Althouse: "The alarmists who warn about recent man-made global warming are the ones who deny the reality of climate change."

May 2, 2012

"The alarmists who warn about recent man-made global warming are the ones who deny the reality of climate change."

"They are, in fact, advocates of climate stasis. They assume that the 'normal' climate is basically what it was in 1970 — not coincidentally, about the time of the first 'Earth Day' — and any recent variation from that norm must require some extraordinary explanation."

124 comments:

cubanbob said...: Its impossible to keep a fool from their folly.; 5/2/12, 11:25 AM
Paul said...: 1970?

Nah.. 1950! Happy Days! Bobby Socks! etc..

Gad.. what fools (or worse) the nuts like Al Gore are.

Yes some sort of track record as to what 'normal' is should be defined, but 1970?; 5/2/12, 11:32 AM
Synova said...: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJUFTm6cJXM

Oldie but goodie.

But I have to run to class to find out how warm the Earth really was when it wasn't deep in an Icehouse phase.; 5/2/12, 11:34 AM
Chuck66 said...: So lets say there is man made global warming...I mean climate change. The believers are such idiots that they make it hard for rational people to be convinced.

I wish I had saved the link to Gaylord Nelson's speach on the first Earth Day. It is rather comical in how he talked about massive food shortages coming within a few years (like by 1980) and how polution will cause another ice age because the sun will be blocked out.; 5/2/12, 11:36 AM
themightypuck said...: I don't trust people who use terms like alarmist, denier and fad diet.; 5/2/12, 11:41 AM
X said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/2/12, 11:49 AM
X said...: I was in an Icehouse phase once.; 5/2/12, 11:51 AM
Moose said...: Been waiting for someone other than me to say that.; 5/2/12, 11:53 AM
CWJ said...: Very thought provoking article. I look forward to the follow-on evaluation and analysis.; 5/2/12, 11:55 AM
traditionalguy said...: Science fiction is being funded by the Governments of the world to create a Tax and Communist Wealth redistribution. That will not go away soon.

The advocate in me says the realist's mistake is to keep admitting that CO2 is a "Greenhouse gas" but not that bad a one. It is not now and never has been one unless kept in a glass enclosed dome in a laboratory where it is kept from circulating.

The Cosmic Ray caused cloud cover mechanism does explain the historic climate warming and cooling.

But there is not a world government and world currency mandate possible without the EPA's CO2 is pollution Big Lie.; 5/2/12, 12:03 PM
Alex said...: LOL - you cons will say anything to deny that AGW is 100% proven and a real crisis. Anything to keep your carbon guzzling lifestyle intact.; 5/2/12, 12:06 PM
damikesc said...: The fastest way to shut up a climate change alarmist?

Ask "So, what temperature SHOULD the Earth be?" If it's too hot now, logically, there has to be an ideal somewhere.; 5/2/12, 12:13 PM
chickelit said...: Stasis associates with status quo which associates with conservatism.

Kinesis associates with change which associates with progressives.

So odd that progressives can't embrace change.; 5/2/12, 12:16 PM
wildswan said...: Hudson's Bay has been as warm as Georgia USA; thick ice came south and dug out the Great Lakes. Change is normal. 13,000 years ago Lake Michigan at Milwaukee was filled with ice. When that ice retreated it went north 1,000 miles across Canada instead of north only to the top of the Great Lakes as the ice had been doing for about 120,000 years. And if that northward stroll continues, why must we say "now it is being caused by the United States of America"? Buy Roadside Geology of Wisconsin and learn THE SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE. Prove you are not a robot.; 5/2/12, 12:19 PM
Anonymous said...: Alex, help me out here, what ware the principal causes of the ice ages?; 5/2/12, 12:20 PM
chickelit said...: Alex said...
Anything to keep your carbon guzzling lifestyle intact.

What if you don't have a carbon guzzling lifestyle and oppose strict controls on carbon? Isn't that like Althouse's position on abortion?

Just stirring the pot here.; 5/2/12, 12:20 PM
Michael said...: Alex "LOL - you cons will say anything to deny that AGW is 100% proven and a real crisis. Anything to keep your carbon guzzling lifestyle intact."

Right. Because guzzling carbon is what we do. We would all fly seven thousand miles on two or three airplanes to make a speech just so we could guzzle guzzle.

I call your LOL and raise you a ROTFF.; 5/2/12, 12:22 PM
X said...: I cannot believe Alex's bit still draws people offsides.; 5/2/12, 12:28 PM
Anonymous said...: If you could measure climate change at any given point in the last four billion years, there's a 50 percent chance it would be warming by natural processes. There is virtually no chance of it being truly static. There's also a good chance that atmospheric CO2 concentration would be an order of magnitude higher than now. I'm baffled why people get so worked up over a human contribution that is a rounding error, mere statistical noise, against the backdrop of Mother Nature. Well, actually, no I'm not; there are all too many people whose lives revolve around sticking a gun in the taxpayer's face to steal his money for their own purposes, and forcing him to live his life as they think proper.; 5/2/12, 12:30 PM
Joe Schmoe said...: Interesting article. So not only are our sun's cosmic rays potentially affecting our climate, but also the cosmic rays of our solar system and the other rays we pass through on our way around the galaxy. That's frickin' mind-blowing to contemplate.

If true, current computational climate models really are just dart-tosses.; 5/2/12, 12:40 PM
Scott M said...: If true, current computational climate models really are just dart-tosses.

On that scale, it's more like looking at Burj-full of closed hotel rooms and trying to figure out which room the dart board is in.; 5/2/12, 12:45 PM
Joe Schmoe said...: I have noticed a decided uptick in alarmist reporting due to the mild winter and warm spring in the northern US.; 5/2/12, 12:48 PM
Original Mike said...: "They are, in fact, advocates of climate stasis."

I think we do need to monitor the climate for evidence that the extreme predictions of some climate modelers may be in the offing. I fully support further science on this issue.

