Why we don't believe in climate change

[jesuitsdidit]

I also engaged in a civil debate with one reader about why he questions anthropogenic climate change, and why I, by and large, do not. I'm posting that exchange in full (commenter's emails are in Roman type; mine are in italics). What do you think?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=38782

20/04/09
Why we don't believe in climate change

Yesterday's New York Times magazine was a green issue, and one article struck me as apropos of the heated debate that took place in response to my post about acceptance—or lack thereof—of the scientific theory that climate change is largely human caused. It's an article on human decision-making biases and why they generally don't favor greener living. Check it out.

I also engaged in a civil debate with one reader about why he questions anthropogenic climate change, and why I, by and large, do not. I'm posting that exchange in full (commenter's emails are in Roman type; mine are in italics). What do you think? Where do you agree and disagree with each of us?

Explain this to me: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072E-802A-23AD-45F0-274616DB87E6

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims Warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history...When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists." — UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

"It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming." — U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

If you look carefully at this information you can see that very few of these scientists mentioned are climate scientists. (An MD is really no more likely than you or I to understand the ins and outs of climate science.) I blogged about that particular claim by Marc Morano here. Morano's press releases are filled with misspellings and misrepresentations, which furthers my disinclination to find them credible. The fact that Morano is the source of your information also seems to support the argument that disbelief in climate science isn't a matter of individual conclusion, but rather stems from a particular campaign linked to the Republican party, funded by fossil fuel lobbyists. Look into Inhofe's biggest campaign donors for yourself. (Inhofe was until recently Marc Morano's boss; Morano has now split off to form his own PR organization for the rejection of climate change.)

Yes, but I have a hard time believing so many credible scientists could be bought and paid for by the oil industry. Can't the opposing scientists on the IPCC just as easily be bought and paid for by the eco-industry and government? I'm not saying they have been, but it seems odd that there's so many scientists with credible backgrounds that oppose the man made hypothesis, several of whom used to sit on the IPCC themselves.

I'd rather look at the evidence presented than the presenter. Isn't that the most important thing?

Yes, the evidence is ultimately more important than the presenter. I don't pretend to be able to fairly evaluate it, though, because I'm not a scientist. So I look at the credibility of the presenter and the widespread-ness of the opinion to gauge its credibility. The most credible expert is the one with most expertise in *climate*, not simply any science field. Also, I don't understand why those who don't fully accept that humans are the cause of climate change don't think that, given the enormity of the consequences, it might not be worth finding alternative sources of energy just in case, particularly when they pollute less in terms of standard particulate/acid pollution anyway.

As far as funding, the "eco" industry doesn't really exist. Just poorly funded nonprofits, compared to the oil companies' decades of massive, massive profits. A financial comparison of the two industries would be laughably skewed. And there's no plausible ulterior motive for environmental groups--they want to help safeguard the planet. There are ample causes (species, open lands, particulate pollution) to focus on without inventing new ones.

This is an honest accounting of how I, as a person and as a journalist, have come to believe that these theories are solid. They may well have improvements made to them over time, like most scientific theories do. But the core argument seems as solid as one could reasonably expect. I hope it's useful to you in your process.

I do believe you are an honest journalist and are taking the side of what you think is best for humanity and the environment. I don't doubt your sincerity.

I think as a journalist you need to look at the most important question of all - who benefits and who has intent?

Much much deeper than just face value. Oil and coal companies surely have much to gain by discrediting the environmental impact. But what about the other side? One thing to consider is where research dollars come from.

The vast bulk of research dollars on environmental science don't come from oil companies, it comes from government. Does government spend more on research when there is a suspected problem or when there is no problem? Do government paid researchers have anything to gain by exaggerating climate issues?

What corporations stand to gain by the implementation of carbon taxes or a cap and trade scheme? Have these corporations donated or funded climate science that supports the global warming hypothesis? Do government agencies stand to gain by the implementation of such a system? Do researchers stand to gain?

Who will get the bulk of the money from such a cap and trade system or other carbon taxation system? Do elected representatives hold stock in these corporations? How about the climate scientists, do many of them hold stock or run such corporations?

If there was a clear global warming threat to humanity that was unequivocal, would oil company sponsored researchers still dissent? What if the oil company that sponsored the research is also heavily engaged in clean technology and stands to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals through such legislation?

History shows us that such draconian legislation is often the work of corporations who stand to benefit greatly through the restriction of competition. Would some of the major polluters now be exempted, just as the AIG bailout recipients were grandfathered?

Think hard about this one - what companies have the resources and the technology to run government "clean up" projects created from the carbon credits? General Electric? Shell Oil? British Petrol? What would it do to those companies competition? Are they smart enough to play both sides and make it look like they would be big losers and oppose such legislation?

Who ultimately ends up paying for such taxation and regulation? Would the companies pass the costs on to consumers?

There's a lot to think about there. Its not so black and white. Everyone has an angle. Everyone stands to gain or loose something. Its imperative that you come to understand the actual science behind the arguments on both sides, because basing your opinion on the credibility of the presenter might be a dangerous thing in this case.

I think you ask some very valid questions. I do think companies play both sides of this issue, and certainly green-tech companies would love nothing more than to have carbon regulated. However, they are new, small companies, so I'm not persuaded that their wishes are driving major global shifts. Oil companies, however, are playing both sides of the issue. But that's what huge companies do when they see that the business environment may shift substantially. I think your questions speaks to some of the problems in our political system (pay to play). And I would be willing to accept that it may distort the science somewhat. However, the IPCC is international, consists of a wide array of scientists, and is affiliated with the U.N., whose general professionalism and impartiality I trust. So I don't think that the core conclusions of that body could be generated out of whole cloth by what particular companies or particular researchers have to gain. But I am willing to believe that particular conclusions or analyses could be emphasized or de-emphasized due to political pressure of some sort. But, again, I look to the overall, overwhelming consensus, and I don't see anyone or any huge corporation that stands to gain so much that I smell a rat. Believing that we're jeopardizing our own habitat is akin to what they call in court "statement contrary to interest," which in courts gives a statement more weight.

I don't question the value of being skeptical. I think your questions are perfectly valid. Questioning information is useful if it leads one to look into it more for oneself. What I find myself upset about is the echo chamber of unquestioned conclusions that circulate among media/voter communities who clearly do have ulterior motives, whether drumming up fame for themselves by being outspoken naysayers (Limbaugh, O'Reilly) or returning a particular party to office (Morano).

I think if you look at the carbon tax issue in depth, you'll see that those who promote it the loudest (the UN and other globalist bodies) tend to get the greatest gain from it.

No suprise, the UN expects to recieve the proceedes from such a tax.

International agreement on such a tax would take a long time, de Boer said, and it might take even longer to get the tax proceeds to the United Nations to deal with global warming.
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-28774420070801

What exactly would the UN do with all that money (possibly trillions?). Hmmm...

Think they might try to expand their power and influence?

Who runs the UN bank accounts?

Do international bankers stand to gain from such a tax?

If the banks are involved, I smell a rat already. Who would be holding all that money in trust?

Does the UN play favorites when it comes to corporate lobbiests?

How much do you trust the UN?

Note: I didn't respond to this email or the next one, because I think the question of how to handle climate change is separate from the issue of whether humans have helped cause it.

One more thing Cameron, I think this country has been taken for a ride by the banking establishment. These guys are just plain evil evil evil. When in comes to carbon taxes or cap and trade, the money trail inevitably leads back to them.

They suck in wealth like a vacuum and then lend it back out at interest. Any taxation system that ends up with private banks holding the trust should be viewed with the utmost skepticism. All they need is to hold the reserves on such a system to make massive amounts of wealth from it. Noting the oil for food scandal, we know French bank, BNP Paribas held those accounts.

Government also gets a big boost since they now have access to the funds to do with as they please. We see how well that worked with the social security trust (completely insolvent). Be it a local government, a federal government, or a global government, it's dangerous business allowing them to suck huge sums of wealth out of the economy. With that much money at their disposal, I can't see how they could resist the temptation to abuse it.

I also think its important to note how the "solution" is always directed at some scheme of taxation. Do you think that's a coincidence? I find it a little odd that the solution always seems to be ever more wealth taken from the private sector and handed to the public sector. That right there should be setting off some alarm bells. I don't trust corporations, and by default, that means I don't trust government since I view it as bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists. If there is some taxation scheme floating around its because some politician's sugar daddy stands to gain from it. Politicians don't talk taxes unless they think they can dupe the people into thinking "they" will not have to pay for it, just those pesky evil corporations that no one seems to work for or the ultra rich elite will pay them, knowing full well that sh-t rolls downhill.

Money collected by government rarely gets used to help the people that need it most. Note the 13 trillion Bloomberg says the government has put us on the hook for in bailouts and the 3 trillion already handed out. The savings and loan debacle, the social security trust, and of course, all the money spent fighting "terrorists" and the war on drugs. If even a tenth of that money was handed back to the people directly, we would be living in a much better world.

I can only urge you to take a really long hard look at the money trail.

Personally, I have taken a long period of time to look at the arguments made by both sides. I have come to view the whole man made global warming theory with serious doubt - strictly looking at the data. I view it as a remote possibility that man is radically altering the climate, and that remote possibility is greatly outweighed by the inherent dangers of giving government (and by proxy its corporate sponsors) so much power.

Posted By: Cameron Scott (Email) | April 20 2009 at 11:50 AM

Listed Under: climate change
Comments
(69)

Sort Comments by: Oldest First | Newest First

Add Your Comment

Stratocaster
4/20/2009 12:59:12 PM

I look at man-made global warming with the same jaundiced eye that I viewed the global cooling of the '70's. It's pretty much a huge power grab by the left. The s-called "green" agenda is already being carried out while the scientific debate has only just begun.

