Global Warming ‘Greatest Scam in History’
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By Harold Ambler on The Huffington Post
Posted January 3, 2009 | 11:36 AM (EST
Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted
You are probably wondering whether President-elect Obama owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming. The answer is, not yet. There is one person, however, who does. You have probably guessed his name: Al Gore.
Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that “the science is in.” Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.
What is wrong with the statement? A brief list:
1. First, the expression “climate change” itself is a redundancy, and contains a lie. Climate has always changed, and always will. There has been no stable period of climate during the Holocene, our own climatic era, which began with the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago. During the Holocene there have been numerous sub-periods with dramatically varied climate, such as the warm Holocene Optimum (7,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C., during which humanity began to flourish, and advance technologically), the warm Roman Optimum (200 B.C. to 400 A.D., a time of abundant crops that promoted the empire), the cold Dark Ages (400 A.D. to 900 A.D., during which the Nile River froze, major cities were abandoned, the Roman Empire fell apart, and pestilence and famine were widespread), the Medieval Warm Period (900 A.D. to 1300 A.D., during which agriculture flourished, wealth increased, and dozens of lavish examples of Gothic architecture were created), the Little Ice Age (1300 to 1850, during much of which plague, crop failures, witch burnings, food riots — and even revolutions, including the French Revolution — were the rule of thumb), followed by our own time of relative warmth (1850 to present, during which population has increased, technology and medical advances have been astonishing, and agriculture has flourished).
So, no one needs to say the words “climate” and “change” in the same breath — it is assumed, by anyone with any level of knowledge, that climate changes. That is the redundancy to which I alluded. The lie is the suggestion that climate has ever been stable. Mr. Gore has used a famously inaccurate graph, known as the “Mann Hockey Stick,” created by the scientist Michael Mann, showing that the modern rise in temperatures is unprecedented, and that the dramatic changes in climate just described did not take place. They did. One last thought on the expression “climate change”: It is a retreat from the earlier expression used by alarmists, “manmade global warming,” which was more easily debunked. There are people in Mr. Gore’s camp who now use instances of cold temperatures to prove the existence of “climate change,” which is absurd, obscene, even.
2. Mr. Gore has gone so far to discourage debate on climate as to refer to those who question his simplistic view of the atmosphere as “flat-Earthers.” This, too, is right on target, except for one tiny detail. It is exactly the opposite of the truth.
Indeed, it is Mr. Gore and his brethren who are flat-Earthers. Mr. Gore states, ad nauseum, that carbon dioxide rules climate in frightening and unpredictable, and new, ways. When he shows the hockey stick graph of temperature and plots it against reconstructed C02 levels in An Inconvenient Truth, he says that the two clearly have an obvious correlation. “Their relationship is actually very complicated,” he says, “but there is one relationship that is far more powerful than all the others, and it is this: When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer.” The word “complicated” here is among the most significant Mr. Gore has uttered on the subject of climate and is, at best, a deliberate act of obfuscation. Why? Because it turns out that there is an 800-year lag between temperature and carbon dioxide, unlike the sense conveyed by Mr. Gore’s graph. You are probably wondering by now — and if you are not, you should be — which rises first, carbon dioxide or temperature. The answer? Temperature. In every case, the ice-core data shows that temperature rises precede rises in carbon dioxide by, on average, 800 years. In fact, the relationship is not “complicated.” When the ocean-atmosphere system warms, the oceans discharge vast quantities of carbon dioxide in a process known as de-gassing. For this reason, warm and cold years show up on the Mauna Loa C02 measurements even in the short term. For instance, the post-Pinatubo-eruption year of 1993 shows the lowest C02 increase since measurements have been kept. When did the highest C02 increase take place? During the super El Niño year of 1998.
3. What the alarmists now state is that past episodes of warming were not caused by C02 but amplified by it, which is debatable, for many reasons, but, more important, is a far cry from the version of events sold to the public by Mr. Gore.
Meanwhile, the theory that carbon dioxide “drives” climate in any meaningful way is simply wrong and, again, evidence of a “flat-Earth” mentality. Carbon dioxide cannot absorb an unlimited amount of infrared radiation. Why not? Because it only absorbs heat along limited bandwidths, and is already absorbing just about everything it can. That is why plotted on a graph, C02’s ability to capture heat follows a logarithmic curve. We are already very near the maximum absorption level. Further, the IPCC Fourth Assessment, like all the ones before it, is based on computer models that presume a positive feedback of atmospheric warming via increased water vapor.
4. This mechanism has never been shown to exist. Indeed, increased temperature leads to increased evaporation of the oceans, which leads to increased cloud cover (one cooling effect) and increased precipitation (a bigger cooling effect). Within certain bounds, in other words, the ocean-atmosphere system has a very effective self-regulating tendency. By the way, water vapor is far more prevalent, and relevant, in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide — a trace gas. Water vapor’s absorption spectrum also overlays that of carbon dioxide. They cannot both absorb the same energy! The relative might of water vapor and relative weakness of carbon dioxide is exemplified by the extraordinary cooling experienced each night in desert regions, where water in the atmosphere is nearly non-existent.
If not carbon dioxide, what does “drive” climate? I am glad you are wondering about that. In the short term, it is ocean cycles, principally the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the “super cycle” of which cooling La Niñas and warming El Niños are parts. Having been in its warm phase, in which El Niños predominate, for the 30 years ending in late 2006, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation switched to its cool phase, in which La Niñas predominate.
Since that time, already, a number of interesting things have taken place. One La Niña lowered temperatures around the globe for about half of the year just ended, and another La Niña shows evidence of beginning in the equatorial Pacific waters. During the last twelve months, many interesting cold-weather events happened to occur: record snow in the European Alps, China, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, the Rockies, the upper Midwest, Las Vegas, Houston, and New Orleans. There was also, for the first time in at least 100 years, snow in Baghdad.
Concurrent with the switchover of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation to its cool phase the Sun has entered a period of deep slumber. The number of sunspots for 2008 was the second lowest of any year since 1901. That matters less because of fluctuations in the amount of heat generated by the massive star in our near proximity (although there are some fluctuations that may have some measurable effect on global temperatures) and more because of a process best described by the Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark in his complex, but elegant, work The Chilling Stars. In the book, the modern Galileo, for he is nothing less, establishes that cosmic rays from deep space seed clouds over Earth’s oceans. Regulating the number of cosmic rays reaching Earth’s atmosphere is the solar wind; when it is strong, we get fewer cosmic rays. When it is weak, we get more. As NASA has corroborated, the number of cosmic rays passing through our atmosphere is at the maximum level since measurements have been taken, and show no signs of diminishing. The result: the seeding of what some have taken to calling “Svensmark clouds,” low dense clouds, principally over the oceans, that reflect sunlight back to space before it can have its warming effect on whatever is below.
