How the GW myth is perpetuated

July 19th, 2008, 05:45 AM


I don't intend to offend you or anyone else; I have nothing to do with ? voodoo people.

July 19th, 2008, 07:44 AM

July 20th, 2008, 10:21 AM

Yes. I never understand your type eanasir. You did offend people. You did. Hope you are happy eanasir. Hope you are happy. If I have the choice, I will never read your posts again eanasir.

July 20th, 2008, 10:21 AM

Sorry about that. Your name is eanassir, eanassir, and eanassir. Studying one religious text is not amazing. People studied more than 12 volumes of religious text. Each volume contain about more than 900 pages. Each volume is a different religious studies. Those people became famous. They never brag about what they do know. I hope you are happy. I hope you are happy, eanassir.

July 21st, 2008, 06:03 AM

Do as Al says, not as Al does

Lorne Gunter, National Post Published: Monday, July 21, 2008

On Thursday, former U. S. vice-president Al Gore delivered a major address calling on his country to abandon all fossil fuels within 10 years. By 2018, U. S. electricity and fuel should come entirely from "renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources," he said. Tickets to the event encouraged attendees to "please use public transit, bicycling or other climate-friendly means" to reach the lecture hall.
So how did Mr. Gore and his retinue arrive? In two Lincoln Town Cars and a full-sized SUV that sat idling with the air conditioners blasting while the Gore party was inside.
It was 34 C in Washington. Al Gore can't be expected to get into an overheated vehicle after he's worked up a sweat telling others how to save the planet.
Remember, too, the Nobel prizewinning environmentalist lives in a Tennessee mansion that produces a carbon footprint 20 times that of the average American home. A sizeable chunk of his personal fortune comes from royalties on a zinc mine which had to be temporarily closed five years ago in part because the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled it one of the worst-polluting mine sites in America. Illegal toxins were frequently discharged into nearby rivers.
Mr. Gore's Live Earth benefit concert last summer flew scores of rock bands to stages around the world in carbon-spewing private jets. To cover the emissions from his own frequent use of private jets, Mr. Gore set up a company that buys carbon offsets, so that in effect he is paying himself for his carbon indulgences, writing off the expense on one hand, while pocketing the proceeds on the other.
Apparently if the world is ever to reach the carbon-free future Mr. Gore dreams of, it will have to get there without Al's help.
But take heart, there is increasing evidence that man-made carbon dioxide may not be causing global warming. Indeed, there is increasing debate in the scientific community whether there is even any warming occurring at all. Mr. Gore might just be able to keep going from jet to limo to estate guilt-free (if not carbon-free) for as long as he wishes.
On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that seven mountain glaciers in northern California were advancing. They joined glaciers in southern Norway, Sweden, the New Zealand Alps and the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan. Indeed, worldwide, there are nearly half as many glaciers advancing as retreating.
How did the AP explain this? Well, all the shrinking glaciers it mentioned in its story were melting due to global warming, while the growing ones were "benefitting from changing weather patterns." Glacier melt is proof of a climate crisis, while--on the same planet, under the same global conditions --glacier melt is chalked up as a mere natural phenomenon.
Facts that don't fit the global-warming dogma -- call them inconvenient truths -- are to be dismissed as unimportant. Only those that feed the environmental hysteria are proof of something ominous.
So I'm sure they're entirely inconsequential, but here, anyway, are some anecdotes that cast doubt on the notion that emissions from our SUVs and power plants are dangerously harming the climate.
Greenland isn't melting. And while Arctic sea ice may have thinned in the past three decades by about 3% per decade, according to the U. S. National Snow and Ice Date Center, Antarctic ice (which is about 20 times as voluminous as the Arctic kind) has grown by 1% per decade,
Also, after last summer's record melt in the Arctic, this summer's melt in Antarctica was the smallest on record. And NASA satellites have found that Arctic Sea ice coverage this year is more than one million square kilo-metres greater than last year's, greater than the average of the last three years and 10-20 centmetres thicker than in 2007. According to observations by the Danish Meteorological Institute, we "have to go back 15 years to find ice expansion so far south."
Snow coverage in North America this winter was greater than at any time in recorded history. China had its worst winter in a century, and the southern hemisphere its worst in the past 50 years.
And while global temperatures increased slightly in June, through the end of May, the nine-month decline in temperatures beginning in September was greater (0.8C) than all the warming of the 20th century (0.6C).
All of this may prove nothing (although if these signals pointed toward warming, you can bet they'd be billed as proof a coming climate catastrophe). But they should at least give Mr. Gore comfort that he need not sacrifice his high-carbon lifestyle just to prove he can walk the walk.