However, the garden variety greens think we should spend huge sums of money (in fact, I don't think they have any feeling for how huge) for the foolish, impossible goal of climate stasis.; 5/2/12, 12:53 PM
crosspatch said...: You have to look at things in both a political and a scientific perspective.

First of all, the Earth began to recover from the Little Ice Age (LIA)in the late 1800's. The recovery seems to be superimposed on about a 60 year cycle where we see roughly 30 years of warming, a 30 year hiatus where we have flat to cooling temperatures and then 30 years warming again.

The global temperature from 1910 to the 1940's rose at about the same rate and for about the same duration as the rise from the 1970's to the early 2000's.

The key breakthrough in a possible explanation of all of this has come from one Dr. Henrik Svensmark. It seems that the variations may be due to solar activity but in a way that is obvious because solar LIGHT output does vary enough to cause these changes. It looks like it is the solar magnetic field that does it.

The solar system is constantly bombarded by Galactic cosmic rays. These are particles from supernovae and probably all sorts of other sources. We don't know where they all come from, but we do know that they are there and we can measure them. The sun's magnetic field shields the inner solar system from the majority of these rays and the solar wind actively sweeps them out. When the sun enters a phase of a weaker magnetic field and weaker solar wind, more of these high energy particles penetrate to the inner solar system.

When these particles (carrying energies 100 times more than we can attain in the largest particle accelerator) slam into Earth's atmosphere, they impact atmospheric particles sort of like a cue ball hitting a rack of pool balls. The resulting shower of sub-particles act as cloud nuclei. Basically, increased Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) act as cloud seeding.

When the sun's magnetic field declines, it is believe cloud production increases resulting in more sunlight being reflected into space (an increase in Earth's albedo, or reflectivity) and this results in cooling of the surface. Experiments in Denmark and at CERN with particle accelerators and cloud chambers have verified this.

The period from the 1970's to the early 2000's was one of an extremely active solar magnetic field, a fast and dense solar wind, and increasing surface temperatures. The period from the 1940's to the mid 1970's was a period of lower activity. In fact, there was surprisingly little solar wind during periods when our astronauts were exploring the moon and this was also a period when the media was hyping the notion that we were potentially entering a new ice age.

So, it isn't light output from the sun so much as it is magnetic and solar wind output of the sun that may modulate the amount of GCRs reaching Earth's atmosphere which in turn modulates the amount of cloud cover.

We are currently in a period to check this as we currently have the weakest solar magnetic cycle since the 1800's "Dalton Minimum". We may be entering a solar grand minimum. The rise in global temperatures flattened in the early 2000's and has been falling since around 2005. 2010 was a warm year due to a huge "El Nino" event which discharged a lot of ocean heat into the atmosphere, but overall the trend has been one of slight cooling.

Sea level rise also slowed significantly at around the same time. We currently have global sea levels basically unchanged since 2005.

One other important bit of information is that CO2 and temperatures so no correlation except for the one period between 1976 and 2002. There has been no correlation before or since. Global temperature rise since 2000 is below even the "low" estimate by the IPCC in their AR4 assessment. We shall see over the coming 20 years or so if Svensmark's hypothesis holds out. We currently ARE measuring higher GCR counts and we do see evidence of global sea surface cooling. The oceans are not much above the 1970-2000 mean.; 5/2/12, 12:55 PM
crosspatch said...: "but in a way that is obvious because solar LIGHT output does vary enough"

Meant to say "not obvious"; 5/2/12, 12:56 PM
Original Mike said...: I've been spending some time diving into GW science, and what I'm finding is that the extreme stuff that is supposedly in our future is the result of an "extrapolation" (in this case, a model projection) off of a small rise in the last few decades. This is something we are skittish about in my field. The further out your extrapolation is from the data it is based upon, the more skeptical you need to be about the "result".

It's my growing opinion that these guys are really going out on a limb.; 5/2/12, 1:02 PM
Methadras said...: Gaia theory has been refudiated and debunked by it's own creator. These fools have no legs to stand on.; 5/2/12, 1:04 PM
Toad Trend said...: Good article. My physics teacher always said that cosmic rays weren't bullshit.

The only constant in climate IS change, no denying that.; 5/2/12, 1:07 PM
Wince said...: Svensmark's latest paper goes much further, showing how supernovae and their cosmic rays can explain mass extinctions and other major events in the history of life on Earth.

You can call it "global warming", or you can call it "climate change".

Climate change explained by cosmic Ray.; 5/2/12, 1:13 PM
chickelit said...: Who chose la même qu'il ne peut changer?; 5/2/12, 1:15 PM
MadisonMan said...: It is rather comical in how he talked about massive food shortages coming within a few years (like by 1980) and how polution will cause another ice age because the sun will be blocked out.

Pollution (aerosols) do increase the planetary albedo. So a by-product of cleaner air is a lower albedo is a warmer Earth.

I found this to be a very interesting blog post. It all depends on how you slice up the data, doesn't it?

As far as Svensmark's theory: If the path of the Earth through the galaxy is known in the past, then changes in the number of cosmic rays intercepting the Earth must be calculable, and if that is then well correlated with temperature changes, his theory will have more credence. Let me ask if that has been done. I'm not aware of it.

A key element of this theory, the effect of cosmic rays in creating aerosols in the atmosphere, was recently demonstrated in an experiment at the CERN particle accelerator.

Um, this is a simplification of what actually happened because it occurred in a lab setting, and not the atmosphere. In other words, not the scientist/experimenter's summary.; 5/2/12, 1:16 PM
MadisonMan said...: By the way, Climate is changing, irrefutably.

We were recently here in Wisconsin in a winter climate. Now we're in a Spring Climate. In a month or two we'll be in a summer climate.; 5/2/12, 1:18 PM
Original Mike said...: From the article: "This was the point, by the way, of Michael Mann's infamous "hockey stick" graph. Mann tried to rewrite paleoclimatology, the history of past climate, by manipulating evidence from various temperature "proxies." (Since we don't have direct thermometer measurements from five hundred or two thousand years ago, we need to use things we can measure, like tree-ring samples from ancient, slow-growing trees, as an imperfect stand-in.) By using a questionable statistical model, Mann made it look like global temperatures had been basically flat over the past two millennia, only moving in the last two decades of the 20th century."

