[Climate] Cap and Trade

[Edmaster]

A bill which may quite well be passed TODAY on the House floor.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20090625/bs_ibd_ibd/20090625feature

The House's upcoming vote on cap-and-trade climate legislation will be a nail-biter, lawmakers and lobbyists on both sides agree.

The bill, expected Friday or possibly Saturday, would put the U.S. on the path to accepting limits on greenhouse gas emissions via a complex trading system of federal carbon emission allowances.

Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Penn., who has been lobbying colleagues to back it, told IBD he was optimistic but expected it to be a squeaker.

"There has been a lot of movement (toward the bill) just in the last day or so," he said, but quickly added, "I am not sure I can say with certainty that they have more than 218 votes."

218 is the minimum needed to pass in the 435-member House.

House Divided

It is a tough vote. Green groups and the Democratic leadership are pushing hard but many lawmakers fear it would harm industry back home, especially in states that use coal-fired power. The National Association of Manufacturers has urged lawmakers to oppose it.

Despite heavy lobbying, Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., said Thursday he would buck his leadership.

"Pomeroy has several concerns with the effect the Waxman-Markey bill, as currently drafted, would have on North Dakota, and plans to vote no," spokeswoman Sandra Salstrom told IBD.

Cap-and-trade fans hoped to win over Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala. He dashed those hopes Thursday.

"While there have been serious and genuine efforts that have made this bill better, the fact remains that in Alabama, the bill will almost certainly cost us jobs and raise our utility rates," Davis said in a statement.

One concern House lawmakers have is that they aren't sure the Senate will take up the issue. In 2007, a cap-and-trade bill by Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., died in a filibuster.

"They are not convinced that the Senate will take a hard vote on this so why should they?" said a pro cap-and-trade business lobbyist.

Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, who backs the bill despite some qualms, said Speaker Nancy Pelosi needed to have a vote soon to prevent her coalition from unraveling.

"If you let it lay on the shelf for too long, it'll lose support," he said.

Economic Boon Or Bane?

Democratic leaders argue it'll not only limit pollution but boost the economy by creating green jobs.

Critics, led by the GOP, instead say it will be a drag on the economy while only making marginal improvements in air quality. They have dubbed the bill "cap and tax."

"(T)his bill is disconnected to the reality facing so many of America's families and certainly families in the regions where coal is a big part of the economy," said GOP Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., in a statement.

Business and environmental groups are divided too. Many big companies are lobbying hard for the bill, hoping to exploit a lucrative market in carbon allowances.

Most greens also support it, but have chafed at concessions -- including giving away 85% of the initial permits to business. One group, Friends of the Earth, is opposed.

Pelosi won the support of Agriculture Committee Chairman Colin Petersen, D-Mont., by agreeing to have the USDA -- not the EPA -- oversee a program on farming activities that counts toward meeting the emissions caps.

While that seems to have satisfied other farm-state Democrats, the American Farm Bureau Federation is urging a no vote.

Cap-and-trade fans were given a boost when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the bill would raise household energy costs by $175 a year by 2020, below estimates critics had used. Republicans called the study flawed.

Democratic leaders have pulled out all the stops. President Obama made two public statements in favor of it this week, including Thursday. Pelosi has had meetings with moderate Republicans.

But GOP converts are few. Lisa Wright, spokeswoman for Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md. -- cited by some lobbyists as a potential switch -- said that isn't the case.

"He's voting no," Wright said.


Those Dems are sneaky little guys. While everyone is busy with Iran, health care, the SC governor, and now MJ, an issue just as big is being considered RIGHT NOW in the House that could spell huge increases in energy costs by leaps and bounds.

Not to mention introducing a bill like this in the middle of a recession may be the most idiotic notion conceived by this administration. This is basically equivalent to chopping off your hand after shooting yourself in the foot.

Not even Fox News seems to be covering it right now. Everyone is too busy talking about MJ's autopsy. :rolleyes:

[Tonus]

Yes, it seems that this (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html) may be happening a bit too late for us.


The Climate Change Climate Change
The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.

Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.

If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.

The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so easily swayed.

Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.

This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament breaks for the winter.

Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.

Here in the USA, the groundswell of anti-warming support is still slow to develop, which is probably why there is such a rush to get cap-and-trade in place. I think that one hope is to use the cooling/stable climate as something of a placebo effect-- implement cap-and-trade, and only then pretend to notice that temperatures have stabilized, and insist that it must be the carbon-capping legislation that is doing it.

The effort is extemely desperate. As Michelle Malkin reports, the EPA is supressing information (http://michellemalkin.com/2009/06/24/the-climate-change-e-mails-epa-doesnt-want-you-to-see/) that makes cap-and-trade seem unnecessary and trying to quiet people (http://michellemalkin.com/2009/06/26/epa-plays-hide-and-seek-suppressed-report-revealed/) who wanted to investigate further in order to verify the information.

Apparently, the administration does not limit itself to IGs when it comes to trying to stonewall or eliminate opposition to its policies and programs. The administration and top congressional Democrats are going to try and jam cap-and-trade through before anyone can stop them. And if that means playing dirty, well... it's not as if they're not familiar with the tactic. On the other hand, adoption of cap-and-trade could very well be the final nail in the global warming coffin. New Zealand scrapped its program just weeks after it was implemented. Here's hoping cap-and-trade dies in congress, but if it doesn't, let's hope it is killed off before it causes catastrophic damage to the economy.

[Edmaster]

With 85% of the money that is being collecting going to special interest groups (read: pay-offs), looks like Congress as usual.

It would be nice if supporters would at least try to stop pretending that this will have even a shred of impact on our environment, and just call it what it is- a tax bill that is lining the pockets of those who helped put these "men" in the House.

[Tonus]

It's more than that. Taxes will be structured so as to make gasoline more and more expensive, and owning gas-powered cars more and more expensive. This will force consumers towards "green" cars (such as the ones that GM will be producing).

Remember when Obama promised to only tax the top 5%? This is the part where he taxes everyone else-- you either pay more and more for gas, or pay more and more for a hybrid car. Either way, you also pay more and more for goods and services that rely on gasoline and do not have the option to ship materials in hybrid 18-wheelers or solar-powered freight ships.

And that's not even counting the effect on employment numbers...

[Dr. L]

Gas'll go up really high, the truckers will NOT be happy about this. Not to mention the utilities.. This is going to be terrible... our representative, John Boehner, will fortunately be voting against it. He's been one of them that prominently speaks out against these atrocities. I really hope the wretched thing doesn't pass... but the news is covering Michael Jackson right now. I'm sorry for him and his family, but Farah Fawcett got about 15 memorial seconds, so it people are curious about the circumstances of his demise, they can look it up themselves.

I saw Glenn Beck talking about the Cap and Trade issue. I have to say, even though he can be a tad extreme at times, he's one of the few people on the news I remotely enjoy watching anymore.

[Grunthos]

It passed the House by a handful of votes. Who should all be looking for work in a little over a year.

[Edmaster]

7 votes. Closer than Pelosi and the other extremist liberals wanted.

I had been on the phone for several hours trying to reach my congressman, to no avail. Either the phone lines were swamped, or the House decided to make their collective "FUCK YOU" to the American people official.

This is not environmental legislation. I'd barely even call it tax legislation, though that's exactly what it is. This is yet another power grab by the left wing nutjobs who are taking advantage of their current House majority while they still can. They are using every dirty play in the book to change as much as possible while simultaneously distracting the American public with other issues (read: MJ).

The bill initially had 1200 pages, with an additional 300 amended to the bill last night at 3:00am, which I can quite honestly assume not a single member of the House read through thoroughly before voting. Despicable.

With such a close passing, I'd hope the Senate would be able to stop this thing, but I'm not holding my breath. Apparently two phone calls from Pelosi and Obama (plus a few calls from those special interest groups who have a stake in those "green" programs that are about to get a whole lot bigger) are enough to cancel out the thousands of phone calls made just today by the American people.

2010 can not come quickly enough.

[Dr. L]

The bill initially had 1200 pages, with an additional 300 amended to the bill last night at 3:00am, which I can quite honestly assume not a single member of the House read through thoroughly before voting. Despicable.

Actually, Ohio Congressman Boehner made sure to take over an hour(He was given two and a half minutes :happy: ) to read out all the key details of the amendment to the house. He didn't seem pleased... I've always liked him. He should run for president. Or usurp the current one (I wish).

[Grunthos]

2010 can not come quickly enough.

I'm sure that's the hope that most Iranians had for 2009... not realizing that once you elect a despot, you don't get to elect his replacement.

Let's hope we don't end up in the same boat, but we're certainly riding the same river.

[Dr. L]

Let us play a melody for the new Politburo(albeit less frightening).

JO5-hM6xKt4

[Grunthos]

Sounds like the Reps are finally beginning to find their voice as a minority party:

Boehner: Climate bill a 'pile of s--t'
By Molly K. Hooper
Posted: 06/27/09 09:22 PM [ET]
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) had a few choice words about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) landmark climate-change bill after its passage Friday.

When asked why he read portions of the cap-and-trade bill on the floor Friday night, Boehner told The Hill, "Hey, people deserve to know what's in this pile of s--t."



Using his privilege as leader to speak for an unlimited time on the House floor, Boehner spent an hour reading from the 1200-plus page bill that was amended 20 hours before the lower chamber voted 219-212 to approve it.

Eight Republicans voted with Democrats to pass the bill; 44 House Democrats voted against it.

Pelosi's office declined to comment on Boehner's jab. But one Democratic aide quipped, "What do you expect from a guy who thinks global warming is caused by cow manure?"

Even though Sen. Majorty Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) holds the bill's fate in his hands, House Republicans intend to hammer Speaker Pelosi's signature climate-change measure over recess.

And GOP Conference Chairman Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.) said "we have only just begun to fight” as he left the Capitol Friday night.

Pence encouraged GOP rank-and-file lawmakers to hold energy summits in their districts over the Independence Day recess. In the recess packets sent home with members, he even included directions on how to organize energy summits.

The goal of holding an energy forum is to “educate your constituents about the Democrats’ national energy tax legislation and let them know what 'all of the above' solution you support.”



"All of the above” solution is a reference to the Republicans' plan that would increase the use of and exploration for domestic energy supplies.

Further, officials with the House GOP's campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, confirm that they will run with paid media over recess in districts of conservative Dems who voted for the bill. The official would not reveal details on the ad buys at this time.

One Democrat was upset that his leaders would needlessly force vulnerable Dems to vote for a bill that will come back to haunt them. Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor (D) voted against the measure that he says will die in the Senate.

"A lot of people walked the plank on a bill that will never become law," Taylor told The Hill after the gavel came down.



http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/boehner-climate-bill-a-pile-of-s--t-2009-06-27.html

[Tonus]

How did the Democrats get the votes they needed to pass cap-n-trade in the House?

Simple... they bought them... (http://hotair.com/archives/2009/07/01/it-aint-what-you-know-in-dc-part-ii/) with our money. $3.5 billion of it for just one of the votes.

It strikes me as a Pyrrhic victory, assuming cap and trade is approved in the Senate, and that may not happen. If it does pass, it may not be a victory at all for the Ohio rep who sold her vote. Ohio's coal industry is likely to be devastated by cap and trade, and they'll get their revenge at the ballot box. It'll come far too late, and it'll hurt the Republicans more likely than not in 2010.

[Grunthos]

The carbon tax per ton on bituminous coal, under the bill, would be roughly 400% of the current cost of that coal.

About half the US' electricity comes from coal.

Guess where your electric bill's headed, folks??

[Diniden]

Good news on the electricity though. They just recently released an approved "copy paste" model of a nuclear power plant. This plant is intended to be crazy safe, yet affordable for investors. Also, it only takes 5 years to construct (including land site approval etc etc which takes around 2 years). I'll try to find on article on this subject. I heard it through word of mouth (my father works in the power generation field).

[Grunthos]

So. let's put off this cap and tax crap for 5-7 years, until they build some of these plants.

[Tonus]

That's a good idea, since in 5-7 years we may be wondering what the fuss was all about. (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/03/uah-global-temperature-anomaly-for-june-09-zero/)

The[re] was a lot of speculation last year that our global temperature would recover from the huge drops last spring. While there has been some recovery, the overall global temperature trend since 1999 has been the subject of much debate. What is not debatable is that the current global temperature anomaly, as determined by a leading authority on global satellite temperature measurements, says we have no departure from “normal” this month. Given the U.S. Senate is about to vote upon the most complex and costly plan to regulate greenhouse gases, while the EPA suppresses earlier versions of the chart shown below from a senior analyst, this should give some pause to those who are rational thinkers. For those that see only dogma, I expect this will be greeted with jeers.

Visit the link for the chart and more information. And take note of the anomalous spike in 1998 (credited to el niño) that we have not approached in the 11 years since, as temperatures continue to trend downward, not upward. If that spike is related to CO2 emissions, then why have increased levels of CO2 not resulted in similar spikes since then?

[Tonus]

PS- If you lose your job due to Cap and Trade? No problem! (http://www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-roff/2009/07/06/democrats-admit-that-their-cap-and-trade-bill-is-a-job-killer.html) We'll just pull a few billion dollars out of the taxpayer's already sore ass.

Relevant portion:


She was right—the House-passed version of cap and trade is all about jobs: jobs lost, jobs never created, jobs sent overseas, and, unbelievably, jobs people will be paid for doing long after they cease to exist.


According to Friday's Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/03/energy-job-losers-could-get-windfall/), the legislation includes language that provides, should it become law, that people who lose their jobs because of it "could get a weekly paycheck for up to three years, subsidies to find new work and other generous benefits—courtesy of Uncle Sam."


How generous are these benefits? Well, according to the Times, "Adversely affected employees in oil, coal and other fossil-fuel sector jobs would qualify for a weekly check worth 70 percent of their current salary for up to three years. In addition, they would get $1,500 for job-search assistance and $1,500 for moving expenses from the bill's 'climate change worker adjustment assistance' program, which is expected to cost $4.2 billion from 2011 to 2019."


Instead of being a the source of millions of new jobs of "green jobs"—as House Democrats are fond of saying over and over again—the provision is a hidden admission that their effort is a job killer, not just a massive new tax on energy.


Please note that the $4.2 billion dollar estimate is only for the program that helps the unemployed seek new jobs and move. It does not cover the three years at 70% pay that will be given to them.

[hodge podge]

There goes American industry. No business will want to operate in the US. Unions, high taxes, and now this shit. Europe has tried this exact thing and it was awful for them. Taxing people is never the answer...It just seems as though because Obama endorses it people don't give it a second thought. There is also the bullshit the media is saying that it will only cost people $175 annually. That is true. But only for the first year. Years after it increases. I really can't wait to get the fuck out of this country.. :/

[Tonus]

Wait, you mean it's possible that we've been overstating the effect of CO2?

NO WAI!!! (http://blogs.usatoday.com/sciencefair/2009/07/could-we-be-wrong-about-global-warming.html)

Could we be wrong about global warming?

Could the best climate models -- the ones used to predict global warming -- all be wrong?

Maybe so, says a new study published online today in the journal Nature Geoscience. The report found that only about half of the warming that occurred during a natural climate change 55 million years ago can be explained by excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. What caused the remainder of the warming is a mystery.

"In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record," says oceanographer Gerald Dickens, study co-author and professor of Earth Science at Rice University in Houston. "There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models."

During the warming period, known as the “Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum” (PETM), for unknown reasons, the amount of carbon in Earth's atmosphere rose rapidly. This makes the PETM one of the best ancient climate analogues for present-day Earth.

As the levels of carbon increased, global surface temperatures also rose dramatically during the PETM. Average temperatures worldwide rose by around 13 degrees in the relatively short geological span of about 10,000 years.

The conclusion, Dickens said, is that something other than carbon dioxide caused much of this ancient warming. "Some feedback loop or other processes that aren't accounted for in these models -- the same ones used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for current best estimates of 21st century warming -- caused a substantial portion of the warming that occurred during the PETM."

In their most recent assessment report in 2007, the IPCC predicted the Earth would warm by anywhere from 2 to 11 degrees by the end of the century due to increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by human industrial activity.

This is pretty significant, but don't expect it to make the news. Last night I was channel surfing and there was a show on the History Channel about "Doomsday Devices." Which was the number one doomsday device designed by humans, according to the show?

Global warming, of course.

And there was the requisite bad information and wrong opinions about what is happening to the Earth, including the plainly-stated "fact" that rising CO2 and methane levels are the reason that the global climate continues to get warmer.

Expect the misinformation campaign to get much worse very quickly. Aside from the push to pass Cap and Trade, I think that the activist crowd is worried that their window of opportunity is closing. More and more, scientists and researchers are disputing or debunking global warming hysteria. The public in many countries is leaning towards skepticism, especially as they learn that the measures being proposed won't make any difference in the climate, but will have a devastating effect on their economies. This could very well be their last chance at a big PR push in order to force through "green" legislation.

[Diniden]

Hmmm so what if they do "officially" decide global warming is the scam that it is? Does Al Gore lose his nobel prize?

[Grunthos]

No, but there's aways hope some enraged scientist will jam That Alfred E. up Gore's ass. Sideways.

[Tonus]

Oh, this should be good: (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/TapscottsCopyDesk/Peer-reviewed-study-from-Down-Under-points-to-nature-as-global-warming-source--51489012.html)

Peer-reviewed study from Down Under points to nature as global warming source

This ought to stir things up royally. Three Australasian scientists have published a study in the Journal of Geophysical Research claiming that virtually none of the observed temperature increases in the Earth’s atmosphere in recent years can be attributed to man-made factors.

Instead, researchers Chris de Freitas at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, John McLean from Melbourne, Australia, and Bob Carter from James Cook University in North Queensland, Australia, ), point to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

The Down Under trio also contend that volcanic activity tends to produce significant cooling trends in the atmosphere.

"The surge in global temperatures since 1977 can be attributed to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific Ocean that made warming El Niño conditions more likely than they were over the previous 30 years and cooling La Niña conditions less likely" de Freitas said.

"We have shown that internal global climate-system variability accounts for at least 80% of the observed global climate variation over the past half-century. It may even be more if the period of influence of major volcanoes can be more clearly identified and the corresponding data excluded from the analysis,” he added.

The journal abstract of the study summarizes the conclusion thus: “Overall the results suggest that the Southern Oscillation exercises a consistently dominant influence on mean global temperature, with a maximum effect in the tropics, except for periods when equatorial volcanism causes ad hoc cooling.”
Slowly and inexorably, global warming hysteria is dying out. A recent paper (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/climate_money.pdf) indicates that if not for the incredibly lopsided distribution of funds towards proving the role of mankind in global warming, the debate might well have been over a long time ago. The link is to a 19-page PDF (large type, it won't take long to read) that shows the overwhelming discrepancy in money spent on finding a link between human activity and global warming, and money spent trying to investigate those heady claims. The numbers are mind-boggling, and point to a determined effort to find in favor of blaming humans, because the trading of carbon credits is already a $126 billion per year market that is set to balloon into the trillions if 'manmade global warming' becomes accepted as truth.

Unfortunately for the warming adherents, the planet has stubbornly refused to follow the plan and has neglected to warm any more for the last 11 years, and scientists are beginning to dismantle the entire charade. It's now looking as though we'll have debunked the whole mess before temperatures begin a short upswing again, as they're bound to do. I certainly hope so, because going through this stupidity a second time in less than a decade would be very depressing.

[Grunthos]

/smile

[Tonus]

Piling on. (http://www.qando.net/?p=3817)


The Revolt of the Scientists

Apparently it is getting a little hot in the scientific community when it comes to AGW and skepticism. And it is the skeptics who are firing the broadsides. Melanie Phillips brings us the latest (http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5232151/a-chemical-reaction.thtml):More and more scientists have just about had it up to here with the rubbish being put out as the ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming. Marc Morano reports how members of the American Chemical Society (ACS) have risen in revolt against the group’s editor-in-chief — with demands for his removal — after an editorial appeared claiming ‘the science of anthropogenic climate change is becoming increasingly well established.’The editorial claimed the ‘consensus’ view was growing ‘increasingly difficult to challenge, despite the efforts of diehard climate-change deniers.’ The editor now admits he is ‘startled’ by the negative reaction from the group’s scientific members.
His readers had responded as you see in these two representative replies:ACS member scientist Dr. Howard Hayden, a Physics Professor Emeritus from the University of Connecticut: ‘Baum’s remarks are particularly disquieting because of his hostility toward skepticism, which is part of every scientist’s soul. Let’s cut to the chase with some questions for Baum: Which of the 20-odd major climate models has settled the science, such that all of the rest are now discarded? [...] Do you refer to ‘climate change’ instead of ‘global warming’ because the claim of anthropogenic global warming has become increasingly contrary to fact?’

William E. Keller wrote: ‘However bitter you (Baum) personally may feel about CCDs (climate change deniers), it is not your place as editor to accuse them—falsely—of nonscientific behavior by using insultingly inappropriate language. [...] The growing body of scientists, whom you abuse as sowing doubt, making up statistics, and claiming to be ignored by the media, are, in the main, highly competent professionals, experts in their fields, completely honorable, and highly versed in the scientific method—characteristics that apparently do not apply to you.’
Some pretty heavy shots across the bow. I’d love to see if Baum answers the two questions Dr. Hayden posed (especially the first).
ACS isn’t the only “revolt” that is taking place among scientists:On May 1 2009, the American Physical Society (APS) Council decided to review its current climate statement via a high-level subcommittee of respected senior scientists. The decision was prompted after a group of 54 prominent physicists petitioned the APS revise its global warming position. The 54 physicists wrote to APS governing board: ‘Measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th – 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today.’

The petition signed by the prominent physicists, led by Princeton University’s Dr. Will Happer, who has conducted 200 peer-reviewed scientific studies. The peer-reviewed journal Nature published a July 22, 2009 letter by the physicists persuading the APS to review its statement. In 2008, an American Physical Society editor conceded that a ‘considerable presence’ of scientific skeptics exists.

In addition, in April 2009, the Polish National Academy of Science reportedly ‘published a document that expresses skepticism over the concept of man-made global warming.’ An abundance of new peer-reviewed scientific studies continue to be published challenging the UN IPCC climate views.
I bring these sorts of examples up over and over again because it has become obvious that there is absolutely no scientific “consensus” concerning AGW – none. And those who continue to contend there is are, in fact, the real deniers.




I particularly like Hayden's point about how integral skepticism is to scientific research, which makes the pillorying of skeptics by scientists so confusing. Aren't these the same people who have constantly defended scientific skepticism from criticism by the religious? Suddenly the skeptics are pretty credulous, it seems to me.

[Grunthos]

Sideways, I say!

[Tonus]

Greenpeace: we may have exaggerated... just a little. (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/19/ice-capades-greenpeace-recants-polar-ice-claim/)

Visit the link for the whole story and video.


The outgoing leader of Greenpeace has admitted his organization’s recent claim that the Arctic Ice will disappear by 2030 was “a mistake.”

Greenpeace made the claim in a July 15 press release (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/urgent-action-needed-as-arctic) entitled “Urgent Action Needed As Arctic Ice Melts,” which said there will be an ice-free Arctic by 2030 because of global warming.

Under close questioning by BBC reporter Stephen Sackur on the “Hardtalk” program, Gerd Leipold, the retiring leader of Greenpeace, said the claim was wrong.

“I don’t think it will be melting by 2030. … That may have been a mistake,” he said.

Sackur said the claim was inaccurate on two fronts, pointing out that the Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle, and that it had survived much warmer periods in history than the present.

The BBC reporter accused Leipold and Greenpeace of releasing “misleading information” and using “exaggeration and alarmism.”

Leipold’s admission that Greenpeace issued misleading information is a major embarrassment to the organization, which often has been accused of alarmism but has always insisted that it applies full scientific rigor in its global-warming pronouncements.

Although he admitted Greenpeace had released inaccurate but alarming information, Leipold defended the organization’s practice of “emotionalizing issues” in order to bring the public around to its way of thinking and alter public opinion.

Boy, this guy gives weasels a bad name. Dude, you lied. "May" have?

But enough of that! Here's the latest installment of "WTF, there's lots of ice in the arctic!?!? (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/19/rescue-me-another-polar-expedition-trapped-in-ice/)"

Dumbasses.

[Dr. L]

I fully understand and endorse the protection of Mother Earth, but making her look weaker than she is with constant lies is just insulting.

[Grunthos]

40 days again since last sunspot sighted... Approaching 2 years late for the start of Cycle24...

[Tonus]

Here (http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html) is an interesting article on the history of (and story behind) the (in)famous "Mann Hockey Stick Graph" that Al Gore used in An Inconvenient Truth. The author takes great pains to make the article understandable by the layperson. You get a good picture of the lengths that people went to, in order to foist this fraud on the public.

[Edmaster]

Carbon Dioxide irrelevant in climate debate says MIT Scientist
August 18, 7:39 AM Portland Civil Rights Examiner
Dianna Cotter

In a study sure to ruffle the feathers of the Global Warming cabal, Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT has published a paper which proves that IPCC models are overstating by 6 times, the relevance of CO2 in Earth’s Atmosphere. Dr. Lindzen has found that heat is radiated out in to space at a far higher rate than any modeling system to date can account for.

Editorial: The science is in. the scare is out. Recent papers and data give a complete picture of why the UN is wrong.

The pdf file located at the link above from the Science and Public Policy Institute has absolutely, convincingly, and irrefutably proven the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming to be completely false.

Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT’s peer reviewed work states “we now know that the effect of CO2 on temperature is small, we know why it is small, and we know that it is having very little effect on the climate.”

The global surface temperature record, which we update and publish
every month, has shown no statistically-significant “global warming”
for almost 15 years. Statistically-significant global cooling has now
persisted for very nearly eight years. Even a strong el Nino – expected
in the coming months – will be unlikely to reverse the cooling trend.

More significantly, the ARGO bathythermographs deployed
throughout the world’s oceans since 2003 show that the top 400
fathoms of the oceans, where it is agreed between all parties that at
least 80% of all heat caused by manmade “global warming” must
accumulate, have been cooling over the past six years. That now prolonged
ocean cooling is fatal to the “official” theory that “global
warming” will happen on anything other than a minute scale.

- SPPI Monthly CO2 Report: July 2009

If for no other reason than this: the IPCC assumes that the concentration of CO2 in 2100 will be 836 ppmv (parts per million volume). However, current graphs based on real data show that CO2 concentrations will only be 570 ppmv in 2100, cutting the IPCC’s estimates in half right there.

Another nail in the coffin of Global Warming is the observed rate of temperature change from 1980, which is observed to be 1.5 degrees C per century. The IPCC modeling calls for a range of 2.4 to 5.3 degree increase per century, which is far above what is observed in real data collected between 1980 and 2009. The graph below clearly represents a far different reality as opposed to the predictions.

Graph A
http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/Global_Temp_Anomalies.jpg

Not only is the IPCC basing its predictions on data that has been doubled from observed data, it is overstating the role of CO2 in Climate altogether. As the graph seen below shows, when charted for the years between 2002 and 2009, that solid red median line is going down, indicating global cooling.

Graph B
http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/Last_7_years.jpg


As significant as the above results are, it is not the Pièce de résistance. What is - the curious minded what to know? It is the ERBE results. The Earth Radiation Budget Experiment with 15 years worth of data. The ERBE result is absolutely devastating to the entire Global Warming Theory.

The following graph (Graph C) shows the ERBE results in the upper left hand corner, which is real recorded data, not a computer model. The 11 other graphs are the results from the models used by the UN and everyone else which state that more radiation should be held within Earth’s system, thereby causing warming of the climate. More simply put, the UN results illogically predict that as the oceans got warmer, the earth would simply hold more heat. The UN explains that it is CO2 which is holding this extra energy. This theory is not supportable by the simple fact that CO2 cannot hold that much heat, it is a very poor greenhouse gas compared with water. If anything, more clouds -water vapor- would conceivably hold the extra heat, but the corresponding rise in global temperatures this would cause have not been observed. This leaves only one conclusion, the Earth is radiating the extra heat into space, and this is supported by the data.

The ERBE results, which are factual data from real measurements made by satellite, show the exact opposite result from the UN/IPCC Projections (computer models which are not real data). As seas warm on earth, the earth releases more heat into space and the satellite results prove it.

Graph C
http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/ERBE_1.jpg

Observed reality vs. erroneous computer predictions:



The mismatch between reality and prediction is entirely clear. It is this
astonishing graph that provides the final evidence that the UN has
absurdly exaggerated the effect not only of CO2 but of all greenhouse
gases on global mean surface temperature. - Lindzen & Choi (2009).

For the sake of making the above graphs clear in their meanings, the term ?SST stands for Change in Sea Surface Temperature measured in Kelvin (A unit of temperature like to Celsius and Fahrenheit), and is a measurement of change in sea temperatures. A -1.0 number would indicate cooling, a zero reflects no temperature change, and a +1.0 would indicate an increase in temperature.

?Flux, The Vertical line in these graphs, measures the change in the amount of radiation released by the planet in the infra-red spectrum, heat in other words. From zero to +6 shows more heat radiated out into space. From zero to -6 shows less heat being radiated into space.

0 change in ?SST equals 0 change in ?Flux or no change. Less infra-red heat radiation going out into space should correlate to cooler sea surface temperatures, as there is less heat available to radiate out. More heat radiating out appears when sea surface temperature increases have occurred and more heat is available to radiate. Heat is radiated out into space as seas warm, and this overall maintains a climate equilibrium, This is proven by the ERBE graph in Graph C above as well as the other graphs presented in this article, which are based on observed data, not computer models.

Graph D
http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/Ocean_Temps.jpg

The 3300 Argo bathythermograph buoys deployed throughout the world’s oceans since late in 2003 have shown a slight cooling of the oceans over the past five years, directly contrary to the official theory that any “global warming” not showing in the atmosphere would definitely show up in the first 400 fathoms of the world’s oceans, where at least 80% of any surplus heat would be stored. Source: ARGO project, June 2009.

All of this data leads to the conclusion that the UN/IPCC models are not only wrong, they are so far off the mark as to be laughable. The satellite and bathythermograph data clearly do not match the IPCC theory, which means that the theory is incorrect.

What this data does tell us is if CO2 concentration should double, global temperatures will not rise by the devastating 6 degrees F the UN predicts, but by a completely harmless 1 degree F. The ERBE data shows an Earth system that is radiating more heat into space as sea surfaces warm, in other words a system at equilibrium, and is clearly demonstrated by observed data. The UN theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming is dead wrong.

The UN/IPCC have been using models that give a result that allow them to tell Nation States they must reduce and cap Carbon Emissions or the earth’s climate will warm by a devastating 6 degrees F. When in reality, more heat is simply radiated out into space as the ERBE OBSERVED DATA (Not a computer model) PROVES.

The United States House of Representatives has passed a Carbon tax (Cap and Trade) as have other governments in Europe, based on these completely erroneous models.

There are only a couple of conclusions to be made of this. Either the world has been misled by scientists working for the UN and IPCC due to faulty science, or faulty science has been deliberately used in a global scheme to generate tax revenues for the Governments instituting Cap and Trade Taxation policies.

Either way, the world has been the victim of some very bad science. The results of which can be seen in drastically reduced GDP in countries with the Cap and Trade laws in place, as well a a 5 - 10% decrease in standard of living for those citizens living there (Taxing Carbon designed to fail.), all with little or no effect on emissions globally.

Perhaps this will finally end the attempt by the Obama Administration as well as congress to tax a substance that trees need to survive, the very air we exhale thousands of times a day.

Thank you Professor Richard Lindzen, Dr. Ferenc M. Miskolczi, Dr. Miklós Zágoni, Dr. Mike Fox here in Oregon, and a great many other Scientists the world over, who decided to look at facts, instead of playing with models. Science is based on data, facts not theories. They took the facts, and let the theory write itself. The IPCC took theories and tried to cherry pick only the details that fit, and in the end failed to do even that.

Public policies should also be based on facts, not on unproven and in the end disproven theories. The United States and indeed the world is in the debt of these and other scientists, who relied on data and facts to describe our world and its climate! We are in their debt!

For more info: Science and Public Policy Institute, Editorial: The science is in. the scare is out. Recent papers and data give a complete picture of why the UN is wrong. Climate change? Not so fast say Scientists, Have it your way - Global warming is baloney, Einstein-like breakthrough in Climate Science (Part 1), Einstein-like breakthrough in Climate Science (Part 2), Oregon legislature plays Cap-n-Trade shell game, Democrats say Cap and Trade is a big tax, Taxing Carbon designed to fail

Updated to clarify sourcing. All information in this article is directly from SPPI June Report. as is stated in the beginning of article. 8-18-2009 2:02pm Pacific

Science has spoken. Let's see if the Senate listens.

