'An Upper Layer Of Earth's Atmosphere Has Collapsed' [Archive]

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Panther_99FS

July 18th, 2010, 17:45

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0715/Earth-s-upper-atmosphere-collapses.-Nobody-knows-why

Lionheart

July 18th, 2010, 17:49

Thats wild. Almost scary.

I guess its sort of like the lunar tide with the ocean.

Bill

Ken Stallings

July 18th, 2010, 18:22

cheezyflier

July 18th, 2010, 18:47

i would like to hear what other sources have to say on the subject.
there are often times when the CSM makes some rather dubious statements, and i don't really have alot of confidence in their journalism.

PeteHam

July 18th, 2010, 21:45

Quixoticish

July 18th, 2010, 23:24

Perhaps it is time science agrees again -- as it used to -- that there are things they do not understand and simply leave it at that vice try to insert a theory with grossly insufficient knowledge to make the theory reasonable.

Ken

I find the idea of throwing your hands up and saying "sorry folks, we just don't understand, that's it" rather boggling to be completely honest. What's wrong with saying "we don't understand, but we're going to work hard to find out."?

I'm eternally grateful that humanity in general seems more driven than this and everyone from scientists to explorers are always striving for answers, be it what lies over the next hill or what the fundamental processes that drive our universe are. Without that drive for knowledge we'd still be living in caves and bashing one another over the head with rocks.

Also, be wary of putting any faith in how the media reports science. They tend to have no idea what the gist of the story really is or what the research is for or even what exactly it pertains to, they have a nasty habit of spinning these "scientists say" type of stories that only cheapen the subject in general and don't report anything that even remotely resembles a fact.

kilo delta

July 19th, 2010, 05:36

Chicken Little was right....the sky really IS falling!

http://agyapw.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/chicken_little.jpg

:)

b52bob

July 19th, 2010, 08:28

2012?

GT182

July 19th, 2010, 10:31

Could this be another ploy by Al Gore? :rolleyes:

Eoraptor1

July 19th, 2010, 10:31

I find the idea of throwing your hands up and saying "sorry folks, we just don't understand, that's it" rather boggling to be completely honest. What's wrong with saying "we don't understand, but we're going to work hard to find out."?

I'm eternally grateful that humanity in general seems more driven than this and everyone from scientists to explorers are always striving for answers, be it what lies over the next hill or what the fundamental processes that drive our universe are. Without that drive for knowledge we'd still be living in caves and bashing one another over the head with rocks.

Also, be wary of putting any faith in how the media reports science. They tend to have no idea what the gist of the story really is or what the research is for or even what exactly it pertains to, they have a nasty habit of spinning these "scientists say" type of stories that only cheapen the subject in general and don't report anything that even remotely resembles a fact.

I get really frustrated at the number of people I meet with post-graduate degrees who don't know what scientific method even is. I was taught that in middle school. I also meet quite a few very intelligent people who really don't know the difference between a scientific theory and the word 'theory' as used in common parlance. They have no idea as to the process. I am similarly leery as to how the media reports science; in what little discussion their is, I see a lot of confirmation bias. The various networks know through their market research who their audience is, and what they want to hear about the world. That is how they make their money.

Now, the reason this matters to me is that we have some VERY heavy scientific issues coming to fruition, that we'd BETTER get a handle on, before the next generation of political demogogues do it for us. I honestly believe that I'll see in my lifetime attempts to privatize segments of the human geome. To understand the ethical implications of that, you really need to have some idea of what a geome is.

JAMES

Naismith

July 19th, 2010, 10:35

Decided against posting

Toastmaker

July 19th, 2010, 10:58

I think you mean "genome" - and it would be the modern day version of human ownership - Slavery from inception.

:running:

Bjoern

July 19th, 2010, 11:44

Even the sun had to battle the big recession of 2008/2009, I guess...

cheezyflier

July 19th, 2010, 12:00

I think you mean "genome" - and it would be the modern day version of human ownership - Slavery from inception.

:running:

it would be much deeper than mere slavery. crichton did a book on that very topic. i thought the premise was much scarier than the action in the book. and in my mind, the idea of lawyers trying to write laws about things they have no real understanding of is just as scary.

tbo though, i believe there are older issues that we don't have a handle on yet that are far more dangerous. for example we still don't have a thorough understanding of filoviruses like marberg and ebola, or even the functions of some the proteins found in them. it only takes one dedicated terrorist to travel to zaire, find a way to get infected, and, while spreading the disease on airliners as he flies off to his cohorts, delivers his blood to a lab allowing them the use of the deadliest virus known to man.

Eoraptor1

July 19th, 2010, 12:12

I think you mean "genome" - and it would be the modern day version of human ownership - Slavery from inception.

:running:
You're right, Toastmaker. I misspelled it. Keep correcting me; my spelling is notoriously suspect, especially when I'm in a rush.

JAMES

Bjoern

July 19th, 2010, 12:45

it only takes one dedicated terrorist to travel to zaire, find a way to get infected, and, while spreading the disease on airliners as he flies off to his cohorts, delivers his blood to a lab allowing them the use of the deadliest virus known to man.

Wasn't that a Clancy novel? *Scratches head*

Oh, wait no...it was just an accident there.

Ebola or any other diseases don't strike me as the most feasible tool to cause panic and deaths all around. The medical system in industrialized countries is simply too good to prevent any epidemics of epic proportions. Diseases also fairly hard to handle and getting them to their destination is also risky.

Rather just blow something up then. No, not with a nuclear device. It's next to impossible to get your hands on one.

Blackbird686

July 19th, 2010, 13:32

2012?

Hmmm. Here's another "end of the world" contingency to deal with altogether. Does anyone out there anywhere have any scientific proof that on December 21st, 2012, all of the planets in our solar system be in perfect alignment? And if so, how does one justify that the sole premise of this event marks the actual "End of Days"? :pop4:

I'm not saying that it won't happen... maybe b52bob has made a psychic connection here and that he is on to something. Maybe this "collapse" in the atmosphere is indeed a precursor of things to come...

BB686:USA-flag:

Wing_Z

July 19th, 2010, 13:48

...I honestly believe that I'll see in my lifetime attempts to privatize segments of the human ge(n)ome...
James you are too pessimistic:
There are already 4 million US patents in force on human genome sequences (almost as many as all other patents put together).

Having basic knowledge in private hands can skew the outcomes. For example, most gene therapy products are being designed to be administered repeatedly rather than as one-time cures (This is clearly better for business). The pharm companies can do this because they own the rights to the basic science. Anybody coming up with a one-time cure will hit a legal wall.

Climate Science is subject to similar agendas... the only real defence is to back public spending on basic science to prevent it being highjacked.

deathfromafar

July 19th, 2010, 14:02

So far, we're still here and still breathing normally. Guess it's not too big a deal

Bjoern

July 19th, 2010, 16:14

The pharm companies can do this because they own the rights to the basic science. Anybody coming up with a one-time cure will hit a legal wall.

Solution: Guerilla genetic treatment! Heck yeah!

Eoraptor1

July 19th, 2010, 17:30

James you are too pessimistic:
There are already 4 million US patents in force on human genome sequences (almost as many as all other patents put together).

Having basic knowledge in private hands can skew the outcomes. For example, most gene therapy products are being designed to be administered repeatedly rather than as one-time cures (This is clearly better for business). The pharm companies can do this because they own the rights to the basic science. Anybody coming up with a one-time cure will hit a legal wall.

Climate Science is subject to similar agendas... the only real defence is to back public spending on basic science to prevent it being highjacked.

I'd be very interested to know where that four million figure came from, Wing Z. It would fit in to some other things I'm doing. If you could shoot me a link I'd really appreciate it.

JAMES

Wing_Z

July 19th, 2010, 17:43

Oops I thought it was common knowledge.... :d
Hang on, here's one that looks fairly respectable:
http://www.hgalert.org/topics/lifePatents/patent.htm

GT182

July 20th, 2010, 04:59

The thermosphere is supposed to contract and expand due to solar activity. This is the worst in 43 years due to increased levels CO2? Then stop cutting down more of the rainforest. It's a no brainer.

CybrSlydr

July 20th, 2010, 05:09

Perhaps it is time science agrees again -- as it used to -- that there are things they do not understand and simply leave it at that vice try to insert a theory with grossly insufficient knowledge to make the theory reasonable.

Ken

Sorry Ken, I cannot agree with that. The idea that, "Well, we don't know how or why it happens, so let's just leave it at that" is unacceptable.

The whole idea of science is to discuss, investigate and learn how and why things happen.

More study is needed, not a hands-off, we just don't know why approach.

java2srv

July 20th, 2010, 05:35

Reread Ken's post.

Put the focus on avoiding forcing an explanation onto a phenomena when a good rigorous explanation can't be found.

I don't get the sense that current scientific practice employs the same rigor that engineering or even farming are compelled to observe. A error in engineering design for an aerospace vehicle will be rewarded with disastrous consequence. Sloppy integrated circuit design will lead to failed electronics devices. Bad crop genetics leads to failed corn or wheat crop.

The "applied" fields face direct, immediate and possibly dire consequences when they take shortcuts.

Contemporary science on the other hand appears like they feel compelled to provide explanations even when they'd be more accurate to say that there's not a good reason at this time.

Sorry, modern "Science" has been provided the technological tools to measure phenomena for which they have no adequate, full, and rigorous explanation. More honest for the scientific community to cop to it and say so.

My 2 cents.

Eoraptor1

July 20th, 2010, 07:29

Oops I thought it was common knowledge.... :d
Hang on, here's one that looks fairly respectable:
http://www.hgalert.org/topics/lifePatents/patent.htm

Thank you for the link.

JAMES

Eoraptor1

July 20th, 2010, 07:42

Reread Ken's post.

Put the focus on avoiding forcing an explanation onto a phenomena when a good rigorous explanation can't be found.

It's the "can't" in this sentence that I find dodgy. There's "can't be found," and then there's "can't be found yet," or "can be found but won't get funded," or "can be found but people [for their own reasons] don't like what might be found, so claim it can't be found." A concept I'm really interested in is that of fact rejection, essentially why do people embrace some things as factual and dismiss others. I'm certain everyone does a certain amount of reality shopping; IMO that's just human nature, but that's all I'm prepared to say at this time.

JAMES

CybrSlydr

July 20th, 2010, 07:52

It's the "can't" in this sentence that I find dodgy. There's "can't be found," and then there's "can't be found yet," or "can be found but won't get funded," or "can be found but people [for their own reasons] don't like what might be found, so claim it can't be found." A concept I'm really interested in is that of fact rejection, essentially why do people embrace some things as factual and dismiss others. I'm certain everyone does a certain amount of reality shopping; IMO that's just human nature, but that's all I'm prepared to say at this time.

JAMES

Thanks James - glad you saw it the same way. :)

cheezyflier

July 20th, 2010, 10:37

I'm certain everyone does a certain amount of reality shopping;

man, you aint just whistlin dixie! prolly a big factor as to why the internet reads more like
the weekly world news than the depository of knowledge it claims to be

Toastmaker

July 20th, 2010, 12:05

Ken Stallings

July 20th, 2010, 18:58

Sorry Ken, I cannot agree with that. The idea that, "Well, we don't know how or why it happens, so let's just leave it at that" is unacceptable.

The whole idea of science is to discuss, investigate and learn how and why things happen.

More study is needed, not a hands-off, we just don't know why approach.

I think you misunderstood what I wrote.

I never advocated a "hand's off approach," nor do I say science should not investigate, measure, experiment, and report findings.

What I am saying is that science should get back to the conservative scientific methods which ensured no theories were discussed in the public until the weight of scientific discovery supported the statements.

Ken

jhefner

July 21st, 2010, 08:39

I think you misunderstood what I wrote.

I never advocated a "hand's off approach," nor do I say science should not investigate, measure, experiment, and report findings.

What I am saying is that science should get back to the conservative scientific methods which ensured no theories were discussed in the public until the weight of scientific discovery supported the statements.

Ken

Absolutely. And cherry-picking temperature data, then feeding it into a computer program that has data embedded in the code to obtain the desired results, is not valid evidence to support a theory.

I was watching some of the Cosmos series with the late Carl Sagan on youtube recently. It was a re-release of the original series, with updates or prologs by Sagan. In one of the episodes, he states that global warming was confirmed by computer programs which were able to correctly predict the climate on other planets. Yeah, whatever.... :wiggle:

-James

CybrSlydr

July 21st, 2010, 09:36

Ghostrider

July 21st, 2010, 15:08

I get really frustrated at the number of people I meet with post-graduate degrees who don't know what scientific method even is. I was taught that in middle school. I also meet quite a few very intelligent people who really don't know the difference between a scientific theory and the word 'theory' as used in common parlance. They have no idea as to the process. I am similarly leery as to how the media reports science; in what little discussion their is, I see a lot of confirmation bias. The various networks know through their market research who their audience is, and what they want to hear about the world. That is how they make their money.

Now, the reason this matters to me is that we have some VERY heavy scientific issues coming to fruition, that we'd BETTER get a handle on, before the next generation of political demogogues do it for us. I honestly believe that I'll see in my lifetime attempts to privatize segments of the human geome. To understand the ethical implications of that, you really need to have some idea of what a geome is.

JAMES

Amen Brother. Evolution, Global warming, they're "just theories". So is Gravity. But I wouldn't bet against it.

CybrSlydr

July 21st, 2010, 15:15

Not really sure I'm completely understanding what you're saying IRT evolution (fact) and global warming (depends on who you talk to/who's koolaid you drink), Ghostrider, but what James is posting is really spot on.

Ghostrider

July 21st, 2010, 15:26

The point of my post is that all three of those "theories", and yes, they are all theories - evolution, global warming, and universal gravitational attraction, are theories which have been proven to a degree that the likelihood of their being wrong approaches zero. Notice I said approaches zero. Those discussions are too complex to ever be completely proven beyond any shadow of doubt in anyone's mind, so technically, they remain "theories". Theories which are accepted as fact by the mainstream scientific community, and most people who do not have a problem with reality.

People who are not scientifically trained will throw out the word "theory" like it just means someone's unproven idea, or guess. "It's just a theory!" They exclaim. "It hasn't been proven!"

Hence, my statement - "Gravity's just a theory too, but I wouldn't bet against it."

CybrSlydr

July 21st, 2010, 15:28

The point of my post is that all three of those "theories", and yes, they are all theories - evolution, global warming, and universal gravitational attraction, are theories which have been proven to a degree that the likeliehood of their being wrong approaches zero. Notice I said approaches zero. Those discussions are too complex to ever be completely proven beyond any shadow of doubt in anyone's mind, so technically, they remain "theories". Theories which are accepted as fact by the mainstream scientific community, and most people who do not have a problem with reality.

People who are not scientifically trained will throw out the word "theory" like it just means someone's unproven idea, or guess. "It's just a theory!" They exclaim. "It hasn't been proven!"

Hence, my statement - "Gravity's just a theory too, but I wouldn't bet against it."

Ok - thanks for the clarification. :)

Ghostrider

July 21st, 2010, 15:31

I think you misunderstood what I wrote.

What I am saying is that science should get back to the conservative scientific methods which ensured no theories were discussed in the public until the weight of scientific discovery supported the statements.

Ken

This is an unfortunate result of our connected, media driven, information saturated society. Science can become politicized. And when science collides with people making money, they don't want to hear it. For the most part, they only want to hear about new ways to make money for themselves. Sad commentary on our species.

