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global warming

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is getting a lot of heat these days on the claim that the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2035.

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While the information used by the IPCC is supposed to be peer-reviewed and well vetted, it turns out that this gem is derived from a magazine article in New Science several years ago that was based on a single phone call to an Indian scientist.

An IBD Editorial says:

The scientists who said that Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2035 have admitted the claim has as much credibility as sightings of the mythical Yeti. It’s their fraudulent claims that are melting away.

We hesitate to call it Glacier-gate, but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N. body tasked with scaring us to death about global warming, has admitted that the claim in its 2007 report about the Himalayan glaciers disappearing was not based on any scientific study or research. It was instead based on one scientist’s speculation in a telephone interview with a reporter.

This issue has been hitting a number of other media sites over the last week or so.

Read the rest of the  IBD Editorial at Investors.com.

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Moving on

December 14, 2009

While I’m moving on – or back – to other things, climate issues will continue to be an interest. With 5 of my last 6 posts being on the subject, it’s time to look at other things.  I’ll try to figure out a way to continue to share some of what I learn, though, without this becoming a climate change blog.

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I’m still happy with Windows 7.  My computer at work uses XP, though, and moving back and forth between Windows 7 and XP makes getting used to Windows 7 a little harder, I think.

Yes, I am still working.  A contract extension has been approved and, assuming the VP signs the funding paperwork, I will be there until about the middle of March.  After that, I plan not to work for at least the rest of 2010.

Regular visitors to Exit 78 may recognize that my theme has changed once again.  I have moved to the Thesis theme, which allows a lot more control over the appearance.  I’ve got the basic structure down pretty good now, but I’ll be tweaking on it, so there may be subtle changes day to day.

I still have a little bit of material to post from our September trip, photo galleries to develop and publish and images from the great depression to share.

Moving on.

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Scaling back a bit

December 9, 2009

Read this first:

I made a decision after my last post on Climategate that I would scale back on my interest in anthropogenic global warming.

Before the emails and documents surfaced, I already knew there were issues with the some of the scientists and their data at East Anglia.  Unfortunately, it’s likely that similar issues related to climate change exist in other places.

I am now very satisfied that my doubt in anthropogenic global warming is justified and don’t feel the need to follow what’s happening with climate change quite so closely.

I’ve already stopped my Google alert on the phrase climate change, which has significantly reduced the amount of  items that I see in my feed reader.

This is my final post on climate change for the foreseeable future and I’m sharing here just a few of the many things I’ve learned before I get back to my regular posting.

I’m not looking to try to change any one’s mind, just share what I’ve learned.  I’ll still be learning as things show up in my feed reader – I just won’t be studying as aggressively .

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Many scientists and others who are skeptical of anthropogenic global warming would like the answer to one question that, so far, has not been answered:

What evidence is there that more CO2 forces temperature up further?

While there is laboratory evidence that carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide and global temperature have both been rising, real world proof that CO2 has caused the rise in global temperature does NOT exist.

While, at times,  there appears to be a rough correlation between CO2 and global temperature, correlation does not prove causation.

Even though anthropogenic global warming is an unproven hypothesis, it is likely that some historical warming resulted from carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere by humans. However, because of the physical properties of CO2, it’s done all the warming it can do.

Predictions of rising temperatures and the dire consequences of anthropogenic global warming are based on computer climate models.  The climate models include the assumption that global temperatures will rise as CO2 continues to rise.

Over the last decade, global temperatures have leveled off while CO2 continued to rise.  Temperature is trending below all of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictions.

Joanne Nova, an Australian freelance science presenter & writer: Professional speaker, author, and former TV host, has prepared and published two excellent — and free — booklets on global warming.  The first, The Skeptics Handbook, has been translated by volunteers into many other languages, including German, French, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Turkish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Danish.

Sceptics Handbook

Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas by absorbing infrared radiation in three narrow bands of frequencies, (2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM)), meaning that most of the heat producing infrared radiation frequencies escapes absorption by CO2.

Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas by absorbing infrared radiation in three narrow bands of frequencies, (2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM)), meaning that most of the heat producing infrared radiation frequencies escapes absorption by CO2.  The main peak, 15 µM, is absorbed completely within about 10 meters of the ground meaning that there is no more to absorb.  Doubling the human contribution of CO2 would reduce this distance. Reducing the distance for absorption would not result in an increase in temperature.

imageThe sun appears to have entered a less active period and is providing less warmth to the Earth.  The sun is in an extended solar minimum that was predicted to end in March 2008, nearly 20 months ago.  Since 2004 there have been 770 days without sunspots.  A typical solar minimum averages about 485 days.  Solar magnetic activity continues to drop.

A number of scientists are projecting that global warming is over, for now, and that global average temperatures will be dropping for the next 20 to 30 years.