Svensmark has proven, in the minds of most who have given his work a full hearing, that it is this very process that produced the episodes of cooling (and, inversely, warming) of our own era and past eras. The clearest instance of the process, by far, is that of the Maunder Minimum, which refers to a period from 1650 to 1700, during which the Sun had not a single spot on its face. Temperatures around the globe plummeted, with quite adverse effects: crop failures (remember the witch burnings in Europe and Massachusetts?), famine, and societal stress.
Many solar physicists anticipate that the slumbering Sun of early 2009 is likely to continue for at least two solar cycles, or about the next 25 years. Whether the Grand Solar Minimum, if it comes to pass, is as serious as the Maunder Minimum is not knowable, at present. Major solar minima (and maxima, such as the one during the second half of the 20th century) have also been shown to correlate with significant volcanic eruptions. These are likely the result of solar magnetic flux affecting geomagnetic flux, which affects the distribution of magma in Earth’s molten iron core and under its thin mantle. So, let us say, just for the sake of argument, that such an eruption takes place over the course of the next two decades. Like all major eruptions, this one will have a temporary cooling effect on global temperatures, perhaps a large one. The larger the eruption, the greater the effect. History shows that periods of cold are far more stressful to humanity than periods of warm. Would the eruption and consequent cooling be a climate-modifier that exists outside of nature, somehow? Who is the “flat-Earther” now?
What about heat escaping from volcanic vents in the ocean floor? What about the destruction of warming, upper-atmosphere ozone by cosmic rays? I could go on, but space is short. Again, who is the “flat-Earther” here?
The ocean-atmosphere system is not a simple one that can be “ruled” by a trace atmospheric gas. It is a complex, chaotic system, largely modulated by solar effects (both direct and indirect), as shown by the Little Ice Age.
To be told, as I have been, by Mr. Gore, again and again, that carbon dioxide is a grave threat to humankind is not just annoying, by the way, although it is that! To re-tool our economies in an effort to suppress carbon dioxide and its imaginary effect on climate, when other, graver problems exist is, simply put, wrong. Particulate pollution, such as that causing the Asian brown cloud, is a real problem. Two billion people on Earth living without electricity, in darkened huts and hovels polluted by charcoal smoke, is a real problem.
So, let us indeed start a Manhattan Project-like mission to create alternative sources of energy. And, in the meantime, let us neither cripple our own economy by mislabeling carbon dioxide a pollutant nor discourage development in the Third World, where suffering continues unabated, day after day.
Again, Mr. Gore, I accept your apology.
And, Mr. Obama, though I voted for you for a thousand times a thousand reasons, I hope never to need one from you.
P.S. One of the last, desperate canards proposed by climate alarmists is that of the polar ice caps. Look at the “terrible,” “unprecedented” melting in the Arctic in the summer of 2007, they say. Well, the ice in the Arctic basin has always melted and refrozen, and always will. Any researcher who wants to find a single molecule of ice that has been there longer than 30 years is going to have a hard job, because the ice has always been melted from above (by the midnight Sun of summer) and below (by relatively warm ocean currents, possibly amplified by volcanic venting) — and on the sides, again by warm currents. Scientists in the alarmist camp have taken to referring to “old ice,” but, again, this is a misrepresentation of what takes place in the Arctic.
More to the point, 2007 happened also to be the time of maximum historic sea ice in Antarctica. (There are many credible sources of this information, such as the following website maintained by the University of Illinois-Urbana: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg). Why, I ask, has Mr. Gore not chosen to mention the record growth of sea ice around Antarctica? If the record melting in the Arctic is significant, then the record sea ice growth around Antarctica is, too, I say. If one is insignificant, then the other one is, too.
For failing to mention the 2007 Antarctic maximum sea ice record a single time, I also accept your apology, Mr. Gore. By the way, your contention that the Arctic basin will be “ice free” in summer within five years (which you said last month in Germany), is one of the most demonstrably false comments you have dared to make. Thank you for that
Posted January 3, 2009 | 11:36 AM (EST
Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted
You are probably wondering whether President-elect Obama owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming. The answer is, not yet. There is one person, however, who does. You have probably guessed his name: Al Gore.
Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that “the science is in.” Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.
What is wrong with the statement? A brief list:
1. First, the expression “climate change” itself is a redundancy, and contains a lie. Climate has always changed, and always will. There has been no stable period of climate during the Holocene, our own climatic era, which began with the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago. During the Holocene there have been numerous sub-periods with dramatically varied climate, such as the warm Holocene Optimum (7,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C., during which humanity began to flourish, and advance technologically), the warm Roman Optimum (200 B.C. to 400 A.D., a time of abundant crops that promoted the empire), the cold Dark Ages (400 A.D. to 900 A.D., during which the Nile River froze, major cities were abandoned, the Roman Empire fell apart, and pestilence and famine were widespread), the Medieval Warm Period (900 A.D. to 1300 A.D., during which agriculture flourished, wealth increased, and dozens of lavish examples of Gothic architecture were created), the Little Ice Age (1300 to 1850, during much of which plague, crop failures, witch burnings, food riots — and even revolutions, including the French Revolution — were the rule of thumb), followed by our own time of relative warmth (1850 to present, during which population has increased, technology and medical advances have been astonishing, and agriculture has flourished).
So, no one needs to say the words “climate” and “change” in the same breath — it is assumed, by anyone with any level of knowledge, that climate changes. That is the redundancy to which I alluded. The lie is the suggestion that climate has ever been stable. Mr. Gore has used a famously inaccurate graph, known as the “Mann Hockey Stick,” created by the scientist Michael Mann, showing that the modern rise in temperatures is unprecedented, and that the dramatic changes in climate just described did not take place. They did. One last thought on the expression “climate change”: It is a retreat from the earlier expression used by alarmists, “manmade global warming,” which was more easily debunked. There are people in Mr. Gore’s camp who now use instances of cold temperatures to prove the existence of “climate change,” which is absurd, obscene, even.
2. Mr. Gore has gone so far to discourage debate on climate as to refer to those who question his simplistic view of the atmosphere as “flat-Earthers.” This, too, is right on target, except for one tiny detail. It is exactly the opposite of the truth.
