I have started this thread...please use it only for posting climate articles for and against AGW...but no comments are allowed on this thread thanks...just articles...can you please respect these thread directions...there are plenty of other threads to comment and to go for it...please just leave this one in peace thanks.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/weat...0205-1ahl0.html
"
DON'T blame Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke or Mitchell Johnson. The real reason Australia lost the Ashes lies in the heavens.

A scan of Ashes results over more than a century shows that there is an uncanny correlation between Australia's fortunes and the weather patterns known as El Nino and La Nina, during which varying ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean cause rainfall in eastern Australia to be lower than average and higher than average, respectively.

It's the kind of link that should be noted by captains, selectors and gamblers alike.

Advertisement: Story continues below The correlation was discovered by Dr Manoj Joshi, a University of Reading climate researcher, who found that during series held in Australia since 1882, the home team have won 13 of 17 series played during El Nino and just five of 13 played during La Nina years.

Conversely, England have won just one Ashes series in Australia during El Nino, the Bodyline series of 1932-33.

Joshi published his findings before the recent Ashes series. But, while some would consider the link between the Ashes and the weather as coincidental or even tenuous, results in the series just ended seem to back up his findings..."

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/05/sn...ive/#more-33284
snowzilla-post-mortem-the-2011-groundhog-day-blizzard-in-perspective

I have started this thread...please use it only for posting climate articles for and against AGW...but no comments are allowed on this thread thanks...just articles...can you please respect these thread directions...there are plenty of other threads to comment and to go for it...please just leave this thread in peace thanks.

BD,

I'm not making a comment. I'm asking some housekeeping questions. It isn't a comment to ask a question about the rendering or authenticity of an article, but it is important.

I think you can be certain that all of the articles posted will be carefully checked against the original, as we have had 'accidents in the past', in which links bore no resemblance to what was claimed, and also it is not a comment but a suggestion that extracts from articles be clearly identified as such.

Did you really mean 'for' and 'against' as distinct from 'about'. Plenty of articles canvass a range of views without scoring say 10/10 for being either 'for' or 'against'.

Is the Snowzilla article for or against AWG? I think it would help if you said For or Against AGW at the start of each post.

My take on Snowzilla. Climate scientists forecast that there will be heavier than normal precipitation in a CO2 induced warming world. That is exactly what we are now witnessing. It's a cold winter in North America so of course that extra precipitation would be falling as snow.

Therefore this would be classed as a For AGW article.

For or against AGW, heck I wrote it and had humbug on both side in the cross-hairs.

Weather extremes equal the sun of their parts … or do they?
by Ben Sandilands

January 10, 2010 @http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/01/12/weather-extremes-equal-the-sun-of-their-parts-or-do-they/

A frozen northern world and new heat records in the southern hemisphere are suddenly making the impact of a deep solar minimum on the world’s weather a politically correct topic.

Yet a year ago I was attacked in Crikey by global warming experts for daring to suggest, in Crikey, that something odd was happening on the sun.

It should emphasised, science has not yet linked the big freeze to the “quietest sun” since 1913 but the historical coincidences between supposedly insignificant deep solar minimums and cold weather are under review and references to them as being factors in very cold winters are appearing in places where they were previously dismissed out of hand.

The big freeze across Europe and parts of North America has energised the climate-change deniers just as the fierce dry heatwaves of this summer have encouraged global warming warriors to attack opponents of the government’s ETS, even though it was useless and dishonest in addressing what is a crisis in fossil carbon pollution of the atmosphere.

The issue for serious climate science now includes possible linkages between the appearance of an Arctic oscillation that no one predicted but that drove frigid air across Europe and much of middle and eastern North America, and the solar lull that has just ended.

As explained in this Clarifier, the sun blind-sided the situation by extending its normal 11-year cycle of activity to 13 years, reaching its nadir in old cycle sunspot activity in the second half of last year instead of mid-2007 as expected.

Not since the even deeper solar minimums of 1901 and 1913 had the sun been so quiet. And between or near them, which was the first time since the Dalton Minimum of 1890-1830 that two or more such notable minimums occurred in sequence, the weather in Australia, Europe and North America produced some very harsh winters and very balmy summers.

These events included the Niagara Falls freezing solid upstream, downstream and in situ, and several exceptional snow outbreaks in the eastern states of Australia and South Australia.

But there was no glacial response. The temperate glaciers of New Zealand and Europe continued to gradually down waste. The summers offset the severity of the winters. And the inexorable rise of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, which can be traced to the pre-industrial embrace of forest clearing, charcoal making and cement production, continued without variability, rising from 296 ppm in the Law Dome ice cores in 1901 to more than 300 ppm in 1913.

This solar minimum, which was recently ended by strongly rising numbers of new cycle sunspots, coincides with about 390 ppm of CO2 attributed to the inability of the natural carbon dioxide exchange cycles to cope with the outpourings from fossil fuel consumption, as well as synthetic halons never before seen in the atmosphere.

By April last year the GISS was acknowledging that something was going on with the sun, but also that it was of no comfort to climate-change deniers either.

It was time, according to GISS director James Hansen, to seriously study a solar phenomenon (or lack of it), that closely tracked the prolonged cool periods of the Little Ice Age, using tools in space and on earth never available to the astronomers of the Elizabethan Age or the latter Serenissima.

Will the deep solar minimum of 2009 be followed by another, like that of 1913 after 1901, or will the solar cycle now on the upswing revert to normal, and reverse or erase whatever respite the last minimum was contributing to an overheated world.

That is a very alarming question for science and humanity to consider, and as solar physicists failed to predict the behaviour of the sun in the last cycle, no one is offering any answers with confidence just yet.

(NOTES. There were two factual errors in my report. The minimum that preceded 1913 was in 1900, not 1901, and reference to about 390 ppm at the time of writing could have more precisely said 287 ppm of CO2)

OK a short housekeeping message:
Post whatever you like, but the idea is that there are no comments at all on the article that is posted, for or against any article that is posted,
so people can make up their own mind on each article.
We are mature thinking folk and can all make up our own mind without having others tell us the merits or whatever about every article.
The idea is just a peaceful place to post articles for and against AGW. If you agree with the article fine, if not fine,
but leave it at that & do not comment at all please, and let all read for themselves without having others opinions on the articles,
the articles will stand or fall with each reader on their own accord then.
Just a place where folk can post without fear of ridicule or running down of what they happen to put up.
Therefore no comments at all please!...You have plenty of other threads to comment on any items of AGW.
the design of this thread is not for that. the article may be for AGW or against or middle line, it does not matter.
The reader will make up their own mind on the merits of it.

Global Conversations: Climate
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/ConversationsClimate
A few facebook links

Australian Climate Madness
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/australianclimatemadness

Global warming
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Global-warming/89477928727

Global Warming or Global Governance
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Global-Warming-or-Global-Governance/69295891141

31,487 American scientists have signed this petition,
including 9,029 with PhDs
http://www.petitionproject.org/

Read this

The OISM signatories represent a small fraction (~0.3%) of all science graduates, even when we use the OISM’s own definition of a scientist. If we remove all the engineers, medical professionals, computer scientists, and mathematicians, then the 31,478 “scientists” turn into 13,245 actual scientists. 13,245 scientists is only 0.1% of the scientists graduated in the U.S. since the 1970-71 school year.

Contrast that petition with the fact that every single national academy of science on planet Earth acknowledges the risks associated with altering the chemistry of the oceans and atmosphere.

http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/barefoot-in-the-snow.pdf

Report against emmissions targets. Supports natural climate change but discredits the weighting of man made climate change. Points to a possibility of an era of global cooling over the next period.

Climate Change IS Increasing the Frequencies of Major Geological Events
http://feww.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/climate-change-earthquakes-volcanic-eruption/

There will be more earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and landslides both on the land and sea floor

In a study first published on the web in 2004, NASA and United States Geological Survey (USGS) scientists found that retreating glaciers in southern Alaska may lead to more earthquakes in future.

Costs and benefits(?) of emissions trading scheme

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andre...ow_if_it_works/

Atmospheric CO2 levels

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/last-time-carbon-dioxide-levels-111074.aspx

http://www.earth.webecs.co.uk/
earthquake long term trends

Judith Curry's blog on yes/no issue
http://judithcurry.com/2011/03/11/talking-past-each-other/

A key component of the scientific argument for anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has been disproven. The results are hiding in plain sight in peer-reviewed journals.

Politicians and scientists still cling to the same hypothesis: Increased emission of CO2 into the atmosphere (by humans) is causing the Earth to warm at such a rate that it threatens our survival. The reality of our global temperatures, the failure of these catastrophic predictions to materialize, and the IPCC scandals all continue to cast serious doubt on that hypothesis.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_agw_smoking_gun.html

Is CO2 Warming a Mirage?

By P Gosselin on 11. Februar 2011

Reader and contributing author Ed Caryl sends another essay, and warns it may be controversial for the obsessed among us who insist a catastrophe is coming.

http://notrickszone.com/2011/02/11/is-co2-warming-a-mirage/

Mathematical Errors Overestimate Persistence of CO2 in Atmosphere

Read more at Suite101: Mathematical Errors Overestimate Persistence of CO2 in Atmosphere http://www.suite101.com/content/royal-so...6#ixzz1HBlR0n3Q

Top international experts show British numbers on carbon dioxide are wrong. A Royal Society math mistake exaggerates climate impact.

http://www.suite101.com/content/royal-society-humiliated-by-global-warming-basic-math-error-a296746

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=275925

Global warming as 'cargo cult science'
Posted: March 17, 2011
1:00 am Eastern

By James Wanliss, Ph.D.
© 2011

During World War II, remote Pacific islands like Vanuatu became involved in war efforts when they became part of supply lines. To the natives the arrival of noisy "birds" was almost miraculous, bringing delicious foods and wondrous cargo.

