Black Carbon Update: Up to 90% of Warming

A new study of the effect of black carbon on the melting of Himalayan glaciers demonstrates that 90% of melting is due to aerosols -- not CO2. More than 30% of melting is due to black carbon aerosol, and probably considerably more than 30%.

These findings are consistent with studies that show that significant (over half) amounts of arctic ice melting has been caused by black carbon and other aerosols.

Previous studies have shown that black carbon can have a powerful effect on local atmospheric temperature. “Black carbon can be very strong,” Menon says. “A small amount of black carbon tends to be more potent than the same mass of sulfate or other aerosols.”

Black carbon, which is caused by incomplete combustion, is especially prevalent in India and China; satellite images clearly show that its levels there have climbed dramatically in the last few decades. The main reason for the increase is the accelerated economic activity in India and China over the last 20 years; top sources of black carbon include shipping, vehicle emissions, coal burning and inefficient stoves. According to Menon’s data, black carbon emitted in India increased by 46 percent from 1990 to 2000 and by another 51 percent from 2000 to 2010. _Source

Melting glaciers and ice sheets have been used as an example of the effect of CO2 on climate, when in actuality they are an example of the effect of aerosol pollutants -- largely from China and India.

But then, you did not need this blog to tell you that CO2 hysteria is a scam, right?

ClimateGate Ascendant! New Media 1 Old Media 0

Despite the best efforts of old mainstream media to suppress the ClimateGate story of collusion, obfuscation, intimidation, and censorship at the East Anglia CRU, new media has succeeded in building on the story until it has finally broken through into the daylight.

IBD: What the media doesn't want you to know

WSJ: The Web Discloses (despite media smokescreening)

MIT (The Tech): Corrupt Climate Research Unit revealed

WSJ: Follow the Money The money flowing to the carbon hysteria orthodoxy from governments amounts to thousands of times the money granted to research by "big oil". Read the truth you will never find in BBC, CBC, CNN, NYT, or The Guardian.

Plus: Don't miss climate statistician Matt Briggs' "A Citizen's Guide to Global Warming Evidence" Matt briefly outlines what is known and what is not known about global warming, in a succinct and clear manner.

Bonus: Richard Lindzen's "The Climate Science Isn't Settled"


If you want to keep up on Climate Gate news in all its explosive glory, follow these websites:

Wattsupwiththat?

Tom Nelson

Climate Depot

Icecap

Greenie Watch

... and many other websites linked by those above, and on the Al Fin sidebar under the "climate" category.

BBC Wakes Up and Says: The Debate Is On!

The BBC is finally admitting what the rest of us have known all along: The science is not settled, the debate is not closed. Earth's climate is far more complex than even the most sophisticated climate models, and is making a laughing stock out of climatologists who can't comprehend that THE MODEL IS NOT THE CLIMATE!

For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

... Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting...claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures.

He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month.

If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject.

...Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.

Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world's top climate modellers.

...Sceptics...insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely.

One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say it is hotting up. _BBC

Why is the BBC suddenly willing to step away from the "consensus chorus of climate change catastrophe?" Would it have something to do with Steve McIntyre's treatment of Briffa's [cherry picked] Yamal Peninsula series? Or perhaps they are thinking of recent confirmation of Svensmark's cosmic ray theory? Perhaps they have discovered Anthony Watts' analysis of surface station temperature biases?

I am going out on a very long limb, but perhaps they are even sophisticated enough to have noticed that the oceans' heat content is dropping? Or are they just now realising that global temperatures have indeed not risen in lockstep with rising atmospheric CO2 levels? Certainly there have been enough rational voices objecting to the mindless climate blitzkrieg of the IPCC, NASA, Gore, the EU, BBC, the Royal Society, etc etc?

Perhaps we will begin to see an epidemic of sanity where once we saw only fanatical adherence to the talking points. I will observe this curious phenomenon, but I will not hold my breath.

H/T Instapundit and Tom Nelson

Mama! He's Driving a Stake Through Global Warming!

Image via Climate Depot
Blogger Neil Craig paints an intriguing portrait of Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit. McIntyre is one of the most gentlemanly, intelligent, and articulate persons to blog on topics of climate. Yet he is the recipient of more hatred and bile than almost anyone on the internet. The reason he is hated by so many people involved in the climate-industrial complex is simple: McIntyre exposes the truth behind the data.

Once again Steve McIntyre has proven a crucial part of the global warming swindle to be without factual merit. In this case he has proven statistically that Michael Mann [actually Keith Briffa in this case __AF], in producing his Hockey Stick theory has deliberately faked his most basic evidence.

After 10 years of data being withheld that would allow true scientific replication, and after dozens of requests for that data, Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit finally was given access to the data from Yamal Peninsula, Russia. He discovered that only 12 trees had been used out of a much larger dataset of tree ring data. When the larger data set was plotted, there is no “hockey stick” of temperature, in fact it goes in the opposite direction. Get your primer here.

Since all 12 trees were very much at variance with the average readings from that group it is just statistically impossible that Mann [Briffa _AF] selected all 12 at random. Therefore it is fraud. These particular tree rings were the evidence on which the entire Hockey Stick theory, that we had flat temperatures for the previous, originally, 1,500 years & an unprecedented sharp rise this century. This is effectively the entire "global warming"/""climate change"/"dangerous climate change" case. _APlaceToStand

Neil goes on to recount a long list of instances where McIntyre stood alone against powerful government financed institutions and scientists to expose mishandled data, faulty statistics, and erroneous conclusions. No wonder they hate McIntyre! If not for that amateur, they would be home-free and in the clear. But thanks to the climate auditor, instead of a long future of fame and adulation, they look forward to prospects of infamy and discarded laurels. In a wiser world, being shamed would be the best they should expect....