Ghostrider

July 21st, 2010, 15:33

Ok - thanks for the clarification. :)

:ernae:

GT182

July 21st, 2010, 17:59

Ghostrider

July 21st, 2010, 18:32

I do believe gravity is a theory. In part from the fact that I've seen a ball roll uphill from a dead stop. Also I have seen water flow up hill.... and not because of the force of it flowing downhill either. All the while this was happening, everyone observing was leaning in the same direction so as not to fall down.

These are optical illusions, or tricks. We've all been to the funhouses where these things are done. I've seen a river in the mountains you'd swear was running uphill. Only because of the relative slope of the road you're standing on, and that of the river. It's a whole lot more likely that your mind or your eyes have been tricked than the physical laws of the universe being suddenly suspended in one small area - think about it.

Ken Stallings

July 21st, 2010, 19:07

Actually, is not gravity officially considered a scientific law now?

In science, a law is the highest order of knowledge in terms of acceptance.

Cheers,

Ken

EasyEd

July 21st, 2010, 21:19

Hey All,

Been ignoring this thread but must comment. With respect to climate change I suggest that folks consider this site from the American Institute of Physics for an outstanding discussion of climate change history. The parts on history and Impacts are especially worth reading.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm

The implications about "cooked data" and such are simply wrong as none of the "climategate" accusations have any merit as shown by investigations in Britain, Penn State who conducted two investigations and the National Academy of Sciences. For example the substitution of real world data for proxy data (supposedly to cover up the trend) were completely scientifically justified - all anyone ever has to do is read the original research and the followup research on the Bristlecone pine data set on which it was based.

The bigger problem is the politicizing the process of science especially when you may not like the implications of what it is telling you.

As we move forward in time I think humanity will have to operate on more and more "partial evidence" to deal with especially knotty problems. We simply will not have the time to wait for the final dotted i and crossed t proof and then argue about what to do - especially when the whole earth is the "experiment". I think scientists have a duty to report their findings and interpretations and that is what these scientists are doing. I commend them as well as those qualified scientists who question them.

-Ed-

luckydog

July 21st, 2010, 22:30

PRB

July 22nd, 2010, 04:34

The arrogance of mankind is truly astounding !!

To think that the miniscule amounts of CO2 that humans are injecting into a chaotic atmosphere
contibutes to "global warming" is ignorance beyond belief....

A perfect example of an emotional and political reaction to a scientific question. I think that's what EasyEd meant... :icon_lol: Whether or not humans are contributing to global warming is inconclusive, not “beyond belief”.

CybrSlydr

July 22nd, 2010, 05:02

As we move forward in time I think humanity will have to operate on more and more "partial evidence" to deal with especially knotty problems. We simply will not have the time to wait for the final dotted i and crossed t proof and then argue about what to do - especially when the whole earth is the "experiment". I think scientists have a duty to report their findings and interpretations and that is what these scientists are doing. I commend them as well as those qualified scientists who question them.

Yes, going about things half-cocked and without truly understanding the implications of our actions to fix a problem is exactly what we need to do.

No way that'll make the problem worse. Nope, none at all.

jhefner

July 22nd, 2010, 14:53

The implications about "cooked data" and such are simply wrong as none of the "climategate" accusations have any merit as shown by investigations in Britain, Penn State who conducted two investigations and the National Academy of Sciences. For example the substitution of real world data for proxy data (supposedly to cover up the trend) were completely scientifically justified - all anyone ever has to do is read the original research and the followup research on the Bristlecone pine data set on which it was based.

If nothing else, the following proves that

A. The global warming science has become too politicized, with universities chasing after multimillion dollar grants, and politicians forwarded their agendas based on it.

B. Going forward "half cocked", as proposed above does not help your cause when it turns out you were wrong.

C. And there is still more we cannot quantify and explain than we can. Most computer models treat the Earth as a "black box" in space. But that is flawed, because it leaves out the biggest heat source of all - the sun. And we know that the sun goes through periods of sunspot activity, which in turn affects the amount of heat and energy in the form or radiation we recieve. Looking at space as being a "black box" conveniently takes the sun out of the picture.

So, right away, any sort of global modeling (whether the simple "ball in a blanket" model or more complex computer models) leave out both the major sources of heat, and the major greenhouse gas - water vapor.

Before imposing any sort of legislation on greenhouse gases; you need to determine if man is or will have an effect on the temperature of the atmosphere of the earth. But, how can you determine that with any certainty if you are ignoring the sun and water vapor in the atmosphere? And if you don't know or can't prove it, why bother?

There is also another heat sink to consider -- the world's oceans. Even if we managed to raise the temperature of the atmosphere, some of that added heat will find it's way into the world's oceans, both through convection and water cycle. Surely even you can see that the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of both the atmosphere and oceans is more than man can ever hope to generate.

We know that there are greater sources of both heat and greenhouse gases than us -- volcanoes. We also know that the earth has been more active in regards to volcanic activity in the past. Why did they not turn the earth into Venus back then?

Finally, in terms of modeling and predicting current and future temperature patterns, we need to have an accurate measurement of the world's temperatures. But, we don't even have that; as the below article shows (and has been mentioned elsewhere)

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/ ... latestnews (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/02/archaic-weather-network-run-with-volunteers/?test=latestnews)

Couple this with the fact that it was admitted by one of the chief scienctists that it was warmer in medival times than it is now; and the evidence is not there. I have no problem with further research; but so far, every legislation that has been proposed has been more of a wealth transfer than an attempt to solve the problem; the participants in the last conference in Copenhagen basically admitted to that. It is ridiculous to propose such economically crippling laws based on such flimsy data. And with China and India refusing the participate, it was a recipe for turning us into a third world country after these two growing superpowers.

When we had droughts in the past few years; that was blamed on global warming. Last winter, when we were being buried under snowfall, that is also being blamed on global warming. Some scienctists are saying that it never should have been called global warming in the first place, but "global climate change." (Some of us still remember that they were predicting global cooling based on the amount of particulates in the atmosphere as late as the 1960s-1970s.) As best as we can tell, the earth's average air temperature has been flat for the past decade or so.

If You Can’t Explain It, You Can’t Model It (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/15/if-you-cant-explain-it-you-cant-model-it/)

Revenge of the Computer Nerds

By Larrey Anderson
It is fascinating to watch the mainstream media in America duck (and/or make excuses for) the greatest scam in modern history: the "science" behind man-made global warming. Even more entertaining, and far more enlightening, is to follow the analyses by the experts in computer programming of the recently disclosed methods used by the Climate Research Unit (CRU) from the University of East Anglia.

Most commentators in the media have been talking about the "REM" statements in the purloined e-mails and computer codes from the CRU [i]. True believers in anthropogenic global warming (AGW), especially those in the mainstream and "scientific" media, are pooh-poohing such words as "tricks" or "hide the decline" as interoffice slang that had no real impact on how the science was conducted.

But the real action (and the evidence for chicanery) is in the computer code obtained from the CRU. Our own computer guru Marc Sheppard, writing for American Thinker here and here, was one of the first to offer an accurate diagnosis of this fraudulent method of computer programming. Analyzing the code, as Marc has indicated in his work, is a complex business. As he pleads in one article, "please bear with me while I get a tad techie on you."

For the layman readers of American Thinker, I want to explain in a simple manner what went on in the construction of one piece of the controversial programming.

A bit of background: The cornerstone of the evidence for global warming presented by Al Gore and the AGW crowd was a notorious graph that became known as "the hockey stick graph." The graph is based on computer models that supposedly prove our planet has heated exponentially in the last half-century due to increasing amounts of man-made CO2 released into the atmosphere. Proponents further claim (and the computer models purport to show) that temperatures will continue to increase exponentially. The implication is that unless we drastically curtail human output of CO2, the "escalation" in temperature is going to get even worse even faster.

Turns out that these claims are absolutely false, and the computer models have been rigged.

Here is one version of the famous "hockey stick" graph:

http://www.americanthinker.com/graph%201.jpg

Now that is scary [ii]! According to the now-debunked myth, global temperatures started going through the roof about sixty years ago. They will to continue to rise and bring unimaginable disaster. Except they haven't, and they probably won't.

Now to the CRU code that maintains these fictional monstrosities. Pay particular attention to the black line at the far right of the "hockey stick" in Graph 1. The black line starts at about 1900. (This is the same period of time addressed by the code we will examine.) The black line looks something like this very simplified version:

http://www.americanthinker.com/jpg%20Graph%202.jpg

The x-axis (horizontal) shows time. The y-axis (vertical) shows temperature. In the last few decades, the temperature, according to AGW enthusiasts, has been climbing off the charts.

Marc Sheppard discovered and showed us (http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/crus_source_code_climategate_r.html) this bit of programming taken from the CRU documents:

yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]

valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor

The long string of bold numbers in the second set of brackets is the "fudge factor" applied (supposedly) to the raw data [iii]. This string of numbers "adjusts" the raw data from 1904 to 1994 in five-year increments. Here is what these nineteen numbers roughly look like on a simple graph (each bar below represents a number in bold above):

http://www.americanthinker.com/lpg%20Graph%203.jpg

I have left a space between the bars that represent each number so the reader can compare the temperature line to the numbers from the program. Time is once again indicated by the x-axis (horizontal). Temperature is portrayed on the y-axis (vertical).

The numbers in the code indicate a degree of cheating that is actually much larger than I was able to show with the bars in Graph 3 [iv].

We can now prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the hockey stick is an absolute ruse. The hockey stick graph cannot possibly be based on the actual data. (...Wherever and whatever that data might have been, that is. The CRU has admitted destroying the raw data.)

Even if the numbers in the program were not added to the aggregate temperatures (of each preceding period [v]), the numbers in the code plot like this:

http://www.americanthinker.com/jpg%20Chart%204.jpg

Graph 4 this still looks an awful lot like the "hockey stick." In short, no matter how you read the code, it was designed to create a phony outcome.

But don't take my word for it. Computer experts everywhere are all over this particular con game, and many other deceptions, that came out of the CRU files.

Many years ago, I was an instructor in logic at the university level. Some of my best students were young people who planned on entering the new, exciting, rapidly expanding, and lucrative fields of computer science and computer programming.

A solid grasp of logic was, and still is, a great way to start an education in the computer sciences -- since computer programs are grounded in the basic rules and the syntax (sometimes slightly adjusted) of Boolean logic.

Computer programmers are often referred to as "nerds." In fact, they are meticulous; they have to be. Their programs don't work if they're lazy, or skips a step, or ignores the rules of logic and syntax that make computers do the job they are supposed to do. This is why competent computer programmers can spot a phony and a cheater from a mile away.

Writing the beautiful and logical structure of a computer code is almost like writing music. It is very easy for a skilled computer programmer to detect code that is "out of tune." Computer nerds are literally shouting about the audacity of the obviously contrived bit of code we have just examined. They are screaming in Germany (http://diskussion.cdu.de/forum/thema2/ilenJhMoL.ovr/ileXyxBkY), in America (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1447), and in lots (http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2009/11/yet-more-stuff-we-always-suspected-but-its-nice-to-have-proof.html) of other (http://www.japantoday.com/category/commentary/view/climategate-the-fix-is-in#comment_388523) places (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=964678). Read the comments to these (http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/13830/?a=f#comment-61119) postings -- there are some good ones. (There are also efforts by true believers to justify (http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/11/very-artificial-correction-flap-looks.html) the code. Try following the logic of the post in that last link.)

The bottom line is that if this kind of code were to be used by, say, an insurance actuary -- or by someone writing banking software or for tracking the stock market -- the programmer would immediately be fired...and probably face criminal prosecution.

The truth about the hockey stick hoax is slowly leaking out. New Zealand climate scientists released a similar doctored graph (for temperatures in New Zealand) that looked like this:

http://www.americanthinker.com/graph%205.jpg

The scientists in New Zealand didn't destroy the raw data. (Oops.) The raw temperature data from New Zealand, when fed into a computer without a "fudge factor," looks like this:

http://www.americanthinker.com/Graph%206.jpg

In short, New Zealand has not heated up in the last 150 years. Not a bit. Zealous scientists promoting AGW (not the actual weather) caused the "warming" in New Zealand. (Notice how closely the doctored Graph 5 from New Zealand resembles doctored Graph 1 and the code from the CRU we have examined.)

Any computer programmer worth his or her salt will tell you, "Garbage in, garbage out." The garbage in the AGW debate turns out to be the scientists who are writing fraudulent computer codes. Time to take out the trash.

Larrey Anderson is a writer, a philosopher, and submissions editor for American Thinker. He is the author of The Order of the Beloved, and the memoir Underground: Life and Survival in the Russian Black Market.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i] REM statements are little notes made "in the margins" of the actual code.

[ii] Notice the title "Reconstructed Temperature." As we will see, "reconstructed temperature" turns out to be quite the litotes for AGW proponents.

[iii] The CRU has admitted to destroying most of the raw data. Those digging into the CRU documents are still trying to figure out which data was used for what programs. Sometimes this is clear in the files and sometimes it is not.

[iv] The +2.6 "fudge factor" in the 1980s is a magnitude 26 times greater than the -0.1 decrease in the 1920s -- but I do not have enough room to show the actual proportions of bars to the numbers in the space allotted.

[v] For example, I cannot tell if the second +2.6 is added to the previously adjusted +2.6 or if each is an individual adjustment to the "raw data" and not cumulative. Since the temperature of the hockey stick increases exponentially, I assume that the effect of the program is cumulative -- i.e., Graph 3, not Graph 4, more closely represents the effect of the program on the raw data. Even if I am wrong, the code still creates a nonexistent (or grossly inaccurate) increase in actual and predicted temperatures. I would welcome clarification on this point from someone more familiar with the code than I am. See Lord Monckton's discussion of the code here.