After the war the birds left. Into the uncertain vacuum returned old terrors of hunger and sickness, and an angry Earth. Superstitious natives copied what they had seen. They made model planes and runways. They had the form right – the outward form of religion – but lacked power. As they had seen so they, and their priests, did. But no airplanes landed. Anthropologists call this religion a "cargo cult."

Likewise cargo cult "science" can arise, noted physicist Richard Feynman, when researchers go through the motions of scientific rituals without actually doing science. Experiment first, conclusions later is the basis of scientific inquiry. Cargo cult science predetermines conclusions and reverses the order. This is a conscious perversion of normal scientific practice. It can be called post-normal science because power over other people, not truth, is the goal. Post-normal science is a deformed bloom in which the search to explain our physical world is less significant than the quest to use scientific authority to achieve political goals.

Global-warming federal-scientific partnerships form the basis for several cargo cults. Many billions of dollars are thrown at studying global warming, and recent Climategate scandals reveal prominent scientists failing (or forbidding) to ask critical questions that might challenge cherished beliefs, or threaten gravy trains. Annual federal funding to study global warming is around $4 billion and rising.

Understand the destructive worldview – and religion – of radical environmentalism – watch the powerful DVD set "Resisting the Dragon"

Mike Hulme, a professor of climate change and priest in this cargo cult, explains:

"The function of climate change I suggest, is not as a lower-case environmental phenomenon to be solved. … It really is not about stopping climate chaos. Instead, we need to see how we can use the idea of climate change … to rethink how we take forward our political, social, economic and personal projects over the decades to come." ("Why We Disagree about Climate Change")

So global warming is not essentially about science, but essentially about politics. Then science becomes not about seeking to understand our world, but about activism and influencing public opinion.

(Column continues below)




After three hard winters with long periods of cold and heavy snowfall, not only in this country but worldwide, anyone with memory might feel dazed and confused. On the one, hand the United Nations and its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) constantly assure us the pace of global warming is accelerating. On the other hand, these same IPCC scientists assured us only recently that "[m]ilder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms" and make for "shorter snow accumulation periods" (United Nations IPCC, Climate Change 2001: Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability). And make no mistake, these claims were not made lightly. No ifs, ands, or buts were allowed. You must remember the science was settled, the facts incontrovertible, the debate over. The IPCC even won a Nobel Peace Prize to testify to the truth of these contentions. But … there is the snow and global cooling for over a decade. In the Alice in Wonderland world of the post-normal, global warming means … whatever you like. Global warming means global cooling, if that is politically convenient. Reality is stranger than fiction.

Pagan priests would explain dissonance in terms of inadequate devotion; planes fail to come because we are not living correctly. The global-warming cargo cult is also almost magical in its ability to explain how almost every environmental calamity – too much, or too little, snow – is caused by humanity's insensitivity toward our mother planet.

For Christians, Truth is paramount. My book "Resisting the Green Dragon" explains how for pagans, what matters most is power, not truth. So it was in Vanuatu where pagans worshipped the Serpent as a spirit of evil. They lived in abject terror of his influence and directed all their worship toward pacifying his rage. In cargo cult science, are we unconsciously returning to the dark age of magic, in which truth suffers and people tremble for fear that their smallest actions may offend an "angry" Earth?

James A. Wanliss is associate professor of physics at Presbyterian College, Clinton, S.C., and author of "Resisting the Green Dragon: Dominion, Not Death" (Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, 2010).

Read more: Global warming as 'cargo cult science' http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=275925#ixzz1HZNYpKh0

ONLINE AHEAD OF PRINT
Sea-Level Acceleration Based on U.S. Tide Gauges and Extensions of Previous Global-Gauge Analyses

J. R. Houston† and R. G. Dean‡
†Director Emeritus, Engineer Research and Development Center, Corps of Engineers, 3909 Halls Ferry Road, Vicksburg, MS 39180, U.S.A. james.r.houston@usace.army.mil

‡Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Coastal Civil Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, U.S.A. dean@coastal.ufl.edu

Abstract

Without sea-level acceleration, the 20th-century sea-level trend of 1.7 mm/y would produce a rise of only approximately 0.15 m from 2010 to 2100; therefore, sea-level acceleration is a critical component of projected sea-level rise. To determine this acceleration, we analyze monthly-averaged records for 57 U.S. tide gauges in the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) data base that have lengths of 60–156 years. Least-squares quadratic analysis of each of the 57 records are performed to quantify accelerations, and 25 gauge records having data spanning from 1930 to 2010 are analyzed. In both cases we obtain small average sea-level decelerations. To compare these results with worldwide data, we extend the analysis of Douglas (1992) by an additional 25 years and analyze revised data of Church and White (2006) from 1930 to 2007 and also obtain small sea-level decelerations similar to those we obtain from U.S. gauge records.

http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00157.1

Gallup’s public opinion poll on global warming? Dead last

PRINCETON, NJ — With Earth Day about a month away, Americans tell Gallup they worry the most about several water-related risks and issues among nine major environmental issues. They worry least about global warming and loss of open spaces

Bottom Line

Although the United States has experienced nothing like the mass drinking-water scare that is gripping Japan during its current nuclear crisis, Americans largely recognize the importance of clean water to their lives. All four environmental issues referring to “water” in this year’s Gallup Environment poll rank in the upper tier of environmental concerns, with air pollution a close fifth. Perhaps not surprisingly, there is a slightly steeper drop-off in concern about several issues that aren’t directly related to daily survival, such as the loss of tropical rain forests and urban sprawl. What may surprise some, given the broad exposure the issue has received in recent years, is that global warming ranks lowest — consistent with other Gallup polling — with barely half of Americans concerned and 48% only a little or not at all concerned.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/28/gallups-public-opinion-on-global-warming-dead-last/#more-36838

Hide the Decline: Sciencemag # 3
Steve McIntyre
Mar 23, 2011 – 5:57 AM
The day before yesterday, I reported that Briffa and Osborn (Science 1999) had not just deleted the post=1960 decline (see also CA here), but had deleted the pre-1550 portion as well – the deletions contributing to an unwarranted rhetorical impression of consistency between the reconstructions, an impression that was capitalized upon in the commentary in the running text of Briffa and Osborn 1999.
http://climateaudit.org/

It pays to check out Tim Flannery's predictions about climate change
Andrew Bolt From: Herald Sun February 12, 2011 12:00AM
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/it-p...f-1226004644818

Mar 30, 2011
Global Snow continues well above normal in sharp contrast with last spring, portends a cooler spring
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM

http://icecap.us/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/29/uk-climate-contrails-idUSLNE72S06I20110329
http://www.pa.op.dlr.de/~pa1c/BAMS91_479-483.pdf

Spain's Solar Deals on Edge of Bankruptcy as Subsidies Founder

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-18...es-founder.html

THE protective ozone layer in the Arctic that keeps out the sun's most damaging rays - ultraviolet radiation - has thinned about 40 per cent this winter, a record drop, the UN weather agency said overnight:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breakin...x-1226034411513

This is something interesting that came form WZ news itself .

Firstly it comes out in favour for AGW .
But for exactly the same reasons, but extend all the time frames by atleast x 1000 .

And the same article could be the poster boy for deniers ......

Food for thought .

People need to take off their blinkers !

Quote :

Climate beliefs change with the weather
Genelle Weule for ABC Science Online, Friday April 8, 2011 - 17:13 EST

Researchers say people are more likely to believe in global warming if they think the day's temperature is hotter than usual. - ABC

Researchers say people are more likely to believe in global warming if they think the day's temperature is hotter than usual. - ABC
US researchers have found people's climate beliefs blow hot and cold depending upon the weather of the day.

When people think the day's temperature is hotter than usual they are more likely to believe in and feel concerned about global warming.

Likewise, when the day's temperature is lower than usual, people's belief in global warming plummets.

These are the findings of a new study from Columbia University's Centre for Research on Environmental Decisions published in Psychological Science.

"This myopic focus on their immediate experience suggests that people's beliefs can be as mercurial as the weather," the researchers wrote.

Using an online survey, the researchers asked a group of 582 people from the United States to report how convinced they were that global warming is happening and whether they were concerned about global warming.

They were also asked whether they thought the day's temperature was warmer or colder than usual for that time of year.

Wanting to gather data during summer as well as winter, the researchers asked a group of 290 Australians the same questions a week later.

To test whether people's perceptions translated into action, the researchers asked another 251 people whether they would donate a small amount of money to an environmental charity after they answered the survey.

The researchers found people's perception of daily temperature also influenced whether or not they would donate to the charity.

They say their results raise the question of why beliefs in global warming are affected by daily temperatures.

"Global warming is so complex, it appears that some people are ready to be persuaded by whether their own day is warmer or cooler than usual, rather than think about whether the entire world is becoming warmer or cooler," lead author Dr Ye Li said.

Professor Andy Pitman, co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, says people's beliefs about global warming are heavily influenced by recent events.

But he says people are also quick to discount disasters quite rapidly.

"It's a very complex area of human psychology," said Professor Pitman, who co-authored a paper on the psychology of global warming that appeared last year in the Bulletin of the American Meterological Society.

"There is no relationship whatsoever between individual weather days and climate trends. Climate is a process operating on timescales of decades not days.

"It is utterly scientifically irrational for there to be a relationship the weather on the day you answer that kind of questionnaire and your belief around global warming."

Professor Pitman believes this latest paper will help climate scientists understand how humans take on board information around climate change.

"We're rather desperate to understand the relationship between how people assimilate information in decision making and climate change in the hope that we can learn to communicate the science around climate change in ways that allow people to make informed decisions," he said.

"As this paper suggests, people are personally embedded in something they think is climate in day-to-day weather and [climate scientists] haven't managed to convince them that what they see on a day-to-day basis is not relevant to the problem."