July 21st, 2008, 07:15 AM

Someone better tell McCain because he believes in anthropogenic global warming.

July 21st, 2008, 08:52 AM

The National Post should fire their editors. It should read as:

Glacier melt is proof of a climate crisis, while--on the same planet, under different regional conditions--glacier growth is chalked up as a response to changing weather patterns.

Is that too hard for people to understand?

July 22nd, 2008, 06:18 AM

Al Gore's Doomsday Clock
July 22, 2008; Page A17

Al Gore gave a speech last week "challenging" America to run "on 100% zero-carbon electricity in 10 years" -- though that's just the first step on his road to "ending our reliance on carbon-based fuels." Serious people understand this is absurd. Maybe other people will start drawing the same conclusion about the man proposing it.
The former vice president has also recently disavowed any intention of returning to politics. This is wise. As America's leading peddler of both doom and salvation, Mr. Gore has moved beyond the constraints and obligations of reality. His job is to serve as a Prophet of Truth.
Ken Fallin
In Mr. Gore's prophesy, a transition to carbon-free electricity generation in a decade is "achievable, affordable and transformative." He believes that the goal can be achieved almost entirely through the use of "renewables" alone, meaning solar, geothermal, wind power and biofuels.
And he doesn't think we really have any other good options: "The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk," he says, with his usual gift for understatement. "And even more -- if more should be required -- the future of human civilization is at stake."
What manner the catastrophe might take isn't yet clear, but the scenarios are grim: The climate crisis is getting worse faster than anticipated; global warming will cause refugee crises and destabilize entire nations; an "energy tsunami" is headed our way. And so on.
Here, however, is an inconvenient fact. In 1995, the U.S. got about 2.2% of its net electricity generation from "renewable" sources, according to the Energy Information Administration. By 2000, the last full year of the Clinton administration, that percentage had dropped to 2.1%. By contrast, the combined share of coal, petroleum and natural gas rose to 70% from 68% during the same time frame.
Now the share of renewables is up slightly, to about 2.3% as of 2006 (the latest year for which the EIA provides figures). The EIA thinks the use of renewables (minus hydropower) could rise to 201 billion kilowatt hours per year in 2018 from the current 65 billion. But the EIA also projects total net generation in 2018 to be 4.4 trillion kilowatt hours per year. That would put the total share of renewables at just over four percent of our electricity needs.
Mr. Gore's argument would be helped if he were also willing to propose huge investments in nuclear power, which emits no carbon dioxide and currently supplies about one-fifth of U.S. electricity needs, and about three-quarters of France's. Britain has just approved eight new nuclear plants, and the German government of Angela Merkel is working to do away with a plan by the previous government to go nuclear-free.
But Mr. Gore makes no mention of nuclear power in his speech, nor of the equally carbon-free hydroelectric power. These are proven technologies -- and useful reminders of what happens when environmentalists get what they wished for.
Mr. Gore's case would also be helped if our experience of renewable sources were a positive one. It isn't. In his useful book "Gusher of Lies," Robert Bryce notes that "in July 2006, wind turbines in California produced power at only about 10% of their capacity; in Texas, one of the most promising states for wind energy, the windmills produced electricity at about 17% of their rated capacity." Like wind power, solar power also suffers from the problem of intermittency, which means that it has to be backed up by conventional sources in order to avoid disruptions. This is especially true of hot summers when the wind doesn't blow and cold winters when the sun doesn't shine.
And then there are biofuels, whose recent vogue, the World Bank believes, may have been responsible for up to 75% of the recent rise in world food prices. Save the planet; starve the poor.
None of this seems to trouble Mr. Gore. He thinks that simply by declaring an emergency he can help achieve Stakhanovite results. He might recall what the Stakhanovite myth (about the man who mined 14 times his quota of coal in six hours) actually did to the Soviet economy.
A more interesting question is why Mr. Gore remains believable. Perhaps people think that facts ought not to count against a man whose task is to raise our sights, or play Cassandra to unbelieving mortals.
Or maybe he is believed simply because people want something in which to believe. "The readiness for self-sacrifice," wrote Eric Hoffer in "The True Believer," "is contingent on an imperviousness to the realities of life. . . . All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. . . . To rely on the evidence of the senses and of reason is heresy and treason. It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible."

