Clipmarks | amgumen's 'climate change' clips

The Scare and the Truth

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:22:54 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

The scare:

The science of climate change is complex; however the weight of scientific evidence shows that ‘global warming’ caused by human actions is happening now

The truth:

Since 1998 no new annual temperature record has been set. Since late 2001, linear-regression trends for all four of the major global-temperature datasets have been downward (Figure 1). The drop in temperature between January 2007 and January 2008 was the greatest since instrumental records began in 1880. Whatever else is happening in the climate, “global warming” is not “happening now” and has not been happening for a decade. No new annual global-temperature record is expected until 2015 (Keenlyside et al., 2008). Not one of the computer models predicted this long period of global cooling. In the month of June 2008, exactly 20 years after James Hansen’s forecast to Congress that global temperatures would rise sharply, global temperatures were actually cooler than they had been when he made the forecast in June 1988.

Clique of IPCC climate modelers

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:54:45 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: scienceandpublicpolicy.org

more than two-thirds of all authors of chapter 9 of the IPCC’s 2007 climate-science assessment are part of a clique whose members have co-authored papers with each other and, we can surmise, very possibly at times acted as peer-reviewers for each other’s work. Of the 44 contributing authors, more than half have co-authored papers with the lead authors or coordinating lead authors of chapter 9

This is scientific cronyism at an alarming level. Instead of having a diversity of views from a wide range of scientists, the chapter is written almost exclusively by climate modelers speaking with one voice. The world is being driven by a group with strong vested interests and despite the highly questionable capabilities of their models

That paper provides plausible reasons why the IPCC’s estimates of climate change may be excessive and unsafe.

currently-fashionable efforts by governments to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions are pointless, may be ill-conceived, and could even be harmful.

On North Pole Ice Variance

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:01:13 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: I think Global Warming Alarmists shoot themselves in the foot highlighting the localized potential of ice retreat at North Pole.
It is no more substantial to the theory of Anthropogic Climate Change as the fact that Asia experienced one of it's coldest winters is substantial against the theory of anthropogenic climate change.

Clip Source: www.americanthinker.com

…both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice is certainly subject to variation. But it would be a mistake to assume that a brief period during which the Arctic is in a thinning cycle is anything more than that - a cycle. We know from past history that it has been subject to earlier retreats as suggested by the opening quote from 1817.

Part of the problem lay in the fact that useful data on ice extent and thickness only dates from the 1950s, yet our temperature record from Jan Mayen Island at the edge of the Arctic shows that the Arctic was warmer during the 1930s than it was during the 1990s. Unfortunately there is no comprehensive ice data from the 1930s. Instead such data begins in the late 1950s, at a time when the Arctic was entering into the grip of a known cold spell. As that cold period ended, it is hardly surprising to find thinner ice during the latter warmer period. [....]

Perspective on Temperature

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:02:04 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

Many questions remain to be answered regarding the real significance of anthropogenic carbon dioxide as a climate forcing factor and related rising sea level consequences projected by the I.P.C.C. First, there is no incontrovertible evidence to support contentions that pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels were consistently lower than the 380 ppm recorded now. More than 90,000 published measurements carried out between 1812 and 1961 indicate that atmospheric levels were actually rising before the Industrial Revolution. They reached about 440 ppm in 1820, dropped to about 390 ppm by 1855, and rose back to about 440 ppm by 1940.

Clip Source: www.energytribune.com

Cyclical, abrupt, and dramatic global and regional temperature fluctuations have occurred in observable patterns over millions of years, long before humans invented agriculture, capitalism, smokestacks, and carbon trading schemes. To appreciate just how lucky we are to live in the present, consider climate cycles from a historical perspective. Over the past 400,000 years, much of the Northern Hemisphere has been covered by ice up to three miles thick, at regular intervals lasting about 100,000 years each. Very brief interglacial cycles lasting about 12,000 to 18,000 years, like our current one, have offered reprieves from the bitter cold. From this perspective, there can be no doubt that current temperatures are abnormally warm.