- ABC

© ABC 2011

I rest my case .......

http://sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf by David Rvans

Acceleration of the contribution of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to sea level rise

Ice sheet mass balance estimates have improved substantially in recent years using a variety of techniques, over different time periods, and at various levels of spatial detail. Considerable disparity remains between these estimates due to the inherent uncertainties of each method, the lack of detailed comparison between independent estimates, and the effect of temporal modulations in ice sheet surface mass balance.

Here, we present a consistent record of mass balance for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets over the past two decades, validated by the comparison of two independent techniques over the last 8 years: one differencing perimeter loss from net accumulation, and one using a dense time series of time-variable gravity.

We find excellent agreement between the two techniques for absolute mass loss and acceleration of mass loss. In 2006, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets experienced a combined mass loss of 475 ± 158 Gt/yr, equivalent to 1.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr sea level rise. Notably, the acceleration in ice sheet loss over the last 18 years was 21.9 ± 1 Gt/yr2 for Greenland and 14.5 ± 2 Gt/yr2 for Antarctica, for a combined total of 36.3 ± 2 Gt/yr2.

This acceleration is 3 times larger than for mountain glaciers and ice caps (12 ± 6 Gt/yr2). If this trend continues, ice sheets will be the dominant contributor to sea level rise in the 21st century.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL046583.shtml

Arctic Ocean freshwater will cause 'unpredictable changes on climate

A vast expanse of freshwater in the midst of the Arctic Ocean is set to wreak unpredictable changes on the climate in Europe and North America, new scientific analysis has shown.

The water – comprising meltwater from the ice cap and run off from rivers – is at least twice the volume of Lake Victoria in Africa, and is continuing to grow. At some point huge quantities of this water are likely to flush out of the Arctic Ocean and into the Atlantic, which could have significant impacts on the climate. Scientists say they cannot predict when this will happen though.

"This could have an influence on ocean circulation," said Benjamin Rabe of the Alfred Wengener Institute. "It could have an influence on the Gulf Stream."

At present, the freshwater acts as a "lid", preventing the warmer salty water below from meeting the ice, which would melt if the two mixed, according to Rabe. But while it is currently stable, this situation is likely to change as atmospheric circulation patterns shift, and as greater quantities of meltwater spill into the "lake". There were signs of an atmospheric change in 2009 that could have precipitated such an outflow, but that episode did not last.

Laura de Steur, an oceanographer at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, said: "The volume of water discharged into the Arctic Ocean, largely from Canadian and Siberian rivers, is higher than usual due to warmer temperatures in the north causing ice to melt. Sea ice is also melting quickly – another new record low for ocean area covered was recently documented by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, adding even more freshwater to the relatively calm Arctic Ocean."

She added: "Sea ice that is thinner is more mobile and could exit the Arctic faster. In the worst case, these Arctic outflow surges can significantly change the densities of marine surface waters in the extreme North Atlantic. What happens then is hard to predict."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/05/arctic-ocean-freshwater-climate

The pre-Climategate issue that is the issue
Posted on April 9, 2011 by Anthony Watts

Readers, I urge you to read and digest this story, because it forms the seminal basis for everything that is wrong with Team paleoclimate science: the hard earned field work of Russian field researchers whose inconvenient data was excluded, warnings from colleagues ignored, tribalism exposed, testimony self-contradicted, whitewashes performed, and in a hat-tip to Leibig’s Law, even a “reindeer crap theory”. As one CA commenter, Peter Ward, put it:

My 13-year-old daughter asked me what I was reading. I explained at a high level and showed her figure 4. She grasped it immediately. How can we get this figure publicised widely?

I urge every climate blog to pick this utterly damning story of forensic investigation up and make it as widely known as possible. – Anthony
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/09/the-pre-climategate-issue-that-is-the-issue/#more-37659

Christofides, A., and D. Koutsoyiannis, Causality in climate and hydrology, European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2011, Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 13, Vienna, European Geosciences Union, 2011.



http://itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/1130/

Atmospheric Climate Change Detection by Radio Occultation Data Using a Fingerprinting Method

Abstract

The detection of climate change signals in rather short satellite datasets is a challenging task in climate research and requires high quality data with good error characterization.

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) provides a novel record of high quality measurements of atmospheric parameters of the upper troposphere-lower stratosphere (UTLS) region. Due to characteristics such as long-term stability, self-calibration, and a very good height-resolution, RO data are well suited to investigate atmospheric climate change.

This study describes the signals of ENSO and the QBO in the data and investigates whether the data already show evidence of a forced climate change signal, using an optimal-fingerprint technique. RO refractivity, geopotential height, and temperature within two trend periods (1995–2010 intermittently and 2001–2010 continuously) are investigated.

The data show that an emerging climate change signal consistent with the projections of three global climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project cycle 3 (CMPI3) archive is detected for geopotential height of pressure levels at a 90 % confidence level both for the intermittent and continuous period, for the latter so far in a broad 50°S to 50°N band only. Such UTLS geopotential height changes reflect an overall tropospheric warming. 90 % confidence is not achieved for the temperature record when only large-scale aspects of the pattern are resolved. When resolving smaller-scale aspects, RO temperature trends appear stronger than GCM projected trends, the difference stemming mainly from the tropical lower-stratosphere, allowing for climate change detection at a 95 % confidence level.

Overall an emerging trend signal is thus detected in the RO climate record, which is expected to increase further in significance as the record grows over the coming years. Small natural changes during the period suggest that the detected change is mainly caused by anthropogenic influence on climate.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI3966.1

Here are some of the hilarious, spectacularly wrong predictions made on the occasion of Earth Day 1970.

“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
• New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist



Stanford's Paul Ehrlich announces that the sky is falling.
“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
• Martin Litton, Sierra Club director

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

http://www.ihatethemedia.com/earth-day-2010-stupid-predictions-from-first-earth-day

Disputing IPCC claims

According to the latest report by the IPCC, all human activity, including carbon dioxide emissions, contribute 1.6 watts/sq.m to global warming, while other factors such as solar irradiance contribute just 0.12 watts/sq.m.

However, Dr. Rao's paper calculates that the effect of cosmic rays contributes 1.1 watts/sq.m, taking the total contribution of non-human activity factors to 1.22 watts/sq.m.

This means that increased carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere are not as significant as the IPCC claims. Of the total observed global warming of 0.75 degrees Celsius, only 0.42 degrees would be caused by increased carbon dioxide. The rest would be caused by the long term decrease in primary cosmic ray intensity and its effect on low level cloud cover.

This means that predicting future global warming and sea level rise is not as simple as the IPCC makes it to be, since it depends not only on human activity, but also significantly on the unpredictability of cosmic ray intensity.

“We conclude that the contribution to climate change due to the change in galactic cosmic ray intensity is quite significant and needs to be factored into the prediction of global warming and its effect on sea level raise and weather prediction,” says the paper.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article1107174.ece

Himalayan glaciers – melting

Multi-decadal mass loss of glaciers in the Everest area (Nepal Himalaya) derived from stereo imagery

Mass loss of Himalayan glaciers has wide-ranging consequences such as changing runoff distribution, sea level rise and an increasing risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). The assessment of the regional and global impact of glacier changes in the Himalaya is, however, hampered by a lack of mass balance data for most of the range. Multi-temporal digital terrain models (DTMs) allow glacier mass balance to be calculated.

Here, we present a time series of mass changes for ten glaciers covering an area of about 50 km2 south and west of Mt. Everest, Nepal, using stereo Corona spy imagery (years 1962 and 1970), aerial images and recent high resolution satellite data (Cartosat-1). This is the longest time series of mass changes in the Himalaya.

We reveal that the glaciers have been significantly losing mass since at least 1970, despite thick debris cover. The specific mass loss for 1970–2007 is 0.32 ± 0.08 m w.e. a−1, however, not higher than the global average. Comparisons of the recent DTMs with earlier time periods indicate an accelerated mass loss.

http://www.the-cryosphere.net/5/349/2011/tc-5-349-2011.pdf

Unwinding “Hide the Decline”

After more than 6 weeks of research and mucking through skull-exploding, mind numbing distortions, contortions, and misrepresentations of this story, I’ve finally finished my video on that most toxic meme that came out of the enormous nothing-burger called ”climate-gate” – the phrase “hide the decline”.

Like Obama’s birth certificate, the truth will never make a dent on the committed crazies of climate denial, but I think this is worth watching for citizens, bloggers, or researchers who are trying to get their arms around the story, and appreciate how much the media helped, or hurt, understanding of the issue.

Click for Video

Link

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/piers-the-level-of-their-science-is-nonsense/
Piers Corbyn interview on Russian heatwave & other items of climate change and weather and solar interest

Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change

James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute, New York

ABSTRACT

Milankovic climate oscillations help define climate sensitivity and assess potential human-made climate effects. We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods was less than 1°C warmer than in the Holocene and that goals of limiting human-made warming to 2°C and CO2 to 450 ppm are
prescriptions for disaster. Polar warmth in prior interglacials and the Pliocene does not imply that a significant cushion remains between today's climate and dangerous warming, rather that Earth today is poised to experience strong amplifying polar feedbacks in response to moderate additional warming.

Deglaciation, disintegration of ice sheets, is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks. If warming reaches a level that forces deglaciation, the rate of sea level rise will depend on the doubling time for ice sheet mass loss. Gravity satellite data, although too brief to be conclusive, are consistent with a doubling time of 10 years or less, implying the possibility of multi- meter sea level rise this century. The emerging shift to accelerating ice sheet mass loss supports our conclusion that Earth's temperature has returned to at
least the Holocene maximum. Rapid reduction of fossil fuel emissions is required for humanity to succeed in preserving a planet resembling the one on which civilization developed.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf

New report confirms Arctic melt accelerating

A new assessment of climate change in the Arctic shows the ice in the region is melting faster than previously thought and sharply raises projections of global sea level rise this century.

The report by the international Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, or AMAP, compiles the latest science on how climate change has impacted the Arctic in the past six years.