This is exactly right. It is imperative for the warming catastrophe thesis that the Medieval Warm Period "go away." Mann pulled that off. If you read A.W. Montford's book, and if you have any background in science, you'll come away appalled at his methods.; 5/2/12, 1:31 PM
raf said...: So we here on earth are affected in basic and powerful ways by the solar system moving through the galaxy. Does this mean the astrologers had a point? Maybe not the correct point, but still....; 5/2/12, 1:35 PM
crosspatch said...: Now from the economic/political side:

You can basically convert some units of economic activity to some units of energy consumption. If I grow apples and I want to double production, I am going to have to increase my energy consumption. I will have to pick and wash twice as many apples, drive twice as many to market, put twice as many in cold storage. I can gain some efficiency through conservation but overall, to increase economic output I must increase energy consumption.

All power except nuclear is carbon-based. Doesn't matter if you burn oil or natural gas, you will produce about the same amount of CO2 for a given number of BTU of heat energy. If I can come up with a scheme to regulate CO2 and at the same time restrict the development of nuclear power, I can control a nation's economy. In fact, if I establish global regulations, I can manage global economic activity.

If I wish to create a global "redistribution of wealth" from developed countries to underdeveloped countries, I simply place restrictions on CO2 where I want to curtail growth and allow the places I want to grow to be free of such restrictions. This allows unrestricted economic growth in the unrestricted areas (e.g. China, India, Brazil)while severely restricting growth in other areas (e.g Europe, North America, Australia).

The rate of growth of CO2 emissions in China is currently equal to adding an entire UK every 18 months but that will drop as China is embarking on a massive nuclear construction binge. If we scraped the UK down to bare rock and eliminated every single human being, global CO2 emissions would be right back where they were before in 18 months.

Kyoto is not really designed to reduce global CO2. It is designed to redistribute economic growth. It is about managing growth in energy consumption. If it were REALLY about CO2, the UN would be going around the world putting out coal seam fires. Globally, coal seam fires currently burning produce as much atmospheric CO2 as all the automobile, truck, and train traffic in North America. Putting out those fires would have the same impact as taking every single car and truck off the road in the US. I don't see any major multi-billion dollar per year program aimed at putting out those fires.

Global Warming is simply the "hook" that is used to get well-meaning people to buy into the notion of reducing their economic growth by agreeing to mandated for CO2. It is vital that nuclear power be opposed in order for it to work. Very expensive and fragile power such as wind and solar are offered as a means of increasing energy production but a wind infrastructure gets destroyed with every passing hurricane and must be replaced.

If CO2 were REALLY the problem, the UN would be MANDATING that Europe and North America embark on a massive nuclear construction program with recycling of nuclear fuel rather than burying it.; 5/2/12, 1:35 PM
Crunchy Frog said...: You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay...; 5/2/12, 1:36 PM
Original Mike said...: "I cannot believe Alex's bit still draws people offsides."

Artfully put.

(I had to type more to prove I'm not a robot than I did for my post.); 5/2/12, 1:38 PM
chickelit said...: Deftly put crosspatch; 5/2/12, 1:44 PM
Original Mike said...: "As far as Svensmark's theory: If the path of the Earth through the galaxy is known in the past, then changes in the number of cosmic rays intercepting the Earth must be calculable"

I don't think this calculation is possible. I don't know how we would be able to do anything other than flat out guess the spatial distribution of cosmic ray fluence. We don't even really know where cosmic rays come from (although a lot of progress is being made on this question.); 5/2/12, 1:47 PM
Original Mike said...: "If CO2 were REALLY the problem, the UN would be MANDATING that Europe and North America embark on a massive nuclear construction program with recycling of nuclear fuel rather than burying it."

As Glenn Reynolds says: I'll start believing it's a problem when they start acting like it's a problem.; 5/2/12, 1:53 PM
Original Mike said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/2/12, 2:10 PM
dbp said...: If I remember my astronomy correctly, the spiral arms of a galaxy are waves of new star formation. They show up because large stars burn out more quickly and go nova. The rotation of the stars in a spiral galaxy takes them into and out of the bright areas of new star formation and therefore into and out of cosmic ray intensity.

The Svensmark article is here.; 5/2/12, 2:17 PM
gerry said...: I don't trust people who use terms like alarmist, denier and fad diet.

I'm an alarmist dieter and a fad denier.; 5/2/12, 2:23 PM
MadisonMan said...: I don't know how we would be able to do anything other than flat out guess the spatial distribution of cosmic ray fluence. We don't even really know where cosmic rays come from (although a lot of progress is being made on this question.)

Then isn't Svensmark's work just another theory that can't be proven?

(thanks, dbp, for the link to the article); 5/2/12, 2:30 PM
DADvocate said...: Duh.

Climate's like the weather. You just have to wait a little longer for it to change.; 5/2/12, 2:31 PM
Original Mike said...: Thanks for the link, dbp. I look forward to reading it.

@MM: The post I deleted gave a guess as to how one might procede. I deleted it, because, because it looks like that's what Svensmark has gone and done. re: not knowing the origin of cosmic rays; I was mixing up a couple of different things I've read. We do know that supernovae are a source of lower energy cosmic rays. However, cosmic rays exhibit an energy spectrum and the claim is made that we've detected cosmic rays of energies higher than can be produced by supernovae. People are looking at black holes as the source of these high energy particles.; 5/2/12, 2:41 PM
Carnifex said...: This is all moot anyway. The Mayans forecast the end of this period of earth habitation thousands of years ago, on Dec 21 of this year.

Now I don't know about you, but if a native shaman from a people who never invented the wheel tells me the world is going to end, then who am I to dispute it?