July 22nd, 2008, 06:31 AM

The sky is falling on Gore again
By Henry Lamb (07/21/0)
Al Gore has certainly secured his place in history. His Academy-Award-Pulitzer-Prize-winning prediction that climate change will raise sea levels by 20 feet will be studied by future history students, along with the predictions of Malthus and Paul Ehrlich.
With Gore-like zeal, in the 19th century, Malthus predicted that the world’s population would soon outstrip the world’s food supply. In the 20th century, Paul Ehrlich predicted that "By 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth's population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people."
He also predicted that by 1980, life expectancy in the United States would drop to 42, and that the U.S. population would drop to 22.6 million by 1999.
The grand prize for idiotic predictions in the 21st century has already been claimed by Al Gore. His insistence that the earth will fry, that the seas will rise, and that life as we know it must undergo a “wrenching transformation” will be studied by his grandchildren with the same appreciation that his, and Ehrlich’s ridiculous predictions deserve.
Is it possible that Ehrlich and Gore really think their predictions are valid? Or, are they just following the instructions of Dr. Steven Schneider, who tells fellow scientists:
"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” (Discover, Oct. 1989)
Students of Malthus generally agree that he was sincere in his predictions, actively engaging his detractors in debate, and revising his conclusions accordingly. Malthus was sincerely wrong.
The same cannot be said about Ehrlich, or Gore. Ehrlich jumped on the environmental band wagon early. His book “Population Bomb” was published in 1968, and was an instant best-seller. He rode the wave of book sales and popularity for a decade, making speeches and writing articles offering excuses for failed predictions and promising even worse consequences for what he called environmental abuse.
Al Gore saw an opportunity to re-claim the political spotlight when he chaired the June 28, 1988 Senate hearing that called Jim Hansen to testify that the current heat wave was caused by global warming. Gore, having been defeated in the 1988 presidential primary by Jesse Jackson in the South, and by Michael Dukakis in the North, turned his attention to the environment, and to global warming in particular.
It was Hansen’s testimony at Al Gore’s hearings that propelled the United Nations’ efforts to get into the global warming business. Before the end of 1988, the U.N. Environment Program, and the World Meteorological Organization established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to take charge of global research and action.
Gore’s selection as Vice President in 1992 provided the perfect stage for what was until then, his most influential performance. He publicly ridiculed then-President George H.W. Bush into attending the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio, where the U.N. Convention on Climate Change was adopted.
Throughout the Clinton administration, Gore was “Mr. Environment.” He directed negotiations at virtually every U.N. Climate Change meeting during the 1990s working toward the Kyoto Protocol. When the negotiations stalled in Kyoto in 1997 because the U.S. Senate adopted a resolution directing the President to not accept the Protocol unless it applied to China and India and other developing nations, Gore flew in to save the day. Despite the Senate’s resolution, Al stood before thousands of U.N. delegates in Kyoto and announced that he had instructed the U.S. delegation to be “more flexible” in their negotiations. At the last moment, the Protocol was adopted, without participation by developing nations.
Al’s crushing defeat in 2000 left him rudderless for a few years, but he re-emerged with his “An Inconvenient Truth.” This spectacular movie won an Academy Award. Gore received the Pulitzer Prize. Once again, Prince Albert ascended to the global warming throne, despite the fact that the film’s assertions were not supported by science, according to more than 31,000 scientists.
Ignoring his critics, and refusing to confront and debate the scientists who clearly refute his hyperbolic hallucinations, Al is now seeking to reclaim the global spotlight. He denigrates those who reject his unfounded predictions, and calls instead for massive national commitment to abandon fossil fuel, and launch a “go-to-the-moon” type campaign to convert all electricity generation to wind, solar, other “alternative” sources in the next ten years.
Gore has been spouting his predictions of climate disaster for more than a decade, while in reality, the global climate has actually been cooling.
The media, and uninformed politicians, gobble up Gore’s gloomy forecasts, just as they embraced Paul Ehrlich’s forecasts of people dying in the streets. History has proven Malthus to be sincerely wrong. History has proven Paul Ehrlich to be ridiculously wrong. History is proving Al Gore to be wrong as well.
But Gore must continue to peddle his predictions. His financial future is tied to his salesmanship. The more he cries “the sky is falling,” when the science says it is not, the more Al looks like a midway barker making whatever claims he thinks will separate the public from its money.
Henry Lamb