Recommend: (43)(78)[Report Abuse]

bsmoliak
4/20/2009 2:30:34 PM

The purported "global cooling" scare of the 1970s wasn't as emphatic as some would suggest. It has been shown that discussion of global warming by greenhouse gases dominated scientific discourse throughout that decade (see a recent American Meteorological Society published article, ********************/cu45on). Furthermore, media coverage didn't entirely favor global cooling. There was no consensus then, at a time when climate science was still rather fractionated into distant sub-disciplines. The difference today is that scientists have a much larger body of knowledge to draw from and the lines between sub-disciplines have blurred. The lines of evidence presented in the IPCC report are numerous and consistent.

Cameron does a nice job of pointing this out in his post.

Recommend: (33)(22)[Report Abuse]

Frightwig
4/20/2009 4:03:04 PM

By focusing on specious arguments about corporate this and that, climate change deniers refuse to acknowledge the compelling empirical evidence unfolding around us. I provided a list of evidence to a denier last week--including increasing sea levels, increased intensity of weather events, shifts in animal and plant habitats--and the denier simply denied that these were the result of anything other than natural cycles. There really is no logical way to convince these people. Their beliefs have more to do with their inability to understand science and their fear of government than with reality and science.

Recommend: (48)(28)[Report Abuse]

pc23
4/20/2009 4:09:03 PM

Again, I would just say that the mini debate you have here is a good example of generalist and overall trend analysis trying to win over obfuscations and knit picking. It is a hard row to hoe.

Recommend: (24)(5)[Report Abuse]

pc23
4/20/2009 4:12:33 PM

The reader concluded his last email with this: "I have come to view the whole man made global warming theory with serious doubt - strictly looking at the data." But it's pretty clear from the emails the data is being overlooked in favor of a weaker argument about government taxation and conspiracy.

Recommend: (44)(11)[Report Abuse]

excali4nian
4/20/2009 4:27:00 PM

"If you look carefully at this information you can see that very few of these scientists mentioned are climate scientists." - And what exactly is a "climate scientist" anyway? Cameron, you speak as if there is some singular specialized degree in "climate science", only people who have such a degree can understand the issues, and nobody else is qualified to question them. That clearly suggests that your own understanding of the issue (and the skills and disciplines necessary to comprehend and propose solutions) is quite weak. The issue of climate study is truly complex and multidisciplinary. A fundamental backround in math, chemistry, and physics is certainly required to develop a quantitative understanding of the basic issues. From there, however, individuals of many diverse scientific specializations as well as applied technology disciplines can apply their knowledge and experience in a given niche. Competent physical chemists, biologists, geologists, meterologists, and astrophysicists can all conduct relevant analysis and research within their area of expertise. Chemical engineers, who have a solid background in both chemistry and physics, are specially trained in the areas of thermodynamics, heat & mass transfer, and kinetics, all critical disciplines necessary to understand what happens in complex and transient (time-varying) physical and chemical systems. Mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists/software engineers help provide the framework and tools for proper data analysis, as well as a "reality check". On the solution end, mechanical, electrical, and material engineers are needed to lend their hand to developing alternative energy sources, while industrial engineers and economists help evaluate costs/benefits and help provide a "sanity check" to ensure that the "cure" isn't worse than the malady. All the above people play a valid role in the evaluation of the assumed problem of (and proposing solutions to) man-made global warming. Each one of these people has a constructive niche where they can make positive contributions to the problem - more so than politicians, activists, and continually harping hack "reporters" who think that they, and they alone, are qualified to determine whose input is valid. Why don't you let that sink in a bit before getting on your pontificating high horse again, Cameron?

Recommend: (32)(36)[Report Abuse]

obama_solution
4/20/2009 4:27:57 PM

I think the burden of proof is on those making the claim. We are right to be skeptical.The history of science is littered with sociological traps, from group think, to cargo-cult science, to naive falsification. It think it is worth calling in the cultural reasons for denying it as well as for accepting it. One thing is for sure: the culture of science and scientists is not immune to prejudice. This particular issue is so emotional, and not coincidentally archetypal (post apocalyptic, tower of babel, chicken little, fall from eden, man vs nature, etc, etc...) that it is really hard for anyone to look at this thing objectively any longer. Further, the opportunity for an aggregation of power around this issue should give all freedom loving people cause for concern. Even if true, the resulting aggregation of power will lead to corruption (ethanol, anyone?). I think it is a good question to ask why it is we believe what we do. But an equally good question is why are we so convinced that we are right and every one who takes a different view is either evil, in denial, or conflicted. The level of vitriol you have is probably related to the measure of your own biases.

Recommend: (37)(17)[Report Abuse]

Frightwig
4/20/2009 4:44:53 PM

Deniers act as if there will be significant negative consequences of acting as if global climate change is indeed caused by human activity. They forget that the problems have been caused by the very industries that want to continue polluting the environment with impunity. If for no other reason than to create a healthier, cleaner environment, let's work together to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. How can you argue with that?

Recommend: (38)(24)[Report Abuse]

excali4nian
4/20/2009 4:51:32 PM

The biggest red flag in the whole global warming debate is this mantra being chanted by the drones and the True Believers: that we have to "act now" - BEFORE we have a comprehensive qualitative and QUANTITATIVE understanding of the problem, BEFORE we have viable, economically feasible solutions, and BEFORE we have carefully examined the CONSEQUENCES of the proposed "solution". The eco-hysteriacs have little children in fear of the Global Warming boogeyman, activists running around hsyterically, and self-appointed lifestyle nannies lined up ready to dictate to us what type of car we can drive, to what temperature we must heat/cool our homes, where we should live, even what food we shall eat. Anyone who isn't a bit concerned about an unholy coalition of government and activists running our lives needs to get their heads examined. The people who live their lives in panic over rising ocean levels and stranded polar bears need to understand that even by the admission of the environmentalists themselves, this is a LONG-TERM issue. We are NOT all going to die if we wait a couple of years and the temperature climbs a fraction of a C while we properly study this issue, and IF necessary, develop a rational, feasible, fiscally responsible plan. Anyone understanding how the Law Of Unintended Consequences should recognize how the mad rush to pass the "emergency stumulus" plans of the current president (Obama) AND the last one (Bush) have created huge messes, and how despite all the assurances to the contrary, both plans served primarily NOT to solve a given problem, but to fund the taxpayer's money into the hands of the politically well-connected. The "solution" required MORE research, MORE deliberation, a LOT more healthy SKEPTICISM, and a lot LESS chicken-little hysteria!

Recommend: (42)(35)[Report Abuse]

excali4nian
4/20/2009 5:07:31 PM

"Deniers act as if there will be significant negative consequences of acting as if global climate change is indeed caused by human activity." - I am not a "denier". I am a SKEPTIC. Good science requires healthy skepticism. If you are claiming that there's some huge disaster that requires massive government intervention, radical restructuring of our economy, significant infringements on our personal freedoms, and a deterioriation in our standard of living, then the burden is on YOU to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that such a problem really exists. However, the rabid climate-change crowd isn't interested in doing that. All they care about is smearing people's reputations, calling them names, and shutting off discussion and dissent. Anyone with a shred of common sense has a legitimate right to be suspicious, and wonder what part of the plan for our micromanaged lives we are being told about. Already, some of the more radical greenies are fighting even the wind power and solar power that we are told will be part of the solution. Once group of greenies tells us that ethanol from corn is the alternative to drilling for more oil, while yet another group of greenies tells us that diverting food crops to fuel production is a potentially greater disaster (in this case, I happen to agree with the latter). There are greenies telling us that suburbs are not "sustainable" and that we must somehow be relocated into high-density apartments (funny, they used to do the same thing in East Germany). We have greenies that tell us that we shouldn't import food from other countries OR ship it long distances, that all food should be locally grown. What really bothers me is that the SAME people on the left side of the political spectrum, the ones who are always suspicious to the point of paranoia regarding the government people who dedicate their lives as moral busybodies, don't seem to have the least bit of skepticism and concern. Somebody comes along and says "There's an impending disaster. We can't conclusively prove it, and we don't really have any well-thought-out solutions, but we must silence any dissent and you all must follow without question", and people just say "OK" without any question or concern? Time for a reality check...

Recommend: (35)(31)[Report Abuse]
Comments Per Page: 10 | 20
View Page: 1234567 Next »

[jesuitsdidit]

my view

the planet may be warming
or it may be cooling (my hunch)

when you have established which
the next question is
what effect are mans actions having, if any??

if it is warming, there are many possible explanations, imo..

[jesuitsdidit]

http://science-sepp.blogspot.com/2007/12/press-release-dec-10-2007.html



Sunday, December 09, 2007
Press Release Dec 10, 2007
Press Release from
Science & Environmental Policy Project
10 December 2007

Contact: Dr S Fred Singer, President, SEPP singer@SEPP.org 703-920-2744

Climate warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence:

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant.

Climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia report that observed patterns of temperature changes (‘fingerprints’) over the last thirty years are not in accord with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability. Therefore, climate change is ‘unstoppable’ and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.

These results are in conflict with the conclusions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also with some recent research publications based on essentially the same data. However, they are supported by the results of the US-sponsored Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).

The report is published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society [DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651]. The authors are Prof. David H. Douglass (Univ. of Rochester), Prof. John R. Christy (Univ. of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson (graduate student), and Prof. S. Fred Singer (Univ. of Virginia).

The fundamental question is whether the observed warming is natural or anthropogenic (human-caused). Lead author David Douglass said: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.”

Co-author John Christy said: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”

Co-author S. Fred Singer said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals. The mechanism for producing such cyclical climate changes is still under discussion; but they are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on the earth’s atmosphere. In turn, such cosmic rays are believed to influence cloudiness and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface—and thus the climate.” Our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change. We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless. – but very costly.

[jesuitsdidit]

what he duznt mention is that CO2 always rises c.800 yrs after warming starts..

[gripit]

what he duznt mention is that CO2 always rises c.800 yrs after warming starts..

Correct, which is of course, the opposite of what the Goracle proclaims in his non-science/comedy fiction 'documentary'. Co2 levels are high now due to the Medieval Warming period, when the Vikings farmed Greenland, hence the name!