Nostradamus, and Edgar Cayce, also agree. If the big 3 of new age-ism says sell, then I sell. ManBearPig is just a charlatan trying to horn in on their action.; 5/2/12, 2:43 PM
Alex said...: I can see the usual denial-ism going on.; 5/2/12, 2:50 PM
kimsch said...: I've been saying this for years. They've taken a snapshot of a certain point in time and decided that that's the *right* [whatever].

That's the *right* temperature
That's the *right* water level in some body of water
That's the *right* number of snail darters
That's the *right* number of spotted owls
That's the *right* amount of trees
That's the *right* amount of prairie
That's the *right* amount of wetlands

and Gaia forbid any changes, ever.; 5/2/12, 2:54 PM
Toad Trend said...: Michael 'Meathead' Stivic: Arch, when you were talking with Ma the other day about Manifest Destiny, did you mention the fact it was just another name for American imperialism?
Archie Bunker: Hah?
Michael 'Meathead' Stivic: That's right. It was just an excuse to rip off other people's land. That's the way we stole Texas from Mexico.
Archie Bunker: [Points his finger at Michael] Listen, Subversive. The U S of A never stole nothin' from nobody. The Mexicans was only too glad to give us Texas after we beat the hell out of 'em in a war.

Archie Bunker: The Indians don't vote.
Michael 'Meathead' Stivic: Archie, the Indians were given the vote in 1924.

*Archie Bunker: I ain't talking about that, I'm saying they don't use their vote, like a fellow told me. They sell all their horses for booze and then they can't ride into town.*

Michael 'Meathead' Stivic: That is the *stupidest* thing I've ever heard.; 5/2/12, 2:59 PM
MadisonMan said...: The fastest way to shut up a climate change alarmist?

Ask "So, what temperature SHOULD the Earth be?"

The temperature should allow for sufficient food production.

If your softball question shuts someone up, then they don't know anything to begin with.; 5/2/12, 3:01 PM
Original Mike said...: "The temperature should allow for sufficient food production."

Warmer is better, then. Plants like high CO2 as well.; 5/2/12, 3:03 PM
Toad Trend said...: MadisonMan

What is 'room temperature'?; 5/2/12, 3:08 PM
Original Mike said...: dbp - I really want to thank you for the link. That's the kind of stuff (galactic astronomy) I love to read for relaxation. (I'm weird; I know.); 5/2/12, 3:11 PM
Alex said...: When New Orleans is completely under water, Republicans will cheer.; 5/2/12, 3:25 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: "The temperature should allow for sufficient food production."

Warmer is better, then. Plants like high CO2 as well.

It's better/worse than that (depending on your point of view). If you look at a globe of the Earth, one of the things that you should notice is that a lot of the land is at a fairly high latitude. That is where the biggest countries in the world are, and you have many thousands of miles of Russia/Siberia and Canada right at the freeze zone. Above that, and the ground never thaws enough for farming. I informally calculated a couple years ago that if the freeze line moves north by 100 miles or so, better than a billion acres of land could be opened up to farming.

Not only that though, but also note that the warmer the climate, the higher the value of the crops that can be grown. Which is why during the Medieval Warming Period, they were able to grow grapes for wine in England and along the norther Atlantic coast here in N. America (remember "Vinland"?) The Vikings had to pull out of N. America, and mostly out of Greenland, when we entered the Little Ice Age.

The only thing that the AGW alarmists can plausibly argue might reduce overall global food production in a warmer Earth, is if the weather patterns change so much that water becomes significantly more scarce over much of the arable land. But, that is less than mere conjecture, esp. looking at past times of a warmer climate.; 5/2/12, 3:25 PM
Original Mike said...: "When New Orleans is completely under water, Republicans will cheer."

The French Quarter will still be there. The French weren't dummies; they built on high ground. The people who followed them; well, what can you say?; 5/2/12, 3:30 PM
MadisonMan said...: Warmer is better, then.

Pests like it warm too.; 5/2/12, 3:36 PM
damikesc said...: The temperature should allow for sufficient food production.

If your softball question shuts someone up, then they don't know anything to begin with.

It does that now.

Thus, no crisis.

Everybody can stop worrying.; 5/2/12, 3:42 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I've been spending some time diving into GW science, and what I'm finding is that the extreme stuff that is supposedly in our future is the result of an "extrapolation" (in this case, a model projection) off of a small rise in the last few decades. This is something we are skittish about in my field. The further out your extrapolation is from the data it is based upon, the more skeptical you need to be about the "result".

Worse, again, for the AGW alarmists. The problem is that the run away temperature increases being "extrapolated" are based on a theory where the feedback from an increasing CO2 concentration is significantly positive. Kinda like Nancy Pelosi and all of the jobs that she keeps claiming are created by the rampant government spending that she has pushed. In other words, they are assuming an significant upwards curve in the CO2 temperature relationship.

But, that runs into a lot of small problems. First and foremost, the CO2 concentration has been far, far, higher, in the past, and we didn't see that sort of run-away feedback. Rather, the opposite. And, that is confirmed by recent research that shows that the feedback is really negative, if anything. In other words, the curve is slightly downwards, not significantly upwards, as theorized. In order to continue to theorize this significant positive feedback, you need to ignore much of the recent empirical data. And, then there is the problem that CO2 is a very weak, trace greenhouse gas.

From a statistical point of view, what the AGW alarmist "scientists" seem to have claimed to have done is to take into account, control for, and neutralize the effects of all the other, stronger, factors that control the Earth's temperature. But, as we are seeing, they have substantially inadequate knowledge of these other, much more powerful, factors, such as cloud formation, cosmic rays, solar output, ocean heat absorption, etc.

And, that is one reason that these models that predict global catastrophe are essentially building a multi-story building with match sticks on shifting sand. One slightly credible assumption is piled on top of another, and another, until they get the results that they want. And, damn the empirical evidence to the contrary, or the research in other areas of "science".