A summary of the key findings obtained by the AP on Tuesday shows Arctic temperatures during that period were the highest since measurements began in 1880.

It said melting Arctic glaciers and ice caps are projected to help raise global sea levels by 35 to 63 inches (90-160 centimeters) by 2100. That's up from a 2007 projection of 7 to 23 inches (19-59 centimeters) by the U.N.'s scientific panel on climate change.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/05/03/science-eu-arctic-climate-change_8446891.html

The Virginia Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s case against the University of Virginia in which he has asked for emails and other materials relating to the work of former UVA climate Prof. Michael Mann. A lower court limited the scope of Cuccinelli’s request for documents, and on rather creative grounds.

That the court will hear the matter doesn’t mean it will rule in Cuccinelli’s favor. But recent reporting from Chris Horner strongly suggests that Prof. Mann has been less than forthcoming regarding the emails he sent to colleagues involved in global warming research. Horner says that a Penn State inquiry into Mann’s actions was whitewash, and that a federal inspector general’s report on that inquiry, in Horner’s words:

…reveals Penn State’s wagon-circlers to have been at best comically negligent/inept in allowing Mann to not answer the damning charge they were tasked with examining: did he delete or ask others to delete records? At worst, they were complicit in the cover-up.


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/loca...s#ixzz1LStHbGkP

CRU Refuses FOI Request for Yamal
Probably no single issue damages the reputation of the climate science community more than the refusal to show the data that supports their work, even under an FOI request. The public believes that scientists who purport to be concerned about the future of the planet should not place their own financial interests, including future grants, ahead of this concern, particularly when their research has been done with public funds.

Recently I sent an FOI request to the University of East Anglia for a regional chronology combining Yamal, Polar Urals and shorter (presumably Schweingruber) chronologies referred to in Climategate email 1146252894.txt, as well as a request for even a simple list of sites used to make the chronology. This request is for data that is central to Climategate. Yamal was in controversy in the days prior to Climategate. I drew particular attention to this issue and this series in my own submission. Unfortunately, the “inquiries” avoided the issue.

Not only did East Anglia refuse my request for the regional chronology, they even refused to identify the sites. The University claimed that even identifying the sites would result in “financial harm” to the university though an adverse impact on their “ability to attract research funding”.

http://climateaudit.org/2011/04/25/cru-r...ogy/#more-13528

Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene

Anthropocene:

Aggressive exploitation of fossil fuels and other natural resources has damaged the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land we inhabit. To give one example, some 1000 billion tons of carbon dioxide and other climatically important “greenhouse” gases have been pumped into the atmosphere. As a result, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air now exceeds the highest levels of the last 800,000 years. The climatic and ecological impacts of this human interference
with the Earth System are expected to last for many millennia, warranting a new name, The AnThropocene, for the new “man-made” geologic epoch we are living in.

Glacier Retreat:

Glaciers are shrinking in area worldwide, with the highest rates documented at lower elevations. The widespread loss of glaciers, ice, and snow on the mountains of tropical, temperate, and polar regions is some of the clearest evidence we have for a change in the climate system, which is taking place on a global scale at a rapid rate. Long-term measurement series indicate that the rate of mass loss has more than doubled since the turn of the century. Melting mountain glaciers and snows have contributed significantly to the sea level rise observed in the last century.

Retreat of the glaciers in the European Alps has been observed since the end of the ‘Little Ice Age’ (first part of the 19th century), but the pace of retreat has been much faster since the 1980s. The Alpine glaciers have already lost more than 50% of their mass. Thousands of small glaciers in the Hindukush-Himalayan-Tibetan region continue to disintegrate, a threat to local communities and the many more people farther away who depend on mountain water resources. Robust scenario calculations clearly indicate that many mountain ranges worldwide could lose major parts of their glaciers within the coming decades.

The recent changes observed in glacial behaviour are due to a complex mix of causal factors that include greenhouse gas forcing together with large scale emissions of dark soot particles and dust in “brown clouds”, and the associated changes in regional atmospheric energy and moisture content, all of which result in significant warming at higher altitudes, not least in the Himalayas.

Perspective on Past Changes:

In response to the argument that “since the Earth has experienced alternating cold periods (ice ages or glacials) and warm periods (inter-glacials) during the past, today’s climate and ice cover changes are entirely natural events”, we state:

The primary triggers for ice ages and inter-glacials are well understood to be changes in the astronomical parameters related to the motion of our planet within the solar system and natural feedback processes in the climate system. The time scales between these triggers are in the range of 10,000 years or longer. By contrast, the observed human-induced changes in carbon dioxide, other greenhouse gases, and soot concentrations are taking place on 10-100 year timescales –at least a hundred times as fast. It is particularly worrying that this release of global warming agents is occurring during an interglacial period when the Earth was already at a natural temperature maximum.

http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/files/PASGlacier.pdf

Positive Cloud Feedback

Changes in extratropical storm track cloudiness 1983–2008: observational support for a poleward shift

Abstract

Climate model simulations suggest that the extratropical storm tracks will shift poleward as a consequence of global warming. In this study the northern and southern hemisphere storm tracks over the Pacific and Atlantic ocean basins are studied using observational data, primarily from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project, ISCCP. Potential shifts in the storm tracks are examined using the observed cloud structures as proxies for cyclone activity. Different data analysis methods are employed, with the objective to address difficulties and uncertainties in using ISCCP data for regional trend analysis. In particular, three data filtering techniques are explored; excluding specific problematic regions from the analysis, regressing out a spurious viewing geometry effect, and excluding specific cloud types from the analysis. These adjustments all, to varying degree, moderate the cloud trends in the original data but leave the qualitative aspects of those trends largely unaffected. Therefore, our analysis suggests that ISCCP data can be used to interpret regional trends in cloudiness, provided that data and instrumental artefacts are recognized and accounted for. The variation in magnitude between trends emerging from application of different data correction methods, allows us to estimate possible ranges for the observational changes. It is found that the storm tracks, here represented by the extent of the midlatitude-centered band of maximum cloud cover over the studied ocean basins, experience a poleward shift as well as a narrowing over the 25 year period covered by ISCCP.

[snip]

The shift in cloudiness is also supported by a shift in central position of the mid-troposphere meridional temperature gradient. We do not find support for aerosols playing a significant role in the satellite observed changes in cloudiness. The observed changes in storm track cloudiness can be related to local cloud-induced changes in radiative forcing, using ERBE and CERES radiative fluxes.

The shortwave and the longwave components are found to act together, leading to a positive (warming) net radiative effect in response to the cloud changes in the storm track regions, indicative of positive cloud feedback.

Among the CMIP3 models that simulate poleward shifts in all four storm track areas, all but one show decreasing cloud amount on a global mean scale in response to increased CO2 forcing, further consistent with positive cloud feedback.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/q0q837g3363q435g/

Evidence for strengthening of tropical hydrological cycle

Recent trends of the tropical hydrological cycle inferred from Global Precipitation Climatology Project and International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project data

Scores of modeling studies have shown that increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere impact the global hydrologic cycle; however, disagreements on regional scales are large, and thus the simulated trends of such impacts, even for regions as large as the tropics, remain uncertain. The present investigation attempts to examine such trends in the observations using satellite data products comprising Global Precipitation Climatology Project precipitation and International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project cloud and radiation. Specifically, evolving trends of the tropical hydrological cycle over the last 20–30 years were identified and analyzed.

The results show (1) intensification of tropical precipitation in the rising regions of the Walker and Hadley circulations and weakening over the sinking regions of the associated overturning circulation; (2) poleward shift of the subtropical dry zones (up to 2° decade−1 in June-July-August (JJA) in the Northern Hemisphere and 0.3–0.7° decade−1 in June-July-August and September-October-November in the Southern Hemisphere) consistent with an overall broadening of the Hadley circulation; and (3) significant poleward migration (0.9–1.7° decade−1) of cloud boundaries of Hadley cell and plausible narrowing of the high cloudiness in the Intertropical Convergence Zone region in some seasons.

These results support findings of some of the previous studies that showed strengthening of the tropical hydrological cycle and expansion of the Hadley cell that are potentially related to the recent global warming trends.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2010JD015197.shtml

Is the Western Climate Establishment Corrupt? Part 3 of 11.

Foreword by Ron Logan

Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) proponents mislead the public into believing that climate science supports their theories, their carbon-taxes and controversial climate-engineering policies. This most certainly is not the case. The ‘AGW Establishment’ have in fact failed to back up their theories with conclusive real-world scientific evidence and their religious adherence to such unproven theories and dubious pressure-group tactics cannot by any stretch of the imagination be described as genuine science. Something else lies behind AGW theory and policy: social-engineering. In the words of the ‘Club of Rome’ elites’ think-tank:
“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.” http://green-agenda.com/index.html

http://www.sovereignindependent.com/?p=19883

I got this article via Cole Pritchard on 'climate conversations' Facebook
Written by Cole Jeffrey, | May 21 2011

The Global Warming/Climate Change (GW/CC) paradox is similar to the Moon Paradox. For decades all the mode...ling scenarios could not explain how or why The Moon exists until the recent impact theory was proven plausible, so apparently the Moon did not exist until recently.

Since most modeling scenario’s show that earth cannot or will not be able to deal with anthropogenic CO2, it is believed that anthropogenic CO2 will cause untold disasters. The two most predominant issues for anthropogenic CO2 are, 1.) Is the increase of anthropogenic CO2 a factor for influencing the climate. And 2.) Can the planet deal with an increase of atmospheric CO2.

To look at the issue of GW/CC, a scale of 400,000 Years Before Present (YBP), 10 Million YBP, or even a 600 Million YBP is not an adequate scale to understand how Earth has dealt with atmospheric CO2 levels and volumes. There are a few mitigating factors that Earth has had to contend with that are exponentially larger factors than the small percentage of anthropogenic CO2 humans currently or will emit even if anthropogenic CO2 emissions double or triple that of today’s emission rate.

