Thanks, cen.

HOwever......

I've accepted the word of no one concerning the causes of global warming, imo. I studied the science made available and mixed well with common sense.

Btw, its not the billion people without clean water saying there are too many people on the planet. Its the fat cats in industrialized countries with most to lose, screaming the loudest, imo. Sometimes a lack of water is just that.

What i'd love to see is the industrialized nations coming up with a solution to the lack of water you mention instead of spending precious resources on a scenario which is blantly a lie, verifyable by any willing to take the time to study the facts. (Global warming being driven by rising levels of CO2)

lw

Data on tree growth, tropical air temperatures and CO2 readings collected over 16 years indicate that a warming climate may cause the tropical forests to give off more carbon dioxide than they take up. This would upset the common belief that tropical forests are always a counterbalance to carbon, taking huge amounts out of the atmosphere. The study, by Deborah and David Clark of the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica, and Charles Keeling and Stephen Piper of the Scripps Institution, reports that rainforest trees grow much more slowly in warmer nighttime temperatures, which is a hallmark of climate change in the tropics.

This article really struck a chord with me.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/9deb730a-19ca-1 ... 10621.html

quote from below for those too busy or lazy read the entire article.

.......I agree with Professor Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said: “future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”......


Freedom, not climate, is at risk
By Vaclav Klaus
Published: June 13 2007 17:44

We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough – irrespective of the fact that in the course of the 20th century the global temperature increased only by 0.6 per cent – for the environmentalists and their followers to suggest radical measures to do something about the weather, and to do it right now.

In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary” film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more or less Tony Blair’s – Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists.

The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.

Does it make any sense to speak about warming of the Earth when we see it in the context of the evolution of our planet over hundreds of millions of years? Every child is taught at school about temperature variations, about the ice ages, about the much warmer climate in the Middle Ages. All of us have noticed that even during our life-time temperature changes occur (in both directions).

Due to advances in technology, increases in disposable wealth, the rationality of institutions and the ability of countries to organise themselves, the adaptability of human society has been radically increased. It will continue to increase and will solve any potential consequences of mild climate changes.

I agree with Professor Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said: “future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”.

The issue of global warming is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.

As a witness to today’s worldwide debate on climate change, I suggest the following:
?Small climate changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive measures
?Any suppression of freedom and democracy should be avoided
?Instead of organising people from above, let us allow everyone to live as he wants
?Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term “scientific consensus”, which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority
?Instead of speaking about “the environment”, let us be attentive to it in our personal behaviour
?Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow it down or divert it in any direction
?Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human lives.

The writer is President of the Czech Republic

I have hope this great swindle is coming to an end......

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm? ... 5C23C24651

Warming On Jupiter, Mars, Pluto, Neptune's Moon & Earth Linked to Increased Solar Activity, Scientists Say
March 12, 2007


Posted by Marc Morano - Marc_Morano@epw.senate.gov - 10:51 am ET

Warming On Jupiter, Mars, Pluto, Neptune's Moon & Earth Linked to Increased Solar Activity, Scientists Say

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

Bright sun, warm Earth. Coincidence?
By Lorne Gunter
National Post

Link to Article

Monday, March 12, 2007
Mars's ice caps are melting, and Jupiter is developing a second giant red spot, an enormous hurricane-like storm.

The existing Great Red Spot is 300 years old and twice the size of Earth. The new storm -- Red Spot Jr. -- is thought to be the result of a sudden warming on our solar system's largest planet. Dr. Imke de Pater of Berkeley University says some parts of Jupiter are now as much as six degrees Celsius warmer than just a few years ago.

Neptune's moon, Triton, studied in 1989 after the unmanned Voyageur probe flew past, seems to have heated up significantly since then. Parts of its frozen nitrogen surface have begun melting and turning to gas, making Triton's atmosphere denser.

Even Pluto has warmed slightly in recent years, if you can call -230C instead of -233C "warmer."

And I swear, I haven't left my SUV idling on any of those planets or moons. Honest, I haven't.

Is there something all these heavenly bodies have in common? Some one thing they all share that could be causing them to warm in unison?

Hmmm, is there some giant, self-luminous ball of burning gas with a mass more than 300,000 times that of Earth and a core temperature of more than 20-million degrees Celsius, that for the past century or more has been unusually active and powerful? Is there something like that around which they all revolve that could be causing this multi-globe warming? Naw!

They must all have congested commuter highways, coal-fired power plants and oilsands developments that are releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide into their atmospheres, too.

A decade ago, when global warming and Kyoto was just beginning to capture public attention, I published a quiz elsewhere that bears repeating in our current hyper-charged environmental debate: Quick, which is usually warmer, day or night?

And what is typically the warmest part of the day? The warmest time of year?

Finally, which are generally warmer: cloudy or cloudless days?

If you answered day, afternoon, summer and cloudless you may be well on your way to understanding what is causing global warming.

For the past century and a half, Earth has been warming. Coincidentally (or perhaps not so coincidentally), during that same period, our sun has been brightening, becoming more active, sending out more radiation.

Habibullah Abdussamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St. Petersburg, Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon of the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a host of the rest of the world's leading solar scientists are all convinced that the warming of recent years is not unusual and that nearly all the warming in the past 150 years can be attributed to the sun.