[NervousWreck]

still looking for a link but sometime in February or March a group of 650 climatologists filed a brief in congress saying that serious research indicates that human induced climate change (people have mostly given up on calling it global warming) is not happening. I should have saved the pdf when I first saw it and I've been regretting it ever since.

[NervousWreck]

Sorry for the double post, but I found it. Here (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6) is the link to the page describing the report with updates since the original was filed back in 07. This (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9) is the report itself in all its specialty jargon glory.

[Grunthos]

And here is a post from a story breaking just today that fully repudiates the imfamous "hockey stick;" the mother of all global warming hysteria.

After years of attempting to hide the data from which the "hockey stick" was produced, it has in the end now finally come to light... and it reveals that the original graph was a complete and total scientific fraud, perpetrating by "cherry picking" only 10-12 data elements out of a much larger set. Those chosen, of course, were the examples which supported the already-selected "warming" conclusion.

When the full data set is used, not only was there no upward "hockey stick," the graph actually indicated a COOLING trend for the years in question.

In other words, the most compelling piece of evidence used to launch the whole 'global warming' hysteria, was fabricated.

A complete lie.

Where's the tar? I've got the feathers.

In a nutshell:

1- In 1998 a paper is published by Dr. Michael Mann. Then at the University of Virginia, now a Penn State climatologist, and co-authors Bradley and Hughes. The paper is named: Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations. The paper becomes known as MBH98.

The conclusion of tree ring reconstruction of climate for the past 1000 years is that we are now in the hottest period in modern history, ever.

See the graph http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/image/mann/manna_99.gif

Steve McIntyre, a Canadian mathematician in Toronto, suspects tree rings aren’t telling a valid story with that giant uptick at the right side of the graph, implicating the 20th century as the “hottest period in 1000 years”, which alarmists latch onto as proof of AGW. The graph is dubbed as the “Hockey Stick” and becomes famous worldwide. Al Gore uses it in his movie An Inconvenient Truth in the famous “elevator scene”.

2- Steve attempts to replicate Michael Mann’s tree ring work in the paper MBH98, but is stymied by lack of data archiving. He sends dozens of letters over the years trying to get access to data but access is denied. McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, of the University of Guelph publish a paper in 2004 criticizing the work. A new website is formed in 2004 called Real Climate, by the people who put together the tree ring data and they denounce the scientific criticism:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/false-claims-by-mcintyre-and-mckitrick-regarding-the-mann-et-al-1998reconstruction/

3- Years go by. McIntyre is still stymied trying to get access to the original source data so that he can replicate the Mann 1998 conclusion. In 2008 Mann publishes another paper in bolstering his tree ring claim due to all of the controversy surrounding it. A Mann co-author and source of tree ring data (Professor Keith Briffa of the Hadley UK Climate Research Unit) used one of the tree ring data series (Yamal in Russia) in a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 2008, which has a strict data archiving policy. Thanks to that policy, Steve McIntyre fought and won access to that data just last week.

4- Having the Yamal data in complete form, McIntyre replicates it, and discovers that one of Mann’s co-authors, Briffa, had cherry picked 10 trees data sets out of a much larger set of trees sampled in Yamal.

5- When all of the tree ring data from Yamal is plotted, the famous hockey stick disappears. Not only does it disappear, but goes negative. The conclusion is inescapable. The tree ring data was hand picked to get the desired result.

These are the relevant graphs from McIntyre showing what the newly available data demonstrates.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/rcs_chronologies_rev2.gif
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/rcs_merged_rev2

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/27/quote-of-the-week-20-ding-dong-the-stick-is-dead/

Click through for full and complete linked data, and the story of the chase for it.

[NervousWreck]

I didn't know anyone still believed the hockey stick. NYPIRG, the mother of all campus global warming hypists, doesn't even tout that one.

[Tonus]

Only the real loonies believed the hockey stick after more recent research refuted it. The real story is in how it came to be in the first place, the way that such critical research was not allowed to be properly tested for validity, and the ease with which unverified work was included in the IPCC's report.

A longer-- but much easier to understand-- explanation is found here. (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/29/yamal_scandal/)

[Grunthos]

It proves the entire pile of crap is just that - - and in fact by claiming they "no longer believe" the hockey stick, the whole point is proven: this AGW bull is a matter of belief, not science.

[NervousWreck]

Yeah, it is a load of crap but that has nothing to do with the word "believe." You can believe that somebody did good research i.e. you trust that the data in their papers was recorded and not made up. Jumping on the "b-word" doesn't do anything.

[Tonus]

Al Gore: Earth's interior is hot, "several million degrees. (http://hotair.com/archives/2009/11/18/video-the-goracle-on-geothermal-temperatures/)"

It's no wonder that Gore believes we're headed for a catastrophe-- he's overstating the Earth's interior temperature by a factor of almost a thousand. The Earth's interior temperature is estimated to be between 9,000 and 16,000 degrees Fahrenheit. If it was 'several million degrees' then it would be THE SUN.

[NervousWreck]

He makes his living at hyperbole. You gotta do better than that.

[Grunthos]

Perhaps he confused it with his own carbon footprint.

[NervousWreck]

Wouldn't be hard, the man has a 23k electric bill. And the whole calculation of a carbon footprint uses bogus math anyway.

[Tonus]

You can be sure that the mainstream media will do its damnedest to smother this story: (http://hotair.com/archives/2009/11/20/do-hacked-e-mails-show-global-warming-fraud/)

Note: this is just a portion, read the rest at the link. It really deserves to be publicized, because it's a bombshell.


Do hacked e-mails show global-warming fraud?


Controversy has exploded onto the Internet after a major global-warming advocacy center in the UK had its e-mail system hacked and the data published on line. The director of the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit confirmed that the e-mails are genuine — and Australian publication Investigate (http://www.investigatemagazine.com/australia/latestissue.pdf) and the Australian Herald-Sun (http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hadley_hacked#63657) report that those e-mails expose a conspiracy to hide detrimental information from the public that argues against global warming (via Watt’s Up With That (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/)):The internet is on fire this morning with confirmation computers at one of the world’s leading climate research centres were hacked, and the information released on the internet.


A 62 megabyte zip file, containing around 160 megabytes of emails, pdfs and other documents, has been confirmed as genuine by the head of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, Dr Phil Jones.


In an exclusive interview with Investigate magazine’s TGIF Edition, Jones confirms his organization has been hacked, and the data flying all over the internet appears to have come from his organisation.


“It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails.”
One of the most damning e-mails published comes from Dr. Jones himself. In an e-mail from almost exactly ten years ago, Jones appears to discuss a method of overlaying data of temperature declines with repetitive, false data of higher temperatures:

There are also emails discussing the removal of data points from charts that showed, uh... inconvenient truths about the climate.

The second email that they show was sent to, among others, Michael Mann. Mann is the author of the infamous (and now soundly discredited) "hockey stick" graph that the IPCC finally removed from its reports on global warming climate change. In that email, they discuss ways to add noise to temperature data to smooth over declines in temperature. This comes on the heels of the discovery that much of the data that went into such graphs was part of a very narrow selection that skewed the results in favor of the alarmist point of view, which is probably why the authors of those papers fought tooth-and-nail to keep the data hidden.

The global warming hysteria is dying, and I really really hope that this gets publicized, though I fear that it won't. These two incidents are enough to put a stake in the heart of this dangerous movement, but not if the idealogues win the information battle.

Edit to add: there is another link between these guys. Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit had been stonewalled for years, trying to get a hold of the Yamal data that was being kept confidential (in violation of both Science magazine's rules and scientific protocol). Who had the data? CRU, the entity that got hacked. Apparently there is an email where Phil Jones (CRU's director) admits that he'd rather destroy the data than provide it to McIntyre! More and more I hope this becomes the scandal that it deserves to become, because there seems to be clear evidence of fraud.

Edit to add: Keith Briffa, who wrote the paper based on the Yamal data, is (or was) Jones' assistant at CRU.

[Tonus]

This story is exploding over the blogosphere right now. Stories at:

Climate Audit (http://www.climateaudit.org/) (I'm putting this one at the top, but the site is getting hammered due to interest. It might be better to visit this site at a later date, I'm sure McIntyre will have A LOT to say on this whole matter.)

Watts Up With That (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/) - it's worth it to read through the comments here as well as the main post.

Examiner.com (http://www.examiner.com/x-28973-Essex-County-Conservative-Examiner%7Ey2009m11d19-Hadley-CRU-hacked-with-release-of-hundreds-of-docs-and-emails)

the Herald Sun (http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hadley_hacked)

Edit to add: According to a comment, it seems that Phil Jones greets the notification of the passing of an AGW skeptic (John Daly) as "good news." (Correction, he considered it "cheering" news.)

Edit to add: From the Herald Sun: "Destroying government data subject to an FOI request is a criminal offence. Is this data being deleted the stuff CA asked from Jones (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1235) in repeated FOI requests (http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090812/full/460787a.html)? If true, Jones had better get himself a lawyer very fast, but I doubt very much he would have done anything remotely illegal."

That was after he showed the contents of an email where the recipient is asked to delete a number of emails pertaining to an information request, and asking that the recipient pass the request on to others who were involved. This could be a criminal act.

Edit to add: The Herald Sun article is long (and growing) but it has lots of stuff there that makes the data seem more and more damning to CRU and to some of the highest-profile warming alarmists. If properly cataloged (there are more than 3,500 documents!) and investigated, this should end at least a few careers at the very least. The word 'scandal' may no longer be sufficient to describe this, if this information has not been tampered with (it's authenticity appears to have been validated by Jones himself).

[Tonus]

I've uploaded the file here. (www.pagguild.com/files/misc/FOI2009.zip) Don't abuse the bandwidth, it's for the regulars here to download and read.

[S Carver Orne]

Thanks, Tonus!

[Tonus]

Just some clarification, because the information about the file's contents is being reported incorrectly in some places.

The ZIP archive is 63MB. The uncompressed contents are about 165MB.

I see that it's still being reported that the archive contains "1079 emails and 72 documents." Apparently there are 72 individual folders, not documents. The entire archive contains just over 4,550 individual files. This includes at least 1,073 emails that are saved as text documents with numeric file names. According to one explanation, the file names are an indicator of the email's date, using the UNIX notation that keeps the date as an integer (the number of seconds elapsed since January 1, 1970). Thus, the file name (assuming it is legit) can be used to determine the date of the email.

I've read that some of the emails contain the email header text, and some don't. In any case, the volume of documents can make it daunting to read through, but it also helps to bolster the veracity of the claim that it's authentic-- for one thing, it's a hell of a lot of data to forge. Second, it allows for a lot of scrutiny, and it's almost impossible to imagine that someone cooked up this much data and didn't make mistakes.

Of course, there's the option that most of it is legit and only the most damning portions have been faked, but again the volume of data makes it easier to check those portions to see if they fit in to the overall narrative. It also creates a real problem for those involved, since this information can be subject to a Freedom Of Information request in the UK. Deleting documents that can be procured via FOI is a crime in the UK.

Besides that, the original documents are probably the only way for those involved to prove their innocence (or to validate the authenticity of the documents). So they could be in a real bind if anyone attempts to make the original data disappear. Not only would they be risking criminal prosecution, but if the corroborating data disappears, it just adds to the impression that they were disposing of it to hide their complicity.

I think it's critical for these emails and files to be put through the wringer and for their authenticity to be verified. This could end a few careers (deservedly so) and destroy some reputations (ditto) and possibly end the whole global warming debate.

[Grunthos]

Yup yup, I just took some of the same info over to UGOP... If this pans out, it'll be nice to have been proved right over these last several years.

Not that anyone who was wrong about it will ever admit it.

It just cropped up on the New York Times. Dismissively.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html?_r=2&hp

Officials at the University of East Anglia confirmed in a statement on Friday that files had been stolen from a university server and that the police had been brought in to investigate the breach. They added, however, that they could not confirm that all the material circulating on the Internet was authentic.

But several scientists and others contacted by the Times confirmed that they were the authors or recipients of specific e-mails included in the file.

The revelations are bound to inflame the public debate as hundreds of negotiators prepare to hammer out an international climate accord at meetings in Copenhagen next month, and at least one scientist speculated that the timing was not coincidental.


Ya think?

[KB.]

That is the thing. I've pretty much given up on putting forth a good argument about anything to most people unless they already agree with me or they are intelligent enough to be able to see two sides to a situation. Global warming? What ever. The earth has been going through climate change cycles for eons.

[Tonus]

It just cropped up on the New York Times. Dismissively.
Yeah, the whitewash has already begun. The UK Guardian ran a similar piece, but they included quotes from two or three scientists who insist that the science is settled and that this is all a tempest in a teapot. I think you're going to see a whole new round of "denialism" but it won't be from the AGW skeptics, heh.

[Tonus]

PS- regarding the part about "Mike's Nature [magazine article] trick" being used to "hide the decline"-- both Jones and the guys at RealClimate have offered an explanation about it, but McIntyre clarifies the issue as well as pointing out the motivation behind it.

Link is here. (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/20/mikes-nature-trick/) This is a mirror at WUWT because Climate Audit is still being swamped by excess traffic, and at this point I'm wondering if the site isn't being hit by a DDOS attack (which is pointless, considering that other sites are carrying the story).

In short, the 'trick' is to work in additional data to mask a downturn in temperatures at the end of the graph (the 'decline'). The hockey stick graph wouldn't seem so alarming if there was a noticeable dip at the end that indicated that temperatures were back in decline. However, if the line angled upwards at the end, it would imply continued warming at an accelerated pace and generate much more concern.

I expect that there will be a lot of obfuscation and misinformation and outright lying that will go on now, because if this is shown conclusively to be a fraud, then a lot of people who are used to being very prominent and very important are going to go right down the drain, along with their cause. That may not be necessary, though. Copenhagen was already on its way to accomplishing zilch, and Cap and Trade in the US looks dead. If this story gets any traction at all, it can still cripple the GW alarmist movement sufficiently to make it harmless from a legislative and economic perspective.

Edit to add: I think I understand it better now. The temperature data derived from tree rings (dendrology is the term, I believe) shows a warming cycle until the 1960s, when it shows a decline. This diverges from the readings from 'instruments' (thermometers and temperature stations) for the time period. So they used the instrument data in place of the tree data. They do not seem to know why the tree data diverges, and apparently didn't come to the conclusion that this might put the entire record into doubt-- they simply took the data from the tree rings that provided the results that they wanted, discarded the part that showed results they didn't want, and replaced the latter data with numbers that allowed the graph to proceed as they wished.

I've seen the text of another letter that... let me see if I can find it... yeah, here it is as part of a person's comment:


The emails are now searchable online here:

http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/search.php

I typed in “skeptics” and the first email I read was allegedly from renowned climatologist Tom Wigley written in 1997 castigating his fellow scientists for misrepresenting the science to influence Kyoto. Here is the link:

http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=40

And here are a few paragraphs from the email:

“I was very disturbed by your recent letter, and your attempt to get others to endorse it. Not only do I disagree with the content of this letter, but I also believe that you have severely distorted the IPCC “view” when you say that “the latest IPCC assessment makes a convincing economic case for immediate control of emissions.” In contrast to the one-sided opinion expressed in your letter, IPCC WGIII SAR and TP3 review the literature and the issues in a balanced way presenting arguments in support of both “immediate control” and the spectrum of more cost-effective options. It is not IPCC’s role to make “convincing cases” for any particular policy option; nor does it. However, most IPCC readers would draw the conclusion that the balance of economic evidence favors the emissions trajectories given in the WRE paper. This is contrary to your statement.

This is a complex issue, and your misrepresentation of it does you a dis-service. To someone like me, who knows the science, it is apparent that you are presenting a personal view, not an informed, balanced scientific assessment. What is unfortunate is that this will not be apparent to the vast majority of scientists you have contacted. In issues like this, scientists have an added responsibility to keep their personal views separate from the science, and to make it clear to others when they diverge from the objectivity they (hopefully) adhere to in their scientific research. I think you have failed to do this.

When scientists color the science with their own PERSONAL views or make categorical statements without presenting the evidence for such statements, they have a clear responsibility to state that that is what they are doing. You have failed to do so. Indeed, what you are doing is, in my view, a form of dishonesty more subtle but no less egregious than the statements made by the greenhouse skeptics, Michaels, Singer et al. I find this extremely disturbing.”

[Grunthos]

In short, they cherry-picked the data to represent the pre-conceived conclusion, moving different data-sets in and out of the sum over the span of the graph in order to conceal the actual facts

That's fraud, not science. Done by an accountant, it would be called "cooking the books" and would net a long prison sentence.

Remember that famous Moynihan quote: "Everyone's entitled to heir own opinion, but not to their own facts."

[Tonus]

In short, they cherry-picked the data to represent the pre-conceived conclusion, moving different data-sets in and out of the sum over the span of the graph in order to conceal the actual facts

That's fraud, not science. Done by an accountant, it would be called "cooking the books" and would net a long prison sentence.

Now imagine that those accountants worked with the people who certify their work to make sure that their fraud was rubber-stamped, and also worked with them to frustrate efforts to investigate their fraud?

Shady posted this link (http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html) in SD at UGOP. It lists dozens of incriminating emails. Posts here by WUWT (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/cru-emails-may-be-open-to-interpretation-but-commented-code-by-the-programmer-tells-the-real-story/) and here by Climate Audit (http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/these-will-be-artificially-adjusted/#comment-205) also show that Jones' explanation for his "hide the decline" comment are untrue. Apparently there is a programmer's note in the code for those graphs that admits that it won't plot past 1960 using the original data. The note claims that "the real temperatures" will be used instead.

Once again, when the data that they were using stopped giving them the results they wanted, they replaced it with data that did. Apparently there has been no attempt to discover why the tree ring data diverges so strongly from the temperature record. They simply removed the part that didn't conform to their views. And that was just the tip of the (no longer melting!) iceberg.

[Tonus]

And the denial (irony!) is in full effect...

Associated Press: (http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/ap/20091123/tbs-sci-climate-09-post-kyoto-f8250da.html) Global warming is worse than we thought! Really really bad! omg you gusy!!!

The Washington Post: (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/21/AR2009112102186.html?nav=hcmodule) Global warming is real, but skeptics are giving the good guys a tough time by hacking into their computers. But the good guys assure us that global warming is real, just like the IPCC report says.

New York Times: (http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/private-climate-conversations-on-display/) Bad guys hacked into servers and are uploading the private correspondence of the good guys in order to hide the truth about global warming! (Andrew Revkin is mentioned in some of the emails and appears to be a liason of sorts for the RealClimate guys, giving one of them a platform from which to write a letter complaining about the "terrorist" hack of the CRU server.)

Note: An interesting idea being floated by numerous respondents in the NYT comments, is that it appears that the documents were assembled in reponse to an FOI request. When the request was denied, the files were posted by an anonymous person. In other words, this isn't a "hack" in the classic sense, this seems to be the work of a whistleblower who realized that the truth was about to be buried yet again.

The LA Times: (http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-climate-hacker22-2009nov22,0,913036.story) Meh, science isn't that important when debating climate change legislation anyway!

Expect this sort of bizarre reaction to continue for at least a short while, as it is the initial volley. When faced with something like this, the usual pattern is to deny everything, then try any number of tactics to deflect attention from the most damning portions. Focus on the "hack" of computers. Focus on one or two emails and dissect them endlessly so as to confuse the issue. Insist that "the science is settled" and that there is still an "overwhelming mountain of evidence" in favor of warming. Or, in the AP's case, just tell a bunch of lies and ignore reality (or use a time scale that starts in 1997, thus allowing 1998 to skew the results).

The LA Times' approach is the most interesting. Simply admit what skeptics have assumed all along- this is a political issue, and science didn't have anything to do with it aside from being used to give it a veneer of legitimacy. So if the science that supports warming is discredited, it didn't matter- what's important is that we cripple the world's economy to promote a 'green' agenda.

Expect the crap to pile up very very thick, but the evidence just seems to be overwhelming, and I do not see any attempts as yet to claim that any of the documents are fake. I bet that the hope is to push the issue aside in the hopes of getting something done at Copenhagen, but it seemed as if Copenhagen was going to be a failure even before this came up. Do you think that India and China, who have been wagging fingers at the western world over climate legislation, is going to ignore information that shows the US and UK to be massive hypocrites on the issue?

[NervousWreck]

As you know, hacked information is only valid when the papers don't like the victim.

[Tonus]

As you know, hacked information is only valid when the papers don't like the victim.

Indeed. Some commenters at the NYT site are pointing out that the Times has had no such compunction about how information was recovered when it shone a negative light on the Bush administration. But when a major story like this drops into their laps (and how can this not be a major story?) they wring their hands over the means by which the information was procured.

Of course, it's possible that this wasn't a hack at all. At WUWT, they make a reasonable attempt (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/23/the-crutape-letters%C2%AE-an-alternate-explanation/) at explaining how this information may have gotten into the wild. After all, it's not the first time that CRU inadvertently left incriminating data in the open, which is how McIntyre got the Yamal data that he'd been asking about for ten years.

[Grunthos]

Did you see Lord Monckton's article today, Tonus? Spells it out:

Viscount Monckton on Climategate: ‘They Are Criminals’ (PJM Exclusive)

Posted By Christopher Monckton On November 23, 2009 @ 10:37 am In . Feature 01, Crime, Europe, Science & Technology, US News, World News | 98 Comments

This is what they did — these climate “scientists” on whose unsupported word the world’s classe politique proposes to set up an unelected global government this December in Copenhagen, with vast and unprecedented powers to control all formerly free markets, to tax wealthy nations and all of their financial transactions, to regulate the economic and environmental affairs of all nations, and to confiscate and extinguish all patent and intellectual property rights.

The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the “global warming” fraud — for fraud is what we now know it to be [1] — tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. One of the thousands of emails recently circulated by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia, where one of the world’s four global-temperature datasets is compiled, reveals that data were altered so as to prevent a recent decline in temperature from showing in the record. In fact, there has been no statistically significant “global warming” for 15 years — and there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years.

Worse, these arrogant fraudsters — for fraudsters are what we now know them to be — have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up. Unfortunately, the British researchers have been acting closely in league with their U.S. counterparts who compile the other terrestrial temperature dataset — the GISS/NCDC dataset. That dataset too contains numerous biases intended artificially to inflate the natural warming of the 20th century.

Finally, these huckstering snake-oil salesmen and “global warming” profiteers — for that is what they are — have written to each other encouraging the destruction of data that had been lawfully requested under the Freedom of Information Act in the UK by scientists who wanted to check whether their global temperature record had been properly compiled. And that procurement of data destruction, as they are about to find out to their cost, is a criminal offense. They are not merely bad scientists — they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and U.S. taxpayers.

I am angry, and so should you be.

What have the mainstream news media said about the Climategate affair? Remarkably little [2]. The few who have brought themselves to comment, through gritted teeth, have said that all of this is a storm in a teacup, and that their friends in the University of East Anglia and elsewhere in the climatological community are good people, really.

No, they’re not. They’re criminals. With Professor Fred Singer, who founded the U.S. Satellite Weather Service, I have reported them to the UK’s Information Commissioner, with a request that he investigate their offenses and, if thought fit, prosecute. But I won’t be holding my breath: In the police state that Britain has now sadly become, with supine news media largely owned and controlled by the government, the establishment tends to look after its own.

At our expense, and at the expense of the truth.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/viscount-monckton-on-global-warminggate-they-are-criminals-pjm-exclusive/

URLs in this post:

[1] now know it to be: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/global-warminggate-what-does-it-mean/

[2] Remarkably little: http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2009/11/22/all-the-news-thats-fit-to-bury/

[Tonus]

I missed that one, thanks. Monckton has long been a particularly sharp thorn in the side of the alarmists, I'm sure that he has much reason to feel vindicated by the disclosure of those emails and documents.

[Shady]

Local meteorologist James Spann has linked to a searchable database of the data from the CRU. It can be found here (http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php).

[Tonus]

This article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/23/global-warming-leaked-email-climate-scientists) is actually a bit heartening. The writer believes that the emails are authentic and very damaging, and calls for Jones' resignation. He then opines that this isn't enough to bury the global warming movement, as there is still a lot of data and research backing the theory.

The second part of it is typical of the reaction of many alarmists. "But there's still so much evidence that proves it!" they cry. I have yet to see someone follow that cry with links to that mountain of evidence. I think that there's this feeling that they were sooo close, and the opportunity to cripple the world's economy is slipping out of their grasp, so they are scrambling.

But it's the first part that is important. A firm believer in man-induced warming, writing for a left-leaning paper that is just as firm in its support, has admitted that the emails and info are as bad as they appear to be, and that the people involved have ruined their reputations and harmed the global warming movement. I doubt that this is the beginning of an attempt to exorcise the group from The Church of Climate Change, but I'd love to see it happen. In the long term, this could benefit the enviro-nuts. But in the short term, it would be devastating.

And fun to watch.

[Edmaster]

Strawman arguments? From a global warming supporter? NAWWWW!

[Tonus]

Power Line has covered the issue in a series of blog posts, which are worth a read.

November 20 (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024993.php)

November 21 (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024995.php)- this is a particularly ugly episode, showing an attempt to discredit McIntyre's work (which showed that Briffa's work was using a biased sample). Briffa was not immediately available to discuss the matter, and although none of the others knew whether McIntyre's work was legit or not, they formulated a strategy to defend Briffa's work. Science had nothing to do with it, nor did finding out the truth. The important thing was to head off criticism from a skeptic.

In any case, the emails are laid out in a chronological fashion around the public discoveries and statements that happened at the time, giving a very clear picture of the kind of people and attitudes that were involved in this. It's much better than summaries of individual emails and documents. Anyone who wants to complain about lack of context will not be happy to see what happens when that context is provided.

November 21 (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024996.php)- here we again get an in-context reconstruction of the reaction to an FOI request. The parties in question decide to try and find every and any possible angle upon which to reject the request, and their contempt for anyone who wants to find out what they have been up to shines through. They seem genuinely pissed that anyone would want to see their past communications, for obvious reasons. In the end, they decide to deal with the thorny issue by advising all parties to delete their email correspondence... a crime in the UK.

Novembe 23 (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/025011.php)- perhaps the most comical. A group of scientists who are suppose to be concerned about the planet becoming warmer, are actually dismayed at the prospect that it isn't! They are so upset about the possibility that GW skeptics might mock them, that they are hoping that warming trends continue. It's amazing.

It's good to see this being dissected to this degree across the blogosphere. No doubt there are plenty of people who want this to go away quietly, but they may be forced to address it. The smart ones will take that Guardian writer's approach-- admit that it's a very damaging revelation and move to shun the people who are involved. The not-so-smart ones will deny that there is a problem and come off looking like extremists who care more about the politics than they do about the truth (see: LA Times).

[Shady]

For some reason I have this sneaky feeling that there's another shoe still to drop here.

[Edmaster]

Absolutely. A can of worms this big usually has a few more cans inside. It's only a matter of time.

[Tonus]

CBS weighs in... (http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/24/taking_liberties/entry5761180.shtml) and it's not what you'd expect.

It's a long piece, and a must read IMO. Some portions:

The leaked documents (see our previous coverage (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/21/ap/world/main5727910.shtml)) come from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in eastern England. In global warming circles, the CRU wields outsize influence: it claims the world's largest temperature data set, and its work and mathematical models were incorporated into the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.htm#1). That report, in turn, is what the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged (http://epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171-0001.pdf) it "relies on most heavily" when concluding (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/17/national/main4952104.shtml) that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and should be regulated.

Last week's leaked e-mails range from innocuous to embarrassing and, critics believe, scandalous. They show that some of the field's most prominent scientists were so wedded to theories of man-made global warming that they ridiculed dissenters who asked for copies of their data ("have to respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots"), cheered the deaths of skeptical journalists (http://www.john-daly.com/dalybio.htm), and plotted how to keep researchers who reached different conclusions from publishing in peer-reviewed journals.


Note the bolded part and the portion that follows-- anyone pushing the idea that this is just one small corner of the AGW universe is pulling your leg or deluding himself, or both. These guys lent a significant air of legitimacy to the movement.

In addition to e-mail messages, the roughly 3,600 leaked documents posted on sites including Wikileaks.org and EastAngliaEmails.com include computer code and a description of how an unfortunate programmer named "Harry" -- possibly the CRU's Ian "Harry" Harris (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/) -- was tasked with resuscitating and updating a key temperature database that proved to be problematic. Some excerpts from what appear to be his notes, emphasis added:

You really do need to read this section. In short, the data and models being used to promote their agenda are a programmer's nightmare, and it is an understatement to label them "unreliable." Remember, this is the data and models that the IPCC and NASA, among others, used to back their recommendations on climate change.

The irony of this situation is that most of us expect science to be conducted in the open, without unpublished secret data, hidden agendas, and computer programs of dubious reliability. East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit might have avoided this snafu by publicly disclosing as much as possible at every step of the way.

Gee, I wonder why they didn't think to do that... :rolleyes:

[Grunthos]

Yeah, I think that "cheered the deaths of skeptical journalists" is what's going to come to bite them. In that it will get the attention of journalists.

A theory that does not predict observed conditions is worthless; AGW theory at it's foundations has been unable to acount for the recent decade-long cooling, and therefore was known to be worthless in its current form.

Rather than fix it, these blowhards chose to try to fix the the data, to hide the problem, and control the process by which the problem could eever be found, so they could foist their activist views on the world.

Start heating the damn tar, already.


In other news, President Oblivious stated today that he foresees a real chance of reaching an agreement at Copenhagen. No, seriously.

[Tonus]

And yet again, let's see what happens when we take those emails and put them in context... (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/24/the-people-vs-the-cru-freedom-of-information-my-okole%E2%80%A6/)

(Note: there is a lot more at the link. As with many of the other paper trails, this one is long and detailed, but there is no question as to what is going on. This one, IMO, clearly and indisputably shows criminal behavior on the part of Phil Jones, and possibly others.)


The story actually starts with Warwick Hughes, a climate researcher who had previously been in cordial contact with Phil Jones, the lead researcher of the CRU. I find only one email in the archive (0969308954) where Phil emails Warwick, from 2000. This is in response to some inconsistencies that Warwick had found in Phil’s work:

Warwick Hughes to Phil Jones, September ‘04:Dear Phillip and Chris Folland (with your IPCC hat on),
Some days ago Chris I emailed to Tom Karl and you replied re the grid cells in north Siberia with no stations, yet carrying red circle grid point anomalies in the TAR Fig 2.9 global maps. I even sent a gif file map showing the grid cells barren of stations greyed out. You said this was due to interpolation and referred me to Phillip and procedures described in a submitted paper. In the last couple of days I have put up a page detailing shortcomings in your TAR Fig 2.9 maps in the north Siberian region, everything is specified there with diagrams and numbered grid points.

[1] One issue is that two of the interpolated grid cells have larger anomalies than the parent cells !!!!?????
This must be explained.

[2] Another serious issue is that obvious non-homogenous warming in Olenek and Verhojansk is being interpolated through to adjoining grid cells with no stations, like cancer.

[3] The third serious issue is that the urbanization affected trend from the Irkutsk grid cell neare Lake Baikal, looks to be interpolated into its western neighbour.

I am sure there are many other cases of this, 2 and 3 happening.

Best regards,
Warwick Hughes (I have sent this to CKF)
Phil to Warwick, same email:Warwick,

I did not think I would get a chance today to look at the web page. I see what boxes you are referring to. The interpolation procedure cannot produce larger anomalies than neighbours (larger values in a single month). If you have found any of these I will investigate. If you are talking about larger trends then that is a different matter. Trends say in Fig 2.9 for the 1976-99 period require 16 years to have data and at least 10 months in each year. It is conceivable that at there are 24 years in this period that missing values in some boxes influence trend calculation. I would expect this to be random across the globe.

Warwick,

Been away. Just checked my program and the interpolation shouldn’t produce larger anomalies than the neighbouring cells. So can you send me the cells, months and year of the two cells you’ve found ? If I have this I can check to see what has happened and answer (1). As for (2) and (3) we compared all stations with neighbours and these two stations did not have problems when the work was done (around 1985/6). I am not around much for the next 3 weeks but will be here most of this week and will try to answer (1) if I get more details. If you have the names of stations that you’ve compared Olenek and Verhojansk with I would appreciate that.

Cheers
Phil
OK, so far we have a couple of scientists discussing issues in a scientific work, no problem. But as he found more inconsistencies, in order to understand what was going on, in 2005 Warwick asked Phil for the dataset that was used to create the CRU temperature record. Phil Jones famously replied:Subject: Re: WMO non respondo
… Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it. …
Cheers Phil
Hmmm … not good. Or as they say in “1984″, double-plus ungood. Science can only progress if there is a free exchange of scientific data The scientific model works like this:


A scientist makes claims, and reveals the data and methods he used to come to his conclusions.



Other scientists who don’t agree attack the claim by (inter alia) seeing if they can replicate the result, using the first scientist’s data and methods.