Indeed, it is Mr. Gore and his brethren who are flat-Earthers. Mr. Gore states, ad nauseum, that carbon dioxide rules climate in frightening and unpredictable, and new, ways. When he shows the hockey stick graph of temperature and plots it against reconstructed C02 levels in An Inconvenient Truth, he says that the two clearly have an obvious correlation. “Their relationship is actually very complicated,” he says, “but there is one relationship that is far more powerful than all the others, and it is this: When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer.” The word “complicated” here is among the most significant Mr. Gore has uttered on the subject of climate and is, at best, a deliberate act of obfuscation. Why? Because it turns out that there is an 800-year lag between temperature and carbon dioxide, unlike the sense conveyed by Mr. Gore’s graph. You are probably wondering by now — and if you are not, you should be — which rises first, carbon dioxide or temperature. The answer? Temperature. In every case, the ice-core data shows that temperature rises precede rises in carbon dioxide by, on average, 800 years. In fact, the relationship is not “complicated.” When the ocean-atmosphere system warms, the oceans discharge vast quantities of carbon dioxide in a process known as de-gassing. For this reason, warm and cold years show up on the Mauna Loa C02 measurements even in the short term. For instance, the post-Pinatubo-eruption year of 1993 shows the lowest C02 increase since measurements have been kept. When did the highest C02 increase take place? During the super El Niño year of 1998.
3. What the alarmists now state is that past episodes of warming were not caused by C02 but amplified by it, which is debatable, for many reasons, but, more important, is a far cry from the version of events sold to the public by Mr. Gore.
Meanwhile, the theory that carbon dioxide “drives” climate in any meaningful way is simply wrong and, again, evidence of a “flat-Earth” mentality. Carbon dioxide cannot absorb an unlimited amount of infrared radiation. Why not? Because it only absorbs heat along limited bandwidths, and is already absorbing just about everything it can. That is why plotted on a graph, C02’s ability to capture heat follows a logarithmic curve. We are already very near the maximum absorption level. Further, the IPCC Fourth Assessment, like all the ones before it, is based on computer models that presume a positive feedback of atmospheric warming via increased water vapor.
4. This mechanism has never been shown to exist. Indeed, increased temperature leads to increased evaporation of the oceans, which leads to increased cloud cover (one cooling effect) and increased precipitation (a bigger cooling effect). Within certain bounds, in other words, the ocean-atmosphere system has a very effective self-regulating tendency. By the way, water vapor is far more prevalent, and relevant, in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide — a trace gas. Water vapor’s absorption spectrum also overlays that of carbon dioxide. They cannot both absorb the same energy! The relative might of water vapor and relative weakness of carbon dioxide is exemplified by the extraordinary cooling experienced each night in desert regions, where water in the atmosphere is nearly non-existent.
If not carbon dioxide, what does “drive” climate? I am glad you are wondering about that. In the short term, it is ocean cycles, principally the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the “super cycle” of which cooling La Niñas and warming El Niños are parts. Having been in its warm phase, in which El Niños predominate, for the 30 years ending in late 2006, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation switched to its cool phase, in which La Niñas predominate.
Since that time, already, a number of interesting things have taken place. One La Niña lowered temperatures around the globe for about half of the year just ended, and another La Niña shows evidence of beginning in the equatorial Pacific waters. During the last twelve months, many interesting cold-weather events happened to occur: record snow in the European Alps, China, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, the Rockies, the upper Midwest, Las Vegas, Houston, and New Orleans. There was also, for the first time in at least 100 years, snow in Baghdad.
Concurrent with the switchover of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation to its cool phase the Sun has entered a period of deep slumber. The number of sunspots for 2008 was the second lowest of any year since 1901. That matters less because of fluctuations in the amount of heat generated by the massive star in our near proximity (although there are some fluctuations that may have some measurable effect on global temperatures) and more because of a process best described by the Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark in his complex, but elegant, work The Chilling Stars. In the book, the modern Galileo, for he is nothing less, establishes that cosmic rays from deep space seed clouds over Earth’s oceans. Regulating the number of cosmic rays reaching Earth’s atmosphere is the solar wind; when it is strong, we get fewer cosmic rays. When it is weak, we get more. As NASA has corroborated, the number of cosmic rays passing through our atmosphere is at the maximum level since measurements have been taken, and show no signs of diminishing. The result: the seeding of what some have taken to calling “Svensmark clouds,” low dense clouds, principally over the oceans, that reflect sunlight back to space before it can have its warming effect on whatever is below.
Svensmark has proven, in the minds of most who have given his work a full hearing, that it is this very process that produced the episodes of cooling (and, inversely, warming) of our own era and past eras. The clearest instance of the process, by far, is that of the Maunder Minimum, which refers to a period from 1650 to 1700, during which the Sun had not a single spot on its face. Temperatures around the globe plummeted, with quite adverse effects: crop failures (remember the witch burnings in Europe and Massachusetts?), famine, and societal stress.
Many solar physicists anticipate that the slumbering Sun of early 2009 is likely to continue for at least two solar cycles, or about the next 25 years. Whether the Grand Solar Minimum, if it comes to pass, is as serious as the Maunder Minimum is not knowable, at present. Major solar minima (and maxima, such as the one during the second half of the 20th century) have also been shown to correlate with significant volcanic eruptions. These are likely the result of solar magnetic flux affecting geomagnetic flux, which affects the distribution of magma in Earth’s molten iron core and under its thin mantle. So, let us say, just for the sake of argument, that such an eruption takes place over the course of the next two decades. Like all major eruptions, this one will have a temporary cooling effect on global temperatures, perhaps a large one. The larger the eruption, the greater the effect. History shows that periods of cold are far more stressful to humanity than periods of warm. Would the eruption and consequent cooling be a climate-modifier that exists outside of nature, somehow? Who is the “flat-Earther” now?
What about heat escaping from volcanic vents in the ocean floor? What about the destruction of warming, upper-atmosphere ozone by cosmic rays? I could go on, but space is short. Again, who is the “flat-Earther” here?
The ocean-atmosphere system is not a simple one that can be “ruled” by a trace atmospheric gas. It is a complex, chaotic system, largely modulated by solar effects (both direct and indirect), as shown by the Little Ice Age.
To be told, as I have been, by Mr. Gore, again and again, that carbon dioxide is a grave threat to humankind is not just annoying, by the way, although it is that! To re-tool our economies in an effort to suppress carbon dioxide and its imaginary effect on climate, when other, graver problems exist is, simply put, wrong. Particulate pollution, such as that causing the Asian brown cloud, is a real problem. Two billion people on Earth living without electricity, in darkened huts and hovels polluted by charcoal smoke, is a real problem.
So, let us indeed start a Manhattan Project-like mission to create alternative sources of energy. And, in the meantime, let us neither cripple our own economy by mislabeling carbon dioxide a pollutant nor discourage development in the Third World, where suffering continues unabated, day after day.
Again, Mr. Gore, I accept your apology.
And, Mr. Obama, though I voted for you for a thousand times a thousand reasons, I hope never to need one from you.
P.S. One of the last, desperate canards proposed by climate alarmists is that of the polar ice caps. Look at the “terrible,” “unprecedented” melting in the Arctic in the summer of 2007, they say. Well, the ice in the Arctic basin has always melted and refrozen, and always will. Any researcher who wants to find a single molecule of ice that has been there longer than 30 years is going to have a hard job, because the ice has always been melted from above (by the midnight Sun of summer) and below (by relatively warm ocean currents, possibly amplified by volcanic venting) — and on the sides, again by warm currents. Scientists in the alarmist camp have taken to referring to “old ice,” but, again, this is a misrepresentation of what takes place in the Arctic.
More to the point, 2007 happened also to be the time of maximum historic sea ice in Antarctica. (There are many credible sources of this information, such as the following website maintained by the University of Illinois-Urbana: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg). Why, I ask, has Mr. Gore not chosen to mention the record growth of sea ice around Antarctica? If the record melting in the Arctic is significant, then the record sea ice growth around Antarctica is, too, I say. If one is insignificant, then the other one is, too.
For failing to mention the 2007 Antarctic maximum sea ice record a single time, I also accept your apology, Mr. Gore. By the way, your contention that the Arctic basin will be “ice free” in summer within five years (which you said last month in Germany), is one of the most demonstrably false comments you have dared to make. Thank you for that
Global warming: Al Gore's convenient untruth freezes over
Posted By: Gerald Warner at Jan 7, 2009 at 18:09:34 [General] You have to wrap up well against this global warming. Over the past 48 hours the temperature has fallen as low as -12C in Dorset, with the sea at Poole Harbour frozen up to 20 yards from shore, and parts of Britain colder than Greenland. Phew, what a scorcher! Might be a good idea to start up the car (if it will start) and pump some more CO2 into the atmosphere before we freeze to death. What did the media warn us about climate change?
"There is very important climatic change going on right now, and it's not merely something of academic interest. It is something that, if it continues, will affect the whole human occupation of the earth - like a billion people starving. The effects are already showing up in a rather drastic way."
That apocalyptic warning came from Fortune magazine - in 1974, when it was alerting readers to an imminent new Ice Age. By 2006 it had conformed to the latest fashion and had revised its doomsday scenario to: "The media agrees with the majority of scientists: global warming is here. Now, what to do about it?" So much for the media as climatic arbiter.
In the current climate, Fortune's earlier scenario seems more plausible. A few months ago, Lewis Pugh set off on a much-hyped journey paddling a kayak to an "ice-free" North Pole: he was stopped by ice 600 miles from his destination and 100 miles south of where a canoeist had reached a century earlier. As this egg-on-face setback for climate alarmists illustrated, there was 9 per cent more ice at the Arctic last autumn than the year before. After a record ice melting there was a record freeze.
Although Arctic sea ice last summer reached the lowest level recorded since satellite observation began (an important qualification), Antarctic ice reached the highest, but Al Gore was not shouting about that. Global average temperatures hit a peak in 1998, but have been declining since. Now, to the further embarrassment of alarmists, Kerry Emanuel, professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, who first advanced the thesis of a connection between global warming and hurricanes, has rejected his own theory after further research.
Bad luck for Al Gore, who used the image of a hurricane emerging from a smoke stack to promote his fantasy extravaganza An Inconvenient Truth. The core ice samples featured in Gore's film actually proved that increased CO2 emissions have historically followed 800 years after warm periods - but what the hell, this ain't science, it's politics. Just how we are supposed to influence carbon emissions when mankind is only responsible for 3.5 per cent of them is unclear.
But the cash from UN grants, wind farms, carbon trading and all the billions squandered on a politically useful (to totalitarians) superstition is very clear indeed: this is big bucks. "Man-made" global warming is the new sub-prime commerce of the planet. Meantime, wrap up well.
Posted By: Gerald Warner at Jan 7, 2009 at 18:09:34 [General] You have to wrap up well against this global warming. Over the past 48 hours the temperature has fallen as low as -12C in Dorset, with the sea at Poole Harbour frozen up to 20 yards from shore, and parts of Britain colder than Greenland. Phew, what a scorcher! Might be a good idea to start up the car (if it will start) and pump some more CO2 into the atmosphere before we freeze to death. What did the media warn us about climate change?
"There is very important climatic change going on right now, and it's not merely something of academic interest. It is something that, if it continues, will affect the whole human occupation of the earth - like a billion people starving. The effects are already showing up in a rather drastic way."
That apocalyptic warning came from Fortune magazine - in 1974, when it was alerting readers to an imminent new Ice Age. By 2006 it had conformed to the latest fashion and had revised its doomsday scenario to: "The media agrees with the majority of scientists: global warming is here. Now, what to do about it?" So much for the media as climatic arbiter.
In the current climate, Fortune's earlier scenario seems more plausible. A few months ago, Lewis Pugh set off on a much-hyped journey paddling a kayak to an "ice-free" North Pole: he was stopped by ice 600 miles from his destination and 100 miles south of where a canoeist had reached a century earlier. As this egg-on-face setback for climate alarmists illustrated, there was 9 per cent more ice at the Arctic last autumn than the year before. After a record ice melting there was a record freeze.
Although Arctic sea ice last summer reached the lowest level recorded since satellite observation began (an important qualification), Antarctic ice reached the highest, but Al Gore was not shouting about that. Global average temperatures hit a peak in 1998, but have been declining since. Now, to the further embarrassment of alarmists, Kerry Emanuel, professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, who first advanced the thesis of a connection between global warming and hurricanes, has rejected his own theory after further research.
Bad luck for Al Gore, who used the image of a hurricane emerging from a smoke stack to promote his fantasy extravaganza An Inconvenient Truth. The core ice samples featured in Gore's film actually proved that increased CO2 emissions have historically followed 800 years after warm periods - but what the hell, this ain't science, it's politics. Just how we are supposed to influence carbon emissions when mankind is only responsible for 3.5 per cent of them is unclear.
But the cash from UN grants, wind farms, carbon trading and all the billions squandered on a politically useful (to totalitarians) superstition is very clear indeed: this is big bucks. "Man-made" global warming is the new sub-prime commerce of the planet. Meantime, wrap up well.
Earth On The Brink Of An Ice Age
'The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.'
Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age - Pravda.Ru
'The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.'
Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age - Pravda.Ru
30 May 2004Electric Weather
Read as black text on white
The following excerpts come from a report that appeared in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) magazine, SPECTRUM, for April. The report demonstrates that when science has lost its way, engineers must use their intuition to make progress.
Comment: It seems that the basic problem in gaining acceptance for ionization technology is the facile description of what causes rain. And that is a problem inherited from the experts –' the meteorologists and atmospheric scientists. The water molecule is fascinating because, unlike the nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the air, it is electrically polarized.
>>The oxygen (blue) side of the water molecule is more negative than the hydrogen side (red), forming an electric dipole.
In an electric field, the water molecule will rotate to line up with the field. When it condenses in a cloud the average electric dipole moment of a water molecule in a raindrop is 40 percent greater than that of a single water vapor molecule. This enhancement results from the large polarization caused by the electric field induced by surrounding water molecules. In the atmospheric electric field the water molecules will be aligned with their dipoles pointing vertically and in a sense that is determined by the charge polarization in the cloud. It is interesting to note that the tops of storm clouds are positively charged and the base is negative. That is the reverse of the radial charge polarization within the Earth itself. And it is this charge polarization that gives rise to the low-order attractive force we call gravity. So it is proposed that water droplets in clouds experience an antigravity effect. It appears to be related to the 'Biefield-Brown Effect,' where a charged high-voltage planar capacitor tends to move in the direction of the positive electrode. That effect may explain how millions of tons of water can be suspended kilometres above the ground, when cloud droplets are about 1,000 times denser than the surrounding air.
Of course, this raises the issue of charge separation in clouds. The conventional 'isolated Earth' view is that positive and negative charge is 'somehow' separated by vertical winds in clouds and that this process in thunderstorms is responsible for charging up the ionosphere and causing the atmospheric electric field. But this begs the question of cause and effect. Recent high-altitude balloon flights find that charge is not built up in the cloud, it already exists in the ionosphere above. In January 2002 I argued the electric universe model: "Thunderstorms are not electricity generators, they are passive elements in an interplanetary circuit, like a self-repairing leaky condenser. The energy stored in the cloud 'condenser' is released as lightning when it short-circuits. The short-circuits can occur either within the cloud or across the external resistive paths to Earth or the ionosphere. The charge across the cloud 'condenser' gives rise to violent vertical electrical winds within the cloud, not vice versa."
This view accords with a recent report (17 November 2003) in Geophysical Review Letters by Joseph Dwyer of the Florida Institute of Technology, which says that according to conventional theory electrical fields in the atmosphere simply cannot grow large enough to trigger lightning. "The conventional view of how lightning is produced is wrong." And so "the true origin of lightning remains a mystery."
Water vapor in rising air cools and condenses to forms clouds. The conventional explanation for rising air relies upon solar heating. The electrical weather model has an additional galactic energy source (the same that powers the Sun) to drive the movement of air. It is the same
Other than the fact that he's a minor talking head behind a desk with no credentials, why would I believe him?
Cold Weather + Green Fuel = Yellow Bus Failure
20 01 2009
Excepts from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 16th 2009
Biodiesel fuel woes close Bloomington schools
“All schools in the Bloomington School District (Minnesota) will be closed today after state-required biodiesel fuel clogged in school buses Thursday morning and left dozens of students stranded in frigid weather, the district said late Thursday.
Rick Kaufman, the district’s spokesman, said elements in the biodiesel fuel that turn into a gel-like substance at temperatures below 10 degrees clogged about a dozen district buses Thursday morning. Some buses weren’t able to operate at all and others experienced problems while picking up students, he said.
We had students at bus stops longer than we think is acceptable, and that’s too dangerous in these types of temperatures,” Kaufman said.”
. . .
The decision to close school today came after district officials consulted with several neighboring districts that were experiencing similar problems. Bloomington staffers tried to get a waiver to bypass the state requirement and use pure diesel fuel, but they weren’t able to do so in enough time, Kaufman said. They also decided against scheduling a two-hour delay because the temperatures weren’t expected to rise enough that the problem would be eliminated.
In 2005, a new requirement went into effect that all diesel fuel sold in Minnesota had to contain 2 percent biodiesel. Kaufman said that some school districts keep their buses in temperature-controlled garages, and that the First Student bus service, which contracts with several metro-area school districts, keeps its buses in garages or idles them through the night.
Meanwhile, in other news:
Minnesota Boosts Biodiesel Initiative from 2 to 20%
Obviously, Minnesota has conquered AGW. Al and Dave should give them an award.
20 01 2009
Excepts from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 16th 2009
Biodiesel fuel woes close Bloomington schools
“All schools in the Bloomington School District (Minnesota) will be closed today after state-required biodiesel fuel clogged in school buses Thursday morning and left dozens of students stranded in frigid weather, the district said late Thursday.
Rick Kaufman, the district’s spokesman, said elements in the biodiesel fuel that turn into a gel-like substance at temperatures below 10 degrees clogged about a dozen district buses Thursday morning. Some buses weren’t able to operate at all and others experienced problems while picking up students, he said.
We had students at bus stops longer than we think is acceptable, and that’s too dangerous in these types of temperatures,” Kaufman said.”
. . .
The decision to close school today came after district officials consulted with several neighboring districts that were experiencing similar problems. Bloomington staffers tried to get a waiver to bypass the state requirement and use pure diesel fuel, but they weren’t able to do so in enough time, Kaufman said. They also decided against scheduling a two-hour delay because the temperatures weren’t expected to rise enough that the problem would be eliminated.
In 2005, a new requirement went into effect that all diesel fuel sold in Minnesota had to contain 2 percent biodiesel. Kaufman said that some school districts keep their buses in temperature-controlled garages, and that the First Student bus service, which contracts with several metro-area school districts, keeps its buses in garages or idles them through the night.
Meanwhile, in other news:
Minnesota Boosts Biodiesel Initiative from 2 to 20%
Obviously, Minnesota has conquered AGW. Al and Dave should give them an award.
Imagine that, diesel clogging in gold weather!
GASP! its almost like some people don't understand how diesel engines operate, or how to get them running again in the cold.
Its almost like the Gel point of Number 2 diesel (What the buses would have run on if they are biodiesel) is -9.5C , GASP!
If they don't know how to run a diesel vehicle in the cold, they should have gotten an ethanol bus.
GASP! its almost like some people don't understand how diesel engines operate, or how to get them running again in the cold.
Its almost like the Gel point of Number 2 diesel (What the buses would have run on if they are biodiesel) is -9.5C , GASP!
If they don't know how to run a diesel vehicle in the cold, they should have gotten an ethanol bus.
I'm not saying that global warming is a scam but what I don't understand is if this is such a crisis then why haven't the gov's been dealing with it in the way that makes the most sense?
They haven't been breathing own the necks of the companies that are known to be huge polluters and this auto bail out is completely hypocritical to the cause.
All of us changing our light bulbs doesn't really seem like a serious effort in response to something deemed to be a crisis. Although the light bulb companies aren't complaining, I'm sure.