To understand the causes and effects of anthropogenic CO2, understanding how Earth evolved from 2 to 3 Billion YBP is needed. About 2 Billion YBP, Earth was a planet of water until volcanic activity breached the oceans surface to create land. Through photosynthesis, stromatolite microbes that formed in shallow waters converted the near saturated CO2 red atmosphere into the blue oxygen atmosphere similar to today’s atmosphere, and the olive green iron rich oceans into the oxygen blue oceans similar to today’s oceans.

Tectonic activity converged the land masses into the single land mass of Rodinia about 1 billion years ago, which was a baron rock surface devoid of life. It is widely accepted that since Rodinia was one large land mass stretching from pole to pole, Rodinia blocked the ocean currents from being able to circulate to the poles causing the Snowball Earth Event about 700 Million YBP, though recent findings suggest that a Gamma Ray Burst may have stripped Earth of its atmosphere causing the temperature to drop to an average mean temperature of -40 to – 60 degrees Fahrenheit causing the Snowball Earth Event.

Since Earth was blanketed in ice, it is widely accepted that Earths internal temperatures rose causing volcanic venting and eruptions about 650 Million YBP, raising atmospheric CO2 levels which allowed the atmospheric temperatures to rise, releasing the glacial blanket. This allowed for the Cambrian explosion of life on land and in water. It is estimated that the amount of water in the mantle is from 2 to 12 times the amounts of water on the surface, allowing for the release of large amounts of CO2 through volcanic venting and eruptions.

So when the atmospheric CO2 levels rose to more than 7000 PPMA due to volcanic activity, the explosion of stromatolites flora and algae that formed in the Cambrian explosion, were more than sufficient to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Due to tectonic activity and volcanic venting and eruption, Rodinia broke apart and reformed into the continent of Pangia.

About 250 million YBP, high amounts of CO2, approximately 49 Million tons of CO2 per year (1.66 X today’s anthropogenic emission rate) were vented during the Siberian Traps Event alone, and with the additional volcanic venting caused massiv...e flora growth, which was the means that herds of tens of tons dinosaurs could exist, since flora is the base of the food chain.

Dinosaur size was a biological adaptation of favorable environmental conditions, and the abundant food supply attributed to high CO2 emission volumes and levels. The average size animal during the reign of dinosaurs was the size of a Grizzly Bear. Today, the average size animal is the size of a medium size dog.

About 65 Million YBP, the continent of Pangia was breaking up into the continental configuration we know today. During that time, a meteor struck the Chicxulub peninsula which is attributed to the demise of dinosaurs, but the meteor impact may have been the trigger of the Deccan Trap eruption, causing massive CO2 venting again, approximately equal to today’s 30 million tons per year of anthropogenic CO2 from the Deccan Traps alone.

The Siberian Traps flowed about 1 million cubic miles of lava, which would cover the United States in 1 thousand feet of lava, and the Deccan Traps flowed about 600,000 cubic miles of lava which would cover the United States in about 600 feet of lava. Though these were not minor events, Earth’s stromatolite flora and algae and other means, were more than adequate to remove the high volumes of CO2 emitted from the mantle plumes events and other volcanic activity exceeding today’s CO2 emission rate of 1.03 Billion tons annually.

Due to the continental positions and tectonic activity, the climate was as much as twenty degrees warmer than current average mean temperatures. Earths orbit, gyroscopic progression of Earth’s rotation, Solar activity, ocean currents, and the volcanic activity all contributed to the tropical environment that allowed life to thrive.

That all changed 2 Million years ago when volcanic activity breached the ocean surface in the Isthmus Of Panama cutting off the Atlantic and Pacific ocean current creating the Gulf Of Mexico current stream, and along with Earths orbit, gyroscopic progression of Earth’s rotation, Solar activity, and the change in ocean currents, contributing to the approximate 100 thousand year cyclic climate conditions earth has experienced for the last 800 thousand years or so.

CO2 and temperatures became cyclical due to the division of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, due to the 600 to 2400 year lag in CO2 rise after the temperature rises along with the other astro factors. With higher levels of atmospheric CO2, flora stromatolite and algae populations rise abundantly.

Farmers are experiencing the highest crop yield per acre than ever in thousands of years of recorded history, partly due to farming techniques and fertilizer technologies, but more predominantly due to higher atmospheric CO2 levels. CO2 then falls below the 200 Parts Per Million Atmosphere (PPMA) threshold because when CO2 levels are above the 200 PPMA, along with other factors, photosynthesis life thrives more abundantly, causing the absorption rate of CO2 to exceed the CO2 emission rate. Then, at or slightly below 200 PPMA, growth of life that uses photosynthesis is stifled.

When CO2 levels are at 180 PPMA photosynthesis flora begin to respire (exhale) CO2, and at levels of 150 PPMA all photosynthesis flora will die, including food crops that rely on photosynthesis. With a reduction in growth of photosynthesis life due to lower atmospheric CO2 levels (at or below 200 PPMA), atmospheric CO2 levels are able to rise again.

As atmospheric CO2 levels rise, the photosynthesis organisms thrive and over populate, eventually causing atmospheric CO2 levels to drop to the levels that atmospheric CO2 cannot support the photosynthesis organisms (below the 200 PPMA threshold), causing an amount of photosynthesis organisms to stifle growth, allowing atmospheric CO2 levels to rise again.

A lag in growth and reduction of photosynthetic life is a probable factor for the rise and fall of atmospheric CO2 levels. If growth and reduction were near the rise and fall of CO2 emissions, then atmospheric CO2 levels would remain near constant levels. This is a mechanism for why the atmospheric CO2 levels rise and fall cyclically, along with Earths orbit, gyroscopic progression of Earth’s rotation, Solar activity, ocean currents, and volcanic activity.

Greenhouses deliberately use CO2 generators to keep the atmospheric CO2 levels at levels 2 to 4 times today’s CO2 PPMA rate of 385 PPMA to the levels of 1000 to 1500 PPMA. With the lag in growth and reduction of photosynthesis organisms when atmospheric CO2 levels rise and fall, there is a lag in CO2 rise after the rise of temperatures which contribute to cyclic factors – temperature rise precedes CO2 rise; CO2 rise does not precede temperature rise.

Today about 1 billion tons of CO2 are emitted annually naturally, and humans only contribute 30 million tons of CO2 annually, which is only 3% of total CO2 emissions. At that rate, humans would have to cease all fuel burning for cooking of foods, about 50% of electrical generation, all automotive transportation, and heating in the winter for more than 33 years to be equal to the naturally emitted CO2 annual amounts.

Above and beyond the ability for Earth to deal with atmospheric CO2 through photosynthesis and other means, there is more solar radiation (heat dissipated into space) through water vapor which is 78 to 82% of climate influence, when tempera...tures rise. CO2 is only currently 0.036% climatic influential, which translates into a rise of only 0.05 Degree C in average mean temperature if atmospheric CO2 levels are more than doubled to 800 PPMA, and the influence would only be experienced at night. Earth has natural checks and balances for regulating atmospheric CO2 levels and climate.

Since 1 billion tons of atmospheric CO2 is being presented to change climate average mean temperatures by 1 degree C, then the average mean temperatures should rise 1 degree C every year but does not, due to the fact that Earth is able to deal with much more than the 1 billion tons of annual anthropogenic and natural CO2 emissions.

Since there is a range of 2 to 12 times the amount of water in the mantle than on the surface through oceanic subduction, thousands of tons of water are subducted and vented daily. The entire world’s oceans are cycled about every 30 million years through the crust and mantle through subduction and venting. If subduction rates were to diminish, it is very possible for venting of water vapor into the atmosphere to cause ocean levels to rise.

Without venting, the ocean level would continuously drop, and without subduction the level would continuously rise. If the estimated volumes of water in the mantle were to be vented to the surface all at once, the ocean would be about 2 miles above Mt. Everest. Subduction and venting may be a factor for the ocean’s levels varying from 430 feet lower average mean level and 30 feet higher average mean level than today’s levels, beyond glacial storage and release of reserve waters to cause ocean average mean levels to vary.

In short, anthropogenic CO2 emissions are not, nor will not be a climate issue. If Earth could deal with the Siberian Traps and the Deccan Traps emitting tens of millions of tons of CO2 for thousands and millions of years as well as other mantle plume events in addition to the continuous rate of venting at plate boundaries, then the 30 millions tons of annually emitted anthropogenic CO2 is not nor will not be a problem for Earth to deal with, even if anthropogenic emissions are more than doubled.

By far, the largest contributing factors for Earths climate and temperature variant are influenced by Solar Output, and Water Vapor that is 78% to 82% of temperature influence. The bottom line is that higher levels of atmospheric CO2 are more favorable for life to flourish. Keep in mind that most GW/CC presentations deliberately omit the big picture of the CO2 cycle (cherry picking the information), and there is a deliberate reason that children and teens are selected to promote GW/CC.

Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, Mar. 3rd 2011
http://dailybayonet.com/?p=7961

Here's the interview Alan Jones and Timothy Ball.
http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=9005

I'd like to have heard Jones's interview with Karoly but I can't find it on the 2GB site.

It's there coz I found it. Jones gives Karoly a caning!
http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=8984

OK thanks Loopy...I'd only looked in the station's sidebar index.

Skeptics rule online polls

Either there are a lot more skeptics than believers, or the skeptics are more likely to be on the net.

Some polls you may want to take part in (which are registering around 3 out 4 votes for skeptics).

The Greens are running scared.

The Herald: Do you support a carbon tax?

813 votes and 71% say NO.

The Greens: Do you support the Greens’ plan on emissions trading?

2000 votes, and 80% say NO.

SkyNews: Do you support a price on carbon?

Unknown number of votes and 87% say NO.

UPDATE: And they are running scared.

The Greens poll has been up for around 2 weeks, and I linked to it today, and within hours it’s gone (h/t cohenite, alan and andy). I’ve got the screenshot.

Keith points out that NINE MSN is running a poll “Should an election be called before a carbon tax is introduced?” (See the thin line strip with a question below the main news photo)

http://joannenova.com.au/2011/06/skeptics-rule-online-polls/#more-15142

The American Physical Society loses a member - and credibility
http://www.dailybayonet.com/?p=6554

Hal Lewis, a physicist and honest man has quit the American Physical Society, no longer able to stand by and watch as science becomes corrupted by the windfall funding for anyone willing to prop up the global warming hoax.

Read the whole letter, it contains some devastating claims. In a perfect world, Mr. Lewis would be lauded and Michael Mann, James Hansen, Phil Jones and the motley CRU would be unemployable. Emphasis is mine.

(H/t’s to Soylent Green and Watts)

Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara
To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).

Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

Hal

Here is a new paper on THE ASSOCIATION OF ALBEDO AND OLR RADIATION WITH VARIATIONS OF PRECIPITATION – IMPLICATIONS FOR AGW
by William M. Gray and Barry Schwartz
It compares real world observations(negative feedback) with the climate model predictions. Explains why there is no upper tropospheric hotspot/increasing humidity

For and against. Here we go:

http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2011/06/open-letter-from-australian-warmists/

Earth facing a mini-Ice Age 'within ten years' due to rare drop in sunspot activity

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...l#ixzz1POXWa7yj

* Sunspots are expected to disappear for years, maybe decades, after 2020
* A sharp decrease in global warming might result

The sun is heading into an unusual and extended period of hibernation that could trigger a mini-Ice Age on Earth, scientists claim.

A decrease in global warming might result in the years after 2020, the approximate time when sunspots are expected to disappear for years, maybe even decades.

While the effects of a calmer sun are mostly good - there'd be fewer disruptions of satellites and power systems - it could see a sharp turnaround in global warming.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...l#ixzz1POXe9ekT

Climategate: Can a Graph Tell a Lie?
Our fact-checker sorted through dozens of graphs and data sets to find the truth about rising temperatures in the wake of the Climategate scandal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZWQtjrgcqg&feature=related

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national...x-1226078505195

Much like the pro-smoking lobby in the 1980s. People must be desparate to threaten geeks!

I wish this was true...

Probably censured by Jones.... say no more.

I've said this before and I'll say it again... What is the ideal temp on earth and how do you maintain it Stevo59???? If it gets to warm, stop fossil fuel burning, if it gets to cool, fire up the burners. Sounds to me that the natural climate change deniers think we have a huge heater at our disposal for us to control. Well the planet has a big heater called the sun and it does what it likes, just pray it doesn't go out.

Steve, elsewhere in this thread I was directed to the site for that interview and I listened to it.

Say no more.

A True Inquiry Into Climate & Weather (1/2): A Hot Potato
http://itsrainmakingtime.com/2009/climate-part1/


This broadcast segment addresses the urgent need for verifiable facts about climate and weather that have been unable to make their way in a cohesive, understandable way to the public.

The first of two parts, this show features Ice Age Now founder Bob Felix, the author of Not by Fire, But By Ice and Magnetic Reversals & Evolutionary Leaps. Bob has spent considerable time researching climate, extinctions, magnetic reversals, and ice ages. His books present staggering evidence of global cooling that suggests an ice age could begin at any moment.
Joe D'Aleo

Joe D'Aleo

Meteorologist Joe D’Aleo and climatologist Dr. Tim Ball also join in to provide a broader perspective on climate change and explain what’s missing from the established climate dialogues. The information these men bring to bear will shake you to your very foundations!

A gross body of distortion and misinformation exists about the climate dangers we are truly facing. The truth is that very few of us understand climate or weather. Most of us have taken a blind faith approach to researching these subjects.
Dr. Tim Ball

Dr. Tim Ball

Unfortunately, this will be to the great detriment of all of humanity. In order to adequately prepare for coming changes, we need a different framework to quickly and properly understand weather and climate. Get ready to learn things you have never known before about weather, climate, and the business of climate change!

Low Energy Nuclear Revolution (English Version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRry6a3U0Cw&feature=share

A MUST SEE documentary on our coming global energy revolution based on the LENR technology of Andrea Rossi - the Energy Catalyzer

Burt Rutan calls Anthropogenic Global Warming
(AGW) a Fraud
http://www.iceagenow.com/Burt_Rutan_calls_AGW_a_Fraud.htm

Who is Burt Rutan?

Burt Rutan was Time magazine's "100 most influential people in the world, 2004" and Inc. Magazine's "Entrepreneur of the Year." Newsweek called him "the man responsible for more innovations in modern aviation than any living engineer." (After this, Time may call him the greatest persona non grata of the year.)

Rutan has received hundreds of awards including: Presidential Citizen's Medal, Two Collier Trophies, Academy of Achievement Golden Plate and the Charles Lindbergh Award. He has developed 44 new aircraft types since 1972 including; Voyager (1986 RTW-non refueled), SpaceShipOne (2004 Funded by Paul Allen, winner of X-prize) and the first commercial spaceship - SpaceShipTwo (2009 Funded by Sir Richard Branson).

Something seriously wrong

1 Jan 10 - (Excerpts) - "Few significant products are driven to commercialism, validated by claims of the scientific community. Before investing in a new product, those committing funds almost always look to an Engineering Study or Engineering Design Review, rather than using only the claims of Scientists. This is not being done at all, with the AGW-planet crisis issue.

"One has only to look at the two most notable charts (below) from two United Nations IPCC summary reports, published a decade apart, to realize that something might be seriously wrong.

"The fact that the 2001 “hockey stick” chart was presented in color in several sections of the 2001 IPCC report, without explaining how the scientists managed to completely eliminate their earlier depiction of the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age (both are well covered in historical documents as well as scientific analysis is unacceptable behavior. (http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php)

"Noting that the “hockey stick” chart was removed in later editions of the IPCC “scientific” reports supports the conclusion that something is indeed wrong. It was removed because an outside investigation was conducted that resembled a proper engineering review - with a finding of fraud.

"Specifically, the fraud was identified by showing that the critical data for the chart came from cherry picking just a handful of Siberian trees (tree ring proxy to estimate temperature), without evidence that the researcher applied the proper scientific method. Using all the data or any random selection of 10% of the tree ring data showed no significant correlation of planet warming to human CO2 emissions.

Fraud not limited to cherry picking

"The fraud was not limited to the tree cherry picking. The computer code for presentation had been tweaked such that a hockey stick shape is produced even if the data set is developed with a random number generator!

"The horrific result of this scandal was that the 2001 UN hockey stick chart formed the very foundation of a non-scientific theory that resulted in the awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize, a movie Oscar and a best-selling book.

Why I studied AGW

"My lifetime work from childhood to the present has been focused on aircraft/spacecraft design and development, with flight-testing being my career specialty. Thus, I have always been challenged to determine the accuracy and meaning of a large amount of disparate data and have often been required to apply those interpretations to development of a product that absolutely must be safe and robust.

"Four years ago I noticed something troubling about the challenges facing the global warming alarmists. I started my research on anthropogenic (i.e. man-caused) global warming (AGW) because, I found to my surprise, that to claim a catastrophic AGW theory as a “proof”, the climate scientists thought they only needed to show that human emissions MIGHT cause a fractional-degree global decadal temperature rise, for an earth that generally varies 20 to 40 deg F every 24 hours and varies as much as 80 to 100 deg F every year – This seemed to be a Herculean task indeed.

"Another thing troubled me - those scientists that claimed that warming is human-caused and catastrophic, tended to be the ones who sought out the media to proclaim their views (an unusual behavior for scientists immersed in the proper scientific procedure). The larger group of scientists that did not agree tended to be mute. This, of course gave the media and some politicians an impression that there was scientific “consensus”, even though it did not exist.

Does not pass sanity check

"Also, an engineer knows it is wrong to arbitrarily select a single theory (for example, human emissions of greenhouse gas (GHG) effects) as a ‘proof cause’ of warming. This is especially true when that single-proposed cause is a small effect among the many other possible causes. Pointing to sharp increases of measured temperature and then claiming global warming is due to the miniscule human additions to the planet’s atmospheric GHG, while ignoring the fact that cooling periods are also observed while emissions increase, does not pass a sanity check.

"I found that no conclusion on human greenhouse gas (GHG)-blame could be made if one honestly considers the other causes. This is supported by the observation that the climate likely has always had at least today’s temperature swings, in the absence of any significant human activity. Also, the GHG warming effect is primarily driven by water vapor, not by CO2, and the human emissions’ portion of atmospheric CO2 is tiny.

Human-caused GHG seemed, to my engineering mind, impossible

"The climate scientist’s problem of proving his human-caused GHG crisis theory seemed, to my engineering mind, impossible. This is what attracted me to study the raw data and to see if there was fraud in its summary presentations, since the slightest changes in the data, such as a bit of cherry picking tree rings or even an ‘innocent’ selection of a truncated temperature data set, is all that would be needed to alarm the naive non-scientific audience. My conclusion is that, if the analysis by climate scientists had been required to pass a typical engineering preliminary design review, the crisis theory would have never been passed on to the non-technical audience.

"The entire process of scientific study of the earth’s climate data, combined with the computer models developed to predict future climate, is extremely susceptible to abuse - even minor data ‘adjustments’ or data cherry picking, can completely change the conclusions.

Climate models adjusted after the fact

"Further, I found that none of the climate models had predicted the 1999-to-2009 cooling until they were “adjusted”, after the fact. I see “adjustments-after-test” all the time in aircraft development. The stress-analysis specialist can always accurately predict a wing failure after he adjusts his model, following a shop test of ultimate wing strength. Note, that wing design is relatively straight forward compared to the chaotic behavior of climate.