World temperature profile with projected cooling if sun is at the beginning of a lull in activity of historical magnitude.

“Tricks” apparently have been performed on more climate data than just the tree ring proxy information.  The figure below shows the adjustments made to the historical temperature record of Darwin, Australia.  The blue lines show the values for the original, “raw” temperature data. The red lines are the official NOAA/GHCN  ( National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — Global Historical Climate Network) data  after the values have been “homogenized” and averaged.  The black line are the values for the adjustment that was made (uses the scale on the right of the figure).

“Before getting homogenized, temperatures in Darwin were falling at 0.7 Celcius per century … but after the homogenization, they were warming at 1.2 Celcius per century. And the adjustment that they made was over two degrees per century …” – Willis Eschenbach, The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero

Before getting homogenized, temperatures in Darwin were falling at 0.7 Celcius per century … but after the homogenization, they were warming at 1.2 Celcius per century.

American climate sceptics are now demanding a thorough investigation of NASA’s earth science programme, including the possibility that instruments on its satellites have been “tweaked” to give a “correct” result, and pointing out that the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data, going back to the 1930s. The common factor between CRU East Anglia and NASA is the destruction or withholding of research models and data which, if they are reliable, should be their pride and joy – documentation that would secure these institutions’ place in history, like Einstein’s equations. Telegraph.co.uk

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“They’ve lost the raw data on which all the models, all the computer generated forecasts, the graphs and projections, are based.”

“Poor Al Gore”

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Climategate fallout

December 1, 2009

Update: Britain’s University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.

The university says Phil Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review into allegations that he worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented.

Climate politics continue to be interesting.  Australia’s opposition Liberal Party has ousted its leader, Malcolm Turnbull, after the resignation last week of several senators from their “front-seat” positions.  The Aussie government’s climate change bill is now in jeopardy, raising the potential of an early general election in 2010.

The Climategate emails and documents are being investigated by a number of organizations, including an inquiry by Penn State University, where Michael Mann, creator of the discredited hockey stick graph – used by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth – is a professor. Inquiries are also under way at the University of East Anglia, the source of the leaked material.  Government investigations are either ongoing or pending and there has been at least one civil lawsuit filed.

climategateAt a minimum, the emails document the violation of UK Freedom of Information laws.

Many believe that the leaker was not a hacker, but, rather, was an insider acting as a anonymous whistleblower by leaking the emails and documents, including information that had been unsuccessfully been sought under the UK FOI statutes.

The emails are not the only incriminating material.  Computer codes and their documentation show fudged numbers and “blatant data-cooking” that tell a story of twisting reality to a desired view.

Many of the fantastic claims in the media about climate change are likely predicated on the same sort of skewed science.

An article in the Wall Street Journal titled The Climate Science Isn’t Settled, by Richard S. Lindzen, professor of meteorology at MIT gives a more balanced view of the state of climate science.

Al Gore on Saturday Night LiveClaims that climate change is accelerating are bizarre. There is general support for the assertion that GATA has increased about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the middle of the 19th century. The quality of the data is poor, though, and because the changes are small, it is easy to nudge such data a few tenths of a degree in any direction. Several of the emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have caused such a public ruckus dealt with how to do this so as to maximize apparent changes.

While I have been skeptical of global warming claims for quite some time, this Climategate fiasco appears to show  a conspiracy to doctor the evidence.

In my interest in climate change, I wasn’t looking for a conspiracy, just the truth.

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Climategate update

November 22, 2009

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Click on any of the images to go to the associated webpage.

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While I have spent a bit of time reading some of the emails that were leaked earlier the week, I simply do not have the time – or desire – to delve deeply into the files.  There are many others around the world digging into this.

I think that there have been serious consequences that have resulted from the actions of some of the scientists whose correspondence has been leaked.  In their zeal to “prove” — at all costs — CO2 as the cause of anthropogenic global warming, other potential causes have been marginalized.  Evidence is mounting that changes in land use may have a significantly greater impact on climate change than rising CO2.  If true, mitigation and adaptation to successfully address human impacts on climate could be done at a fraction of the cost of  the drastic actions and expenses that are being called for today.  It may be that efforts could have been started a decade ago, but for an obsession on CO2 as the global warming culprit.

On Examiner.com, Thomas Fuller is writing a series of articles regarding the actions and communications of a group of climate scientists and paleoclimatologists known as The Team. Click here to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 , Part 6, and Part 7.

My first post on this was Climategate.

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Climategate

November 21, 2009

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While I haven’t blogged about it for a while, I read material related to global warming climate change every day, so it was with great interest yesterday morning that I read of the release of allegedly stolen anthropogenic global warming climate change correspondence.

I had woken early for some reason and was unable to get back to sleep.  By 4:30, I was up and checking email, blogs and the news-feeds that I subscribe to.