August 4th, 2008, 08:48 PM

Hi there Ton,

I went for a holiday just before Easter and when I came back my computer wasn't able to access this website. I tried once a week or so and then once a month. Finally it let me back on! But now I'm out of the habit of visiting here and very busy with summer stuff so I don't know that I'll fully renew my activities here. And I had found lots of material to respond to you! Including another report on the Pacific heat vent. I don't know if I can find that now, but I'll try.

I don't have much time right now, but I will give you one report on the MCO that I have handy.

http://http://www.sciencedaily.com/r...0519065310.htm

August 5th, 2008, 09:00 PM

Oh. That's the whole event.

August 7th, 2008, 07:24 AM

Lorne Gunter: There are two sides to the climate story. You're getting one.
Posted: August 06, 2008, 11:00 AM by Kelly McParland Lorne Gunter


Record high temperatures on Baffin Island last month — it hit 27C on July 21 — have made the news around the world, as has the evacuation of 21 visitors from the island’s Auyuittuq National Park. Fear that melt water from the park’s glaciers might lead to flash flooding and landslides has been reported by everyone from AFP to the BBC as proof of the adverse side-effects of man-made climate change.

Meanwhile, it is barely reported outside Alaska that America’s northernmost state is having a record cool summer.
If it reaches 19C in Anchorage today, it will be just the eighth time that’s happened this summer. Indeed, this could be the first summer ever that Anchorage never hits 24C.

Auyuittuq is at 66 degrees north; Anchorage is at 61.

The Baffin story may be more significant than the Alaska one. But why are we hearing all about one and nothing about the other? You can bet that if Anchorage were suffering a record hot summer, it would be all over the news and presented — as the Baffin temperatures are — as yet further proof of the dangerous impacts of global warming in the north.

And what of the study, released in July by Switzerland’s Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, that shows European temperatures, at least, have risen in large part because of efforts over the past 30 years to clean the continent’s skies?

Christian Ruckstuhl and 12 co-authors found that of the 1C rise in temperature in Europe over the last three decades, “at least half of the warming” is attributable to a reduction of aerosols, such as sulphur dioxide and black soot particles. As Europeans have cleaned up their smokestacks and tailpipes, and as dirty old Soviet-era East European plants have been modernized to Western standards, more sunlight has penetrated the continent’s atmosphere and warmed things up a bit.
In other words, environmentalism is causing global warming. As eco-advocates have won tighter clean-air regulations, their efforts have been rewarded with brighter days (a good thing), but also warmer temperatures.

But you may not have heard about this little piece of climate-change news.