Top climate scientists do not respect or use proper scientific process

"My most alarming finding was that many of the top climate scientists do not respect or use a proper scientific process. This finding was not just for the global warming issue, it was prevalent and pervasive back during the ozone hole scare, where the primary blame was attributed to human CFC release and the panic was alarmist-driven, not data driven. Based on available climate data, no respectable engineering study would accept the theory of human-caused GHG increase as proof to justify any new development or any large expenditure of funds to “fix the warming problem”.

Current warming beneficial to the planet

"The current ice-age-recovery warming slope is modest. This warming is beneficial to the planet, its plants and its animals (including humans). This is true even if a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 is added to assist the warmth.

One prediction that makes common sense

"However, I found one prediction that, to me makes the most common sense. The graph below (by Dr Syun Akasofu, IARC Founding Director and Professor of Physics, Emeritus UAF) shows a 320-year time period. The long, straight dashed line shows the accepted long-term trend - a modest 0.6 deg C per 100-year warming, i.e. the continuing recovery from the Little Ice Age, extrapolated for the next century.

"The Observational Data box shows the measured, previous 120-year history of global temperature anomaly, ending in the year 2002. The wiggly red line within this box illustrates the most reliable data; the last 25 years that include satellite atmospheric measurements. Note how the recent decade of cooling (green arrow pointing to the 2009 temperature point) fits in fine with the observed mild temperature oscillations over the last 100 years. This all supports a logical prediction that the next 100 years should mimic the last 100 years; supporting a beneficial warming trend and a sea level increase by 2100 of only 6 to 8 inches.

"Of course, the thing that stands out on the Akasofu chart is the overlaid IPCC prediction for the next 100 years. This politically driven "forecast" is not supported by any careful analysis of past or present climate data, including predicted human CO2 emissions.

Type "Science with a capital S" in Google, see first link. Enjoy .

Correction:

MWP was quite different from current anthropogenic global warming

The role of forcing and internal dynamics in explaining the “Medieval Climate Anomaly”

Abstract: “Proxy reconstructions suggest that peak global temperature during the past warm interval known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, roughly 950–1250 AD) has been exceeded only during the most recent decades. To better understand the origin of this warm period, we use model simulations constrained by data assimilation establishing the spatial pattern of temperature changes that is most consistent with forcing estimates, model physics and the empirical information contained in paleoclimate proxy records. These numerical experiments demonstrate that the reconstructed spatial temperature pattern of the MCA can be explained by a simple thermodynamical response of the climate system to relatively weak changes in radiative forcing combined with a modification of the atmospheric circulation, displaying some similarities with the positive phase of the so-called Arctic Oscillation, and with northward shifts in the position of the Gulf Stream and Kuroshio currents. The mechanisms underlying the MCA are thus quite different from anthropogenic mechanisms responsible for modern global warming.”

http://www.springerlink.com/content/v8523x47070073q8/

Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong

The threat of climate change is an increasingly important environmental issue for the globe. Because the economic questions involved have received relatively little attention, I have been writing a nontechnical book for people who would like to see how market-based approaches could be used to formulate policy on climate change. When I showed an early draft to colleagues, their response was that I had left out the arguments of skeptics about climate change, and I accordingly addressed this at length.

But one of the difficulties I found in examining the views of climate skeptics is that they are scattered widely in blogs, talks, and pamphlets. Then, I saw an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal of January 27, 2012, by a group of sixteen scientists, entitled “No Need to Panic About Global Warming.” This is useful because it contains many of the standard criticisms in a succinct statement. The basic message of the article is that the globe is not warming, that dissident voices are being suppressed, and that delaying policies to slow climate change for fifty years will have no serious economic or environment consequences.

My response is primarily designed to correct their misleading description of my own research; but it also is directed more broadly at their attempt to discredit scientists and scientific research on climate change.1 I have identified six key issues that are raised in the article, and I provide commentary about their substance and accuracy. They are:

• Is the planet in fact warming?
• Are human influences an important contributor to warming?
• Is carbon dioxide a pollutant?
• Are we seeing a regime of fear for skeptical climate scientists?
• Are the views of mainstream climate scientists driven primarily by the desire for financial gain?
• Is it true that more carbon dioxide and additional warming will be beneficial?

As I will indicate below, on each of these questions, the sixteen scientists provide incorrect or misleading answers. At a time when we need to clarify public confusions about the science and economics of climate change, they have muddied the waters. I will describe their mistakes and explain the findings of current climate science and economics.

Read more here http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/22/why-global-warming-skeptics-are-wrong/

Evidence linking Arctic amplification to extreme weather in mid-latitudes

Abstract: “Arctic amplification (AA) – the observed enhanced warming in high northern latitudes relative to the northern hemisphere – is evident in lower-tropospheric temperatures and in 1000-to-500 hPa thicknesses. Daily fields of 500 hPa heights from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction Reanalysis are analyzed over N. America and the N. Atlantic to assess changes in north-south (Rossby) wave characteristics associated with AA and the relaxation of poleward thickness gradients. Two effects are identified that each contribute to a slower eastward progression of Rossby waves in the upper-level flow: 1) weakened zonal winds, and 2) increased wave amplitude. These effects are particularly evident in autumn and winter consistent with sea-ice loss, but are also apparent in summer, possibly related to earlier snow melt on high-latitude land. Slower progression of upper-level waves would cause associated weather patterns in mid-latitudes to be more persistent, which may lead to an increased probability of extreme weather events that result from prolonged conditions, such as drought, flooding, cold spells, and heat waves.”

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL051000.shtml

In fastest Arctic sea ice decrease regions ice-free season is now 3 months longer

Regions of rapid sea ice change: An inter-hemispheric seasonal comparison

Abstract: “This bi-polar analysis resolves ice edge changes on space/time scales relevant for investigating seasonal ice-ocean feedbacks and focuses on spatio-temporal changes in the timing of annual sea ice retreat and advance over 1979/80 to 2010/11. Where Arctic sea ice decrease is fastest, the sea ice retreat is now nearly 2 months earlier and subsequent advance more than 1 month later (compared to 1979/80), resulting in a 3-month longer summer ice-free season. In the Antarctic Peninsula and Bellingshausen Sea region, sea ice retreat is more than 1 month earlier and advance 2 months later, resulting in a more than 3-month longer summer ice-free season. In contrast, in the western Ross Sea (Antarctica) region, sea ice retreat and advance are more than 1 month later and earlier respectively, resulting in a more than 2 month shorter summer ice-free season. Regardless of trend magnitude or direction, and at latitudes mostly poleward of 70° (N/S), there is strong correspondence between anomalies in the timings of sea ice retreat and subsequent advance, but little correspondence between advance and subsequent retreat. These results support a strong ocean thermal feedback in autumn in response to changes in spring sea ice retreat. Further, model calculations suggest different net ocean heat changes in the Arctic versus Antarctic where autumn sea ice advance is 1 versus 2 months later. Ocean-atmosphere changes, particularly in boreal spring and austral autumn (i.e., during ∼March-May), are discussed and compared, as well as possible inter-hemispheric climate connections.”

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL050874.shtml

Framing the way to relate climate extremes to climate change

Abstract

The atmospheric and ocean environment has changed from human activities in ways that affect storms and extreme climate events. The main way climate change is perceived is through changes in extremes because those are outside the bounds of previous weather.

The average anthropogenic climate change effect is not negligible, but nor is it large, although a small shift in the mean can lead to very large percentage changes in extremes.

Anthropogenic global warming inherently has decadal time scales and can be readily masked by natural variability on short time scales. To the extent that interactions are linear, even places that feature below normal temperatures are still warmer than they otherwise would be.

It is when natural variability and climate change develop in the same direction that records get broken. For instance, the rapid transition from El Niño prior to May 2010 to La Niña by July 2010 along with global warming contributed to the record high sea surface temperatures in the tropical Indian and Atlantic Oceans and in close proximity to places where record flooding subsequently occurred.

A commentary is provided on recent climate extremes. The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question. All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.



http://www.springerlink.com/content/0008xl84w0743102/fulltext.html

Gee Whiz CeeBee.

You have really drank the Kool-Aid haven't you.

Keep it coming because none of us have heard of polar amplification before (which doesn't show up in the records anymore now that they have been "adjusted") nor "global warming" which delivers flooding rains in certain predictable areas (as compared to the ENSO which used to do the same) nor that Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant (exhaled by animals and inhaled by vegetation ie. basically all lifeforms and has been polluting the Earth since 4.45 billion years ago), nor the Medieval Climate Optimum which was not caused by CO2 but by Man and is not as warm as today since noone could grow crops until 30 years ago, especially in Europe where it was cold until CO2 increased.

Sorry, no comments are allowed on this thread Bill!
I started the thread and the moderators approved it as a no comments allowed thread!

Strong Evidence Manmade ‘Unprecedented Heat And Rainfall Extremes Are Here … Causing Intense Human Suffering’

That’s the conclusion of a major new analysis of the scientific evidence in Nature Climate Change, “A decade of weather extremes” . The research is by Dim Coumou and Stefan Rahmstorf of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
The study includes this table of extreme events — “The selection criterion for this (incomplete) list was that the event was documented to be record-breaking (that is, unprecedented) in a long measurement series”:



The study points out how devastating some of these events have been for people:

The Moscow heatwave and Pakistan flooding that year illustrated how destructive extreme weather can be to societies: the death toll in Moscow has been estimated at 11,000 and drought caused grain-harvest losses of 30%, leading the Russian government to ban wheat exports. At the same time Pakistan was hit by the worst flooding in its history, which affected approximately one-fifth of its total land area and 20 million people.

It explains that the context for these events is unprecedented human-caused global warming:

The unprecedented meteorological events listed in Table 1 occurred in a decade that was likely the warmest globally for at least a millennium

A number of these individual events have been the subject of “attribution” analysis making clear that they would have been extremely unlikely to have happened without human caused global warming.

link

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/621

Which poses the greater health risk to humans: hot weather, or cold? According to global-warming alarmists, the answer is simple: heat kills. However, statistical evidence shows that cold weather is twice as deadly as hot weather.