Solar scientists from Iowa to Siberia have overlaid the last several warm periods on our planet with known variations in our sun's activity and found, according to Mr. Solanki, "a near-perfect match."

Mr. Abdussamatov concedes manmade gasses may have made "a small contribution to the warming in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance."

Mr. Soon showed as long ago as the mid-1990s that the depth of the Little Ice Age -- the coldest period in the northern hemisphere in the past 1,500 years -- corresponded perfectly with a solar event known as the Maunder Minimum. For nearly seven decades there was virtually no sunspot activity.

Our sun was particular quiet. And for those 60 to 70 years, the northern half of our globe, at least, was in a deep freeze.

Is it so hard to believe then that the sun could be causing our current warming, too?

At the very least, the fact that so many prominent scientists have legitimate, logical objections to the current global warming orthodoxy means there is no "consensus" among scientists about the cause.

Here's a prediction: The sun's current active phase is expected to wane in 20 to 40 years, at which time the planet will begin cooling. Since that is when most of the greenhouse emission reductions proposed by the UN and others are slated to come into full effect, the "greens" will see that cooling and claim, "See, we warned you and made you take action, and look, we saved the planet."

Of course, they will have had nothing to do with it.

© National Post 2007

Stoney:Looks like you and a few classmates have this all figured out. hahahahaha! Talk about a brain-wash job. I included reader comments at the end, as it appears there are more and more folks waking up to the swindle you and your friends have bought hook, line and sinker, sucker.....

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=113600

Pending doom: Global warming crisis
A group of fourth-graders in Portland creates a list of priorities to stop global warming.

June 14, 2007

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Hallie Repeta, Miranda Richman, Carole Grant, Jacob Austin and Gabrielle Wagabaza are fourth-grade students in Randy Bigelman's class at Portland's East End Community School.


Our school study of global warming started with lots of
questions. What is global warming? What is happening now?
What might happen in the future? What can each of us do to
help? Why should we care? What will the future look like?

A small group of students at our school has been researching
and studying the effects of global warming. The evidence and
data we collected is so overwhelming that we have decided to
write about this issue.

We want everyone to help curb Global warming. It truly means
that the Earth is getting warmer. The ocean is warming at such
an alarming rate that the continents are in danger.

Such a warming of the ocean is fuel for more severe hurricanes
such as Katrina. Katrina was only a Category 1 storm when it
crossed Florida. It became a monster storm by feeding off the
extremely warm water in the Gulf of Mexico.

Not just the ocean temperature, but also the overall temperature
on the planet is rising to dangerous levels.

The 10 "hottest" average years on record have occurred within
the last 14 years. We continue to see record carbon dixoide
levels in the atmosphere year after year. Just notice the strange
weather around us this winter and spring and even summer-like
days in March.

The United States is the leading contributor to the global-
warming crisis, producing one-third of the total greenhouse
gases in the world, more than South America, Africa, Asia and
Australia combined.

Please think about what people are doing and what could
happen if they do not stop.

Have we ever wondered what life might be like in 50 to 100
years? We might have imagined big robotic cities and flying cars,
but I bet we didn't imagine huge cities and tall skyscrapers
underwater. Well, that's what life will be if we keep burning fossil
fuels without thought.

Here are some facts that might help people realize the danger
we are facing.

Glaciers are melting at a faster and faster rate and glaciers are a
huge source of the world's drinking water. Greenland and the
Arctic ice shelf are melting faster each year and will disappear in
our lifetime if our fossil fuel usage continues unchecked. That
melting will raise the water level of the world's oceans nearly 40
feet. Basically, Manhattan would be underwater.

Hopefully, people will understand the danger we are facing. Do
Mainers want this to be our future? Although global warming is a
huge pending global disaster, we all have the means to change it
together.

Because the United States contributes one-third of the carbon
dioxide emissions worldwide, here are seven sensible ways to
save our seven beautiful continents:

nChange light bulbs to long lasting fluorescents and save 150
pounds of CO per year in every household.

nDrive less and save 1 pound of CO for every fewer mile.

nSave 2,400 pounds of CO by recycling plastics and paper.

nPlant a tree -- it breathes over a ton of helpful gases per
lifetime.

nTurn off any electrical items (TV, games, cell phones, lights,
etc.) when not in use to save 1,000 pounds of CO.

nBe informed -- go to www.stopglobalwarming.org or
www.climatecrisis.net.

nStay informed -- Watch Planet Earth (kids) and An Inconvenient
Truth (families).

Is our future already chosen for us? We are all young students,
ages 9-11, and cannot change the world like adults can. All the
facts we have presented are true, real, and will shape our future
unless decisive action is taken.

We will be in great danger if we don't...
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Reader comments

Bruce of Solon, ME
Jun 15, 2007 4:50 PM
So...


The kids say that "Glaciers are melting at a faster and faster rate and glaciers are a huge source of the world's drinking water."

Did anyone tell these kids that, as recently as 13,000 years ago, the ENTIRE STATE of Maine was covered with glaciers? How do they explain the loss of those glaciers back when humans were living in caves and hunting with clubs?