Nor may you have heard about conclusions by University of Guelph environmental biologist Jonathan Newman and his graduate student Anna Mika. Last week, Prof. Newman and Ms. Mika warned other researchers to use results from the UN’s 31 climate computers with great caution.

Apparently, if you are using these computer models (the data sources on which all of the UN’s climate doom and gloom rests) to determine what will happen to human or animal populations for the next century, or to forecast the spread of disease or pests and so on, the answer you get will vary according to which computer you use.

“These models are the basis on which all research in climate change is done,” Prof. Newman said in a press release. Yet despite using two computers — one Canadian, one British — that both predicted the same future climate, “we basically got opposite answers” about the potential impact on insect spread “when we should have gotten the same answer.”

No predictions of future climate-related catastrophes are reliable enough for use in making public policy “unless they are run through many models,” according to Prof. Newton, and then only if most of the models are in rough agreement.

Or how about the discovery last month by NASA that at least 70% of global warming to date is due to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the pattern of ocean currents and cloud formation connected with the El Nino and La Nina phenomena?

Or the paper by Gilbert Compo and Prashant Sardeshmukh of the Climate Diagnostics Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that concludes, “the recent worldwide land warming has occurred largely in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases.” Where were the mainstream news stories about that?

Could the oceans have warmed due to human activity and then warmed the land? Perhaps a little, say Messrs. Compo and Sardeshmukh. But natural changes in ocean temperatures could account for all the warming, even without any effect from greenhouse gases.

Why is it we hear only the Baffin stories and not the clean air/faulty climate computers/ocean warming ones? Surely it’s not because environmentalists and the journalists who cover them refuse to see any news except the news that confirms their biases.

August 7th, 2008, 09:41 AM

Lorne Gunter: Incompetent or Lying? Either Way, Worth Firing

25 Jul 08
An earlier post of the errors/misrepresentations in a recent Lorne Gunter column in the National Post has attracted a host of comments and a few that further debunk Gunter's passionately inaccurate talking points.
DeSmog reader Dave Clark, for example, offers this:

Yet another whopper from Gunter:
"Snow coverage in North America this winter was greater than at any time in recorded history."
In fact, (according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) the 2008 January coverage at 17.0 million square kilometers was identical to the average for that month from 1973-2008. Years having equal or greater January snow coverage include every year from 1974-1985, except the marginally lower years of 1976 and 1980.

So, Gunter says that Al Gore is "calling on his country to abandon all fossil fuels within 10 years."
That's not true. Gore challenged the U.S. "to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years."
Gunter says that "worldwide, there are nearly half as many glaciers advancing as retreating."
That's not true. Gunter's own reference source says, "Climate change is causing roughly 90% of the world's mountain glaciers to shrink."
Gunter says, "Greenland isn't melting."
That's not true. This NASA report - the most recent available - shows "that 2007 marked an overall rise in the melting trend over the entire Greenland ice sheet and, remarkably, melting in high-altitude areas was greater than ever at 150 percent more than average."
Gunter says, "Snow coverage in North America this winter was greater than at any time in recorded history."
Per the comment and impeccable scientific source above: THAT'S NOT TRUE.
More than 50 per cent of Canadians believe that there is still a legitimate scientific debate about whether human activities are causing climate change. That's not true and hasn't been for a long time, but you can hardly blame Canadians for being confused; when journalists (and journals) of record have this much contempt for science, truth and their unsuspecting readers, it's completely to be expected.
Somebody should sack this character and should start insisting that his paper (and all the papers in the CanWest Global conglomerate) carry stories that are, well, true from now on.

August 7th, 2008, 09:11 PM

Very true. Walter is a textbook example.

August 8th, 2008, 02:41 AM

"I think that this is ascribed to that the Earth has approached the Sun by few miles, according to what we explained under the title of ( The Earth Approaches the Sun) in this book [See the preceding pages above], in which we said that the heat of the Earth core should have decreased to less than its previous severity because of the emergence of fire and lava from the volcanoes, and because of the utilization of the petroleum and the natural gas in huge amounts. And due to the fact that the gravitational force affects the cold object more; therefore, the gravitational force of the Sun should have influenced the Earth more than previously, so that the Earth has approached the Sun in this year 1978AD, so that the heat increased on the surface of the Earth."