And, in particular, note that much of AGW "science" was the furthest thing from interdisciplinary. The experts from other scientific disciplines were explicitly excluded, including physics, geology, paleontology, botany, etc. Oh, and most importantly, statistics.; 5/2/12, 3:43 PM
dbp said...: "When New Orleans is completely under water, Republicans will cheer."

I have a plan to save New Orleans: Garbage from cities all along the Mississippi could be brought in by barge until the elevation of New Orleans is a good 100 ft above sea level. Then New New Orleans could be built on top of that.

It could be done one section at a time and while most structures would be razed, the more historic ones could be raised up and filled under. While they are at it, all the utilities could be buried for better storm resilience.; 5/2/12, 3:44 PM
crosspatch said...: People are also (intentionally?) not shown the recent (past 100 years') warming in the total context. They are not shown how temperatures cooled dramatically into the LIA and stayed there. The LIA was the coldest portion of the current interglacial period (the Holocene) for over 10,000 years. In fact, portions of what were working farms in Greenland are still frozen in permafrost to this day. It STILL hasn't recovered to the temperatures seen before the LIA.

Over the past 150 years we have undergone a *partial* recovery from the conditions of the Little Ice Age. The truth is that climate is *always* changing. It is rarely stable for any significant period of time and has become increasingly unstable for the past 3000 years. This instability is typical for the period near the end of an interglacial.

We have seen cool periods with each one a bit cooler than the one before. We see warm periods with each topping out a little cooler than the one before. We see the Minoan Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period was a bit cooler, the Medieval Warm Period was a bit cooler than the Roman and now the Modern Warm Period which has not reached the warmth of the Medieval warm period.

As alpine glaciers in Europe retreat, they are revealing 5000 year old wood. Those glaciated valleys were ice free only 5000 years ago and were ice free long enough to become forested.

The information given to the people is being done in such a way as to manipulate them into supporting what amounts to a global socialist program of "social justice" and redistribution of wealth. Getting them to buy into it requires they be "afraid" of not buying into it and so we have the boogeyman of "global warming" to convince them to go along.; 5/2/12, 3:47 PM
Original Mike said...: "From a statistical point of view, what the AGW alarmist "scientists" seem to have claimed to have done is to take into account, control for, and neutralize the effects of all the other, stronger, factors that control the Earth's temperature."

Yep. Another thing I was taught not to do: Believe a result which is small compared to the corrections made to the data.; 5/2/12, 3:52 PM
crosspatch said...: "Believe a result which is small compared to the corrections made to the data. "

What is most interesting is that these "corrections" continue to be made. If you look at the National Climate Data Center's (NCDC) database today, the temperature listed for 1920 will be much cooler than it was if you had looked two years ago. Each month they adjust temperatures before 1950 down just a smidgeon and adjust temperatures after 1950 up a little. So not only are the adjustments large, they continue to grow month after month. They have never explained why.

This graph shows the amount of the CHANGE in adjustment since 2008 in the NCDC database. Blue means the temperatures have been adjusted downwards in the database since 2008 and red means they have been adjusted upwards.; 5/2/12, 4:02 PM
crosspatch said...: This graph shows you how the difference between two dates, January 1915 and January 2000 has grown since 2008 through adjustments in that database.

If you looked at the database in 2008, the difference in temperatures between those months would have been 0.39 degrees C. If you look today you will see that the difference is now 0.49 degrees C. So Global Warming is apparently not just bad, it has a time machine and gets even worse with every passing month. So next month, January 2000 will be even warmer than it was last month!

Fully 20% of the "global warming" between those two dates is created simply by changing the "adjustments" each month. Man made global warming, indeed!

You are being lied to.; 5/2/12, 4:09 PM
kimsch said...: Alex said...

When New Orleans is completely under water, Republicans will cheer.

No.

But when you build a city below sea level you should expect that some flooding will occur.; 5/2/12, 4:11 PM
Original Mike said...: "So Global Warming is apparently not just bad, it has a time machine and gets even worse with every passing month. So next month, January 2000 will be even warmer than it was last month!"

There's your positive feedback, right there!; 5/2/12, 4:12 PM
crosspatch said...: I really don't think New Orleans has much to worry about. Sea level rise has basically gone flat in the past few years and overall greatly reduced in rate from what it was in the early 2000's.

Most of that rise was due to thermal expansion of the ocean as the water warmed anyway as changes in sea level track changes in ocean heat content.; 5/2/12, 4:30 PM
MadisonMan said...: @crosspatch, you have an interesting definition of 'much cooler'.

The information given to the people is being done in such a way as to manipulate them into supporting what amounts to a global socialist program of "social justice" and redistribution of wealth. Getting them to buy into it requires they be "afraid" of not buying into it and so we have the boogeyman of "global warming" to convince them to go along.

This is what you -- or anyone -- should be arguing against. The use of bogiemen by the Government to change behavior. But it's so much easier to try to change the science than to change the Government.

Never let a crisis go to waste is the maxim of both Political Parties in this country.; 5/2/12, 4:32 PM
wildswan said...: Crosspatch
Where did you get that data about continuous adjustments to temperature levels?; 5/2/12, 4:36 PM
Fen said...: Madison: Never let a crisis go to waste is the maxim of both Political Parties in this country.

Bullshit. That won't fly here. That maxim belongs SOLELY to your party, the Democrats. Own it.; 5/2/12, 4:37 PM
Cedarford said...: Nice 1:35PM post, Crosspatch.

5 years ago, I had a debate about the subject of coal mine fires over on the Atlantic Blog. At the time, realization of thousands of Chinese coal mine fires, some burning for several centuries, led to speculation that not only had China been de facto the largest Evil Carbon Emitter since the 1800s...but that the scale of those fires made lots of people question why Greens had not made them a priority to put out.

Why was this absent from the discussion, while Evil American SUVs were called the main "Planet Killer" that would cause ocean levels to rise 30 feet.