But the public is being told otherwise by global-warming alarmists, who in recent years have tried to ramp up the fright factor of their message with claims that an increase in global temperatures will also result in a dramatic increase in heat-related deaths. This motive may have provided the impetus for recent reporting on the climate "death map."

"Heat is more likely to kill an American than an earthquake, and thunderstorms kill more than hurricanes do, according to a 'death map' published on Tuesday." So reports Reuters in a December 17 story on
researchers who compiled the county-by-county look at what natural disasters kill Americans. The Reuters story continues:

Heat and drought caused 19.6 percent of total deaths from natural hazards, with summer thunderstorms causing 18.8 percent and winter weather causing 18.1 percent, the team at the University of South Carolina found.

Earthquakes, wildfires and hurricanes combined were responsible for fewer than 5 percent of all hazard deaths.

Writing in BioMed Central's International Journal of Health Geographics, they said they hoped to dispel some myths about what the biggest threats to life and limb are.

"According to our results, the answer is heat," Susan Cutter and Kevin Borden of the University of South Carolina wrote in their report, which gathered data from 1970 to 2004.

But the conclusions of Cutter and Borden conflict with overwhelming evidence that cold weather is a much bigger killer than hot weather (excluding the tropics, of course).

In an article entitled, "The impact of global warming on health and mortality," published in the Southern Medical Journal in 2004, W.R. Keatinge and G.C. Donaldson of Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of London note: "Cold-related deaths are far more numerous than heat-related deaths in the United States, Europe, and almost all countries outside the tropics, and almost all of them are due to common illnesses that are increased by cold."

CO2 Science summarizes the Southern Medical Journal study:

Keatinge and Donaldson report that coronary and cerebral thrombosis account for about half of all cold-related deaths, and that respiratory diseases account for approximately half the rest. With respect to the first of these sets of problems, they say that cold stress causes an increase in arterial thrombosis "because the blood becomes more concentrated, and so more liable to clot during exposure to cold." The sequence of events, as they describe it, is that "the body's first adjustment to cold stress is to shut down blood flow to the skin to conserve body heat," which "produces an excess of blood in central parts of the body," and that to correct for this effect, "salt and water are moved out from the blood into tissue spaces," leaving behind "increased levels of red cells, white cells, platelets and fibrinogen" that lead to increased viscosity of the blood and a greater risk of clotting.

Keatinge and Donaldson report that "even in climates as warm as southern Europe or North Carolina [USA], cold weather causes more deaths than hot weather." They also note that "rising temperatures could reduce overall mortality rates."

Another important study by two UK health bodies, the Department of Health (DoH) and the Health Protection Agency (HPA) released this year provides additional evidence that cold weather is by far the greater threat to health and life. However, the media spin on the DOH/HPA report, Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK 2008, presented headlines that completely contradicted the findings of the report. "Climate change soon could kill thousands in UK," declared the Guardian.

British writer Rob Lyons summarized important data from the DOH/HPA report:

Actual experience over nearly 40 years suggests good news overall. For example, "mean annual heat-related mortality did not rise as summers warmed from 1971 to 2003." That means we're able to adapt to warmer temperatures. Indeed, the authors note: "Heat-related mortalities are substantial throughout Europe, but the hot summers in southern Europe cause little more mortality than the milder summers of more northerly regions." If we're prepared for warm weather and we take simple precautions, then heat shouldn't be a problem.

So, for different UK regions, the authors estimate the following decline for hot weather-related fatalities (cases per million of population, 1971-2003):

• South-east England from 258 to 193 in 2003;

• Rest of England and Wales from 188 to 93;

• Scotland from 125 (in 1974) to only eight in 2003.

Meanwhile, deaths due to cold weather fell dramatically — overall, by more than 33 per cent. Far more people are affected by cold snaps than by heatwaves, so the change is more significant than for hot-weather deaths. Here is how cold-weather deaths fell between 1971 and 2003:

• South-east England from 9,174 to 5,903;

• Rest of England and Wales from 9,222 to 6,088;

• Scotland from 9,751 in 1974 to 6,166 in 2003.

As Rob Lyons notes, the declining mortality rates and the concomitant temperature increases should be cause for rejoicing, not hand-wringing:

We should be shouting this from the rooftops: far fewer people are dying because of the temperature than in the past. Milder winters are far more important than hotter summers in achieving this, along with other changes to how people live....

If warm weather is that bad, why does it seem to be the dream of every retiring person in Britain to move to the south coast or, better still, Spain or Australia? Unsurprisingly, in a temperate country accustomed to miserable weather, with cold winters and often poor-quality housing, higher temperatures are almost certain to have a net benefit for the UK. Yet this doesn't fit in with the general atmosphere of climate change alarmism that encloses newspapers like the Guardian. Even the BBC, which is hardly shy about climate alarmism, gave the story a more balanced headline: "Global warming 'may cut deaths.'"..........

Testing for linear Granger causality from natural/anthropogenic forcings to global temperature anomalies

In this paper, we analyze the Granger causality from natural or anthropogenic forcings to global temperature anomalies. The lag-augmented Wald test is performed, and its robustness is also evaluated considering bootstrap method. The results show there is no-evidence of Granger causality from natural forcings to global temperature. On the contrary, a detectable Granger causality is found from anthropogenic forcings to global temperature confirming that greenhouse gases have an important role on recent global warming.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/x00h21q254204802/

Past extreme warming events linked to massive carbon release from thawing permafrost

Between about 55.5 and 52 million years ago, Earth experienced a series of sudden and extreme global warming events (hyperthermals) superimposed on a long-term warming trend.

The first and largest of these events, the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), is characterized by a massive input of carbon, ocean acidification and an increase in global temperature of about 5 °C within a few thousand years.

Although various explanations for the PETM have been proposed a satisfactory model that accounts for the source, magnitude and timing of carbon release at the PETM and successive hyperthermals remains elusive.

Here we use a new astronomically calibrated cyclostratigraphic record from central Italy to show that the Early Eocene hyperthermals occurred during orbits with a combination of high eccentricity and high obliquity.

Corresponding climate–ecosystem–soil simulations accounting for rising concentrations of background greenhouse gases and orbital forcing show that the magnitude and timing of the PETM and subsequent hyperthermals can be explained by the orbitally triggered decomposition of soil organic carbon in circum-Arctic and Antarctic terrestrial permafrost.

This massive carbon reservoir had the potential to repeatedly release thousands of petagrams (1015 grams) of carbon to the atmosphere–ocean system, once a long-term warming threshold had been reached just before the PETM.

Replenishment of permafrost soil carbon stocks following peak warming probably contributed to the rapid recovery from each event, while providing a sensitive carbon reservoir for the next hyperthermal.

As background temperatures continued to rise following the PETM, the areal extent of permafrost steadily declined, resulting in an incrementally smaller available carbon pool and smaller hyperthermals at each successive orbital forcing maximum.

A mechanism linking Earth’s orbital properties with release of soil carbon from permafrost provides a unifying model accounting for the salient features of the hyperthermals.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10929.html

The Role of Carbon Dioxide During the Onset of Antarctic Glaciation

Earth’s modern climate, characterized by polar ice sheets and large equator-to-pole temperature gradients, is rooted in environmental changes that promoted Antarctic glaciation ~33.7 million years ago.

Onset of Antarctic glaciation reflects a critical tipping point for Earth’s climate and provides a framework for investigating the role of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) during major climatic change.

Previously published records of alkenone-based CO2 from high- and low-latitude ocean localities suggested that CO2 increased during glaciation, in contradiction to theory.

Here, we further investigate alkenone records and demonstrate that Antarctic and subantarctic data overestimate atmospheric CO2 levels, biasing long-term trends.

Our results show that CO2 declined before and during Antarctic glaciation and support a substantial CO2 decrease as the primary agent forcing Antarctic glaciation, consistent with model-derived CO2 thresholds.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6060/1261.abstract

Full pre-print is available here. Be sure to note what the other 6 sites (these ones that are not at the equator like site 925 and 929) indicate what CO2 was at the transition.

http://people.earth.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2011%20Pagani_Science.pdf

Yet another analysis suggests that greenhouse gases and aerosols controlled temperature after 1950

Abstract:

“A climate response function is introduced that consists of six exponential (low-pass) filters with weights depending as a power law on their e-folding times. The response of this two-parameter function to the combined forcings of solar irradiance, greenhouse gases, and SO2-related aerosols is fitted simultaneously to reconstructed temperatures of the past millennium, the response to solar cycles, the response to the 1991 Pinatubo volcanic eruption, and the modern 1850–2010 temperature trend. Assuming strong long-term modulation of solar irradiance, the quite adequate fit produces a climate response function with a millennium-scale response to doubled CO2 concentration of 2.0 ± 0.3 °C (mean ± standard error), of which about 50 % is realized with e-folding times of 0.5 and 2 years, about 30 % with e-folding times of 8 and 32 years, and about 20 % with e-folding times of 128 and 512 years. The transient climate response (response after 70 years of 1 % yearly rise of CO2 concentration) is 1.5 ± 0.2 °C. The temperature rise from 1820 to 1950 can be attributed for about 70 % to increased solar irradiance, while the temperature changes after 1950 are almost completely produced by the interplay of anthropogenic greenhouse gases and aerosols. The SO2-related forcing produces a small temperature drop in the years 1950–1970 and an inflection of the temperature curve around the year 2000. Fitting with a tenfold smaller modulation of solar irradiance produces a less adequate fit with millennium-scale and transient climate responses of 2.5 ± 0.4 and 1.9 ± 0.3 °C, respectively.”

http://www.springerlink.com/content/348g07361627360x/fulltext.html