My god man! You need to get this to Gore right away!!

I can't believe we came within three miles of the sun and non of our "scientists" noticed. No wonder the world is in such bad shape!

August 8th, 2008, 03:55 AM

lol
well it has been unusually warm around here.

August 9th, 2008, 09:06 AM

Key degrees of difference

Cameron Stewart, Associate editor | August 09, 2008

HAS global warming stopped? The question alone is enough to provoke scorn from the mainstream scientific community and from the Government, which says the earth has never been hotter. But tell that to a new army of sceptics who have mushroomed on internet blog sites and elsewhere in recent months to challenge some of the most basic assumptions and claims of climate change science.
Their claims are provocative and contentious but they are also attracting attention, so much sothat mainstream scientists are being forced torespond.
The bloggers and others make several key claims. They say the way of measuring the world's temperature is frighteningly imprecise and open to manipulation. They argue that far from becoming hotter, the world's temperatures have cooled in the past decade, contrary to the overwhelming impression conveyed by scientists and politicians.
As such, they say there should be far greater scepticism towards the apocalyptic predictions about climate change. Even widely accepted claims, such as that made by Climate Change Minister Penny Wong that "the 12 hottest years in history have all been in the last 13 years", are being openly challenged.
"She is just plain wrong," says Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs. "It's not a question of debate. What about the medieval warming period? The historical record shows they were growing wine in England, for goodness sake; come on. It is not disputed by anyone that the Vikings arrived in Greenland in AD900 and it was warmer than Greenland is now. What Penny Wong is doing is being selective and saying that is a long time ago."
But selective use of facts and data is fast becoming an art form on both sides of the climate change debate now that real money is at stake as the West ponders concrete schemes to reduce carbon emissions. So what is the validity of some of the key claims being made by these new blogger sceptics?
Their first claim is that the most basic aspect of climate change science - the measurement of global warming - is flawed, imprecise and open to manipulation.
The earth's temperature is measured using land-based weather stations - in effect, a network of thermometers scattered unevenly across the globe - as well as via satellites and ocean-based weather sensors. There are four agencies that measure the world's temperatures and each has different methodology and produces varying, although not dramatically different, results.
Sceptics accuse climate change believers of always quoting the agency that shows the highest level of warming, the US National Aeronautic and Space Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies run by prominent climate change scientist and activist James Hansen.
An independent study by Yale University in the US shows GISS says the earth has warmed by 0.025C a year during the past eight years while the other best-known measurement agency, London's Hadley Centre, says it warmed by only 0.014C a year during the same period. Not surprisingly, the Hadley figures are the most quoted by climate change sceptics while the GISS figures are most popular with climate change believers.
David Evans, former consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office, says Hansen's GISS is unreliable because it is the only measurement agency that relies almost wholly on land-based data instead of satellites.
"Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the urban heat island effect," he says. "Urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars and houses."
As such, he alleges that the GISS figures - which are enormously influential in the climate change debate - are "hopelessly corrupted" and may even be manipulated to suit Hansen's views on global warming.
A group of weather buffs in the US also has attacked GISS's methodology, putting together an online photo gallery of US weather stations at website www.surfacestations.org that shows some thermometers situated next to asphalt runways and parking lots where they would pick up excess warming.
But GISS says the distorting impact of this urban warming is negated because data from these stations is modified to remove these effects and give a true reading. Hansen acknowledges there may be flaws in the weather station data because temperature measurement is not always a precise science. But he says this does not mean big-picture trends can't be drawn from the data.
He says: "That doesn't mean you give up on the science and that you can't draw valid conclusions about the nature of earth's temperature change."
Hansen has been infuriated by the attacks on GISS by climate change critics. Last year Canadian blogger and retired businessman Stephen McIntyre exposed a minor mistake in Hansen's figures that had caused GISS to overstate US temperatures by a statistically small 0.15C since 2000.