A little over an hour later, I was downloading the files.

It’s going to be interesting to see where this is going to end up.  Articles are already appearing in the mainstream media.

See new article: Climategate update.

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700 blank days and counting

August 27, 2009

The Sun has Lost it’s Spots (continued)

Today, it reached a count of 700 days.

On average, a solar minimum has 485 days where the surface of the sun is blank, with no sunspots appearing.  The solar minimum is the period in a sunspot cycle where the number of observed sunspots  is at its lowest. Sunspot cycles  average 11 years from beginning of minimum through maximum and back to the beginning of the next minimum.

sunspot free - august 27 2009

The current solar minimum began in 2004 and was predicted to end late in 2007.

Since the minimum began, there have been 700 days with no sunspots.

The last observed sunspot disappeared 47 days ago.  If there are no sunspots by this time next week, this will have been the longest period without any sunspots during this minimum.

Long solar minimums have been observed in the past. However, this is the first long minimum where we have had sensitive instruments that can monitor the sun.

The jury is still out on the meaning of this extended minimum.

Advocates of the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming discount any significant change in the energy received from the sun.  Others, however, point to previous periods of low sunspot and solar activity, which, by chance, happened to roughly correspond to the cold times of the Little Ice Age and the Dark Ages.

(to be continued in about a month or so)

Note: Previous posts on the sun were The Sun Has Lost Its Spots (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) and The Sun Has Found Some Spots. I will be posting a continuation update about monthly.)

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Peter Sissons, a veteran British newsman, left BBC’s Television Centre for the last time in June, without a “pang of regret.”

In The Mail of Sunday, July 15th,  he launched a blistering attack on the BBC, claiming standards have dropped and producers are too concerned about being politically correct to do anything about it.

His article was an interesting read and, given my growing disillusion over the news media and what I believe to be a misrepresentation of the facts on climate change, I was particularly interested in the part of the article that talked about the BBC position on global warming.

Mr. Sissons writes:

Sissons_PeterOn a wintry Saturday last December, there was what was billed as a major climate change rally in London.

The leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas, went into the Westminster studio to be interviewed by me on the BBC News channel. She clearly expected what I call a ‘free hit’; to be allowed to voice her views without being challenged on them.

I pointed out to her that the climate didn’t seem to be playing ball at the moment. We were having a particularly cold winter, even though carbon emissions were increasing. Indeed, there had been no warming for ten years, contradicting all the alarming computer predictions.

Well, she was outraged. I don’t have the actual transcript, but Miss Lucas told me angrily that it was disgraceful that the BBC – the BBC! – should be giving any kind of publicity to those sort of views.

I believe I am one of a tiny number of BBC interviewers who have so much as raised the possibility that there is another side to the debate on climate change.

The Corporation’s most famous interrogators invariably begin by accepting that ‘the science is settled’, when there are countless reputable scientists and climatologists producing work that says it isn’t.

But it is effectively BBC policy, enthusiastically carried out by the BBC environment correspondents, that those views should not be heard – witness the BBC statement last year that ‘BBC News currently takes the view that their reporting needs to be calibrated to take into account the scientific consensus that global warming is man-made’.

Politically the argument may be settled, but any inquisitive journalist can find ample evidence that scientifically it is not.

I was not proud to be working for an organisation with a corporate mind so closed on such an important issue. Disquiet over my interview with Miss Lucas, incidentally, went right to the top at the BBC although, naturally, they never sought to discuss it with me.

For me, this is not an issue about the climate, it is an issue about the duty of the journalist.

I suspect the policy of most major media outlets on climate change is similar to the BBC’s.

day 61

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Sunspot 1024, July 7, 2009

Sunspot 1024, July 7, 2009

Spot-free, July 27, 2009

Spot-free, July 27, 2009

In the first week of July, many observers thought that the long blank solar minimum was coming to an end when a large cycle 24 sunspot group developed.  However, after several days, it was fading away to nothing as the sun’s surface rotated it over the horizon.

Since then, the sun has gone back to being sunspot free, other than a brief period when it appeared that an old cycle sunspot — cycle 23 — was trying to develop. However, except perhaps briefly, it wasn’t observed on visible light images of the sun and, thus, was not counted as an actual sunspot.

Spotless Days

The current stretch of spotless days is 17.

The sun has been spotless just over ¾ of the year to date.  (159 days, 76%)

The sun has been spotless 670 days since the beginning of the current solar minimum in 2004.

In a typical solar minimum, there are about 485 spotless days.

What does it mean?

It depends on who you ask.

Some think that the lack of sunspots is indicative of a quiet sun and a cooling period that may last for 20 to 30 years or more.

Others say that the reduction of the energy from the sun during a solar minimum is only 0.1% and that it will have no impact on the warming of the earth that is taking place.

Time will tell.

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