[motleyhoo]

I can easily refute the claims of the so-called "evidence" of every one of these skeptics. I'm off to work, so I'll finish up when I get back. For now I'll just say - whether or not CO2 is a pollutant is superfulous as to what its affects are on the environment in excess amounts. It is stupid and arrogant of us as human beings to believe we can do whatever we want without any adverse consequences. We cannot pump into the atmosphere in 100 years what it took the Earth millions of years to sequester under ground without seeing the effects from doing so. Common sense should tell us that without more than 2 seconds of thought.

[jesuitsdidit]

I can easily refute the claims of the so-called "evidence" of every one of these skeptics. I'm off to work, so I'll finish up when I get back. For now I'll just say - whether or not CO2 is a pollutant is superfulous as to what its affects are on the environment in excess amounts. It is stupid and arrogant of us as human beings to believe we can do whatever we want without any adverse consequences. We cannot pump into the atmosphere in 100 years what it took the Earth millions of years to sequester under ground without seeing the effects from doing so. Common sense should tell us that without more than 2 seconds of thought.

quite possibly true
but is THAT what is causing climate ch, if indeed its climate ch we have
and 2 b sure which direction is it going in??

[jesuitsdidit]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0%2C25197%2C23583376-7583%2C00.html


Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Phil Chapman | April 23, 2008

THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity.

What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot.

Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.

All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence that 2007 was exceptionally cold. It snowed in Baghdad for the first time in centuries, the winter in China was simply terrible and the extent of Antarctic sea ice in the austral winter was the greatest on record since James Cook discovered the place in 1770.

It is generally not possible to draw conclusions about climatic trends from events in a single year, so I would normally dismiss this cold snap as transient, pending what happens in the next few years.

This is where SOHO comes in. The sunspot number follows a cycle of somewhat variable length, averaging 11 years. The most recent minimum was in March last year. The new cycle, No.24, was supposed to start soon after that, with a gradual build-up in sunspot numbers.

It didn't happen. The first sunspot appeared in January this year and lasted only two days. A tiny spot appeared last Monday but vanished within 24 hours. Another little spot appeared this Monday. Pray that there will be many more, and soon.

The reason this matters is that there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and Earth's climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790.

Northern winters became ferocious: in particular, the rout of Napoleon's Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 was at least partly due to the lack of sunspots.

That the rapid temperature decline in 2007 coincided with the failure of cycle No.24 to begin on schedule is not proof of a causal connection but it is cause for concern.

It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850.

There is no doubt that the next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do. There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the US and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it.

Millions will starve if we do nothing to prepare for it (such as planning changes in agriculture to compensate), and millions more will die from cold-related diseases.

There is also another possibility, remote but much more serious. The Greenland and Antarctic ice cores and other evidence show that for the past several million years, severe glaciation has almost always afflicted our planet.

The bleak truth is that, under normal conditions, most of North America and Europe are buried under about 1.5km of ice. This bitterly frigid climate is interrupted occasionally by brief warm interglacials, typically lasting less than 10,000 years.

The interglacial we have enjoyed throughout recorded human history, called the Holocene, began 11,000 years ago, so the ice is overdue. We also know that glaciation can occur quickly: the required decline in global temperature is about 12C and it can happen in 20 years.

The next descent into an ice age is inevitable but may not happen for another 1000 years. On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027.

By then, most of the advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with a catastrophe beyond imagining.

Australia may escape total annihilation but would surely be overrun by millions of refugees. Once the glaciation starts, it will last 1000 centuries, an incomprehensible stretch of time.

If the ice age is coming, there is a small chance that we could prevent or at least delay the transition, if we are prepared to take action soon enough and on a large enough scale.

For example: We could gather all the bulldozers in the world and use them to dirty the snow in Canada and Siberia in the hope of reducing the reflectance so as to absorb more warmth from the sun.

We also may be able to release enormous floods of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) from the hydrates under the Arctic permafrost and on the continental shelves, perhaps using nuclear weapons to destabilise the deposits.

We cannot really know, but my guess is that the odds are at least 50-50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades.

The probability that we are witnessing the onset of a real ice age is much less, perhaps one in 500, but not totally negligible.

All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead.

It will be difficult for people to face the truth when their reputations, careers, government grants or hopes for social change depend on global warming, but the fate of civilisation may be at stake.

In the famous words of Oliver Cromwell, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Phil Chapman is a geophysicist and astronautical engineer who lives in San Francisco. He was the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut.

[jesuitsdidit]

http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/106922-2/
11.01.2009

Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age

The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.

Ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.

Most of the long-term climate data collected from various sources also shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles which are together known as the Milankovich cycles. The three Milankovich cycles include the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years. According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials.

Elements of the astronomical theory of Ice Age causation were first presented by the French mathematician Joseph Adhemar in 1842, it was developed further by the English prodigy Joseph Croll in 1875, and the theory was established in its present form by the Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovich in the 1920s and 30s. In 1976 the prestigious journal “Science” published a landmark paper by John Imbrie, James Hays, and Nicholas Shackleton entitled “Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages,” which described the correlation which the trio of scientist/authors had found between the climate data obtained from ocean sediment cores and the patterns of the astronomical Milankovich cycles. Since the late 1970s, the Milankovich theory has remained the predominant theory to account for Ice Age causation among climate scientists, and hence the Milankovich theory is always described in textbooks of climatology and in encyclopaedia articles about the Ice Ages.

In their 1976 paper Imbrie, Hays, and Shackleton wrote that their own climate forecasts, which were based on sea-sediment cores and the Milankovich cycles, "… must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends - and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted... the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate."

During the 1970s the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan and other scientists began promoting the theory that ‘greenhouse gasses’ such as carbon dioxide, or CO2, produced by human industries could lead to catastrophic global warming. Since the 1970s the theory of ‘anthropogenic global warming’ (AGW) has gradually become accepted as fact by most of the academic establishment, and their acceptance of AGW has inspired a global movement to encourage governments to make pivotal changes to prevent the worsening of AGW.

The central piece of evidence that is cited in support of the AGW theory is the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph which was presented by Al Gore in his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth.” The ‘hockey stick’ graph shows an acute upward spike in global temperatures which began during the 1970s and continued through the winter of 2006/07. However, this warming trend was interrupted when the winter of 2007/8 delivered the deepest snow cover to the Northern Hemisphere since 1966 and the coldest temperatures since 2001. It now appears that the current Northern Hemisphere winter of 2008/09 will probably equal or surpass the winter of 2007/08 for both snow depth and cold temperatures.

The main flaw in the AGW theory is that its proponents focus on evidence from only the past one thousand years at most, while ignoring the evidence from the past million years -- evidence which is essential for a true understanding of climatology. The data from paleoclimatology provides us with an alternative and more credible explanation for the recent global temperature spike, based on the natural cycle of Ice Age maximums and interglacials.

In 1999 the British journal “Nature” published the results of data derived from glacial ice cores collected at the Russia’s Vostok station in Antarctica during the 1990s. The Vostok ice core data includes a record of global atmospheric temperatures, atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and airborne particulates starting from 420,000 years ago and continuing through history up to our present time.

The graph of the Vostok ice core data shows that the Ice Age maximums and the warm interglacials occur within a regular cyclic pattern, the graph-line of which is similar to the rhythm of a heartbeat on an electrocardiogram tracing. The Vostok data graph also shows that changes in global CO2 levels lag behind global temperature changes by about eight hundred years. What that indicates is that global temperatures precede or cause global CO2 changes, and not the reverse. In other words, increasing atmospheric CO2 is not causing global temperature to rise; instead the natural cyclic increase in global temperature is causing global CO2 to rise.

The reason that global CO2 levels rise and fall in response to the global temperature is because cold water is capable of retaining more CO2 than warm water. That is why carbonated beverages loose their carbonation, or CO2, when stored in a warm environment. We store our carbonated soft drinks, wine, and beer in a cool place to prevent them from loosing their ‘fizz’, which is a feature of their carbonation, or CO2 content. The earth is currently warming as a result of the natural Ice Age cycle, and as the oceans get warmer, they release increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Because the release of CO2 by the warming oceans lags behind the changes in the earth’s temperature, we should expect to see global CO2 levels continue to rise for another eight hundred years after the end of the earth’s current Interglacial warm period. We should already be eight hundred years into the coming Ice Age before global CO2 levels begin to drop in response to the increased chilling of the world’s oceans.

The Vostok ice core data graph reveals that global CO2 levels regularly rose and fell in a direct response to the natural cycle of Ice Age minimums and maximums during the past four hundred and twenty thousand years. Within that natural cycle, about every 110,000 years global temperatures, followed by global CO2 levels, have peaked at approximately the same levels which they are at today.

Today we are again at the peak, and near to the end, of a warm interglacial, and the earth is now due to enter the next Ice Age. If we are lucky, we may have a few years to prepare for it. The Ice Age will return, as it always has, in its regular and natural cycle, with or without any influence from the effects of AGW.

The AGW theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.

Gregory F. Fegel

[oiram]

Why we don't believe in climate change?

1) Because the info & propaganda comes from Governments. Then it is a lie & because they try to make money from it.

2) Because the info comes from paid off Scientists

3) Because CO2 is good for plants.

4) Because it's nature

5) Because if it comes to the extreme I class my life value higher then Animal life

6 ) Because the Government could have developed free Energy & none polluting Energy for the last 100 years. But no they blocked it all the way till today. Now they try to create one more new Bailout for them self for there own gain & stupidity.

7) I presume the Chemtrails they use for the last 20 years have more negative effect on the Climate then the CO2.

8) I do agree that pollution in general should be reduced yes; but not to make profit for specific criminals interests groups.

9) Also melting Ice floating on water will not increase water levels

10) I believe the if there is warming it will be natural & is more Sun related then CO2 related.

11) Is there a Earth tilt which increases the melting in one area & maybe increase Ice in other areas.

12) If Governments & the NWO generally likes to kill Humans; why would they bother if there is a real global warming which could kill millions this should be a blessing for them so why stop it?