Sceptics were energised. "We have proof of man-made global warming," roared conservative American radio host Rush Limbaugh. "The man-made global warming is inside NASA."
Hansen struck back, saying he would "not joust with court jesters" who sought to "create a brouhaha and muddy the waters in the climate change story".
What the bloggers have succeeded in doing is to highlight that measuring climate change is an evolving science. But their success has been at the margins only. So far they have failed to prove that these discrepancies negate the broader core arguments about the trends of global warming.
However, the second argument being put forward by blogger sceptics is more accessible to the public and therefore is having a greater impact. They argue that, contrary to the impressions given about global warming, the earth's temperatures have plateaued during the past decade and may have cooled in recent years. This, they argue, should not be happening when carbon emissions are growing rapidly. This was not what the climate change modellers predicted. Their conclusion therefore is that carbon emissions are not the driver of warming and climate change and that the earth is not heading for a climate change apocalypse caused by greenhouse gases.
"All official measures of global temperature show that it peaked in 1998 and has been declining since at least 2002," says climate change sceptic Bob Carter, a science adviser to the Australian Climate Science Coalition. "And this is in the face of an almost 5 per cent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1998. Spot the problem?"
A careful analysis of global temperature graphs from each of the measurement agencies confirm that - despite variations between them - there has not been any notable warming since 2000. Depending on which graphs you use, global temperatures since 2000 have been more or less flat. Some, such as the GISS data, show a modest rise, while others show negligible movement and even a small fall in recent years.
Sceptics like to use graphs that date from 1998 because that was the hottest year on record due to El Nino influences and therefore the temperature trends for the decade look flattest when 1998 is the starting point.
But ultimately this is a phony war because most mainstream scientists do not dispute that global temperatures have remained relatively flat during the past decade. Where they differ with the sceptics is on how this outcome should be interpreted.
"The changes in temperature over the past 10 years have basically plateaued," says Andy Pitman, co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW. "But scientists did not anticipate a gradual year-by-year warming in temperature. What matters is the long-term trend. This outcome does not change any of the science but it does change the spin climate deniers can put on it."
The sceptics are having a field day with this trend. The IPA's Marohasy says: "In the last 10 years we have seen an increase in carbon dioxide levels yet temperatures are coming down. That, if anyone looks at the actual data, is not disputable. Carbon dioxide is not driving temperatures because there are other important climatic factors at play."
Most scientists are adamant that any assessment of climate change based on only 10 years of data is not only meaningless but reckless.
"From a climate standpoint it is far too short a period to have any significance," says Amanda Lynch, a climate change scientist at Melbourne's Monash University. "What we are seeing now is consistent with our understanding of variability between decades. If we hung about for another 30 years and it kept going down, then you might start to think there is something we don't understand. But the evidence at this point suggests this is not something we should hang around and wait for."
Climate change scientists say we must go back much further than the past decade and pay attention to the longer-term trend lines that run through the temperature data and clearly trend upwards. Lynch says other factors beyond temperature are also relevant. "In the last 10 years there has been a catastrophic and massive Arctic sea ice retreat. We've seen glacial retreat, permafrost thaw and ocean thermal expansion, so temperature is not the whole story."
But the sceptics are undeterred. "It is widely alleged that the science of global warming is settled," says the US-based Science and Public Policy Institute. "This implies that all the major scientific aspects of climate change are well understood and uncontroversial. The allegation is profoundly untrue ... even the most widely held opinions should never be regarded as an ultimate truth."
Matthew England, from the Climate Change Research Centre, describes the latest blog war by climate change sceptics as an amazing phenomenon. "Climate change is a robust area of science and there is plenty that is still being debated and new discoveries are still being made," he says. "It is a topic (that) will keep attracting different opinions from enthusiasts and from bloggers. They are a minority but they are proving to be a very vocal group."

August 10th, 2008, 12:40 AM

Here's a reference to it.


http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/New...102284547.html