If the claims cannot be replicated, the claim is adjudged to be false.

Obviously, if the data or the methods are kept secret, the claims cannot be verified. Attacking other scientist’s claims is what what scientists do. This adversarial system is the heart of science. Refusing scientific data because someone will attack it is an oxymoron, of course they will attack it. That’s what scientists do.

When I found out about this, I couldn’t believe it. I thought, a scientist can’t do that, can they? This is science, not hide and seek. So I wrote to the University of East Anglia (of which the CRU is a Department) on September 8, 2006, saying:I would like to obtain a list of the meteorological stations used in the preparation of the HadCRUT3 global temperature average, and the raw data for those stations. I cannot find it anywhere on the web. The lead author for the temperature average is Dr. Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit.

Many thanks, Willis Eschenbach
I got no response from Phil Jones or anyone at CRU or UEA. So I filed a Freedom of Information act request for the data.

Now at this point, let me diverge to what was happening at CRU during this time. The first reference to Freedom of Information in their emails is from 2005, before they had received a single request. Immediately, they start to plan how to evade requests should some come in:

Tom Wigley, Former Director CRU, to Phil Jones, 21/01/2005Phil,
…
I got a brochure on the FOI Act from UEA. Does this mean that, if someone asks for a computer program we have to give it out?? Can you check this for me (and Sarah). …

Thanks,
Tom.
Phil replies to Tom:Tom,
…
On the FOI Act there is a little leaflet we have all been sent. It doesn’t really clarify what we might have to do re programs or data. Like all things in Britain we will only find out when the first person or organization asks. I wouldn’t tell anybody about the FOI Act in Britain. I don’t think UEA really knows what’s involved.

As you’re no longer an employee I would use this argument if anything comes along. I think it is supposed to mainly apply to issues of personal information – references for jobs etc.
..
Cheers
Phil
So the coverup starts immediately, even before the first request. “I wouldn’t tell anyone about the FOI act in Britain”.
Tom to PhilPhil,

Thanks for the quick reply. The leaflet appeared so general, but it was prepared by UEA so they may have simplified things. From their wording, computer code would be covered by the FOIA. My concern was if Sarah is/was still employed by UEA. I guess she could claim that she had only written one tenth of the code and release every tenth line.
…

Tom
You can see how they plan to observe the spirit of the FOI Act. Claim a temporary employee isn’t really and employee so they are not covered.Phil to Tom

Tom,
…

As for FOIA Sarah isn’t technically employed by UEA and she will likely be paid by Manchester Metropolitan University. I wouldn’t worry about the code. If FOIA does ever get used by anyone, there is also IPR to consider as well. Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them. I’ll be passing any requests onto the person at UEA who has been given a post to deal with them.

Cheers
Phil
Phil Jones has just gotten the news that FOI will apply, and immediately he starts to plan how he is going to hide from an FOI request. Cite technicalities, claim IPR rights, those are good hiding places.
The next email (1109021312) is later in 2005:At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote to Michael Mann :
Mike,
…

Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it.

We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere to it !
….
Phil
So now we have two more ways for Phil to hide from the FOI Act … along with a threat to delete the data rather than release it. Astounding. And this is before they’ve even received a single FOI request.
Mann replies to Jones:Thanks Phil,

Yes, we’ve learned out lesson about FTP. We’re going to be very careful in the future what gets put there. Scott really screwed up big time when he established that directory so that Tim could access the data.

Yeah, there is a freedom of information act in the U.S., and the contrarians are going to try to use it for all its worth. But there are also intellectual property rights issues, so it isn’t clear how these sorts of things will play out ultimately in the U.S….

mike
Next, from February 05. Jones to Mann, cc to Hughes and Bradley (co-authors of the “hockeystick” study)From: Phil Jones:
To: mann
Subject: Fwd: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO DISCLOSE SECRET DATA
Date: Mon Feb 21 16:28:32 2005
Cc: “raymond s. bradley”, “Malcolm Hughes”
Mike, Ray and Malcolm,
…
Leave it to you to delete as appropriate !

Cheers
Phil

PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !
The first rule of the Freedom of Information act … nobody talks about the Freedom of Information Act.
As I said, lots more at the link. These guys cannot hide behind the "taken out of context" excuse. They would rather wish that their comments weren't being put into context, as the context makes their actions seem even worse. These are not spontaneous decisions made on a whim, they are a carefully planned plot to keep their work from being checked, and their fraud from being exposed.

[Grunthos]

As I was saying (and have been for some time now:)

The emails seem to describe a [computer] model which frequently breaks, and being constantly "tweaked" with manual interventions of dubious quality in order to make them fit the historical data. These stories suggest that the model, and the past manual interventions, are so poorly documented that CRU cannot now replicate its own past findings.

That is a big problem. The IPCC report, which is the most widely relied upon in policy circles, uses this model to estimate the costs of global warming. If those costs are unreliable, then any cost-benefit analysis is totally worthless.

Obviously, this also casts their reluctance to conform with FOI requests in a slightly different light.



http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/the_real_problem_with_the_clim.php

Uhm, yeah... not being able to even replicate your OWN theoretical results means your project is pretty much rubbish.

[Grunthos]

And now today breaks this: A similar problem with massaged data in the New Zealand dataset - - which is 1) completely separate from the Hadley dataset, and2) supposedly based entirely on actual thermometer readings.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/uh-oh-raw-data-in-new-zealand-tells-a-different-story-than-the-official-one/

The New Zealand Government’s chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn’t there.

The scandal breaks as fears grow worldwide that corruption of climate science is not confined to just Britain’s CRU climate research centre.

In New Zealand’s case, the figures published on NIWA’s [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] website suggest a strong warming trend in New Zealand over the past century...


But analysis of the raw climate data from the same temperature stations has just turned up a very different result:

Gone is the relentless rising temperature trend, and instead there appears to have been a much smaller growth in warming, consistent with the warming up of the planet after the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850.

The revelations are published today in a news alert from The Climate Science Coalition of NZ:

Straight away you can see there’s no slope—either up or down. The temperatures are remarkably constant way back to the 1850s. Of course, the temperature still varies from year to year, but the trend stays level—statistically insignificant at 0.06°C per century since 1850.


Follow link for graphs and the rest of the story.

Apparently, lying about warming is in fact endemic to climate "science."

[Tonus]

Heh, that puts a lid on the talk about how the CRU scandal is just an isolated incident that only affects a tiny amount of the data, doesn't it?

WUWT has this very long piece (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/climategate-hide-the-decline-codified/) that consists almost entirely of the programmer's notes within both the data set that is used to create the temperature graph (from which a lot of other research was based) and a separate set of notes. The separate notes provide a log of the programmer's frustration as he tried to work with data that is all but a useless mess.

In other words, as you said above, the data that they used to help create the temperature record that they used... is in such bad shape that any research based off of it is suspect, to say the least.

[Grunthos]

nEiLgbBGKVk

:cool:

[Grunthos]

Well, isn't this... convenient?

From The Sunday Times November 29, 2009

Climate change data dumped

Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”

The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.

Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, discovered data had been lost when he asked for original records. “The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us’. So much for settling questions and resolving debates with science,” he said.

Jones was not in charge of the CRU when the data were thrown away in the 1980s, a time when climate change was seen as a less pressing issue. The lost material was used to build the databases that have been his life’s work, showing how the world has warmed by 0.8C over the past 157 years.

He and his colleagues say this temperature rise is “unequivocally” linked to greenhouse gas emissions generated by humans. Their findings are one of the main pieces of evidence used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says global warming is a threat to humanity.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

No matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney. Real scientists NEVER, NEVER dispose of originating data.

[Tonus]

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”

It seems as if "value-added / quality control" is the terms that they managed to scrounge up as replacements for "Mike's trick / hide the decline."

[Edmaster]

Oh they are so going to jail.

[NervousWreck]

Nah, they're fashionable apple vs enron. Homogenized data can only be a good thing. We don't want diversity of anything but skin color now do we.

Unfortunately we are all relatively sane people and agree with each other. Too bad some we don't have some of the other UGO curmudgeons to argue with

[Grunthos]

All defeated.

[Tonus]

WSJ: Follow the money. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html?m od=rss_opinion_main)

This should come as no surprise. Although there have been vague accusations of industry-funded skepticism, I haven't seen any sort of investigations into it. If Big Energy were indeed putting forth such large funds to fight climate research, we'd definitely be hearing about it, IMO. But so far there seems to be none. There doesn't seem to be much effort into following the money trail from companies supporting pro-warming research, either, even though it appears to run as high as $100 billion or more.

[Tonus]

PS- some alarmists are trying to attack the story about the trashed data by linking to this piece (http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2009/10/14/3), and highlighting the following text:

The research unit has deleted less than 5 percent of its original station data from its database because the stations had several discontinuities or were affected by urbanization trends, Jones said.

“When you’re looking at climate data, you don’t want stations that are showing urban warming trends,” Jones said, “so we’ve taken them out.” Most of the stations for which data was removed are located in areas where there were already dense monitoring networks, he added. “We rarely removed a station in a data-sparse region of the world.”

Refuting CEI’s claims of data-destruction, Jones said, “We haven’t destroyed anything. The data is still there — you can still get these stations from the [NOAA] National Climatic Data Center.”So, what is going on here? Well, check the date on the story... October 14, 2009. This isn't Phil Jones' response to the news that the CRU data had been destroyed. This was Phil Jones' response to claims by CEI that the data had been destroyed, a claim and response that were made prior to the release of the CRU emails, and prior to CRU's admission that it had destroyed the data!

In other words, alarmists are trying to cover for Phil Jones' lie by creating a new lie from the old one, and hoping that no one notices the chronology.

[Shady]

PS- some alarmists are trying to attack the story about the trashed data by linking to this piece (http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2009/10/14/3), and highlighting the following text:

So, what is going on here? Well, check the date on the story... October 14, 2009. This isn't Phil Jones' response to the news that the CRU data had been destroyed. This was Phil Jones' response to claims by CEI that the data had been destroyed, a claim and response that were made prior to the release of the CRU emails, and prior to CRU's admission that it had destroyed the data!

In other words, alarmists are trying to cover for Phil Jones' lie by creating a new lie from the old one, and hoping that no one notices the chronology.

Phil Jones also used that line back in 2006 to refuse FOI requests by claiming the data was available through other sources and therefore he did not need to comply.

[Grunthos]

And has temporarily stepped aside... to provide himself and CRU cover, as he cannot be expected to speak for the group if he's "not in charge."

Religions don't die easily.

[Tonus]

Penn State is also investigating Mann's part in the emails. The question is whether we can trust those investigations to be thorough and above-board. Do these institutions really want to reach the conclusion of wrongdoing, considering the sums of money being offered for continued research into global warming?

Also, an interesting point (http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/01/the-scientific-tragedy-of-clim/) about the claims that there is plenty of corroborating data to support the 'ClimateGate' individuals...

Note: This is only a portion of the whole article


It is reassuring to think that even if the CRU data are shown to be distorted (either wittingly or unwittingly) other independent sources of data are at hand. But that belief may not be entirely accurate. Besides the CRU temperature data, there are two other leading sources used by the IPCC, one created by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), and the other by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).

While it is true that the scientific groups are independent, as University of Colorado climatologist Roger Pielke Sr. (http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/pielke/) (father of Pielke Jr.) observes, the temperature data sets are not all that independent. Pielke cites the 2006 U.S. Climate Change Science Program report, which noted (http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-chap3.pdf), "Since the three chosen data sets utilize many of the same raw observations, there is a degree of interdependence." The report further observed, "While there are fundamental differences in the methodology used to create the surface data sets, the differing techniques with the same data produce almost the same results." In 2007, Pielke and his colleagues reported, (http://www.climatesci.org/publications/pdf/R-321.pdf) "The raw surface temperature data from which all of the different global surface temperature trend analyses are derived are essentially the same. The best estimate that has been reported is that 90–95 percent of the raw data in each of the analyses is the same (P. Jones, personal communication, 2003). That the analyses produce similar trends should therefore come as no surprise."

One of the leaked emails from CRU’s Phil Jones appears to confirm (http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1046&filename=1255298593.txt) this data interdependence: "Almost all the data we have in the CRU archive is exactly the same as in the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) archive used by the NOAA National Climatic Data Center." Given this interdependence, Jones’ appeal to correlation with other data sets to support the validity of the CRU data is less convincing than one would hope. To the contrary, the fact that the three data sets correlate so well may instead provoke concerns about the validity of all three.

In an email to University of Alabama climatologist John Christy I asked, "Is there a possibility that the teams that compile temperature data could all be making the same set of errors which would result in them finding similar (and perhaps) spurious trends?" Christy replied that he believed this was possible and cited some recent work (http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2008JCLI2726.1&ct=1) he had done on temperature trends in East Africa as evidence. In that article he found that using both the maximum and minimum temperature rather than the mean temperature (TMean) used by the three official data sets gives a better indication of actual temperature trends in the region.


To summarize: some alarmists (the ClimateGate crew included) have insisted that there is plenty of other data out there that validates the claims being made by the HadCRU bunch. This, it is claimed, proves that any modifications made to the data are legit. However, if the data from those other sources is closely linked to the compromised data, then the reverse is true-- the data from other sources is suspect as well!

I get the feeling that this is not going to really blow up until after Copenhagen, or at least that is the fervent hope of the 'envirolobby'. Much like Obamacare, if they can get their pet legislation passed, then they can damn the consequences.

[Tonus]

California gets into the act. (http://www.verumserum.com/?p=10600)

Another of the "ClimateGate" crew made sure to carefully select and manipulate his data in order to reach the conclusion that California's coastline will face an additional 4 feet of water by 2100 if we do not do something right now!

A couple of choice snippets...


In other words, the projected sea level rise would have been half what he claimed had he simply started the data set one year earlier.

There is some additional criticism (http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/source-of-fishy-odor-confirmed-rahmstorf-did-change-smoothing/) of Rahmstorf’s paper here including a nice graph which shows what happened to his projections once data for 2008 was added. (It bends the curve downward significantly). This is not what one would call a “robust” projection. Climate Audit was not impressed (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6473) with Rahmstorf’s technical prowess either. Here’s one more (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6533) with another graph which seems to suggest Rahmstorf’s original work is bogus.

Crafty use of statistics, lack-of-transparency, wild projections about future calamity requiring government intervention now…Hmmmm.

If all of this is sounding familiar there’s a reason. Stefan Rahmstorf is one of the CRU e-mail clatch and a contributor to Real Climate. For instance, here is an e-mail (http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=786&filename=1175952951.txt) in which he is desperately seeking help writing a reply to a critic.

[Grunthos]

I hear Al Gore as abruptly cancelled his scheduled (and high-priced) appearance in Copenhagen.

Interesting.

[Grunthos]

Nothing like being three years of so ahead of the curve...

http://forums.ugo.com/showthread.php?t=32270

[S Carver Orne]

:lol:

[Edmaster]

You are not logged in or you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

1. You are not logged in. Fill in the form at the bottom of this page and try again.
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[Grunthos]

Thus:

07-01-2007, 04:03 PM #1
Grunthos
Easy. Serious.
An Underground ICON

Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: 33.27.45N 118.29.31W -60ft
Posts: 21,324
AGW: Refutation after refutation after refutation...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...And yet, AL "Bloviation" Gore is still screaming that the "science is settled."

Yes, Al, it is... but not in the way you mean. The science is settled; the interpretation that you staked the world on, however, is crumbling.

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/010404.php

[Grunthos]

And so:

Al Gore: Fraud, Scaredy Cat

Posted By AWR Hawkins On December 5, 2009 @ 12:00 am In . Column2 02, Opinion, Politics, Science, Science & Technology, US News | 52 Comments

Former Vice President Al Gore is the most recognizable face of the anthropogenic global warming movement. He has authored books [1], starred in a documentary [2], and spoken innumerable times on the supposed threat global warming poses to life’s very existence.

Gone is the dry, stiff Gore who bored us to death in presidential debates during the 2000 election cycle. His passion for global warming has so enlivened him that he speaks of isotopes and carbon emissions with a fervor befitting an old-timey revival preacher talking about brimstone and fire. London’s Times Online [3] actually went so far as to claim Gore’s passion “invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill” when Gore spoke on global warming at Oxford University in July 2009.

But putting aside the fact that Gore has honed his public speaking skills, the fly in the ointment is that he’s a fraud. Like the very global warming movement to which he has attached himself, he’s a snake oil salesman whose sales pitch is laced with scare tactics designed to push the public into embracing a radical, carbon-free agenda that rests on a combination of half-truths and outright fabrications.

And Gore’s fraudulence is not only seen in the fact that he pawns a lie, but also in the fact that he refuses to abide by the very lie he pawns.

After all his whining about the dangers of fossil fuels and coal-powered electricity plants, and after assuring us we can be “carbon free [4]” by paying attention to “where we set the thermostat, [and] keeping [our] a/c and furnace filters clean,” Gore’s 2006 utility bills for his Nashville home topped $30,000 [5].

His home energy use was literally 20 times [5] the national average.

But Gore is as blind to his own hypocrisy as he is to reality. And he apparently doesn’t want to take the risk of being corrected. He has refused to engage in an honest debate about the doomsday claims he’s made since he grew concerned over the threat human beings posed to “the spotted owl and the snail darter [6]” in 1992. This was obvious when Gore finished speaking to 500 “environmental journalists [7]” in Madison, Wisconsin, on October 9, 2009. After the speech, Irish filmmaker Phelim McAleer “[asked] Gore to address nine errors in his film identified by a British court in 2007.”

Gore dodged the question. So McAleer pressed further, and Gore had McAleer’s microphone turned off.

In other words, the same fraud Esquire magazine referred to as a “lunatic [8]” for claiming “the Earth’s got a fever” is also a full-blown scaredy cat when it comes to undergoing a critical examination of his science claims.

And while everybody has known this, most have put up with Gore’s incoherent ramblings — until now.

In the wake of Climategate, his continued global warming proclamations and his refusal to debate are simply untenable. Thus after Britain’s Lord Christopher Monckton recently challenged Gore to a debate, Monckton afterwards [9] added: “If you don’t dare [debate], I want you to remain silent about [global warming] forever from now on.”

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has grown so tired of Gore’s unwillingness to debate that they are openly mocking him — offering to pay him [10] $500.00 if he’ll debate Monckton. But with all due respect to CEI, there’s no reason to believe a scaredy cat like Gore, who is positioned to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire [11],” will expose the error of his ways to a sound thinker like Monckton.

Instead, he’s more likely to make himself even harder to reach in order to be sure he doesn’t have to defend his global warming assertions. There’s a good chance this was the motive behind the cancellation [12] of his scheduled appearance at the Copenhagen climate conference later this month. Although people had already paid $1200.00 to meet the former vice president, the outcry over Climategate may have persuaded Gore that allowing people to get close enough to shake hands would be tantamount to allowing them to get close enough to ask tough questions.

Regardless of Gore’s motivation in backing out of Copenhagen, it’s understandable that he avoids debate at all costs. He is, after all, a fraud — about whom Bob Carter of Australia’s Marine Geophysical Laboratory, said [13]: “Gore’s circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic.”


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/al-gore-fraud-scaredy-cat/

URLs in this post:

[1] books: http://www.climatecrisis.net/resources.php

[2] documentary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inconvenient_Truth

[3] Times Online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6658672.ece

[4] carbon free: http://www.nfty.org/resources/actiontheme/archive/0607/partners/

[5] $30,000: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/national_world&id=5072659

[6] the spotted owl and the snail darter: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_112509/content/01125109.guest.html

[7] environmental journalists: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33975

[8] lunatic: http://windfarms.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/esquire-call-al-gore-a-lunatic/

[9] Monckton afterwards: http://newsrealblog.com/2009/11/01/lord-monckton-trashes-al-gores-global-warming-nonsense/

[10] pay him: http://www.reason.tv/roughcut/show/cei-video-why-wont-al-gore-deb

[11] carbon billionaire: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/11/03/al-gore-the-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire/

[12] cancellation: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/03/gore-cancels-on-copenhagen-lecture-leaves-ticketholders-in-a-lurch/

[13] said: http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

[Tonus]

Finally, some fallout, (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece) though not without more hysteria from the alarmist camp, which seems unable to muster anything else these days.

I'll just quote the first few paragraphs:


The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.

The Met Office database is one of three main sources of temperature data analysis on which the UN’s main climate change science body relies for its assessment that global warming is a serious danger to the world. This assessment is the basis for next week’s climate change talks in Copenhagen aimed at cutting CO2 emissions.

The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.
Notice that the UK government isn't concerned with the accuracy of the information in regards to the climate. Their concern is purely political-- don't give the skeptics an opening through which they can attack the 'science.'

[Tonus]

Another entry into the "it would be funny, if it wasn't so typical" department. And no, I'm not referring to the main subject of the post (http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/06/copenhagen-carbon-load-1200-limos-140-private-jets/), which is both typical and amusing.


Copenhagen carbon load: 1,200 limos, 140 private jets

posted at 6:57 pm on December 6, 2009 by Allahpundit

Nothing new (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6736517/Copenhagen-climate-summit-1200-limos-140-private-planes-and-caviar-wedges.html), but still pretty amazing. After Climategate, which the UN’s own climate chief now acknowledges is a PR nightmare (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091206/ap_on_re_eu/climate), and with recent polls showing growing skepticism (http://people-press.org/report/556/global-warming) about global warming — and not just U.S. polls (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jDEUyDWuPaZUlHkqn07hPyvR-mEQ), either — you’d think the AGW crowd would go the extra mile at its big photo op to demonstrate the urgency of the crisis. Instead, this. Either they still don’t realize they have an image problem or they don’t care, opting to pay for their sins with indulgences from the corrupt carbon-offsets industry (http://hotair.com/archives/2007/04/26/carbon-offsets-a-green-gold-rush/) instead of emulating the average joe and doing without luxury transportation for two weeks. For a bunch of politicians, they sure are stupid about optics.On a normal day, Majken Friss Jorgensen, managing director of Copenhagen’s biggest limousine company, says her firm has twelve vehicles on the road. During the “summit to save the world”, which opens here tomorrow, she will have 200.

“We thought they were not going to have many cars, due to it being a climate convention,” she says. “But it seems that somebody last week looked at the weather report.”

Ms Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. “We haven’t got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand,” she says. “We’re having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden.”

And the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? “Five,” says Ms Jorgensen. “The government has some alternative fuel cars but the rest will be petrol or diesel. We don’t have any hybrids in Denmark, unfortunately, due to the extreme taxes on those cars. It makes no sense at all, but it’s very Danish.”…

The temptation, then, is to dismiss the whole thing as a ridiculous circus. Many of the participants do not really need to be here. And far from “saving the world,” the world’s leaders have already agreed that this conference will not produce any kind of binding deal, merely an interim statement of intent.
There are so many jets headed there that the local airport can’t accommodate them all; after dropping off their passengers in Copenhagen, some will have to fly on to other regional airports so that they can “park.” All this for the privilege of rubbing elbows at a conference that’s not only aiming at the wrong target (http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1929071_1929070_1945639,00.html), but is destined not to hit it (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/05/why_copenhagen_is_all_hot_air_99410.html). Exit quotation from Achim Steiner (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6946281.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2015164), head of the United Nations Environment Programme and a PR genius every bit as brilliant as, say, Barbara Boxer (http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/02/boxer-you-know-what-the-real-issue-is-in-climategate-e-mail-theft/): “This is not ‘climategate’ it’s ‘hackergate’. Let’s not forget the word ‘gate’ refers to a place [Watergate] where data was stolen by people who were paid to do so. So the media should direct its investigations into that.”
Look, I understand that politicians are all about pomp and circumstance. It's one of the reasons that Obama's bows to both the Saudi king and Japanese emperor were so scandalous. Thus I don't really worry about the use of so many planes and limos, though the comical aspects of what is described above is very amusing.

No, the part I am focused on is bolded and in larger text. Why don't those environment-conscious Danes have hybrid-power limos? Because the taxes on the newer technology is too high. And when a business person says that the taxes are too high, they mean that the taxes are so high that the cost cannot be passed to the consumer without significantly damaging revenues. Then again, if the government of Denmark is economically socialist, these companies may not even have the option of passing the costs along.

And so we see that global warming is such a critical issue, one that requires such drastic and immediate action, that Denmark has felt compelled to... tax alternative options right out of the market. And people are wondering if Copenhagen ("the summit to save the world") will be a failure. LOL.

[Edmaster]

I also found that bit about them taxing hybrids odd. Nice catch.

[Tonus]

EPA confirms: Al Gore pollutes the air. (http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/07/epa-declares-air-a-danger-to-human-health/)

As do we all, whenever we exhale a substance the EPA has determined to be a pollutant.

I understand the consternation, but I'd rather they do this than pass Cap and Trade. What is likely to happen is that the EPA and environmental groups will use this 'finding' to further damage the economy, which will accelerate job losses and extend/deepen the current recession (or, if you're the Obama administration, this would start a new recession, seeing as how we've recovered from the previous one caused by Bush). Republicans may actually have a clear platform on which to run in 2010 and 2012-- rescuing the economy from the extreme left.

With a more balanced congress (or a Republican majority) in place, the EPA can be stalled somewhat and the Obama agenda should die relatively quickly, which should lead to more business and investment activity, which means more hiring and more spending. If the Dems lose the White House in 2012, the EPA can be corralled once again.

At that point, we'd need someone who can really fix the economy, by cutting taxes and drastically scaling back spending, as well as taking the painful but necessary step of raising interest rates. Sadly, there don't seem to be any Republicans or Democrats willing to even attempt something that ambitious. All we will be doing is slowing the descent.

[NervousWreck]

Just another dictatorial move by a dictatorial asshole. He couldn't get C&T passed by congress so he fiats it through one of his czars. May god bless and keep the czars ... far away from us!

[Tonus]

Meagan McArdle of the Atlantic wants to hold on to her belief that Climategate doesn't tell us what it seems to tell us, but she has some nagging questions. (http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/climategate_was_data_faked.php) The kinds of questions that she admits lead to answers that she doesn't like. Her analysis of the mindset that leads to this kind of situation is, IMO, excellent and spot-on.

She links to (and quotes from) a recent article at WUWT, where it is shown how one of the primary datasets (the GHCN set) has been adjusted to a degree that implies more than just a standard correction. In short, the temperature data for Northern Australia for the time period of 1880-2008 typically shows a slight cooling trend. When the adjustments are added, the time period from 1940 to 2000 shows a sudden and very drastic turn upwards.

Once again, many of the temperature data sets are linked. When one of them is mangled to this degree (pun intended, one of the data sets shows an adjustment of more than six degrees per decade!!!), they all become mangled. And the research that is based on them is useless.

Al Gore, the IPCC, the New York Times, and other heavily-invested pro-warming alarmists are in full-blown-PR-blitz-denial mode. This is hurting them badly because in spite of the disinformation blitz they're trying to carry out, the story is hanging on and slowly gaining traction. I think that there's still a hope that they can push it aside until they get something done in Copenhagen, after which they can start to admit that 'something might be amiss.'

[Diniden]

I had also been considering another option for explaining the change in global temperatures that has never seemed to have been discussed.

Right now the planet is very unbalanced temperature-wise, it ranges from below zero to +120ºF. If you consider any physics application, any system always tries to adjust itself to equilibrium. Possibly the offset of the polar caps being iced over was caused by some major disruption in our system and now the planet is just slowly returning to a balanced state thus melting the caps? Also, with all the data massaging that the scientists are doing, they may be missing the fact that the planet is adjusting itself back to a balanced state?

There are a lot of theories (generally theories regarding the extinction of dinosaurs, or theories regarding the Biblical world flood) which allude to something causing a major environmental offset which created the ice caps in the first place. And many scientists believe the earth used to have a uniform environment with an almost balanced temperature system.

It's an interesting avenue of thought at least.

[Grunthos]

The kinds of questions that she admits lead to answers that she doesn't like.

Teleological versus epistemological thinking. Which is exactly why I (and countless others) have dropped AGW into the "religion" category.

Wishing won't make it so.

Teleological thinking is appropriate for religious matters; in fact, it's really all that is available. But epistemology is essential to scientific inquiry.

[Diniden]

Of course scientific inquiry assumes the physical universe spawns from the physical universe which is it's only teleological point :P.

[Tonus]

Another example of brazen data manipulation (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/11/giss-raw-station-data-before-and-after/) that is apparently continuing to happen. In this case, some data (showing higher temperatures pre-1900) has been removed, and the rest of the data (showing a very slight cooling trend from 1900-2000) has been "adjusted" to show an increase from left-to-right on the chart.

I wonder if "hiding the decline" will soon become a colloquial expression.

Edit: And speaking of brazen... (http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/11/un-security-stops-journalists-questions-about-climategate/)


A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him “inconvenient questions” during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Professor Stephen Schneider’s assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim McAleer, ordered him to stop filming and prevented further questioning after the press conference where the Stanford academic was launching a book.
More at the link.

[Grunthos]

Of course scientific inquiry assumes the physical universe spawns from the physical universe which is it's only teleological point :P.


Uhm, no... honest science admits to having no data one way or the other, only hypotheses. And it presupposes no purposes.

Another example of brazen data manipulation (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/11/giss-raw-station-data-before-and-after/) that is apparently continuing to happen. In this case, some data (showing higher temperatures pre-1900) has been removed, and the rest of the data (showing a very slight cooling trend from 1900-2000) has been "adjusted" to show an increase from left-to-right on the chart.


Rather makes you think of the "fake but accurate" approach Dan Rather took when it turned out his "original" Bush Reserve Duty docs from the 70's were produced in Microsoft Word.

[Edmaster]

And the cover-up/hand-waving/downplaying continues...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091212/ap_on_sc/climate_e_mails

AP IMPACT: Science not faked, but not pretty

BY SETH BORENSTEIN, RAPHAEL SATTER and MALCOLM RITTER, Associated Press Writers Seth Borenstein, Raphael Satter And Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press Writers – 2 hrs 25 mins ago

LONDON – E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data — but the messages don't support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.

The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The scientists were keenly aware of how their work would be viewed and used, and, just like politicians, went to great pains to shape their message. Sometimes, they sounded more like schoolyard taunts than scientific tenets.

The scientists were so convinced by their own science and so driven by a cause "that unless you're with them, you're against them," said Mark Frankel, director of scientific freedom, responsibility and law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also reviewed the communications.

Frankel saw "no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data, although concerns could be raised about some instances of very 'generous interpretations.'"

Some e-mails expressed doubts about the quality of individual temperature records or why models and data didn't quite match. Part of this is the normal give-and-take of research, but skeptics challenged how reliable certain data was.

The e-mails were stolen from the computer network server of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia in southeast England, an influential source of climate science, and were posted online last month. The university shut down the server and contacted the police.

The AP studied all the e-mails for context, with five reporters reading and rereading them — about 1 million words in total.

One of the most disturbing elements suggests an effort to avoid sharing scientific data with critics skeptical of global warming. It is not clear if any data was destroyed; two U.S. researchers denied it.

The e-mails show that several mainstream scientists repeatedly suggested keeping their research materials away from opponents who sought it under American and British public records law. It raises a science ethics question because free access to data is important so others can repeat experiments as part of the scientific method. The University of East Anglia is investigating the blocking of information requests.

"I believe none of us should submit to these 'requests,'" declared the university's Keith Briffa. The center's chief, Phil Jones, wrote: "Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them."

When one skeptic kept filing FOI requests, Jones, who didn't return AP requests for comment, told another scientist, Michael Mann: "You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but this is the person who is putting FOI requests for all e-mails Keith (Briffa) and Tim (Osborn) have written."

Mann, a researcher at Penn State University, told The Associated Press: "I didn't delete any e-mails as Phil asked me to. I don't believe anybody else did."

The e-mails also show how professional attacks turned very personal. When former London financial trader Douglas J. Keenan combed through the data used in a 1990 research paper Jones had co-authored, Keenan claimed to have found evidence of fakery by Jones' co-author. Keenan threatened to have the FBI arrest University at Albany scientist Wei-Chyung Wang for fraud. (A university investigation later cleared him of any wrongdoing.)

"I do now wish I'd never sent them the data after their FOIA request!" Jones wrote in June 2007.

In another case after initially balking on releasing data to a skeptic because it was already public, Lawrence Livermore National Lab scientist Ben Santer wrote that he then opted to release everything the skeptic wanted — and more. Santer said in a telephone interview that he and others are inundated by frivolous requests from skeptics that are designed to "tie-up government-funded scientists."

The e-mails also showed a stunning disdain for global warming skeptics.

One scientist practically celebrates the news of the death of one critic, saying, "In an odd way this is cheering news!" Another bemoans that the only way to deal with skeptics is "continuing to publish quality work in quality journals (or calling in a Mafia hit.)" And a third scientist said the next time he sees a certain skeptic at a scientific meeting, "I'll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted."