13) How much pollution gets created by all there world wide war equipment per year? "Maybe good to get rid of the lot" Not talking about all the waist of money, resources & murdered Human by this killing machine.

14) It's all shit & Hypocritical what they are saying

15) Most Scientists don't know shit & usually say they believe things are like this & that but believe is not knowing.

16) Scientists working for Governments & Cooperations are liars & tell you anything to make $$.

17) Follow the money & you find all answers.

18) Free none polluting Energy is everywhere; if the Earth is so much of concern to you assholes; then why not start get going to build the Free Energy items so the world population will have work in abundance. "Again you don't like it .. right!"

19) Don't systematically manipulate people into big City's & make farming attractive this will eat CO2 for breakfast & gives food in abundance. But this is not good for the control & manipulation propaganda freaks. "Right"

20) It's a hoax & scam like all else is!

Fuck off Communists & governments; Humanity has enough of all you're lies & hiding the real truth.
The biggest Pollution for Earth & Humanity are all Governments.

Religious organization creation is a inside Job
Wars are inside Jobs
9/11 & 7/7 are inside Jobs
Pirates are funded & are inside Jobs
Revolutions are inside Jobs
Moon landing was a inside Job
Economical crises is a inside Job
Global warming is a inside Job
The propaganda for 2012 & Alien invasion is a inside Job
MSM is a total inside Job & brainwashing machine

Problem Reaction Solution ...... Profit for the selected once! Governments rule Book.


.... etc

[ronisron]

I do know that Global Warming is a scam. CO 2 is not harmful to us, trees breathe it in, and produce oxygen. All plants do. The bulk of carbon dioxide is produced by volcanic and geyser activity, the bulk of methane is produced by farm animals and their waste. The activity of the sun, sunspots and solar flare activity, seem to be what affects temperature the most. During intense sunspot and solar flare activity, the earth warms. During decreased sunspot activity and sun dormancy, we have cooling trends. This activity affects all the planets, not just Earth. Overpopulation is a lie too, if the wealthy land owners would give back 2/3 of their pristine conservation lands, we could grow enough food and hemp to sustain us, and we could save the trees that absorb our CO 2 so they in turn could enrich the air that we breathe.

There is a company in the US who recently developed a way to turn plastic back into petroleum. That is great news, they could cut back on the damage drilling for oil does while proving abundant fuel to last for a while. They could also take care of that large mess of plastic currently floating in the Pacific and get rid of most of it this way. Once all the plastic is gone, stop making it altogether.

Global warming is a scam, we're about to get really cold for a while. Overpopulatrion is a lie of the elite who want to kill most of us and start all over again with a more obedient, better controlled work force of slaves from the remaining population.

[gripit]

from Professor Kunihiko Takeda, Ph.D., he is vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University and one of the world's leading authorities on both uranium enrichment and recycling.


Recycling is rubbish: It eats more energy and creates more waste than burning our garbage in high-tech incinerators. The most efficient way of getting rid of garbage is burning it all together. Why? Because in raw garbage, plastics turn into their own fuel so you don't need to add anything else. Aluminum and steel should be recycled, though, as we need less energy for that than to produce them from scratch.

[jesuitsdidit]

http://laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com/2007/03/climate-change-swindlers-and-political.html


15 March 2007
Climate Change Swindlers and the Political Agenda

What is the truth about Climate Change?

Some time ago I wrote about Climate Change as being probably the most pressing problem facing humanity today. It is so pressing that I am convinced that possibly 90% of the human race - over 6 billion people - could be at risk of certain death in the very near future - like within ten years - if this matter is not addressed adequately and appropriately very, very soon by our "glorious leaders" who seem to have little on their mind other than blowing up innocent people.

But then, that war-mongering has a hidden agenda behind it: to grab and hold resources.

But rest assured that the intent is not to grab and hold those resources for you and me; it is to get them for the "elite," that 6% of humanity that is on the top of the heap and intends to stay there regardless of the fact that those genes should never be passed on.

Well, the Climate Change Confusion factor is heating up.

Channel 4 recently broadcast a special on the "Climate Change Swindle," that was intended to "expose the myths about climate change that have been promulgated in order to hoodwink the world into accepting the man-made theory of global warming."

As far as it went, this special wasn't too bad. However, it didn't really tell the whole story which is that, yes, Climate Change is real and a serious threat, but not for the reasons given.

As it happens, one of the experts included in the presentation has now announced that he was badly mis-quoted, or quoted out of context, and he is back-pedaling like mad.

Keep in mind that this is really just a distraction, something to keep the masses busy so that they don't see the real agenda: that it is intended that they should be "left out in the cold" because they didn't act to get rid of corrupt leaders in time to do anything to prepare for what is coming.

To make the point, let's look at this little debacle a bit more closely. Expert in oceanography quoted in Channel 4's debunking of Global Warming says he was 'seriously misrepresented'

It was the television programme that set out to show that most of the world's climate scientists are misleading us when they say humanity is heating up the Earth by emitting carbon dioxide. And The Great Global Warming Swindle, screened by Channel 4 on Thursday night, convinced many viewers that it is indeed untrue that the gas is to blame for global warming.

But now the programme - and the channel - is facing a serious challenge to its own credibility after one of the most distinguished scientists that it featured said his views had been "grossly distorted" by the film, and made it clear that he believed human pollution did warm the climate.

Comment: This sentence right here is the first "twist." If the reader will go to Professor Wunsch's website and read his actual comments, they will discover that he did NOT say the "human pollution did warm the climate" in the sense that this writer is trying to convey - as if that was all there was to it.

What Dr. Wunsch actually said will be discussed further on.

Professor Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said he had been "completely misrepresented" by the programme, and "totally misled" on its content. He added that he is considering making a formal complaint.

A Channel 4 spokesman said: "The film was a polemic that drew together the well-documented views of a number of respected scientists to reach the same conclusions. This is a controversial film but we feel that it is important that all sides of the debate are aired. If one of the contributors has concerns about his contribution we will look into that."

Any complaint would provoke a crisis at Channel 4, now recovering from the Jade Goody Big Brother storm. It had to make a rare public apology after the Independent Television Commission convicted previous programmes on environmental issues by the same film-maker, Martin Durkin, of similar offences - and is already facing questions on why it accepted another programme from him.

The commission found that the editing of interviews with four contributors to a series called Against Nature had "distorted or misrepresented their known views".

Professor Wunsch said: "I am angry because they completely misrepresented me. My views were distorted by the context in which they placed them. I was misled as to what it was going to be about. I was told about six months ago that this was to be a programme about how complicated it is to understand what is going on. If they had told me even the title of the programme, I would have absolutely refused to be on it. I am the one who has been swindled."
Comment: Here we see the professor's point: that it is not so simple as being ALL human caused, nor is it totally non-human caused. His point is how COMPLICATED the subject is.

When told what the commission had found, he said: "That is what happened to me." He said he believes it is "an almost inescapable conclusion" that "if man adds excess CO2 to the atmosphere, the climate will warm".
Comment: Notice here that Prof. Wunsch is not saying that human caused CO2 is the major factor.

He went on: "The movie was terrible propaganda. It is characteristic of propaganda that you take an area where there is legitimate dispute and you claim straight out that people who disagree with you are swindlers. That is what the film does in any area where some things are subject to argument."
Comment: Notice that Prof. Wunsch is here saying that there IS legitimate dispute about what causes global warming.

Mr Durkin last night said that Professor Wunsch was "most certainly not duped into appearing into the programme" and that it "had not in any way misrepresented what he said".

Before the programme was shown, the IoS asked Channel 4 why it had commissioned another film from Mr Durkin and, further, whether it was making any special checks on its accuracy.

A spokesman said the programme made by Mr Durkin for which it had had to apologise was a decade old, adding: "We treat Martin as any other film-maker."
Comment: Now we come to the propaganda and damage control:

The cold, hard facts about global warmingWhat do most scientists believe caused global warming?
Comment: Notice how the question is phrased: using the terms "most" and "believe." The word "most" is quite misleading, though "believe" is pretty much right on; has nothing to do with facts and data.

The vast majority are convinced it is human emissions of carbon dioxide.
Comment: In fact, this is NOT true. It is an out and out lie.

It was established scientifically 180 years ago - and has never been seriously disputed - that natural levels of the gas given off by decaying vegetation and the oceans help to keep the Earth warm; without it, and other natural greenhouse gases, the planet would be some 20C colder and we would freeze.
Comment: So far, so good. But here comes the twist:

Adding even the so far relatively small amounts from human activities makes us warmer.
Comment: This is where we find the major dispute. It is clear that the amount of CO2 emissions that are produced by human beings in our time do not anywhere come close to the volumes of CO2 emissions that have been produced at other periods of history that did NOT result in Global Warming. So the human factor is very much in question.

Has the world warmed before?Yes, and big warmings over prehistoric times were not started by increasing CO2 levels; changes in solar activity are more likely.
Comment: Another twist. There is clear evidence of other warmings that were definitely related to increasing CO2 levels that were precipitated by solar activity and OTHER causes. It is disingenuous to suggest that other warmings were not related to rising CO2 levels.

Levels of the gas started rising some 800 years into the warming, but then probably reinforced it, making it bigger and longer. Temperature and CO2 are interdependent; when one goes up the other follows. This time it is different because vast amounts of the gas are being artificially put into the atmosphere by humans.
Comment: So, they clarify here, just to cover their behinds, but that doesn't excuse the preceding twist. As it happens, the current "global warming" spell is following this same pattern. Nothing new here.

What about more recent history?There was a warm period in Europe in the Middle Ages, again probably caused by solar activity, but it does not seem to have been a worldwide phenomenon, although records are scanty.
Comment: What a load of horse hockey! How easy it is to say "it doesn't appear to have been worldwide" when the records are scanty. And again notice that the cycle was related to the Sun. But NOW, of course, the determination has been made to blame it on strictly human activity no matter what, and that is what this writer seems to be doing.