Martin Russo of Portland, ME
Jun 15, 2007 4:19 PM
What incredible silliness! I can understand a bunch of little kids, hectored and bullied by their adult "science teacher," falling for this stuff, but what is the Portland Press Herald's excuse for printing this nonsense? I am only thankful that my child's name (or school)is not associated with this foolishness. These poor kids!

My youngest comes home from her Portland public school with these junk science factoids all the time. I have to sit her down and explain that political movements that border on the quasi-religious aren't facts or science. Just because a fat, balding hypocrite Loserman says something in a movie doesn't make it true. Global warming may be happening, and being environmentally smart and friendly is a good thing, but GW is not proven to be a man-made event to any significant measurable degree. Many of the same GW alarmists were raving hysterically in the '70's about the oncoming global ice age. And as yet, no GW alarmist has explained why temperatures are rising on Mars.

I guess it is about time I pulled her out of the public schools in order to ensure she gets a real education rather than political indoctrination.

Greta Samwel of Oviedo, FL
Jun 15, 2007 4:05 PM
I'm so glad to know that so many people have nothing better to do that rag on a bunch of fourth graders.

It's as though you are all going, "well thank goodness - instead of actually having to argue with adults about global warming (and ACTUALLy have some facts on our side) we can make fun of little kids and how stupid they are. It MUST be brainwashing by those EVIL liberals."

Get a life people.
Jennifer Phillips of Waterville, ME
Jun 15, 2007 4:00 PM
Ask me why I homeschool my kids...

Better to be blinded by science than faith, imo...

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/fina ... db11f4&p=4

Read the sunspots
The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change - and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling

R. TIMOTHY PATTERSON, Financial Post
Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Politicians and environmentalists these days convey the impression that climate-change research is an exceptionally dull field with little left to discover. We are assured by everyone from David Suzuki to Al Gore to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that "the science is settled." At the recent G8 summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel even attempted to convince world leaders to play God by restricting carbon-dioxide emissions to a level that would magically limit the rise in world temperatures to 2C.

They call this a consensus?
Dire forecasts aren't new

The fact that science is many years away from properly understanding global climate doesn't seem to bother our leaders at all. Inviting testimony only from those who don't question political orthodoxy on the issue, parliamentarians are charging ahead with the impossible and expensive goal of "stopping global climate change." Liberal MP Ralph Goodale's June 11 House of Commons assertion that Parliament should have "a real good discussion about the potential for carbon capture and sequestration in dealing with carbon dioxide, which has tremendous potential for improving the climate, not only here in Canada but around the world," would be humorous were he, and even the current government, not deadly serious about devoting vast resources to this hopeless crusade.

Climate stability has never been a feature of planet Earth. The only constant about climate is change; it changes continually and, at times, quite rapidly. Many times in the past, temperatures were far higher than today, and occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as 6,000 years ago, it was about 3C warmer than now. Ten thousand years ago, while the world was coming out of the thou-sand-year-long "Younger Dryas" cold episode, temperatures rose as much as 6C in a decade -- 100 times faster than the past century's 0.6C warming that has so upset environmentalists.

Climate-change research is now literally exploding with new findings. Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the field has had more research than in all previous years combined and the discoveries are completely shattering the myths. For example, I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of all energy on the planet.
My interest in the current climate-change debate was triggered in 1998, when I was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council strategic project grant to determine if there were regular cycles in West Coast fish productivity. As a result of wide swings in the populations of anchovies, herring and other commercially important West Coast fish stock, fisheries managers were having a very difficult time establishing appropriate fishing quotas. One season there would be abundant stock and broad harvesting would be acceptable; the very next year the fisheries would collapse. No one really knew why or how to predict the future health of this crucially important resource.

Although climate was suspected to play a significant role in marine productivity, only since the beginning of the 20th century have accurate fishing and temperature records been kept in this region of the northeast Pacific. We needed indicators of fish productivity over thousands of years to see whether there were recurring cycles in populations and what phenomena may be driving the changes.

My research team began to collect and analyze core samples from the bottom of deep Western Canadian fjords. The regions in which we chose to conduct our research, Effingham Inlet on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and in 2001, sounds in the Belize-Seymour Inlet complex on the mainland coast of British Columbia, were perfect for this sort of work. The topography of these fjords is such that they contain deep basins that are subject to little water transfer from the open ocean and so water near the bottom is relatively stagnant and very low in oxygen content. As a consequence, the floors of these basins are mostly lifeless and sediment layers build up year after year, undisturbed over millennia.

Using various coring technologies, we have been able to collect more than 5,000 years' worth of mud in these basins, with the oldest layers coming from a depth of about 11 metres below the fjord floor. Clearly visible in our mud cores are annual changes that record the different seasons: corresponding to the cool, rainy winter seasons, we see dark layers composed mostly of dirt washed into the fjord from the land; in the warm summer months we see abundant fossilized fish scales and diatoms (the most common form of phytoplankton, or single-celled ocean plants) that have fallen to the fjord floor from nutrient-rich surface waters. In years when warm summers dominated climate in the region, we clearly see far thicker layers of diatoms and fish scales than we do in cooler years. Ours is one of the highest-quality climate records available anywhere today and in it we see obvious confirmation that natural climate change can be dramatic. For example, in the middle of a 62-year slice of the record at about 4,400 years ago, there was a shift in climate in only a couple of seasons from warm, dry and sunny conditions to one that was mostly cold and rainy for several decades.

