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Whether it’s weather or climate – it’s all in the accuracy of the models and the accuracy model assumptions and data that the models are fed.
If the assumptions and/or data are off, what can be said about the results?
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July 25, 2010, Arco, Idaho
After a day trip with crystal clear skies for most of the day, it turned cloudy and very blustery as we were getting back to the campground. 
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This panorama is a composite of several images.
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Gallery: Dane County Farmers’ Market on the Square – Madison, Wisconsin, September 13 and 20, 2008, on the streets around the state capitol building
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Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, September 13, 2009
The mountain on the horizon is said to resemble a man laying on his back with his arms crossed on his chest. Its name is Sleeping Ute Mountain.
While it was pretty dry during our visit to Mesa Verde — there was a fire ban and no campfires allowed — there was a daily threat of rain. We did get rain one day, but it lasted only a short period. Dry conditions are normal here and there is evidence all over the park of numerous fires that have occurred over a long period.
The Knife Edge Trail is a 2 mile round trip walk along the north rim of Mesa Verde National Park. It takes about l 1/2 to 2 hours to walk the trail.
Historically, part of the Knife Edge Trail follows a section of the Knife Edge Road built in 1914 as the main access into the park. Along the trail you may see patches of asphalt that remain from this road. Old-timers still proudly talk about what a feat it was to build, or “hang,” a road on this steep bluff. Users recall it with a bit of dread because of its narrowness, the unexpected rock slides and its slippery ruts.
Gallery: Cliff Palace and More — September 13, 2009, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado
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Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado, August 24, 2004
Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument is a national monument noted for its fossils in Teller County, Colorado, United States. It is located in a mountain valley just west of Pikes Peak and holds spectacular remnants of prehistoric life. (Wikipedia)
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See more of our Image Galleries at Haw Creek.
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Old Colorado City, Colorado Springs, August 22, 2004
There was some sort of festival in progress, including vintage cars, the day that we visited Old Colorado City, along with dark skies and a storm brewing up over by Pikes Peak.
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See more of our Image Galleries at Haw Creek.
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We’ve been watching this storm system move our way all week – and we’ve been getting ready for it.
Yesterday, the weather forecast was that we could get as a .75 inch coating of ice on trees and power lines – enough ice to be disastrous.
Fortunately, though, the ice here didn’t get more than a quarter of an inch. Fortunately, the freezing rain changed to sleet and, later, snow.
It was enough, though, that we didn’t venture out all day – no need. We’ve got about 4 inches of snow on top of the ice.
We were ready, though, just in case.
One of the first things I did was to move the motorhome between the house and the shop. The area where it is normally parked is next to and under several large pines. After our close call last year, when an ice storm dropped branches, power lines and even whole trees not too far north of us, we decided that we would move it to a safer location if another ice storm was forecast for our area.
We also made sure we had enough groceries, which we did.
Just in case we lost power like we did last year, I had topped off the fuel tank in the motorhome. I also moved our other smaller generator up to the front porch and made sure I found the cords for running power to the refrigerator, fireplace blower, computers and TV.
Despite the winter weather we’ve had this year, we haven’t lost power this season – yet!
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… more than a tad unusual lately, here in Arkansas, as I’m sure it seems to people in a lot of other places.
But, the weather for the next week is…, well…, ah…, it’s Winter!
It’s winter like winter was when I was a kid growing up in Nebraska. It’s cold – and it’s staying cold.
And it’s doing it in a lot of places other than Arkansas.
Something called the Arctic Oscillation has gone into a deep negative phase, where atmospheric pressure in the Arctic is relatively high, while pressure is low in the middle latitudes. In the negative phase, frigid winter weather extends further into the middle of North America than usual.
Hopefully, this thing will moderate soon – but I’m not counting on it.
How’s the weather where you are?
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April, 1935
Prowers County, Colorado.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8e03000
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Scaling back a bit
December 9, 2009
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:
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.
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.
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.
“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
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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