We got a lot of hemming and hawing....(1)Flooding coal mine fires would pollute groundwater and rivers with the runoff. (2)The technology for putting out such fires didn't exist. (3)It was risky to workers to fight such fires. (4)We could DO something about Evil SUVs, we couldn't TELL China and other countries to put out all the coal fires. (5)The heroes at the EPA were studying the issue and had awarded many grants for more studies.; 5/2/12, 4:43 PM
Original Mike said...: "@crosspatch, you have an interesting definition of 'much cooler'."

I could very well have the numbers wrong, but I thought the temperature anamoly was something like 0.6-deg C over (help me here, MM; 1970 - 2000? 1940 - 2000?). Of this rise, the IPCC attributes half this to rebound from the little ice age, and half to CO2. Crosspatch's first graph shows a peak-to-trough change of 0.1-deg C. Seems significant to me. (But, again, please correct my numbers.); 5/2/12, 4:44 PM
MadisonMan said...: That maxim belongs SOLELY to your party, the Democrats.

Tell it to Mr. Trifecta, GW Bush.

I know, I know. He's not a REAL Republican (eyeroll).; 5/2/12, 4:46 PM
Original Mike said...: "Globally, coal seam fires currently burning produce as much atmospheric CO2 as all the automobile, truck, and train traffic in North America."

This is true?; 5/2/12, 4:47 PM
dbp said...: At some point the Mississippi River will change course and then New Orleans will be, at least metaphorically, high and dry.; 5/2/12, 4:48 PM
Original Mike said...: Oh, Bush is a real Republican. Conservative is what he is not.; 5/2/12, 4:49 PM
crosspatch said...: "Where did you get that data about continuous adjustments to temperature levels? "

It's been reported for quite some time and anyone can watch it being done themselves by simply looking at the NCDC database every month.

I got the GRAPH from the website posted in the URL. It is just a representation of the actual data that is posted every month in the public database. It isn't opinion or conjecture or speculation. It is just the differences between the various data points as they appear in the database each month.

Go here and scroll down to where it says "Maturity diagram showing net change since 17 May 2008 ". There are links there to the NCDC data including a snapshot of the 2008 data. You don't need to rely on that website, you may keep track of the changes yourself if you wish. It is public data.

What is even worse is that the brand new versions of the GISS and HADCRUT database now use the NCDC database as their starting point and then add further adjustments on top of those done by NCDC. So the NCDC "adjustments" are now a part of HADCRUT4. As expected, HADCRUT4 now shows 2003 as warmer than 1998 when in HADCRUT3 the opposite was the case.

We are only talking about a total of 1.5 degrees C of warming over 150 years and no change at all over the past 15 years in the raw data so even a tiny adjustment is a large portion of the total.; 5/2/12, 4:49 PM
Original Mike said...: "At some point the Mississippi River will change course and then New Orleans will be, at least metaphorically, high and dry."

I had forgotten about the Old River Control Structure. New Orleans has nothing to worry about (other than their economic base).; 5/2/12, 4:51 PM
crosspatch said...: ""@crosspatch, you have an interesting definition of 'much cooler'"

When we are only taking about 0.4 degrees of change, much of that accounted for by "adjustments" to the raw data, a change in the adjustment of 0.1 degrees is MUCH COOLER in that it amounts to 20% of the current amount of change.

Contrary to the impression you might get, we are only talking about 1.5 degrees total change since the 1800's and much of that due to adjustment. Areas that are rural now and were rural then show an even much lower amount of total change, less than 1 degree in most cases.

Temperature varies by more than 1 degree from hour to hour and certainly day by day. A change of 1 degree in the overall average temperature over the course of a year is completely insignificant.

Let me put it to you another way. We have direct evidence that a 2 degree C warming above today's temperatures will not cause an environmental catastrophe. We know that because global temperatures were about 2 degrees higher and sea levels about 2 meters higher 7000 years ago. Virtually every species alive today was also alive 7000 years ago. They (and we) survived just fine.

We also know that temperatures 5 degrees C higher won't cause a catastrophe either because temperatures in the last interglacial period were about 5 degrees warmer than they are now. Nearly every species that is alive today was alive then.

You are being spoon-fed a line of baloney.; 5/2/12, 4:59 PM
crosspatch said...: It actually gets even worse when you understand the full scope of what is going on and how global economic policy is actually being managed by unelected bureaucrats who have been appointed by nobody but themselves.

The UNFCCC issues recommendations on various ways to make things more "sustainable". Some countries (e.g. the UK) have "internationalized" their environmental policies to automatically adopt UNFCCC recommendations and guidelines without elected representatives of the people having any input into the decisions at all. So in the UK, Defra will take the recommendations of the UNFCCC and implement them. There is no debate in Parliament over the regulations, it is done completely at the administrative level.

But wait, it gets worse.

Say you have a place such as the University of East Anglia which has great influence over an organization at the UN called the IPCC. The IPCC issues various assessments which the UNFCCC uses to justify their various recommendations. When Defra gets these recommendations, they contract to a group called The Tyndall Centre to help with the implementation of them. This brings in millions of dollars to Tyndall ... which is a part of the University of East Anglia. So the scientists such as Phil Jones and Keith Briffa who play a large role in IPCC assessments and thereby UNFCCC guidelines and thereby Defra contracts to Tyndal are actually bringing in millions of dollars to the university. They are a gold mine.

And the elected officials never get in the way at all because they have abdicated their responsibility to the UN, who nobody elected and nobody can "fire".; 5/2/12, 5:16 PM
MadisonMan said...: Or about Scott Walker and his budget crisis?

Is he a "Real" Republican?; 5/2/12, 5:19 PM
Original Mike said...: MM:

1) I don't know what budget crisis you're talking about. Not playing stupid, just need more than that to formulate a response.

2) Said discussion would probably be better in a different thread.

3) Yes, I would call Scott Walker a real Reupublican. I agreed Bush was a real Republican.