Using computers to conduct what is referred to as a "time series analysis" on the colouration and thickness of the annual layers, we have discovered repeated cycles in marine productivity in this, a region larger than Europe. Specifically, we find a very strong and consistent 11-year cycle throughout the whole record in the sediments and diatom remains. This correlates closely to the well-known 11-year "Schwabe" sunspot cycle, during which the output of the sun varies by about 0.1%. Sunspots, violent storms on the surface of the sun, have the effect of increasing solar output, so, by counting the spots visible on the surface of our star, we have an indirect measure of its varying brightness. Such records have been kept for many centuries and match very well with the changes in marine productivity we are observing.

In the sediment, diatom and fish-scale records, we also see longer period cycles, all correlating closely with other well-known regular solar variations. In particular, we see marine productivity cycles that match well with the sun's 75-90-year "Gleissberg Cycle," the 200-500-year "Suess Cycle" and the 1,100-1,500-year "Bond Cycle." The strength of these cycles is seen to vary over time, fading in and out over the millennia. The variation in the sun's brightness over these longer cycles may be many times greater in magnitude than that measured over the short Schwabe cycle and so are seen to impact marine productivity even more significantly.

Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called "proxies") is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change.

However, there was a problem. Despite this clear and repeated correlation, the measured variations in incoming solar energy were, on their own, not sufficient to cause the climate changes we have observed in our proxies. In addition, even though the sun is brighter now than at any time in the past 8,000 years, the increase in direct solar input is not calculated to be sufficient to cause the past century's modest warming on its own. There had to be an amplifier of some sort for the sun to be a primary driver of climate change.

Indeed, that is precisely what has been discovered. In a series of groundbreaking scientific papers starting in 2002, Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svensmark et al., have collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies, and with it, our star's protective solar wind, varying amounts of galactic cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system and penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. These cosmic rays enhance cloud formation which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet. When the sun's energy output is greater, not only does the Earth warm slightly due to direct solar heating, but the stronger solar wind generated during these "high sun" periods blocks many of the cosmic rays from entering our atmosphere. Cloud cover decreases and the Earth warms still more.

The opposite occurs when the sun is less bright. More cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth's atmosphere, more clouds form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots, was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. By comparison, CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales.

In some fields the science is indeed "settled." For example, plate tectonics, once highly controversial, is now so well-established that we rarely see papers on the subject at all. But the science of global climate change is still in its infancy, with many thousands of papers published every year. In a 2003 poll conducted by German environmental researchers Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, two-thirds of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries surveyed did not believe that "the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases." About half of those polled stated that the science of climate change was not sufficiently settled to pass the issue over to policymakers at all.
Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.

Meantime, we need to continue research into this, the most complex field of science ever tackled, and immediately halt wasted expenditures on the King Canute-like task of "stopping climate change."

R. Timothy Patterson is professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University.

I have watched the video and have read the majority of this thread. I found the information presented quite compelling. It is certaintly worthy of more careful consideration. When looking at this sort of stuff we need to consider who benefits from a particular course of action. Is it petro chemical companies ? The scientists in the documentary claim to have been paid a penny. What about the flipside and the carbon offset charges that are coming into play? What about the multi billion pound industry that has come about. What about the bigger bigger picture of who are really running the show, how can this play to an advantage? Someone may have vested interests in stopping development in Africa? Africa has every natural resource there is in rich abundance ...they are kept poor for a reason?

We also need to be able to throw away our current belief and look with unbiased reason. So for many of us here to hear this 'global warming swindle' we will think that as we are hippy leftist enviromentalists ( well i hate labels but i'd prob have stuck myself under that banner once upon a time )...this goes against what we think and we try to protect it ( and our ego/belief structure at the same time ).

I do not believe it is a case of saying that global warming must be happening because all these scientists say it is. One must be ale to look at the data as an individual and make up your own mind! Many scientists follow the bandwagon like anyone else!

I do not dispute we treat our earth badly, but man made global warming via CO2 appears to be based on bad science, the evidence of solar activity seems far more compelling and explains elements of climatic activity that CO2 cannot ( time lag of temp and CO2). And the global warming swindle hides the real pollution of toxic waste and heavy metals that is going on. And the fact that until now we are only just hearing the concerns some scientists have with the man made co2 theory just shows how much of a vested interest there is in it.


I waffle, sorry for the not so structured post

Boosh

Thanks you, boosh, for looking at the data presented above. I appreciate the fact that you have more questions than answers on the topic at hand.

Btw, as far as I can tell, you are the first spf member to read the info posted and come to a similar conclusion as I have. Thanks for making me feel a little less lonely on this one. I won't forget that....

lw

I'm going to have an interesting time with this in september when I return to academia. Studying wildlife conservation this topic surrounds alot of what I'm taught ( indoctrinated ), I will be eager to pick the brains of a few lecturers and see what they have to say on the matter. And may even try and dig up some more info on solar activity in thel ibrary or online journals i have access to.

Booosh

Growing up on the prairie, soil conservation has been a topic of interest for me since my younger days. (Iowa has lost over half our top soil since the state was first settled one hundred and fifty years ago.) Farmers plow the fields in the fall to get a jump on the spring work and end up watching black dirt blow out of the fields, into the ditches, to the creeks and rivers headed toward the mississippi....