So is the sun responsible now?Some sceptics say so and probably it played the major role until quite recently. But over the past three decades, solar activity has scarcely risen, while temperatures have shot up - a fact disguised in the film. What has gone up is CO2 and even top sceptic Nigel Lawson admits it is "highly likely" that the gas has "played a significant part" in global warming this century.
Comment: Notice how cleverly the writer says "Some sceptics say so" instead of saying "many EXPERTS say so" and "probably it played a major role until quite recently." What a load of hooey.

There are quite a few experts - and considerable data to back it up - who are saying that the solar activity HAS increased. To back this up, it is pointed out that nearly every other planet in our solar system is ALSO experiencing Global Warming.

So, who is swindling who?

Now, let's look at Prof. Wunsch's actual comments:Partial Response to the London Channel 4 Film "The Great Global Warming Swindle" Carl Wunsch 11 March 2007I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component.
Comment: Notice here that Prof. Wunsch says, very carefully, that Climate Change (notice he doesn't even use the term "Global Warming,") "almost surely" - that is to say, it's not a fact established by any hard data - "has a major human-induced component." That is to say, there is a lot more to Climate Change than human activity, though he BELIEVES that component might be major - "almost surely." ALMOST.

But I have tried to stay out of the "climate wars" because all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between what we know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so difficult to maintain in the presence of rhetorical excess.
Comment: Here Prof. Wunsch is making the very careful point that what scientists know firmly and what they suspect are two very different things. And indeed, the rhetoric in the media, driven by political agendas, is quite excessive, particularly relating to the human element relating to "Global Warming."

In the long run, our credibility as scientists rests on being very careful of, and protective of, our authority and expertise.
Comment: We see here that Prof. Wunsch's primary concern is his reputation among mainstream scientists. That should give us some warning...

The science of climate change remains incomplete.
Comment: You can say that again! But the rhetoric in the media, including the above article from the UK Independent debunking the debunking of Global Warming is just another case in point.

Some elements are based so firmly on well-understood principles, or on such clear observational records, that most scientists would agree that they are almost surely true (adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,...).
Comment: Notice his qualification: "most" scientists. Not all scientists. And in fact, quite often it is the scientist who goes against the "textus receptus" of the standard theory who is right.

Other elements remain more uncertain, but we as scientists in our roles as informed citizens believe society should be deeply concerned about their possibility: a mid-western US megadrought in 100 years; melting of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet, among many other examples.
Comment: Notice that he precedes the remarks about the possibilities of a megadrought in 100 years and the melting of the Greenland ice sheet with "Other elements remain more uncertain..." Next we get to the nitty gritty of his position, the one he has taken to preserve his reputation among his fellow scientists as well as the scientific thought police:

©n/a
Increased Hurricane activity is also part of "Global Warming." Hurricanes are huge machines that exchange heat and cold in our environment. An increase in heat can lead to a sudden cooling via violent storms, as the fossil record shows...

I am on record in a number of places as complaining about the over-dramatization and unwarranted extrapolation of scientific facts.
Comment: But didn't he just say that there were possibilities that were uncertain, but that he felt that, as a scientist, there should be concern about them? Doesn't he think it is possible that extrapolating "a mid-western US megadrought in 100 years; melting of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet" from the condition of Global Warming is perhaps unwarranted, especially considering the fact that the RECORD shows that every period of Global Warming was followed by a sudden and rapid Global Cooling? An Ice Age? What's wrong with THOSE facts, that specific data that is, as the good professor points out, "based so firmly on well-understood principles, or on such clear observational records"??

Thus the notion that the Gulf Stream would or could "shut off' or that with global warming Britain would go into a "new ice age" are either scientifically impossible or so unlikely as to threaten our credibility as a scientific discipline if we proclaim their reality.
Comment: And here, Prof. Wunsch demonstrates that he is either not a real scientist, considering all the data, or he is more driven by his concern for his reputation among the politically controlled scientific community than he is concerned with a real threat to humanity. Theres is certainly evidence that the Gulf Stream has shut off before, and there is evidence of sudden glacial rebound associated with this.

They also are huge distractions from more immediate and realistic threats.
Comment: Are they? Sudden Glacial Rebound seems rather immediate and realistically threatening to me and a lot of other experts.

The rest of Prof. Wunsch's complaint focus mainly on trying to get himself out of hot water with the mainstream scientific community. And here we come to just how the good Professor can be an agent for political agendas without even intending it or being conscious of it.Yesterday we carried an interesting article, How The Media and Establishment Brainwash The Public. We carried this article not because we "believe" in "creationism," but because the example of how things work is very simple and important.

Anyway, I am going to paraphrase a bit of that article for the present purpose:

There are two broad categories of theories about Climate Change: first, are those who think that Climate Change is caused by human activity. Second, are those who think that Climate Change is natural and cyclical and the cycle can be known by examination of the historical data. There are actually several different camps (i.e. different theories) within each group, and there are hybrid groups (i.e. hybrid theories), but let us assume there are only two simple groups.

To visualize the two different camps, suppose there is a large field and there is a fence that bisects the field and you are standing at one end of the fence looking down the fence. On the right side of this fence are the Human Caused Global Warming advocates (the people who make up the "establishment" and are ruled by the politics of the day because that is how they get their funding) and on the left side of this fence are the Natural cycle advocates (the people who disagree with the "establishment" point of view).

You have the choice of siding with the establishment or the renegades.

In some cases this choice could affect your job. For example, if you taught biology in a public high school, and you taught Natural Cycles in your classroom, you might lose your job.If you are only looking for the benefits, and a promotion, then there is no question as to what theory you will teach. The Human Caused Global Warming side of the fence has virtually all the benefits.

Suppose you want to know the truth (as best as you are capable of honestly determining as an "open-minded" person) - is Human Caused Global Warming (HCGW) or Natural Cycle Climate Change (NCCC) correct based on the evidence currently available?

Suppose that you decide to start your decision making journey by talking first with the HCGW crowd; because everything you have heard in school is that HCGW has been proven to be true. So you head to the right side of the fence and start talking to an HCGW advocate.

Suppose this person tells you all the reasons why Global Warming is caused by human activity. He might go into "well-understood principles", or claimed "clear observational records" and claims that "that most scientists would agree that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise, and so on.

After this conversation, you start to walk away, but the person stops you. Then this same HCGW advocate starts telling you all of the things that are wrong with the NCCC crowd. He tells you one theory after another of the NCCC group, such as their nonsense about the Gulf Stream etc, and why each theory cannot be true and what a bunch of goons they are.

After this conversation, you now feel that you understand both the HCGW's and the NCCC's theories of Climate Change. You decide it is not necessary to go to the left side of the fence and talk to a NCCC representative because you already think you understand their views and why their views are wrong.

A Common Mistake

If you made such a decision, you would be making a common mistake: you have heard both sides of the issue, but from only one person on one side of the fence. You have really only heard how the people on one side of the fence feel about the issues. But you haven't heard the arguments of the NCCC, from a NCCC expert, nor have you heard why the NCCC advocates think that the HCGW's are wrong.

There are actually four categories of the two sides (these are the four things you need to hear to make an informed decision):

1) pro-HCGW (from the HCGW side), 2) anti-NCCC (from the HCGW side), 3) pro-NCCC (from the NCCC side), 4) anti-HCGW (from the NCCC side).

In other words, from the right side of the fence you have heard the pro-Human Caused Global Warming arguments and also from the right side of the fence you have heard all of the anti-Natural Cycle Climate Change arguments. But note that you have not heard the pro-Natural Cycle Climate Change arguments, from a Natural Cycle Climate Change expert, nor have you heard the anti-Human Caused Global Warming arguments, from a Natural Cycle Climate Change expert.

You have only heard two of the four categories because you have only heard from one person who is on one side of the fence.

Do you really know both sides of the issue?

No you don't! You only know one side of the issue and two of the four categories. Until you go to the left side of the fence and hear about the pro-Natural Cycle Climate Change views, from a NCCC EXPERT, and you hear the anti-Human Caused Global Warming views, from an NCCC Expert, you don't have a basis for making an objective decision.
Comment: And what is at the root of it all?

A media that is controlled by political elements for a definite and specific agenda, and it ain't in your best interests, nor has it ever been.

Take that to the bank.
Posted by Laura Knight Jadczyk at 10:25 AM
Labels: channel 4, climate change, global warming, gulf stream
3 comments:

Richard said...

I always look foward to something new from this site! :)

Richard
6:42 AM
Rachid said...

What's the point in trying to save 6 billion people? 10,000 years of civilization have given way to the most laborious lifestyles on the planet. Human suffering has progressively increased since the Neolithic Revolution.

Screw trying to save humanity. Civilization has invested enough time and resources into exploiting the world. While the social elites reap the rewards of our culture, a majority of humanity slaves away in hopes of a better tomorrow that has yet to come.

The day global warming wipes us out is the day the planet can finally breathe again.
5:17 PM
Anonymous said...

Does anyone, scientists included, know all the facts about climate change? I very much doubt it.

The influence of the Sun on Earth's weather patterns is unknown. We simply do not know that much about the Sun.

But I strongly disagree with people who say that human pollution has no impact on the climate. Isn't that what Exxon and Ford would like us to think?

I suspect the answer is that human industrial activity is severely aggravating the solar cycle.

If the North Atlantic Conveyor (aka Gulf Stream) was to cease carrying warm water to the northern European coastal regions, then the UK for example, being at the same latitude as Alaska, would see an extraordinary shift to a sub-arctic climate.
11:53 AM

Post a Comment

[jesuitsdidit]

i think this might be msm shite

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLL657057


Growing Antarctic sea ice linked to damaged ozone
Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:57am EDT

* Ozone hole causes Antarctic sea ice to grow

* Study helps resolve global warming puzzle



By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO, April 21 (Reuters) - An expansion of sea ice around Antarctica is linked to a hole in the ozone layer high in the atmosphere, according to a study on Tuesday that helps clear up a mystery about global warming.