4) I am not a real Republican.; 5/2/12, 5:23 PM
MadisonMan said...: .... because global temperatures were about 2 degrees higher and sea levels about 2 meters higher 7000 years ago. Virtually every species alive today was also alive 7000 years ago. They (and we) survived just fine.

You are arguing that a 2-m sea level rise won't have a catastrophic effect now because our species survived it fine then? I don't think that's a good argument.

Whether or not the sea level rise will actually occur? Don't know. But I do know that the economic disruption something like that would cause would be immense.; 5/2/12, 5:25 PM
MadisonMan said...: Re: Coal fires. It would surprise me if that factoid (that they produce more CO2 than NA transportation uses) were true.

But if you knew the amount of gas/diesel sold you could compute the amount of CO2 that fuel would produce. Then take that value and back out the number of tons of coal that would have to burn.

Sounds like a good qualifying exam question :)

There are plenty of coal seam fires in Pennsylvania. One even claimed a zip code! (Centralia, PA).; 5/2/12, 5:31 PM
MadisonMan said...: I don't know what budget crisis you're talking about.

That would be the one claimed to exist that meant his Budget Repair Bill in 2011 -- perhaps you remember that -- had to be passed right now!

Off to bike. What beautiful weather!; 5/2/12, 5:34 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Yep. Another thing I was taught not to do: Believe a result which is small compared to the corrections made to the data.

I think that crosspatch's point and mine were a bit different, though complimentary.

Mine is that statistically, when you are doing any sort of correlation, or more generally, statistical analysis, and you are trying to show correlation between variables, that you have to control for major known factors before even attempting to identify correlation. In this case, they would have had to control for the effects of cloud formation, ocean heat retention, solar and cosmic rays, etc., before attempting to test for correlation of CO2 to temperature. And, yes, they made some attempt to do so, based on models for at least some of those factors. BUT, their models for those factors seem to have been even less credible than their models for CO2 temperature forcing. And, they don't seem to have made any real attempt to keep up with the march of science in other areas concerning these other factors - as, for example, illustrated by this article.

Let us hypothetically look at it this way. Let us assume that CO2 might be 2% of the factors determining global temperature. The rest, including those factors mentioned above constitute the other 98%. A 2% error in the rest of the factors would totally wipe out the entire CO2 contribution. But, we don't know whether the accuracy is 2% or 10%. And, so, whatever results can be teased out of the relationship between CO2 and temperature are completely swamped by the inaccuracies in the dominant factors. (And, yes, my argument is somewhat fallacious on a completely mathematical/ statistical basis, since error terms don't add like that, but it is illustrative of the problem).

Maybe one way of looking at the difference between what crosspatch is saying and what I am trying to say, is that he is looking at the numbers that are used in the statistical analysis, and I was positing that even if we had good numbers there, the statistical results using those numbers would not be statistically valid.

And, he only mentions one place where there are problems with the numbers used for the statistical analysis - that of (mostly manual) correction. And, even there, I think that he only scratches the surface of the problem. We have indicia that the numbers that were used for the IPCC results were heavily fudged, and done so in an undocumented and unreproduceable way (thanks, among other sources, to the CRU ClimateGate information). Moreover, there is evidence that some of the known fudging, such as for the urban heat island effect, is highly questionable.; 5/2/12, 5:35 PM
crosspatch said...: "You are arguing that a 2-m sea level rise won't have a catastrophic effect now because our species survived it fine then? I don't think that's a good argument."

I am saying that nothing that is being forecast is outside the natural variability that we have already seen and survived in the past.

I am also saying that the dire forecasts from the IPCC reply on a speculative 3 to 5x positive feedback to CO2 increase. In other words, they say that CO2 by itself will not increase temperatures that much but that other changes caused by an increase in CO2 will amplify the warming by 3x to 5x. Recent data suggests that CO2 feedbacks may be negative and not positive at all.

There may be no net warming due to CO2 and all warming so far seen can be accounted for by changes in cloud cover.

2 degrees change would be negligible at a biological level. It would have an economic impact. COOLING has a much larger global biological impact. For example: a year that is 5 degrees warmer than normal can be survived just fine. A year that is 5 degrees colder than normal will result in global famine. The reasons is that it takes only ONE cold night during the growing season to kill an entire crop. A killing frost in the Midwestern US would likely result in starvation for millions, particularly in third world counties.

We are likely going to see over the next 20 years the coldest temperatures we have seen since the 1600's if current solar forecasts hold up. This will be MUCH more detrimental to biological diversity than warming is.; 5/2/12, 5:36 PM
Original Mike said...: "But I do know that the economic disruption something like that would cause would be immense."

Sure, but you'd agree I hope that you need to compare it to the costs to prevent it. If the rise ocurred over, say, a century, it might be a lot cheaper to deal with the rise rather than the warming. It is not a given that, even if AGW ocurrs, that the best course of action is to prevent it (if that's even realistically possible.); 5/2/12, 5:38 PM
Revenant said...: You are arguing that a 2-m sea level rise won't have a catastrophic effect now because our species survived it fine then? I don't think that's a good argument.

If it happened all at once, tomorrow, yes. That would be a catastrophe.

But sea levels won't rise to that height until the mid-2400s. That doesn't sound very catastrophic. That sounds like the kind of gradual environmental change humans have been dealing with since we came down from the trees.; 5/2/12, 5:46 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Whether or not the sea level rise will actually occur? Don't know. But I do know that the economic disruption something like that would cause would be immense.

Why so? Doesn't it depend on how long that takes? After all, the replacement time for buildings is such that if the rise is slow enough, the disruption will be diminished, if not eliminated, through normal building replacement.

Think of it this way - let us assume a one foot a century sea level rise, and a 50 year economic life of buildings. That means that they would need to be replaced twice per century. So, only those buildings that would be lost in a 6 inch sea level rise would be lost.

Keep in mind that humans have always migrated. They apparently migrated out of Africa at least twice. And, our history is replete with, if not driven, by migrations of comparatively large populations of people.

