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