Now I read declarations that we'll pass the point of no return on CO2 levels within ten years unless we act immediately! What a farce. This lie has been swallowed hook, line and sinker, while other situations with real danger of messing up the world are allowed to fester. (Nuclear proliferation, for example.) Why is it OK for the U$ to have the bomb and not Iran?

What about toxic waste?

Oh yeah, what about all of the folks without clean water cenny has been crying about?

lw

I realize this is an editorial, but do agreew with most of the points made and questions asked.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/edit ... 6634686203

Tempest In A Teapot

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 7/25/2007
Global Warming: A private firm's downgrade of its hurricane forecast raises an obvious question: If scientists can't get near-future projections in a limited area right, how can they predict the climate decades from now?

A reasonable response is: They can't. But the global warming climate of fear did not blow in on the soft breezes of reason, but by the storm winds of emotion.

Forecaster WSI Corp. said Tuesday that the season ending Nov. 30 will bring 14 named storms, six of which will grow into hurricanes, three of them major. WSI's initial forecast was for 15 named storms, eight hurricanes and four majors.

Why the change? "Because," said WSI forecaster Todd Crawford, "ocean temperatures have not yet rebounded from the significant drop in late spring."

Could it be that the 2007 hurricane season is turning out to be as overrated as 2006? Remember last year's predictions — that we were in for a brutal spell of storms? It had been quiet, they said, and we were due for a series of Katrina-like hurricanes. But as we wrote last November, as the much-dreaded '06 season whimpered to a close, the storm year came in like a lamb and went out the same way.

For years, the Greenshirts have told us that emissions of carbon dioxide resulting from man's addiction to fossil fuel-based energy are turning the planet into a sweltering hothouse. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change has projected a temperature increase of 2 to 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit for the 21st century due to the greenhouse effect.

As a result, alarmists say, ice caps will melt, glaciers will thaw and sea levels will rise as much as 20 feet, causing floods and death in low-lying areas. Storms are also predicted to increase in both frequency and intensity.

To prevent this coming Category 5 cataclysm, we're supposed to shell out trillions of dollars and gladly adopt Spartan lifestyles. Instead of trying, as their grandparents did, to see how many bodies they can squeeze into a telephone booth, today's college kids are expected to see how many they can get in a Prius.

Yet the fact remains: The local weatherman can't forecast more than about 10 days out, and neither can the experts tell us how warm, or cool, the planet is going to be in 2100, 2075 or even 2050.

Even short-term predictions have been off. James Hansen, NASA scientist, predicted a 0.45-degree Celsius (0.81-degree Fahrenheit) rise in global temperature from 1988 to 1997. But in reality (a place environmental activists rarely visit) the increase was a mere 0.11-degree Celsius.

We hope no one in Hansen's neighborhood relies on him to tell them when it's going to rain or when they'll need a coat and hat.
Setting aside the hubristic notion that alarmists know what the right temperature is, too many other factors besides the greenhouse effect influence climate for them to declare they know exactly, or even approximately, what's coming. Solar activity, for instance, is among the most powerful, as are the El Nino and La Nina phenomena.

We also question the concept of a "global" temperature. How could such a thing be measured when weather stations dot rather than blanket the Earth? Danish physicist Bjarne Andresen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, made sense earlier this year when he said it's "impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth.

"A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system (and) climate is not governed by a single temperature," he said. "Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. , which make up the climate."

The formula for a climate of fear, though, requires nothing more than a lot of thunder and a bit of heat generated by political activists.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm? ... dd978fb3cd

Latest Scientific Studies Refute Fears of Greenland Melt
July 30, 2007

Latest Scientific Studies Refute Fears of Greenland Melt

Posted By Marc Morano – Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov – 9:39 AM ET

Ilulissat, Greenland – The July 27-29 2007 U.S. Senate trip to Greenland to investigate fears of a glacier meltdown revealed an Arctic land where current climatic conditions are neither alarming nor linked to a rise in man-made carbon dioxide emissions, according to many of the latest peer-reviewed scientific findings. Recent research has found that Greenland has been warming since the 1880’s, but since 1955, temperature averages at Greenland stations have been colder than the period between 1881-1955.

A recent study concluded Greenland was as warm or warmer in the 1930’s and 40’s and the rate of warming from 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than the warming from 1995-2005. One 2005 study found Greenland gaining ice in the interior higher elevations and thinning ice at the lower elevations. In addition, the often media promoted fears of Greenland’s ice completely melting and a subsequent catastrophic sea level rise are directly at odds with the latest scientific studies. These studies suggest that the biggest perceived threat to Greenland’s glaciers may be contained in unproven computer models predicting a future catastrophic melt.

As a representative of Environment & Public Works Committee Ranking Member, Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), I made the trek to the Arctic Circle with the Senate delegation (LINK) to the land the Vikings once farmed during the Medieval Warm Period.

Senators and their staff viewed majestic giant glaciers and icebergs in the Kangia Ice Fjord and in Disko Bay via helicopter, boat and on foot, during the three day 24 hours of daylight trip which began in the Arctic city of Kangerlussuaq, Greenland.

