the trade wind inversion), there is much more horizontal variability, and, therefore, there is a profound sampling problem. Under the circumstances, it is reasonable to conclude that the problem resides in the surface data, and that the actual trend at the surface is about 60% too large. Even the claimed trend is larger than what models would have projected but for the inclusion of an arbitrary fudge factor due to aerosol cooling. The discrepancy was reported by Lindzen (2007) and by Douglass et al (2007). Inevitably in climate science, when data conflicts with models, a small coterie of scientists can be counted upon to modify the data. Evans reaches the natural conclusion – the same conclusion Lindzen reached: At this point, official “climate science” stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory — that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters. And why will it continue? Again, follow the money: We are now at an extraordinary juncture. Official climate science, which is funded and directed entirely by government, promotes a theory that is based on a guess about moist air that is now a known falsehood. Governments gleefully accept their advice, because the only ways to curb emissions are to impose taxes and extend government control over all energy use. And to curb emissions on a world scale might even lead to world government — how exciting for the political class! Indeed. How extraordinarily unexciting for the proletariat who will be the ones stuck with the bill if these governments ever succeed in finding a way to pass the taxes they hope to impose and extend even more government’s control over energy. While you’re listening to the CEOs of American oil companies being grilled by Congress today, remember all of this. They’re going to try to punish an industry that is vital to our economy and national security, and much of the desire to do that is based on this false “science” that has been ginned up by government itself as an excuse to control more of our energy sector and to pick winners and losers. All based on something which is now demonstrably false. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on May 13, 2011 6:33:09 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?cat=19As if on cue–AGW group doctors sea-level numbers May 12th, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain After the story this morning about the alarmist scientist turned skeptic this story comes as the cherry on top of the AGW sundae: Faced with the embarrassing fact that sea level is not rising nearly as much as has been predicted, the University of Colorado’s NASA-funded Sea Level Research Group has announced it will begin adding a nonexistent 0.3 millimeters per year to its Global Mean Sea Level Time Series. As a result, alarmists will be able to present sea level charts asserting an accelerating rise in sea level that is not occurring in the real world. Human civilization readily adapted to the seven inches of sea level rise that occurred during the twentieth century. Alarmists, however, claim global warming will cause sea level to rise much more rapidly during the present century. United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) computer models project approximately 15 inches of sea level rise during the 21st century. That’s more than double the sea level rise that occurred during the twentieth century. A more “mainstream” prediction among alarmists is 3 feet of sea level rise this century. Some alarmists have even projected 20 feet of global sea level rise this century. Satellite measurements, however, show global sea level rose merely 0.83 inches during the first decade of the 21st century (a pace of just 8 inches for the entire century), and has barely risen at all since 2006. This puts alarmists in the embarrassing position of defending predictions that are not coming true in the real world. So, as with temperature and other data that has been used in this scam, they decided to doctor the numbers. The NASA-funded group claims glacial melt is removing weight that had been pressing down on land masses, which in turn is causing land mass to rise. This welcome news mitigates sea-level rise from melting glacial ice, meaning sea level will rise less than previously thought. However, it is very inconvenient for alarmist sea level predictions. Therefore, instead of reporting the amount by which sea level is rising in the real world, the Sea Level Research Group has begun adding 0.3 millimeters per year of fictitious sea level rise to “compensate” for rising land mass. The extra 0.3 millimeters of fictitious sea level rise will add up to 1.2 inches over the course of the 21st century. While this is not monumental in and of itself, it will allow alarmists to paint a dramatically different picture of sea level rise than is occurring in the real world. For example, the current pace of 8 inches of sea level rise for the present century is essentially no different than the 7 inches of sea level rise that occurred last century. However, with an artificially enhanced 9.2 inches of sea level rise, alarmists can claim sea level is rising 31 percent faster than it did last century. Ye gods. All I hope is Guam doesn’t tip over because of all of this. If there’s anyone out there that still believes the “science” involved here is valid much less settled, you might want to buy some ocean front property in Idaho. It’s becoming laughable, isn’t it? ~McQ
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Post by twinder on May 13, 2011 6:40:59 GMT -5
The NASA-funded group claims glacial melt is removing weight that had been pressing down on land masses, which in turn is causing land mass to rise.