They haven't been breathing own the necks of the companies that are known to be huge polluters and this auto bail out is completely hypocritical to the cause.
All of us changing our light bulbs doesn't really seem like a serious effort in response to something deemed to be a crisis. Although the light bulb companies aren't complaining, I'm sure.
B. Hussein, peace be upon him, has already stopped global warming.
Yo-Yo Ma Nailed in Presidential Cover Up
Posted Jan 23rd 2009 11:00AM by TMZ Staff
There was a giant government conspiracy at Obama's inauguration -- concocted to keep Yo-Yo Ma from being exposed as a fraud!
The most famous classical musician on the planet pulled an Ashlee Simpson of sorts at Obama's inauguration -- as in, the music you heard was really a tape recording of his group that they had made two days before the ceremony!
Mr. Ma claims the deception was in the best interests of the country, because it was just too cold for his all-star string quartet's instruments to stay in tune.
Before you go comparing them to Milli V, however, let's be clear: Yo-Yo, Itzy, and the others actually played on that track -- and they also played live, exactly in sync.
And Mr. Ma gave us fair warning when we caught up with him before of the chill factor.
Yo-Yo Ma Nailed in Presidential Cover Up
Posted Jan 23rd 2009 11:00AM by TMZ Staff
There was a giant government conspiracy at Obama's inauguration -- concocted to keep Yo-Yo Ma from being exposed as a fraud!
The most famous classical musician on the planet pulled an Ashlee Simpson of sorts at Obama's inauguration -- as in, the music you heard was really a tape recording of his group that they had made two days before the ceremony!
Mr. Ma claims the deception was in the best interests of the country, because it was just too cold for his all-star string quartet's instruments to stay in tune.
Before you go comparing them to Milli V, however, let's be clear: Yo-Yo, Itzy, and the others actually played on that track -- and they also played live, exactly in sync. And Mr. Ma gave us fair warning when we caught up with him before of the chill factor.
Philadelphia’s Climate in the Early Days
25 01 2009
Guest Post by Steven Goddard
January, 1790 was a remarkable year in the northeastern US for several reasons. It was less than one year into George Washington’s first term, and it was one of the warmest winter months on record. Fortunately for science, a diligent Philadelphia resident named Charles Pierce kept a detailed record of the monthly weather from 1790 through 1847, and his record is archived by Google Books. Below is his monthly report from that book.
Another interesting fact which can be derived from Charles Pierce’s data, is that January temperatures cooled dramatically during the period 1790-1819 - as can be seen in the graph below. The cooling rate was 13F/century. What could have caused this cooling? We are told by some experts that variations in solar activity can only affect the earth’s temperature by a few tenths of a degree. CO2 levels had been rising since the start of the industrial age. The downward trend is fairly linear and does not show any sharp downward spikes, so it is unlikely to be due to volcanic activity. What other “natural variability” could have caused such a dramatic drop in temperature?
25 01 2009
Guest Post by Steven Goddard
January, 1790 was a remarkable year in the northeastern US for several reasons. It was less than one year into George Washington’s first term, and it was one of the warmest winter months on record. Fortunately for science, a diligent Philadelphia resident named Charles Pierce kept a detailed record of the monthly weather from 1790 through 1847, and his record is archived by Google Books. Below is his monthly report from that book.
JANUARY 1790 The average or medium temperature of this month was 44 degrees This is the mildest month of January on record. Fogs prevailed very much in the morning but a hot sun soon dispersed them and the mercury often ran up to 70 in the shade at mid day. Boys were often seen swimming in the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. There were frequent showers as in April some of which were accompanied by thunder and lightning The uncommon mildness of the weather continued until the 7th of February.
Compare that to January, 2009 with an average temperature of 27F, 17 degrees cooler than 1790. One month of course is not indicative of the climate, so let us look at the 30 year period from 1790-1819 and compare that to the last 10 “hot” years.
From Charles Pierce’s records, the average January temperature in Philadelphia from 1790-1819 was 31.2F. According to USHCN records from 2000-2006 (the last year available from USHCN) and Weather Underground records from 2007-2009, the average January temperature in Philadelphia for the last ten years has been 29.8 degrees, or 1.4 degrees cooler than the period 1790-1819. January, 2009 has been colder than any January during the presidencies of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, or Monroe. January 2003 and 2004 were both considerably colder than any January during the terms of the first five presidents of the US. Data can be seen here.
According to several of the most widely quoted climate scientists in the world, winters were much colder 200 years ago than now - yet the boys swimming in the Delaware in January, 1790 apparently were unaware.Another interesting fact which can be derived from Charles Pierce’s data, is that January temperatures cooled dramatically during the period 1790-1819 - as can be seen in the graph below. The cooling rate was 13F/century. What could have caused this cooling? We are told by some experts that variations in solar activity can only affect the earth’s temperature by a few tenths of a degree. CO2 levels had been rising since the start of the industrial age. The downward trend is fairly linear and does not show any sharp downward spikes, so it is unlikely to be due to volcanic activity. What other “natural variability” could have caused such a dramatic drop in temperature?
Looking at the sunspot records for that period, something that clearly stands out is that solar cycle 4 was very long, and was followed by a deep minimum lasting several decades. Perhaps a coincidence, but if not - Philadelphia may well be in for some more very cold weather in coming winters.
George Monbiot cuts through Shell Oil's PR spin
Tags: Desmogblog, EU, George Monbiot, george monbiot, jeroen van der veer, Kevin Grandia, Royal Dutch Shell, shell oil
Here's a great video interview with Guardian columnist George Monbiot and Jeroen van der Veer, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell. The spin and bafflegab is almost too painful to watch. We need more reporters like Monbiot that push hard and ask the right questions.
Enjoy:
Tags: Desmogblog, EU, George Monbiot, george monbiot, jeroen van der veer, Kevin Grandia, Royal Dutch Shell, shell oil
Here's a great video interview with Guardian columnist George Monbiot and Jeroen van der Veer, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell. The spin and bafflegab is almost too painful to watch. We need more reporters like Monbiot that push hard and ask the right questions.
Enjoy:
Lawrence Solomon: Climate change’s Antarctic ruffle
Posted: January 30, 2009, 9:27 PM by NP Editor
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/0solomon.jpgHow does a new Nature study conclude that Antarctica is warming when actual temperature readings show it is not?
By Lawrence Solomon
For two decades now, those predicting climate-change catastrophe have been frustrated by skeptics who ask, “If carbon dioxide is warming the planet, why does the data show Antarctica to be cooling?” Until last week, the doomsayers had all manner of complicated explanations but no slam dunk answer. Now, thanks to a new study published last week in Nature magazine, the doomsayers obtained the answer they sought — proof that any fool can understand. The bottom line: Antarctica is in fact warming, just like the rest of the planet.
“Contrarians have some time grabbed on to this idea that the entire continent of Antarctica is cooling, so how could we be talking about global warming,” elaborated Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University and a co-author of the Nature study. “Now we can say: No, it’s not true ... It is not bucking the trend.”
The press seized on the findings. “Antarctica is warming, not cooling: study,” announced a Reuters headline. “Global warming hits Antarctica,” stated CNN. “Antarctica joins rest of the globe in warming,” said the Associated Press. But this study in Nature leaves many unimpressed, including top scientists from the doomsayer camp. One week after the study’s release, it is clear this study does nothing to explain the enigma of a cooling Antarctica.
The Nature authors had a daunting challenge. For one thing, the U.S. government has maintained a scientific base at the South Pole since 1957 at which temperatures have been continuously measured. The temperature readings show a cooler climate over the past half century. For another, various weather stations in Antarctica record cooler temperatures. Moreover, satellite readings of temperatures above Antarctica show a cooling trend. Little wonder that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change itself rejects the warming hypothesis. In its 2007 report, the IPCC accepts that Antarctica shows a “lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region.” To reconcile Antarctica with the rest of the globe, global warming advocates have taken the simple, if unsatisfying, view that the lack of warming in Antarctica is consistent with the presence of warming everywhere else.
How do Mann and the other scientists involved in the Nature study now conclude that Antarctica is warming when actual temperature readings show it is not? Antarctica’s weather stations cover a small fraction of the continent. Where data doesn’t exist, Mann makes various assumptions, then deduces Antarctic temperatures over the last 50 years with the help of computer models. The official explanation: “The researchers devised a statistical technique that uses data from satellites and from Antarctic weather stations to make a new estimate of temperature trends.”
Are these statistical techniques reliable?
“I have to say I remain somewhat skeptical,” states Kevin Trenberth, a lead author for the IPCC and director of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “It is hard to make data where none exist.”
Such results “have no real way to be validated,” states John Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville. “We will never know what the temperature was over the very large missing areas that this technique attempts to fill in.”
“How do the authors reconcile the conclusions in their paper with the cooler than average long-term sea-surface temperature anomalies off of the coast of Antarctica?” asked Roger Pielke, senior scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, in noting one of several failings in the study.
Michael Mann and Nature are not new to political controversy, or dubious science. The two collaborated before — in publishing what became known as the hockey-stick graph. This graph — which showed the 1990s to be the hottest decade of the hottest century of the last thousand years — became one of the most publicized facts of the year when it was published. Then the hockey stick became slapstick as it became an object of ridicule: Mann’s statistical techniques were shown to be entirely invalid and Mann was shown to have lacked the statistical knowledge demanded by the study. Mann and Nature refused to make public the data used to produce the graph, Nature refused to publish a response rebutting the hockey stick graph and Nature’s peer review process was shown to be a sham.
It took years, and a U.S. Congressional committee, to finally resolve the dispute, to Mann’s and Nature’s shame. Mercifully, the verdict over the latest offering from these two is seeing a speedier resolution.
Posted: January 30, 2009, 9:27 PM by NP Editor
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/0solomon.jpgHow does a new Nature study conclude that Antarctica is warming when actual temperature readings show it is not?
By Lawrence Solomon
For two decades now, those predicting climate-change catastrophe have been frustrated by skeptics who ask, “If carbon dioxide is warming the planet, why does the data show Antarctica to be cooling?” Until last week, the doomsayers had all manner of complicated explanations but no slam dunk answer. Now, thanks to a new study published last week in Nature magazine, the doomsayers obtained the answer they sought — proof that any fool can understand. The bottom line: Antarctica is in fact warming, just like the rest of the planet.
“Contrarians have some time grabbed on to this idea that the entire continent of Antarctica is cooling, so how could we be talking about global warming,” elaborated Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University and a co-author of the Nature study. “Now we can say: No, it’s not true ... It is not bucking the trend.”
The press seized on the findings. “Antarctica is warming, not cooling: study,” announced a Reuters headline. “Global warming hits Antarctica,” stated CNN. “Antarctica joins rest of the globe in warming,” said the Associated Press. But this study in Nature leaves many unimpressed, including top scientists from the doomsayer camp. One week after the study’s release, it is clear this study does nothing to explain the enigma of a cooling Antarctica.
The Nature authors had a daunting challenge. For one thing, the U.S. government has maintained a scientific base at the South Pole since 1957 at which temperatures have been continuously measured. The temperature readings show a cooler climate over the past half century. For another, various weather stations in Antarctica record cooler temperatures. Moreover, satellite readings of temperatures above Antarctica show a cooling trend. Little wonder that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change itself rejects the warming hypothesis. In its 2007 report, the IPCC accepts that Antarctica shows a “lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region.” To reconcile Antarctica with the rest of the globe, global warming advocates have taken the simple, if unsatisfying, view that the lack of warming in Antarctica is consistent with the presence of warming everywhere else.
How do Mann and the other scientists involved in the Nature study now conclude that Antarctica is warming when actual temperature readings show it is not? Antarctica’s weather stations cover a small fraction of the continent. Where data doesn’t exist, Mann makes various assumptions, then deduces Antarctic temperatures over the last 50 years with the help of computer models. The official explanation: “The researchers devised a statistical technique that uses data from satellites and from Antarctic weather stations to make a new estimate of temperature trends.”
Are these statistical techniques reliable?
“I have to say I remain somewhat skeptical,” states Kevin Trenberth, a lead author for the IPCC and director of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “It is hard to make data where none exist.”
Such results “have no real way to be validated,” states John Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville. “We will never know what the temperature was over the very large missing areas that this technique attempts to fill in.”
“How do the authors reconcile the conclusions in their paper with the cooler than average long-term sea-surface temperature anomalies off of the coast of Antarctica?” asked Roger Pielke, senior scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, in noting one of several failings in the study.
Michael Mann and Nature are not new to political controversy, or dubious science. The two collaborated before — in publishing what became known as the hockey-stick graph. This graph — which showed the 1990s to be the hottest decade of the hottest century of the last thousand years — became one of the most publicized facts of the year when it was published. Then the hockey stick became slapstick as it became an object of ridicule: Mann’s statistical techniques were shown to be entirely invalid and Mann was shown to have lacked the statistical knowledge demanded by the study. Mann and Nature refused to make public the data used to produce the graph, Nature refused to publish a response rebutting the hockey stick graph and Nature’s peer review process was shown to be a sham.
It took years, and a U.S. Congressional committee, to finally resolve the dispute, to Mann’s and Nature’s shame. Mercifully, the verdict over the latest offering from these two is seeing a speedier resolution.