....Oh, mama! How can they let that man drive a stake through global warming? Will Al Gore have to give back his Nobel Prize? Will I have to stop believing what I saw in "An Inconvenient Truth?" Will I have to learn to love coal?

Here is a neutral look at this issue from The Register

Update 2 October2009: More on the downfall of Mann and Briffa from Ross McKitrick via climatedepot

More fallout from Briffa's Yamal contretemps

Note: McIntyre earlier demolished Michael Mann's methodology used in creating Mann's famous hockey stick -- upon which much of the early political momentum toward international carbon controls was built. Needing a new hockey stick, Keith Briffa came along with his own hockey stick built upon a carefully selected series of unrepresentative tree rings in the Yamal Peninsula of Russia. The current controversy in the climate world is over McIntyre's demolishing of Briffa's hockey stick. __ AF (in answer to commenter "taylor's" complaint)

Top Climatologist Scoffs at Global Warming Alarmists

China's top climatologist Xiao Ziniu suggests that global warming alarmists at the IPCC [and in the Obama administration] are grossly exaggerating the risks of recent warming trends.

"There is no agreed conclusion about how much change is dangerous," Xiao said. "Whether the climate turns warmer or cooler, there are both positive and negative effects. We are not focusing on what will happen with a one degree or two degree increase, we are looking at what level will be a danger to the environment. In Chinese history, there have been many periods warmer than today."

The IPCC warns a 2C rise substantially increases the risks of floods, drought and storms. _Guardian

Of course, the IPCC and other alarmist climate modeling groups such as NASA GISS, and Obama's EPA will cry "wolf!" as many times as necessary to receive generous funding grants, and ever more political power.

But there will always be climatologists who refuse to be bought off by the political steamroller du jour, in this case catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.

To keep up on what is happening with the global warming scam, consult these blogs frequently:

Tom Nelson
Watts Up With That???
Climate Audit
Climate Skeptic
Climate Science
Climate Depot
Icecap

As the Sun Weakens, the Earth Cools

You may be aware that the sun is in a deep solar minimum, with an ultra-low sunspot count. Besides sunspot number, the sun is behaving strangely in other ways.

"Lately, coronal mass ejections (CMEs) have become very slow, so slow that they have to be dragged away from the sun by the solar wind," says researcher Angelos Vourlidas of the Naval Research Lab. Here is an example from April 11th:

Each second in the SOHO animation corresponds to an hour or more of real time. "The speed of the CME was only 240 km/s," says Vourlidas. "The solar wind speed is about 300 km/s, so the CME is actually being dragged."

Vourlidas has examined thousands of CMEs recorded by SOHO over the past 13 years, and he's rarely seen such plodding explosions. In active times, CMEs can blast away from the sun faster than 1000 km/s. Even during the solar minimum of 1996, CMEs often revved up to 500 or 600 km/s. "Almost all the CMEs we've seen since the end of April 2008, however, are very slow, less than 300 km/s."

Is this just another way of saying "the sun is very quiet?" Or do slow-motion CMEs represent a new and interesting phenomena? The jury is still out. One thing is clear: solar minimum is more interesting than we thought. _spaceweather_via_FreshBilge

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the climate is getting distinctly colder. March 2009 was the coldest March this millenium, and April is on track to be even colder compared to other Aprils.

The sun is in a deep slumber. Arctic sea ice is growing ever thicker since 2007, and Antarctic sea ice extent is growing alarmingly. More reputable scientists are disputing the IPCC's myopic anti-scientific fascism.

More up to the minute news about the dismantling of the faux crisis of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) here and here.

Consent is the Death of the Mind

Science is based upon dissent and heresy. When a person consents to surrender his reason to a consensus of other "minds", his own brain begins to atrophy. That is how scientists can maintain the edge of their rationality -- through constant dissent. With consent comes the death of reason.

World-renowned Australian geologist, Ian Plimer, is publishing a magnum opus, Heaven and Earth. The 500 page book has 2311 footnotes, and is based upon 40 years of research and experience in Earth Sciences. Professor Plimer pulls no punches and does not tolerate fools.

Much of what we have read about climate change, he argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modelling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as "primitive". Errors and distortions in computer modelling will be exposed in time. (As if on cue, the United Nations' peak scientific body on climate change was obliged to make an embarrassing admission last week that some of its computers models were wrong.)....

....If we look at the last 6 million years, the Earth was warmer than it is now for 3 million years. The ice caps of the Arctic, Antarctica and Greenland are geologically unusual. Polar ice has only been present for less than 20 per cent of geological time. What follows is an intense compression of the book's 500 pages and all their provocative arguments and conclusions:

Is dangerous warming occurring? No.

Is the temperature range observed in the 20th century outside the range of normal variability? No.

The Earth's climate is driven by the receipt and redistribution of solar energy. Despite this crucial relationship, the sun tends to be brushed aside as the most important driver of climate. Calculations on supercomputers are primitive compared with the complex dynamism of the Earth's climate and ignore the crucial relationship between climate and solar energy.

"To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable - human-induced CO2 - is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly. Yet when astronomers have the temerity to show that climate is driven by solar activities rather than CO2 emissions, they are dismissed as dinosaurs undertaking the methods of old-fashioned science."