The findings, by scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the U.S. space agency NASA, explain an apparent contradiction between a thaw of ice in the Arctic to record lows and an increase in ice around Antarctica over the past 30 years.

"This new research helps us solve some of the puzzle of why sea ice is shrinking in some areas and growing in others," John Turner of BAS, the lead author of the report, said.

The scientists said damage by manmade chemicals to the ozone layer, which shields the planet from ultra-violet rays that can cause skin cancer, cooled the stratosphere and disrupted wind patterns around Antarctica.

The shift meant winds blew off the continent more often, cooling the sea and creating more ice, they said. Scientists found a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica in the 1980s and traced it to chemicals once used in refrigerants or hairsprays.

"While there is increasing evidence that the loss of sea ice in the Arctic has occurred due to human activity, in the Antarctic human influence through the ozone hole has had the reverse effect and resulted in more ice," Turner said.

Sea ice around Antarctica has expanded at a rate of around 100,000 sq kms (38,610 sq miles) a decade since the 1970s and covers an area of about 19 million sq kms at its winter maximum, doubling the size of the continent.



ARCTIC

By contrast, summer sea ice around the North Pole shrank in 2007 to the smallest since satellite records began in the 1970s. The U.N. Climate Panel says warming is caused by greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels that will bring more floods, heatwaves, droughts and rising sea levels.

"Although the ozone hole is in many ways holding back the effects of greenhouse gas increases on the Antarctic, this will not last, as we expect ozone levels to recover by the end of the 21st century," Turner said in a statement.

Tom Lachlan-Cope, a BAS meteorologist and one of the co-authors of the study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, said Antarctica's sea ice had expanded most in the Ross Sea, south of New Zealand.

"It's the classic way that sea ice is produced. You get an offshore wind which blows the ice away from the shore and exposes open sea water which then freezes over because of the cold air," he told Reuters.

Understanding Antarctica is a priority for scientists since it locks up enough ice to raise sea levels by 57 metres (190 ft) if it were ever to melt. Even a tiny thaw could threaten low-lying Pacific islands, or cities from New York to Beijing.

-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: blogs.reuters.com/environment/ (Editing by Farah Master)

[jesuitsdidit]

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/182386-It-s-Alternative-Media-That-s-Cooling-Global-Warming-Hysteria



It's Alternative Media That's Cooling Global Warming Hysteria


Marc Sheppard
American Thinker Blog
Sun, 19 Apr 2009 01:55 UTC

The latest Rasmussen poll reports that the lowest number of voters ever polled -- one-in-three -- believe that global warming is caused by human activity. That's an astonishing figure, especially considering the all-out green propaganda assault the mainstream media (MSM) exposes the public to on a daily basis.

After all, it's become nearly impossible to open a magazine, unfold a newspaper or turn on the television without being scolded about the selfishness of your energy consumption and the damage your unworthy existence does to the planet. And yet, Friday's Rasmussen found that forty-eight percent of all likely voters attribute climate change to long-term planetary trends, not their so-called carbon-footprint. That's up 4% in less than three months.

Aided by an all-too-eager MSM, policy makers speak of manmade climate change as "settled science" and perpetrate the lie that only a few "fringe" scientists question its tenets. Nevertheless, the latest Gallup Poll reports that 41% of Americans consider global warming to be an exaggeration. That's up 11% in just 3 years.

So despite a MSM that spoon feeds its audience the latest alarmist crap about how manmade CO2 kills polar bears, threatens coastal cities and islands, incubates all manner of pestilence and so on and so on, the number of people actually buying into their still-unsubstantiated carbo-chondria continues to shrink.

Speaking at last month's 2nd Annual International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC), a gathering of over 700 scientists, economists, and policy makers that the MSM either completely ignored or debased as the "denier's conference," James Taylor explained why. The Heartland Institute senior fellow credited talk radio, cable television, the internet, and blogs with providing information to the American public "whether the mass media wants them to have it or not."

I couldn't agree more. What's more, the availability of such information from Alternative Media sources has had a tremendous impact on public opinion.

Earlier in the conference Larry Solomon explained that polls in Canada showed that those who believe in consensus feared global warming. Yet those who have heard from skeptics EVEN ONCE do not. Quite a strong position - theirs. Any guesses why alarmists stifle dissenting opinion on the subject?

Also speaking at ICCC, Lord Monckton of Brenchley referred to alarmists as "bed-wetting moaning Minnies of the Apocalyptic Traffic-Light Tendency -- those Greens too yellow to admit they're really Reds," and then added:

"Every opinion poll--even those conducted by the bed-wetters themselves - shows that global public opinion is cooling as fast as the global climate. In one recent survey, 'global warming' came at the very bottom of a list of political and environmental concerns, immediately behind the need to clean up dog-poop on the streets. Why? Because dog-poop is a real environmental problem and 'Global warming' is not. The correct policy response to the non-problem of climate change is to have the courage to do nothing."

Indeed, the latest Gallup poll concurs. Global warming ranked last in public concern among eight specific environmental issues. Dead last. And I doubt it would have fared any better had dog crap been a menu item.

Which is exactly why the Big Green Scare Machine has shifted into overdrive. After all, the planet is cooling, not warming. IPCC models predicted 1°F warming by 2011, but there's been none since 1998, so they are well on their way to being proven completely wrong. In fact, the 1°F drop in 2008 was the largest global temperature change ever recorded. 2008 was the coolest year and March 2009 was the coolest March of the century. Meanwhile, diminished sunspot activity since 2000 and Pacific Sea Surface cooling since 2008 predict a 20-30 year global cooling due to short term Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).

But if you weren't a consumer of Alternative Media, and particularly the New Media (ezines, blogs, etc.), you wouldn't know that, would you? You'd likely continue to believe the lame MSM warnings that we're running out of time to save the planet. And given the acute rise in public skepticism that one monster of a winter energized, just imagine the panic the specter of decades of cooling stirs in those whose dreams of controlling our energy consumption - and thereby our lives -- depend entirely upon an alarmed populace.

You see, it's actually climate alarmists that are running out of time -- and they know it. Policy makers know very well that time grows short to implement their carbon control schemes. And the media face a similar problem. Sure, today NBC launches yet another of their excruciatingly silly "Green is Universal" weeks to celebrate this year's Earth Day on Wednesday. And once again they'll sully their often worthwhile conservation tips by spreading carbon phobia and climate alarmism throughout their broadcast and myriad cable networks.

But these recent public opinion shifts suggest that more and more people will be turned off by such counterfeit tactics, and will in turn turn off their TVs and head over to sites like American Thinker to immerse their minds in the MSM alternative.

The whole truth.

[jesuitsdidit]

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/182482-The-climate-sure-is-changing-when-doubt-gets-an-airing



The climate sure is changing when doubt gets an airing


Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun
Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:25 UTC

Hmm, I could be wrong. Maybe the climate is changing after all.The intellectual climate, I mean. For years it's been a social crime to doubt man is heating the world to hell. But suddenly the ice is cracking - and no, not the ice around Antarctica, which has actually grown.

Take a few signs from last week alone.

Australia's pre-eminent academic geologist, Prof Ian Plimer, published Heaven and Earth, challenging the gospel that the world is warming dangerously and that human-caused gases are to blame. In fact, says Plimer, what warming we saw until a decade ago was not unusual, not dangerous and most likely caused mainly by solar activity. What's more, temperatures now seem to be falling.

While true, this kind of talk has been enough - until recently - to get you defamed as crazy or corrupt. Only last November, Plimer had a leper's bell rung over his head when he appeared on the ABC's Lateline Business, with presenter Ticky Fullerton warning he was "a geologist, not a climatologist" who "by definition works closely with the mining industry". Cross yourselves!

(When did the ABC last warn viewers that Al Gore "is an ex-politician, not a climatologist", and Tim Flannery "is a mammal expert, not a climatologist"?)

Then came Fullerton's "how-corrupt-are-you" question: "You are a greenhouse heretic . . . Is this scepticism genuine, or it it also about economic self-interest?"

(Has the ABC asked Flannery: "Is your warming belief genuine, or is it also about the $50,000 speaking fees?")

So what's changed? Perhaps not that much, but Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan, long a warming alarmist, did last week praise Plimer's book to the cooling heavens, and confess he could have been wrong in his own warming faith.

On Wednesday, another shock. The ABC's evangelical PM program did, true, report stock predictions of doom from alarmist scientists, but not before giving air time to two sceptical ones who'd given evidence to a Senate inquiry into the Rudd Government's planned emissions trading scheme.

And so listeners heard environmental engineer Prof Stewart Franks, say the West "has been railroaded into this notion of disastrous climate change for which there is no empirical evidence". They also heard environmental geologist Prof Bob Carter warn that even if the world resumed warming, the Rudd scheme would at best cut temperatures by a thousandth of a degree, but at an insane cost.

And on Saturday came the final straw in the wind - even the ABC's AM gave Plimer an interview, albeit not without some alarmist at the end to "balance" his views as Flannery's never are. By then Plimer's publisher had already sold an extraordinary 5000 copies of Heaven and Earth in just a week to a public clearly having second thoughts about all the warming hype.

By then, too, other researchers had given yet another reason to doubt.

The University of NSW Climate Change Research Centre has now found that our Big Dry is not unusual and not caused by global warming (as the Government insists), announcing: "The causes of southeastern Australia's longest, most severe and damaging droughts have been discovered, with the surprise finding that they originate far away in the Indian Ocean.

"A team of Australian scientists has detailed for the first time how a phenomenon known as the Indian Ocean Dipole - a variable and irregular cycle of warming and cooling of ocean water - dictates whether moisture-bearing winds are carried across the southern half of Australia."

This explanation "challenges the accepted understanding of the key drivers of Australia's climate", the centre added. No kidding?

I hope the example of last week's three sceptical scientists - and of the NSW climate change researchers - inspires others to now cry that the emperor has no clothes. Or, rather, that he's wearing a jumper, it's got so cool.