In an informational handout, participants of the Senate trip to Greenland were shown a depiction of coastal flooding that illustrated what would happen if most of the ice on Greenland was to melt and sea levels rose nearly 20 feet. The handout on Greenland was written by UN scientist Dr. Richard B. Alley, who is also a professor of Geosciences at Penn State University and traveled with the Senate delegation. Dr. Alley noted that the illustration of coastal flooding was not a forecast or a prediction, but merely an illustration of what could happen.

Dr. Alley’s handout stated in part, “We don’t think Greenland could melt completely in less than many centuries, but it might get warm enough this century to start complete melting.”

During the trip, a Danish scientist and Danish government officials appealed to the U.S. government to act now to address global warming and used the prospect of Greenland melt fears as a wake up call for such action. But the very latest research reveals massive Greenland melt fears are not sustainable. According to a survey of some of the latest peer-reviewed scientific reports, current Greenland temperatures are neither alarming nor linked to a rise in man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

Sampling of Recent Scientific Studies:

1) A 2006 study by Danish researchers from Aarhus University found that “Greenland’s glaciers have been shrinking for the past century, suggesting that the ice melt is not a recent phenomenon caused by global warming.” (LINK) Glaciologist Jacob Clement Yde explained that the study was “the most comprehensive ever conducted on the movements of Greenland’s glaciers, according to an August 21, 2006 article in Agence France-Presse. “Seventy percent of the glaciers have been shrinking regularly since the end of the 1880’s,” Yde explained. [EPW Blog note: 80% of man-made CO2 emissions occurred after 1940. (LINK) ] Niels Tvis Knudsen of Aarhus University co-authored the paper.

2) A 2006 study by a team of scientists led by Petr Chylek of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Space and Remote Sensing Sciences found the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995-2005, suggesting carbon dioxide ‘could not be the cause’ of warming. (LINK)

“We find that the current Greenland warming is not unprecedented in recent Greenland history. Temperature increases in the two warming periods (1920-1930 and 1995-2005) are of similar magnitude, however the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995-2005,” the abstract of the study read.

The peer-reviewed study, which was published in the June 13, 2006 Geophysical Research Letters, found that after a warm 2003 on the southeastern coast of Greenland, “the years 2004 and 2005 were closer to normal being well below temperatures reached in the 1930’s and 1940’s.” The study further continued, “Almost all post-1955 temperature averages at Greenland stations are lower (colder climate) than the (1881-1955) temperature average.”

In addition, the Chylek led study explained, “Although there has been a considerable temperature increase during the last decade (1995 to 2005) a similar increase and at a faster rate occurred during the early part of the 20th century (1920 to 1930) when carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases could not be a cause. The Greenland warming of 1920-1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for a period of warming to arise. The observed 1995-2005 temperature increase seems to be within natural variability of Greenland climate. A general increase in solar activity [Scafetta and West, 2006] since 1990’s can be a contributing factor as well as the sea surface temperature changes of tropical ocean [Hoerling et al., 2001].”

“To summarize, we find no direct evidence to support the claims that the Greenland ice sheet is melting due to increased temperature caused by increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.” The co-authors of the study were M.K. Dubey of Los Alamos National Laboratory and G. Lesins, Dalhousie University in Canada.

3) An October 2005 study in the journal Science found Greenland’s higher elevation interior ice sheet growing while lower elevations ice is thinning. According to a November 8, 2005 article in European Research, “An international team of climatologists and oceanographers, led by the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) in Norway, estimates that Greenland’s interior ice sheet has grown, on average, 6cm per year in areas above 1 500m between 1992 and 2003.” Lead author, Ola M. Johannessen of NERSC “says the sheet growth is due to increased snowfall brought about by variability in regional atmospheric circulation, or the so-called North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO),” according to the article. (LINK) & (LINK to Journal Science)

4) A February 8, 2007 peer-reviewed paper published in Science found two of Greenland’s largest glaciers have “suddenly slowed, bringing the rate of melting last year down to near the previous rate,” according to the New York Times blog (2-8-07). (LINK) The report found that the Kangerdlugssuaq glacier’s “average thinning over the glacier during the summer of 2006 declined to near zero, with some apparent thickening in areas on the main trunk.” (LINK) University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory researcher Ian Howat, the lead author of the report, explained “Greenland was about as warm or warmer in the 1930’s and 40’s, and many of the glaciers were smaller than they are now.” “However, it does suggest that large variations in ice sheet dynamics can occur from natural climate variability,” Howat, also a researcher with the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, explained. “Special care must be taken in how these and other mass-loss estimates are evaluated, particularly when extrapolating into the future because short-term spikes could yield erroneous long term trends,” Howat cautioned.

5) A July 6, 2007 study published in the journal Science about Greenland by an international team of scientists found DNA “evidence that suggests the frozen shield covering the immense island survived the Earth’s last period of global warming,” according to a Boston Globe article. (6-6-07) (LINK) According to the article, the study indicates “Greenland’s ice may be less susceptible to the massive meltdown predicted by computer models of climate change, the main author (Eske Willerslev, professor of evolutionary biology at University of Copenhagen) said in an interview. “This may have implications for how the ice sheets respond to global warming. They may withstand rising temperatures,” Willerslev said. The article explained, “The discovery of organic matter in ice dating from half –a-million years ago offers evidence that the Greenland ice sheet remained frozen even during the Earth’s last ‘interglacial period’ – some 120,000 years ago – when average temperatures were 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than they are now.” Willerslev addressed scary computer model predictions of a massive Greenland melt. “[The study] suggests a problem with [computer] models” that predict melting ice from Greenland could drown cities and destroy civilizations, Willerslev said. The study found “Greenland really was green, before Ice Age glaciers enshrouded vast swaths of the Northern Hemisphere…somewhere between 450,000 and 800,000 years ago,” according to the article.