And they compared contrarians to communist-baiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Somali pirates. They also called them out-and-out frauds.

Santer, who received death threats after his work on climate change in 1996, said Thursday: "I'm not surprised that things are said in the heat of the moment between professional colleagues. These things are taken out of context."

When the journal, Climate Research, published a skeptical study, Penn State scientist Mann discussed retribution this way: "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."

That skeptical study turned out to be partly funded by the American Petroleum Institute.

The most provocative e-mails are usually about one aspect of climate science: research from a decade ago that studied how warm or cold it was centuries ago through analysis of tree rings, ice cores and glacial melt. And most of those e-mails, which stretch from 1996 to last month, are from about a handful of scientists in dozens of e-mails.

Still, such research has been a key element in measuring climate change over long periods.

As part of the AP review, summaries of the e-mails that raised issues from the potential manipulation of data to intensely personal attacks were sent to seven experts in research ethics, climate science and science policy.

"This is normal science politics, but on the extreme end, though still within bounds," said Dan Sarewitz, a science policy professor at Arizona State University. "We talk about science as this pure ideal and the scientific method as if it is something out of a cookbook, but research is a social and human activity full of all the failings of society and humans, and this reality gets totally magnified by the high political stakes here."

In the past three weeks since the e-mails were posted, longtime opponents of mainstream climate science have repeatedly quoted excerpts of about a dozen e-mails. Republican congressmen and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin have called for either independent investigations, a delay in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases or outright boycotts of the Copenhagen international climate talks. They cited a "culture of corruption" that the e-mails appeared to show.

That is not what the AP found. There were signs of trying to present the data as convincingly as possible.

One e-mail that skeptics have been citing often since the messages were posted online is from Jones. He says: "I've just completed Mike's (Mann) trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (from 1981 onward) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Jones was referring to tree ring data that indicated temperatures after the 1950s weren't as warm as scientists had determined.

The "trick" that Jones said he was borrowing from Mann was to add the real temperatures, not what the tree rings showed. And the decline he talked of hiding was not in real temperatures, but in the tree ring data which was misleading, Mann explained.

Sometimes the data didn't line up as perfectly as scientists wanted.

David Rind told colleagues about inconsistent figures in the work for a giant international report: "As this continuing exchange has clarified, what's in Chapter 6 is inconsistent with what is in Chapter 2 (and Chapter 9 is caught in the middle!). Worse yet, we've managed to make global warming go away! (Maybe it really is that easy...:)."

But in the end, global warming didn't go away, according to the vast body of research over the years.

None of the e-mails flagged by the AP and sent to three climate scientists viewed as moderates in the field changed their view that global warming is man-made and a threat. Nor did it alter their support of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which some of the scientists helped write.

"My overall interpretation of the scientific basis for (man-made) global warming is unaltered by the contents of these e-mails," said Gabriel Vecchi, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist.

Gerald North, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, headed a National Academy of Sciences study that looked at — and upheld as valid — Mann's earlier studies that found the 1990s were the hottest years in centuries.

"In my opinion the meaning is much more innocent than might be perceived by others taken out of context. Much of this is overblown," North said.

Mann contends he always has been upfront about uncertainties, pointing to the title of his 1999 study: "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties and Limitations."

Several scientists found themselves tailoring their figures or retooling their arguments to answer online arguments — even as they claimed not to care what was being posted to the Internet

"I don't read the blogs that regularly," Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona wrote in 2005. "But I guess the skeptics are making hay of their (sic) being a global warm (sic) event around 1450AD."

One person singled out for criticism in the e-mails is Steve McIntyre, who maintains Climate Audit. The blog focuses on statistical issues with scientists' attempts to recreate the climate in ancient times.

"We find that the authors are overreaching in the conclusions that they're trying to draw from the data that they have," McIntyre said in a telephone interview.

McIntyre, 62, of Toronto, was trained in math and economics and says he is "substantially retired" from the mineral exploration industry, which produces greenhouse gases.

Some e-mails said McIntyre's attempts to get original data from scientists are frivolous and meant more for harassment than doing good science. There are allegations that he would distort and misuse data given to him.

McIntyre disagreed with how he is portrayed. "Everything that I've done in this, I've done in good faith," he said.

He also said he has avoided editorializing on the leaked e-mails. "Anything I say," he said, "is liable to be piling on."

The skeptics started the name-calling said Mann, who called McIntyre a "bozo," a "fraud" and a "moron" in various e-mails.

"We're human," Mann said. "We've been under attack unfairly by these people who have been attempting to dismiss us as frauds as liars."

The AP is mentioned several times in the e-mails, usually in reference to a published story. One scientist says his remarks were reported with "a bit of journalistic license" and "I would have rephrased or re-expressed some of what was written if I had seen it before it was released." The archive also includes a request from an AP reporter, one of the writers of this story, for reaction to a study, a standard step for journalists seeking quotes for their stories.

___

Associated Press writers Jeff Donn in Boston, Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Troy Thibodeaux in Washington provided technical assistance. Satter reported from London, Borenstein from Washington and Ritter from New York.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Find behind-the-scenes information, blog posts and discussion about the Copenhagen climate conference at http://www.facebook.com/theclimatepool, a Facebook page run by AP and an array of international news agencies. Follow coverage and blogging of the event on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/AP_ClimatePool.

Focusing less on the FOI blocking and more on "bad words" and other useless drama, this article is nothing more than a rather pathetic attempt at skirting the main issues behind this whole debacle while still trying to look like a legitimate investigation was undertaken. I think we need more tar.

[Tonus]

The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.This is the alarmist's main ploy-- insist that (1)the emails aren't really that bad and (2)they don't negate the "vast body of evidence" in favor of warming due to mankind's activities.

Both are blatant lies. The emails, when placed in proper context (I've linked to examples in previous posts here) show a concerted effort to nudge data in favor of more warming, and even to try and "rewrite" past data trends entirely. They show a concerted effort at making their work impossible to test, to the extent of illegally destroying data and emails. They show a group of scientists who seem disappointed to find that the Earth was cooling, and hoping that temperatures would start to rise, lest the gravy train (millions in gov't grants) come to a halt.

I'd like to see links to a "vast body of evidence" linking mankind to rising temperatures that are not based on the tainted data. There is a vast body of evidence in the form of research that is based on three temperature databases, all of which are now in doubt due to adjustments that appear to have been made with no regards to science or accuracy, by people that those emails show to have been compromised and unreliable.

But hey, here's the rub... the guy who wrote that AP article? Guess where he shows up?

That's right... in the CRU email archive!!! (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/12/aps-seth-borenstein-is-just-too-damn-cozy-with-the-people-he-covers-time-for-ap-to-do-somethig-about-it/) Speaking of compromised, why is the AP allowing this dimwit to cover this story, after he sent the following email back in July of this year?

Kevin, Gavin, Mike,

It’s Seth again. Attached is a paper in JGR today that
Marc Morano is hyping wildly. It’s in a legit journal. Whatchya think?

Seth


Seth Borenstein
Associated Press Science Writer
[7]sborenstein@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
The Associated Press, 1100 13th St. NW, Suite 700,
Washington, DC
20005-4076
202-641-9454
That's right, our boy Seth, just earlier this year, was getting his advice on climate science articles from the same guys who were manipulating data and covering it up! Or, as a fellow reporter wrote about him:


Now consider what other members of the media write about him. From the Tacoma News-Tribune (http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/letters/story/973276.html)Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein has a terrible reputation as a runaway alarmist. Even global warming enthusiasts and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are embarrassed by his over-the-top prognostications of doom and selective use of data to support his fading dream that mankind can actually control climate.
When other reporters can see the bias, AP, you have a problem.
Just in case you weren't aware of it before, now you know-- the AP is a disgrace. It is in bed with global warming alarmism and will push aside journalistic standards of integrity in order to promote a political agenda.

Edit to add: Here's a more thorough dismantling (http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2009/12/ap-verdict-climategate-sham-experts-biased-ties-to-climate-change-global-warming/) of the AP's article. Read it all, but here's a choice quote:

The AP used as “reviewers” five of its own reporters

What. A. Joke.

[Grunthos]

The Goracle stepped on his unit with hob-nailed boots - -got caught making up numbers, and shot down by the scientist he supposedly got them from!

From The Times December 15, 2009

Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don't add up


Hannah Devlin, Ben Webster, Philippe Naughton in Copenhagen

There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.

The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row.

Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.

In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.

The embarrassing error cast another shadow over the conference after the controversy over the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, which appeared to suggest that scientists had manipulated data to strengthen their argument that human activities were causing global warming.

Mr Gore is not the only titan of the world stage finding Copenhagen to be a tricky deal.

World leaders — with Gordon Brown arriving tonight in the vanguard — are facing the humiliating prospect of having little of substance to sign on Friday, when they are supposed to be clinching an historic deal.

Meanwhile, five hours of negotiating time were lost yesterday when developing countries walked out in protest over the lack of progress on their demand for legally binding emissions targets from rich nations. The move underlined the distrust between rich and poor countries over the proposed legal framework for the deal.

Last night key elements of the proposed deal were unravelling. British officials said they were no longer confident that it would contain specific commitments from individual countries on payments to a global fund to help poor nations to adapt to climate change while the draft text on protecting rainforests has also been weakened.

Even the long-term target of ending net deforestation by 2030 has been placed in square brackets, meaning that the date could be deferred. An international monitoring system to identify illegal logging is now described in the text as optional, where before it was compulsory. Negotiators are also unable to agree on a date for a global peak in greenhouse emissions.

Perhaps Mr Gore had felt the need to gild the lily to buttress resolve. But his speech was roundly criticised by members of the climate science community. “This is an exaggeration that opens the science up to criticism from sceptics,” Professor Jim Overland, a leading oceanographer at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

“You really don’t need to exaggerate the changes in the Arctic.”

Others said that, even if quoted correctly, Dr Maslowski’s six-year projection for near-ice-free conditions is at the extreme end of the scale. Most climate scientists agree that a 20 to 30-year timescale is more likely for the near-disappearance of sea ice.

“Maslowski’s work is very well respected, but he’s a bit out on a limb,” said Professor Peter Wadhams, a specialist in ocean physics at the University of Cambridge.

Dr Maslowki, who works at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California, said that his latest results give a six-year projection for the melting of 80 per cent of the ice, but he said he expects some ice to remain beyond 2020.

He added: “I was very explicit that we were talking about near-ice-free conditions and not completely ice-free conditions in the northern ocean. I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this,” he said. “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at, based on the information I provided to Al Gore’s office.”

Richard Lindzen, a climate scientist at the Massachusets Institute of Technology who does not believe that global warming is largely caused by man, said: “He’s just extrapolated from 2007, when there was a big retreat, and got zero.”


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6956783.ece

It's because of those millions of degrees at the core... it leaks out at the poles, you see.:blink:

[Tonus]

“You really don’t need to exaggerate the changes in the Arctic.”
Not if you're legitimately discussing science, no.

But if you're at a political retreat designed to cram bad legislation down the throats of people and nations that produce wealth? Then yeah, you need to exaggerate like a motherfucker. Hence... Al Gore.

[Tonus]

Heh. (http://www.climatedepot.com/a/4483/Exclusive-Brochure-reveals-Gore-accurately-cited-scientists-prediction-of-icefree-Arctic--It-is-the-Scientist-who-has-the-explaining-to-do--not-Gore)


Exclusive: Brochure may reveal Gore accurately cited scientist's prediction of ice-free Arctic -- It is the Scientist who has the explaining to do -- not Gore

[S Carver Orne]

The issue of whether Gore cited Maslowski's work accurately is a very serious one scientifically and ethically. It appears Maslowski did indeed tout his extreme model predictions of a nearly ice-free Arctic within a decade or less and that Gore accurately cited his work. A larger point to be made though, is that Maslowski's “predictions” are nothing more than wild-eyed computer model scare scenarios.

The science? Irrelevant! He said, she said! *does a little dance*

[Grunthos]

Gore said: "Ice-free"
Scientiski says: "No, I said NEAR-ice free"
Pamphlet says: "Near-ice free"


This vindicates Gore how, exactly?

[Tonus]

I believe that Climate Depot's point is that either claim is wildly exaggerated, and thus Maslowski's attempt to cover himself by stating that he never said it is disingenuous.

[NervousWreck]

And here (http://www.climatedepot.com/a/2226/Now-Debuting-Climate-Depot-Arctic-Fact-Sheet--Get-the-latest-peerreviewed-studies-and-analysis) we have the latest peer reviewed findings for what they're worth. Seems apocalyptic rants have lost at least some of their appeal lately.

[Tonus]

It took a bit longer than I anticipated for a delegate to Copenhagen to use Climategate as a club against the West, but it happened nonetheless. Russia does the dirty deed: (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/)

Climategate goes SERIAL: now the Russians confirm that UK climate scientists manipulated data to exaggerate global warming

Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages.

Feast your eyes on this news release from Rionovosta, via the Ria Novosti agency, posted on Icecap. (Hat Tip: Richard North)

A discussion of the November 2009 Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as “Climategate,” continues against the backdrop of the abortive UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) discussing alternative agreements to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that aimed to combat global warming.

The incident involved an e-mail server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, East England. Unknown persons stole and anonymously disseminated thousands of e-mails and other documents dealing with the global-warming issue made over the course of 13 years.

Controversy arose after various allegations were made including that climate scientists colluded to withhold scientific evidence and manipulated data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is.

Climategate has already affected Russia. On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.

The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.

On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.

IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.

The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass. The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration.

Global-temperature data will have to be modified if similar climate-date procedures have been used from other national data because the calculations used by COP15 analysts, including financial calculations, are based on HadCRUT research.What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock.

As Richard North says: This is serial.

UPDATE: As Steve McIntyre reports at ClimateAudit, it has long been suspected that the CRU had been playing especially fast and loose with Russian – more particularly Siberian – temperature records. Here from March 2004, is an email from Phil Jones to Michael Mann.

Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it
wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either
appears
I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.
Cheers
PhilAnd here at Watts Up With That is a guest post (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/16/russian-iea-claims-cru-tampered-with-climate-data-cherrypicked-warmest-stations/#more-14241) by Jeff Id of the Air Vent

And here is what one of the commenters has to say about the way the data has been cherry-picked and skewed for political ends:

The crux of the argument is that the CRU cherry picked data following the same methods that have been done everywhere else. They ignored data covering 40% of Russia and chose data that showed a warming trend over statistically preferable alternatives when available. They ignored completeness of data, preferred urban data, strongly preferred data from stations that relocated, ignored length of data set.

One the final page, there is a chart that shows that CRU’s selective use of 25% of the data created 0.64C more warming than simply using all of the raw data would have done. The complete set of data show 1.4C rise since 1860, the CRU set shows 2.06C rise over the same period.Not, of course, dear readers that I’m in any way tempted to crow about these latest revelations. After all, so many of my colleagues, junior and senior, have been backing me on this one to the hilt….Keep in mind that Russia is doing this almost certainly for purely political purposes. They'd probably have kept this under wraps if they thought it was of no political use to do so. So some suspicion and cynicism is advised, as it is possible that there are facts or discoveries that are being withheld.

With that said, Russia could certainly create a massive headache for the alarmist camp if they release the temperature data that they used in the chart mentioned at the end. It may provide more evidence that a very influential group of scientists deliberately removed or altered data in order to create or exaggerate warming trends, thus polluting the research into the Earth's climate. As it is, the claims are very similar to those made by people like McIntyre and Watts in regards to how data is collected and used.

[Tonus]

PS- in case it seems as if the data manipulation isn't that big of a deal: as alarmists often point out, annual temperatures tend to go up and down, and it is the overall trend which is the important thing. This is true, any look at a temperature graph (adjusted or not) shows ups and downs, and only a long term chart shows which way the climate is trending.

The reason that this manipulation of data (which may seem tiny... OMG just 0.64 degrees C over several decades???) matters is that the justification for the changes being demanded (which could amount to trillions of dollars in losses to the world's economy) is that the current trend indicates that we're heading towards a condition where we would be unable to stop the planet from warming so much that it would threaten human existence.

Of course, considering the history of the planet (we've had much greater concentrations of CO2 and much higher temperatures before) the current warming trend would be no cause for alarm. The lack of warming over the past 11 years would indicate that things are working the way that they always did. This wouldn't create the 'climate' of panic that the alarmists want. So they needed to show that things were not proceeding as normal. They had to find a way to convince us that this recent warming trend was different, that it was a harbinger of bad things.

Of course, the data wasn't cooperating. So they had to make it cooperate. The idea was to show that in the future, there would be no downwards trend. So they needed to show a chart where the temperature no longer goes down. It just keeps increasing and the line just keeps going up and up and up. This is why they needed to "hide the decline." The decline would confirm that we were in the midst of a warming trend, and that would mean that things were normal.

I get the impression that as they were doing this, one of them decided it would be a good idea to flatten out the Medieval Warming Period as well, just to make the late-century warming seem that much scarier. I think that this is where it really began to fall apart for them, because until then there doesn't seem to have been any doubt that we'd gone through a MWP. Their desire to bend the data curves got the better of them, and now that the emails and data are out, we're seeing just how bad it has gotten.

That's why such apparently minor temperature differences aren't so minor at all.

Edit to add: Go to this link (http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2009/12/climategate-update-17-what-greenland.html) and look at the charts. That is what the climate trends for Greenland look like when you chart the temperatures from 1600-now (omg hockey stick), from 900-now (hey, is that blip the hockey stick), and from 5000BC-now (whoa, Greenland has been way hotter in the past).

[Tonus]

Federally-funded climate alarmist: mind your own business! (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/16/hide_the_decline__and_more_99574.html)

Hide the Decline ... and More

In this country, even a global warming denialist with a carbon fetish and bad intentions has the right to see the inner workings of government.

Or, at least, he should.

When leaked e-mails recently exposed talk of manipulating scientific evidence on global warming, Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at The National Center for Atmospheric Research, argued that skeptics and other evildoers had cherry-picked and presented his comments out of context.

To rectify this injustice, I sent Trenberth (and NCAR) a Freedom of Information Act request asking for his e-mail correspondences with other renowned climate scientists in an effort to help contextualize what they've been talking about.

Surely the tragically uninformed among us could use some perspective on these innocuous comments by Trenberth: "We can't account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can't"; "we are (not) close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter."

Trenberth, lead author of the 1995, 2001 and 2007 assessments of climate change by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtains approximately 95 percent of his funding through the federal government, via the National Science Foundation.

Well, soon after my request was fired off, I was informed by NCAR's counsel that the organization is, in fact, not a federal agency -- because its budget is laundered through the National Science Foundation -- and thus is under no obligation to provide information to the public.

"Why don't you put all your e-mails online for everyone to see?" Trenberth helpfully suggested to me. "My e-mail is none of your business."

Now, generally, I would agree. It's every American citizen's hallowed duty to mind his or her own freaking business -- except in those rare instances when one of those citizens happens to be a taxpayer-funded eco-crusader utilizing his appointed station in life to promote policy that sticks its nose into the lives of every American.

I'm afraid snarky columnizing, on the other hand, is not federally funded -- at least not yet.

In fact, Trenberth's work is one reason the nation is moving toward rationed energy use via cap-and-trade legislation. His work is one reason the Environmental Protection Agency, through its endangerment findings on carbon emissions, can regulate industry by decree. It is Trenberth's government-financed science that drives public policy across this country. Yet Trenberth has less accountability to the public than the local parks department.

He is not alone. The Competitive Enterprise Institute -- one of those troglodyte-funded, big-screen-television-loving outfits -- was forced to file three notices of intent to file suit against NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, demanding the organization provide documents and raw data that were requested under the Freedom of Information Act three years ago.

Chris Horner, an attorney and senior fellow at CEI working on the NASA case, says of NCAR: "Without government, these jobs would not exist; that is a reasonable threshold test to determine whether documents should be available to the taxpayer."

Public confidence continues to fall on the global warming alarmism front. But if the evidence of coming tragedy is as incontrovertible as we're told, taxpayers certainly should not have to beg those they pay to hand it over.

At the very least, taxpayers should be able to hold government-funded scientific institutions to the same level of accountability to which they hold their local dog pounds.


I think that Climategate is part of the reason that belief in the dangers of AGW are dropping so fast in the USA. Public confidence had already been dropping, but the response from the alarmist camp, including the political comedy being played out by those involved in the CRU email scandal, must also be hurting. The MSM is trying its darnedest to dampen the impact of the story, and it's possible that this will simply harm both the people involved and the MSM itself in the long run.

[S Carver Orne]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v368/profmgmiller/implied-facepalm.jpg
implied facepalm

[Tonus]

The 'Wolf Howling' blog has been keeping track of developments in Climategate and AGW politics in general. His latest blog update (http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2009/12/climategate-update-24-watermelons.html) has a lot of information and links to read through. You'll want to visit the link (and the links from his post) to read about stuff like:

* How the carbon emission targets in the IPCC will not be enough to reduce global temperatures according to the IPCC's reports. Remember, the dire warnings are that if we don't stop this runaway warming, the planet will eventually be uninhabitable. And yet, even the UN seems unconcerned about this threat to the future of humanity, if it is proposing a solution that doesn't avoid that result. On the other hand, if it was just a political ploy designed to promote wealth distribution on a global scale...

* With that in mind, the main goal of Copenhagen is to extend the Kyoto Treaty and find ways to force non-signatories (like the USA) to comply with its targets. There is, of course, the additional goal of extorting billions of dollars from successful industrial powers.

* As with health care, Europe is serving as an early example of how well carbon trading schemes work. The results so far? Energy prices are up some 20%, organized crime is profiting to the tune of tens of billions of Euro per year, jobs are being transferred away (thus increasing unemployment in Europe while not decreasing CO2 production), and some companies are using the threat of job losses as a way to hoard carbon credits, thus enriching themselves without having to reduce CO2 emission levels.

* The CRU emails and data manipulation are not the exception- they are the rule. There are links to several other data collections that have been carefully manipulated to show warming where there was none, or to exaggerate otherwise mild warming trends. The environment for publishing papers in regards to AGW had become so toxic to anyone not following the alarmist script, that dissenting opinion had been pretty thoroughly squashed.

In other words, not only is it a massive scam, but even the UN is not really interested in treating global warming as a legitimate concern. It's a useful tool for redistributing wealth and weakening successful western nations, and nothing more. As I said before, it looks like the idea is to push through these schemes at Copenhagen, and then if the whole AGW scam falls apart, well... too bad, you signed these agreements. Pay up!

[Tonus]

Heh... (http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report_breaking-news-india-china-walk-out-of-climate-summit-report_1324981)

"It is in our mutual interest to achieve a global climate accord. There is no time to waste, we should act, not talk."

India and China have taken a united stand and walked out of the climate summit as Copenhagen talks fail

BARACK OBAMA: 2009 MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER OF THE YEAR

[Tonus]

http://www.diversitylane.com/dlcomic.jpg

[Grunthos]

This was nice:

Ann Althouse: "And now President Barack Obama is there. He's saying, 'The time for talk is over.' Ironically, he's talking."

Roflcptr.

[Shady]

Russia--of all countries who would benefit handsomely from a carbon credit system--is claiming that the Hadley CRU tampered with station data from their county, or completely omitted it. Russia!

On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.

The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.

On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.

IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.

The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass. The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration.

They omitted data specifically from Siberia...and Russia is calling them on it.

The entire article is here (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/) with lots more info.

[Tonus]

*points at post #108 in this thread*



Also... via Mark Steyn (http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/prince-224827-copenhagen-carbon.html), regarding the Copenhagen Circus...


His Royal Highness [Prince Charles] was also in Copenhagen last week, telling delegates that there were now only seven years left to save the planet. Prince Charles is so famously concerned about the environment that he's known as the Green Prince. Just for the record, his annual carbon footprint is 2,601 tons. The carbon footprint of an average Briton (i.e., all those wasteful, consumerist, environmentally unsustainable deadbeats) is 11 tons. To get him to Copenhagen to deliver his speech, His Highness was flown in by one of the Royal Air Force's fleet of VIP jets from the Royal Squadron. Total carbon emissions: 6.4 tons. In other words, the Green Prince used up seven months' of an average Brit's annual carbon footprint on one short flight to give one mediocre speech of alarmist boilerplate.

But relax, it's all cool, because he offsets! According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the Prince will be investing in exciting new green initiatives. "Investing" as in "using your own money", you mean? Not exactly. Apparently, it will be taxpayers' money. So he'll "offset" the cost of using up seven months of an average peasant's carbon footprint on one flight by taking the peasant's money and tossing it down some sinkhole. No wonder he feels so virtuous. Oh, don't worry, though. He does have to pay a personal penalty for the sin of flying by private jet: Seventy pounds. Which is the cost of about six new trees, or rather less than the bill for parking at Heathrow would have been.

So just to recap: The Prince of Wales, a man who has never drawn his own curtains, ramps up a carbon footprint of 2,601 tons while telling us that western capitalist excess is destroying the planet. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the railroad engineer who heads the International Panel on Climate Change and has demanded that "hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying," flew 443,226 miles on "IPCC business" in the year and a half before the Copenhagen summit. And Al Gore is a carbon billionaire: He makes more money buying offsets from himself than his dad did from investing in Occidental Petroleum.
I saw it pointed out elsewhere that the ease with which these bozos generate massive amounts of carbon (while telling us that every extra molecule of it moves us closer to Doomsday) shows just how concerned they really are about it.

[KB.]

Most of these people don't expect the general populace to be smart enough to catch them. Just like the people saying that the storm is over, unemployment went down in November and consumer spending went up, don't expect us to realize its freaking Christmas time and most of those newly employed people won't have jobs come February but they'll still have the credit card bills from their increased spending.

[Tonus]

The idea is to make the lies seem as official as possible. Sure, politicians* will lie to get what they want, but people view scientists and researchers and even newscasters as reliable and interested in the truth. They don't expect them to be part of a charade intended to deceive them. So it works.

(*One trick that politicians love to use it to present themselves as a 'different kind' of politician, one who is honest and forthright. That was the theme of Obama's "change" campaign-- he insisted he was a different type of politician, and people bought it <-- that was the "hope" part.)



***

Anyway, one of the reasons I keep coming back to these various political threads to dump new information (instead of starting new topics) is to keep as much of the information in one place as possible. And with that in mind...

[/URL][URL="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2009/12/nancy-pelosi-speaking-in-copenhagen.html"]Relevant link: (http://[IMG) A look at how well "clean energy" is doing in terms of jobs creation. One thing to keep in mind when people claim that clean energy will lead to the creation of millions of new jobs-- if there really was an industry that was capable of generating enough revenues to create millions of new jobs by itself, investors and corporations would be all over it, as those revenues mean additional profits.

If those millions of jobs to not lead to profitability, those jobs will begin to disappear. See the blog link to understand this phenomena.

Edit to add: Another useful link. (http://spinstrangenesscharm.wordpress.com/)

[Tonus]

Yet another example (http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/21/will-natural-gas-rescue-american-energy-policy/) of people talking out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to dealing with the looming catastrophe of global warming. Remember, we may only have a few years to take action, after which the planet will be on an irreversible course that leads to the extinction of all life!

Will natural gas rescue American energy policy?

Is the answer to bridging American energy policy from a petroleum economy to a renewables future under our very noses — or more accurately, under our feet? The Obama administration wants to impose a punishing cap-and-trade system onto the US to restrict carbon-dioxide emissions, but a plentiful energy source with at least decades of supply and inexpensive price could both lower emissions and reduce dependence on foreign oil. The natural-gas industry wants people to take notice of an option that could allow for an inexpensive transition and massive job creation:
An unlikely source of energy has emerged to meet international demands that the United States do more to fight global warming: It’s cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and a 90-year supply is under our feet.

It’s natural gas, the same fossil fuel that was in such short supply a decade ago that it was deemed unreliable. It’s now being uncovered at such a rapid pace that its price is near a seven-year low. Long used to heat half the nation’s homes, it’s becoming the fuel of choice when building new power plants. Someday, it may win wider acceptance as a replacement for gasoline in our cars and trucks. …

Today, about 27 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions come from coal-fired power plants, which generate 44 percent of the electricity used in the U.S. Just under 25 percent of power comes from burning natural gas, more than double its share a decade ago but still with room to grow.

But the fuel has to be plentiful and its price stable — and that has not always been the case with natural gas. In the 1990s, factories that wanted to burn gas instead of coal had to install equipment that did both because the gas supply was uncertain and wild price swings were common. In some states, because of feared shortages, homebuilders were told new gas hookups were banned.

It’s a different story today. Energy experts believe that the huge volume of supply now will ease price swings and supply worries.What changed? The technology of drilling has advanced to the point where shale deposits can be economically accessed, for one thing. At the same time, more deposits of natural gas have been found, some of them massive, which means the promise of a stable supply for several decades.

But can that supply last that long if we begin to switch our electrical generation and transportation to natural gas? If one believes the renewables industry and the Obama administration, we wouldn’t have to worry. They claim that the US is within 10-15 years of a renewables explosion, figuratively speaking, which is why the cap-and-trade system would only temporarily burden the economy. A move to natural gas would avoid all of the pain and joblessness that artificially hiking energy prices would produce, lower emissions significantly from coal and petroleum use, while keeping those fuels in the game enough to float us to the renewable Nirvana Obama promises.

So Obama is excited about this possibility, right? After all, it’s practically a political harmonic convergence: supply within the continent, lower prices, sharp reductions in carbon emissions, and higher employment, mainly in union jobs. Who wouldn’t leap to seize that moment? Apparently Obama:
In June, President Barack Obama lumped natural gas with oil and coal as energy sources the nation must move away from. He touts alternative sources — solar, wind and biofuels derived from corn and other plants. In Congress, the energy debate has focused on finding cleaner coal and saving thousands of mining jobs from West Virginia to Wyoming.If Obama doesn’t want to use natural gas as a strategy for an American transition to renewable energy (which John McCain proposed as part of his Lexington Project, along with nuclear power), then it seems rather obvious that he has other motives than a clean, renewable energy future for the US.The only possible argument I can see for taking this stance is to claim that if we move towards natural gas, it will slow development and acceptance of cleaner alternatives, and we can't afford that. To which I would respond "dude, we're just years away from the planet becoming a dead broiling husk, which part of that did you not fucking understand???"

Or it could be as Morrissey opines... this whole global warming scam is based around a desire to terrify people into accepting more government control of their lives, as well as an attempt at sending our money to third-world despots to spend as they see fit. Crazy, I know!

[Diniden]

Hmmm all I can still see is scam. I talk to many many brilliant professors at my school about this topic, and even they can't come to believe global warming scare.

Another take that I have formulated recently on global warming: We have fired off nuclear weapons that have heated an amount of atmosphere to unrealistic temperatures yet our massive fear of "igniting" the atmosphere never happened. Strangely enough scientists are always shocked and startled at the ability of our planets system to always find a way to find equilibrium quickly. If nukes going off and our fears not happening came to pass, then I'm sure this far more subtle topic will also never come to pass. We will always probably be surprised by our earths system and it's ability to handle our little oddities we place upon it.

[Grunthos]

Oh, this would be rich indeed if it was to be borne out by repeatable, empirical results:

How can you have your AGW cake but not have to eat your CO2-driven economy too?

How about if global warming WAS man-made, but not via CO2... and is no longer being made?

December 22nd, 2009 1:46 pm
Post Copenhagen: Is Man-Made Global Warming a Dead Issue?

I know this sounds premature, but the failure of UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen has in all likelihood made anthropogenic global warming a dead issue.

Another nail in its coffin appeared on the site of insciences organization yesterday:

Cosmic rays and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), both already implicated in depleting the Earth’s ozone layer, are also responsible for changes in the global climate, a University of Waterloo scientist reports in a new peer-reviewed paper.

In his paper, Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, shows how CFCs – compounds once widely used as refrigerants – and cosmic rays – energy particles originating in outer space – are mostly to blame for climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. His paper, derived from observations of satellite, ground-based and balloon measurements as well as an innovative use of an established mechanism, was published online in the prestigious journal Physics Reports.

“My findings do not agree with the climate models that conventionally thought that greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, are the major culprits for the global warming seen in the late 20th century,” Lu said. “Instead, the observed data show that CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays most likely caused both the Antarctic ozone hole and global warming. These findings are totally unexpected and striking, as I was focused on studying the mechanism for the formation of the ozone hole, rather than global warming.”

Oops…. what does this mean? More global warming from CFCs and cosmic rays? Actually, no:

“Most remarkably, the total amount of CFCs, ozone-depleting molecules that are well-known greenhouse gases, has decreased around 2000,” Lu said. “Correspondingly, the global surface temperature has also dropped. In striking contrast, the CO2 level has kept rising since 1850 and now is at its largest growth rate.”

In his research, Lu discovers that while there was global warming from 1950 to 2000, there has been global cooling since 2002. The cooling trend will continue for the next 50 years, according to his new research observations.

Global cooling for the next fifty years? It certainly corresponds with my frozen experience in Copenhagen, not to mention the subsequent snow storms blanketing Europe with people trapped in the Eurostar for fifteen hours, something that never happened before.

Nevertheless, who knows if Dr. Lu is correct, although, unlike the sorry crew at East Anglia and NASA, he shows his work. No Freedom of Information Act request necessary. Also, as far as I know, he’s not destroying his data like the CRU.

With every passing day the AGW crowd is looking increasingly foolish and venal. More revelations are undoubtedly yet to come and some will be related to activities that verge on the criminal or even cross that line. The UN will have to find a new bogeyman to replace CO2 in order to pursue its own goals of bureaucratic power and wealth transfer. Maybe cosmic rays could be the new CO2. They have a certain Buck Rogers ring to them. James Cameron, are you listening?

Meanwhile, certain people have been revealed as buffoons or worse: Al Gore (of course… but we knew that), the UN’s Rajendra Pachauri, Gordon Brown and, yes, Barack Obama. If the report from Die Welt quoted on Belmont Club is even close to the truth, our President is a very strange man indeed. (HT: Leon DeWinter)

Further: PJM’s Charlie Martin will be tracking scientific reaction to Dr. Lu’s findings.


http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2009/12/22/post-copenhagen-is-man-made-global-warming-a-dead-issue/

[Diniden]

Cosmic powers save few while threatening the existence of humanity...oh...the humanity...

[Tonus]

Read this (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6890839/The-questions-Dr-Pachauri-still-has-to-answer.html). Then wonder no more whether or not climate change is a purely political device that is being used to enrich the same people who happen to be in a position to influence energy policy now and in the future.

[Tonus]

A great description (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/27/the-unbearable-complexity-of-climate-2/) of the problems with predicting climate changes, and why we're still struggling to even comprehend our planet's climate. And once again, we understand why claims that "the science is settled" are false and nothing more than attempts at bullying doubters into accepting a political solution to a non-existent problem.

This is not all of it, you can read it all at the link.


Unfortunately, while the physics is simple, the climate is far from simple. It is one of the more complex systems that we have ever studied. The climate is a tera-watt scale planetary sized heat engine. It is driven by both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial forcings, a number of which are unknown, and many of which are poorly understood and/or difficult to measure. It is inherently chaotic and turbulent, two conditions for which we have few mathematical tools.

The climate is comprised of five major subsystems — atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. All of these subsystems are imperfectly understood. Each of these subsystems has its own known and unknown internal and external forcings, feedbacks, resonances, and cyclical variations. In addition, each subsystem affects all of the other subsystems through a variety of known and unknown forcings and feedbacks.

Then there is the problem of scale. Climate has crucially important processes at physical scales from the molecular to the planetary, and at temporal scales from milliseconds to millennia.

Suppose that I want to find out about how temperature affects solids. I take a 75 kg block of steel, and I put the bottom end of it in a bucket of hot water. I duct tape a thermometer to the top end in the best experimental fashion, and I start recording how the temperature change with time. At first, nothing happens. So I wait. And soon, the temperature of the other end of the block of steel starts rising. Hey, simple physics, right?

To verify my results, I try the experiment with a block of copper. I get the same result, the end of the block that’s not in the hot water soon begins to warm up. I try it with a block of glass, same thing. My tentative conclusion is that simple physics says that if you heat one end of a solid, the other end will eventually heat up as well.

So I look around for a final test. Not seeing anything obvious, I have a flash of insight. I weigh about 75 kg. So I sit with my feet in the bucket of hot water, put the thermometer in my mouth, and wait for my head to heat up. This experimental setup is shown in Figure 1 above.

After all, simple physics is my guideline, I know what’s going to happen, I just have to wait.

And wait … and wait …

As our thought experiment shows, simple physics may simply not work when applied to a complex system. The problem is that there are feedback mechanisms that negate the effect of the hot water on my cold toes. My body has a preferential temperature which is not set by the external forcings.

So that’s the problem with “simple physics” and the climate. For example, simple physics predicts a simple linear relationship between the climate forcings and the temperature. People seriously believe that a change of X in the forcings will lead inevitably to a chance of A * X in the temperature. This is called the “climate sensitivity”, and is a fundamental assumption in the climate models. The IPCC says that if CO2 doubles, we will get a rise of around 3C in the global temperature. However, there is absolutely no evidence to support that claim, only computer models. But the models assume this relationship, so they cannot be used to establish the relationship.

However, as rivers clearly show, there is no such simple relationship in a flow system far from equilibrium. We can’t cut through an oxbow to shorten the river, it just lengthens elsewhere to maintain the same total length. Instead of being affected by a change in the forcings, the system sets its own preferential operating conditions (e.g. length, temperature, etc.) based on the natural constraints and flow possibilities and other parameters of the system.

Final conclusion? Because climate is a flow system far from equilibrium, it is ruled by the Constructal Law. As a result, there is no physics-based reason to assume that increasing CO2 will make any difference to the global temperature, and the Constructal Law gives us reason to think that it may make no difference at all. In any case, regardless of Arrhenius, the “simple physics” relationship between CO2 and global temperature is something that we cannot simply assume to be true.

[Grunthos]

What would happen, I wonder, if new research showed that despite mankind's rising emissions of co2, the actual perceentage of co2 in the atmosphere had not risen in the last, oh, 150 years or so?

What does that do to AGW claims?

Well, here's a chance to find out!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091230184221.htm

No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds

New research finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades, contrary to some recent studies. (Credit: iStockphoto)ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

However, some studies have suggested that the ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.

Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.

To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.

In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.

The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

[Tonus]

Many climate models also assumeThat same phrase appears in the piece I posted right above yours. I wonder just how many assumptions have to be made in climate models. I also wonder how many of those assumptions lean towards factors that promote warming.

I'm betting that there are a lot of assumptions programmed into climate models, due to the fact that we don't understand those systems very well yet. And I'm betting that most of those assumptions lean in favor of factors that increase warming. That's why you get Trenberth's frustration at the fact that the warming wasn't materializing in the data, even though they knew (knew!) that it must be so. And that is why they did not feel that they were resorting to tricks or deception when they replaced that uncooperative data with the "real values."

Because after all, the models predicted warming...

[Tonus]

I have to wonder-- if not for the climategate scandal, would information such as this (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091230184221.htm) have ever been published?


No Rise of Airborne Fraction of Carbon Dioxide in Past 150 Years, New Research Finds

ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

However, some studies have suggested that the ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.

Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.

To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.

In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
There's that word again... the climate models assume that the amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase, based on an assumption that the ability of the climate system to absorb excess CO2 would decline. Both assumptions would increase the likelihood that a model will show increased warming!

But it seems as if there is the possibility that these assumptions are not just wrong, but the opposite of what is happening! Is it possible that the Earth's ecosystem will absorb a greater percentage of excess CO2 if more CO2 is released into the atmosphere? That would mean that the planet regulates the climate much more strictly than was assumed...

Rhetorical question-- will the mainstream media give this any publicity at all? Oh, stop laughing. I said it was rhetorical!

Edit to add: the results from the "related stories" search is interesting as well. Looks like the issue of the planet's ability to regulate CO2 levels has been ongoing and not "settled." Got that? A critical climate system that has an obvious effect on temperatures is still not understood, yet we're told that the science is good and done. Not politics at all, no sir...

[Grunthos]

Nice article you got there, T-man... (points up three posts)

[Tonus]

Whoops!

[Grunthos]

Hahah!

[NervousWreck]

Some people have the right idea. Check this out from a store in Alaska that specializes in snow vehicles. I guess their business is doing well if they can afford a stunt like this.

clicky clicky (http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/news/bal-frozen-gore-0107,0,2230780.story) (Ice sculpture of Gore spewing hot air)

[Tonus]

Here's an interesting report (http://spectator.org/archives/2009/12/30/wikipedia-meets-its-own-climat/) on how 'green' activists have hijacked Wikipedia to spread global warming propaganda and eliminate any point of view that runs afoul of the Church of Climate Change. It is a reminder of why Wikipedia continues to have a reputation as a bad option for research. If you have enough time and are organized, you can push any point of view.

Wikipedia Meets Its Own Climategate

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, had an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal drawing attention to the rise of "online hostility" and the "degeneration of online civility." He (and coauthor Andrea Weckerle) suggested ways in which we can "prevent the worst among us from silencing the best among us."

I agree with just about everything that they say. But there is one problem that Mr. Wales does not go near. That is the use of Wikipedia itself to inflame the political debate by permitting activists to rewrite the contributions of others. All by itself, that surely is a contributor to online incivility.

The issue that I am particularly thinking about is "climate change" -- or global warming as it was once called (until the globe stopped warming, about a decade ago). Recently the Financial Post in Canada published an article by Lawrence Solomon (http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/18/lawrence-solomon-wikipedia-s-climate-doctor.aspx), with this remarkable headline:

How Wikipedia's green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles.Solomon draws attention to the online labors of one William M. Connolley, a Green Party activist and software engineer in Britain. Starting in February 2003, Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site. I continue with a two-paragraph direct quote from Mr. Solomon's article:

[Connolley] rewrote Wikipedia's articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug. 11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the band [of climatologist activists]. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world's most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band [of activists] especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.

All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn't like the subject of a certain article, he removed it -- more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred -- over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley's global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia's blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.There is much more at the link at the top, as well as at the link in the report. You will want to read both, as it shows how simple it is to essentially hijack Wikipedia for your pet cause, and how it is being used to completely distort the climate change debate even as Wikipedia's founder begs for millions in donations to keep the site running. You will also understand Connolley's connection to RealClimate, the site run by several of the primary players in the ClimateGate email scandal.

And when you're done and need something to cleanse the dirty feeling, go here. (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/14/john-colemans-hourlong-news-special-global-warming-the-other-side-now-online-all-five-parts-here/) You'll be glad that you did.

[Tonus]

Two stories which remind us again about how politics hijacked the scientific process, and an understanding of just what this means.

I will not quote the whole articles, they can be read via the links.

IPCC may retract claim that it copy-pasted: (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece)

World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown

A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change. One point, which Ed at HotAir made: the initial paragraph refers to "a series of scientific blunders" by the IPCC, leading to the inclusion of this information in their report. That is hogwash. There was nothing "scientific" about this error-- they found a quote that fit their political agenda and included it in an official report without bothering to do even the most basic vetting beforehand.

Keep in mind that many of the climategate buffoons, who were integral to the creation of the IPCC reports, routinely disparaged the work of people like Steven McIntyre because it wasn't peer reviewed. The level of hypocrisy at work here is staggering, that's all that I can say.

And this one is the kicker: US climate data has been 'extensively manipulated.' (http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/40749822.html)

PRIMARY UNITED STATES CLIMATE CENTERS NOW CAUGHT IN DATA MANIPULATION

NEW REVELATIONS HEADLINED ON TV CLIMATE SPECIAL

It has been revealed that a "sleight of hand" was used in the computer program that rated 2005 as "THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD.” Skeptical climate researchers have discovered extensive manipulation of the data within the U.S. Government's two primary climate centers: the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City. These centers are being accused of creating a strong bias toward warmer temperatures through a system that dramatically trimmed the number and cherry-picked the locations of weather observation stations they use to produce the data set on which temperature record reports are based. The two investigators say the system has been distorted in other ways as well. They have documented their findings in great detail in a scientific report that has been posted online. These findings are presented as a part of my television special report ”Global Warming: The Other Side” telecast Thursday night, January 14th at 9 PM here on KUSI TV.

The data manipulation studies are explored in detail during the fourth segment of the one hour video now available here on our website. Just click on the Global Warming special banner to go to the page.

NOAA and NASA start with the unadjusted NOAA GHCN (Global Historical Climate Network). NASA eliminates some stations and adds some in the polar regions. For NASA, the computer program that manipulates the data is known as GIStemp, Both then add their own adjustments to calculate a global average temperature and a ranking for each month and year. The two inter-related U.S Government agencies have so intertwined their programs and data sets that both are being challenged by the investigating team that has produced this "smoking gun of U.S. Climate-gate.” “We suspect each center will try to hide behind, ‘It’s them; Not us’ and point fingers at each other," says the Computer Programmer from San Jose behind these new revelations. He and a Certified Consulting Meteorologist from New Hampshire made their revelations public on January 14th on a prime time television special report at 9:00PM PST; on KUSI-TV, an independent television station in San Diego Perhaps that is why Dr. Richard Anthes, President of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in testimony to congress in March 2009 noted “The present federal agency paradigm with respect to NASA and NOAA is obsolete and nearly dysfunctional in spite of best efforts by both agencies.”The video he mentions is one I linked to in my previous post, which looks at the climate debate from a perspective that isn't used at places like the UN: actual scientific research and understanding.

What is the larger issue looming over all of this? Think about it-- we still know and understand very little about the Earth's climate. We have very little raw, actual data to go on, mostly a temperature record that goes back about 150 years. That record has plenty of flaws and imperfections, but it's an honest-to-goodness record that we can start from.

There's one problem, though. The data has been intentionally damaged in pursuit of political control, and some of the original raw data is lost because it was discarded. Think about that-- the only record of temperatures that we have? At least parts of it have been destroyed, and both it and the remainder have been changed in order to fit someone's agenda. More than a hundred years of data --just about the only record that we have-- is essentially useless. These people have set climate science back by decades, possibly by centuries. Consider that even now, the perpetrators of this fraud continue to push their version of the story on blogs and websites, and there are at least a few science magazines that are playing along. And for the most part, the press continues to ignore or minimize the story. How long will it be before we acknowledge the damage and begin to try to sort out the mess? We may not even begin that task for a decade or two.

[Grunthos]

A follow-on for Tonus' last:

Rich frothy comeuppance. UN IPCC caught using unverified journalistic reports as the FOUNDATION of their supposedly peer-reviewed, above-reproach annual reports.

No matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney.

From The Times January 23, 2010

UN climate change expert: there could be more errors in report
Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent

The Indian head of the UN climate change panel defended his position yesterday even as further errors were identified in the panel's assessment of Himalayan glaciers.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri dismissed calls for him to resign over the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s retraction of a prediction that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.

But he admitted that there may have been other errors in the same section of the report, and said that he was considering whether to take action against those responsible.

“I know a lot of climate sceptics are after my blood, but I’m in no mood to oblige them,” he told The Times in an interview. “It was a collective failure by a number of people,” he said. “I need to consider what action to take, but that will take several weeks. It’s best to think with a cool head, rather than shoot from the hip.”

The IPCC’s 2007 report, which won it the Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high”.

But it emerged last week that the forecast was based not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999.

The IPCC admitted on Thursday that the prediction was “poorly substantiated” in the latest of a series of blows to the panel’s credibility.

Dr Pachauri said that the IPCC’s report was the responsibility of the panel’s Co-Chairs at the time, both of whom have since moved on.

They were Dr Martin Parry, a British scientist now at Imperial College London, and Dr Osvaldo Canziani , an Argentine meteorologist. Neither was immediately available for comment.

“I don’t want to blame them, but typically the working group reports are managed by the Co-Chairs,” Dr Pachauri said. “Of course the Chair is there to facilitate things, but we have substantial amounts of delegation.”

He declined to blame the 25 authors and editors of the erroneous part of the report , who included a Filipino, a Mongolian, a Malaysian, an Indonesian, an Iranian, an Australian and two Vietnamese.

The “co-ordinating lead authors” were Rex Victor Cruz of the Philippines, Hideo Harasawa of Japan, Murari Lal of India and Wu Shaohong of China.

But Syed Hasnain, the Indian glaciologist erroneously quoted as making the 2035 prediction, said that responsibility had to lie with them. “It is the lead authors — blame goes to them,” he told The Times. “There are many mistakes in it. It is a very poorly made report.”

He and other leading glaciologists pointed out at least five glaring errors in the relevant section.

It says the total area of Himalyan glaciers “will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035”. There are only 33,000 square kilometers of glaciers in the Himalayas.

A table below says that between 1845 and 1965, the Pindari Glacier shrank by 2,840m — a rate of 135.2m a year. The actual rate is only 23.5m a year.

The section says Himalayan glaciers are “receding faster than in any other part of the world” when many glaciologists say they are melting at about the same rate.

An entire paragraph is also attributed to the World Wildlife Fund, when only one sentence came from it, and the IPCC is not supposed to use such advocacy groups as sources.

Professor Hasnain, who was not involved in drafting the IPCC report, said that he noticed some of the mistakes when he first read the relevant section in 2008.

That was also the year he joined The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi, which is headed by Dr Pachauri.

He said he realised that the 2035 prediction was based on an interview he gave to the New Scientist magazine in 1999, although he blamed the journalist for assigning the actual date.

He said that he did not tell Dr Pachauri because he was not working for the IPCC and was busy with his own programmes at the time.

“I was keeping quiet as I was working here,” he said. “My job is not to point out mistakes. And you know the might of the IPCC. What about all the other glaciologists around the world who did not speak out?”

Dr Pachauri also said he did not learn about the mistakes until they were reported in the media about 10 days ago, at which time he contacted other IPCC members. He denied keeping quiet about the errors to avoid disrupting the UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen, or discouraging funding for TERI’s own glacier programme.

But he too admitted that it was “really odd” that none of the world’s leading glaciologists had pointed out the mistakes to him earlier. “Frankly, it was a stupid error,” he said. “But no one brought it to my attention.”


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6999051.ece

[Tonus]

It's amazing, the amount of finger-pointing going on in an attempt to avoid blame, even though all it does is make the UN and IPCC look even worse.

The alarmists are continuing their campaign to convince the world that runaway warming caused by CO2 emissions is going to kill us all in a hundred years, but I think that 2009 was the year when the bottom fell out of the effort. NASA is still telling us that 2009 was one of the warmest years ever, but that warning follows revelations that they've been doctoring their numbers much as the CRU did. Copehagen went nowhere, cap and trade is dead in the US, and either dead or dying elsewhere around the world.

At this point, they're just going through the motions. Their credibility and reputations are shot. The one true downside is the damage that has been done to the public's trust in science and scientists.

[Grunthos]

Entropy is going to kill us all within a hundred years anyway.

[Tonus]

Shocker: False claim was made for political purposes. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html)

Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn't been verified

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’

Dr Lal’s admission will only add to the mounting furor over the melting glaciers assertion, which the IPCC was last week forced to withdraw because it has no scientific foundation.

According to the IPCC’s statement of principles, its role is ‘to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis, scientific, technical and socio-economic information – IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy’.

The claim that Himalayan glaciers are set to disappear by 2035 rests on two 1999 magazine interviews with glaciologist Syed Hasnain, which were then recycled without any further investigation in a 2005 report by the environmental campaign group WWF.

It was this report that Dr Lal and his team cited as their source.

The WWF article also contained a basic error in its arithmetic. A claim that one glacier was retreating at the alarming rate of 134 metres a year should in fact have said 23 metres – the authors had divided the total loss measured over 121 years by 21, not 121.

Last Friday, the WWF website posted a humiliating statement recognising the claim as ‘unsound’, and saying it ‘regrets any confusion caused’.

Dr Lal said: ‘We knew the WWF report with the 2035 date was “grey literature” [material not published in a peer-reviewed journal]. But it was never picked up by any of the authors in our working group, nor by any of the more than 500 external reviewers, by the governments to which it was sent, or by the final IPCC review editors.’

In fact, the 2035 melting date seems to have been plucked from thin air.

Professor Graham Cogley, a glacier expert at Trent University in Canada, who began to raise doubts in scientific circles last year, said the claim multiplies the rate at which glaciers have been seen to melt by a factor of about 25.

‘My educated guess is that there will be somewhat less ice in 2035 than there is now,’ he said.

‘But there is no way the glaciers will be close to disappearing. It doesn’t seem to me that exaggerating the problem’s seriousness is going to help solve it.’

One of the problems bedevilling Himalayan glacier research is a lack of reliable data. But an authoritative report published last November by the Indian government said: ‘Himalayan glaciers have not in any way exhibited, especially in recent years, an abnormal annual retreat.’

When this report was issued, Raj Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, denounced it as ‘voodoo science’.

Having been forced to apologise over the 2035 claim, Dr Pachauri blamed Dr Lal, saying his team had failed to apply IPCC procedures.

It was an accusation rebutted angrily by Dr Lal. ‘We as authors followed them to the letter,’ he said. ‘Had we received information that undermined the claim, we would have included it.’

However, an analysis of those 500-plus formal review comments, to be published tomorrow by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the new body founded by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, suggests that when reviewers did raise issues that called the claim into question, Dr Lal and his colleagues simply ignored them.

For example, Hayley Fowler of Newcastle University, suggested that their draft did not mention that Himalayan glaciers in the Karakoram range are growing rapidly, citing a paper published in the influential journal Nature.

In their response, the IPCC authors said, bizarrely, that they were ‘unable to get hold of the suggested references’, but would ‘consider’ this in their final version. They failed to do so.

The Japanese government commented that the draft did not clarify what it meant by stating that the likelihood of the glaciers disappearing by 2035 was ‘very high’. ‘What is the confidence level?’ it asked.

The authors’ response said ‘appropriate revisions and editing made’. But the final version was identical to their draft.

Last week, Professor Georg Kaser, a glacier expert from Austria, who was lead author of a different chapter in the IPCC report, said when he became aware of the 2035 claim a few months before the report was published, he wrote to Dr Lal, urging him to withdraw it as patently untrue.

Dr Lal claimed he never received this letter. ‘He didn’t contact me or any of the other authors of the chapter,’ he said.

The damage to the IPCC’s reputation, already tarnished by last year’s ‘Warmergate’ leaked email scandal, is likely to be considerable.

Benny Peiser, the GWPF’s director, said the affair suggested the IPCC review process was ‘skewed by a bias towards alarmist assessments’.

Environmentalist Alton Byers said the panel’s credibility had been damaged. ‘They’ve done sloppy work,’ he said. ‘We need better research on the ground, not unreliable predictions derived from computer models.’

Last night, Dr Pachauri defended the IPCC, saying it was wrong to generalise based on a single mistake. ‘Our procedure is robust,’ he added.The last line is laughable, when you consider just how many mistakes and sloppy procedures and flat-out fraud make up that "single mistake." You begin to understand just how completely corrupted the IPCC is, and how worthless their reports are. Remember that the guys implicated in the ClimateGate emails are some of the people responsible for the IPCC reports, up to and including controlling the review process.

The whole process is dirty from start to finish.

[Grunthos]

See that... and raise you this:

The scandal deepens – IPCC AR4 riddled with non peer reviewed WWF papers
24

01

2010
All the years I’ve been in TV news, I’ve observed that every story has a tipping point. In news, we know when it has reached that point when we say it “has legs” and the story takes on a life of its own. The story may have been ignored or glossed over for weeks, months, or years until some new piece of information is posted and starts to galvanize people. The IPCC glacier melt scandal was the one that galvanized the collective voice that has been saying that the IPCC report was seriously flawed and represented a political rather than scientific view. Now people are seriously looking at AR4 with a critical eye and finding things everywhere.

Remember our friends at World Wildlife Fund? Those schlockmeisters that produced the video of planes flying into New York with explicit comparisons to 9/11?


The caption in the upper right reads: “The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it.”
Well it turns out that the WWF is cited all over the IPCC AR4 report, and as you know, WWF does not produce peer reviewed science, they produce opinion papers in line with their vision. Yet IPCC’s rules are such that they are supposed to rely on peer reviewed science only. It appears they’ve violated that rule dozens of times, all under Pachauri’s watch.


A new posting authored by Donna Laframboise, the creator of NOconsensus.org (Toronto, Canada) shows what one can find in just one day of looking.

http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-dodgy-citations-in-nobel-winning.html

Here’s an extensive list of documents created or co-authored by the WWF and cited by this Nobel-winning IPCC AR4 report:

Allianz and World Wildlife Fund, 2006: Climate change and the financial sector: an agenda for action, 59 pp. [Accessed 03.05.07: http://www.wwf.org.uk/ filelibrary/pdf/allianz_rep_0605.pdf]

Austin, G., A. Williams, G. Morris, R. Spalding-Feche, and R. Worthington, 2003: Employment potential of renewable energy in South Africa. Earthlife Africa, Johannesburg and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Denmark, November, 104 pp.

Baker, T., 2005: Vulnerability Assessment of the North-East Atlantic Shelf Marine Ecoregion to Climate Change, Workshop Project Report, WWF, Godalming, Surrey, 79 pp.

Coleman, T., O. Hoegh-Guldberg, D. Karoly, I. Lowe, T. McMichael, C.D. Mitchell, G.I. Pearman, P. Scaife and J. Reynolds, 2004: Climate Change: Solutions for Australia. Australian Climate Group, 35 pp. http://www.wwf.org.au/ publications/acg_solutions.pdf

Dlugolecki, A. and S. Lafeld, 2005: Climate change – agenda for action: the financial sector’s perspective. Allianz Group and WWF, Munich [may be the same document as "Allianz" above, except that one is dated 2006 and the other 2005]

Fritsche, U.R., K. Hünecke, A. Hermann, F. Schulze, and K. Wiegmann, 2006: Sustainability standards for bioenergy. Öko-Institut e.V., Darmstadt, WWF Germany, Frankfurt am Main, November

Giannakopoulos, C., M. Bindi, M. Moriondo, P. LeSager and T. Tin, 2005: Climate Change Impacts in the Mediterranean Resulting from a 2oC Global Temperature Rise. WWF report, Gland Switzerland. Accessed 01.10.2006 at http://assets.panda.org/downloads/medreportfinal8july05.pdf.

Hansen, L.J., J.L. Biringer and J.R. Hoffmann, 2003: Buying Time: A User’s Manual for Building Resistance and Resilience to Climate Change in Natural Systems. WWF Climate Change Program, Berlin, 246 pp.
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/our_solutions/business_industry/climate_savers/ index.cfm

Lechtenbohmer, S., V. Grimm, D. Mitze, S. Thomas, M. Wissner, 2005: Target 2020: Policies and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the EU. WWF European Policy Office, Wuppertal

Malcolm, J.R., C. Liu, L. Miller, T. Allnut and L. Hansen, Eds., 2002a: Habitats at Risk: Global Warming and Species Loss in Globally Significant Terrestrial Ecosystems. WWF World Wide Fund for Nature, Gland, 40 pp.

Rowell, A. and P.F. Moore, 2000: Global Review of Forest Fires. WWF/IUCN, Gland, Switzerland, 66 pp. http://www.iucn.org/themes/fcp/publications /files/global_review_forest_fires.pdf

WWF, 2004: Deforestation threatens the cradle of reef diversity. World Wide Fund for Nature, 2 December 2004. http://www.wwf.org/

WWF, 2004: Living Planet Report 2004. WWF- World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund), Gland, Switzerland, 44 pp.

WWF (World Wildlife Fund), 2005: An overview of glaciers, glacier retreat, and subsequent impacts in Nepal, India and China. World Wildlife Fund, Nepal Programme, 79 pp.

Zarsky, L. and K. Gallagher, 2003: Searching for the Holy Grail? Making FDI Work for Sustainable Development. Analytical Paper, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Switzerland

Finally, there are these authoritative sources cited by the IPCC – publications with names such as Leisure and Event Management:

Jones, B. and D. Scott, 2007: Implications of climate change to Ontario’s provincial parks. Leisure, (in press)

Jones, B., D. Scott and H. Abi Khaled, 2006: Implications of climate change for outdoor event planning: a case study of three special events in Canada’s National Capital region. Event Management, 10, 63-76

Not only should Pachauri resign, the Nobel committee should be deluged by world citizenry demanding they revoke the Nobel prize granted to the body that produced this document


http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/24/the-scandal-deepens-ipcc-ar4-riddled-with-non-peer-reviewed-wwf-papers/

[Tonus]

Piling on. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese)

An aside: The irony of this is that it runs in the UK's Guardian newspaper, and right under the headline is a link to an opinion piece (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/climate-emails-sceptics) criticizing skeptics for blowing the climategate scandal out of proportion. The opinion piece uses the same old line about how the critics take a few emails out of context, and uses the "hide the decline" email as an example. There are a couple of problems with this:

1- When put into context, there are large groups of emails that show exactly what skeptics and critics are claiming. See the links I made in an earlier post, leading to three articles at the Power Line blog. Each of the three articles shows a different issue and the email trail is quite damning when it's put in order, thus providing the necessary context.

2- The "hide the decline" issue leads to a larger issue of misleading use of data, and amazingly, the writer of the article touches on the issue but then brushes it off! The "problem" with the tree ring data is that it seems to under-represent periods of warming. This was fine (for the alarmists) when the data could be used to smooth out the Medieval Warming Period, which helped make the warming from 1980-1998 seem anomalous. But it wasn't so convenient when it indicated that the 1990s weren't as warm as the temperature record might show. So what they did was keep the tree ring data that smoothed out the MWP, but replaced the data that smoothed out the more recent warming, using instead the temperature record that indicated more warming.

And that is why that email is so incriminating. Not when it's taken out of context, but moreso when it is placed into context.

Anyway, on with the show...

Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws

Exclusive: Key study by East Anglia professor Phil Jones was based on suspect figures

Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.

A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.

Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue.

Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei-*Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up".

The revelations on the inadequacies of the 1990 paper do not undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, and other studies have produced similar findings. But they do call into question the probity of some climate change science.

The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN's embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades.

Wang was cleared of scientific fraud by his university, but new information brought to light today indicates at least one senior colleague had serious concerns about the affair.

It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist.

The revelations come at a torrid time for climate science, with the IPPC suffering heavy criticism for its use of information that had not been rigorously checked – in particular a false claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 – and UEA having been criticised last week by the deputy information commissioner for refusing valid requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full.

The temperature data from the Chinese weather stations measured the warming there over the past half century and appeared in a 1990 paper in the prestigious journal Nature, which was cited by the IPCC's latest report in 2007.

Climate change sceptics asked the UEA, via FOI requests, for location data for the 84 weather stations in eastern China, half of which were urban and half rural.

The history of where the weather stations were sited was crucial to Jones and Wang's 1990 study, as it concluded the rising temperatures recorded in China were the result of global climate changes rather the warming effects of expanding cities.

The IPCC's 2007 report used the study to justify the claim that "any urban-related trend" in global temperatures was small. Jones was one of two "coordinating lead authors" for the relevant chapter.

The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang's work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. "Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?" he asked Jones. He continued: "Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?"

Jones said he was not able to comment on the story.

Wang said: "I have been exonerated by my university on all the charges. When we started on the paper we had all the station location details in order to identify our network, but we cannot find them any more.

"Some of the location changes were probably only a few metres, and where they were more we corrected for them."

In an interview with the Observer on Sunday Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, warned of the danger of a public backlash against mainstream climate science over claims that scientists manipulated data. He declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans. "It's right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it's somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there," he said.

Last week the Information Commissioner's Office – the body that administers the Freedom of Information Act – said the University of East Anglia had flouted the rules in its handling of an FOI request in May 2008.

Days after receiving the request for information from the British climate change sceptic David Holland, Jones asked Prof Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University in the United States: "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise.

"Can you also email Gene [Eugene Wahl, a paleoclimatologist in Boulder, Colorado] and get him to do the same ... We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, also from Boulder] to do the same."

[B]The University of East Anglia says that no emails were deleted following this exchange.Regarding that last part: Oh sure, we believe you when you insist that no emails were deleted, seeing as how you guys have been so open, honest, and forthcoming all of this time. :rolleyes:

Note that the Guardian makes sure to mention that these revelations do nothing to "undermine the case that humans are causing climate change." They make sure to reinforce this further with a quote about how people shouldn't be allowed to distort the "overwhelming picture that's there." The desperation of the alarmist movement has become comical these days. 'Please ignore the mountains of evidence of tampering and fakery, and ignore the fact that a lot of that "overwhelming evidence" is based on the falsified data!'

IMO, we are long past the point where the claims of overwhelming evidence in favor of runaway warming caused by human activity can be taken seriously. Remember that the impetus for this movement is not that man is responsible for some amount of climate change-- it's that we're pushing the planet into a warming spiral that we won't be able to pull out of, and thus we must take drastic action now in order to forestall disaster. I think it's safe to say that the recent revelations of data tampering, tampering with the peer-review process, and corruption of the IPCC reports show that the emergency is one that was created out of whole cloth and should be discarded, and its perpetrators disgraced.

[Tonus]

LOL (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/02/08/noaa-blizzard-rearranges-climate-change-announcement/)

"Sorry guys, but a massive blizzard buried us in snow and complicated our press conference on global warming!"

If I was feeling snarky, I'd wonder how it is that the people telling us what the climate will be like in 100 years didn't see this coming...

NOAA: Blizzard Rearranges Climate Change Announcement

As D.C. continued to dig out from Snowmageddon and is keeping an eye on another storm system, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was busy making a climate change announcement.

NOAA, part of the Department of Commerce, is going to be providing information to individuals and decision-makers through a new NOAA Climate Service office. “More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including sea-level rise, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters. People are searching for relevant and timely information about these changes to inform decision-making about virtually all aspects of their lives,” the release says.

Earlier snowmelt? That would be nice.

Turns out the release was planned prepared ahead of the snowstorm, which shut federal agencies today and forced its senders to hold a press conference by telephone instead of at the National Press Club.

It’s not the first time inclement weather has put a chill on official efforts to tackle climate change. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to leave the Copenhagen summit early in December to get back to D.C. before the blizzard known as Snowpocalypse grounded all flights.

We know how this argument goes: Climate change-skeptics such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says that the weather conditions prove that “global warming” is a hoax; activists say that scientists are looking at longer-lasting weather patterns.

But, says NOAA spokesman Justin Kenney, they’re happy to have a chance to educate people about the difference between the climate and the weather.

"Your weather keeps getting in the way of my climate!!!" :lol:

[Grunthos]

Hey, Tonus, want to hear a hoot? Opie has returned to UGO.com... and is trying to defend AGW.

Christ on a unicycle, does anything ever change?

[Tonus]

I made a short post about it on the PaG boards. His posts were pretty sad, I'm not sure if he's so tired of reaching that he's doing it by rote, or if he's overreached so far that he finally fell over. Mentioning the temperature records without recognizing the scandals of the last few months... heh.

[Tonus]

Posting this mostly as a resource.

Yid with Lid (http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-climategate-shocker-even-cru.html) posts a blog entry based on this Guardian article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/09/climate-change-data-request-war), about the war of words that went on behind the scenes as the IPCC's 2001 report was looming on the horizon. You get to watch as the Mann hockey stick goes from being vigorously questioned to accepted as a centerpiece of climate alarmism, even though the concerns about its accuracy were never adequately addressed.

When a paper as left-leaning as the Guardian is starting a campaign to fully investigate the CRU emails (and posting a series of articles critical of what they contain) then the end may be near... for climate demagoguery. Make no mistake, the Guardian's writer (Fred Pearce) is no less convinced of AGW now than he was before, and makes sure to let us know in at least two chapters of the lengthy report. But at least he is willing to acknowledge the embarrassing contents of the CRU emails and what they show, instead of trying to shrug them off as 'random statements taken out of context.'*

The timing is probably a coincidence, as I am sure that they were working on this long before the crumbling of the IPCC's AR4 report became the latest climate scandal du jour. But it's damning nonetheless and helps to further undermine the credibility of both the IPCC and its reports. The hope is that this leads to the discrediting and removal of the cabal of obstructionists who turned the IPCC into their political playground. Or better yet, may it lead to the removal of the IPCC. We can shred their worthless reports and use it to bury them. I hope they printed it on recycled paper.



*Edit to add: Make no mistake, Pearce tries very very hard to push the alarmist narrative from start to end, to the extent of calling Nature magazine an "august" publication (indicating reverence and not a reference to the calendar month). Nature is one of the publications that bent its own rules to allow the 'climate gang' to keep its data hidden.

[Tonus]

Grunthos posted this item (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html?printingPage=true) at UGO. Phil Jones, it seems, has begun the process of falling upon his sword. It strikes me as a two-pronged approach designed to give his collaborators some cover. The story is unconvincing, but this is politics, and it's less about producing something plausible than it is producing something that the media can chew on.

Thus, Phil Jones is now cast as a sort of absent-minded professor, whose strengths include "integrity and doggedness" but who is just awful at record keeping. The CRU emails paint a very different picture of Dr. Jones, particularly the "integrity" part. But that messes up the narrative. So in effect, this is an attempt to "hide the decline" of Jones' reputation, if not his career.

Not that he's giving up entirely, mind you. He made sure to demand that his detractors prove AGW wrong (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/02/16/cru-chief-hey-why-dont-bloggers-disprove-agw-instead-of-criticizing-us/) instead of beating on him. This is clearly part of the narrative, because from a logical standpoint it is horribly weak. Aside from demanding that skeptics prove a negative, the CRU emails show that Jones was part of a group that tried its hardest to keep dissenting voices from having a proper peer-reviewed forum for their views, and even before climategate we knew that Jones had denied requests to use his data. When his back was finally pushed up against the wall, he admitted that the original data was gone. Thus, his calls for skeptics to 'put up or shut up' are just another ironic and hypocritical statement.

Still, he has painted the bullseye on himself. People like to have simple solutions to complex problems, and Jones is providing them with one. He misplaced the truth in a pile of papers on his messy desk. The obstruction of the peer-review process? The destruction and deliberate mishandling of data? The attempts to get around FOIA requests? That will all be ignored. His cohorts can admit that their research is tainted but blame it on Jones. They can continue to insist that AGW is real (as Jones has, even at this point) and that it needs to be researched further. And if you'll just provide them with a few millions more in grant money, they'll get right on that.

Edit to add: this item (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/02/17/did-nature-misreport-fraud-issue-with-jones/) was posted this morning at HotAir. A reminder of just how complicit some of the industry press is in the AGW scandal. This shouldn't be shocking, and one would expect that Jones would go to a sympathetic ear with his phony sob story. And again, people will remember the claims made by Jones and Nature, and the MSM will dutifully report those. But the real story will not receive as much exposure, and so Jones may still get off easy. But the AGW movement is all but dead, IMO.

Edit part II: The hits just keep on coming: (http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-2-0-%E2%80%94-the-nasa-files-u-s-climate-science-as-corrupt-as-cru-pjm-exclusive-%E2%80%94-part-one/) NASA begins to crack under FOIA request pressure. Get ready for ClimateGate 2.0.

Edit part III: Hey, wouldn't it be cool if there was a way to test the effects of CO2 levels on heat trapping with real data? Wait... you mean to tell me that they already did? (http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_agw_smoking_gun.html) And in three peer-reviewed papers, no less! And what did they find? In short, that more CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't increase global temperatures. At all.

Edit part IV: The fallout begins to get a bit heavy. (http://www.redstate.com/haystack/2010/02/16/exodus-from-climate-change-bandwagon-begins-en-masse/) Cap and Trade has been as good as dead for a while, but now they're whacking at its corpse with shovels.

Edit part V: I don't know why there's so much being published today on the crumbling of global warming alarmism, but here is yet another one. (http://spectator.org/archives/2010/02/17/the-disappearing-science-of-gl/) It's a fairly cogent summary of the fraud that has been employed, and not just at East Anglia's CRU. It talks about how NASA has also played its part in distorting the record. Which means that nearly all of the temperature records have been changed to show more warming than has actually been occurring.

Edit part VI: Scientist slaps down more IPCC nonsense (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/15/hatton_on_hurricanes/), this time regarding hurricanes. Seems as though the IPCC was involved in (gasp!) cherry picking data! Imagine that...

Edit part VII: Shocker: IPCC underestimates sea ice extent by 50%. (http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2010/02/16/another-ipcc-error-antarctic-sea-ice-increase-underestimated-by-50/) As this post explains, AGW defenders have tried to shrug off the multitude of embarrassing errors and misstatements in the IPCC's AR4 by pointing out that it's a 3,000-page document, and that a few "minor errors" do not spoil the bulk of the information. But boy, those minor errors are starting to add up, and you start to wonder just how many more will be found as people begin to scrutinize those 3,000 pages...

[Tonus]

One of the arguments that Phil Jones has put forth is that there are other temperature records out there, and that those records corroborate those of the CRU.

This is probably why. (http://www.sott.net/articles/show/203117-Czechgate-Climate-scientists-dump-world-s-second-oldest-cold-climate-record)

Czechgate: Climate scientists dump world's second oldest 'cold' climate record

The latest independent analysis of world climate data by acclaimed skeptic blogger 'Chiefio' (aka E. M. Smith) and his blog contributors confirm that the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) has cynically dumped the world's second oldest and reliable climate record at Prague in the Czech Republic for no scientific reason.

Climate skeptics claim the censoring of the Czech's raw data has been perpetrated by climate scientists because the Prague records prove there has been no warming in Europe for over two hundred years.

Bloggers found that GHCN, based at Arizona State University, also cut out Prague's warm 1940's as it would make recent warming look unexceptional. This process of adjusting raw data by climatologists (almost always upwards) is known as 'homogenization.' Skeptics then found that climatologists had replaced the original Prague dataset from 1949 with a homogenized warmer series from another weather station in Praha/Ruzyne even though Prague had never stopped taking temperature readings.

Skeptic analysts are outraged because, after the Central England Temperature Record, the Czech records are the second oldest continous and reliable temperature record in the world and are known as the Central European Temperature Record. The data set has been kept uninterrupted since 1775 in Praha-Klementinum (Prague).

Interested readers looking to verify for themselves this outrageous deceit can check the records here, then search for "Praha/Ruzyne." The real Praha/Klementinum data may be found for the period 1770 to 2009 here.

From plain reading of the Czech data we see that for the past 200 years the temperature in this part of central Europe has warmed by a statistically insignificant 0.25° Centigrade per century.

The Prague raw temperatures correlate perfectly with those of the world's oldest climate data set, found in the Central England Temperature Record (CET) that has been running continuously for 351 years.

Thus, the two oldest and most reliable raw thermometer records in the world are telling us there is not a shred of real world evidence to show any significant global warming. Rather, it the homogenized or faked data created artificially by climatologists in their laboratories that is consistently being shown as the source of such 'warming.' This is the sort of devastating information that you won't see in the mainstream press, even though it should be a front-page story. The two oldest temperature data sets in Europe correlate very well to each other, which vouches for their reliability. They show a very gradual warming of one degree centigrade... OVER A PERIOD OF FOUR HUNDRED YEARS.

Ever wonder why alarmists point to the records at GHCN, GISS, NASA, NOAA, and so on? Because they're either using the same data, or they reached their conclusions by making the same indefensible changes to the raw data. Warming trends prior to the 1990s were smoothed out, and temperature trends after 1979 were adjusted upwards, with an increase in the adjustments as we went forward. It's no surprise, therefore, that these various data sets seem to correlate so well.

[Tonus]

Funny. (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/19/north-america-snow-models-miss-the-mark/)

Climate alarmists have reacted to the recent changes in weather in two ways:

1- Remind us that "weather is not the climate."
2- Insist that colder temperatures are proof of global warming.

Aside from the fact that those two points contradict each other (which is a reminder of just how absurd the first statement is) is the fact that just a few years ago, climate models were predicting that global warming would result in less snow...

North America snow models miss the mark

While some other bloggers and journalists insist that recent winter snows are proof of global warming effects, they miss the fact that models have been predicting less snow in the norther hemisphere. See this 2005 peer reviewed paper:

Frei, A. and G. Gong, 2005. Decadal to Century Scale Trends in North American Snow Extent in Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL023394.shtml). Geophysical Research Letters, 32:L18502, doi: 10.1029/2005GL023394.It says exactly the opposite of what some are saying now. – Anthony

=====================================

Guest post by Steven Goddard

A 2005 Columbia University study titled “WILL CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECT SNOW COVER OVER NORTH AMERICA?” ran nine climate models used by the IPCC, and all nine predicted that North American winter snow cover would decline significantly, starting in about 1990.

In this study, current and future decadal trends in winter North American SCE (NA-SCE) are investigated, using nine general circulation models (GCMs) of the global atmosphere-ocean system participating in the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC-AR4)…

all nine models exhibit a clear and statistically significant decreasing trend in 21st century NA-SCE

[You can view the graphs at the link]

Some of the models predicted a significant decline in winter snow cover between 1990 and 2010.

[You can view the graphs at the link]

Climate Model predictions of Snow Cover Decline (http://www.eee.columbia.edu/research-projects/water_resources/climate-change-snow-cover/images/FreiGong2005Fig4iii.jpg)

As we know, winter snow cover has actually increased about 5% since it bottomed in 1989, and is now close to a record maximum.

[You can view the graphs at the link]

Below is another interesting graph. It shows the number of top 100 snow extent weeks by decade. I took the top 100 weekly snow extents (out of 2227) from the Rutgers record and sorted them by decade. The past decade has been at least as snowy as the 1970s.

[You can view the graphs at the link]

The past decade has had the most weeks in the top 100 since 1966.

[You can view the graphs at the link]

NASA Earth Observatory Images (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/4000/4218/modis_snow_quad.jpg)

Above are images from NASA showing snow extent from 2001 to 2004. Below is an image from 2010, showing snow cover in all 48 states.

[You can view the graphs at the link]

NOAA Image - February 12, 2010 (http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims_gif/ARCHIVE/USA/2010/ims2010043_usa.gif)

So far, the climate models have the wrong polarity on their predictions of winter snow cover changes.The next time someone talks about how current weather trends were predicted by climate models...

[Grunthos]

The UN's chief negotiator on Climate fell on his career sword today, too.

[Tonus]

You know it's getting bad when you are close to losing Newsweek. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/233887)

Keep in mind that the piece tries its hardest to put as biased a slant on the issue as it can. For example:

- It describes skeptics as "a cottage industry of amateur climatologists," which is bunk. Some prominent climate scientists have spoken out against the hysteria, bad science, and improper activities of the IPCC cabal for years.

- It promotes the idea that climate scientists were hampered, in part, by a flood of FOIA requests by that amateur rabble.

- It repeats the claim that the CRU email and document release was a "theft" by "hackers." This charge is not only unproven, but is ridiculous on its face when the facts are carefully considered.

- It allows that Jones, Mann, et al "may have stepped too far over the line from science to advocacy, undermining their own credibility."

- It repeats the claim that the errors in the most recent IPCC report are "minor" even as the examples of such sloppiness climb into the dozens.

- It downplays Pachauri's conflicts of interest by describing only his ties to an investment firm, ignoring a number of more blatant examples which have created a scandal in his native India.

- It downplays the level of deceit involved in the original hockey stick graph, summarizing it in a manner that makes it seem as if Mann's only real mistake was in not releasing his data.

With that said, Newsweek's article sounds a call to climate scientists to stop hiding data and submit to an open scientific process. It does sound as if they're blaming that --and not the numerous other acts of falsification and outright fraud-- for the loss of confidence in science that led to the failure of the Copenhagen talks. I don't think it's acceptable to fudge the truth that way, but I bet that the Newsweek writer tied himself into knots trying to find the best spin he could put on this story.

I get the impression that this is a part of what has begun with the recent Phil Jones interviews. The idea is to accept that this is a staggering loss for AGW fanatics, and find ways to soften the fall. I don't think that they're giving up, as much as they are simply trying to paper over the current mess so that they can work on another approach. If they can keep some of the infrastructure intact (particularly the IPCC) then they can take another whack at scaring us into accepting bad science which leads to bad economic policy.

But it's going to be very, very difficult the next time around. In part because the fallout isn't close to being finished, and I think that a lot of big players are still to fall before it's all done. And if the primary change that comes from this is a more open scientific and research process, that will also make it much more difficult.

[Grunthos]

Not to play devil's advocate or anything (far from it) but one of the problems that dead-tree glossy magi like Newsweek have always faced is that their major articles are frequently several weeks old (despite their name) before the publication date arrives. They are also printed quite some time before they go "on newsstands," and they tend to even tie their web publication dates to coincide with their physical pubs going on sale.

Add that to their internal inertia and bias, and it's a wonder they've lasted this far into the e-pub world.

Old, slow, inflexible, sot in their ways, and clearly fallen "too far over the line from journalism to advocacy."

[Tonus]

The next disastrous economic bubble? It may be the carbon credit market. (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100003851/here-comes-the-next-bubble-carbon-trading/)

Here comes the next bubble – carbon trading

Forget CDOs and other inventions of the great credit bubble. That’s all old hat. Investment bankers are moving on to an area of securities trading that is potentially even more lucrative, and what’s more, even has a social value – saving the planet. Or supposedly so, anyway. I’ve long had my suspicions about the great carbon trading bubble, and I’ve had them pretty much confirmed by a brilliant article which has been drawn to my attention by one Mark Schapiro in Harper’s magazine (http://citizensclimatelobby.org/files/Conning-the-Climate.pdf).


According to Mr Schapiro, carbon trading is now the fastest growing commodities market on earth. Since Kyoto signatories bought in to the cap and trade concept in 2005, there have been more than $300bn carbon transactions, prompting several investment banks, including Goldman Sachs and Barclays, to set up their own carbon trading desks. But that’s just the start. If President Obama and his supporters can institute a cap-and-trade system in the United States – and that’s a big if for this increasingly marooned presidency – demand could explode into a $2 to $3 trillion market.


And here’s the great thing about it. Unlike traditional commodities markets, which will eventually involve delivery to someone in physical form, the carbon market is based on lack of delivery of an invisible substance to no-one. Since the market revolves around creating carbon credits, or finding carbon reduction projects whose benefits can then be sold to those with a surplus of emissions, it is entirely intangible.


“Carbon developers”, many of them employed by large multinationals, travel the world in search of carbon reduction projects to sell, while firms of carbon accountants have been established to verify on the United Nations’ behalf that those reductions are real. The whole thing, though well intentioned, looks wide open to abuse and scams. Mr Schapiro’s account of the carbon trading market is obviously a sceptical one, and no doubt there are others that take a less cynical view. But I wonder what all the wide eyed climate change campaigners are going to say when the first scandals begin to break, still more what they’ll make of it when the whole thing turns out to be another giant asset bubble – if indeed the non production of carbon can be described as an asset.


What they are doing is commoditizing a subsidy, one that can be defined and applied arbitrarily. How it is defined and applied could affect companies drastically, making the market for carbon credits potentially a multi-trillion dollar market, and thus putting enormous power into the hands of the people who will control that aspect of the market. Who will control it? Politicians, mostly, with the help of the UN. Need I even explain what may (and will almost certainly) go wrong with this arrangement?

[Edmaster]

You mean bubbles can burst?

[Diniden]

Isn't this the definition of a toxic asset:

"based on lack of delivery of an invisible substance to no-one"

I mean, it doesn't curb hunger, it doesn't speed up production, it doesn't offer defense. It's an economic void o_o

[Grunthos]

Perp-walk Al Gore straight into Mauna Loa...

Environment Sea level Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels

Study claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century – but the report's author now says true estimate is still unknown

Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.

The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.

At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study "strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results". The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher.

Many scientists criticised the IPCC approach as too conservative, and several papers since have suggested that sea level could rise more. Martin Vermeer of the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published a study in December that projected a rise of 0.75m to 1.9m by 2100.

Siddall said that he did not know whether the retracted paper's estimate of sea level rise was an overestimate or an underestimate.

Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: "It's one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science." He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study's conclusion.

"Retraction is a regular part of the publication process," he said. "Science is a complicated game and there are set procedures in place that act as checks and balances."

Nature Publishing Group, which publishes Nature Geoscience, said this was the first paper retracted from the journal since it was launched in 2007.

The paper – entitled "Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change" – used fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements to reconstruct how sea level has fluctuated with temperature since the peak of the last ice age, and to project how it would rise with warming over the next few decades.

In a statement the authors of the paper said: "Since publication of our paper we have become aware of two mistakes which impact the detailed estimation of future sea level rise. This means that we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study without further work.

"One mistake was a miscalculation; the other was not to allow fully for temperature change over the past 2,000 years. Because of these issues we have retracted the paper and will now invest in the further work needed to correct these mistakes."

In the Nature Geoscience retraction, in which Siddall and his colleagues explain their errors, Vermeer and Rahmstorf are thanked for "bringing these issues to our attention".


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall/print

[Tonus]

Britain's Met Office: Do over plz k thnx (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/23/britains-weather-office-proposes-climategate/)

How is this not an admission that the temperature record has been corrupted and cannot be trusted?

Britain's Weather Office Proposes Climate-Gate Do-Over

After the firestorm of criticism called Climate-gate, the British government's official Meteorological Office has decided to give its modern climate data a do-over.

At a meeting on Monday of about 150 climate scientists in the quiet Turkish seaside resort of Antalya, representatives of the weather office (known in Britain as the Met Office) quietly proposed that the world's climate scientists start all over again on a "grand challenge" to produce a new, common trove of global temperature data that is open to public scrutiny and "rigorous" peer review.

In other words, conduct investigations into modern global warming in a way that may help to end the mammoth controversy over world temperature data that has been stirred up in the past few years.

The executive summary of the Met Office proposal to the World Meteorological Organization's Committee for Climatology was obtained by Fox News. In it, the Met Office defends its historical record of temperature readings, along with similar data collected in the U.S., as a "robust indicator of global change." But it admits that "further development" of the record is required "in particular to better assess the risks posed by changes in extremes of climate."

Among other things, its older data is maintained on a monthly basis, and the Met Office proposal says that is "grossly inadequate" to providing information on a daily and "sub-daily" basis.

A Met Office spokesman, Dave Britton, declared that the decision to re-do the data collection had been gestating for "a long time," then added: "But it would be naïve to say that [the Climate-gate controversy] didn't have an impact." He added: "It's not something that we can do alone."

As a result, the proposal says, "we feel that it is timely to propose an international effort to reanalyze surface temperature data in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which has the responsibility for global observing and monitoring systems for weather and climate."

The new effort, the proposal says, would provide:

• "verifiable datasets starting from a common databank of unrestricted data"
• "methods that are fully documented in the peer reviewed literature and open to scrutiny;"
• "a set of independent assessments of surface temperature produced by independent groups using independent methods,"
• "comprehensive audit trails to deliver confidence in the results;"
• "robust assessment of uncertainties associated with observational error, temporal and geographical in homogeneities."

The Met Office proposes that the new international effort to recalibrate temperature data start at a "workshop"' hosted by its Hadley Climate Research Centre, which maintains data in collaboration with the controversial Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at Britain's East Anglia University. The Met Office would invite "key players" to start the "agreed community challenge" of creating the new datasets. A Met Office spokesman said the new effort would take about three years to complete, but would not estimate the cost.

The Met Office proposal asserts that "we do not anticipate any substantial changes in the resulting global and continental-scale ... trends" as a result of the new round of data collection. But, the proposal adds, "this effort will ensure that the datasets are completely robust and that all methods are transparent."

Those strongly underlined assurances put the Met Office in strong contrast to the accusations that have been hurled at its collaborator, CRU, epicenter of the Climate-gate controversy. Among other things, the CRU had stonewalled climate skeptics who demanded to know more about its scientific methods in establishing a dramatic record of global warming, especially in the 20th century. (An inquiry established that the institution had flouted British freedom of information laws in refusing to come up with the data.)

The stonewall began to crumble after a gusher of leaked emails revealed climate scientists, including the CRU's chief, Phil Jones, discussing how to keep controversial climate data out of the hands of the skeptics, keep opposing scientific viewpoints out of peer-reviewed scientific journals, and bemoaned that their climate models failed to account for more than a decade of stagnation in global temperatures. Jones later revealed that key temperature datasets used in Hadley's predictions had been lost, and could not be retrieved for verification.

Jones stepped down temporarily after the British government announced an ostensibly independent inquiry into the still-growing scandal, but that only fanned the flames, as skeptics pointed out ties between several panel members and the East Anglia center. In an interview two weeks ago, Jones also admitted that there has been no "statistically significant" global warming in the past 15 years.

The Met Office's desire for more robust and transparent data could also prove to be a blow for Rajendra Pachauri, head of the United Nations-backed International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose most recent report, published in 2007, has been exposed by skeptics as rife with scientific errors, larded with un-reviewed and non-scientific source materials, and other failings.

As details of the report's sloppiness emerged, the ranks of skeptics of the work have swelled to include larger numbers of the scientific community, including weather specialists who worked on the sprawling IPCC report. Calls for Pachauri's resignation have come from organizations as normally opposed as the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the British chapter of Greenpeace. So far, he has refused to step down.

The Met proposal argues says that its old datasets "are adequate for answering the pressing 20th Century questions of whether climate is changing and if so how. Bet they are fundamentally ill-conditioned to answer 21st Century questions such as how extremes are changing and therefore what adaptation and mitigation decisions should be taken."

Those "21st Century questions" are not small and they are very far from cheap. At Copenhagen, wealthy nations were being asked to spend trillions of dollars on answering them, a deal that only fell through when China, India, and other near-developed nations refused to join the mammoth climate-control deal.

The question after the Met Office's proposal may be whether environmentalists eager to move those mountains of cash are also ready to stand down until the 21st century questions get 21st century answers.
This is the latest attempt at damage-control by AGW alarmists. The Met Office is recommending that the temperature record be re-started, which should imply that the existing records are not up to snuff. But they insist that the existing records are just fine, it's really all about the openness of the process and the inadequacy of the methods. It is painful to watch.

[Tonus]

Heh... the new Hockey Stick graph...

http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/files/2010/02/AGW_hockey_stick_graph_big.gif

via PJM (http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2010/02/25/new-global-warming-data-reveals-accurate-hockey-stick-graph/)

[Grunthos]

Saw this one today... Really kind of explains the shenanigans is a simple way:

Raw data:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/long_rural_urban_raw.png


"adjusted" data:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/long_urban_rural_adjusted.png

Notice a difference?

Also, recall that one of the big names in the whole AGW thing, was a gent (I think it was Phil Jones) who made his name in climate sicence by "proving" that the perceived warming wasn't due to the "urban heat island" effect.

Which is pretty much what this analysis shows them "adjusting" to non-existence, by way of removing the difference between urban and rural temp averages.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/26/a-new-paper-comparing-ncdc-rural-and-urban-us-surface-temperature-data/#more-16726

[Tonus]

I've mentioned before that people try to dismiss the CRU email archive by claiming that it's only damaging when individual emails and statements are taken out-of-context. I've also pointed out that anytime that I've seen the emails placed into context, they tell a much less flattering story than even that which is presumed by the few out-of-context snippets being thrown around.

Well... here is another example. (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/02/the-final-straw/)

Long story short: Phil Jones' attitude on sharing of data is shown to be very fluid. Prior to the 2004/5 publication of McIntyre's paper that criticized Mann's hockey stick, Jones seems willing to share data, and even expresses his view that data should be made available and shared when possible. After the publication of the McIntyre/McKittrick paper, Jones becomes much more obstinate regarding data sharing, but only with people who he believes will use the data to argue against his agenda.

He shares data with one person, then admits that he would rather delete the data than send it to McIntyre. He tells Warwick Hughes that he doesn't want to share data with him since Hughes' desire is to "find something wrong with it." He later tells Mann that he will not share any more data with McIntyre, in part because what he has is a mess, and in part because it would help McIntyre to understand the ways that they've meddled with it.

I'm not sure that "fraud" or "mismanagement" adequately covers what Jones and his cohorts were doing during this period.

[Tonus]

News item: Disgraced nutbag (who in 1968 predicted that population growth would lead to mass catastrophic starvation in the 1980s) asks scientists to play at politics in order to advance the AGW agenda. In so doing, he drags the National Academy of Sciences into a potential new email scandal...


E-mails from National Academy of Sciences plot attacks on AGW skeptics

posted at 9:30 am on March 5, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

(http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/05/e-mails-from-national-acadamy-of-sciences-plot-attacks-on-agw-skeptics/?print=1)
Earlier this week, I criticized the American media for ignoring the rapidly-increasing number of scandals surrounding the IPCC, the University of East Anglia CRU, and the anthropogenic global-warming movement in general. Today, an American newspaper breaks news of yet another scandal involving AGW scientists and e-mail — but this time here in the US. The Washington Times (http://m.washingtontimes.com//news/2010/mar/05/scientists-plot-to-hit-back-at-critics/) obtained e-mails sent through the National Academy of Sciences (http://www.nasonline.org/) that show AGW scientists conspiring to attack critics:Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach” to gut the credibility of skeptics.

In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of “being treated like political pawns” and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.

“Most of our colleagues don’t seem to grasp that we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules,” Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.

Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work.
Perhaps the scientists should concentrate more on science than advocacy. In fact, that was the conclusion of several people in the e-mail chain, warning against getting into a big public-relations battle when the supposedly “settled science” of the IPCC has all but utterly collapsed. Even if one is inclined to the most paranoid possible perspective on the meltdown, a $50,000 back-page ad in the New York Times will hardly offset all of the negative publicity that AGW scientists have managed to create on their own.

And besides, a $50,000 back-page ad in the New York Times isn’t going to reach people inclined towards skepticism on AGW anyway. Do these scientists realize who reads the Gray Lady? The only people impressed by an ad in the NYT will be the Times’ business office.

Placing ads won’t prove AGW theory. The only way to do that would be to produce solid, reproducible results in completely open-source research with transparent data and methodology … which is what we used to call science before AGW advocates hijacked the term to describe religious belief. One researcher says that the plotting does nothing to build credibility for the science, which these very people undermined with their doomsday predictions in the first place:“Sounds like this group wants to step up the warfare, continue to circle the wagons, continue to appeal to their own authority, etc.,” said Judith A. Curry, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Surprising, since these strategies haven’t worked well for them at all so far.”

She said scientists should downplay their catastrophic predictions, which she said are premature, and instead shore up and defend their research. She said scientists and institutions that have been pushing for policy changes “need to push the disconnect button for now,” because it will be difficult to take action until public confidence in the science is restored.

“Hinging all of these policies on global climate change with its substantial element of uncertainty is unnecessary and is bad politics, not to mention having created a toxic environment for climate research,” she said.
“Appeal to their own authority” is a fairly elegant way of pointing out the hubris in AGW advocates who declared the science “settled” and began to brand everyone who questioned it as “deniers.” Stephen Dinan reports that Stanford researcher Stephen Schneider accused Senator James Inhofe of “McCarthyesque” attacks for urging a criminal investigation into potential fraud in the AGW movement. Schneider must have missed the calls from AGW advocates to have any weatherman who expressed doubt about global warming to be decertified as meteorologists (http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming011807.htm), or questioning the patriotism of Americans (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/02/11/video-new-test-of-patriotism-agw-belief/) who dare to question the sputtering consensus. Nothing McCarthyesque about that, is there?

At least the NAS has the good sense to realize how bad this looks. They insisted to Dinan that they had nothing to do with facilitating this effort and that the researchers are merely using their e-mail servers to pass the messages back and forth. Maybe the NAS should take the time to remind these advocates that they should focus on performing to scientific standards and let the results inform the policy. Instead, it appears that we have a nascent American version of the East Anglia CRU strategy — which didn’t work out too well for the UEA CRU, its director, or the UN panel that relied on its efforts.

Update: Gabriel Malor at Ace’s place (http://ace.mu.nu/archives/299014.php) picks up on another part of the story I missed — the inclusion of Paul Ehrlich in this group:But then come back here and recall with me that Paul Ehrlich is one of the most discredited pseudo-scientific alarmists of all time. In 1968 he predicted that population growth would exceed the resources available on the planet, resulting in decades of famine and disease. He conned universities and governments into thinking that hundreds of millions of people would die by the 1980s.

His error, though he refuses to this day to admit it, was failing to consider such obvious things as: (1) more people means more land being farmed, not less; (2) improvements in farming techniques; (3) people (outside of academe, I mean) don’t just sit around and wait to starve; and (4) the market regulates scarcity far better than idiot pseudoscientists expect.
Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EI3XOS?ie=UTF8&tag=captsquar-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B000EI3XOS), which also included this interesting advice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich) for governments of the future: that they should put “temporary sterilants” in the water supply and then closely regulate the antidote in order to choose who could reproduce and when. If he’s the leading light of AGW theory, that explains (a) why it’s not science-based at all but rather a screen for statist control, and (b) why it’s collapsing as a science.

I do like Curry's use of the phrase "appeal to their own authority." It is exactly what they had been doing. One example being when the IPCC crew were doing all that they could to keep peer-reviewed work by skeptics from being published, then using the lack of published work as a criticism against those same skeptics.

[Edmaster]

You mean, there's someone who wants to advance AGW without credible evidence?

How shocking!

[Tonus]

AGW evangelist: the problem is that we don't BELIEVE (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/07/climate-change-inertia-prophet)

The whole thing is a funny read. These two snippets are gold:

More jaw and Gore from politicians can't cut it. They have come to seem secondhand sources, merely parroting a frail scientific thesis. That goes, alas, for journalists, too – and for pressure groups issuing lurid warnings or staging angry demos. Those of us who are convinced, who believe in the necessity of action, haven't changed our minds. But we're not the point. The audience that matters is out there, sleeping or drifting. And rousing it will demand something different, not more of the same.

None of it has a ring of renewed confidence. And the plain fact is that we surely need a prophet, not yet another committee. We need one passionate, persuasive scientist who can connect and convince – not because he preaches apocalypse in gory detail, but in simple, overwhelming terms. We need to be taught to believe by a true believer in a world where belief is the fatal, missing ingredient.

This is after he brushes aside the recent avalanche of news that places serious doubt on the work of the IPCC and many AGW supporters, using the usual excuses to avoid dealing with the issues. He paints an accurate portrait of so many alarmists-- they are convinced. They believe. And if only there was someone who could fool everyone else into believing...

[Tonus]

Just dumping this (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28gore.html) here, because there will come a point when someone will insist that alarmists weren't really as hysterical about the looming "catastrophe" as they really were. This is, of course, from the head alarmist himself, Al Gore...


We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change

By AL GORE
Published: February 27, 2010


It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.
There is more at the link, three endless pages of it. And as expected, it's full of the usual excuses, half-truths, non-truths, omissions, obfuscation, and everything else we have come to expect from the loudest alarmists, the ones that cannot backtrack without severe damage to their reputations and pocketbooks. Read it if you want, after the first eight or nine paragraphs I was rolling my eyes so much it became impossible to continue.

But that first paragraph, the one warning that we're facing "unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it" is the one I want to preserve. Attempts by alarmists to turn around now and try to soften the message (even Gore himself uses the term "climate change" in his editorial, even as he goes on about how much warmer the planet is getting) should be met with a reminder that not long ago, they weren't talking about the normal cycles of the Earth's climate. They were telling us that we were fast approaching a 'tipping point' beyond which the fate of life itself would be determined.

And I want people to remember what it was that they were trying to sell us when they thought we weren't paying attention.

[Tonus]

Oh my... the tragic effects (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/19/devastating-non-trends-in-us-climate/) of climate change in the US!

[Tonus]

globally respected thinker: you're too stupid to deal with climate change. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock-climate-change)


James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change

Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory.

It follows a tumultuous few months in which public opinion on efforts to tackle climate change has been undermined by events such as the climate scientists' emails leaked from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit.

"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful."

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", he added. "Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

Lovelock, 90, believes the world's best hope is to invest in adaptation measures, such as building sea defences around the cities that are most vulnerable to sea-level rises. He thinks only a catastrophic event would now persuade humanity to take the threat of climate change seriously enough, such as the collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica, such as the Pine Island glacier, which would immediately push up sea level.

"That would be the sort of event that would change public opinion," he said. "Or a return of the dust bowl in the mid-west. Another Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report won't be enough. We'll just argue over it like now." The IPCC's 2007 report concluded that there was a 90% chance that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are causing global warming, but the panel has been criticised over a mistaken claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2030.

Lovelock says the events of the recent months have seen him warming to the efforts of the "good" climate sceptics: "What I like about sceptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: 'Crumbs, have I made a mistake here?' If you don't have that continuously, you really are up the creek. The good sceptics have done a good service, but some of the mad ones I think have not done anyone any favours. You need sceptics, especially when the science gets very big and monolithic."

Lovelock, who 40 years ago originated the idea that the planet is a giant, self-regulating organism – the so-called Gaia theory – added that he has little sympathy for the climate scientists caught up in the UEA email scandal. He said he had not read the original emails – "I felt reluctant to pry" – but that their reported content had left him feeling "utterly disgusted".

"Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science," he said. "I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do. You've got to have standards."A couple of points here:

1- The Guardian seems to still be hanging on to the global warming narrative. Notice that they imply that the only problem with the IPCC's recent report was a single mistaken claim. But recently it was discovered that aside from the false claim about Himalayan glaciers, there was a false claim about losses in the world's rain forests, as well as many claims and portions of the report that were based on sources such as a hiking magazine and unverified claims made by advocacy groups.

2- Lovelock "felt reluctant to pry" by reading the archive of emails from the CRU, even though by now it should be understood that the bulk of the emails deal with the work that was being done on the IPCC and climate science. Even the personal emails that I've seen are references to other people who are dealing with the issue.

3- It's good to see Lovelock criticize those who were discovered playing fast and loose with data, and it's good to see him state his support for openness and skepticism in scientific study. It's not so good to see him advocate putting democracy aside in order to deal with climate change. Most democratic nations have not suspended democracy when they were at war, though they may have undermined it in some ways.

Telling us that humanity isn't smart enough to deal with a problem, and then suggesting that the solution is to put humans in dictatorial control of the world... that doesn't seem very logical to me. Especially when it seems that the problem that we 'need' to take care of may not exist, or may not be a problem that requires such a radical approach.

[Grunthos]

Don't bother him with reality, dammit... he's a SCIENTIST and RESPECTED THINKER!!!!1!

[Tonus]

Looks like we may have to start from scratch.

NASA climate data worse than East Anglia CRU? (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/31/nasa-climate-data-worse-than-east-anglia-cru/)

That assessment doesn’t come from climate-change skeptics, but from NASA itself (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/30/nasa-data-worse-than-climategate-data/). A FOIA request from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-three-of-the-four-temperature-datasets-now-irrevocably-tainted/) revealed the internal e-mail evaluation, and also another problem with the East Anglia CRU data. It turns out that the databases maintained by NASA, UEA CRU, and the NOAA NCDC have self-endorsing mechanisms that mean that problems in one or more mean problems for all:NASA was able to put a man on the moon, but the space agency can’t tell you what the temperature was when it did. By its own admission, NASA’s temperature records are in even worse shape than the besmirched Climate-gate data.

E-mail messages obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that NASA concluded that its own climate findings were inferior to those maintained by both the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) — the scandalized source of the leaked Climate-gate e-mails — and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center.

The e-mails from 2007 reveal that when a USA Today reporter asked if NASA’s data “was more accurate” than other climate-change data sets, NASA’s Dr. Reto A. Ruedy replied with an unequivocal no. He said “the National Climatic Data Center’s procedure of only using the best stations is more accurate,” admitting that some of his own procedures led to less accurate readings.

“My recommendation to you is to continue using NCDC’s data for the U.S. means and [East Anglia] data for the global means,” Ruedy told the reporter.
Why is this a problem for all of the anthropogenic global-warming (AGW) data sets? NASA chief James Hansen, now an Obama administration official, explained in the same e-mail thread:“The different groups have cooperated in a very friendly way to try to understand different conclusions when they arise,” said Dr. James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in the same 2007 e-mail thread. Earlier this month, in an updated analysis of the surface temperature data, GISS restated that the separate analyses by the different agencies “are not independent, as they must use much of the same input observations.”
The efforts by NASA, UEA CRU, and NCDC have not been independent of each other at all. They have been very much related, which means that systemic problems discovered in the UEA CRU data and analyses bleed over onto the other projects as well. They use each other’s analyses as assumptions, and each other’s data as the basis of their own calculations. The collapse of the UEA CRU’s credibility necessarily damages the credibility of the entire AGW industry.

Of course, that’s hardly the only damage to AGW credibility over the last few months:


University of East Anglia e-mails (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2009/11/20/do-hacked-e-mails-show-global-warming-fraud/) that exposed data destruction, attempts to hide contradictory data, and conspiracies to sabotage the work of skeptical scientists
The East Anglia CRU threw out their raw data (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2009/11/29/weird-science-east-anglia-cru-threw-out-their-raw-data/), undermining any effort to check their work
NOAA/GHCN “homogenization” falsified climate declines into increases (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2009/12/09/east-anglia-homogenization-falsified-declines-into-increases/)
East Anglia CRU’s below-standard computer modeling (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2009/12/16/video-east-anglia-crus-below-standard-computer-modeling/)
No rise in atmospheric carbon fraction (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2010/01/04/no-rise-in-atmospheric-carbon-over-the-last-150-years-university-of-bristol/) over the last 150 years: University of Bristol
IPCC withdraws claim (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2010/01/17/oops-ipcc-to-withdraw-claim-that-agw-will-wipe-out-himalayan-glaciers-by-2035/) that AGW will wipe out Himalayan glaciers by 2035
IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri knew Himalayan claim was bogus for months (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2010/01/30/ipcc-chief-hid-glacier-information-for-months/) before exposure
Amazonian rainforest conclusions not based on scientific research but on advocacy group claims (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2010/01/26/more-bogus-agw-information-in-ipcc-report/)
Mountain glacier claims based on unsubstantiated student theses and anecdotes from climber magazine (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2010/01/31/ipcc-based-claims-on-a-student-dissertation-and-a-magazine-article/)
Search of IPCC report footnotes exposes ten more student dissertations presented as peer-reviewed research (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2010/02/07/even-more-problems-found-in-ipcc-report-on-agw/)
Medieval Warming Period temperatures may have been global (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2010/02/14/former-cru-chief-admits-warming-may-not-be-unprecedented/), undermining entire AGW case
Measurements used for AGW case were influenced by urbanization, poor location, bad data sets (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2010/02/14/was-there-any-actual-warming-to-begin-with/)
African-crop claims exposed as false (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2010/02/15/ipcc-warnings-about-african-crops-also-bogus/)
IPCC researchers excluded Southern Hemisphere data to exaggerate effects of warming on hurricanes (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2010/02/16/did-the-ipcc-fudge-the-hurricane-data-too/)
Hurricane claims further exposed as false (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2010/03/01/ipcc-science-on-hurricanes-no-longer-settled-either/) by actual peer-reviewed research — including by some AGW researchers
Major scientific group concludes IPCC-linked researchers “complicit in the alleged scientific malpractices (http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/archives/2010/03/02/another-american-media-failure/complicit%20in%20the%20alleged%20scientific%20malp ractices)“

When will the rest of the media catch up to this academic scandal?
One reason that this is relevant is that Phil Jones, former head of the CRU, often dismissed requests for data by pointing out that other agencies could provide the data records that his organization was hiding. After the CRU email scandal broke and the legitimacy of its data was questioned, Jones tried to deflect criticism by pointing out the existence of these alternative sources, which he claimed as backup for the accuracy of the CRU data.

Now it seems as if that's all gone out the window. On the bright side, I'd expect that the IPCC's AR5 report will be much thinner than AR4.

[S Carver Orne]

Leading scientists condemn 'political assaults' on climate researchers
Open letter defends the integrity of climate science and hits out at recent attacks driven by 'special interests or dogma'

Read the full text of the open letter (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/06/climate-science-open-letter)

A group of 255 of the world's top scientists today wrote an open letter aimed at restoring public faith in the integrity of climate science.

In a strongly worded condemnation of the recent escalation of political assaults on climatologists, the letter, published in the US Journal Science (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/06/climate-science-open-letter) and signed by 11 Nobel laureates, attacks critics driven by "special interests or dogma" and "McCarthy-like" threats against researchers. It also attempts to set the record straight on the process of rigorous scientific research.

The letter is a response to negative publicity following the release of thousands of hacked emails from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/climate-wars-hacked-emails) and two mistakes makes by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN climate body.

The letter sets out some basic features of the scientific method. "Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of 'well-established theories' and are often spoken of as 'facts'," it says.

The document, citing theories including the age and origin of the Earth, the Big Bang and Darwin's evolution by natural selection, says that anthropogenic climate change is now so well-supported by evidence that it has achieved the same status. It adds that owing to science's adversarial nature, "fame" awaits any scientists who can prove the theory wrong.

"There is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change," the letter says.

The authors – who are all members of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the country's premier scientific institution – include some of the academic community's most distinguished climate researchers. But the list also includes top anthropologists, biochemists and physicists who have felt the need to defend climate science in the wake of what they regard as politically motivated attacks. Three senior scientists from the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Manchester have also added their endorsement. All of the scientists signed up in a personal capacity, not on behalf of the National Academy or on behalf of their institution.

"Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers, are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence," the letter says.

Its call for an end to "McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association" appears to be jibe at Republican senator, James Inhofe, who has called for a criminal investigation into US and British climatologists (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/01/inhofe-climate-mccarthyite) whose email exchanges were stolen from UEA. The letter also condemns the "harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them."

The letter's co-ordinator, Peter Gleick, of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security in Oakland, California, said: "[It] originated with a number of NAS members who were frustrated at the misinformation being spread by climate deniers and the assaults on scientists by some policy-makers who hope to delay or avoid making policy decisions and are hiding behind the recent controversy around emails and minor errors in the IPCC."

According to one of the signees, Professor Anthony Bebbington at the Institute for Development Policy and Management at Manchester University (http://www.manchester.ac.uk/research/Tony.bebbington/personaldetails), the individual signatories have come together to collectively endorse the quality of work being conducted within the scientific community, particularly on climate science.

Despite two highly-publicised errors found within the scientific assessment of climate change produced by the IPCC over the timing of glacier melt in the Himalayas and sea level in the Netherlands, Professor Beddington warned against 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/06/climate-science-open-letter-nas

[Tonus]

I guess it's never too late to try and turn the tables, no matter how hypocritical it may seem. Where were these researchers when those dissenting voices were being shut out of the review and publication process?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

[Grunthos]

As if climate science hadn't sold itself horse and foot to 'special interests' since it's inception.

[Tonus]

What if they held a climate conference and nobody showed up?* (http://bigjournalism.com/rtrzupek/2010/05/18/msm-awol-from-a-non-ideological-climate-conference/)

* from the MSM, anyway


MSM AWOL From a Non-Ideological Climate Conference (http://bigjournalism.com/rtrzupek/2010/05/18/msm-awol-from-a-non-ideological-climate-conference/)

You would think that a conference that features some of the world’s leading scientists talking about a hot-button issue like global warming would attract a bit of old media attention. The Heartland Institute’s Fourth International Conference on Climate Change (http://www.heartland.org/events/2010Chicago/index.html), currently being held in Chicago, features distinguished scientists like the University of Colorado’s Dr. William Gray (http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080304113132.aspx), Astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon (http://www.marshall.org/experts.php?id=44), MIT atmospheric physicist Dr. Richard Lindzen (http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen.htm), former astronaut and United States Senator Dr. Harrison Schmitt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Schmitt) and the guy who broke the hockey stick, Steve McIntyre (http://climateaudit.org/). But, while there are a number of bloggers here, while Pajamas Media is here, while the European press is here – including the BBC – and while I’m here, the MSM is nowhere to be found.

What are they so afraid of – that they might learn something? It’s not like everyone is singing in chorus. For example, on Sunday night Steve McIntyre told the fascinating story of how and why Michael Mann and his cohorts “hid the decline,” complete with the relevant e-mails and published charts that irrefutably show how Mann, Jones and the rest of the climategate (http://wattsupwiththat.com/climategate/) gang consciously discarded relevant data and then tried to cover their actions up.

The mainstream media meme, with regards to hiding the decline, is that while that this revelation was regrettable, it does nothing to disprove the theory that mankind is responsible for global warming. Guess what? McIntyre agrees. In fact, he went out of his way to say that he’s not your “go to” guy with respect to carbon dioxide’s effect on the climate. There are others who have that particular expertise. But, anyone who listens to McIntyre recount this story of scientific malpractice could not help but be deeply troubled and wonder: what else have they been hiding?

Michael Jungbauer, a state senator from Minnesota, recounted his state’s short, but already painful experience with “green power.” In 2007, Minnesota instituted a Renewable Portfolio Standard, which is a government mandate that requires the state to ratchet up the amount of power it uses emanating from renewable sources each year. (About half of the states in the union (http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/maps/renewable_portfolio_states.cfm) currently have such standards and more are coming). In Minnesota’s case, the standard says that eighty per cent of the state’s power is supposed to come from renewable sources by 2050, which Jungbauer noted rather wryly, will effectively set the state back to 1905 in terms of fossil fuel use.

After almost three years of dealing with its Renewable Portfolio Standards, the price of electricity in Minnesota has risen by nearly ten per cent, the state is bleeding jobs and the poor are being hurt most of all. “This is the most regressive type of tax ever proposed,” Jungbauer said. Contrast that with Utah’s experience. Utah state representative Mike Noel happily noted that his state has among the lowest electricity rates in the nation and, not coincidentally, is also near the bottom in renewable energy production.

Many scientists at the conference have attempted to quantify how much mankind influences planetary temperatures. While no one agrees with the doomsday predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://www.ipcc.ch/), no one is willing to say that the net effect is zero either. But there’s no consensus about exactly how much mankind can affect the climate, except for the general view among these distinguished academics that it’s not enough to lose any sleep over.

It’s refreshing to write about climate change and note a lack of consensus. That’s science the way it’s supposed to be: researchers attacking a problem from different angles, finding different answers and learning from each other’s work. It’s one-hundred eighty degrees the opposite of the cheerleading competitions that the IPCC conferences, like the most recent one in Copenhagen, have become.

So why does the old media ignore the rich, diverse opinions and research that this conference offers? Not only is there no one here from the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC or CNN, the Chicago Tribune didn’t even send a reporter (one of their columnists did show up however), even though the venue is within walking distance of Tribune Tower. Remarkable. Is the MSM drinking its own stale Kool-Aid, convinced that the science really is “settled” and that oil money just has to be behind any contrarian opinion? Or are they just so embarrassed now that the wheels are coming off of the global warming bus that they just can’t face the public? Probably a little of both.

No matter though; the new media is here in droves, along with an amazing number of ordinary folks who are sick of being bullied by alarmist science and want to be a little better intellectually armed. I’ve had a chance to talk to many of the professionals and business people who came to the conference on their own dime, people like the owner of limo company in New York who wants to help spread the word, a free-lance Dutch writer who foresees the demise of global-warming programs in Europe and a orthodontist from Florida who paid for his own film crew, just so he could do his part to educate the public. A pity that the MSM couldn’t be bothered to notice what’s happening in Chicago this week, but then that’s exactly why fewer and fewer of us take notice of the MSM any longer.

[Tonus]

The next climate threat... global cooling? (http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/07/13/rspb.2010.0890.short?rss=1)


Abstract

Recent studies have linked climatic and social instabilities in ancient China; the underlying causal mechanisms have, however, often not been quantitatively assessed. Here, using historical records and palaeoclimatic reconstructions during AD 10–1900, we demonstrate that war frequency, price of rice, locust plague, drought frequency, flood frequency and temperature in China show two predominant periodic bands around 160 and 320 years where they interact significantly with each other. Temperature cooling shows direct positive association with the frequency of external aggression war to the Chinese dynasties mostly from the northern pastoral nomadic societies, and indirect positive association with the frequency of internal war within the Chinese dynasties through drought and locust plagues. The collapses of the agricultural dynasties of the Han, Tang, Song and Ming are more closely associated with low temperature. Our study suggests that food production during the last two millennia has been more unstable during cooler periods, resulting in more social conflicts owing to rebellions within the dynasties or/and southward aggressions from northern pastoral nomadic societies in ancient China.

[Tonus]

Via Power Line blog...

The Global Warming Hoax: A Summary (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/10/027369.php)

Global warming alarmism is not science. It is a toxic combination of pseudo-religion and totalitarian politics. To the extent that there is any debate over climate science--the alarmists run from debate like vampires fleeing garlic--the "skeptics" always win. If you want to follow climate science controversies in a rigorous but accessible fashion, check out the Science and Environmental Policy Project's web site (http://www.sepp.org/). Among other things, it features a weekly update on matters relating to the global warming debate.
(http://www.haapala.com/sepp/twtwfiles/2010/TWTW%202010-10-02.pdf)
This week's SEPP newsletter (http://www.haapala.com/sepp/twtwfiles/2010/TWTW%202010-10-02.pdf) includes an excellent piece by Dr. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, a former United States Senator from New Mexico as well as a geologist and former Apollo astronaut who currently is an aerospace consultant. Dr. Schmitt reviews some of the basic evidence that the alarmists try to wish away. You really should read it all; here are some excerpts: Policy makers at the head of government in the United States and elsewhere apparently want to believe, and to have others believe, that human use of fossil fuels accelerates global warming. They pursue this quest in order to impose ever greater and clearly unconstitutional control on the economy and personal liberty in the name of a hypothetically omnipotent government. There exists no true concern by the President or Congressional Leadership about the true effects of climate change - only a poorly concealed, ideologically driven attempt to use conjured up threats of catastrophic consequences as a lever to gain authoritarian control of society.

There has been an absolute natural increase in global surface temperature of half a degree Centigrade per 100 years (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) over the last three and a half centuries. Observational climate data and objective interpretations of those data strongly indicate that nature, not human activity, exerts the primary influence on this current long term warming and on all global climate variations. Human influence through use of fossil fuels has been and remains minor if even detectable. Claims to the contrary only find support in highly questionable climate models that fail repeatedly against the reality of nature. What, then, stimulates historically and geologically observed, sometimes slow and sometimes radical, changes in climate?

The primary alternative hypothesis to human-caused global warming is natural climate change driven by the Sun. ... As many scientists have documented, the position and orientation of the Earth in its orbit around the sun, and the Sun's variable influence and activity, determine weather and climate. Seasons vary because of changing solar energy input in annual response to the varying orientation of Earth's Northern and Southern Hemispheres. ... Further, variations in solar radiation received by the Earth correlate with short-term variations in Earth's weather, based on the slow movement of loops called "Rossby waves" in atmospheric jet streams.

Observations by astronomers over the centuries, as well as studies of tree rings, stalagmite layers, and other pre-historic and geological records, have defined an 11-year sunspot cycle superimposed on a number of longer climate cycles. Much modern research documents that the sunspot cycle also correlates with variations in stratospheric winds and ozone production, cosmic ray flux, ionosphere-troposphere interactions, and the global electrical circuit that exists between the ionosphere and the Earth's surface.

Correlations of records of seasonal changes, solar activity cycles, and local and regional rainfall oscillations all confirm that in some way radiation emanating from the Sun drives changes in weather and climate. Solar interplanetary magnetic fields, whose polarity varies every 22 years or twice the sunspot cycle, may play an additional role as their strength varies directly with increases and decreases in numbers of sunspots. ...

More broadly, geological and planetological observations show that major perturbations in climate relate to the position and orientation of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. For example, as Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovic pointed out in 1941, as have many others since, initiation of the major ice ages on Earth correlate with a 23,000-year precession cycle, a 41,000-year obliquity cycle, and a 100,000-year eccentricity cycle in the position of the Earth relative to the Sun. ...

Climate cycles related to internal solar activity are superposed on long-term orbital cycles. For example, the Medieval Warm Period (800-1300) and the Little Ice Age (1400-1900) correlate, respectively, with very active and very passive periods of recorded sunspot activity. As a fairly recent example of solar influence on climate, the Little Ice Age occurred during a 500-year long sequence of three deep reductions in sunspot frequency. The coldest temperatures came during the last of these minima, a 70- year period of exceptionally few sunspots (the Maunder Minimum). The Medieval Warm Period, (when the Vikings colonized Greenland, glaciers retreated, and farmers could at least survive) also correlates to repeated multi-century long, high sunspot frequency.

Since the end of the early 1900s, peak values in sunspot activity rose steadily until 1960, leveling off at higher than normal values until apparently starting to fall about 2000.
The 11-year sunspot cycle repetitions are superimposed on a number of long-term cycles of past highs and lows in solar activity. For example, the Gleissberg cycle has imprecisely defined periods of 90 ± 30 years in length. More energetic sunspot activity in the Gleissberg cycle may correlate with temporary decades of warming, such as in the 1930s and 1990s with the reverse being true in the 1810s and 1910s. Analyses of tree rings, lake levels, cave deposits, tree ring variations in cosmic ray-produced isotopes (14C and 10Be), and oxygen isotope ratios record what appear to be other long period solar cycles, specifically, 2400, 1500 years, 200, as well as the Gleissberg cycle.

Many advocates of human-caused global warming agree that solar cycles show correlations with regional climate variations; but, absent a proven amplification mechanism to enhance small solar energy (irradiance) variations, they reject nature in favor of fossil fuel burning.
It is worth noting that the alarmists are inconsistent, in that their own theory, that carbon dioxide is a sort of thermostat that controls Earth's temperature, is plausible only if all objective effects of CO2 in the atmosphere are multiplied by "positive feedbacks" of various kinds. The difference is that empirically, Earth's temperatures correlate closely with solar activity, while they correlate hardly at all with the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, which has varied widely over geologic history. Specifically with respect to the last 120 years, the correlation of measured solar energy input variations with global surface temperature and sea surface temperature is very strong. The statistical correlation of solar irradiance with air temperature has been about 79%. In contrast, during the last 50 years, the correlation of measured carbon dioxide increases with global surface temperature has been only about 22%. This directly contradicts the assumption that carbon dioxide has had a large influence on climate in the last 50 years. ...

Additional support that an amplification mechanism exists comes from recent observational data on variations in stratospheric water vapor concentrations over three decades. These data suggest that decreases in water vapor have contributed to amplified sea surface cooling since 2000 while increases between 1980 and 2000 accented surface warming. This relationship may correspond with stratospheric cooling and lower water retention due to lower than average solar energy input since 2000.

Climate change driven by the Sun constitutes a strongly competitive, purely scientific hypothesis to the climate modeling-political hypothesis of human-caused global warming advocated by climate modelers and their acolytes in the science, media, and political establishments. ... The current decade or longer period of cold winters in the northern United States and Europe coincide with a relatively prolonged reduction in sunspot activity below even the norm for a minimum in the 11-year cycle.

Actual observations show that climate varies in response to natural forces and that human burning of fossil fuels has had negligible effect over the last 100 years.
Dr. Schmitt's article is copiously footnoted, as you will see if you follow the link.

TL;DR - The Sun's influence on the Earth's climate is relatively well understood and follows predictable and logical patterns. The effect of CO2 on global climate is, at best, not clear. However, governments around the world have not figured out a way to blame the wealthy for the levels of solar radiation (yet).

[Grunthos]

The difference is that empirically, Earth's temperatures correlate closely with solar activity, while they correlate hardly at all with the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, which has varied widely over geologic history.

The Sun's influence on the Earth's climate is relatively well understood and follows predictable and logical patterns.

I've been arguing just that info for how many years now, T? And been called all manner of names for it, too.

Since UGO, for certain. Possibly since CR.

[Tonus]

I've been arguing just that info for how many years now, T? And been called all manner of names for it, too.
I recall there was an anonymous person who made a bunch of posts about AGW and I believe that he tried to address that issue. The threads might still be on the ugo.com boards, though I can't remember the poster's name. He only ever posted in the global warming thread.

Anyway, it seems another leftist group decided to take a crack at bad policy promotion. (http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2010/10/sick-and-getting-sicker-global-warmers.html)

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9Bx0L3n3uAo/TKxtIPI7aFI/AAAAAAAAIOY/uqKR9wwZxKU/s1600/climatechangehanging.jpg

[Tonus]

I almost wish Obrysii was here for this one. Almost. Say goodbye to consensus (http://climatedepot.com/a/9035/SPECIAL-REPORT-More-Than-1000-International-Scientists-Dissent-Over-ManMade-Global-Warming-Claims--Challenge-UN-IPCC--Gore).

SPECIAL REPORT: More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims - Challenge UN IPCC & Gore

INTRODUCTION:

More than 1,000 dissenting scientists (updates previous 700 scientist report) from around the globe have now challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore. This new 2010 321-page Climate Depot Special Report -- updated from the 2007 groundbreaking U.S. Senate Report of over 400 scientists who voiced skepticism about the so-called global warming “consensus” -- features the skeptical voices of over 1,000 international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN IPCC. This updated 2010 report includes a dramatic increase of over 300 additional (and growing) scientists and climate researchers since the last update in March 2009. This report's release coincides with the 2010 UN global warming summit in being held in Cancun.

The more than 300 additional scientists added to this report since March 2009 (21 months ago), represents an average of nearly four skeptical scientists a week speaking out publicly. The well over 1,000 dissenting scientists are almost 20 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grew louder in 2010 as the Climategate scandal -- which involved the upper echelon of UN IPCC scientists -- detonated upon on the international climate movement. "I view Climategate as science fraud, pure and simple," said noted Princeton Physicist Dr. Robert Austin shortly after the scandal broke. Climategate prompted UN IPCC scientists to turn on each other. UN IPCC scientist Eduardo Zorita publicly declared that his Climategate colleagues Michael Mann and Phil Jones "should be barred from the IPCC process...They are not credible anymore." Zorita also noted how insular the IPCC science had become. "By writing these lines I will just probably achieve that a few of my future studies will, again, not see the light of publication," Zorita wrote. A UN lead author Richard Tol grew disillusioned with the IPCC and lamented that it had been "captured" and demanded that "the Chair of IPCC and the Chairs of the IPCC Working Groups should be removed." Tol also publicly called for the "suspension" of IPCC Process in 2010 after being invited by the UN to participate as lead author again in the next IPCC Report. [Note: Zorita and Tol are not included in the count of dissenting scientists in this report.]

Other UN scientists were more blunt. A South African UN scientist declared the UN IPCC a "worthless carcass" and noted IPCC chair Pachauri is in "disgrace". He also explained that the "fraudulent science continues to be exposed." Alexander, a former member of the UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters harshly critiqued the UN. "'I was subjected to vilification tactics at the time. I persisted. Now, at long last, my persistence has been rewarded...There is no believable evidence to support [the IPCC] claims. I rest my case!" See: S. African UN Scientist Calls it! 'Climate change - RIP: Cause of Death: No scientifically believable evidence...Deliberate manipulation to suit political objectives' [Also see: New Report: UN Scientists Speak Out On Global Warming -- As Skeptics!] Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook, a professor of geology at Western Washington University, summed up the scandal on December 3, 2010: "The corruption within the IPCC revealed by the Climategate scandal, the doctoring of data and the refusal to admit mistakes have so severely tainted the IPCC that it is no longer a credible agency."


Waaaaaayyyyy more at the link. Mainstream coverage? Anything??

[Shady]

Mainstream coverage? Anything??

When it has to do with actual warming, the trumpets will sound. They are struggling for a revival at the moment.

[Grunthos]

Anyone catch the weather reports out of Cancun during that conference?

100-year record lows.

And apparently, a great many delegates to the conference were happy to sign a petition calling for the banning of dihydrogen monoxide.

Yes, they fell for it.

[Tonus]

They fell for the old "global warming is killing off frogs" line as well!

Turns out that they shoulda known better. (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/13/what-frogs-can-teach-us-about-global-warming/)

(There is more at the link, including a couple of screen caps posted with not a small amount of smugness)


From World Climate Report

About 15 to 20 years ago, folks began to notice problems in amphibian communities around the world. At first, physical deformities were being noticed and then large population declines were being documented.

The finger was initially pointed at the coal industry, with an idea that perhaps mercury was leading to the deformities. But this didn’t pan out. Next, farm practices (http://www.worldclimatereport.com/archive/previous_issues/vol7/v7n18/hot.htm)came under fire, as excess fertilizer running off into farm ponds became the leading suspect. But that theory didn’t hold water either. Then, attention turned to the ozone hole (http://www.worldclimatereport.com/archive/previous_issues/vol3/v3n6/feature.htm), with the idea that increased ultraviolet radiation was killing the frogs. No luck there either.

Then came the Eureka moment—aha, it must be global warming (http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/01/11/jumping-to-conclusions-frogs-global-warming-and-nature/)!

This played to widespread audiences, received beaucoup media attention and, of course, found its way into Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

But, alas, this theory, too, wilted under the harsh glare of science, as new research has now pretty definitively linked an infection of the chytrid fungus (http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/11/12/beating-a-dead-frog/)to declines, and even local extinctions, of frog and toad species around the world.

Perhaps the biggest irony in all of this, is that while researchers fell all over themselves to link anthropogenic environmental impacts to the frog declines, turns out that as they traipsed through the woods and rainforests to study the frogs, the researchers themselves quite possibly helped spread the chytrid fungus to locations and populations where it had previously been absent.

Now a bit good—although hardly unexpected—news is coming out of the frog research studies. Some frog populations in various parts of the world are not only recovering, but also showing signs of increased resistance—gained through adaptation and/or evolution—to the chytrid fungus.
Thus opens a new chapter in the ongoing Disappearing (http://www.worldclimatereport.com/archive/previous_issues/vol4/v4n16/feature.htm)Frog (http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php?s=frogs)saga, and one that likely foretells of a hoppy ending.

The magazine New Scientist has an interesting article titled “Fungus out! The frog resistance is here” (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827903.500-fungus-out-the-frog-resistance-is-here.html) that ties together a growing number of research findings indicating that frog populations that once faced local extinction have been making a come back—even in the continued presence of the chytrid fungus.

New Scientist reports that Australian researchers are reporting that a variety of frog species from across the Land Down Under that were once devastated by chytrid infection are now re-establishing themselves in areas that they were wiped out and in some cases have even returned to numbers as large as they were prior to the chytrid outbreak.

Other researchers are finding, as reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Briggs et al., 2010), that frogs in the mountains of California that were once “driven virtually to extinction” are also making a recovery even though the chytrid fungus is still present. Some populations there have apparently developed the ability to survive in the presence of low-levels of the fungus.

Evidence of a developing resistance to the chytrid fungus has also been reported in a species of Australian frogs. A study published in the journal Diversity and Distributions (Woodhams et al., 2010) looked at populations of frogs which have recovered from a chytrid infection and found indications that natural selection may have led to more resistant populations and facilitated the recovery.

All this is not to say that amphibian populations across the world have made a full and complete recovery, but it is to say that there are encouraging signs that some populations are clawing their way back through adaptation and natural selection—precisely the way things are supposed to work.

And even though global warming is no longer considered to be the guilty party (of course, exonerated with much less fanfare than it was accused), the amphibian story does show the resiliency of nature—a resiliency that is grossly underplayed or even ignored in virtually all doom and gloom presentations of the impacts of environmental change.

Something that is worth keeping in mind.

[Tonus]

There are two very funny (and one very embarrassing) things about AGW fanatic George Monbiot's latest screed (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/20/uk-snow-global-warming), wherein he posits that the current cold weather around the world is a strong indicator of global warming.

The first is that when you scroll down, you see links to "related" stories. The first is from June of 2009, where Monbiot chides skeptics for not acknowledging a warm spell the way they do colder periods. The other is from January 2010. Then as now, Monbiot is exasperated that people don't seem to understand that cold weather is really a sign of global warming. Or at least, that colder weather doesn't mean it's getting colder.

The second is that in this most recent article, he links to a NASA GISS map to explain the following:
The global temperature maps published by Nasa present a striking picture. Last month's shows a deep blue splodge over Iceland, Spitsbergen, Scandanavia and the UK, and another over the western US and eastern Pacific. Temperatures in these regions were between 0.5C and 4C colder than the November average from 1951 and 1980. But on either side of these cool blue pools are raging fires of orange, red and maroon: the temperatures in western Greenland, northern Canada and Siberia were between 2C and 10C higher than usual. Nasa's Arctic oscillations map for 3-10 December shows that parts of Baffin Island and central Greenland were 15C warmer than the average for 2002-9. There was a similar pattern last winter. These anomalies appear to be connected.Indeed, this is a pretty striking graph and data! Slight problem here, as Anthony Watts points out here. (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/20/australias-white-summer-monbiots-red-fury/) Depending on how you set the search and display criteria, large portions of the map that have one or no data points are shown as orange/red/dark red, which coincidentally happens to be the color range indicating temperature increases of 2-10 degrees!

When the search options are modified to reduce the "smoothing" in the map and make the data more accurate, what happens?
All the sudden, those “raging fires of orange, red and maroon” don’t look so big, do they George? There’s no reds, oranges or yellows over northern Greenland, or Iceland, or the East Siberian Sea, or most of Africa, and much of Antarctica’s coastline and the southern ocean.

In fact, a lot of those isolated red and maroon splotches in Greenland, Canada, and Russia are single data points. Yep, GISS takes data from these stations and smears the effect writ large on the 1200KM smoothing map. Journalists like yourself often don’t notice, they simply see the issue in shades of smeared red.

And guess what George? In those remote locations like Nuuk, Greenland, (see arrow, under a red splotch in SW Greenland) what have we there? Remote pockets of humanity.Apparently, warming alarmists are not done fudging the numbers and creating charts that distort the truth. You wonder if Monbiot is being dishonest or if he's simply that clueless. Neither engenders confidence in his work.

[Shady]

The arctic oscillation is forecast to go positive mid January, which means unseasonably warm temperatures should occur. Then George Manibot & James Hansen can go back to blaming the unusually warm weather on AGW again.

To them and others of their ilk, it doesn't matter what the current weather is; hot or cold, drought or monsoon, cloudy or clear, it's all because of anthropogenic glob....er, climate change.

[Grunthos]

We'll see if and when it happens... the solar and planetological theorists say we're quite possibly heading into a grand minimum.

Six days with zero sunspots in a row, now... when we're supposed to be two full years into our approach to solar maximum. Flux is also in the basement. Waveform wise, it's looking a lot like the opening of the Dalton Minimum of 1790 - 1830. Which included the "Year without a Summer," 1816.

We're well & far below the F10.7 flux curve that we saw during SC20 (1964-1976); those were the years that had scientists braying about global cooling and the next ice age.

http://www.landscheidt.info/images/sc20_sc24.png

Landscheidt minimum, anyone?

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/f10.gif

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/sunspot.gif

[Tonus]

WUWT posts a fairly snarky editorial (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/15/unequivocal-equivocation) that takes aim at the continued intransigence of some of the major players in the AGW debate. It is remarkable, in light of the events of the past two years, that any of this group are still considered major players, but so it goes. A couple of weeks ago Keith Olbermann and a guest on his show were expressing their shock at GOP attempts to rein in the EPA. They continued to sarcastically wonder how it is that these congressmen could ignore the scientific consensus, as if they somehow knew more about the climate than scientist's did!

The scariest part is that when it comes to some of these guys and the things they claim, you might have some difficulty figuring out who is the scientist and who is the clueless blabbermouth. Amazingly, the UN is proceeding with plans to release yet another update to its pretty thoroughly discredited IPCC report. I suspect that the skeptical side of the debate is much more anxious for the release of this document than the alarmist side...

Edit to add: Eschenbach also links to this PDF document (https://public.me.com/ix/williseschenbach/Svalbard.pdf) that chronicles his attempts to correct an inaccurate blog post that implied that temperature records in an area of Norway were indicative of AGW. You get a glimpse as to the level of desperation involved in the alarmist side as they try to find something, anything that can keep the research dollars flowing.

[Tonus]

This is less of a /facepalm and more of an amusing anecdote. I don't know if such super computers are the wave of the future, but for certain scientific modeling they are extremely useful. Possibly useful enough to make up for the big CO2 footprint. But it will be used as a stick to poke alarmists with.

Hey, if you're that concerned with tipping points, then I can't imagine that you can really just shrug your shoulders over the fact that your shiny new computer pumps a heck of a lot of CO2 into the air. (http://pumps%20a%20heck%20of%20a%20lot%20of%20CO2%20into% 20the%20air.)

PS- more at the link.

Weather supercomputer used to predict climate change is one of Britain's worst polluters

The Met Office has caused a storm of controversy after it was revealed their £30million supercomputer designed to predict climate change is one of Britain's worst polluters.

The massive machine - the UK's most powerful computer with a whopping 15 million megabytes of memory - was installed in the Met Office's headquarters in Exeter, Devon.

It is capable of 1,000 billion calculations every second to feed data to 400 scientists and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run - enough to power more than 1,000 homes.

The machine was hailed as the 'future of weather prediction' with the ability to produce more accurate forecasts and produce climate change modelling.

However the Met Office's HQ has now been named as one of the worst buildings in Britain for pollution - responsible for more than 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

It says 75 per cent of its carbon footprint is produced by the super computer meaning the machine is officially one of the country's least green machines.

[Tonus]

Where's the warming? (http://hotair.com/archives/2011/06/12/wheres-the-warming/)

Carbon emissions over the past decade actually exceeded predictions by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), no thanks to the global economic recession. According to their anthropogenic global-warming theories, global temperatures should have risen significantly as a result. James Taylor at Forbes (http://blogs.forbes.com/jamestaylor/2011/06/08/ten-years-and-counting-wheres-the-global-warming/) wonders what happened:Global greenhouse gas emissions have risen even faster during the past decade than predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other international agencies. According to alarmist groups, this proves global warming is much worse than previously feared.

The increase in emissions “should shock even the most jaded negotiators” at international climate talks currently taking place in Bonn, Germany, the UK Guardian reports (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/record-greenhouse-gases-jolt-bonn-climate-talks). But there’s only one problem with this storyline; global temperatures have not increased at all during the past decade.

The evidence is powerful, straightforward, and damning. NASA satellite instruments precisely measuring global temperatures show absolutely no warming during the past the past 10 years (http://www.drroyspencer.com/).

This is the case for the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, including the United States (http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/06/recent-cooling-of-northern-hemisphere-mid-latitudes-viewed-from-aqua/). This is the case for the Arctic (http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/06/recent-cooling-of-northern-hemisphere-mid-latitudes-viewed-from-aqua/), where the signs of human-caused global warming are supposed to be first and most powerfully felt. This is the case forglobal sea surface temperatures (http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/06/uah-temperature-update-for-may-2011-0-13-deg-c/), which alarmists claim should be sucking up much of the predicted human-induced warming. This is the case for the planet as a whole (http://www.drroyspencer.com/).

If atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions are the sole or primary driver of global temperatures, then where is all the global warming? We’re talking 10 years of higher-than-expected increases in greenhouse gases, yet 10 years of absolutely no warming. That’s 10 years of nada, nunca, nein, zero, and zilch.
Be sure to check out the links, which show charts over varying time sets, but which all show basically the same thing: no real change over longer periods of time. Not in the Arctic, which Taylor notes was supposed to be the canary in the coal mine, nor in the northern hemisphere, or the globe overall. That’s even true for just the last decade, but it’s especially true over the period of several decades. Periods of high amplitudes in warming are matched with low amplitudes.

Earlier this week (http://hotair.com/archives/2011/06/09/romney-i-wont-back-down-on-agw/), I linked to a couple of articles from physicists who have expressed considerable skepticism of the AGW hysteria, including one who worked in Australia’s climate-change ministry. It’s worth revisiting his observation (http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/04/07/climate-models-go-cold/) about the science, its models, and what’s missing:This is the core idea of every official climate model: For each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three — so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors); only one-third is due to extra carbon dioxide.

That’s the core of the issue. All the disagreements and misunderstandings spring from this. The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism.

What did they find when they tried to prove this theory?

Weather balloons had been measuring the atmosphere since the 1960s, many thousands of them every year. The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10 kilometres up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above. During the warming of the late 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, the weather balloons found no hot spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide.

This evidence first became clear around the mid-1990s.
It’s becoming even more clear now. If carbon increases and the predicted warming didn’t follow, then the obvious conclusion is that the hypothesis regarding cause and effect is incorrect — and the missing hot spots are even further evidence of this.

[Tonus]

Interesting new data from NASA indicates something that we should really have known all along, given what we understand about the planet's past: Earth does a pretty good job of regulating the climate, such as dissipating more heat (http://blogs.forbes.com/jamestaylor/2011/07/27/new-nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-in-global-warming-alarmism/) when it needs to.

It's not hard to see where the editorial writer stands on the issue of global warming, as evidenced by the fact that he uses the term "alarmist" around seven hundred times. :mellow:

New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA’s Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.

“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”

In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.

The new findings are extremely important and should dramatically alter the global warming debate.

Scientists on all sides of the global warming debate are in general agreement about how much heat is being directly trapped by human emissions of carbon dioxide (the answer is “not much”). However, the single most important issue in the global warming debate is whether carbon dioxide emissions will indirectly trap far more heat by causing large increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds. Alarmist computer models assume human carbon dioxide emissions indirectly cause substantial increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds (each of which are very effective at trapping heat), but real-world data have long shown that carbon dioxide emissions are not causing as much atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds as the alarmist computer models have predicted.

The new NASA Terra satellite data are consistent with long-term NOAA and NASA data indicating atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds are not increasing in the manner predicted by alarmist computer models. The Terra satellite data also support data collected by NASA’s ERBS satellite showing far more longwave radiation (and thus, heat) escaped into space between 1985 and 1999 than alarmist computer models had predicted. Together, the NASA ERBS and Terra satellite data show that for 25 years and counting, carbon dioxide emissions have directly and indirectly trapped far less heat than alarmist computer models have predicted.

In short, the central premise of alarmist global warming theory is that carbon dioxide emissions should be directly and indirectly trapping a certain amount of heat in the earth’s atmosphere and preventing it from escaping into space. Real-world measurements, however, show far less heat is being trapped in the earth’s atmosphere than the alarmist computer models predict, and far more heat is escaping into space than the alarmist computer models predict.

When objective NASA satellite data, reported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, show a “huge discrepancy” between alarmist climate models and real-world facts, climate scientists, the media and our elected officials would be wise to take notice. Whether or not they do so will tell us a great deal about how honest the purveyors of global warming alarmism truly are.

[Grunthos]

"Alarmist" is a natural reaction to the widespread pejorative of "deniers" used against those who understand that conesensus of OPINION does not science make.

But hard, reproducable data does.

[Tonus]

Climate Gate 2.0! A release of approximately 5,000 more emails, apparently from the same period as the previous release, with as many as 220,000 more locked behind a password. Some interesting stuff in there, enough to make the usual suspects immediately cry out "out of context!!!"

This is a week old. I stopped following climate issues very closely as the whole global warming charade fell apart. Looks like a fair amount of reading is in order. Two quick links:

Watts Up With That (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0/)
The Air Vent (http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0/)

Put on your schadenfreude and start reading!

Edit to add: Bishop Hill (http://www.bishop-hill.net/) is a great site for info on the newest revelations.

[Grunthos]

This batch makes it abundantly clear that they were doing what they have been denying since the first climategate; they were cherry-picking their evidence nad blocking contrary views from seeing the light of day.

"Fraud" is the word that comes to mind. In the criminal sense.

[Grunthos]

University of East Anglia (yes, the source point for the "ClimateGate" e-mails) has released a new temperature data set.

...Which shows that global temperatures sutopped increasing in 1997.

15 years ago.

Oh, and now we're supposed to be afraid of the ice agage. Again.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming--Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html

[Tonus]

That's very interesting because of what it might mean for the next five years. We may have reached a tipping point, all right... the point at which we will know for sure whether man-made factors have as much influence as has been stated, or if we're so small as to be a non-factor on a global level.

What happens within 2-3 years if temperatures continue to drop or hold steady (as human-generated CO2 output continues to increase)? What happens when people who have staked their reputations, their fortunes, and their futures on global warming are faced with having to admit that it isn't working the way that they thought it did? Will they go quietly? We're talking about people who carried out some serious fraud in order to create a crisis in the first place, so I'm guessing that they'll pull out all the stops to convince us that we simply have to curb CO2 emissions.

Which means that some time in 2017, we'll be told that if we don't find a way to manage our CO2 output, we might be faced with a catastrophic global cooling.

[S Carver Orne]

They'll sing something to the tune of "This is what I was talking about! Come on guys, I'm super serial!"

[Grunthos]

What happens when people who have staked their reputations, their fortunes, and their futures on global warming are faced with having to admit that it isn't working the way that they thought it did?

I suppose massed...

:smithshotgun:

...would be too much to hope for?

[Tonus]

I suppose massed...

:smithshotgun:

...would be too much to hope for?
Apparently it is. One new tactic is to intimidate weathermen into pushing the agenda (http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/30/global-warming-activists-seek-to-purge-deniers-among-local-weathermen/). It does speak to their desperation, since the "ideal" resolution would be that their intimidation tactics would force weathermen to promote global warming as a man-made disaster, after which environmentalists would celebrate the "consensus" opinion.

Edit: And if that doesn't work, there's always some good old fashioned over-the-top alarmist hysteria (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/climate-change-a-fundamental-health-risk/story-fn7x8me2-1226257929702)!

[Tonus]

A really good explanation for where climate alarmism and skepticism diverge: it's the feedback, stupid! (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/26/the-skeptics-case/)

Or, we can continue to portray the debate in simple and deceptive terms via cutesy flow-charts! (http://io9.com/5889142/a-simple-flow-chart-to-show-climate-change-conspiracy-theorists)

The charts used in the WUWT article show what many skeptics already agree on: the planet has been warming and may continue to... just as it has for the last 400 or so years. The improperly-calibrated climate models show that the planet apparently cannot handle increased CO2 and that Earth's response to more carbon dioxide would cause temperatures to quickly and sharply rise. There are two problems with this. The first is that if Earth's mechanisms for handling increases in CO2 were this deficient, it would have become a planet like Venus long before humans ever showed up.

The second problem is that, as we all know by now (and the article shows clearly) temperature readings are showing a very slight uptick in global temperatures, and not the catastrophic change that the models predicted. Why? Because the planet has responded to the increase in CO2 by, in simplest terms, neutralizing nearly all of its effect. Much as it did a long time ago when CO2 concentrations were much higher than they are now, which is why Earth is a viable home to a rich and diverse population of plant and animal organisms instead of a roiling cauldron where only a few bacteria can survive.

Or maybe the flow chart is right, and Big Oil has managed to stealthily rig every temperature reading for the last 30 years, thus making the climate models (backed by 90% of scientists, dontcha know!) appear to be wildly inaccurate. Just like one of those Matt Damon movies!!!!

[Tonus]

A recent scandal that implies that alarmists are becoming, well... alarmed.

I'll let Megan McArdle explain the details of FakeGate. (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/peter-gleick-confesses-to-obtaining-heartland-documents-under-false-pretenses/253395/)

Edit to add: McArdle goes over the fake document with a fine-toothed comb, and it's a great response (http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/leaked-docs-from-heartland-institute-cause-a-stir-but-is-one-a-fake/253165/) to anyone who tries to claim that it's "fake but accurate." It's fake, but has a number of glaring inaccuracies and an overall tone that should make anyone suspicious... even if they want to believe what it purports to tell. And since some of the more strident sites used the worst of the fake document in order to slam Heartland, they may not be very inclined to admit that they got snowed, and instead will dig in their heels and insist that it is accurate.

McArdle, as she makes clear in this piece, is a supporter of the claim that humans are driving global warming. She also supports the imposition of carbon restrictions via taxes or other controls. She is definitely not a "denier" nor an apologist for the skeptical view of AGW. I suppose the more extreme pro-AGW alarmists will no longer trust her, since she is willing to safeguard her integrity here. But it will be difficult to paint her as just another biased person protecting right-wing organizations.

Edit to add: Steven McIntyre weighs in (http://climateaudit.org/2012/02/20/heartland/). Some of the apologists for Gleick are offering the argument that what was done to the Heartland Institute (a libertarian think-tank that promotes an anti-AGW view) is no different from the release of ClimateGate emails. The UK's Guardian newspaper, which referred to the ClimateGate emails as "stolen" and the actions of a "hacker" have referred to the HI documents as being "leaked" by an "insider."

Putting aside, for a moment, that the circumstances and evidence strongly support the idea that Gleick himself wrote the most damning of the documents that were "leaked": the ClimateGate emails were covered by FOIA laws, as they were written by recipients of government funding to perform research, and thus they were unlawfully refusing to release them. The Heartland Institute is a private organization, and some of the information which was released was private personal information with no bearing at all on climate issues of any stripe.

There is a lot of discussion on McIntyre's blog regarding the wording of Gleick's not-very-apologetic apology and the extent to which it was carefully crafted by lawyers to prevent Gleick from making any unambiguous admissions of guilt for specific acts. This strikes me as a moot point- the Heartland Institute appears ready to press charges and support the prosecution of Gleick, at which point he will have to clarify his statements and actions and provide support for them. Fuzzy and vague statements may keep people guessing now, but they'll be of little use once lawyers and investigators get through with him.

Edit to add: One of the justifications for the unethical actions towards the Heartland Institute is that the climate debate has been hijacked by Big Oil and similarly monied Evil Corporations and Individuals, like the Koch brothers. But JoNova points out that Heartland is a small fish in a large pond of cash. (http://joannenova.com.au/2012/02/logic-gate-the-smog-blog-exposes-irrational-rage-innumeracy-and-heartlands-efficient-success/)

[Tonus]

This story is actually pretty old. It's interesting to note that it did not seem to get any play in the mainstream media when it was still a story about how a skeptic-driven organization was acting like a typical Hollywood villain. It's not very surprising then, that it didn't get any play once it became another example of bad behavior on the left.

The Weekly Standard was more than happy to weigh in (http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/why-climate-skeptics-are-winning_631915.html). Of note is their analysis of Gleick's excuse for his actions. Among other things, Gleick claims that his "judgment was blinded by [his] frustration with the ongoing efforts​—​often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated​—​to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved."

The Weekly Standard retorts:

Let’s take these in order. Anony-mous? True, Heartland’s board documents reveal seven-figure contributions for their climate work from one “anonymous donor,” but environmental organizations take in many multiples of Heartland’s total budget in anonymous donations washed through the left-wing Tides Foundation. The Environmental Defense Fund thanks 141 anonymous donors in one recent report. “Well-funded”? Heartland’s total budget for all its issues, which include health care, education, and technology policy, is around $4.4 million, an amount that would disappear into a single line item in the budget for the Natural Resources Defense Council ($99 million in revenues in 2010). Last year, the Wall Street Journal reports, the World Wildlife Fund spent $68.5 million just on “public education.”

The dog that didn’t bark for the climateers in this story is the great disappointment that Heartland receives only a tiny amount of funding from fossil fuel sources—and none from ExxonMobil, still the bête noire of the climateers. Meanwhile, it was revealed this week that natural gas mogul T. Boone Pickens had given $453,000 to the left-wing Center for American Progress for its “clean energy” projects, and Chesapeake Energy gave the Sierra Club over $25 million (anonymously until it leaked out) for the Club’s anti-coal ad campaign. Turns out the greens take in much more money from fossil fuel interests than the skeptics do.

Edit to add: PILING ON (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/12163), BUBBEH...

Choice bits:

The second problem for environmentalists has been to demonstrate that the myth is anything more than a myth. An ongoing Greenpeace project launched in 2004, for instance, aimed to provide a ‘database of information on the corporate-funded anti-environmental movement’. However, the sums of money involved were paltry. According to Greenpeace, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, one of the most vilified organisations, had received just $2million from Exxon between 1998 and 2005. Yet between 1994 and 2005, total donations to Greenpeace amounted to over $2 billion. According to the greens’ conspiratorial narrative, a handful of conservative think tanks with relatively small resources were seemingly able to undo the campaigning of a host of huge international environmental NGOs, national governments, international agencies, and yes, corporate interests, whose combined resources were many, many thousands of times greater.

(...)

The documents reveal that the Heartland Institute took $4,638,398 (about £3million) in receipts in 2011. This is, by campaigning standards, very small beer, and only part of that went towards the Institute’s global-warming campaign. To put that figure into perspective, an article in Time magazine recently revealed ‘that between 2007 and 2010, the Sierra Club accepted over $25million [£15.7million] in donations… mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy—one of the biggest gas-drilling companies in the US and a firm heavily involved in fracking - to help fund the Club’s Beyond Coal campaign’.

It would seem that fossil-fuel companies give far greater sums to environmental campaigning organisations in order to score advantage over rival fossil-fuel companies than they give to anti-environmental campaigning organisations.

[Tonus]

This is the sort of stuff you can't make up, because it's just so ridiculous. Hey, we need to develop clean energy technologies to save the Earth from a cataclysmic warming cycle that will end all life as we know it! Okay then, how about we start a broad investment in solar energy?

No, you can't... IT'LL WRECK THE ENVIRONMENT!!! (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-solar-green-20120406,0,6552376.story?page=1)

LOL

Small environmental groups are fighting utility-scale solar projects without the support of what they refer to as "Gang Green," the nation's big environmental players.

Local activists accuse the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife, the Wilderness Society and other venerable environmental groups of acquiescing to the industrialization of the desert because they believe large-scale solar power is essential to slowing climate change.Big environmental organizations say they have agonized over how to approach the issue. They acknowledge that development can have irreversible effects on ecosystems. But they are reluctant to stand in the way of renewable energy projects they regard as a vital response to climate change, which they consider the nation's most serious environmental challenge.

The Sierra Club, NRDC and Defenders of Wildlife filed suit last week to stop the troubled Calico solar project northeast of Los Angeles. But for the most part the big players have embraced solar development.The next time some "greenie" explains how we have to take drastic action in order to save the planet from runaway global warming, point them at articles like this one. Heaven forbid we ruin a delicate ecosystem like, say... THE FUCKING DESERT in order to save the planet from becoming, you know... A FUCKING DESERT.

It's either hysterically awesome or awesomely hysterical. I'm not quite sure which.

[Tonus]

Some extra Schaden for your Freude (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/healthy-polar-bear-count-confounds-doomsayers/article2392523/), sir?

Healthy polar bear count confounds doomsayers

The debate about climate change and its impact on polar bears has intensified with the release of a survey that shows the bear population in a key part of northern Canada is far larger than many scientists thought, and might be growing.

The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic.

The study shows that “the bear population is not in crisis as people believed,” said Drikus Gissing, Nunavut’s director of wildlife management. “There is no doom and gloom.”

Mr. Gissing added that the government isn’t dismissing concerns about climate change, but he said Nunavut wants to base bear-management practices on current information “and not predictions about what might happen.”

The study’s conclusions drew concern from Andrew Derocher, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta who has been studying polar-bear populations for years. Prof. Derocher said the 1,013 figure is derived from a range of 717 bears to 1,430. “It’s premature to draw many conclusions,” he said, adding that there were no comparative figures and the upper end of the range, 1,430, was highly unlikely.

Prof. Derocher also said some details in the survey pointed to a bear population in trouble. For example, the survey identified 50 cubs, which are usually less than 10 months old, and 22 yearlings, roughly 22 months old. That’s nearly one-third the number required for a healthy population, he said. “This is a clear indication that this population is not sustaining itself in any way, shape, or form.”

The debate over the polar-bear population has been raging for years, frequently pitting scientists against Inuit. In 2004, Environment Canada researchers concluded that the numbers in the region had dropped by 22 per cent since 1984, to 935. They also estimated that by 2011, the population would decrease to about 610. That sparked worldwide concern about the future of the bears and prompted the Canadian and American governments to introduce legislation to protect them.

But many Inuit communities said the researchers were wrong. They said the bear population was increasing and they cited reports from hunters who kept seeing more bears. Mr. Gissing said that encouraged the government to conduct the recent study, which involved 8,000 kilometres of aerial surveying last August along the coast and offshore islands.

Mr. Gissing said he hopes the results lead to more research and a better understanding of polar bears. He said the media in southern Canada has led people to believe polar bears are endangered. “They are not.” He added that there are about 25,000 polar bears across Canada’s Arctic. “That’s likely the highest [population level] there has ever been.”

There’s much at stake in the debate. Population figures are used to calculate quotas for hunting, a lucrative industry for many northern communities. Hunting polar bears is highly regulated but Inuit communities can sell their quota to sport hunters, who must hunt with Inuit guides. A polar-bear hunting trip can cost up to $50,000. Demand for polar-bear fur is also soaring in places like China and Russia and prices for some pelts have doubled in the past couple of years, reaching as high as $15,000.

The Nunavut hunting quota in the western Hudson Bay area fell to 8 from 56 after the 2004 report from Environment Canada. The Nunavut government increased it slightly last year but faced a storm of protest. Over all, about 450 polar bears are killed annually across Nunavut. Mr. Gissing said a new quota is expected to be announced in June."Fucking polar bears, they refuse to die!!!" --Environmental activists everywhere

A note about the part where the numbers are disputed. It's true, the numbers being thrown around are really the presumed average taken from a range of numbers. But pointing to the low number as an indicator while dismissing the high number as "unlikely" is disingenuous, as are the 'guesstimates' about cub populations. The older numbers, including the prediction that the population would drop to 610, are based on the same ranges and averages. And the prediction of 610 is more than 100 lower than the LOW END of the estimates.

I guess if you're a green activist and life gives you lemons, you make... lies.

[Grunthos]

Well, it is spelled 'enviroMENTAList.'

[S Carver Orne]

I guess if you're a green activist and life gives you lemons, you make... lies.

LMFAO :roflmao:

[Tonus]

Look at it this way: (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/04/climate-hysteria-is-not-science.php)

Climate Hysteria Is Not Science

This is one of the simplest proofs of that proposition I have come across: Roger Pielke, in a post titled Amazing Disconnect from the Scientific Process, notes this astonishing statement in an alarmist paper on global warming:
A global climate model that does not simulate current climate accurately does not necessarily imply that it cannot produce accurate projections.Think about that one for a while. One of the many problems with global warming “science” is that the models on which the entire enterprise is based cannot accurately describe or simulate the Earth’s current climate, nor can they, when cast backward, accurately describe the Earth’s climate history. It seems obvious that a model that can’t get the past and the present right is an unreliable guide to the future–predicting the future is the hard part–but alarmists are in the position of claiming reliability for such deeply flawed models.

So Pielke responded as follows:
I invite anyone to defend this perspective, and we will present as a guest weblog post. From my perspective, if a global climate model cannot simulate current climate, as well as changes in the climate system, accurately it cannot produce accurate projections of climate in the coming decades.

Papers that fail this test, or do not even make it, which then are still published, is a subversion of the scientific process.That strikes me as inarguable. It will be interesting to see whether any of the alarmists take Pielke up on his challenge. This is one more reminder that global warming alarmism isn’t science, it is a toxic mixture of faith and politics.

In another post, Pielke sets out these minimal standards for models’ predictions to have any credibility:

In terms of testing the models, necessary conditions (but still not a sufficient condition) for the models to have any credibility to predict the future climate on decadal time scales are:

1. They must accurately simulate (hindcast) the statistics of major atmospheric and ocean circulation features over the last few decades (since real world data is available)

and

2. They must accurately simulate (hindcast) the statistics of the changes in the statistics of these major atmospheric and ocean circulation features over the last few decades.

If they cannot do both #1 and #2, they must be rejected as robust predictive (projection) tools for the coming decades.

… If they cannot skillfully predict #1 and #2, model predictions of the coming decades, published in journal articles, news reports, and climate assessments, are misinforming and misleading stakeholders and policymakers.Pielke offers this graphic that sums up the range of B.S. that one encounters in wading through the alarmists’ papers:The graphic is an image depicting a "BS Meter" with the needle in the red.

The attitude expressed in the initial quote at the beginning of the article is simply more of the "fake but accurate" idea that gets pushed by people who are more interested in peddling a belief system than they are in facts or reality.

[Tonus]

This is being presented as the death of the Hockey Stick. (http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/5/9/the-yamal-deception.html) I think that's an inaccurate description. The hockey stick was debunked by McIntyre and McKitrick back in 2005, when they showed just how badly Michael Mann had tortured the data in order to create it.

However, after this, Keith Briffa's chart which used tree ring data from Russia seemed to verify that the hockey stick graph was accurate. After a lot of time and a lot of wrangling, Briffa was forced to provide his data to McIntyre, and Briffa's chart was shown to be even more egregiously manipulated than Mann's had been. Briffa simply removed any data that didn't provide the result he wanted.

The link is a very long report on the whole issue, but it's the more recent news that is relevant here:

The Commissioner calls

In April 2012, the tide began to shift against Briffa. The UK's Information Commissioner wrote to UEA with some bad news - although a decision on the release of the URALS chronology had not been reached, the commissioner advised the university that there could be no good reason not to disclose the list of sites used and accordingly he intended to rule against them on this issue. Briffa's hand was finally going to be forced.

The list of 17 sites that was finally sent to McIntyre represented complete vindication. The presence of Yamal and Polar Urals had already been obvious from the Climategate emails, but the list showed that Briffa had also incorporated the Polar Urals update (which, as we saw above, did not have a hockey stick shape, and which Briffa claimed he had not looked at since 1995) and the Khadtya River site, McIntyre's use of which the RealClimate authors had ridiculed.

Although the chronology itself was not yet available, the list of sites was sufficient for McIntyre to calculate the numbers himself, and the results were breathtaking. Firstly, the URALS regional chronology had vastly more data behind it than the Yamal-only figures presented in Briffa's paper

*image*

But what was worse, the regional chronology did not have a hockey stick shape - the twentieth century uptick that Briffa had got from the handful of trees in the Yamal-only series had completely disappeared.

*image*

Direct comparison of the chronology that Briffa chose to publish against the full chronology that he withheld makes the point clear:

*image*

It seems clear then that the URALS chronology Briffa prepared to go alongside the others he put together for the 2008 paper gave a message that did not comply with the message that he wanted to convey - one of unprecedented warmth at the end of the twentieth century. In essence the URALS regional chronology was suffering from the divergence problem - the widely noted failure of some tree ring series to pick up the recent warming seen in instrumental temperature records, which led to the infamous 'hide the decline' episode.

Remarkably, however, Briffa did allude to the divergence problem in his paper: These [regional chronologies] show no evidence of a recent breakdown in [the association between tree growth and temperature] as has been found at other high-latitude Northern Hemisphere locations.
The reason for dropping the URALS chronology looks abundantly clear. It would not have supported this message.
I did not want to leech Bishop Hill's bandwidth; the missing images are charts and graphs, and you can see them (and the longer story) by visiting the link.

The hockey stick graph has been dead for a while. This was just the part where it finally gets buried.

Edit to add: As an additional clarification- the "hide the decline" comment that has been used to skewer one of the climategate participants is referred to here. Phil Jones did the opposite of what Briffa did. Where Jones was inserting a different set of temperatures in order to form the hockey stick (insisting that he was replacing incorrect readings with the correct data), Briffa simply dumped the data that didn't conform to what he felt was the "real temperatures", and used one very small and very limited set of data that did. Hence in their minds, they were simply correcting the data, not fudging it. Or at least, this is how they defended their actions.

[Grunthos]

Liberals... for them, feelings trump facts. No different for liberal scientists than for liberal politicians, apparently.

It's sad and sounds rude, but it's simply true. If you think only with your heart you end up pumping blood from your head.

The phyiscal world has little tolerance for those who refuse to accept its reality.