You see, in just one week this month, I talked to three federal frontbenchers (two Labor), one prominent union leader and two media stars who all doubt man is warming the planet dangerously, but do not dare tell you.

Indeed, I'd now reckon a quarter of Labor's frontbenchers and more than half of the Liberals' are closet sceptics.

It is tragic that so many smart people are too scared to say what they believe, especially when it's true. I blame most our crusading don't-argue media. I wonder how much public opinion would turn against the warming scare if such sceptics came out and declared themselves. What a blow they'd strike not just for this country, but for reason.

But for now we still remain the prey of warming priests, carpet-baggers and the barking mad. The climate may be changing, but not enough for many sceptics to yet dare step outside.

[jesuitsdidit]

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/182305-Climate-change-is-a-cold-certainty



Climate change is a cold certainty


Greg Roberts
The Australian
Sat, 18 Apr 2009 04:14 UTC
© Unknown
Ice, ice and yet more ice

Russian sea captain Dimitri Zinchenko has been steering ships through the pack ice of Antarctica for three decades and is waiting to see evidence of the global warming about which he has heard so much.

Zinchenko's vessel, the Spirit of Enderby, was commissioned in January last year to retrace the steps of the great Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, marking the century of his Nimrod expedition of 1907-09.

Spirit of Enderby was blocked by a wall of pack ice at the entrance to the Ross Sea, about 400km short of Shackleton's base hut at Cape Royds. Zinchenko says it was the first time in 15 years that vessels were unable to penetrate the Ross Sea in January. The experience was consistent with his impression that pack ice is expanding, not contracting, as would be expected in a rapidly warming world. "I see just more and more ice, not less ice."

Rodney Russ, whose New Zealand company Heritage Expeditions has operated tourist expeditions to Antarctica for 20 years, agrees. He says ships regularly used to able to reach the US base of McMurdo in summer, but ice has prevented them from doing so for several years.

"Vessels are usually stopped 8km to 14km short of the base. A few years ago, that was often open water," Russ says. "We have experienced quite severe ice conditions over the past decade. I have seen nothing in this region to suggest global warming is having an effect."

Such observations are not in step with the popular perception of what global warming is doing to the polar icecaps. Reports last week that an ice bridge had snapped in west Antarctica, threatening the disintegration of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, generated international headlines. Environment Minister Peter Garrett insisted that although he had not received any scientific advice about the Wilkins break-up, he was in no doubt about the implications.

"It's a big event. There are many others that have been identified in and around the Antarctic, which I think tells us unequivocally that we're seeing climate change impacts," Garrett said.

The real story about ice and Antarctica, however, is more complicated.

With Antarctica holding 80 per cent of the world's fresh water and 90 per cent of its ice, a meltdown of the icecap would raise sea levels worldwide by a catastrophic 70m. With the depth of the icecap averaging 4km, nothing like that is on the horizon. But is there cause for concern about what is happening with the weather in Antarctica?

Climatologists say if temperatures rise by 4C to 6C by the end of the century - the upper limit predicted by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climage Change - the melting of ice sheets in west Antarctica and Greenland would raise sea levels by up to 1.5m, enough to create problems in coastal areas.

What is less certain is whether ice shelf losses in west Antarctica, such as Wilkins, are being offset by cooling conditions and ice expansion in east Antarctica, which is four times the size of west Antarctica.

Unlike the Arctic, there has been no certainty that global warming is having an effect across Antarctica, although temperatures have risen in parts of west Antarctica, especially on the Antarctic Peninsula. The peninsula is geologically more an extension of the Andes of South America than part of the Antarctic continent. The crucial distinction between west Antarctica and the much larger east Antarctica is rarely mentioned in media reports of ice shelf break-ups.

Last week, ABC1's Lateline claimed that a new report by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research predicted sea level rises of up to 6m by 2100 because of Antarctic melting, but the upper level predicted by the report was just over 1m in a worst-case scenario.

A letter published in January in the journal Nature by University of Washington climatologist Eric Steig and colleagues argues that the continent generally is feeling the global heatwave. Steig concludes that the area of west Antarctica affected by warming is larger than was thought previously, with temperatures having risen by about 1C during the past 50 years.

Last week's SCAR report points to substantial ice losses in and around west Antarctica: for instance, 28 of 36 surveyed glaciers on South Georgia Island are retreating.

However, the picture in east Antarctica, which includes the South Pole and the territory claimed by Australia, is different. Steig tells Inquirer that his study found some cooling in east Antarctica in the 1980s and '90s. He adds, however, that the evidence indicates the continent is warming overall.

"West Antarctica is warming significantly and has been for the entire 50-year period of our study. West Antarctica has been warming so much that the average over the entire continent, including east Antarctica, is significant warming."

Nonetheless, evidence supports anecdotal observations that over much of east Antarctica, the sea ice that fringes the continent, a key indicator of climate change, is becoming more extensive.

According to Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Centre research fellow Ian Allison, satellite data since the mid-'70s suggests that across the whole of the continent there has been a slight increase in sea ice.

Although sea ice had contracted in west Antarctica, the decline was more than offset by increases in the Ross Sea in east Antarctica, which has an ice shelf bigger than France.

"We have not seen any evidence over that period of a statistically significant change in sea ice for the continent generally," Allison says. He points out that the satellite data does not give an indication of how thick the ice is.

He says anecdotal evidence provided by whalers indicates their operations moved southwards towards the Antarctic coast during the '60s, suggesting a reduction in sea ice mass of about 20 per cent.

A shrinkage of about 15 per cent in sea ice in that time was reflected in core sampling in Australia's Antarctic territory, but this may not be exceptional.

"You get 10-year cycles with the level of ice going up and down, but in east Antarctica there's no indication of a long-term increase or decrease beyond the levels of natural variability," Allison says.

Glaciologists point out that the Arctic, where substantial ice losses are well documented, is fundamentally different from the Antarctic. The Arctic is essentially land-locked. The Antarctic is a continent surrounded by the Southern Ocean, which may be absorbing global heat.

The Antarctic also has an ozone hole above it, which could be acting as a pressure valve, allowing heat to escape the icecap. "It could be that when the ozone hole is fixed, there will be more warming," Allison says.

In the Arctic, polar bears are declining as ice melts, and Greenlanders farm once desolate icy wastelands, but nothing of the sort is happening in Antarctica. Data compiled by Australian Antarctic Division ice modeller Petra Heil from drilling ice shows that since the mid-'50s at Australia's Mawson and Davis Antarctic bases, there has been no reduction in the quantity of fast ice, sea ice attached to the Antarctic mainland. The thickness of ice at Davis averaged 1.67m. "There is a lot of annual variability but no significant change in either direction," Heil says.

Scientists note that stable or increased sea ice does not necessarily mean temperatures are not rising. Australian Bureau of Meteorology senior climatologist Andrew Watkins says monitoring at three sites in Australia's Antarctic territory and at Macquarie Island, Australia's sub-Antarctic territory, indicate minor warming since the mid-'50s.

Watkins points out that snowfall could be increasing in Antarctica even as temperatures rise, adding to the ice mass, and there is much uncertainty about the total volume of ice.

"My view is that there is nowhere in the world that is not being affected by climate change," Watkins says.

University of Adelaide director of climate science Barry Brook says climate modelling indicates increased precipitation over the continent, especially in east Antarctica, possibly indicating a cooling effect associated with a build-up of snow and a thickening of the ice in some areas.

Nonetheless, Brook believes the deterioration of ice conditions in west Antarctica, where calvings from Wilkins and other ice shelves are becoming more frequent, is cause for concern. In February, an iceberg 41km long and 2.5km wide broke from the Wilkins shelf.

"If the sea ice is looser because of warming, the ice shelf is destabilised and that allows the continental glaciers to push down from behind. The result is a bit like pulling the plug out of the bath. That's when sea levels can start to be affected," Brook says.

There are more localised consequences. A study published in January by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution warned that breeding colonies of emperor penguins, a species that breeds only on ice on the continent, could be doomed by global warming in west Antarctica. In Terre Adelie, the penguin colony is set to shrink from 3000 to 400 pairs by the end of the century. However, there are no indications that colonies of emperor penguins in east Antarctica are threatened.

Brook says temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula have been rising at a rate much higher than the world average, about 2.5C during the past 50 years. "The evidence is strong that we are seeing large regional shifts of ice in that part of Antarctica and that is worrying," he says.

SCAR uses modelling to predict a warming over Antarctica of up to 3C during the next century. SCAR warns that melting on the Antarctic Peninsula may be of sufficient magnitude to make a substantial contribution to global sea levels. The committee says it cannot predict how the continent's ice sheets will respond to warming but says "observed recent rapid changes give cause for concern".

Glaciologists point out that the world has seen shrinking icecaps in the past. Ice is a dynamic environment and it is not necessarily abnormal or catastrophic when ice sheets periodically lose the quantities of ice that generated last week's headlines.

On a grander scale, the globe has experienced numerous ice-sheet meltdowns prehistorically. Melting in the northern hemisphere about 18,000 years ago raised sea levels by 130m.

Ice-core drilling has suggested 40,000-year cycles of ice melting and refreezing.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf is just several hundred years old, a speck of time in the evolution of the Earth. SCAR notes in its report that predicted temperature rises in Antarctica are comparable to or slower than increases during past weather events.

For his part, pack-ice veteran Zinchenko is relaxed. "One year there is more ice than the year before and the next year there is less. The amount of ice goes up and down, up and down. That's just the way it is."

[jesuitsdidit]

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/182236-New-Milepost-for-Arctic-Sea-Ice-Extent


New Milepost for Arctic Sea Ice Extent


Steven Goddard
Watts Up With That
Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:16 UTC
Catlin Arctic Survey Team
© Catlin Survey

Two of the Arctic ice sites show April 16 ice at recent record levels. The Japanese site IJIS has a seven year April record going back to 2003, and reports 2009 levels at the highest extent on record for the date: 13,649,219 km2.
AMSRE Sea Ice Extent
© AMSRE
AMSRE Sea Ice Extent

The Danish Meteorological Institute has a five year database, and also shows April 16 ice extent as the highest in their short record.