Really? What mental-midget believes this crap? Although; I did read yesterday about a school teacher who believed that global warming is causing volcanic eruptions and not plate tectonics.
While college is getting closer and closer for my kids, I can't help but to wonder what I'm sending them into.
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Post by leisuresuitlarry on May 13, 2011 9:17:20 GMT -5
Complete and utter brainwashing by leftist liberal pigs.
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Post by philunderwood on May 29, 2011 7:30:55 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?cat=19Alarmist journalist links the recent tornado outbreak to AGW May 28th, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain Of course it is not unusual to find someone, somewhere who has swallowed the Al Gore driven AGW mantra whole who wants to tie extreme weather events to man-made global warming. Bill McKibben, a journalist with the Birmingham News and blogging at the Washington Post, gives it a new twist with a whole bunch of links to weather events that have to be – that’s right, have to be – caused by global warming (although he sarcastically pretends there are no such links in an attempt to shame skeptics by what he seems to consider obvious linkage). Never mind the mean temperature globally hasn’t risen over the past decade, and the climate models that predicted all this have been proven to be wrong, that the conditions necessary for there to be a greenhouse effect from CO2 don’t exist nor have they ever, the “hockey stick” was broken years ago, that the data has been admittedly fudged or manipulated and that they couldn’t “hide the decline”, this is all because of global warming. Because “warm air holds more moisture than dry air”. Of course most of his examples are really, honestly laughable on their face. For instance: It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected. What happened to the moisture laden air? And how about his reference – the 30’s era dust bowl? It couldn’t be natural systems again asserting themselves, could it? No, of course not, because then the cause couldn’t be pinned on AGW, could it? El Nino and La Nina? Forget about them. You need to buy into this simplistic explanation of why bad weather events are happening. If you did wonder, you see, you would also have to wonder about whether this year’s record snowfalls and rainfalls across the Midwest — resulting in record flooding along the Mississippi — could somehow be related. And then you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming, and to the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold air. Well they’ve been predicting mega hurricanes for years as well, and we’ve had very mild hurricane seasons. We’re also supposed to be up to our rear ends in water right now, what with melting glaciers and ice pack, but we’ve found out that the data for that has been fudged too. And we had similar floods in – 1927 – well before the era in which we’ve supposedly polluted our planet to the point that it is now “striking back”. And what about the Johnstown flood of 1889? What were their cause? Propose your own physics; ignore physics altogether. Just don’t start asking yourself whether there might be some relation among last year’s failed grain harvest from the Russian heat wave, and Queensland’s failed grain harvest from its record flood, and France’s and Germany’s current drought-related crop failures, and the death of the winter wheat crop in Texas, and the inability of Midwestern farmers to get corn planted in their sodden fields. Surely the record food prices are just freak outliers, not signs of anything systemic. You don’t have to propose you own anything, you just have to inform yourself. For instance, the Russian heat wave: The deadly heat wave that seared Russia last summer was driven primarily by a natural weather phenomenon, not man-made causes, government researchers said in a study Wednesday. […] In their report, the scientists concluded that the extreme temperatures were caused by the formation of a blocking pattern, a massive high-pressure ridge that halted the normal movement of cooling storms from the west and allowed warm air to flow north from the tropics. Such anomalies are relatively common and the result of natural actions, though the intensity of the one over Russia was highly unusual. The role of human-caused warming could not be discerned from the natural weather patterns behind the event, Dr. Dole said. You see, it is much easier to speculate than to do the research necessary to understand weather and patterns, or to simply hit Google. They are indeed signs of something systemic, just not the system the Alarmists would prefer. But as you can see, that doesn’t stop them from attempting to “connect the dots” as they pretend. The Alarmists have an agenda. They are clearly on the defensive. Their predictive power has been shown to be essentially worthless. So they’re back to claiming weather events prove their point. The twist is they want to link them all together even when they obviously have nothing to do with their claim – see Russia – because they think the more of these events they can claim, the greater the force of their argument. Yeah, not working guys. Again, while everyone knows CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it doesn’t work as the models theorized it works and thus doesn’t have the amplifying effect they claim. Consequently, it isn’t doing what they want to claim it does. Secondly, man’s contribution to the overall amount of CO2 emitted naturally is miniscule and not worth doing anything about and especially, as noted, since CO2 doesn’t do what the Alarmist claim it does. Finally, climate does change – always has. No one denies that. Most on the skeptical side of AGW simply don’t buy the Alarmist’s claims – because they certainly aren’t proven science – that man has anything to do with it. We write most of those claims off to hubris, not science. [HT: Chad M] ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on May 31, 2011 8:48:02 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?cat=19Oxfam predicts world food shortages by 2030 mostly because of “climate change” May 31st, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain In advance of the December climate summit in South Africa this year, the scare-factory is ramping up its efforts to sell the need for “drastic action” to prevent “climate change”, the current euphemism for AGW. The stories are beginning to flow. Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuel – a rise of 1.6Gt on 2009, according to estimates from the IEA regarded as the gold standard for emissions data. "I am very worried. This is the worst news on emissions," Birol told the Guardian. "It is becoming extremely challenging to remain below 2 degrees. The prospect is getting bleaker. That is what the numbers say." Of course the not-so-hidden premise here is that any increase in temperature is driven by our carbon dioxide emissions, even when the science doesn’t support the theory and models which make such a claim (about CO2 amplification) have been shown to be wildly inaccurate. That doesn’t stop the scare-factory from ignoring the discredited nonsense to make their claims: Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire. "These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a ‘business as usual’ path. According to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] projections, such a path … would mean around a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100," he said. Except the IPCC’s report, as anyone who has read this blog knows, has been mostly discredited, thereby yielding this result: Added to that, the United Nations-led negotiations on a new global treaty on climate change have stalled. "The significance of climate change in international policy debates is much less pronounced than it was a few years ago," said Birol. Consequently, the scare-factory must crank up its stridency to new levels. So expect to see more of this as December approaches. The formula is pretty predictable: By 2030, the average cost of key crops could increase by between 120% and 180%, the charity forecasts. It is the acceleration of a trend which has already seen food prices double in the last 20 years. Half of the rise to come will be caused by climate change, Oxfam predicts. Can you guess what the other cause is? In its report, Oxfam says a "broken" food system causes "hunger, along with obesity, obscene waste, and appalling environmental degradation". It says "power above all determines who eats and who does not", and says the present system was "constructed by and on behalf of a tiny minority – its primary purpose to deliver profit for them". It highlights subsidies for big agricultural producers, powerful investors "playing commodities markets like casinos", and large unaccountable agribusiness companies as destructive forces in the global food system. Oxfam wants nations to agree new rules to govern food markets, to ensure the poor do not go hungry. Or “capitalism”. Oxfam’s “solution” is no different than the AGW alarmist’s solutions: It calls on world leaders to improve regulation of food markets and invest in a global climate fund. Of course it does. And those “improved regulations” and the “global climate fund” will shift power where? To centralized authorities. And we all know how well central planning works don’t we? After all, under the USSR and Maoist China, central planning adequately fed their citizens for years, didn’t it? ~McQ
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Post by Ritty77 on May 31, 2011 19:34:09 GMT -5
All the talk on the SG about how the Left are champions of science in Evolution vs. Creation made me think about how they say that the science is settled on AGW.
Evolution and global warming are theories with huge holes in them. But that's what science is about: Posit a theory using available data, then try to vandalize and destroy the theory with other data.
Instead, the proud new champions of science suppress, ignore, and falsify data that creates holes in their theories. They then declare that the science is settled and mock and deride those you try to provide truth or balance.
This is their standard pattern, of course, but if we let them change the definition of science, God help us.
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Post by philunderwood on Jun 1, 2011 8:16:45 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?cat=45What do AGW alarmists and Harold Camping have in common? June 1st, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain Jeff Jacoby points out that climate change alarmists have fouled their nest so badly that the majority of the public in general has now concluded their cause is overhyped. Climate change, as a pressing priority, is receding in the public’s eyes. It simply doesn’t consider the warning credible. Why? Well answer this – if Harold Camping came out today and claimed that the world was going to end on October 21st, after previously claiming it would end on May 21st, how much credence would you give his claim? About as much as the scaremongers in the AGW game, one supposes, since much of what they warned would happen not only hasn’t happened but doesn’t appear likely to happen. As I noted yesterday, however, that doesn’t keep the scare machine from cranking out new and more horrible predictions. Jacoby points to one made by Newsweek which is, well, laughable on its face. “Worldwide, the litany of weather’s extremes has reached biblical proportions,’’ Newsweek intones, pointing to tornadoes in the United States, floods in Australia and Pakistan, and drought in China. “From these and other extreme-weather events, one lesson is sinking in with terrifying certainty. The stable climate of the last 12,000 years is gone.’’ This is what comes of burning fossil fuels for energy, which has increased atmospheric CO2 levels by 40 percent above what they were before the Industrial Revolution. “You haven’t seen anything yet,’’ Newsweek preaches. “Batten down the hatches.’’ Anyone spot the blatant bit of nonsense in there? We’ve never had a “stable climate” for the last 12,000 years. Jacoby quotes William Happer, distinguished Princeton physicist, on the reality of that time period: “Carbon is the stuff of life,’’ he points out. “Our bodies are made of carbon.’’ Yes, atmospheric CO2 is higher today than it was before the industrial age — 390 parts per million now vs. 270 ppm then — but there was a time when “CO2 levels were several thousand ppm, much higher than now. And life flourished abundantly.’’ Indeed, greenhouse operators artificially boost CO2 concentrations in order to grow better flowers and fruit. So why recoil from the modest increase in carbon emissions caused by fossil-fuel use? Because more CO2 means more climate change? Happer shoots down that idea. The earth’s climate is always changing, sometimes dramatically. During the medieval warming of a thousand years ago, temperatures were much higher than they are now; during the Little Ice Age six centuries later they were much lower. “Yet there is no evidence for significant increase of CO2 in the medieval warm period, nor for a significant decrease at the time of the subsequent little ice age.’’ It is like history and the climate records that go with it don’t exist for the alarmist crowd. If you can’t explain it, apparently it is now ok to ignore it. Thus the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age – inconvenient facts that refute the claim – seemingly never happened. Not if you want to push the “12,000 years” of “stable climate”. As I’ve asked any number of times, when did the science that previously saw CO2 as a lagging indicator change it into a leading indicator or cause of warming? It hasn’t. Nor does it have the amplifying effect that the alarmists claim through their flawed models. In fact, none of the predictions they have made over the years have even come close to fruition for the reasons they state. And it is clear, as we actually have real scientists study the atmosphere and climate, that there is still a vast amount they are discovering about the climate. This, for instance: Scientists at Marine Biological Laboratory say trees in a mini-forest where they simulated future global warming stored more carbon, a bonus offset for expected higher CO2 releases from the faster decay of organic matter in soil as Earth heats up. Apparently as the atmosphere warms, trees store more carbon as “woody tissue”. Result? But project leader Jerry Melillo of MBL said this study demonstrates for the first time that global warming would also be likely to increase the carbon storing potential of trees, by speeding up nitrogen cycling in the forest — more matter decomposing frees up more inorganic nitrogen compounds, such as ammonium (also known as garden fertilizer), causing greater tree growth and more tree tissue available to store carbon. The increased carbon storage capacity of the trees in MBL’s Harvard Forest experiment was enough to outpace atmospheric CO2 gain resulting from the warmer soil, Melillo concluded. And most likely, any human contribution, as small as it is, would also be absorbed. One could also theorize that other plant life might also store more CO2 than they do now. Of course, if true, that would likely mean that the human contribution (or CO2 for that matter) was not having the effect that alarmists attempt to claim, but instead the warming was due to other causes. I’m sure, however, since this is a recent discovery, that the models don’t factor that in. Of course, they don’t factor in cloud albedo either – something not only critical to our climate, but fundamental. But hey, that would get in the way of the desired results, wouldn’t it? AGW is slowly strangling on its own fouled science. As I pointed out yesterday and Jacoby points out today, that’s only increased the stridency of these cranks. Scaremongering is headed to new heights in the coming months. And, as it turns out, the basis for their “end of the world” scenarios is about as firm as that of Harold Camping and his end of the world claims. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Jun 18, 2011 7:01:17 GMT -5
Changing Tides: Research Center Under Fire for 'Adjusted' Sea-Level Data By Maxim Lott Published June 17, 2011 FoxNews.com Is climate change raising sea levels, as Al Gore has argued -- or are climate scientists doctoring the data? The University of Colorado’s Sea Level Research Group decided in May to add 0.3 millimeters -- or about the thickness of a fingernail -- every year to its actual measurements of sea levels, sparking criticism from experts who called it an attempt to exaggerate the effects of global warming. "Gatekeepers of our sea level data are manufacturing a fictitious sea level rise that is not occurring," said James M. Taylor, a lawyer who focuses on environmental issues for the Heartland Institute. Related Links NASA to Measure Saltiness of Sea -- From Space Dutch Point Out New Mistakes in U.N. Climate Report Scientists Retract Paper on Rising Sea Levels Due to Errors What Alarming Sea Level Rise? Observational Data Reveals No Change, Scientist Says Despite Rising Seas, Pacific Islands Are Growing
Steve Nerem, the director of the widely relied-upon research center, told FoxNews.com that his group added the 0.3 millimeters per year to the actual sea level measurements because land masses, still rebounding from the ice age, are rising and increasing the amount of water that oceans can hold. "We have to account for the fact that the ocean basins are actually getting slightly bigger... water volume is expanding," he said, a phenomenon they call glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). Taylor calls it tomfoolery. "There really is no reason to do this other than to advance a political agenda," he said. Climate scientist John Christy, a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, said that the amount of water in the ocean and sea level were two different things. "To me… sea level rise is what's measured against the actual coast," he told FoxNews.com. "That's what tells us the impact of rising oceans." Taylor agreed. "Many global warming alarmists say that vast stretches of coastline are going to be swallowed up by the sea. Well, that means we should be talking about sea level, not about global water volume." In e-mails with FoxNews.com, Nerem indicated that he considered "sea level rise" to be the same thing as the amount of water in the ocean. "If we correct our data to remove [the effect of rising land], it actually does cause the rate of sea level (a.k.a. ocean water volume change) rise to be bigger," Nerem wrote. The adjustment is trivial, and not worth public attention, he added. "For the layperson, this correction is a non-issue and certainly not newsworthy… [The] effect is tiny -- only 1 inch over 100 years, whereas we expect sea level to rise 2-4 feet." But Taylor said that the correction seemed bigger when compared with actual sea level increases. "We’ve seen only 7 inches of sea level rise in the past century and it hasn’t sped up this century. Compared to that, this would add nearly 20 percent to the sea level rise. That's not insignificant," he told FoxNews.com. Nerem said that the research center is considering compromising on the adjustment. "We are considering putting both data sets on our website -- a GIA-corrected dataset, as well as one without the GIA correction," he said. Christy said that would be a welcome change. "I would encourage CU to put the sea level rate [with] no adjustment at the top of the website," he said. Taylor’s takeaway: Be wary of sea level rise estimates. "When Al Gore talks about Manhattan flooding this century, and 20 feet of sea level rise, that’s simply not going to happen. If it were going to happen, he wouldn’t have bought his multi-million dollar mansion along the coast in California."
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Post by Ritty77 on Jul 17, 2011 9:39:44 GMT -5
SOME OF THE HOTTEST WEATHER OF THE SUMMER IS POSSIBLE DURING THE SECOND HALF OF NEXT WEEK.
AS MOISTURE AND TEMPS INCREASE...DAILY TSTM CHANCES WILL SLOWLY CREEP UP BY THE END OF THE WEEK AS WELL.
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