Over time, the history of CO2 content in the atmosphere has been far higher than at present for most of time. Atmospheric CO2 follows temperature rise. It does not create a temperature rise. CO2 is not a pollutant. Global warming and a high CO2 content bring prosperity and longer life.

The hypothesis that human activity can create global warming is extraordinary because it is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology. "But evidence no longer matters. And any contrary work published in peer-reviewed journals is just ignored. We are told that the science on human-induced global warming is settled. Yet the claim by some scientists that the threat of human-induced global warming is 90 per cent certain (or even 99 per cent) is a figure of speech. It has no mathematical or evidential basis."

Observations in nature differ markedly from the results generated by nearly two dozen computer-generated climate models. These climate models exaggerate the effects of human CO2 emissions into the atmosphere because few of the natural variables are considered. Natural systems are far more complex than computer models.

The setting up by the UN of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 gave an opportunity to make global warming the main theme of environmental groups. "The IPCC process is related to environmental activism, politics and opportunism. It is unrelated to science. Current zeal around human-induced climate change is comparable to the certainty professed by Creationists or religious fundamentalists." _SidneyMorningHerald

The entire enterprise of the climate catastrophe orthodoxy is based upon groupthink, and the maintaining of groupthink discipline. Like the party discipline of Maoist China or Stalinist USSR, the liberal uses of purges and figurative exile are necessary to maintain the illusion of infallibility.

Intelligent people can be caught in the trap of groupthink -- particularly if their livelihoods are involved. But persons who are both intelligent and conscientious will avoid groupthink consensus like the plague. Because it is a plague, manifested by widespread brain rot. Those who would preserve their brains and avoid zombie-hood, will avoid the brain rot of consent. It is to them, that Plimer appeals.

H/T Tom Nelson

Arctic Warming? From Black Soot, Not CO2

Remember the sad polar bear from Al Gores Propumentary? It was easy to see in the old bear's eyes that it knew -- IT KNEW!!! -- that it was doomed to drown in the lonely arctic seas. And the wise old bear obviously understood that it was humans that melted the ice. Humans who blasted the atmosphere with CO2 from their central air conditioning, their sports utility vehicles, their incandescent light bulbs. The bear knew.

But in real life things can be a bit different from in the propu-movies. It seems that most of the warming and melting of the arctic comes from black soot -- not CO2. Of the rest, most is due to natural climate cycles.

A pair of researchers from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space (GISS) and Columbia University have found that black carbon is responsible for 50%, or almost 1 °C of the total 1.9 °C increased Arctic warming from 1890 to 2007. The paper by Drew Shindell and Greg Faluvegi of Columbia, published in Nature Geoscience, also notes that most of the Arctic warming—1.48 °C of the 1.9 °C—occurred from 1976 to 2007.

The study is the first to quantify the Arctic’s sensitivity to black carbon emissions from various latitudes, and concludes that the Arctic responds strongly to black carbon emissions from the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, where the emissions and the forcing are greatest. _GCC

Most of this soot comes from China. Since China has built a huge new coal plant every 10 days over the past year or so, there is no sign of slowing down for Chinese soot production. CO2, on the other hand, is a negligible contributor to arctic warming. Between soot and natural weather cycles, roughly 90% of arctic warming can be explained. CO2 may be responsible for under 5% of warming.

The old bear thought he understood, but he had been misled by Al Gore's script writers. Just like millions of school children, and hundreds of thousands of politicians, journalists, and college professors. Of the rest who believe in anthropogenic global warming catastrophe -- gullible fools and zombies -- nothing more needs to be said at this time.

Freeman Dyson: Contrarian National Treasure

“According to the global-warming people, I say what I say because I’m paid by the oil industry. Of course I’m not, but that’s part of their rhetoric. If you doubt it, you’re a bad person, a tool of the oil or coal industry.” Global warming, he added, “has become a party line.”_NYT

Freeman Dyson is a physicist at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. Widely dmired for his brilliance and his modesty, the 85 year old Dyson has lately ruffled feathers among the conformist glitterati by expressing doubts about the dangers of "global warming." And so naturally, the echo chambers of climate catastrophe orthodoxy have rushed to paint the grand old scientist as a closet sell-out to the coal companies, or as a demented old fool well past his prime.

But in the considered opinion of the neurologist Oliver Sacks, Dyson’s friend and fellow English expatriate, this is far from the case. “His mind is still so open and flexible,” Sacks says. Which makes Dyson something far more formidable than just the latest peevish right-wing climate-change denier. Dyson is a scientist whose intelligence is revered by other scientists — William Press, former deputy director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and now a professor of computer science at the University of Texas, calls him “infinitely smart.” Dyson — a mathematics prodigy who came to this country at 23 and right away contributed seminal work to physics by unifying quantum and electrodynamic theory — not only did path-breaking science of his own; he also witnessed the development of modern physics, thinking alongside most of the luminous figures of the age, including Einstein, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Witten, the “high priest of string theory” whose office at the institute is just across the hall from Dyson’s.

...Among Dyson’s gifts is interpretive clarity, a penetrating ability to grasp the method and significance of what many kinds of scientists do. His thoughts about how science works appear in a series of lucid, elegant books for nonspecialists that have made him a trusted arbiter of ideas ranging far beyond physics. Dyson has written more than a dozen books, including “Origins of Life” (1999), which synthesizes recent discoveries by biologists and geologists into an evaluation of the double-origin hypothesis, the possibility that life began twice; “Disturbing the Universe” (1979) tries among other things to reconcile science and humanity. “Weapons and Hope” (1984) is his meditation on the meaning and danger of nuclear weapons that won a National Book Critics Circle Award. Dyson’s books display such masterly control of complex matters that smart young people read him and want to be scientists; older citizens finish his books and feel smart. _NYT

Dyson loves science, which is why he has no patience with James Hansen and the other computer modelers who make claims for their models far beyond the wildest reality. Smart thinkers such as Dyson understand how easy it is to "tweak" a computer model to get just the sort of result you want. He sees Hansen as a partisan and a hysteric, and sees Al Gore as the crudest of opportunists -- cashing in big, on the fad of the day.

You do not have to be a world class scientist to be skeptical of climate grifters such as Al Gore and James Hansen. And you do not have to be a complete idiot to believe in the faux consensus of the climate catastrophe orthodoxy. But it couldn't hurt. ;-)

The UN's IPCC: More Inbred Than an Appallachian Hog Holler Cousin Orgy

Moonshine is the drink of choice at IPCC gatherings such as the upcoming meeting in Hawaii--where everyone knows everyone else. Moonshine soothes frayed tempers, and cannot confound your global warming model like too-variable sunshine might. Something to remember when choosing the drinks for late night closed curtain meetings of the closed cabal of climate.

This small community of climate scientists is controlling the agenda with respect to the assessment of climate change. This is an oligarchy....Without new scientists leading the IPCC process as LAs and CLAs, the next IPCC report is doomed to continue to be completed by an oligarchy that is using its privileged position to advocate for a particular perspective on the role of humans within the climate system [the third hypothesis above]. The next IPCC report will not be a balanced assessment, but continue to be policy advocacy in the guise of a scientific framework. _ClimateScience

The Climate Science article linked above is discussing an upcoming meeting at a remote location of the inner circle of climate hell modeling. These cloistered connoisseurs of catastrophe are meeting far from prying eyes in order to get their climate ducks in a row before presenting further prognostications to the increasingly skeptical public.

Why is the public increasingly skeptical, you ask? For many reasons.

1. The oceans appear to be cooling instead of warming.
2. Satellite temperature readings indicate global warming stopped ten years ago.
3. The "greenhouse signature" in the tropical atmosphere is missing (PDF).
4. Ice cover in Antarctica is growing, and even arctic sea ice appears to be contradicting the wildly alarmist predictions made pre-summer.
5. An American Physical Society publication has opened their presses to a genuine climate debate.
6. Both the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation appear to have shifted (PDF)to a cooler phase.
7. The Sun's surprisingly extended quiet period between cycle 23 and cycle 24 is causing considerable questioning of the expertise of NASA solar physicists. Debate over the sun's effect on climate is heating up.

And there are more reasons besides those few. The iconic leaders of climate catastrophe are being hounded by careful auditors of the scientific method to provide their data! Weasels such as James Hansen, Phil Jones, Michael Mann, etc. are hiding their data away from the prying eyes of science auditors. What are they afraid of?

The secretive oligarchy will be huddled together on the balmy Hawaiian Isles, attempting to get their stories straight concerning these and many other issues that are keeping the warlords of weather awake at night. It is a crisis for the oligarchy, a possible tipping point.

Stay tuned.

H/T Icecap

Imagine There's No Global Warming!

The Voluntary Human Extinction movement needs global warming to boost membership and donations. So do all the left-environmental terrorist groups. So do Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Kevin Rudd, and the whole gang of politicians who want to suck all the vitality out of the US and world economies.

Imagine if none of them existed! Oynklent Green [OTC:OYNK] can!

H/T Climate Change Fraud via Heliogenic Climate Change via Tom Nelson

Global Warming Lecture Video John Christy UAH

Every science teacher should watch this video carefully before she next shows her class Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". Al Gore's film is modeled after the classic propaganda format. This video is a simple science lecture with factual supporting information, presented in a deadpan manner. Refreshingly distinct from Al Gore's tent-revival preacher approach.

Source via TomNelson

No Legs to Run: How "Runaway" Global Warming Lost Its Legs and Was Stopped Cold

Scientists are puzzled as to why the oceans and atmosphere of Earth have stopped warming. Theories run from the cosmic (cosmic rays) to the solar (sunspot cycles) to the subterranean (volcanic aerosols). One of the most interesting theories in the running, in my opinion, is the Miskolczi theory of The Saturated Greenhouse Effect.

A very interesting theory of global warming proposed by the Hungarian mathematician Ferenc Miskolczi contains a simple proof that the greenhouse effect is bound to a fixed value and cannot ‘runaway’, or even increase. __Follow the argument at the Source

Water is the most important greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere by far. Science has been very slow to understand the various roles of liquid water, water vapour, and various types of clouds in the regulation of Earth's climate.

There is a near infinite supply of greenhouse gases available to the atmosphere in the form of water vapor from the ocean to provide the greenhouse effect, but the relative humidity in the atmosphere is much less than one. Therefore, there must be some greenhouse equilibrium mechanism to control, the strength of the greenhouse effect and the relative humidity. Otherwise, climate would be very unstable. The global average relative humidity at the surface is about 78%. It generally decreases with altitude and is about 37% at an altitude where the atmospheric pressure is 300 millibars (mb). Relative humidity is the fraction of water vapour in a small parcel of air relative to the total amount of water vapour the air could contain at the given temperature and pressure. So why isn’t the relative humidity 90%, or vary randomly? Relative humidity is at its current value because it is controlled by the laws of physics. __Source

In order to understand the Miskolczi theory, and how important it may prove to be in the ultimate outcome of the climate debate, you must spend some time with the various links I have provided. Anthony Watts recently took a look at this issue, and it is likely that the topic will spread like wildfire once more people start to catch on to the implications.