Sea ice Extent Danish Meteorological Institute
© Danish Meteorological Institute

A plot of April 16 extent made from the IJIS database shows that mid April ice extent has made a nice recovery from the 2004 low, increasing by more than 5%.
US Sea Ice Extent database

This is probably not coincidental with the fact that since 2003, global temperatures have been declining.
Sea Ice trend
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/1249/seaicetrend.th.png (http://img4.imageshack.us/my.php?image=seaicetrend.png)


Next time Washington Post writers decide to bash George Will about ice, perhaps they should check their facts first. The comment below from that piece shows just how irrational the thinking of climate "journalism" has become.

"citing "global" sea ice statistics like that is nearly meaningless in the context of global climate change"

Why would you use "global" statistics when examining a "global" problem? What was George thinking of?

[jesuitsdidit]

this blows g/w out the water..


http://www.sott.net/articles/show/182627-Natural-Cycle-Linked-to-Past-and-Present-Global-Warming-Cycles-Earth-Now-Entering-Global-Cooling-for-the-Next-180-Years


Natural Cycle Linked to Past and Present Global Warming Cycles:
Earth Now Entering Global Cooling for the Next 180 Years



PRWeb
Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:19 UTC

New global warming research released in the book "Global Warming - Global Cooling, Natural Cause Found," can now be downloaded free. Research illustrated within the book links the Moon's recurring gravitational cycles as the primary driving force causing 2200 global warming events during the past half million years, including the earth's current warming cycle which is now ending. It also links these natural cycles to the 50 percent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels seen during the past 8 thousand years, not just the past 150 years. Due to the significance of these findings, Meteorologist and climate researcher David Dilley of Global Weather Oscillations, is now offering the book free to download on the website http://www.globalweathercycles.com. His book is written in non technical language so everyone from middle school to college professors can understand these important findings concerning the earth's natural cycles.

Mr. Dilley says the gravitational cycles act like a magnet by pulling the atmosphere's high pressure systems northward or southward by as much as 4 degrees of latitude from their normal seasonal positions, and thus causing dramatic changes within the oceans and the earth's atmosphere. With the current gravitational cycle now declining, global temperatures began cooling in 2008-09, and by around the year 2023 there will be dramatic cooling with temperatures becoming similar to those experienced in the 1800's.

David Dilley utilizes nearly a half million years of data linking very specific long term gravitational cycles of the moon as the primary cause for the present global warming, rises in carbon dioxide levels, and for 2200 global warming cycles during the past half million years. The book illustrates seven different types of recurring gravitational cycles ranging from the very warm 460,000 year cycle down to a 230 year recurring global warming cycle. All of these gravitational cycles coincide nearly 100 percent with 2200 global warming events during the past half million years. This includes the earth's current warming cycle which began around the year 1900, and the first stage of global cooling beginning in 2008-09.

The gravitational cycles are called the Primary Forcing Mechanism for Climate (PFM), and act like a magnet by pulling the atmosphere's high pressure systems northward or southward by as much as 4 degrees of latitude from their normal seasonal positions, and thus causing long-term shifts in the location of atmospheric high pressure systems.

The shifts of nearly 4 degrees of latitude, or approximately 380 kilometers (240 miles) results in an overall change in the atmospheric circulation in such a manner to cause the climate to migrate northward during global warming cycles and allow some melting of high latitude snow and ice packs, and a rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels through a very complex natural feedback system.

This natural feedback allows carbon dioxide which was being stored and trapped in high latitude vegetation, soils, tundra and colder oceans for up to several hundred thousand years, to be released naturally back into the atmosphere during global warming events.

The natural climate shifts and associated natural rises in carbon dioxide occur approximately every 230 years as a recurring gravitational cycle reaches its peak. Stronger global warmings occur with more powerful cycles every 920 years and 5000 years, with the greatest increase in global temperatures and carbon dioxide levels occurring during what are called mega cycles every 116,000 and 460,000 years.

Every 116,000 years, all but one of the seven different types of PFM gravitational cycles peak at the same time, with these simultaneous peaks causing a major shift in the earth's climate.

These 116,000 year mega global warming cycles have occurred four times during the past 360,000 years, all of which experienced a major rise in temperatures. The temperature rises were then followed by a natural rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of about 50 percent during the 10,000 year period leading up to the peak of each cycle. This same scenario is occurring during the current 116,000 year global warming cycle, which is now peaking and also experiencing a carbon dioxide increase near 50 percent.

Then every 460,000 years, all seven types of gravitational cycles peak at the same time. This has happened only twice during the past half million years. The first occurrence was 460,000 years ago, with this event causing major long term global warming with portions of the Antarctic becoming nearly void of ice. The next cycle is now occurring 460,000 years later and is again associated with major melting of the ice packs in the Polar Regions during the past 80 years. But there is good news. The gravitational cycle is now causing the earth to enter a natural global cooling phase which will last about 180 years. The ice packs and snow packs are already beginning to increase over northern latitudes, and this will continue until the next global warming cycle in about 180 years.

The release of the free book "Global Warming- Global Cooling, Natural Cause Found" culminates 19 years of research which clearly links gravitational cycles as the primary cause for cyclical fluctuations within the earth's climate. The book is available free on the website.

The author David Dilley is a meteorologist and climate researcher with Global Weather Oscillations Inc. (GWO), former meteorologist with the National Weather Service, and co-host of the radio program "the Politically Incorrect Weather Guys" airing weekly on RadioEarNetwork.com, an internet streaming radio program.

[accuracy]

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: April 23, 2009

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

The coalition was financed by fees from large corporations and trade groups representing the oil, coal and auto industries, among others. In 1997, the year an international climate agreement that came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, its budget totaled $1.68 million, according to tax records obtained by environmental groups.

Throughout the 1990s, when the coalition conducted a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign challenging the merits of an international agreement, policy makers and pundits were fiercely debating whether humans could dangerously warm the planet. Today, with general agreement on the basics of warming, the debate has largely moved on to the question of how extensively to respond to rising temperatures.

Environmentalists have long maintained that industry knew early on that the scientific evidence supported a human influence on rising temperatures, but that the evidence was ignored for the sake of companies’ fight against curbs on greenhouse gas emissions. Some environmentalists have compared the tactic to that once used by tobacco companies, which for decades insisted that the science linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer was uncertain. By questioning the science on global warming, these environmentalists say, groups like the Global Climate Coalition were able to sow enough doubt to blunt public concern about a consequential issue and delay government action.

George Monbiot, a British environmental activist and writer, said that by promoting doubt, industry had taken advantage of news media norms requiring neutral coverage of issues, just as the tobacco industry once had.

“They didn’t have to win the argument to succeed,” Mr. Monbiot said, “only to cause as much confusion as possible.”

William O’Keefe, at the time a leader of the Global Climate Coalition, said in a telephone interview that the group’s leadership had not been aware of a gap between the public campaign and the advisers’ views. Mr. O’Keefe said the coalition’s leaders had felt that the scientific uncertainty justified a cautious approach to addressing cuts in greenhouse gases.

The coalition disbanded in 2002, but some members, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute, continue to lobby against any law or treaty that would sharply curb emissions. Others, like Exxon Mobil, now recognize a human contribution to global warming and have largely dropped financial support to groups challenging the science.

Documents drawn up by the coalition’s advisers were provided to lawyers by the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, a coalition member, during the discovery process in a lawsuit that the auto industry filed in 2007 against the State of California’s efforts to limit vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions. The documents included drafts of a primer written for the coalition by its technical advisory committee, as well as minutes of the advisers’ meetings.

The documents were recently sent to The New York Times by a lawyer for environmental groups that sided with the state. The lawyer, eager to maintain a cordial relationship with the court, insisted on anonymity because the litigation is continuing.

The advisory committee was led by Leonard S. Bernstein, a chemical engineer and climate expert then at the Mobil Corporation. At the time the committee’s primer was drawn up, policy makers in the United States and abroad were arguing over the scope of the international climate-change agreement that in 1997 became the Kyoto Protocol.


The primer rejected the idea that mounting evidence already suggested that human activities were warming the climate, as a 1995 report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had concluded. (In a report in 2007, the panel concluded with near certainty that most recent warming had been caused by humans.)

Yet the primer also found unpersuasive the arguments being used by skeptics, including the possibility that temperatures were only appearing to rise because of flawed climate records.

“The contrarian theories raise interesting questions about our total understanding of climate processes, but they do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change,” the advisory committee said in the 17-page primer.

According to the minutes of an advisory committee meeting that are among the disclosed documents, the primer was approved by the coalition’s operating committee early in 1996. But the approval came only after the operating committee had asked the advisers to omit the section that rebutted the contrarian arguments.

“This idea was accepted,” the minutes said, “and that portion of the paper will be dropped.”

The primer itself was never publicly distributed.

Mr. O’Keefe, who was then chairman of the Global Climate Coalition and a senior official of the American Petroleum Institute, the lobby for oil companies, said in the phone interview that he recalled seeing parts of the primer.

But he said he was not aware of the dropped sections when a copy of the approved final draft was sent to him. He said a change of that kind would have been made by the staff before the document was brought to the board for final consideration.

“I have no idea why the section on the contrarians would have been deleted,” said Mr. O’Keefe, now chief executive of the Marshall Institute, a nonprofit research group that opposes a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

“One thing I’m absolutely certain of,” he said, “is that no member of the board of the Global Climate Coalition said, ‘We have to suppress this.’ ”

Benjamin D. Santer, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory whose work for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was challenged by the Global Climate Coalition and allied groups, said the coalition was “engaging in a full-court press at the time, trying to cast doubt on the bottom-line conclusion of the I.P.C.C.” That panel concluded in 1995 that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”

“I’m amazed and astonished,” Dr. Santer said, “that the Global Climate Coalition had in their possession scientific information that substantiated our cautious findings and then chose to suppress that information.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp