Dec. 12:
The NGOs are speaking more openly about the real point of the global
warming scare. The Climate Action Network web site provides the
following discussion: "A common theme was that the
“solutions” to climate change that are being posed by many governments,
such as nuclear power, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and biofuels
are false and are not
rooted in justice. ... a climate change response must have at its heart
a redistribution of wealth and resources"
[www.climatenetwork.org/bali-blog/ngo-bustle-in-bali]
Meanwhile more than 100 scientists (many
of whom are or were part of the IPCC process) signed a letter to UN
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon stating "UN
climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction".
Read the letter
published in Canada's National Post newspaper.
Reuters Erroneously Blames Every Problem in Africa on Western Society's
CO2
The European news service
Reuters
has been producing a series of articles blaming Africa's woes on western
countries' CO2-based lifestyle.
Nov 18: "Africa is the forgotten
continent in the fight against climate change." -- What they fail to
point out is that what is actually forgotten is that the rampant
deforestation in Africa is causing their environmental problems. (See
Deforestation)
Nov 8: "Africa's coastal infrastructure
faces increasing danger of erosion from rising sea levels caused by
climate change." -- What they fail to report is that there is no
significant sea level rise in Africa.
Oct 31: "The discovery in Kenya of a new
population of monkeys far from their normal habitat is a sign of how
climate change may already be changing Africa's ecology... Africa is
expected to be hit hardest by global warming blamed on carbon dioxide
emissions from industry, transport and modern lifestyles in rich
countries." -- But in reality it's the rampant deforestation that is
hitting Africa the hardest. (See
Kenya)
Oct.18: Daniel Botkin (president of the Center for the Study of the
Environment and professor emeritus Dept of Ecology, Evolution and marine
Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara) who developed the
computer model used to forecast forest growth effects of global warming,
refers to the global warming hype as "captured by
beliefs that have little scientific basis" (See
article in Wall Street Journal). He says "the
evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin.
Most evidence suggests the contrary".
He expresses concern that the CO2 focus is removing focus from the real
problems: "right now the clearest threat to many
species is habitat destruction. ... They are endangered because of
deforestation".
Since deforestation is the leading cause of greenhouse gases (see item
below), it would seem this should be the main focus of environmental
groups.
Al
Gore's Inconvenient Movie Found to Contain Nine Scientific Errors
Oct.11: A British Judge found that Al Gore's movie contains "serious
scientific inaccuracies
" and defined nine scientific errors (See
article in Daily Mail). The judge said the movie (which had been
distributed to schools) "would breach education
rules unless accompanied by a warning".
Although I haven't seen the movie, I
recently came across the book and glancing through it noticed the
following:
Page
227: “Almost 30 % of the CO2 released into the atmosphere each year is a
result of the burning of brushland for subsistence agriculture and wood
fires used for cooking.”
Page
230-231 shows a “six-month time lapse image of the world at night” from
satellite imagery, in which “Africa stands out partly because of the
prevalence of wood fires for cooking.” [Other burning areas can be seen
in South America and Southeast Asia.]
Page
250-251 shows continental or regional shapes by size indicating
“contributions to global warming”. It shows the following:
United States: 30.3 %
;
Africa: 2.5 %
;
Central + South America: 3.8%
;
Southeast Asia + India + China: 12.2%
So the
countries burning their forests and brushland contribute almost nothing
while the US contributes 30 %. The United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported in 2006 that “Most
people assume that global warming is caused by burning oil and gas. But
in fact between 25 and 30 percent of the greenhouse gases released into
the atmosphere each year – 1.6 billion tonnes – is caused by
deforestation.” Click here for more details.
ABC's 20/20 John
Stossel has a good succinct summary of the Al Gore position that the
"debate is over".
Strong Correlation Between Cosmic Rays and Troposphere Temperatures
Sep
21. Eurekalert: "Amazon
Forest Shows Unexpected Resiliency During Drought" describes
a study by scientists at the University of
Arizona and University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), which will be published in
the October 26 issue of Science. the article states the "finding
contradicts a prominent global climate model that predicts the Amazon
forest would begin to "brown down" after just a month of drought and
eventually collapse as the drought progressed... Global climate models
predict the Amazon forest will cut back photosynthesis quickly when a
drought starts. That slowdown in plant growth would create a positive
feedback loop -- as the forest shuts down more and more, it removes less
and less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The CO2 ordinarily
sequestered by growing trees would remain in the atmosphere, increasing
global warming and further accelerating the forest's decline and
additional CO2-fueled warming. By contrast, the UA-led team's findings
suggest the opposite happens, at least in the short-term. The
drought-induced flush of forest growth would dampen global warming, not
accelerate it. During the 2005 drought, Amazon forest trees flourished
in the sunnier-than-average weather, most likely by tapping water deep
in the forest soil. To grow, trees must take up carbon dioxide, thus
drawing down the levels of atmospheric CO2. That negative feedback loop
would slow warming from greenhouse gases."
Alaska Sea Level Has Been Falling Since Measurements Began
Sep: Sea level has been
falling in some places and rising in others over the last century since
measurements began. In Alaska the sea level has been falling.
The UK Permanent Service
for Mean Sea Level [http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/]
tracks sea level around the world and provides graphs of the historical
sea level data.
The following figure shows the available sea level at Yakutat since the
1930s.
Hubbard Glacier (Alaska) Has Been Increasing in Size
Sep. Unlike most alpine
glaciers, which have been retreating recently, the Hubbard Glacier near
Yakutat Alaska “has been thickening and advancing
toward the Gulf of Alaska since it was first mapped by the International
Boundary Commission in 1895”
[http://ak.water.usgs.gov/glaciology/hubbard/]
“Hubbard
Glacier is the largest of eight calving glaciers in Alaska that are
currently increasing in total mass and advancing.”
The following figure shows the advance of the glacier over the last 100
years [http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-001-03/].
A study by Trabant et
al (“The Slow Advance of a Calving Glacier: Hubbard Glacier, Alaska”,
Annals of Geology, Vol 36, 2003) states: “the
lower regions of the glacier have thickened by as much as 83 m in the
last 41 years, while the entire glacier increased in volume by 14.1
cubic km. Ice speeds are generally decreasing near the calving face.”
Aug 27. American Thinker: "NASA's
Hansen Reaches Escape Velocity" describes Hansen's latest deep-end:
an interview with the
Globe And Mail in which he asserts that "rapidly melting ice
caps in Antarctica and Greenland could cause oceans to swell several
metres by 2100 - or maybe even as much as 25 metres".
American Thinker describes Hansen's challenge to presidential
candidates: he "has
now issued a challenge to our presidential candidates. He wants all the
2008 candidates to sign a Declaration of Stewardship for the
Earth and all Creation. (Bold in the original)."
Warmest Year in the U.S. : 1934
Aug 26. The
New York Times has reported on
Steve
McIntyre's investigation that resulted in NASA revising
the U.S. temperatures downwards due to his discovery of errors in their
temperature adjustments. 1934 is now the warmest year on record (until
the correction it was 1998). NYT: "A quarter-degree
Fahrenheit is roughly the downward adjustment NASA scientists made
earlier this month in their annual estimates of the average temperature
in the contiguous 48 states since 2000".
While individual warm years are not meaningful, it is symptomatic of
data manipulations that need to be scrutinized.
Steve
McIntyre said: "GISS recognized that the error
had a significant impact on individual stations and took rapid steps to
revise their station data... GISS failed to provide any explicit notice
or warning on their station data webpage that the data had been changed,
or an explicit notice to users who had downloaded data or graphs in the
past that there had been significant changes to many U.S. series."
Between 1999 and 2001 Hansen came up with an
"enhanced" adjustment procedure for temperatures resulting in an
increase in recent temperatures and decrease in temperatures in the
1930's. It seems that the data isn't showing enough warming. The
following figure compares the 2001 and 1999 adjustments.
Click on the figure (or here) for further details.
No Sea Level Rise in Canada
July: A study
of the sea level data for the ports in Canada (available at Fisheries
and Oceans Canada
http://www.meds-sdmm.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/meds/Databases/TWL/Products/Monthly_Means_b.htm
show a slight decrease in sea level over the last decade - the sea level
average for the last decade is below the long-term average. Click on the
image thumbnail below to see a graph of sea level trends.
Strong Solar Evidence From Oregon Study
July: A research paper
published by University of Oregon researchers focused on measuring total solar
irradiance at three sites in Oregon. (“Trends In Direct Normal Solar
Irradiance In Oregon From 1979-2003”,
Laura
Riihimaki and Frank Vignola, Department of Physics, University of Oregon [http://solardat.uoregon.edu/download/Papers/DirectNormalTrends.pdf
] )
July: A paper
published by Charles Perry of the Water Resources Division of the US Geological
Survey showed a strong correlation between solar
irradiance and precipitation in Washington and Oregon.
I have used the results of
their study along with CO2 from NOAA and temperature data from the NASA GISS database showing a
strong correlation between the solar irradiance reported in the IPCC AR4
Scientific Basis report and temperature at Mauna Loa.
Click here to see the details
of this solar evidence (opens in new window)
Alarmist Al Gore Has the Science All Wrong
Jun 30. The Chicago Sun-Times: "Alarmist
global warming claims melt under scientific scrutiny" provides
a succinct refutation of the alarmist claims in Al Gore's movie: amongst
them: "Gore claims global warming is causing an
expansion of African deserts. However, the Sept. 16, 2002, issue of New
Scientist reports, "Africa's deserts are in 'spectacular' retreat ...
making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of
Africa."... Gore argues Greenland is
in rapid meltdown, and that this threatens to raise sea levels by 20
feet. But according to a 2005 study in the Journal of Glaciology, "the
Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins and growing inland, with
a small overall mass gain." In late 2006, researchers at the Danish
Meteorological Institute reported that the past two decades were the
coldest for Greenland since the 1910s...
Gore claims the Antarctic ice sheet is melting because of global
warming. Yet the Jan. 14, 2002, issue of Nature magazine reported
Antarctica as a whole has been dramatically cooling for decades. More
recently, scientists reported in the September 2006 issue of the British
journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series A:
Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences, that satellite
measurements of the Antarctic ice sheet showed significant growth
between 1992 and 2003. And the U.N. Climate Change panel reported in
February 2007 that Antarctica is unlikely to lose any ice mass during
the remainder of the century."
Global Warming and Hurricanes
Apr 20. A new study of the impact of global warming
on hurricanes done at the University of Miami and reported in Science
Daily [April 18] (Global Warming Increases Wind Shear, Reduces
Hurricanes, Climate Model Shows) [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070417182843.htm
] says “Climate
model simulations for the 21st century indicate a robust increase in
wind shear in the tropical Atlantic due to global warming, which may
inhibit hurricane development and intensification. Historically,
increased wind shear has been associated with reduced hurricane activity
and intensity…
While other studies have linked global warming to an
increase in hurricane intensity, this study is the first to identify
changes in wind shear that could counteract these effects… Wind shear is
one of the dominant controls to hurricane activity, and the models
project substantial increases in the Atlantic”.
A 1998 study by the
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
Laboratory/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Simulated
Increase of Hurricane Intensities in a CO2-Warmed Climate --
Thomas R. Knutson, Robert E.
Tuleya, Yoshio Kurihara ) [
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/279/5353/1018 ] stated that
“Theoretical models of hurricane intensity predict that the
maximum potential intensity (MPI) of hurricanes will increase ina warmer climate (1,
2), although these techniques, which are based on
thermodynamical considerations, contain many assumptions
and caveats (2,
6,
7). Global climate models attempt to simulate the
climate, including tropical storm-like features, by
integrating dynamical and thermodynamical equations in three
dimensions. To date, global models have provided suggestive, but not highly convincing, indications of increased hurricane
intensities in a warmer climate (3,
4). However, the coarse resolution of these global models
precludes their simulation of realistic hurricane structure…
Using both a case study and an idealized approach, we find that
CO2-induced warming leads to more intense hurricanes
”
April: Science Daily reports
[April 4, 2007
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070403142727.htm]
on a study by
NASA researchers “NASA Finds
Arctic Replenished Very Little Thick Sea Ice in 2005” [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-037].
“A
new NASA study has found that in 2005 the Arctic replaced very little of
the thick sea ice it normally loses and replenishes each year...studied
six annual cycles of Arctic perennial ice coverage from 2000 to 2006.
Recent studies indicate Arctic perennial ice is declining seven to 10
percent each decade."
However, neither
Science Daily nor NASA put the study in perspective. In fact the NASA
study states: "Kwok also examined the 2000-2006 temperature
records within the context of longer-term temperature records dating
back to 1958. He found a gradual warming trend in the first 30
years, which accelerated after the mid-1980s. "The record doesn't show
any hint of recovery from these trends," he stated. "If the correlations
between replenishment area and numbers of freezing and melting
temperature days hold long-term, its expected the perennial ice coverage
will continue to decline." As he said:
"If the correlations hold long-term".
The GHCN temperature history database
is available for interactive graphing by lat/long range at CO2Science [http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/data/temperatures/ghcn.jsp]
Selecting 1958-2006 for the area above 75 N latitude shows the following
trend backing up Kwok's warming trend statement in the NASA study.
But what about a
different start year, say 1930.
A study of climate
trends in Greenland by University Geoscience researchers in Denmark and
Norway "Meteorological
trends (1991-2004) at Arctic Station,Central
West Greenland (69º15’N) in a 130 years Perspective"
[http://www.rdgs.dk/image/pub_pdf/artikler/2006_1/GT106_04_Hansen_Elberling_Humlum_Nielsen.pdf]
concluded: "we
conclude that markedly changes can be noted, including increasing mean
annual air temperatures on the order of 0.4°C per year and 50% decrease
in sea ice cover. Changes are mainly noted for the winter period, but
also the summer period has been affected as increasing thawing depths
and an increase in the growing season. When data are compared to other
data series it becomes clear that meteorological observations at Arctic
Station are in line with other longer records including data Ilulissat/Jakobshavn,
which makes it possible to estimate data from Arctic Station back to
1873. Over this long time period, estimated winter temperatures
correlate significantly with NAO and reveal that although the documented
climate changes the last decade are dramatic, they are on the same order
as changes occurred between 1920 and 1930".
The following 1870 - 2004 temperature graph is from their study.
Various climatic
station charts are available at [http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm]
- generated from the GISS and CRU databases. An example is shown below
from Norway 1868 - 2003.