Be sure to check out this series of articles by David Stockwell, and this technical proof of Miskolczi's theory.

Billions for Global Warming--But Not One Cent for the Defense of Earth From Space

The US Congress, such as it is, directs the space agency NASA as to its goals and missions. The Congress in its perverse incompetence has decided that "global warming" represents a larger threat to the nation and the world than threats from outer space--falling rocks.

In 1980, only 86 near-Earth asteroids and comets were known to exist. By 1990, the figure had risen to 170; by 2000, it was 921; as of this writing, it is 5,388. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, part of NASA, keeps a running tally at www.neo.jpl.nasa.gov/stats. Ten years ago, 244 near-Earth space rocks one kilometer across or more—the size that would cause global calamity—were known to exist; now 741 are. Of the recently discovered nearby space objects, NASA has classified 186 as “impact risks” (details about these rocks are at www.neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk ).
And because most space - rock searches to date have been low-budget affairs, conducted with equipment designed to look deep into the heavens, not at nearby space, the actual number of impact risks is undoubtedly much higher. Extrapolating from recent discoveries, NASA estimates that there are perhaps 20,000 potentially hazardous asteroids and comets in the general vicinity of Earth.

...A team of researchers led by Richard Firestone, of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in California, recently announced the discovery of evidence that one or two huge space rocks, each perhaps several kilometers across, exploded high above Canada 12,900 years ago. The detonation, they believe, caused widespread fires and dust clouds, and disrupted climate patterns so severely that it triggered a prolonged period of global cooling. Mammoths and other species might have been killed either by the impact itself or by starvation after their food supply was disrupted.

...just a century ago, in 1908, a huge explosion occurred above Tunguska, Siberia. The cause was not a malfunctioning alien star-cruiser but a small asteroid or comet that detonated as it approached the ground. The blast had hundreds of times the force of the Hiroshima bomb and devastated an area of several hundred square miles. Had the explosion occurred above London or Paris, the city would no longer exist. Mark Boslough, a researcher at the Sandia National Laboratory, in New Mexico, recently concluded that the Tunguska object was surprisingly small, perhaps only 30 meters across. Right now, astronomers are nervously tracking 99942 Apophis, an asteroid with a slight chance of striking Earth in April 2036. Apophis is also small by asteroid standards, perhaps 300 meters across, but it could hit with about 60,000 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb—enough to destroy an area the size of France. In other words, small asteroids may be more dangerous than we used to think—and may do considerable damage even if they don’t reach Earth’s surface.

...Comets, asteroids, and the little meteors that form pleasant shooting stars approach Earth at great speeds—at least 25,000 miles per hour. As they enter the atmosphere they heat up, from friction, and compress, because they decelerate rapidly. Many space rocks explode under this stress, especially small ones; large objects are more likely to reach Earth’s surface. The angle at which objects enter the atmosphere also matters: an asteroid or comet approaching straight down has a better chance of hitting the surface than one entering the atmosphere at a shallow angle, as the latter would have to plow through more air, heating up and compressing as it descended. The object or objects that may have detonated above Canada 12,900 years ago would probably have approached at a shallow angle....This winter, I asked William Ailor, an asteroid specialist at The Aerospace Corporation, a think tank for the Air Force, what he thought the risk was. Ailor’s answer: a one-in-10 chance per century of a dangerous space-object strike.

...when it comes to killer comets, you’ll just have to lose sleep over the possibility of their approach; there are no proposals for what to do about them. Comets are easy to see when they are near the sun and glowing but are difficult to detect at other times. Many have “eccentric” orbits, spending centuries at tremendous distances from the sun, then falling toward the inner solar system, then slingshotting away again. If you were to add comets to one of those classroom models of the solar system, many would need to come from other floors of the building, or from another school district, in order to be to scale. Advanced telescopes will probably do a good job of detecting most asteroids that pass near Earth, but an unknown comet suddenly headed our way would be a nasty surprise. And because many comets change course when the sun heats their sides and causes their frozen gases to expand, deflecting or destroying them poses technical problems to which there are no ready solutions. The logical first step, then, seems to be to determine how to prevent an asteroid from striking Earth and hope that some future advance, perhaps one building on the asteroid work, proves useful against comets....Congress...ought to look more sensibly at space priorities.

Because it controls federal funding, Congress holds the trump cards. In 2005, [Congress] approved the moon-base idea, seemingly just as as budgetary log-rolling to maintain spending in the congressional districts favored under NASA’s current budget hierarchy. The House and Senate ought to demand that the space program have as its first priority returning benefits to taxpayers. __Atlantic__via_Kurzweilai.net

Bonus: Check out this graphic video portraying the dangerous world of space rock.
The Congress is preparing to throw the US economy (and by extension the global economy) into a tailspin over global warming, based upon less evidence than would be necessary to convince most intelligent people to drive to the corner market. Yet when it comes to potentially apocalyptic hazards such as extinction-event asteroid and comet falls, Congress has an inadequate scope and vision to protect the US. What about the UN? Puhlease! The UN is all about stashing away untraceable cash in numbered Swiss bank accounts. Not being helpful or useful.

Is the risk of a serious space rock incident as high as 1 in 10, as stated above? There are too many assumptions to give a clear estimate. What should be obvious to anyone with a brain who is paying attention, however, is that the threat from space rocks is several orders of magnitude higher than the threat from anthropogenic greenhouse warming.

Americans, when you go to the voting booth in November, remember that it is you who is partially to blame for the unaccountability of your government. Because you never held your Senators and Congressional members to account. You never asked the hard questions, nor insisted that the weasels really answer the questions. You passively believe that you pay taxes so that the government can take care of the country. That is your first mistake. The rest of the list is too long to publish here.

Congress is ready to sell the US economy down the river for a little "international acceptance". Congress is an ass. But then you knew that already.

Meanwhile, Oynklent Green is preparing to test its pilot plant, at a secret, undisclosed location that has been hardened against asteroid impact.

Global Warming on Hold? Al Gore Secretly Furious

There are signs that the Earth may be entering a new cooling phase, signaling a "temporary halt to global warming."

Writing in Nature, the scientists said: "Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic [manmade] warming." __Telegraph__via__GreenieWatch

In fact, recent temperatures across the globe have set records for cold, ice accumulation, and snowfall.

China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. ___DailyTech__via__GreenieWatch

While Al Gore privately steams on his temperature controlled private jet as he criss-crosses the globe collecting $100,000 speaking fees, the planet 30,000 feet below seems to be cooling rather than warming.

...two widely used global temperature data sources are from earth-orbiting satellites UAH (University of Alabama at Huntsville) and RSS (Remote Sensing Systems.) Both show decreasing temperatures over the last decade, with present temperatures barely above the 30 year average....We saw a global cooling scare in 1924, a global warming scare in 1933, another global cooling in the early 1970s, and another warming scare today. __Register__via__Icecap__via_TomNelson

And so we finally learn that IPCC models failed to predict the current "flipping" of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from warming to cooling. In fact, the IPCC models seemed to be trying to pretend that natural climate cycles do not even exist.

What makes the entire situation worse, besides the economic hazards of shutting down entire industries based upon spurious models, is the fact that the IPCC and NASA Goddard models are being fed falsified data--whether intentionally or incidentally remains to be demonstrated.

NASA has been reworking recent temperatures upwards and older temperatures downwards - which creates a greater slope and the appearance of warming. Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre has been tracking the changes closely on his Climate Audit site, and reports that NASA is Rewriting History, Time and Time Again . __Register

How can the bureaucrats at NASA and the IPCC get away with "re-writing history?" Because they have the entire resources of the US Federal government and the United Nations behind them. Anyone who wants to bring the "historical revisionists of climate" to account for their misdeeds will have to go through the great stonewall of the world's hugest bureaucracies. The price tag for the huge blunders of NASA, the IPCC, Kyoto, the EU, etc. may easily run into the trillions of dollars.

Bureaucracies plunder. People pay the price.

Solving Global Warming with the Nuclear Option

Image Source

Quite a few different geoengineering schemes have been proposed for dealing with catastrophic anthropogenic global warming(CAGW). It is unlikely that CO2 emissions will be reduced in a meaningful way, so those most concerned about CAGW are beginning to evaluate massive engineering projects to cool the Earth.

Nuclear winter is perhaps the most drastic geoengineering scheme yet to be proposed for solving CAGW. It would accomplish two key goals of global warming and environmental activists:

1. Reduce the temperature of Earth
2. Reduce the human population of Earth

There would be a 22 degree C drop in mid-latitudes and 10 degree drop in more humid areas. Further, the authors surmised a 75% drop in rainfall, and as much as a 90% drop in visibility in high smoke areas....a study gone over at the annual American Geophysical Meeting in December of2006 cited that even a small scale regional nuclear war could mess with the global climate for a decade or more. ___Source

The most likely parts of the globe to suffer regional nuclear war at this time, are the middle east and South Asia. Nuclear war between China and Russia over possession of Siberia's mineral wealth is a remote possibility. It is clear that large numbers of Earth's human population live in those regions of Earth, and would be vulnerable to death from direct and indirect consequences of regional nuclear war.

”If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.” Prince Philip, WWF

“Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.” Dave Forman, Founder of Earth First! ___Source

Once the temperature of Earth has dropped, and the planetary population has been pared down to suit even the most extreme environmentalists, humans can begin to think about how they will deal with the aftermath of such a massive geoengineering project.

Ted Turner may have some suggestions about what a world under a "nuclear winter" climate regime might want to eat. But then, Turner himself no doubt has a comfortable resort, well outfitted for an extended stay in isolation from the cannibalistic masses.

These are all ideas that Al Gore must wonder about from time to time, in his darker moments. After all, in a world struggling to survive a nuclear winter, who is going to want to buy carbon credits? Tipper must wonder what Al truly means when he mumbles in his sleep--"the horror, the horror." Is he dreaming of the world after executing "the nuclear option" to solve global warming? Is he dreaming of a colder world from a natural solar downturn--a solar minimum? Or is he merely reliving the late autumn and early winter of 2000, 2001?

Climate Basics: Earth's Heat Content

Intelligent people understand that they can trust neither politicians, nor the media. What some of them have not yet learned, is that they cannot blindly trust anyone, regardless of academic or scientific credentials.

Consider the science behind climate change. A scientific theory must contain falsifiable hypotheses. The key to understanding and testing current orthodox theories of anthropogenic global warming, is to identify the falsifiable hypotheses and to attempt to falsify them.

"Global Warming" requires an ongoing accumulation of heat. This heat accumulation should be reflected in temperature measurements -- allowing for normal climate and weather cycles. The best measurement of Earth's heat content is ocean temperature measurements, rather than the ground surface station measurements that currently feed data into GCMs.

The simplest form of "fact-checking" of IPCC GCM climate projections, is to see if Earth's heat content is growing.

...global warming requires a more-or-less monotonic increase in the accumulation of heat (in Joules) within the climate system. The use of a global average surface temperature, regardless if it is increasing or decreasing is an inadequate and inaccurate metric of global warming as the heat is not only a function of temperature but also mass over which the heat change occurs! This is why the ocean is the dominate reservoir of heat content change.

With respect to the change in upper ocean heat content, as reported on a Climate Science weblog on February 15 2008, the paper

Willis, J. K., D. P. Chambers and R. Steven Nerem, 2008: Assessing the Globally Averaged Sea Level Budget on Seasonal and Interannual Time Scales. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans (in press),

reports on no upper (700m) ocean warming since 2004.

Thus while we cannot state that the recent widely distributed cold waves or overall cooling of the troposphere are evidence of the end of global warming over decadal and longer time scales, we can state that global warming has not occurred in the last 4 years. This is a major issue for both climate science and for policymakers, as only those who blindly (or deliberately) ignore the scientific evidence can still accept the 2007 IPCC conclusions as settled science.___ClimateScience

The question is, how long will the heat content of Earth's climate system be allowed to diverge from orthodox climate models, before the climate orthodoxy begins to modify its approach to GCM's and climate projection?

The current climate orthodoxy is based upon a set of assumptions--incorporated into its models--that must eventually be pared down enough to a form which can be falsified. We are not at that point as of yet. Currently, the orthodoxy has taken care to obscure and complicate its theories so as to present a front to the world which is indistinguishable from an unfalsifiable belief system, a religion.

But if catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) orthodoxy is to be taught in university science departments, rather than in cloistered seminaries and monasteries, curious students, post-grads, and junior professors will attempt to formulate the issues in terms of science--falsifiable hypotheses. As these un-initiated supplicants produce a body of work based upon pre-orthodox mindsets, it should be possible to tease out a set of hypotheses which are falsifiable.

More time. More data. Cleaner theories. More honest science. The orthodoxy can consider itself under siege.

Global Warming: Politics, Science, Loot

There is a lot more to the "catastrophic anthropogenic global warming" (CAGW) scheme of things than what you typically read in the papers or see on television news. Tonight I focus on the politics, the (uncertain) science, and the loot.

First, politics:

”Many individuals, including a large portion of environmentalists, believe that a purely technological approach to stablizing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere could lead to social apathy towards climate change.

Ted Parsons, a professor at the School of National Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan, writes that the promises of air capture could carry a ‘moral hazard’ because political pressure for near-term efforts to curtail climate change may be reduced.

Air capture also addresses one of many factors adversely affecting the environment. The climate crisis is a powerful tool to motivate change - like checking the ever-expanding global population and excessive resource consumption - and if the urgency of climate change is compromised, other environmental projects may fall by the wayside.”

Thus we have the reasoning as to why the science issues on Climate Science have been mostly ignored - the issue is not about climate science. The goal is to use the term “global warming” (with “climate change” used to make the concept cover all aspects of climate) not to ”motivate” change, but to force the public and policymakers to adopt specific policy and political actions that promotes particular agendas. ___ClimateScience

Next, the uncertain science:

"Runaway greenhouse theories contradict energy balance equations," Miskolczi states. Just as the theory of relativity sets an upper limit on velocity, his theory sets an upper limit on the greenhouse effect, a limit which prevents it from warming the Earth more than a certain amount.

How did modern researchers make such a mistake? They relied upon equations derived over 80 years ago, equations which left off one term from the final solution.____DailyTech

Finally the loot:

There’s money to be made by cultivating a green image. And there’s lots of money to be doled out to researchers studying climate change and new energy technologies.___NYTimes

Just ask Al Gore: he, can, tell, you, plenty, of ways to make money on a convenient scam. Not bad, if you have the cold blood to pull it off.

Climate change is a euphemism referring to a jigsaw puzzle that is lacking most of its pieces. Some people can take the puzzle, pretend it is solved and complete, and turn the world into their own private paradise. Woe to the others, though. Everyone else.

Greenhouse Global Warming? Informed Skepticism Wisest Course

It has almost become something of a joke when some "global warming" conference has to be cancelled because of a snowstorm or bitterly cold weather.

But stampedes and hysteria are no joke -- and creating stampedes and hysteria has become a major activity of those hyping a global warming "crisis."

They mobilize like-minded people from a variety of occupations, call them all "scientists" and then claim that "all" the experts agree on a global warming crisis.

Their biggest argument is that there is no argument.

A whole cottage industry has sprung up among people who get grants, government agencies who get appropriations, politicians who get publicity and the perpetually indignant who get something new to be indignant about. It gives teachers something to talk about in school instead of teaching.

Those who bother to check the facts often find that not all those who are called scientists are really scientists and not all of those who are scientists are specialists in climate. But who bothers to check facts these days?__Source

There are a number of reasons, besides the graphic divergence pictured above, to suspect that the High Orthodoxy of Climate Change has taken in large numbers of opportunists and the gullible. For instance, cyclic ocean oscillations can have a huge impact on multi-decadal climate trends, but GCMs cannot accurately capture them.

... remarkably high SOI averages as seen recently and now in February also took place in the past during periods of global cooling as late in the 19th century and in the 50’s and the 70’s as the PDO experimented a negative phase. This strong La Niña event and the behavior of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation may hint the beginning of a new negative phase of the PDO, but is too early to tell and it could be another false indicator as seen in 1999 and 2000. The same could be said about global cooling. The recent trend of global temperature (read Anthony Watts's excellent tracking) can be a brief lapse in the curve of global warming or may indicate the beginning of a long term cooling trend. I entirely agree with WOOD-TV Craig James’ opinion (read more) that this can be "just a noise in the upward trend or is it the start of a downward trend in temperatures". The famous and very competent meteorologist from Grand Rapids tells "it is a little too early to be proclaiming that global warming has ended" and it sounds reasonable to me, but at the same time it is very nice to see that natural forcing and not manmade global warming is driving our planet temperature.___Source__via_NCMediaWatch

Unlike the true believers who flock to the Climate High Orthodoxy, intelligent people reserve the right to be skeptical and to keep an open mind as the data accumulates.

In fact, it is starting to look as if the Climate Orthodoxy's massive media deluge is beginning to backfire.

“Mass media efforts to raise American public concern about climate change - such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and the ‘scientific consensus’ media drumbeat - ironically may be having just the opposite effect, according to a new study appearing in the scientific journal Risk Analysis.”___Source

People are naturally curious, and skeptical. When certain ideas are pounded into their heads so unrelentingly, the more intelligent ones begin to wonder about the reasons for the militant attacks on their senses. Arguments for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) are wearing thin, as they are repeated ad nauseum without satisfactory evidential support. Such growing discontent among the brighter and more skeptical members of the public makes them more likely to consider alternative explanations for climate phenomena.

Despite much evidence relating climatic changes on Earth to solar variability, a physical mechanism responsible for this is still poorly known. A possible link connecting solar activity and climate variations is related to cosmic rays and the physical-chemical changes they produce in the atmosphere. Here we review experimental evidence and theoretical grounds for this rela tion. The cosmic ray – climate link seems to be a plausible climate driver which effectively operates on different time scales, but its exact mechanism and relative importance still remain open questions.____Source

The High Orthodoxy of Climate has the advantage of the media, political, and academic high ground. The Orthodoxy can maintain multi-billion dollar media barrages for the indefinite future. With that kind of public relations and big media firepower, you would think that the skeptics would be "drowned out" and "obliterated" by now. But that would be ignorning the "new media," the internet. The High Orthodoxy may be fighting this century's war with the last century's weapons.

Certainly with intelligent and informed climate discussion as one finds here, here, here, and here, it is unlikely that the Orthodoxy will be able to shut down debate in the foreseeable future.

H/T Tom Nelson

Global Temperature? Which Global Temperature?

When you talk about a "global average temperature," do you know what you are really talking about? It is not as easy as you might think.

The global average temperature exists as a theoretical concept. If we were able to place a large number of sensors around the world at regular spacings, we would be able to establish a meaningful estimate of the instantaneous average, which could then in turn be averaged over a year to produce a number that is a reasonable representation of the thermal state of the surface of the planet. Unfortunately, such a ground station network does not exist. Not only are the existing sensors poorly distributed, many are placed in thermally atypical sites such as cities and airports, others are in primitive rural areas where they are poorly maintained. Ironically though, it is over the oceans that the most discrepant surface measurements occur. Thus surface weather stations provide a very poor basis for determining average global temperature.

Fortunately there is an alternative, which is satellite surveillance. Microwave radiation from oxygen in the atmosphere is temperature dependent and therefore provides a convenient remote thermometer. Because the satellite orbit is continuously scanning the Earth’s surface like a television raster, it is equivalent to a very large number of well-distributed thermometers. As a result it produces a credible estimate of a global average temperature. The results cross calibrate well with data collected by balloons.

Less fortunately, the satellite record is relatively short, as the technology has not been around for very long. It shows a slight cooling trend, but all finite data sets show trends that are not necessarily properties of the parent distribution. All the satellite data tell us at the moment is that there are no dramatic changes of temperature occurring.

Numberwatch

Climate scientist Roger Pielke believes the only credible way to measure the heat content of the Earth, is by following the ocean heat content. Other than the sun, the oceans appear to be the clear driver of Earth's climate, due to their ability to hold and release large amounts of solar energy.

The huge problem of determining global mean temperature via ground surface stations is apparent when none of the large climate organisations can agree on rankings of "warmest recent years."

Here's what three of the world's leading agencies monitoring climate change say.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, headed by James Hansen who is an advisor to Al Gore, says 2007 was the second warmest year on record.

Meanwhile, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it was the fifth warmest.

And Britain's Meteorological Office (the MET), which does its analysis in conjunction with the University of East Anglia, and which at the start of the year predicted 2007 would likely be the warmest on record, says it was the seventh warmest.

TorontoSun via Tom Nelson

Since the US surface station network is the best in the world--and is a bloody mess--we should not base our futures upon projections that rest upon surface temperature readings. What is left? Satellite measurements--a distinct improvement but still imperfect--and ocean heat content estimates.

It may take several decades to upgrade temperature surface stations in the developed world. The undeveloped world may take centuries. So, clearly, while going about that difficult and time-consuming task, we should also look to satellite temperature and ocean heat readings. In other words, we need data--lots of data. The IPCC has a lot of "guesses" and projections based upon worthless ground temperature data combined with difficult to interpret "proxies" of past temperatures. That is not good enough to overturn the economies of the world. We need more, and better, data.

More on global temperature here.

More on lack of warming here.