The average temperature of our planet has been gradually increasing on a fairly constant basis over the past 18,000 years or so since it began thawing out of the last ice age.

Tags: global warming, climate change

Very old hairball

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:27:36 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.economist.com

This is not any old hairball. It is a very old hairball. It comes from a woolly mammoth that was buried in the Siberian permafrost. An analysis of its DNA, and the DNA from 17 other mammoths, by Stephan Schuster, of Pennsylvania State University and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests the species was composed of two genetically distinct groups. One of these groups became extinct 45,000 years ago, well before people arrived in the area mammoths inhabited. That re-opens the question of whether it was people or climate change that finally did the species in.

They have made fools of themselves

Fri, 02 May 2008 00:08:01 GMT

clipped by: amgumen
clipper's remarks: The federal government has been doling out more than $5 billion annually for research into climate change and alternative energy. A generation ago, there were only a handful of climatologists around the world. Now there are legions of taxpayer-funded climatologists, and scientists and public health professionals from many disciplines also hooked up to the climate gravy train.
How many outspoken politicians and celebrities will be willing to acknowledge that they have made fools of themselves? I suppose that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Madonna and others could at least jet on back to their hypocritical Green lifestyles with a clear conscience of sorts.

Clip Source: www.junkscience.com

the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in Nature (May 1) that, after adjusting their climate model to reflect actual sea surface temperatures of the last 50 years, “global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations… temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming.”

Global warming hysterics purport that manmade emissions of CO2 are the primary driver of global climate and that controlling emissions will favorably affect climate. While this is obviously not so since it virtually supposes that without human activity climate change would not occur, it nevertheless remains their viewpoint

the very idea that Mother Nature may cool the planet despite humanity’s furious output of greenhouse gases should be even worse for the climate alarmists’ way of thinking. It would mean that greenhouse gas emissions are actually beneficial since without them, Mother Nature’s cooling could be quite damaging.

Tags: climate

Icebergs – Oases Of The Ocean

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:26:45 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.scienceagogo.com

The study reveals that icebergs hold trapped terrestrial material, which is released as they melt. The researchers discovered that this process produces a halo effect, with significantly increased phytoplankton, krill and seabirds out to a radius of more than two miles around the icebergs.

One important consequence of the increased biological productivity is that free-floating icebergs can serve as a route for carbon dioxide drawdown and sequestration of particulate carbon as it sinks into the deep sea

While the melting of Antarctic ice shelves is contributing to rising sea levels and other climate change dynamics in complex ways, this additional role of removing carbon from the atmosphere may have implications for global climate models that need to be further studied

phytoplankton around the icebergs was enriched with large diatom cells

As diatoms are the preferred food for krill, we expect the changes in phytoplankton community composition to favor grazing as a key biological process inv

Tags: iceberg, climate

Hurricane expert reconsiders global warming's impact

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:21:49 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.chron.com

The hurricane expert, Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, unveiled a novel technique for predicting future hurricane activity this week. The new work suggests that, even in a dramatically warming world, hurricane frequency and intensity may not substantially rise during the next two centuries.

Scientists wrangling with the hurricane-global warming question have faced two primary difficulties. The first is that the hurricane record before 1970 is not entirely reliable, making it nearly impossible to assess with precision whether hurricane activity has increased during the last century.

The second problem comes through the use of computer models to predict hurricane activity. Most climate models, which simulate global atmospheric conditions for centuries to come, cannot detect individual tropical systems.

'A lot of work to do'

Tags: climate change

Reality Check On Antarctic Sea Ice

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:19:17 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu

Clip Source: climatesci.org

This media reporting has become typical of the bias that many journalists have. Not reported in the media (but well reported on ICECAP by Joe D’Aleo) the media has ignored in their reporting the increase in Antarctic sea ice cover in recent years, with, at present, a coverage that is well 1 million square kilometers above average (see)!

Clip Source: arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu

Clip Source: climatesci.org

In fact, over the globe, since the Arctic sea ice cover is not far below its average and the Antarctic sea ice coverage is well above average for this time of the year, the global coverage of sea ice is actually above average after being below last year (see). There is no way to know if this is just a short term perturbation, but at the very least the news media should have been honest and balanced in their coverage.