Physics Group Splinters Over Global Warming Review

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504383_162-5964504-504383.html

December 10, 2009 7:15 PM

Posted by Declan McCullagh
As the science scandal known as ClimateGate grows, the largest U.S. physicists' association is finding itself roiled by internal dissent and allegations of conflict of interest over a forthcoming review of its position statement on man-made global warming.
The scientist who will head the American Physical Society's review of its 2007 statement calling for immediate reductions of carbon dioxide is Princeton's Robert Socolow, a prominent supporter of the link between CO2 and global warming who has warned of possible "catastrophic consequences" of climate change.
Socolow's research institute at Princeton has received well over $20 million in grants dealing with climate change and carbon reduction, plus an additional $2 million a year from BP and still more from the federal government. In an interview published by Princeton's public relations office, Socolow called CO2 a "climate problem" that governments need to address.
"It is Socolow whose entire research funding stream, well over a million dollars a year, depends on continued alarm over global warming," says William Happer, a fellow Princeton University professor and head of the Happer physics lab who has raised the question of a conflict of interest. The reason: the ostensibly neutral person charged with evaluating a statement endorsing man-made global warming is a leading proponent of precisely that theory whose funding is tied to that theory.
As previously reported by CBSNews.com, Happer and other members of the APS have been urging the society to take a second look at the 2007 statement, which claims the evidence for the CO2-global warming link is "incontrovertible" and "we must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now." Their letter circulated last month says: "By now everyone has heard of what has come to be known as ClimateGate, which was and is an international scientific fraud, the worst any of us have seen... We have asked the APS management to put the 2007 statement on ice until the extent to which it is tainted can be determined, but that has not been done."
Neither the current APS president, Harvard's Cherry Murray, nor its incoming president, Princeton's Curtis Callan, replied to questions on Thursday, and Socolow could not be reached for comment. The APS leadership has chosen not to withdraw its statement but has authorized a limited review of the language's "clarity and tone" -- although that was announced before the embarrassing leak from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit occurred.
Hal Lewis, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara who has been an APS member for 65 years, says that he asked both the current and incoming APS presidents to require that Socolow recuse himself from a review of this subject, and both refused.
That means the review will be "chaired by a guy who is hip deep in conflicts of interest, running a million-dollar program that is utterly dependent on global warming funding," Lewis says. In addition, he points out that the group charged with taking a second look at the 2007 statement, the Panel on Public Affairs, is the same body that drafted it in the first place. That, "too has a smell of people investigating themselves," Lewis says.
The APS ethics policy that appears to apply to Socolow's panel says "it is particularly desirable that members" be "free from real or perceived conflicts." An APS ethics policy used when awarding prizes says that conflicts of interest can be resolved, depending on the circumstance, by "resignation of one or more members of the committee, withdrawal of a member from parts of the committee's deliberations and voting." And when involving the chairman: "Potential conflict of interest involving the chair of the selection committee is ipso facto a serious matter, and at the least another committee member should take over as chair."
An APS spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday about how the group's ethics policies apply and whether Socolow would be the chairman.
As the full import of the ClimateGate leak became evident, Happer, Lewis, and others redoubled their efforts to ask APS members to support a review of what they considered to be bad science. They now say 77 supporters are fellows of major scientific societies, 14 are members of the National Academies, and one is a Nobel laureate; Happer adds that "some have accepted a career risk by signing the petition."
APS President Cherry Murray replied to that effort with a stiff letter to all members saying the message was sent without "APS knowledge or approval" and the group is "continuing to investigate how the senders obtained APS member e-mail addresses."
Murray also said the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is "in the process of investigating the affair," and APS will wait until the results of that investigation are public. But that doesn't seem to be accurate: IPCC chairman R.K. Pachauri said in Copenhagen this week that there is "not an investigation." And there's no mention of an investigation in either IPCC statement, both of which defend the East Anglia research that has been called into question.
What irks the APS members circulating the petition are not claims that CO2 has been increasing for a century and that the Earth is warming; Lewis says the planet has been warming for thousands of years without our help, especially since the Little Ice Age a few hundred years ago. Instead, the physicists are concerned about the APS's claim that the science is settled on the question of the causal link between the two -- a claim that underpins the Copenhagen conference, the Democratic cap and trade proposals, and the EPA's announcement this week that CO2 is dangerous to human health.
Socolow leads the Princeton Environmental Group's Energy Group, one of the university's research units. According to a list of its reports and publications, the group is now focused on topics including fuels with "near-zero" greenhouse gas emissions and "carbon dioxide capture" technologies, both of which become of economic interest if a causal link between CO2 and global warming can be shown to exist.
The current chair of the APA Panel on Public Affairs, or POPA, is Duncan Moore of the University of Rochester, and Socolow will take over in three weeks, on January 1. A subcommittee will be tasked with looking at the 2007 statement for "clarity and tone," and is expected to report its recommendations to the full POPA committee by early February.
Moore told CBSNews.com on Wednesday that "we will only look at tone and clarity and will not rewrite the 2007 statement," and a discussion about "whether APS should form a committee to look at the role of APS in climate change" will take place at the February POPA meeting.
Meanwhile, the ClimateGate scandal is broadening, with more mainstream scientists being concerned about what the leaked e-mails and apparently buggy computer code say about their chosen profession, and how they could influence public perceptions of science. The two leading science publications, Scientific American and Nature chose to downplay the scandal's impact, with Nature saying the leak was a "propaganda windfall" to the "climate-change-denialist fringe" -- an especially unflattering term that seems to sweep in the APS physicists asking for the re-review.
Petr Chylek, a fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and an adjunct professor at New Mexico State University, said in an open letter that climate scientists "have substituted the search for truth with an attempt at proving one point of view." And 141 scientists have signed a statement at CopenhagenClimateChallenge.org that says actual evidence of human-caused global warming is lacking and "unproven computer models of climate are not acceptable substitutes for real world data obtained through unbiased and rigorous scientific investigation."
Happer, the Princeton University physicist who jointly circulated the letter to APS, says: "APS has simply circled the wagons, while trying to figure out how to quieten the growing unrest in the membership."

U.N. Panel's Glacier-Disaster Claims Melting Away

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/20/panels-glacier-disaster-claims-melting-away/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fscitech+%2528Te xt+-+SciTech%2529

The world's most famous climate change expert is at the center of a massive controversy as the leading environmental science institute he heads scrambled to explain its assertion that the Himalayan glaciers will melt completely in 25 years.

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and director general of the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Dehli, India, said this week that the U.N. body was studying how its 2007 report to the United Nations derived information that led to its famous conclusion: that the glaciers will melt by 2035.
Today, the IPCC issued a statement offering regret for the poorly vetted statements. "The Chair, Vice-Chairs, and Co-chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures," the statement says, though it goes short of issuing a full retraction or reprinting the report.
Pachauri told Reuters on Monday that the group was looking into the issue, and planned to "take a position on it in the next two or three days."
The IPCC's 2007 report, simply titled AR4, claimed that "glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world, and if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate."
Contacted by FoxNews.com at TERI, officials would not respond to a request for additional comment. IPCC is expected to withdraw the report's claim eventually.
Hundreds of millions of people in India, Pakistan and China would be severely affected if the glaciers were actually to melt. There are some 9,500 Himalayan glaciers.
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh questioned the findings of the 2007 report during a news conference.
"They are indeed receding and the rate is cause for great concern," Ramesh said of the glaciers. But, he said, the IPCC's 2035 forecast was "not based on an iota of scientific evidence."
One of the key elements in the growing scandal is the revelation that IPCC based some of its public proclamations on non-peer reviewed reports.
"The data, all the data, needs to come to light," says Dr. Jane M. Orient, president of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness and an outspoken skeptic on climate change.
"Thousands of scientists are capable of assessing it. The only reason to keep it hidden, locked in the clutches of the elite few, is that it decisively disproves their computer models and shows that their draconian emission controls are based on nothing except a lust for power, control and profit."
The IPCC "made a clear and obvious error when it stated that Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035," added Patrick J. Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, in an interview.
"The absurdity was obvious to anyone who had studied the scientific literature. This was not an honest mistake. IPCC had been warned about it for a year by many scientists."
A letter just released to the Science Web site underscores the mistake. Written by J. Graham Cogley of the department of geography at Canada's Trent University, it points out that "the claim that Himalayan glaciers may disappear by 2035 ... conflicts with knowledge of glacier-climate relationships, and is wrong."
The dustup is the latest scandal in global warming science, coming after the disclosure of attempts to shade climate-science research findings at the U.K.'s East Anglia University and the failed talks in Copenhagen by environmental policymakers last month.
The IPCC report had indicated that the total area of Himalayan glaciers would shrink from 500,000 square kilometers to 100,000 square kilometers within 25 years. The study cited a 2005 report by the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental advocacy group. The WWF study cited a 1999 article in New Scientist magazine that quoted another expert, who speculated that Himalayan glaciers could disappear within forty years.
The speculative comments were not peer reviewed, and other reports have indicated that the glaciers are not retreating abnormally.
"Most Himalayan glaciers are hundreds of feet thick and could not melt fast enough to vanish by 2035. The maximum rate of decline in thickness seen in glaciers at the moment is two to three feet per year, and most are far lower," Don Easterbrook, a professor emeritus of the department of geology at Western Washington University, told FoxNews.com.
Pachauri, the IPCC chief, is under attack on another front, as well, as newspaper reports in India have commented repeatedly on his reportedly lavish lifestyle. TERI receives funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, both of which did not respond to requests for comment from FoxNews.com. Reports indicate that there also are concerns in the United Kingdom surrounding 10 million British pounds in funding for TERI, and questions about TERI's objectivity.
"It's about time that somebody started following the money trail to the big interests that want to prosper from the green regime, while the rest of the economy is crushed," Orient told FoxNews.com. "It's not as though the amount were a trickle."

KOM.Nausicaa

July 22nd, 2010, 15:46

jhefner, it's not the place to discuss stuff like this (I fear this will be locked sooner or later), so I won't go into much detail, but just so much: your post is basically a summary of well known denialist crocks, most of them have been debunked over and over again, the famous "ice age" prediction on the 70's (false), the New Zealand graph, water vapor, and so on. I see you have lot's of info from Fox News -- probably the worst place in American media to get information about climate change from. Just so much from me here on SOH. If you are interested, we discuss this stuff lot's of times in the Quarter Moon Saloon.

Wing_Z

July 22nd, 2010, 16:05

Wow that's a mouthful...most people have already lost interest.
There is one little niggling thought that persists though:
Ecosystems are resilient, and can absorb much punishment.
But when they tip over, it's quite sudden.
Generally reversible, luckily, but there's a timescale attached to that.
A case in point wiped out the dinosaurs, and didn't recover fast enough for them to survive.
We do have to take care that we don't push our biosphere beyond what it can absorb to sustain all the bits that make our life form comfortable here.

I'd say taking a long hard look at pumping (every year) 29 thousand million - is that billion? - tonnes of Co2 into the (very) thin layer of atmosphere surrounding the planet would be a seriously good place to start.

You think we can't mess up this planet?
We can...just give us time.

jhefner

July 22nd, 2010, 16:41

I'd say taking a long hard look at pumping (every year) 29 thousand million - is that trillion? - tonnes of Co2 into the (very) thin layer of atmosphere surrounding the planet would be a seriously good place to start.

OK; let's engage in another intellectual exercise.

Let's just say that one day, someone woke up, and calcuated how much electricity is being produced by mankind in a year. (Trust me, it is a big number, though I don't know what it is off the top of head.) Then, they made the determination that electricity (or even EMF) is harming the environment.

OK, that is all well and good. But, when you compare how electricity we produce when compared to a single thunderstorm, that amount will look tiny by comparision.

Then, you would have to demonstrate to me that the amount of electricity being produced in the environment, both in thunderstorms and the ionsphere is staying the same or decreasing. If you can't accurately calculate what that total is, and forecast what direction it is heading; then it is a bit premature to start taxing all generators, and having some of them shut down in the interest of decreasing the total.

The same is true for CO2. First, it is the #2 greenhouse in the atmosphere; behind water vapor. Second, we are not the only contributors CO2, volcanoes and other living organisms are too.

So, to determine if that 29 thousand million tons of CO2 is a big deal, you would have to calculate how water vapor there is out there, and how much CO2 (and wate r vapor) is spewing from volcanoes and living organisms. Next, you will have to show me that you can accurately forecast how much of both are being contributed by nature going into the future; before you can convince me to worry about my CO2 emissions; much less tax me for them.

I have yet to see man make a major dent in the earth's weather for an extended period of time. But, we know that nature can do it; the "year without a summer" proved that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

(EDIT: so did two ice ages; and a warm period in medival days.)

So, that figure alone for CO2 emissions is meaningless. Compare it to how much nature cranks out, and maybe then we can have a discussion. (Nevermind the fact that plants thriving off the CO2 will probably change the balance on their own; goes back to nature self-adjusting itself.)

-James

jhefner

July 22nd, 2010, 17:13

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere

Over 95% of total CO2 emissions are natural. For example, the natural decay of organic material in forests and grasslands, such as dead trees, results in the release of about 220 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide every year. In 1997, Indonesian peat fires (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Southeast_Asian_haze) were estimated to have released between 13% and 40% of the average carbon emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels around the world in a single year.[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#cite_note-8)[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#cite_note-9)[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#cite_note-10) Although the initial carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the young Earth was produced by volcanic activity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano), modern volcanic activity releases only 130 to 230 megatonnes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonne) of carbon dioxide each year,[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#cite_note-11) which is less than 1% of the amount released by human activities.[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#cite_note-12)

These natural sources are nearly balanced by natural sinks, physical and biological processes which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. For example, some carbon dioxide dissolves in sea water, and some is removed by plants via photosynthesis.

There is a large natural flux of CO2 into and out of the biosphere and oceans. In the pre-industrial era these fluxes were largely in balance. Currently about 57% of human-emitted CO2 is removed by the biosphere and oceans.[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#cite_note-13) The ratio of the increase in atmospheric CO2 to emitted CO2 is known as the airborne fraction (Keeling et al., 1995); this varies for short-term averages but is typically about 45% over longer (5 year) periods.
Burning fossil fuels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel) such as coal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal) and petroleum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum) is the leading cause of increased anthropogenic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropogenic) CO2; deforestation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation) is the second major cause. In 2008, 8.67 gigatonnes of carbon (31.8 gigatonnes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigatonne) of CO2) were released from fossil fuels worldwide, compared to 6.14 gigatonnes in 1990.[15] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#cite_note-Le_Quere-14) In addition, land use change contributed 1.20 gigatonnes in 2008, compared to 1.64 gigatonnes in 1990.[15] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#cite_note-Le_Quere-14)

This addition, about 3% of annual natural emissions as of 1997[update] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosp here&action=edit), is sufficient to exceed the balancing effect of sinks.[16] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#cite_note-15) As a result, carbon dioxide has gradually accumulated in the atmosphere, and as of 2008[update] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosp here&action=edit), its concentration is 38% above pre-industrial levels.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#cite_note-carbon_budget-1)

Various techniques have been proposed for removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in carbon dioxide sinks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_sink).

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas, water vapor contributes 36 – 72 % to greenhouse gases, compared to 9 – 26 % for CO2. So, a 38% increase in CO2 in the atmosphere means additional 3.42% - 10 % contribution to greenhouse gases by man in the form of CO2.

It would only take a 3.6% - 7.2% decrease in water vapor to counterbalance our contribution to greenhouse gases; providing all the above numbers are even accurate. If that number is in fact rising, then so is the total amount of greenhouse gases.

But finally, you would have to prove that increase in greenhouse gases is causing a rise in global temperatures. And that is where the house of cards falls down. Average global tempertures have in fact dropped in the past decade. There are other things taking place in nature that are swinging global temperatures more than we can; the amount of entergy we recieve from the Sun is probably one of them.

-James

EasyEd

July 22nd, 2010, 18:09

Hey All,

I said the world will have to act on partial evidence. This is a good example. To expect that models must correctly predict every aspect of past temperature to thus create confidence in the predictions of the future and then use that as a basis for discussing action is a completely foolish perspective to take. We will probably never be able to correctly predict the weather because it is a chaotic system - if we can correctly predict trends that will or should be good enough. Yes there are regional effects, sun effects, volcanic effects etc but the basic physics and chemistry never changes.

Right now for example we cannot account for the fate of half of the heat entering the earth system - we know it doesn't leave but where does it go? See this youtube of Kevin Trenberths. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=868nr1Pgxw0 This illustrates some of our lack of knowledge but is it a valid reason to say everything is bogus and so business as usual? Uh in my opinion no we may not have the luxury of waiting till all the results are in as the consequences are too great.

The real basis for climate change lies in simple basic elementary chemistry and physics. CO2 and other GHGs heat the earth no ifs and or buts - if you doubt it go to the AIP site in my first post and read the history and check the original science references. Because we know there is net heating - even if it is a relatively minor background item - it represents tremendous energy which will be expressed through other natural process - for example extreme weather which we are seeing more of. It is completely possible that the direct effect of CO2 may not be huge but it's indirect effects may far outshadow direct effects and we may regret it mightily. Add to this the effects we are already seeing. To expect correct modeling of all this is I think unrealistic. There would be very little life on earth as we know it without the GHG effect.

Follow that up with the consequences of global warming (see the AIP site and the book Climate Wars) and then evaluate if the risk is worth taking. There is no question that Mother Earth may throw humanity a curveball that does the same thing as global warming but that is not an acceptable excuse for doing it to ourselves.

I am not an alarmist but given the consequences this should be taken very seriously.

Then yes there are all the possible ramifications - wealth transfer, paying for the pollution of dead ancestors who polluted CO2 since CO2 is in residence in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, increased socialism, increased world "closeness"/cooperation even perhaps one day one world government. Yes I have no doubt that various parts of these is the future of mankind if for no reason other than population density (current near 7 billion to 9+ billion in 20 years - a separate issue) but will especially be so if we do not begin to act today to prevent this future for American and other children not yet born by taking care of the planet upon which we live and depend. What an amazing legacy we would leave if by fighting responsible behaviour around climate change and GHGs we condemn our descendants to exactly what we are fighting against - not a legacy I want.

-Ed-

PS Hottest June ever recorded on earth. http://www.physorg.com/news198434180.html

luckydog

July 22nd, 2010, 19:14

A perfect example of an emotional and political reaction to a scientific question. I think that's what EasyEd meant... :icon_lol: Whether or not humans are contributing to global warming is inconclusive, not “beyond belief”.

Ah......PRB trying to start trouble AGAIN !!

There is absolutely nothing "political" or emotional about my post whatsoever!!

Here's some numbers:

C02 makes up about .03% of the atmosphere

95% of that is natural..........leaving .0015% of C02 in the atmosphere man-made.

Nothing political or emotional about that. Jeez !!

Cratermaker

July 22nd, 2010, 19:25

I don't understand the argument that we must do something even if we are not sure, the consequences are potentially too horrible to not take extreme measures, etc.

Why aren't the people making this argument screaming more loudly about asteroid defense? They've hit the earth before and they'll do it again. It's not a question of if, but when. Instant extinction (or pretty darn close). Why no outcry for that? I suspect that it is because it is not politically convenient for certain parties.

The really big problem I have with AGW theory is that as far as I can tell, ANY observed behavior of the climate is "obvously" due to AGW. Incrase of polar ice? Global warming. Cooling temps? Global warming. Drought? Global warming. Flooding? Global warming. Melting ice? Global warming. etc. There is no set of conditions to disprove it (as far as I can tell, if anyone has seen it mentioned anywhere, I'd like to know) and that makes it invalid as a scientific theory.

Eoraptor1

July 22nd, 2010, 21:03

I'd thought after Germany got knocked out of the World Cup that my Muad'Dib powers had deserted me, but I guess they're coming back. Featured article on the Wikipedia Home Page: Confirmation Bias.

A general note about Wikipedia, strictly MHO: What's good about it - anyone can contribute. What's bad about it - anyone can contribute.

I can say no more while obeying forum rules.

JAMES

jhefner

July 22nd, 2010, 21:09

I said the world will have to act on partial evidence. This is a good example. To expect that models must correctly predict every aspect of past temperature to thus create confidence in the predictions of the future and then use that as a basis for discussing action is a completely foolish perspective to take. We will probably never be able to correctly predict the weather because it is a chaotic system - if we can correctly predict trends that will or should be good enough. Yes there are regional effects, sun effects, volcanic effects etc but the basic physics and chemistry never changes.

If you want to accept "squishy" science, that's OK. At least you are willing to admit that if you could wave a wand and make all man-made CO2 emissions go away, that still doesn't guarantee that CO2 levels will go down, and temperatures with them. And I will agree that a long term goal of reducing our dependence on foreign oil is a good thing; for geopolitical reasons as much as environmental.

But, when folks try to impose crushing environmental regulations on the basis of such "squishy" science, or impose what is basically a global transfer of wealth and guilt in the form of a carbon tax; that is a whole different kettle of fish. And that is what was tried in Copenhagen; a good thing it fell apart.

PS Hottest June ever recorded on earth. http://www.physorg.com/news198434180.html

Yes, how quickly we forget that just seven months ago, the UK and Europe was entirely covered with a blanket of snow; a rare event. Several records were broken then.

And "ever recorded on earth" means nothing when you realize that global temperature data goes back to less then 200 years. And we don't have enough secondary temperature data in the form of tree rings, ice cores, pine cones or what ever to cover the earth for its entire lifetime. Just the sort of exaggeration that makes us loss faith in AGW avocates.

jhefner, it's not the place to discuss stuff like this (I fear this will be locked sooner or later), so I won't go into much detail, but just so much: your post is basically a summary of well known denialist crocks, most of them have been debunked over and over again, the famous "ice age" prediction on the 70's (false), the New Zealand graph, water vapor, and so on. I see you have lot's of info from Fox News -- probably the worst place in American media to get information about climate change from.

All I will say is that if you in return believe Al Gore, the U.N. Climate Council, and those that cried that the polar bears are drowning...I'll let the facts stand as they are. :jump:

-James

luckydog

July 22nd, 2010, 21:31

"...........for the last seven hundred thousand years, our planet has been in a geological ice age, characterized by advancing and retreating glacial ice. No one is sure why, but ice now covers the planet every hundred thousand years, with smaller advances every twenty thousand or so. The last advance was twenty thousand years ago, so we're due for the next one.

Even today, after five billion years, our planet remains amazingly active. We have five hundred volcanoes, and an eruption every two weeks. Earthquakes are continuous : a million and a half a year, a moderate Richter 5 quake every six hours. Tsunamis race across the Pacific every three months.

Our atmosphere is just as violent. At any moment there are one thousand five hundred electrical storms across the planet. Eleven lightning bolts strike the ground each second. A tornado tears across the surface every six hours. And every four days, a giant cyclonic storm, hundreds of miles in diameter, spins over the ocean and wreaks havoc on the land.

The little apes that call themselves human beings can do nothing except run and hide. For these same little apes to imagine they can stabilize this atmosphere is ludicrous........"

Michael Crichton............."State of Fear"

Hey PRB..........is Mother Nature political ????

Wing_Z

July 22nd, 2010, 21:35

Every bit of Real Science (as opposed to Quasi-science that came gushing on about Hockey Sticks and Coloured Underwear and so forth) that I have seen says that GHG emissions are a matter of concern to this planet.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was appointed to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity, as a result of long scientific study, not on some showman's whim.
It is not a political body nor one which is driven by vested interest.
Alas every time it reports something which is not sweet music to various vested interests, we hear the Chorus of Rubbish, Rubbish!

I am reminded of R J Reynolds Tobacco, who to the last, stood by their product.
Like this:

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h200/CHARL_photos/SIlliness/Lucky.jpg

There's so much smoke from all those smokestacks, how could a few cigarettes possibly hurt you?

I do like this thought, as a fallback position it is ironclad:

...There is no question that Mother Earth may throw humanity a curveball that does the same thing as global warming but that is not an acceptable excuse for doing it to ourselves...

luckydog

July 22nd, 2010, 21:55

Every bit of Real Science (as opposed to Quasi-science that came gushing on about Hockey Sticks and Coloured Underwear and so forth) that I have seen says that GHG emissions are a matter of concern to this planet.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was appointed to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity, as a result of long scientific study, not on some showman's whim.
It is not a political body nor one which is driven by vested interest.
Alas every time it reports something which is not sweet music to various vested interests, we hear the Chorus of Rubbish, Rubbish!

I am reminded of R J Reynolds Tobacco, who to the last, stood by their product.
Like this:

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h200/CHARL_photos/SIlliness/Lucky.jpg

There's so much smoke from all those smokestacks, how could a few cigarettes possibly hurt you?

I do like this thought, as a fallback position it is ironclad:

Sorry Wing........

but the IPCC IS political and does have a vested interest................have you not been following the news ???
They've embarrassed themselves several times over the past few years with totally ridiculous "evaluations".

Wing_Z

July 22nd, 2010, 22:10

Sorry Wing........
but the IPCC IS political and does have a vested interest................have you not been following the news ???
They've embarrassed themselves several times over the past few years with totally ridiculous "evaluations".

It was not constituted as a political body.
That it is at the center of very strong vested interests is apparent - it must react in some way, and that is perceived as politically vested interest.
It has a job to do, and we have to hope it does it well.

If it doesn't ... we'll all still be smokin' Luckies, "so our throats don't get irritated."

luckydog

July 22nd, 2010, 22:28

Wing.......

Off the subject but.......
The U.N. has been a BAD JOKE since I was a kid !!!!
Are you aware that just last April the U.N. elected Iran to it's Commission on the Status of Women???!!!??.........And these Bozos are the #1 source for climate research????

Wing_Z

July 23rd, 2010, 00:12

LD I'm afraid much as I'd like to defend the UN... I am unable to.
Bollocks to all this anyway, it's more interesting in the Cantina :d

Eoraptor1

July 23rd, 2010, 10:32

I don’t consider Fox News to be a science resource; I no longer watch ANY cable news channel after 8PM; they seem to have abandoned basic journalistic tenets such as fact-checking. All I see is an advertising/public relations model in operation. The science, such as it is, is subordinate to that imperative. Again, that’s all I can say on the subject while obeying forum rules. There are hundreds of actual scientists publishing their research every year for peer review, and most of them are online. There’s a Skeptic’s Society out of Cal-Tech that has a great deal of print on climate change and global warning, pro and con. Temperamentally, I’m a deep skeptic, and every year I flirt with joining the Skeptic’s Society, but if you’ve been following my posts you already know that my health isn’t the best in the world, and the subscription fee would be a luxury. I also have some philosophical issues with them, I guarantee NO ONE wants me to start on those.

I’m not a climatologist, and I’ll not pretend to an expertise that I don’t have, and I’m uninterested in dictating to anyone what they should believe. That may change as the winds blow, but not today. A very interesting read on the subject of the politicization of the sciences is Christopher Buckley’s Thank You for Smoking. This must be the third or fourth time I’ve recommended it on this site, but it’s one of those books that changed the way I see things. Whenever I see someone on television passionately advocating some position, I always wonder, "Is this his job? Does he have car payments to make? A mortgage?"

JAMES

Eoraptor1

July 23rd, 2010, 15:19

The Skeptic's Society Homepage: http://www.skeptic.com/

This month's topic: Climate skepticism. My Muad'Dib powers are coming back.

JAMES

CybrSlydr

July 23rd, 2010, 16:11

Ken Stallings

July 23rd, 2010, 17:15

KOM.Nausicaa

July 23rd, 2010, 17:58

Actually, I think he was offering a lot of facts and information and allowing people to read them if they chose to.

I think some replies are offering a lot of opinions.

Cheers,

Ken

Sadly enough the American public has been the preferred target of a massive disinformation campaign during the last 15 years. What started small with a few cold war scientists and former tobacco disinformation lobbyists ("smoking bad for your health is not proven") recruited by the energy industry grew bigger through 'think tanks' and 'scientific institutes' founded with the sole purpose to disinform the American public and spin the facts about climate change. Exxon mobile and other energy companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in this disinformation campaign. There are only some few dozen contributors still active today, like the infamous false 'Lord' Monckton, but it is too late: The spin has found it's way into the American public debate, especially in the ideologic rift between left and right, continuously fired up by the blogosphere, talk radio and conservative channels like Fox News. The poster I commented repeated many of the infamous "20" list, which are almost all half truths, spins (the 70's ice age myth), the 'growing polar ice cap' (data cherry picking), the volcanoes (false), and many more. That is what I wanted to point out.
It is a sad mess, but it's very interesting to dig into and to learn how it was possible it could come to this in the American debate. As I know you being someone very honest and upright, I am sure you would be fascinated reading about this to find out the truth.

Ken Stallings

July 23rd, 2010, 18:49

Sadly enough the American public has been the preferred target of a massive disinformation campaign during the last 15 years. What started small with a few cold war scientists and former tobacco disinformation lobbyists ("smoking bad for your health is not proven") recruited by the energy industry grew bigger through 'think tanks' and 'scientific institutes' founded with the sole purpose to disinform the American public and spin the facts about climate change. Exxon mobile and other energy companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in this disinformation campaign. There are only some few dozen contributors still active today, like the infamous false 'Lord' Monckton, but it is too late: The spin has found it's way into the American public debate, especially in the ideologic rift between left and right, continuously fired up by the blogosphere, talk radio and conservative channels like Fox News. The poster I commented repeated many of the infamous "20" list, which are almost all half truths, spins (the 70's ice age myth), the 'growing polar ice cap' (data cherry picking), the volcanoes (false), and many more. That is what I wanted to point out.
It is a sad mess, but it's very interesting to dig into and to learn how it was possible it could come to this in the American debate. As I know you being someone very honest and upright, I am sure you would be fascinated reading about this to find out the truth.

Look, I want to keep this factual. There is scientific data on both sides of the equation. I hardly think those data take on a national characteristic.

What I take a dim view of are efforts to lump certain data groups into a negative view because it does not adhere to one's chosen point of view.

You have more than enough right to your perspective. But, I would prefer if you would allocate that same degree of lattitude to those who have researched much the same information and have reached a different point of view.

Cheers,

Ken

HouseHobbit

July 23rd, 2010, 22:18

THE SKY IS FALLING!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!...:icon_eek:
Off to my Hole...
Really SCARED HERE!!!

KOM.Nausicaa

July 24th, 2010, 03:57

Look, I want to keep this factual. There is scientific data on both sides of the equation. I hardly think those data take on a national characteristic.

What I take a dim view of are efforts to lump certain data groups into a negative view because it does not adhere to one's chosen point of view.

You have more than enough right to your perspective. But, I would prefer if you would allocate that same degree of lattitude to those who have researched much the same information and have reached a different point of view.

Cheers,

Ken

Thanks for keeping it factual and polite Ken. To comment on your post: The data is not of nationalistic character, that is not what I ment. The character of interpretation and public debate is. And: no, there is not scientific data on both sides of the equation -- it is however what the denialist industry wants you to believe. That is just the spin they are trying to get into peoples heads. Climate science is unfortunately a overwhelming complex matter, and has just started to be understood during the last decade. This is something the nay sayers like to leave out of their argumentation, for example when they summarize the so called contradictions in scientific arguments and predictions of the last 30-40 years in an attempt to discredit the scientific community as a group which 'cannot agree'. The '70's ice age prediction' is such a classic spin, but there are many more.
However, when we leave out predictions and interpretations, and even, if you wish speculations about causes (greenhouse gas or natural causes), and only look at what you call hard fact "data sets", like ice sheets, global temperature measurements, sea level, weather extremes per annum, CO2 measurements, days per year of rain, sun etc, and so on, then there is no doubt at all that the global climate is changing at a fast rate. The denialists have really no hard fact data sets of this nature which would seriously point into another direction. This is very important to understand. That is why they mostly concentrate on discrediting individuals or groups (the 'e-mail scandal'), or like some more extreme guys, falsify and make up peer reviews, or cut, or leave out, chunks of graphs, like with the hockey stick graph, or make up petitions ("30,000 scientists against climate change"), or present themselves as scientists when they are not, like Lord Monckton and many others. They will then present it to the public as "scientific debate' and 'alternative data sets'. But that isn't true at all. In reality, those people have practically nothing in the department of hard facts like the ones cited above which would seriously contradict international measurements indicating climate change and would call for international review of data. Again, I am telling you this because I believe you being a guy who is not deciding on a camp for ideological reasons, but who honestly wants to know the truth.
So much by me here--it's not really a discussion to have on the Newshawks. If you are interested I can provide you via pm with some good documentations and reading material.

Cheers

Naus

Cratermaker

July 24th, 2010, 09:12

I'm still waiting to hear how AGW is falsifiable to make it a valid scientific theory. Not from any of you guys necessarily, but from ANYONE.

luckydog

July 24th, 2010, 09:17

Eoraptor1

July 24th, 2010, 12:55

I'm still waiting to hear how AGW is falsifiable to make it a valid scientific theory. Not from any of you guys necessarily, but from ANYONE.

Please explain your use of the word "falsifiable" Crater. I'm not sure what you mean. In modern logic, you can't actually prove a negative, that there was never a Loch Ness Monster or Santa Claus, and please remember, I have nothing against you or any SOH member.

JAMES

Cratermaker

July 24th, 2010, 13:52

Please explain your use of the word "falsifiable" Crater. I'm not sure what you mean. In modern logic, you can't actually prove a negative, that there was never a Loch Ness Monster or Santa Claus, and please remember, I have nothing against you or any SOH member.

JAMES
No problem. For a scientific theory to be valid, there must be a reasonable way to invalidate it. I'm not saying it WILL be invalidated, but this prevents such statements as "A prehistoric creature of monstrous proportions is living in Loch Ness" as being a valid scientific theory. How can I prove it doesn't? (Draining Loch Ness wouldn't be reasonable)

Now if I say "These strange markings on this tree were made by the Loch Ness monster", it is falsifiable because I might be able to observe another creature doing it, or perhaps a prankster. If I don't see them doing it, it still doesn't prove the theory though.

So to extend this out to AGW, I keep hearing just about every climate trend as further evidence of global warming. Ok, what could ever possibly disprove AGW theory then?

I hope that made what I'm trying to say clearer.

jhefner

July 24th, 2010, 14:42

I find it interesting that Dr. Phil Jones, the Chief Honcho and Bottle Washer at CRU, and one of the starring players in the "Climategate" scandal has recently admitted that there has been NO STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT TEMPERATURE INCREASES SINCE 1995.

And, in regard to these so-called "independant" investigations.............
only the "CONDUCT" of the scientists was appraised......NOT SCIENTIFIC DETAILS.

However, when we leave out predictions and interpretations, and even, if you wish speculations about causes (greenhouse gas or natural causes), and only look at what you call hard fact "data sets", like ice sheets, global temperature measurements, sea level, weather extremes per annum, CO2 measurements, days per year of rain, sun etc, and so on, then there is no doubt at all that the global climate is changing at a fast rate. The denialists have really no hard fact data sets of this nature which would seriously point into another direction. This is very important to understand.

First, a few comments.

Regardless of what you think about Fox News, the fact is, much of their global climate reporting comes of the same news wires (AP, Reuters) as everyone else. If you want to take the stories that orginate with them with a grain of salt, that is your business; or you miss-trust the MSM; then that is also your choice.

Are you implying that the above computer code is false, a hoax? If so, give proof. If not, then let me just say that as a computer programmer who was worked the two decades of his life with computer databases; that if I embedded a table of data in code like that, and also managed to lose the source data for major project like that; I would be ran out of the office on a rail.

It has been shown the that the U.N.'s climate report was not peer reviewed, and not creditable. And many of the conclusions of that report; including the prediction of glacier melting and starvation in Africa, have been proven false.

U.N. Panel's Glacier-Disaster Claims Melting Away

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/ ... iTech%2529

Africa-Gate? U.N. Fears of Food Shortages Questioned

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/ ... edibility/ (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/08/british-scientist-says-panel-losing-credibility/)

Physics Group Splinters Over Global Warming Review

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/10 ... 4504.shtml

Last in Class: Critics Give U.N. Climate Researchers an 'F'

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/ ... ming-ipcc/

Then, there is the temperature data itself.

Dutch Point Out New Mistakes in U.N. Climate Report
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/ ... te-report/

ClimateGate Fallout: Russian Think Tank Says Temperature Data was 'Cherry-Picked'
IBD: Institute of Economic Analysis says warming could be exaggerated by '0.64 degrees Celsius.'

http://www.businessandmedia.org/article ... 05156.aspx

The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/t ... rwin-zero/

by Willis Eschenbach

People keep saying “Yes, the Climategate scientists behaved badly. But that doesn’t mean the data is bad. That doesn’t mean the earth is not warming.”

Darwin Airport - by Dominic Perrin via Panoramio
Let me start with the second objection first. The earth has generally been warming since the Little Ice Age, around 1650. There is general agreement that the earth has warmed since then. See e.g. Akasofu . Climategate doesn’t affect that.
The second question, the integrity of the data, is different. People say “Yes, they destroyed emails, and hid from Freedom of information Acts, and messed with proxies, and fought to keep other scientists’ papers out of the journals … but that doesn’t affect the data, the data is still good.” Which sounds reasonable.
There are three main global temperature datasets. One is at the CRU, Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, where we’ve been trying to get access to the raw numbers. One is at NOAA/GHCN, the Global Historical Climate Network. The final one is at NASA/GISS, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The three groups take raw data, and they “homogenize” it to remove things like when a station was moved to a warmer location and there’s a 2C jump in the temperature. The three global temperature records are usually called CRU, GISS, and GHCN. Both GISS and CRU, however, get almost all of their raw data from GHCN. All three produce very similar global historical temperature records from the raw data.
So I’m still on my multi-year quest to understand the climate data. You never know where this data chase will lead. This time, it has ended me up in Australia. I got to thinking about Professor Wibjorn Karlen’s statement about Australia that I quoted here:
Another example is Australia. NASA [GHCN] only presents 3 stations covering the period 1897-1992. What kind of data is the IPCC Australia diagram based on?

If any trend it is a slight cooling. However, if a shorter period (1949-2005) is used, the temperature has increased substantially. The Australians have many stations and have published more detailed maps of changes and trends.
The folks at CRU told Wibjorn that he was just plain wrong. Here’s what they said is right, the record that Wibjorn was talking about, Fig. 9.12 in the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, showing Northern Australia:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/darwin_zero1.png?w=505&h=393
Figure 1. Temperature trends and model results in Northern Australia. Black line is observations (From Fig. 9.12 from the UN IPCC Fourth Annual Report). Covers the area from 110E to 155E, and from 30S to 11S. Based on the CRU land temperature.) Data from the CRU.
One of the things that was revealed in the released CRU emails is that the CRU basically uses the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) dataset for its raw data. So I looked at the GHCN dataset. There, I find three stations in North Australia as Wibjorn had said, and nine stations in all of Australia, that cover the period 1900-2000. Here is the average of the GHCN unadjusted data for those three Northern stations, from AIS:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/darwin_zero1.png?w=505&h=393
Figure 2. GHCN Raw Data, All 100-yr stations in IPCC area above.
So once again Wibjorn is correct, this looks nothing like the corresponding IPCC temperature record for Australia. But it’s too soon to tell. Professor Karlen is only showing 3 stations. Three is not a lot of stations, but that’s all of the century-long Australian records we have in the IPCC specified region. OK, we’ve seen the longest stations record, so lets throw more records into the mix. Here’s every station in the UN IPCC specified region which contains temperature records that extend up to the year 2000 no matter when they started, which is 30 stations.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/darwin_zero3.png?w=510&h=395
Figure 3. GHCN Raw Data, All stations extending to 2000 in IPCC area above.
Still no similarity with IPCC. So I looked at every station in the area. That’s 222 stations. Here’s that result:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/darwin_zero4.png?w=510&h=395
Figure 4. GHCN Raw Data, All stations extending to 2000 in IPCC area above.
So you can see why Wibjorn was concerned. This looks nothing like the UN IPCC data, which came from the CRU, which was based on the GHCN data. Why the difference?
The answer is, these graphs all use the raw GHCN data. But the IPCC uses the “adjusted” data. GHCN adjusts the data to remove what it calls “inhomogeneities”. So on a whim I thought I’d take a look at the first station on the list, Darwin Airport, so I could see what an inhomogeneity might look like when it was at home. And I could find out how large the GHCN adjustment for Darwin inhomogeneities was.
First, what is an “inhomogeneity”? I can do no better than quote from GHCN:
Most long-term climate stations have undergone changes that make a time series of their observations inhomogeneous. There are many causes for the discontinuities, including changes in instruments, shelters, the environment around the shelter, the location of the station, the time of observation, and the method used to calculate mean temperature. Often several of these occur at the same time, as is often the case with the introduction of automatic weather stations that is occurring in many parts of the world. Before one can reliably use such climate data for analysis of longterm climate change, adjustments are needed to compensate for the nonclimatic discontinuities.
That makes sense. The raw data will have jumps from station moves and the like. We don’t want to think it’s warming just because the thermometer was moved to a warmer location. Unpleasant as it may seem, we have to adjust for those as best we can.
I always like to start with the rawest data, so I can understand the adjustments. At Darwin there are five separate individual station records that are combined to make up the final Darwin record. These are the individual records of stations in the area, which are numbered from zero to four:
DATA SOURCE: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/findstation.py?datatype=gistemp&data_set=0&name=darwin
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/darwin_zero5.png?w=510&h=325
Figure 5. Five individual temperature records for Darwin, plus station count (green line). This raw data is downloaded from GISS, but GISS use the GHCN raw data as the starting point for their analysis.
Darwin does have a few advantages over other stations with multiple records. There is a continuous record from 1941 to the present (Station 1). There is also a continuous record covering a century. finally, the stations are in very close agreement over the entire period of the record. In fact, where there are multiple stations in operation they are so close that you can’t see the records behind Station Zero.
This is an ideal station, because it also illustrates many of the problems with the raw temperature station data.
There is no one record that covers the whole period.
The shortest record is only nine years long.
There are gaps of a month and more in almost all of the records.
It looks like there are problems with the data at around 1941.
Most of the datasets are missing months.
For most of the period there are few nearby stations.
There is no one year covered by all five records.
The temperature dropped over a six year period, from a high in 1936 to a low in 1941. The station did move in 1941 … but what happened in the previous six years?
In resolving station records, it’s a judgment call. First off, you have to decide if what you are looking at needs any changes at all. In Darwin’s case, it’s a close call. The record seems to be screwed up around 1941, but not in the year of the move.
Also, although the 1941 temperature shift seems large, I see a similar sized shift from 1992 to 1999. Looking at the whole picture, I think I’d vote to leave it as it is, that’s always the best option when you don’t have other evidence. First do no harm.
However, there’s a case to be made for adjusting it, particularly given the 1941 station move. If I decided to adjust Darwin, I’d do it like this:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/darwin_zero6.png?w=510&h=398
Figure 6 A possible adjustment for Darwin. Black line shows the total amount of the adjustment, on the right scale, and shows the timing of the change.
I shifted the pre-1941 data down by about 0.6C. We end up with little change end to end in my “adjusted” data (shown in red), it’s neither warming nor cooling. However, it reduces the apparent cooling in the raw data. Post-1941, where the other records overlap, they are very close, so I wouldn’t adjust them in any way. Why should we adjust those, they all show exactly the same thing.
OK, so that’s how I’d homogenize the data if I had to, but I vote against adjusting it at all. It only changes one station record (Darwin Zero), and the rest are left untouched.
Then I went to look at what happens when the GHCN removes the “in-homogeneities” to “adjust” the data. Of the five raw datasets, the GHCN discards two, likely because they are short and duplicate existing longer records. The three remaining records are first “homogenized” and then averaged to give the “GHCN Adjusted” temperature record for Darwin.
To my great surprise, here’s what I found. To explain the full effect, I am showing this with both datasets starting at the same point (rather than ending at the same point as they are often shown).
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/fig_7-ghcn-averages.jpg?w=510&h=295
Figure 7. GHCN homogeneity adjustments to Darwin Airport combined record
YIKES! 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 … when those guys “adjust”, they don’t mess around. And the adjustment is an odd shape, with the adjustment first going stepwise, then climbing roughly to stop at 2.4C.
Of course, that led me to look at exactly how the GHCN “adjusts” the temperature data. Here’s what they say in An Overview of the GHCN Database:

GHCN temperature data include two different datasets: the original data and a homogeneity- adjusted dataset. All homogeneity testing was done on annual time series. The homogeneity- adjustment technique used two steps.

The first step was creating a homogeneous reference series for each station (Peterson and Easterling 1994). Building a completely homogeneous reference series using data with unknown inhomogeneities may be impossible, but we used several techniques to minimize any potential inhomogeneities in the reference series.

…

In creating each year’s first difference reference series, we used the five most highly correlated neighboring stations that had enough data to accurately model the candidate station.

…

The final technique we used to minimize inhomogeneities in the reference series used the mean of the central three values (of the five neighboring station values) to create the first difference reference series.
Fair enough, that all sounds good. They pick five neighboring stations, and average them. Then they compare the average to the station in question. If it looks wonky compared to the average of the reference five, they check any historical records for changes, and if necessary, they homogenize the poor data mercilessly. I have some problems with what they do to homogenize it, but that’s how they identify the inhomogeneous stations.
OK … but given the scarcity of stations in Australia, I wondered how they would find five “neighboring stations” in 1941 …
So I looked it up. The nearest station that covers the year 1941 is 500 km away from Darwin. Not only is it 500 km away, it is the only station within 750 km of Darwin that covers the 1941 time period. (It’s also a pub, Daly Waters Pub to be exact, but hey, it’s Australia, good on ya.) So there simply aren’t five stations to make a “reference series” out of to check the 1936-1941 drop at Darwin.
Intrigued by the curious shape of the average of the homogenized Darwin records, I then went to see how they had homogenized each of the individual station records. What made up that strange average shown in Fig. 7? I started at zero with the earliest record. Here is Station Zero at Darwin, showing the raw and the homogenized versions.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/fig_9_darwin-adjusted-and-un-w-adjustment.jpg?
Figure 8 Darwin Zero Homogeneity Adjustments. Black line shows amount and timing of adjustments.
Yikes again, double yikes! What on earth justifies that adjustment? How can they do that? We have five different records covering Darwin from 1941 on. They all agree almost exactly. Why adjust them at all? They’ve just added a huge artificial totally imaginary trend to the last half of the raw data! Now it looks like the IPCC diagram in Figure 1, all right … but a six degree per century trend? And in the shape of a regular stepped pyramid climbing to heaven? What’s up with that?
Those, dear friends, are the clumsy fingerprints of someone messing with the data Egyptian style … they are indisputable evidence that the “homogenized” data has been changed to fit someone’s preconceptions about whether the earth is warming.
One thing is clear from this. People who say that “Climategate was only about scientists behaving badly, but the data is OK” are wrong. At least one part of the data is bad, too. The Smoking Gun for that statement is at Darwin Zero.
So once again, I’m left with an unsolved mystery. How and why did the GHCN “adjust” Darwin’s historical temperature to show radical warming? Why did they adjust it stepwise? Do Phil Jones and the CRU folks use the “adjusted” or the raw GHCN dataset? My guess is the adjusted one since it shows warming, but of course we still don’t know … because despite all of this, the CRU still hasn’t released the list of data that they actually use, just the station list.
Another odd fact, the GHCN adjusted Station 1 to match Darwin Zero’s strange adjustment, but they left Station 2 (which covers much of the same period, and as per Fig. 5 is in excellent agreement with Station Zero and Station 1) totally untouched. They only homogenized two of the three. Then they averaged them.
That way, you get an average that looks kinda real, I guess, it “hides the decline”.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, care to know the way that GISS deals with this problem? Well, they only use the Darwin data after 1963, a fine way of neatly avoiding the question … and also a fine way to throw away all of the inconveniently colder data prior to 1941. It’s likely a better choice than the GHCN monstrosity, but it’s a hard one to justify.
Now, I want to be clear here. The blatantly bogus GHCN adjustment for this one station does NOT mean that the earth is not warming. It also does NOT mean that the three records (CRU, GISS, and GHCN) are generally wrong either. This may be an isolated incident, we don’t know. But every time the data gets revised and homogenized, the trends keep increasing. Now GISS does their own adjustments. However, as they keep telling us, they get the same answer as GHCN gets … which makes their numbers suspicious as well.
And CRU? Who knows what they use? We’re still waiting on that one, no data yet …
What this does show is that there is at least one temperature station where the trend has been artificially increased to give a false warming where the raw data shows cooling. In addition, the average raw data for Northern Australia is quite different from the adjusted, so there must be a number of … mmm … let me say “interesting” adjustments in Northern Australia other than just Darwin.
And with the Latin saying “Falsus in unum, falsus in omis” (false in one, false in all) as our guide, until all of the station “adjustments” are examined, adjustments of CRU, GHCN, and GISS alike, we can’t trust anyone using homogenized numbers.
Regards to all, keep fighting the good fight,
w.

It appears the climate has been in a warming trend for the last few decades (actually since the Little Ice Age that ended in the early 19th Century), but this is far more likely heliogenic than anthropogenic (yeah, I am an envionmental scientist and get to use those kinds of words). It's interesting to note that we are now in one of the calmest solar periods in nearly a century, remarkably low sunspot activity. This has been a trend for the last several cycles, as opposed to most of the 20th Century. What does it mean? Historically, it's gonna get colder if that keeps up. But people are easy to convince that an issue such as global warming is something they may have caused, and thus can control and do something about. And it's easy to scapegoat carbon or other anthropogenic sources as a causative based on popular belief and "sensible" correlation (brought to you by the same folks touting 'sensible gun control measures') vs. the sun, over which we have no control. We'd like to think we could even divert an asteroid that wanted to smack the planet, but turning the sun's thermostat up or down --- well, that's a little big even for Hollywood dreamers. In the early 18th Century a lot of scientists believed in phlogiston. A lot still do, just by a new name.

Finally; once upon a time, it was argued that the Earth was in the center of the universe, man could not fly, and it is impossible for a bee to fly. All three have since fallen to wayside, in the face of hard scientific facts.

If the facts behind global cooling global warming global climate change were equally hard and fast, they would not be so easy to disprove. And, as the above shows, it is not popes and media dismissing the claims, but fellow scienctists and other peers in the field.

-James

KOM.Nausicaa

July 24th, 2010, 18:50

Jhefner, your post is once again a big "quote soup" of well known denialist crocks. Sorry to say, and nothing personal against you implied. I believe you mean well, but I fear you have fallen for the spin doctors and liars, like the infamous Willis Eschenbach (http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/willis_eschenbach_caught_lying.php) you quote in length. Mr. Eschenbach is no real scientist at all, but a construction worker in Alaska. He is however a paid affiliate to the Heartland Institute (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute), one of the "scientific institutes" which were involved in the spins of the tobacco industry, and who are now financed by Exxon Mobile to spread disinformation and doubt about climate change amongst the American public. He is the perfect example of the self proclaimed 'scientists', like Lord Monckton mentioned above, and who are all affiliated more or less close with the fossile energy industry. Needless to say that Mr.Eschenbachs claims about the Darwin data are really a lot of nonsense. That is the usual pattern of those people -- they really have no global or long term data sets at all that would seriously put in doubt the observation of climate change. What they do instead is cherry pick or distort findings which 'seem' to fall out of the other data sets or distort the interpretation of the global data sets, like the hockey graph. They are very creative in coming up with all sorts of claims and spins.

luckydog

July 24th, 2010, 20:34

Eoraptor1

July 25th, 2010, 06:27

No problem. For a scientific theory to be valid, there must be a reasonable way to invalidate it. I'm not saying it WILL be invalidated, but this prevents such statements as "A prehistoric creature of monstrous proportions is living in Loch Ness" as being a valid scientific theory. How can I prove it doesn't? (Draining Loch Ness wouldn't be reasonable)

Now if I say "These strange markings on this tree were made by the Loch Ness monster", it is falsifiable because I might be able to observe another creature doing it, or perhaps a prankster. If I don't see them doing it, it still doesn't prove the theory though.

So to extend this out to AGW, I keep hearing just about every climate trend as further evidence of global warming. Ok, what could ever possibly disprove AGW theory then?

I hope that made what I'm trying to say clearer.

Crater,

Just wanted to thank you for answering my question before this thread gets closed, as I suspect it will be, since it has now taken a definite turn into the ad hominem direction. Stay well.

JAMES

EasyEd

July 25th, 2010, 15:46

Hey All,

Hmmm...

Phil Jones said there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. This assumes that the reader understands all the implications and the very specific meaning of the phrase "statistically significant".

This is apparent from the interview where Jones says it is barely insignificant. Here is the interview.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

Jones was not using "layman's" language and so interpreting his words from a layman's perspective is inappropriate. Is it the responsibility of the scientists to, in essence, educate the public on the nuances of statistics talk or is it the responsibility of the public to independently learn statistics? Or is it the responsibility of some other body to correctly translate the "science talk" to layman's talk? I understand the nuances of what Jones said but that is only because I do research and statistical analyses. If you want to know the implications either ask or do some research.

I think much of the public simply doesn't understand the disciplines, math and statistics or the complexity of the GW issue but do perceive a threat to their checking accounts. As a result they want simple powerful easily understood explanations with "proof". In the world of climate change you simply won't get this. Climate change is a situation in which you must look at the "weight of evidence" in which there are strengths and weaknesses to all of the "evidence". For example, you can look at:

1) Earth's net radiation budget (if more comes in than goes out the earth has to heat)
2) Temperature
3) What Mother Nature is telling us (glaciers, frost free days, changes in plant and animal ranges, etc)
4) Changes in weather (duration, frequency, intensity of events)
5) History (human and geologic)

To put all of this "in context" you need a clear understandable "model" of what all factors (Volcanos, Sun, GHGs, etc) affect the earth's net radiation budget and the mechanisms for how the effects work. Then you need to look at how these factors (commonly referred to as forcings) and what their trends have been over time. The analyses that make up the IPCC report suggest CO2 is a/the key forcing recently.

Then you have to understand CO2 as a GHG and how it works. The AIP site explains it. Then you need to ask where is the CO2 coming from and what are it's consequences - warming and ocean acidification (an entire discussion in and of itself).

Water is a good example. You have people bring up how water is a far more powerful GHG than CO2. Well it is but... water can either increase warming or decrease warming depending on cloud cover. Do we know the cloud coverage of the earth and the change in water content of the atmosphere? Because we don't know the balance between these water - as I understand it - generally gets treated neutrally in GW models. But simply looking at water this way misses a critical point. If there is warming due to CO2 and chemistry and physics says there is then that means there will be more water in the air to act as a GHG since warm air holds more water than cooler air. So water as a GHG is to some extent (depending on the strength of different forcings at the time) dependent upon CO2. So what is the point to bringing up water when we don't really know it's net effect but do know it is both positive and negative with respect to warming?

On temperature what do we get? People willing to go to war over the temperature record in Darwin as if temperature is in and of itself definitive when we (humans) have been simply unable to measure temperature in a completely consistent fashion in which the "circumstances" (time of day, local environment, equipment, etc) don't change. This in and of itself guarantees uncertainty in something like temperature which to most of us would seem to be definitive and straightforward. As a result we need to "adjust" the temperature record. Then you get into the entire discussion about how to do this. I don't know what CRU does but what GISS does is readily available on their website.

Here is a description of their methodology:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper/gistemp2010_draft0601.pdf

Data and programming (all you need is a unix computer and knowledge of fortran and python) is available here:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

That said when you look at the methodology you will quickly realize how complicated their adjuments are: adjusting temperature deviations based on satellite measurements of brightness, time of day, correlations with weather stations within up to 1000 - 1200 km etc. Methodologies based upon other studies which you would then need to go back and validate, etc. Nothing simple. I suspect CRU's adjustments are equally complicated. So what does it mean? Well obviously temperature is not simple and the temperature record has all kinds of uncertainties. But if more than one oufit (GISS, CRU, whoever else) is working on coming up with a "good" global temperature record and they broadly agree with each other that tells us alot when you consider it with all the other lines of evidence.

To seize upon a real or apparent inconsistency and say "aha this proves it's all a hoax and/or a grand conspiracy" just often shows a lack of effort to find out why the inconsistency exists, a cynicism, lack of faith and even fear that is truly disappointing. This in no way nullifies the legitimate questioning of climatologists conclusions about GW. Good work and questions have been done/raised by qualified skeptics like Roger Pielke Sr and Mcintyre and McKittrick.

To me it is best to leave it to those who truly are "expert" and trust in both their integrity and the integrity of science through the peer review process. If you decide you cannot trust science then humanity is truly lost as you then can't trust any facets of science including medical science - how dependent upon that are we?

In deciding what you think of so called AGW expert skeptics consider this from a Stanford study:

Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropocentric Climate Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers. Here is the source:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html

I'm not even going to start on the studies and polls that show the preference for ideology over science by American conservatives irrespective of education level but they are out there. Aw what the heck - here is the abstract from one.

While ideology can have a strong effect on citizen understanding of science, it is unclear how ideology interacts with other complicating factors, such as college education, which influence citizens’ comprehension of information. We focus on public understanding of climate change science and test the hypotheses: [H1] as citizens’ ideology shifts from liberal to conservative, concern for global warming decreases; [H2] citizens with college education and higher general science literacy tend to have higher concern for global warming; and [H3] college education does not increase global warming concern for conservative ideologues. We implemented a survey instrument in California’s San Francisco Bay Area, and employed regression models to test the effects of ideology and other socio-demographic variables on citizen concern about global warming, terrorism, the economy, health care and poverty. We are able to confirm H1 and H3, but reject H2. Various strategies are discussed to improve the communication of climate change science across ideological divides. From this source:

http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/03/24/0963662509357871.abstract

At the end of the day - for me - it comes down to the consequences if we get this wrong. Like the BP Gulf oil spill simply taking the view that it is so unlikely that it won't happen so "business as usual" is just wrong. The AIP site has a description of possible impacts to consider (click on the impacts link at).

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm#contents

For even more read Gwynne Dyer's book Climate Wars.

Then as I mentioned before:

Then yes there are all the possible ramifications - wealth transfer, paying for the pollution of dead ancestors who polluted CO2 since CO2 is in residence in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, increased socialism, increased world "closeness"/cooperation even perhaps one day one world government. Yes I have no doubt that various parts of these is the future of mankind if for no reason other than population density (current near 7 billion to 9+ billion in 20 years - a separate issue) but will especially be so if we do not begin to act today to prevent this future for American and other children not yet born by taking care of the planet upon which we live and depend. What an amazing legacy we would leave if by fighting responsible behaviour around climate change and GHGs we condemn our descendants to exactly what we are fighting against - not a legacy I want. There is no question that Mother Earth may throw humanity a curveball that does the same thing as global warming but that is not an acceptable excuse for doing it to ourselves.

I am not an alarmist but given the consequences this should be taken very seriously.-Ed-

An edit: What a way to spend the better part of a sunday afternoon.

KOM.Nausicaa

July 25th, 2010, 16:59

A very good post EasyEd.

luckydog

July 25th, 2010, 22:28

A very good post EasyEd.

Nothing more than semantics........just like the "White-wash" on climategate

jhefner

July 26th, 2010, 08:04

Phil Jones said there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. This assumes that the reader understands all the implications and the very specific meaning of the phrase "statistically significant".

This is apparent from the interview where Jones says it is barely insignificant. Here is the interview.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

I just read it; and not only are the warming trends the same for the periods he was looking at, I wanted to point out the following:

This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level.

Notice how small a temperature increase we are talking about! That is less than a degree a year! That is why it falls below the 95% significance level.

Read the rest of the article yourself. The fact is, he states that the amount of global warming is statistically insginificant, and since 2002, the trend has been slightly down. And that is only looking at four ten year periods; at a time we are coming out of the Little Ice Age.

Jones was not using "layman's" language and so interpreting his words from a layman's perspective is inappropriate. Is it the responsibility of the scientists to, in essence, educate the public on the nuances of statistics talk or is it the responsibility of the public to independently learn statistics? Or is it the responsibility of some other body to correctly translate the "science talk" to layman's talk? I understand the nuances of what Jones said but that is only because I do research and statistical analyses. If you want to know the implications either ask or do some research.

I think much of the public simply doesn't understand the disciplines, math and statistics or the complexity of the GW issue but do perceive a threat to their checking accounts. ...

More bashing of the common folk -- "you're too stupid to comprehend global warming." Sure, the temperature data and modeling is available online like you stated, but if we take the time to study it like Eschnebach; we are then bashed for being too uneducated to comprehend it.

Your quote that 1,372 climate researchers are employed just looking at the temperature data shows the weak spot in all of this. You are all too stupid to comprehend this; it takes 1,372 climate researchers to comprehend it all.

That is laughable; considering we can discuss black holes and faster than light travel here; but global warming is too complex for us to understand. Give me a break.... This is 1,372+ researchers keeping themselves gainfully employed ginning a crisis out of something we are too stupid to comprehend.

Water is a good example. ...

... Where you then state that basically the effects of water vapor as a global warming gas have been written out as a zero sum game. (Not because they can prove it; it's just an assumption.) Remember folks; we are talking about a tiny fraction of an increase in temperatures; but they are happy to write off the effects of water vapor as zero.

Don't forget that with the exception of 1,000 foot smokestacks and aircraft, all of man's CO2 emissions are right here on the ground. And sharing this ground with us is lots and lots of green stuff that takes that CO2 and turns it to O2 as part of being alive. Yet, I guess we assume that it does not thrive on this CO2, and grow, which then makes it gobble up more CO2.

So, the conclusions of everything posted so far is:

1. We are too stupid to comprehend global warming. Don't try.
2. We have written off water vapor, volcanos, and radiation from the sun, but not CO2.
3. A bare significant 0.12C per decade temperature rise; which cannot be directly attributed to CO2 gas because the other factors are too complicated, is worth turning over billions of dollars in the global economy; and putting a big hurt on a lot of folks.

EasyEd and KOM.Nausicaa are trying to clobber us with the weight of thousands of researchers, dozens of websites (which are not free, BTW), and hyperbabble rather than indisputable facts. Have yet to hear either address my questions about the data in the U.N. climate model, or the fallout from the results published based on that model.

I am not going to go into personal attacks like KOM; but I just wanted to share with them the fact that politicians who are the most vocal about this are making millions speaking about it, live in more than one McMansion, drive around in convoys of SUVs (which they leave running while they are speaking to keep them cool), and fly in nothing smaller than a Gulfstream (although Pelosi argued for and recieved a 737 executive because she said the Gulfstream was too small for her party from CA.) And some of them even smoke; despite the facts that came out decades after that Lucky Strike ad!

-James

Bjoern

July 26th, 2010, 11:04

Ghostrider

July 27th, 2010, 11:41

Great post, EasyEd. Bottom line: Human beings, in general, are too short-lived, greedy, narcissistic, and unconcerned about anything or anyone else but themselves, and their short-term gain/maintaining the status quo to be bothered by AGW. "It won't happen in my lifetime, so who gives a s^&t?"

They contort themselves into the most laughable "logical" rationalizations to justify their beliefs and actions. NASA? the National Academy of Sciences? The AMA? What do they know?

The arrogance lies in thinking that this planet was "put here" for mankind's use and abuse.

Cratermaker

July 27th, 2010, 14:39

http://www.pollingreport.com/prioriti.htm

Yep, people seem to be more interested in themselves (putting food on the table, paying bills, providing for the family) right now then climate legislation. How selfish of them!

Ok, I have another question, not directed at anyone in particular here. For those that think that AGW is real and will kill us all if left unchecked, why don't you do something about it? I don't mean whine on the internet, try to pass unpopular legislation, or do your small part (I use a cloth shopping bag!). I mean get together and come up with a clean, cheaper, alternative energy source that would not just compete against coal and oil, but blow them out of the water! What, too hard? I guess you guys just want the easy way out. But is it really easier to try to sway so many minds to your way of thinking? Just think about it. Coming up with that particular "plan B" would put you guys in the driver's seat and provide all sorts of funds for saving whales, stopping the cutting of rain forest, or whatever you want to do.

In my mind, environmentalists are too short sighted by being so fractured with pet causes. I hope no one sees this as an attack on their viewpoint, it really is intended as a helpful observation that would accommodate both sides of this issue.

Wing_Z

July 27th, 2010, 15:48

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=40143&p=452234#post452234

Ken Stallings

July 27th, 2010, 16:29

So, the conclusions of everything posted so far is:

2. We have written off water vapor, volcanos, and radiation from the sun, but not CO2.
3. A bare significant 0.12C per decade temperature rise; which cannot be directly attributed to CO2 gas because the other factors are too complicated, is worth turning over billions of dollars in the global economy; and putting a big hurt on a lot of folks.

EasyEd and KOM.Nausicaa are trying to clobber us with the weight of thousands of researchers, dozens of websites (which are not free, BTW), and hyperbabble rather than indisputable facts. Have yet to hear either address my questions about the data in the U.N. climate model, or the fallout from the results published based on that model.

I am not going to go into personal attacks like KOM; but I just wanted to share with them the fact that politicians who are the most vocal about this are making millions speaking about it, live in more than one McMansion, drive around in convoys of SUVs (which they leave running while they are speaking to keep them cool), and fly in nothing smaller than a Gulfstream (although Pelosi argued for and recieved a 737 executive because she said the Gulfstream was too small for her party from CA.) And some of them even smoke; despite the facts that came out decades after that Lucky Strike ad!

-James

Powerful comments, James.

I am not willing to put milllions of humans out of work and ruin their families for the sake of a theory based upon a measured temperature increase that is barely measurable. This is especially true when the earth has seen far more significant temperature shifts during pre-industrial human existence. The "Little Ice Age" in Europe around the time of the French Revolution. In fact, that ice age contributed directly to poor food harvests in France which in turn contributed to the population's unrest leading to the French Revolution.

There are two lessons to rightly draw from that.

First, the earth's temperatures do shift.

Second, it is wise to minimize the human impact because often in human history violent upheavals have been caused by such impacts.

Ken

Ken Stallings

July 27th, 2010, 16:33

I find the whole discussion about global warming very good, by the way. Disputable evidence and data aside, it finally gave the world a good kick in the arse to at least start considering going alternative paths in terms of energy generation technology.

I personally think the cost of energy has more to do with it.

I also think that in a very cynical way many in the global warming advocacy realize that fact and therefore wish to artificially drive up the costs of energy sources to achieve their desires.

For these people, I suggest they read my post immediately before this one.

At least the French monarchy beheaded on the "National Razor" did not manipulate the ice age's affect on crop failures. I think the anger and vengence visited upon people who manipulate the situation that puts economies in ruin will find a more savage response brought to them. This is something wise people wish to avoid!

Ken

Cratermaker

July 27th, 2010, 16:59

Wing_z, Interesting. There is one key difference between what Bill Gates is saying and what I am saying though. I'm saying they need to develop a competitive alternative energy source. At about 18:30, he want's to tax C02 to make alternative energy "competitive" and that, once again, is going to be a hard sell. Just plan from the start that it needs to be actually competitive. Not artificially raising the price of other energy to make it look cheaper.

Cratermaker

July 27th, 2010, 17:04

Heh. Ken posted while I was typing that up. I think he and I are on the same page.

KOM.Nausicaa

July 27th, 2010, 18:04

Powerful comments, James.

I am not willing to put milllions of humans out of work and ruin their families for the sake of a theory based upon a measured temperature increase that is barely measurable.

Ken

The exact contrary is true. The temperature is not "barely measurable", it is already now clear and present in the lives of millions. Did you see NOOA's latest data? The most underestimated effects of climate change is not that is maybe somewhat warmer in your backyard garden. It is what is happening to fragile geopolitic situations in the poor countries (no news there), for example Darfur: a war of resources, directly related to climate change. Or Bangladesh: 70% of the rice harvest along the river deltas is gone already now due to rising sea level. Those farmers already start to move. Or fishing, declining rapidly in always warmer rivers. Or European nuclear power plants that have to be shut off for the same reasons: water is becoming too warm. That is where the true bomb is ticking: in the exodus of masses of people. That is the stuff wars are made of -- you should know this Ken, and I am sure you do. Or Russia: Already claiming the ice free arctic. "The Arctic has always been Russian" you can hear now. Yeah right.
Climate change is a danger to national security in your nation and in ours. Underestimating the geopolitical effects -- and they are already unfolding -- is a huge mistake.
And it's not true that it kills millions of jobs, that is a myth of the fossil industry. In Germany we have created tens of thousands of jobs in green energy, we are number one in the world there. And it makes an important part of why we are export nation number two worldwide, right after China. We have world class green energy to export, leading in solar, for example.

Cratermaker

July 27th, 2010, 18:55

Ken Stallings

July 27th, 2010, 19:13

Naus,

The last three consecutive summers here in New Mexico have been cooler than the last and the winters colder than the last.

I see clear evidence of a cooling cycle right now and it seemed to have started three years ago.

It is now nearly August and we've had more days here in the seventies than in the high nineties!

This last winter was one of the coldest and wettest in memory and that includes the memories of people who have lived here for more than thirty years.

I say again, I am not willing to harm the world economy, nor my own nation's, based on the evidence you quote. Because for every number you can quote, I can come back with information that contradicts yours and worse, undermines much of the data you bring.

Furthermore, the folks on my side of the discussions universally say they support rational development of alternative energy sources. I will also say that Americans have put their money where their mouths are by the very impressive improvements in our domestic environment.

I will put the environment in America up against European nations and believe it clearly superior to every single Asian one. And I have the advantages of spending considerable time in many of these nations. I will also place my faith in the natural innovation and creativity of free enterprise and private entrepreneurial forces vice government orchestration. When these innovations are ready, you could not stop their adoption by force. And until they are ready no amount of coercion or false subsidizing shall make them more efficient.

Ken

Ghostrider

July 27th, 2010, 19:24

Sooner or later, you're going to have to solve mankind's addiction to fossil fuels. they are finite resources. Question is, how far down this destructive, dead-end road are we going to go before we face that hard reality? How badly do we need trash this delicate ecosystem before we wise up?

Oh, I forgot, In 40 years or so, we'll all be dead anyway, so who cares, right? Don't inconvenience us, let the suckers, I mean people of the future figure it out. Pass that buck onto future generations. kind of like social security. kind of like everything else.

And Ken, my goodness, I am shocked that you would throw out your 3 year personal New Mexico climate anecdote as having any relevance whatsoever. Come on, you can do better than that.

norab

July 27th, 2010, 19:39

I have read all 7 pages of this thread and, regardless of my personal views on the issue, it seems apparent to me that there will be no agreement or concession made by either side and I would respectfully suggest that both sides "Agree to disagree" and let the issue come to a rest. I have seen other forums ripped apart by the loss of civility and antagonism generated by such arguments and hope that for everyone's sake this can be avoided before too much bad blood and personal animosity develop. My 2 cents

Ghostrider

July 27th, 2010, 19:56

I think that's wise.

KOM.Nausicaa

July 28th, 2010, 04:11

Kudos to Germany.

However, comparing your situation with the USA is comparing apples to oranges. Take a look at a world population density map. See Germany? See the USA? Guess what? The areas that solar and wind work best in the USA are the least populated! Now look at what it would take to move that energy from those areas to the highly populated areas. Hint: Germany is smaller than some of our states.

Solar and wind will, at best, never be more than a supplemental source in the USA. Next solution please!

I am aware of the differences between Germany and the USA. I would however not be so fast to dismiss the stuff we are working on. We have for example some revolutionary projects going on in Africa, where we are working on stowing energy from solar directly into the sand and earth and new ways of delivering it. There have been some major breakthroughs there.

CybrSlydr

July 28th, 2010, 04:29

And Ken, my goodness, I am shocked that you would throw out your 3 year personal New Mexico climate anecdote as having any relevance whatsoever. Come on, you can do better than that.

But it's ok for the AGW crowd to throw out graphs and figures utilizing data from equally as ridiculously short time periods and expect it to count as "climate" data?

However, I'll agree that it's well beyond time to find that next bigger and better fuel.

Not to mention, it's time to start utilizing industrial hemp. Now that's a miracle plant if there ever was one!

KOM.Nausicaa

July 28th, 2010, 04:50

Naus,

The last three consecutive summers here in New Mexico have been cooler than the last and the winters colder than the last.
(...)
This last winter was one of the coldest and wettest in memory and that includes the memories of people who have lived here for more than thirty years.

Hello Ken,

first about that "cooling": no, there is no cooling going on in the global climate curve. I will say right away that I made the same mistake of understanding in the beginning. It took me years of real time and real money -- not just internet reading -- to understand some of those mechanisms. I won't blame anyone who makes some of those mistakes. What you are doing there is the old misunderstanding between weather and climate. This is also used on a regular basis by the denier industry, sadly enough. The climate curve goes up, and there has been no cooling whatsoever. It does not go up in a continuous way, there are faster and slower periods, due to many factors (you can clearly see volcano eruptions on the curve for example) but it goes up and up. There is no cooling there. Now about weather: that is a entirely different story. How your winter is in, let's say north America last year, or Mexico three years back has nothing to do, in the way you assume it does, with the global climate curve. In Peru this year, there is a massive unprecedented cold, with many dead. You can read about it right now in the news. The mistake people make is to imagine it will get warmer everywhere, winter and summer alike. It's much more complicated than that. What we will see are weather extremes, as much in warm as in cold periods. And that is exactly what is happening. Weather extremes are increasing rapidly in numbers everywhere on the globe. Places that weren't used to it will see heat waves, like Moscow right now with 40°C (104F), or the record heatwave (strongest since 1880) we had in Europe last month, others cold waves (polar winter in Peru). Last year we had a similar pattern, the year before as well. Temperature records are broken everywhere on the globe in an increasing rate towards both ends of the spectrum. You will also see increasingly strong storms, or storms in unusual places (we had for examples already two tornados in northern Europe this year, one over Helgoland, the other over Belgium, where I live). You will see periods of strong rain and drought. Global warming is a trend towards weather extremes most and for all.

Because for every number you can quote, I can come back with information that contradicts yours and worse, undermines much of the data you bring.

No, because there is none. As I said before, there is not a single global climate data set that would disproof global climate change. It simply can't be produced. That is why the deniers, or let's call them 'skeptics' always produce local sets -- if they are not more extreme than that in their crusade and accuse the global sets to be outright falsified. As far as the local sets, or other 'skeptic' arguments, I know them all and feel very confident I can debunk them. For someone who doesn't want to spend money in books, there are also some good websites around doing a great in job in debunking some of the most spread myths.

KOM.Nausicaa

July 28th, 2010, 04:55

But it's ok for the AGW crowd to throw out graphs and figures utilizing data from equally as ridiculously short time periods and expect it to count as "climate" data?

However, I'll agree that it's well beyond time to find that next bigger and better fuel.

Not to mention, it's time to start utilizing industrial hemp. Now that's a miracle plant if there ever was one!

Lol Cybr. I think you have watched the 'Great Global Warming Swindle'-swindle movie, have you ? :toilet::d

Cratermaker

July 28th, 2010, 04:59

I am aware of the differences between Germany and the USA. I would however not be so fast to dismiss the stuff we are working on. We have for example some revolutionary projects going on in Africa, where we are working on stowing energy from solar directly into the sand and earth and new ways of delivering it. There have been some major breakthroughs there.
Glad to hear you guys are getting breakthroughs. Can't wait for a revolutionary, economically viable system that will work here.

I would be interested in hearing about the new ways of delivering it. Is there a name for it? I know of no other way than the present transmission line system.

CybrSlydr

July 28th, 2010, 05:01

Lol Cybr. I think you have watched the 'Great Global Warming Swindle'-swindle movie, have you ? :toilet::d

lol No, never heard of it. All I know about AGW I've learned from you, VB and others at the QMS.

KOM.Nausicaa

July 28th, 2010, 05:04

I can't tell you. That is a set of articles some 2-3 years back. There are some major projects going in in North Africa in which Germany and the EU are involved, and they are working on some very futuristic stuff with apparently some success. I am not able to explain the details.

KOM.Nausicaa

July 28th, 2010, 05:05

lol No, never heard of it. All I know about AGW I've learned from you, VB and others at the QMS.

Wow Cybr, then it's time to start some real reading ! ;-)

KOM.Nausicaa

July 28th, 2010, 06:08

Notice how small a temperature increase we are talking about! That is less than a degree a year!
And that is enormous. You are massively underestimating what this actually means. 2°C plus will change the live of humanity forever, 5°C plus is a death sentence to the world as we know it.
I assume you are thinking: whats the big deal if it's 2°C warmer ? Excuse me if saying so, but this is a naive way of looking at it. 2°C in the global climate set means the massive alteration of ocean currents (with all which this brings with it) ice caps (idem) wildlife worldwide, spreading of deserts and increasing lack of water resources, and that is just the beginning of the list. This process has already started and can be observed.

Read the rest of the article yourself. The fact is, he states that the amount of global warming is statistically insginificant, and since 2002, the trend has been slightly down.
No it isn't down, this is a falsification of the denier industry. What really happens is that the warming trend slowed down. But at no moment it revered, or became cooler. Since, it sped up again. 2007 for example saw a massive unprecedented drop of polar ice mass (note: not extension) of a staggering 25%. NOOA reports that the first 6 months of 2010 in the global climate data set break all records since data collections. Several other records were broken in 2009 too.

And that is only looking at four ten year periods; at a time we are coming out of the Little Ice Age.
The Little Ice Age (Ken referred to it too) is called the Maunder Minimum, and it's due to a low in sun activity and rotation. There was also a Vulcanic Eruption which prolonged it. That is why there are different opinions on what time frame the Little Ice Age should be defined.
It has nothing to do with the global warming we are experiencing now.

More bashing of the common folk -- "you're too stupid to comprehend global warming."
I just speak for me, but I think I never bashed anyone in this thread. I also never said that anyone is too stupid to understand it. But it takes a real effort, not just youtube or the blogosphere.

That is laughable; considering we can discuss black holes and faster than light travel here; but global warming is too complex for us to understand.

Mh, since when do we understand black holes and faster than light travel ?

... Where you then state that basically the effects of water vapor as a global warming gas have been written out as a zero sum game. (Not because they can prove it; it's just an assumption.) Remember folks; we are talking about a tiny fraction of an increase in temperatures; but they are happy to write off the effects of water vapor as zero.

It has been disproven and ruled out.

1. We are too stupid to comprehend global warming. Don't try.
2. We have written off water vapor, volcanos, and radiation from the sun, but not CO2.
3. A bare significant 0.12C per decade temperature rise; which cannot be directly attributed to CO2 gas because the other factors are too complicated, is worth turning over billions of dollars in the global economy; and putting a big hurt on a lot of folks.

1) not at all. I think everybody should try.
2) nobody has written off volcanoes. You can see their eruptions clearly on the climate graph. But our CO2 emissions are 8000 times higher than those of all worldwide volcanoes together. Don't you think that has an effect? As of the sun: it has been ruled out, because there is nothing special happening with it. In the contrary, despite the recent low activity of the sun, which is ending most likely 2011, the global warming continued.
3) our ways of burning fossil fuels have to end for many reasons, ecological, but also geopolitical. Do you really want to continue to make some muslim sheiks rich? Oil is ending anyway. If we end the dependence now, it will create a unprecedented move forwards, not unlike the jump from steam to fossil fuel motors was. Its unavoidable.

EasyEd and KOM.Nausicaa are trying to clobber us with the weight of thousands of researchers, dozens of websites (which are not free, BTW), and hyperbabble rather than indisputable facts. Have yet to hear either address my questions about the data in the U.N. climate model, or the fallout from the results published based on that model.

I think you are unfair. I didn't clobber anyone here with "the weight of thousands of researchers, dozens of websites". I made a great effort not to link to sites much, but to talk in a clear way, and in my own words.

I am not going to go into personal attacks like KOM;

I am not aware I was attacking forum members in my posts in this thread. I think I stayed very polite.

but I just wanted to share with them the fact that politicians who are the most vocal about this are making millions speaking about it, live in more than one McMansion, drive around in convoys of SUVs (which they leave running while they are speaking to keep them cool), and fly in nothing smaller than a Gulfstream (although Pelosi argued for and recieved a 737 executive because she said the Gulfstream was too small for her party from CA.)

Maybe that is so in the USA. In Germany a politician will loose his career if he does this.

A final word: I want to inform, not judge, and make people understand stuff, because I tried to understand it, and want to share it. If you think I was not polite to you I am sorry.

Snuffy

July 28th, 2010, 08:22

Pay attention to what's said here ...

'Archaic' Network Provides Data Behind Global Warming Theory, Critics Say
By Joseph Abrams
Published March 02, 2010

To measure weather, volunteers take readings at different times of day, round to the nearest whole number, and mark down up paper forms they mail in monthly.

Crucial data on the American climate, part of the basis for proposed trillion-dollar global warming legislation, is churned out by a 120-year-old weather system that has remained mostly unchanged since Benjamin Harrison was in the White House.

The network measures surface temperature by tallying paper reports sent in by snail mail from volunteers whose data, according to critics, often resembles a hodgepodge of guesswork, mathematical interpolation and simple human error.

"It's rather archaic," said Anthony Watts, a meteorologist who since 2007 has been cataloging problems in the 1,218 weather stations that make up the Historical Climatology Network.
"When the network was put together in 1892, it was mercury thermometers and paper forms. Today it's still much the same," he said. The network relies on volunteers in the 48 contiguous states to take daily readings of high and low temperatures and precipitation measured by sensors they keep by their homes and offices. They deliver that information to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), which uses it to track changes in the climate.

Car and plane exhaust warms the air, right? So why are the National Climate Data Center's thermometers so close to them? Here, sensors in 9 of the oddest locations.

Requirements aren't very strict for volunteers: They need a modicum of training and decent vision in at least one eye to qualify. And they're expected to take measurements seven days a week, 365 days a year. That's a recipe for trouble, says Watts, who told FoxNews.com that less scrupulous members of the network often fail to collect the data when they go on vacation or are sick. He said one volunteer filled in missing data with local weather reports from the newspapers that stacked up while he was out of town.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Volunteers take their readings at different times of day, then round the temperatures to the nearest whole number and mark down their measurements on paper forms they mail in monthly to the NCDC headquarters in Ashville, N.C. "You've got this kind of a ragtag network that's reporting the numbers for our official climate readings," said Watts, who found that 90 percent of the stations violated the government's guidelines for where they may be located.

Watts believes that poor placement of temperature sensors has compromised the system's data. Though they are supposed to be situated in empty clearings, many of the stations are potentially corrupted by their proximity to heat sources, including exhaust pipes, trash-burning barrels, chimneys, barbecue grills, seas of asphalt — and even a grave.

Once the data reaches the NCDC, climate scientists in Ashville digitize the numbers and check to make sure there are no large anomalies. The introduction of electronic weather gauges into the system in the 1980s was a much-needed update, but the new and improved gauges measure temperatures slightly differently and must be corrected to sync up with the overall historic data.
If numbers appear faulty or if more than nine days are missing from a single month's tally, the whole month is thrown out, according to NCDC documents, and the Center uses a computer program to determine average temperatures at dozens of nearby stations to guess what the temperature would have been for the month at the unknown station.

The overall land temperature record produced by the NCDC is used by a number of top climate research centers, including the U.N.'s International Panel on Climate Change, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, headed until recently by Phil Jones, who stepped down in the wake of the Climate-gate scandal.
What it boils down to, Watts says, is that some of the world's top climate scientists have been crunching numbers that were altered by their immediate surroundings, rounded by volunteers, guessed at by the NCDC if there was insufficient data, then further adjusted to correct for "biases," including the uneven times of day when measurements were taken -- all ending up with a number that is 0.6 degrees warmer than the raw data, which Watts believes is itself suspect.
But scientists at the NCDC say the system is an indispensable tool for measuring local temperatures, and that its readings are buttressed by the consensus drawn from the 8,000 surface stations that make up the Cooperative Observer Program, the overall national system of which the 1,218 stations in the Historical Climatology Network are just a part.

"We use the rest of the COOP network to help calibrate," said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the climate monitoring branch at NCDC. "It's used to do quality control." NCDC climatologists carefully track temperature trends at local levels to ensure that the data submitted by volunteers is reliable, adjusting for the biases caused by the time of day when measurements are taken, for differences between old and new equipment, and to account for flukes that might be caused by poor siting.

The NCDC insists its adjusted numbers are an accurate representation of climatic reality, backed up by worldwide trends in air temperature, water temperature, glacier melt, plant flowering and other indicators of climate change. "The signal appears to be robust, a reliable temperature signal," said Lawrimore.

But Watts says that even a single step — the rounding of the daily temperature — creates a margin of error about as large as the entire global warming trend scientists are hoping to confirm.
It all could become moot within a decade, as the climate center's outmoded Pony Express is currently being replaced with a screaming bullet train.

Lawrimore told FoxNews.com that about 5 percent of the historical network has already been automated, but a far more important development has been the launching of the digitally run Climate Reference Network (CRN), a system of 114 stations that went fully online in 2008.
The CRN was carefully sited in fields around the country and automatically records daily climate data and transmits it at midnight local time, sending it by satellite and eliminating the snail-mail delay, the rounding of numbers and any elements of human error.

But that doesn't mean the Historical Climate Network is going away, say NCDC scientists, who will continue to rely on its volunteers' readings to gather climate data on the local level.

jhefner

July 28th, 2010, 09:00

KOM et all;
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I go along with the "agree to disagree" comment. No one's mind will be changed here.<o:p></o:p>
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You didn't insult me personally, and I appreciate your apology. What I was referring to was folks like Willis Eschenbach. EasyEd invited me to view the climate data and code myself; but my point is that when Eschenbach, Larry Anderson and others have taken the time to do just that, you dismiss them as "denialist crocks", and in the "denier industry."
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(For that matter, I have worked in both the fossil generation industry and the airline industry. So, feel free to lump me in the "denialist crocks" crowd if you like, and a part of the "denier industry." The fact is, we all have vested interest in this; not just the long term health of the planet, but the short term effect on the global economy; already shaky from other factors; that proposals like the ones in Copenhagen would have. It is obvious from the depth of the knowledge you and EasyEd have that your interest is more than just a casual one. And that is OK; I am not going to lump you in some demeaning category in same hate game the three of you (Ghostrider being the third) that you are playing.)
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I am sorry to hear about the situation in Asia. But the fact is, local droughts, deluges and similar weather patterns are simply part of the regular shifting global weather pattern. I have a picture taken of a steam ploughing engine sitting in what is now the Saharan desert. These local periods of rain and drought are found throughout history; to take the latest and chalk it up to man's activity is a bridge too far.
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You still haven't answered my questions about the U.N. Climate Report. I know more than enough about global climate temperature data to know that only the past few decades is complete enough to be usable; has been influenced by local activities (the construction of concrete buildings, parking lots, and A/C units), and in it's raw form is barely usable. (See Snuffy's post before mine.)
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So now you are telling me that Phil Jones is part of the "denier industry" because he didn't calculate a high enough temperature rise? (Read the stupid article) Am I correct to assume that anyone who doesn't come up with numbers you think are right, regardless of the logic and accuracy of their claim, is automatically in the "denier industry?" Your claims about Asia are good and right, Ken's claims about New Mexico are bad and wrong? That is silly. NOAA data good, Phil Jones data, bad? And how can you possibility say without a shadow of a doubt that sunspots, volcanic activity, and water vapor can be ruled out as a 0.0000000 sum game. It wouldn't take much variation in any of these over a period of time to affect global climate, and just one good volcano can give us another "year without a summer" (at which time lots of people will be wanting to burn lots of that fossil fuel. I won't even go into the futility of predicting future activity based on present trends; no-one could have forseen the present economic crisis and its effect on total man-made CO2 emmissions, or predicting the next Mount Tambora (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tambora) eruption and it's effect on the global climate.)

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Look, if I came on this forum, and stated that without doubt or question --
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1. The Earth is flat.<o:p></o:p>
2. The Earth is at the center of the universe<o:p></o:p>
3. I know aerodynamics, and bees can't fly.<o:p></o:p>
4. It is impossible for man to fly.
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You would laugh me off this forum, or present facts to the contrary. And you would be right. But, clear, indefuitable scientific evidence that man-made global warming is taking place is not there. And all of the name calling, insults, undocumented claims to the contrary, numbers of scientists and websites in agreement, will not change any of these. And like it or not, the UK climate model and U.N. report, and the behavior of certain politicians (and former politicians), rock stars, and other folks we know don't know what they are talking about have only served to hurt your cause. And Ghostrider's labeling us as "too short-lived, greedy, narcissistic, and unconcerned about anything or anyone else but themselves, and their short-term gain/maintaining the status quo" without presenting any facts to support the original claim isn't going to help your cause. Give it up folks; and lets return to the civil forum the SOH has been. Stuff like this is poisoning too many nice forums already.
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-James

KOM.Nausicaa

July 28th, 2010, 09:30

(...)It is obvious from the depth of the knowledge you and EasyEd have that your interest is more than just a casual one.(...)

I could write a lengthy answer, but I have no time right now. But I want to answer the quoted sentence, because it sticks out as a red flag to me. I can hardly believe I am reading this correctly actually. In order to answer this: No I have no personal interest in this at all, except for the one being a human being concerned for the future. I am a artist working as a visual consultant in the movie and games industry. I have no affiliation with the green industry whatsoever. Furthermore I never owned stocks anywhere in my entire life, neither does my family. I am stunned it is not conceivable to you my interest can just be self motivated.

jhefner

July 28th, 2010, 09:41

I could write a lengthy answer, but I have no time right now. But I want to answer the quoted sentence, because it sticks out as a red flag to me. I can hardly believe I am reading this correctly actually. In order to answer this: No I have no personal interest in this at all, except for the one being a human being concerned for the future. I am a artist working as a visual consultant in the movie and games industry. I have no affiliation with the green industry whatsoever. Furthermore I never owned stocks anywhere in my entire life, neither does my family. I am stunned it is not conceivable to you my interest can just be self motivated.

In which case, I could question your education and knowledge with the same vorasity that has been poured out against the other side, or label you with the appropiate label as been done to opponents. But what good would that do? Give it a rest.

KOM.Nausicaa

July 28th, 2010, 09:41

PS, and one more Jhefner: If I assume correctly that Snuffy quotes Anthony Watt's work (I cant see his post) and the claim that 'poor' stations in urban areas put out wrong data, then I can tell you that this has already been looked into, and has been debunked. Actually those stations show a cooling bias, exactly contrary to what M.Watt claims. Furthermore this bias is not very significant and has since been aligned correctly in the global statistics, which unite global earth and sea measurements. M.Watt and the 'poor stations' are part of the '20 claims' list which i know really in and out.

KOM.Nausicaa

July 28th, 2010, 09:43

Give it a rest.

I think it is my right to correct such a strong assumption and accusation of lobbyism like you did. Not only for you, but also for all forum members which read this and who know me for 7 years already.

Bjoern

July 28th, 2010, 10:10

At least the French monarchy beheaded on the "National Razor" did not manipulate the ice age's affect on crop failures. I think the anger and vengence visited upon people who manipulate the situation that puts economies in ruin will find a more savage response brought to them. This is something wise people wish to avoid!

If you want people manipulating stuff dead, exterminate the whole planet.
We're all born manipulators, the best example being this whole, lengthy thread.

We have world class green energy to export, leading in solar, for example.

Energy technology. The energy itself is used up here.

However, comparing your situation with the USA is comparing apples to oranges. Take a look at a world population density map. See Germany? See the USA? Guess what? The areas that solar and wind work best in the USA are the least populated! Now look at what it would take to move that energy from those areas to the highly populated areas. Hint: Germany is smaller than some of our states.

Solar and wind will, at best, never be more than a supplemental source in the USA. Next solution please!

Even if they're "just" supplemental they will provide the US with energy and decrease the role of the non-renewables.

You guys have so much unoccupied land over there ideally fit for renewable energy collectors/generators, so how much harm can wind/solar parks do?

Also, if you need less oil for electricity generation, you've got more of your nationally drilled one for transportation purposes and make yourselves less dependant on imports. And I'm sure that would be a good thing for the guys in Washington. ;)

We have for example some revolutionary projects going on in Africa, where we are working on stowing energy from solar directly into the sand and earth and new ways of delivering it. There have been some major breakthroughs there.

That solar collector thingy in North Africa (Lybia?) for example. Rumour has it that it could supply a quarter of Europe with clean energy...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Mediterranean_Renewable_Energy_Cooperation

- Edit:

Or let's just revive this one...heh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa

KOM.Nausicaa

July 28th, 2010, 10:37

Energy technology. The energy itself is used up here.

Yes, that is what I wanted to say of course. Sloppy english, sorry for that.

Bjoern

July 28th, 2010, 10:55

Yes, that is what I wanted to say of course. Sloppy english, sorry for that.

Null problemo. :d

Snuffy

July 28th, 2010, 18:16

HouseHobbit

July 28th, 2010, 18:30

This is interesting, I just read a news post ..

THAT THE LAST TEN YEARS HAVE BEEN THE HOTTEST ON RECORD.. EVER..

Almost as hot has the opinions everyone seems to have here..LOL..LOL..

THE SKY IS FALLING!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!
Off to Hide, a piece of the OVERHEATED Sky just landed in my back Yard!!!

:jump: :jump: :jump:

KOM.Nausicaa

July 29th, 2010, 07:20

This just in, because it fits the discussion. I said earlier the "small temperature rise" some here dismiss as "insignificant" is enough to cause catastrophic changes in the worlds eco systems that will affect us all.

And today Nature reports this:

Microscopic marine algae (Pythoplankton) which form the basis of the ocean food chain are dying at a terrifying rate -- 40% drop over the last 60 years.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1298596/Massive-40-decline-oceans-phytoplankton-puts-entire-food-chain-threat.html#ixzz0v5J9BtrG

To read the Nature article you need unfortunately a subscription.

Cratermaker

July 29th, 2010, 08:24

"They found that phytoplankton had declined significantly in all but two of the ocean regions at an average global rate of about 1 per cent per year, most of which since the mid 20th Century. They found that this decline correlated with a corresponding rise in sea-surface temperatures – although they cannot prove that warmer oceans caused the decline."

Correlation does not imply causation.