Ocean Acidification and Corals
31 01 2009
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide_files/image002.gif
Perhaps corals are not so tough as they used to be? In 1954, the US detonated the world’s largest nuclear weapon at Bikini Island in the South Pacific. The bomb was equivalent to 30 billion pounds of TNT, vapourised three islands, and raised water temperatures to 55,000 degrees. Yet half a century of rising CO2 later, the corals at Bikini are thriving. Another drop in pH of 0.075 will likely have less impact on the corals than a thermonuclear blast. The corals might even survive a rise in ocean temperatures of half a degree, since they flourished at times when the earth’s temperature was 10C higher than the present.
There seems to be no shortage of theories about how rising CO2 levels will destroy the planet, yet the geological record shows that life flourished for hundreds of millions of years with much higher CO2 levels and temperatures. This is a primary reason why there are so many skeptics in the geological community. At some point the theorists will have to start paying attention to empirical data.
From: "Watts Up With That".
31 01 2009
Guest post by Steven Goddard
The world’s marine ecosystems risk being severely damaged by ocean acidification unless there are dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, warn scientists.
This sounds very alarming, so being diligent researchers we should of course check the facts. The ocean currently has a pH of 8.1, which is alkaline not acid. In order to become acid, it would have to drop below 7.0. According to Wikipedia “Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104.” At that rate, it will take another 3,500 years for the ocean to become even slightly acid. One also has to wonder how they measured the pH of the ocean to 4 decimal places in 1751, since the idea of pH wasn’t introduced until 1909.
The BBC article then asserts:
The researchers warn that ocean acidification, which they refer to as “the other CO2 problem”, could make most regions of the ocean inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050, if atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase.
This does indeed sound alarming, until you consider that corals became common in the oceans during the Ordovician Era - nearly 500 million years ago - when atmospheric CO2 levels were about 10X greater than they are today. (One might also note in the graph below that there was an ice age during the late Ordovician and early Silurian with CO2 levels 10X higher than current levels, and the correlation between CO2 and temperature is essentially nil throughout the Phanerozoic.)
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide_files/image002.gif
Perhaps corals are not so tough as they used to be? In 1954, the US detonated the world’s largest nuclear weapon at Bikini Island in the South Pacific. The bomb was equivalent to 30 billion pounds of TNT, vapourised three islands, and raised water temperatures to 55,000 degrees. Yet half a century of rising CO2 later, the corals at Bikini are thriving. Another drop in pH of 0.075 will likely have less impact on the corals than a thermonuclear blast. The corals might even survive a rise in ocean temperatures of half a degree, since they flourished at times when the earth’s temperature was 10C higher than the present.
There seems to be no shortage of theories about how rising CO2 levels will destroy the planet, yet the geological record shows that life flourished for hundreds of millions of years with much higher CO2 levels and temperatures. This is a primary reason why there are so many skeptics in the geological community. At some point the theorists will have to start paying attention to empirical data.
From: "Watts Up With That".
Walter,
Thank you for the great reference's you have provided. My interest in this topic stems from my own observations as I travel. In 1996 I started hearing concern about the Arctic icepack and how it was rapidly disappearing and may be gone within a decade. That didn't happen but it is decreasing. Then the same about the Antarctic. I was in the south of Chile last year and had a chance to view the Chilean coastal ice fields and was astounded to learn that they are now becoming the favored destination of US originated cruise ships. That ice area is now increasing rather than decreasing. There is more than ample evidence when the old growth Redwood trees of the western coastal US borer samples are analyzed it shows prolonged periods of moisture and then drought conditions also. Without any claim to expert knowledge I still see this matter as one that requires much more empirical data research as you have eloquently stated. I do think that we must become better managers and work hard to improve out waste management, water re-utilization such as the new system now in use in Orange County, CA. which is successfully reprocessing waste water. The information you cite about the Bikini Atoll nuclear test site and it's recovery prompts me to wonder why the fear in the US about using more nuclear energy production is still so strong. This nation doesn't hesitate to put hundreds of thousands of its military aboard nuclear powered vessels daily without giving it a second thought. Many of our research and health sciences facilities are also sites for nuclear sources. Many of the theorists are getting very wealthy off this topic and their role in it. I know as world we have much to accomplish but I'll bet in another decade if these specific topics are again reviewed factually much of the forecasts will not have materialized.
Thank you for the great reference's you have provided. My interest in this topic stems from my own observations as I travel. In 1996 I started hearing concern about the Arctic icepack and how it was rapidly disappearing and may be gone within a decade. That didn't happen but it is decreasing. Then the same about the Antarctic. I was in the south of Chile last year and had a chance to view the Chilean coastal ice fields and was astounded to learn that they are now becoming the favored destination of US originated cruise ships. That ice area is now increasing rather than decreasing. There is more than ample evidence when the old growth Redwood trees of the western coastal US borer samples are analyzed it shows prolonged periods of moisture and then drought conditions also. Without any claim to expert knowledge I still see this matter as one that requires much more empirical data research as you have eloquently stated. I do think that we must become better managers and work hard to improve out waste management, water re-utilization such as the new system now in use in Orange County, CA. which is successfully reprocessing waste water. The information you cite about the Bikini Atoll nuclear test site and it's recovery prompts me to wonder why the fear in the US about using more nuclear energy production is still so strong. This nation doesn't hesitate to put hundreds of thousands of its military aboard nuclear powered vessels daily without giving it a second thought. Many of our research and health sciences facilities are also sites for nuclear sources. Many of the theorists are getting very wealthy off this topic and their role in it. I know as world we have much to accomplish but I'll bet in another decade if these specific topics are again reviewed factually much of the forecasts will not have materialized.
Not really. It shows lack of basic scientific knoweldge.
for Example he wanders how measurement of pH can occur when the pH scale didn't come around till 1909 like its some great scale.
pH is just a convenient was to show the concentration of hydrogen ions in a solution without pages of math. Measurements on acidity existed long before, its a simple matter of converting units.
Its like saying that because Celsius didn't come to be until 1744 there is no way we could could have a recorded temperature from 1730. Except for the fact it would merely have been in F in we would convert it.
Thats the type of error that fills all of the anti- GW bunk.
for Example he wanders how measurement of pH can occur when the pH scale didn't come around till 1909 like its some great scale.
pH is just a convenient was to show the concentration of hydrogen ions in a solution without pages of math. Measurements on acidity existed long before, its a simple matter of converting units.
Its like saying that because Celsius didn't come to be until 1744 there is no way we could could have a recorded temperature from 1730. Except for the fact it would merely have been in F in we would convert it.
Thats the type of error that fills all of the anti- GW bunk.
- Status