Unfortunately, it appears that most journalists just parrot the perspective of the first news release on these climate issues, without doing any further investigation. If this is inadvertent, they need to be educated in climate science

Tags: climate change

Antarctic Ice Sheet's Hidden Lakes Speed Ice Flow Into Ocean

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:16:32 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

discovered four large, subglacial lakes miles beneath the Antarctic ice sheet's surface. The team was able to link these lakes for the first time to a fast flowing ice stream above and establish that within this 170-mile wide area the lakes contribute to the creation of a major ice stream.

Ice streams are large, fast-flowing features within ice sheets that transport land-based ice and meltwater to the ocean. One such stream, the Recovery Glacier ice stream, annually drains the equivalent of eight percent of the huge East Antarctic Ice Sheet, an area larger than the continental United States.

the lakes provide a reservoir of water that lubricates the bed of the stream, which speeds the flow of ice, and prevents the base of the sheet from freezing to the bedrock.

It's almost as if the lakes are capturing the geothermal energy from the entire basin and releasing it to the ice stream

They power the engines that drive ice sheet collapse.

we realize how important they are to ice sheet stability

Tags: climate change

Desert snow

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 03:56:19 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: yeinjee.com

The Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, China, was covered with snow after a heavy snowfall…

Desert snow (Image courtesy of Xinhuanet; captured on Jan 19, 2008)

As beauty as it seems… China is suffering from the worst winter weather in decades, which are affecting the lives of millions.

Tags: climate change

NOAA 2007/2008 Winter Prediction

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:33:34 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: A look back at their prediction versus the actuality.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Warm Winter Predicted For United States

ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2007) — NOAA forecasters are calling for above-average temperatures over most of the country and a continuation of drier-than-average conditions across already drought-stricken parts of the Southwest and Southeast in its winter outlook for the United States, announced at the 2007-2008 Winter Fuels Outlook Conference in Washington, D.C October 9, 2007.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Coolest Winter Since 2001 For U.S., Globe, According To NOAA Data

ScienceDaily (Mar. 15, 2008) — The average temperature across both the contiguous U.S. and the globe during climatological winter (December 2007-February 2008) was the coolest since 2001, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. In terms of winter precipitation, Pacific storms, bringing heavy precipitation to large parts of the West, produced high snowpack that will provide welcome runoff this spring.

Tags: meteorology, science, climate change

Al Gore's Liberal Global Warming Fascist Fear Mongering

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 04:12:06 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: climate change

2007 was the coldest year in this century so far

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:48:25 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: gustofhotair.blogspot.com

Global cooling. Nine hottest years on record as shown by the RSS MSU calculations, from the hottest year 1998 to the coolest year 2007.

Figure 2: Global cooling 2005-2007. The trend is over 15 °C of cooling per century. ;-) Also, the trend is accelerating: for the 12 months of 2007, a similar linear regression gives about 35 °C of cooling per century. :-)

Tags: climate change

evidence yet of instabilities in the ice of part of West Antarctica

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:34:11 GMT

clipped by: amgumen
clipper's remarks: UK scientists working in Antarctica have found some of the clearest evidence yet of instabilities in the ice of part of West Antarctica.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Throughout the 1990s, according to satellite measurements, the glacier was accelerating by around 1% a year. Julian Scott's sensational finding this season is that it now seems to have accelerated by 7% in a single season, sending more and more ice into the ocean.

The measurements from last season seem to show an incredible acceleration, a rate of up to 7%.

The reason does not seem to be warming in the surrounding air.

Much higher up the course of the glacier there is evidence of a volcano that erupted through the ice about 2,000 years ago and the whole region could be volcanically active, releasing geothermal heat to melt the base of the ice and help its slide towards the sea.

That might take decades or a century, but neighbouring glaciers are accelerating too and if the entire region were to lose its ice, the sea would rise by 1.5m worldwide.

Tags: volcanoes, geology, climate change