6) Climatologist Dr. Patrick Michaels of University of Virginia and the Virginia State climatologist wrote the scenario promoted by former Vice President Al Gore and others showing Greenland’s ice melting and raising sea levels by 20 feet is not supported anywhere in scientific literature, not even by the United Nations. “Where is the support for this claim? Certainly not in the recent [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)] Policymakers Summary from the United Nations. Under the [IPCC’s] medium-range emission scenario for greenhouse gases, a rise in sea level of between 8 and 17 inches is predicted by 2100. Gore’s film exaggerates the rise by about 2,000 percent,” Michaels wrote in a February 23, 2007 article. (LINK) “According to satellite data published in [the journal] Science in November 2005,” Michaels wrote, “Greenland was shedding ice at 0.4 percent per century.” “Nowhere in the traditionally [peer-reviewed] refereed scientific literature do we find any support for Gore’s [Greenland melt] hypothesis,” Michaels concluded.

7) Geologist Morten Hald, an Arctic expert at of the University of Tromso in Norway has also questioned the reliability of computer models predicting a melting Arctic. "The main problem is that these models are often based on relatively new climate data. The thermometer has only been in existence for 150 years and information on temperature which is 150 years old does not capture the large natural changes,” Hald, who is participating with a Norwegian national team in Arctic climate research, said in a May 18, 2007 article. (LINK) The article continued, “Professor Hald believes the models which are utilized to make prognoses about the future climate changes consider paleoclimate only to a minor degree.” “Studies of warm periods in the past, like during the Stone Ages can provide valuable knowledge to understand and tackle the warmer climate in the future,” Hald explained.

Polar expert Ivan Frolov, the head of Russia’s Science and Research Institute of Arctic and Antarctic Regions, said atmospheric temperature would have to much higher to make continental glaciers melt. “Many hundred years or 20-30 degree temperature rise would have made glaciers melt,” Frolov said in a December 14, 2006 Russian news article. (LINK) Frolov noted that currently Greenland’s and Antarctic glaciers have the tendency to grow. The article explained, “Frolov says cooling and warming periods are common for our planet – temperature fluctuations amounted to 10-12 degrees. However, such fluctuations haven’t caused glaciers to melt. Thus, we shouldn’t be afraid they melt today.”

9) Physicist Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, the former director of both University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute and International Arctic Research Center who has twice been named "1000 Most Cited Scientists" told a Congressional hearing in 2006 that highly publicized climate models showing a disappearing Arctic were nothing more than “science fiction.” "All the papers since (the advent of satellites) show warming. That's what I call 'instant climatology.' I'm trying to tell young scientists, 'You can't study climatology unless you look at a much longer time period.'” (LINK)

10) In addition, current climate fears tends to ignore the fact that the Vikings arrived in Greenland around 1000 A.D. and found it to be habitable settlement that they farmed for hundreds of years. A 2003 Harvard University study found (LINK) the Earth was warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period from about 800 to 1300 A.D. without modern SUV’s or man-made CO2 emissions. The Vikings abandoned Greenland when the Little Ice Age took hold.

11) Another problem for predictions of catastrophic sea level rise due to polar ice melt is Antarctica is not cooperating with the man-made catastrophic global warming models. “A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models,” reads the February 15, 2007 press release announcing the findings of David Bromwich, professor of professor of atmospheric sciences in the Department of Geography, and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University. (See: Antarctic temperatures disagree with climate model predictions LINK)

"It's hard to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right now,” Bromwich explained. The release explains that Bromwich’s research team found “no increase in precipitation over Antarctica in the last 50 years. Most models predict that both precipitation and temperature will increase over Antarctica with a warming of the planet.”

Top UN Scientist Explains Why Climate Models Predictions Are Failing

Recently, a top UN scientist publicly conceded that climate computer model predictions are not so reliable after all. Dr. Jim Renwick, a lead author of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report, admitted to the New Zealand Herald in June 2007, “Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don't expect to do terrifically well." (LINK)

A leading scientific skeptic of global warming fears, Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, former CEO of the Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, took the critique of climate models that predict future doom a step further. Tennekes wrote on February 28, 2007, "I am of the opinion that most scientists engaged in the design, development, and tuning of climate modes are in fact software engineers. They are unlicensed, hence unqualified to sell their products to society." (LINK)

Ivy League geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack of the University of Pennsylvania noted “for most of Earth’s history, the globe has been warmer than it has been for the last 200 years. It has rarely been cooler,” Giegengack said according to a February 2007 article in Philadelphia Magazine. (LINK) The article continued, “[Giegengack] says carbon dioxide doesn’t control global temperature, and certainly not in a direct linear way.”

Climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball explained that one of the reasons climate models fail is because they overestimate the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. Ball described how CO2 stabilizes in the atmosphere and its warming impact diminishes. “Even if CO2 concentration doubles or triples, the effect on temperature would be minimal. The relationship between temperature and CO2 is like painting a window black to block sunlight. The first coat blocks most of the light. Second and third coats reduce very little more. Current CO2 levels are like the first coat of black paint,” Ball explained in a June 6, 2007 article in Canada Free Press. (LINK)

New data is revealing what may perhaps be the ultimate inconvenient truth for climate doomsayers:

Global warming stopped in 1998.

Dr. Nigel Calder, co-author with physicist Henrik Svensmark of the 2007 book “The Chilling Stars: A New Theory on Climate Change,” explained in July 2007: (LINK)

“In reality, global temperatures have stopped rising. Data for both the surface and the lower air show no warming since 1999. That makes no sense by the hypothesis of global warming driven mainly by CO2, because the amount of CO2 in the air has gone on increasing. But the fact that the Sun is beginning to neglect its climatic duty – of battling away the cosmic rays that come from ‘the chilling stars’ – fits beautifully with this apparent end of global warming.”

Perhaps the conversion of many former scientists from believers in man-made global warming to skeptics (LINK) and the new peer-reviewed research is why so many proponents of a climatic doom have resorted to threats and intimidation in attempting to silence skeptics. (See: EPA to Probe E-mail Threatening to ‘Destroy’ Career of Climate Skeptic - LINK )

One final note: To many residents of Greenland, a little warming may not be that bad. A June 7, 2007 Washington Post article detailed how Greenland’s residents were “cheering’ on warming. "I can keep the sheep out two weeks longer to feed in hills in the autumn. And I can grow more hay. The sheep get fatter," said one resident. (LINK)

# # #

EPW Inhofe Press Blog Note: The above sampling of scientific studies and scientists are a sneak peak at a blockbuster U.S. Senate report set to be released in the Fall 2007 that will feature hundreds of scientists (many current and former UN scientists) who have spoken out recently against Gore, the UN, and the media driven climate “consensus.” Please keep checking this blog for updates.

Here we go....

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/246027

Red faces at NASA over climate-change blunder

Agency roasted after Toronto blogger spots `hot years' data fumble

Aug 14, 2007 04:30 AM
DANIEL DALE
STAFF REPORTER

In the United States, the calendar year 1998 ranked as the hottest of them all – until someone checked the math.

After a Toronto skeptic tipped NASA this month to one flaw in its climate calculations, the U.S. agency ordered a full data review.

Days later, it put out a revised list of all-time hottest years. The Dust Bowl year of 1934 now ranks as hottest ever in the U.S. – not 1998.

More significantly, the agency reduced the mean U.S. "temperature anomalies" for the years 2000 to 2006 by 0.15 degrees Celsius.

NASA officials have dismissed the changes as trivial. Even the Canadian who spotted the original flaw says the revisions are "not necessarily material to climate policy."

But the revisions have been seized on by conservative Americans, including firebrand radio host Rush Limbaugh, as evidence that climate change science is unsound.

Said Limbaugh last Thursday: "What do we have here? We have proof of man-made global warming. The man-made global warming is inside NASA ... is in the scientific community with false data."

However Stephen McIntyre, who set off the uproar, described his finding as a "a micro-change. But it was kind of fun."

A former mining executive who runs the blog ClimateAudit.org, McIntyre, 59, earned attention in 2003 when he put out data challenging the so-called "hockey stick" graph depicting a spike in global temperatures.

This time, he sifted NASA's use of temperature anomalies, which measure how much warmer or colder a place is at a given time compared with its 30-year average.

Puzzled by a bizarre "jump" in the U.S. anomalies from 1999 to 2000, McIntyre discovered the data after 1999 wasn't being fractionally adjusted to allow for the times of day that readings were taken or the locations of the monitoring stations.

McIntyre emailed his finding to NASA's Goddard Institute, triggering the data review.

"They moved pretty fast on this," McIntyre said. "There must have been some long faces."

Just came across this ...

D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."

The 1922 article, obtained by Inside the Beltway, goes on to mention "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."

"This was one of several such articles I have found at the Library of Congress for the 1920s and 1930s," says Mr. Lockwood. "I had read of the just-released NASA estimates, that four of the 10 hottest years in the U.S. were actually in the 1930s, with 1934 the hottest of all."

Reacting yesterday to word that certain European governments and officials are suddenly trying to abandon their costly "global warming" policies, Royal Astronomical Society fellow Benny Peiser, of the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University in Great Britain, recalls the teachings of Marcus Aurelius: "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

Now for the obvious question.....

If 1934 was actually the hottest year on record (for short time these things have been recorded here in the U$,) what was driving those temp increases experienced in the 30's? I don't believe there was enough man-made CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere at that time to cause the temp spike that apparently peaked in 1934.

Add the fact that from 1934 to the present the amount of CO2 pumped into the air by man has steadily increased, while global temps steadily fell/leveled off until maybe the early 1970's(?) before gradually increasing to current levels.

Here's another question...

If CO2 is responsible for blocking heat, why have temps on the surface of the planet been increasing at a faster rate than that directly under the layer of CO2? IF trapped heat is driving the climate change, shouldn't we expect to see temps rise in that level of the atmosphere first?

lw