And, if you are including farmland loss, keep in mind that if the cause is truly global warming (caused by CO2 buildup?), that you have to take into account all of the farmland opened up to cultivation across Russia/Siberia, Canada, and maybe even Alaska, as the freeze line moves north.; 5/2/12, 5:47 PM
Crimso said...: "Um, this is a simplification of what actually happened because it occurred in a lab setting, and not the atmosphere."

And you'll note that the critical characteristics of CO2 WRT climate were determined in a lab setting and not the atmosphere.; 5/2/12, 5:48 PM
crosspatch said...: "Mine is that statistically, when you are doing any sort of correlation, or more generally, statistical analysis, and you are trying to show correlation between variables, that you have to control for major known factors before even attempting to identify correlation. "

CO2 correlates to temperature rise in only one 30 year portion of the record over the past 150 years. The period from 1910 to 1940 saw very little change in CO2 emissions yet nearly an identical temperature rise as we have had recently.

From the 1940's to the 1970's we had a drastic ramp up in CO2 emissions yet we had cooling temperatures.

From 1970's to 2000's we had warming temperatures with rising CO2. In the past 15 years we have had the fastest rising human CO2 emissions but no rise in temperature.

There is another important thing. While human CO2 emissions are increasing rapidly, atmospheric CO2 is rising at basically a linear rate. That would imply that human CO2 emissions aren't as a significant portion of the total as many would like us to believe. Also, in 2009, global human CO2 emissions actually declined in absolute terms. Humans produced less CO2 in 2009 than we did in 2008 yet global atmospheric CO2 content continued its unchanged linear increase.

The CO2 is likely coming from the ocean. It takes the oceans hundreds of years to "ventilate" or be exposed to the atmosphere and exchange gasses. The LIA was several hundred years long and during that time the oceans cooled. We have only been recovering from the LIA for about 150 years. As oceans warm, they release CO2. The source of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is likely to be ocean warming as the seas continue their recovery from the LIA. That recovery will likely continue for another century or two.

It takes much less time to cool the oceans than it takes to warm them due to convection. It is very difficult to warm the deep ocean by heating the surface. You can very easily COOL the deep ocean by cooling the surface because cold water sinks.; 5/2/12, 5:48 PM
crosspatch said...: "Sea level rise" due to subsidence of shoreline areas due to pumping out of ground water is faster than the actual rise of the oceans in most areas. Some populated coastal areas have subsided tens of feet due to ground water pumping.; 5/2/12, 5:50 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I am also saying that the dire forecasts from the IPCC reply on a speculative 3 to 5x positive feedback to CO2 increase. In other words, they say that CO2 by itself will not increase temperatures that much but that other changes caused by an increase in CO2 will amplify the warming by 3x to 5x. Recent data suggests that CO2 feedbacks may be negative and not positive at all.

My problem with the 3x-5x positive feedback has always been the question of why, if the CO2 concentration has been much higher in the past, why didn't we get run-away feedback then?; 5/2/12, 5:53 PM
crosspatch said...: My problem with the 3x-5x positive feedback has always been the question of why, if the CO2 concentration has been much higher in the past, why didn't we get run-away feedback then?

Yes, may others have been asking the same question. There are several problems with their prognostications. When modern corals evolved, CO2 levels were about 5x higher than today's levels. We have had ice ages with higher CO2 levels than today.

But more important is the fact that temperature response to CO2 is logarithmic. If you double CO2 you get X increase in temperature. To get the same amount of increase in temperature you would have to double it again. Another way of looking at it is that MOST of the impact of doubling CO2 from preindustrial levels has already been experienced.

Increasing CO2 from the pre-industrial (LIA) level of 278 ppm to 556 ppm should result in a temperature change of 1 degree C with no feedbacks. We are currently at 395 ppm. We are nearly half way through that doubling of CO2 meaning much more than half of the total change from the increase should already be experience and the additional temperature rise for the remaining 161 ppm should be less than what we have already experienced with the 117 ppm already.

In other words, the more CO2 you have in the atmosphere, the less difference each additional ppm makes.

There is no evidence to date of any of the feedbacks proposed by the IPCC.

Not one single predictive indication of these feedbacks have been found in the observational data and we have considering data showing the opposite, that feedback from additional CO2 is likely negative.; 5/2/12, 6:18 PM
crosspatch said...: And as luck would have it, we get a new forecast from NASA for the current solar cycle, "smallest in 100 years" and since the next cycle is also predicted to be weak (weaker than this one, possibly NO sunspots at all for extended periods) we could see the lowest sunspot counts since the 1600's during the Maunder Minimum.; 5/2/12, 6:23 PM
MadisonMan said...: I guess I anticipate a faster reduction in glacial coverage than most here.; 5/2/12, 8:00 PM
roesch/voltaire said...: Cross claims: Virtually every species alive today was also alive 7000 years ago. They (and we) survived just fine.But a quick check reveals this claim, like others, is exaggerated, Check link for small sample:
http://planetbloom.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/12-amazing-extinct-animals-with-pictures/; 5/2/12, 8:03 PM
traditionalguy said...: The heart of the Big Lie is the presumption that CO2 "traps heat" like it is putting a glass dome over the earth. That is so cartoon stupid that no one notices that it is false.

Clouds sheild the earth from the sun, or not if there are not enough clouds being seeded by the Cosmic rays.

But 400ppm trace gas CO2 molecules trap nothing at all. It was a Big Lie. The Big Lie repeats a false statement until everyone forgets that it was always false.

That makes Obama's EPA a criminal enterprise for fraudulent theft.; 5/2/12, 8:22 PM
crosspatch said...: "Cross claims: Virtually every species alive today was also alive 7000 years ago."

How many species alive today were not alive 7000 years ago? You provided a list of species which are NOT alive today that WERE alive 7000 years ago. Species go extinct every day. 97% of all species that have ever existed are extinct.

What I said was that all species we have with us now were here when temperatures were much warmer.; 5/2/12, 8:32 PM
Elliott A said...: Interesting fact: Termites put twice the CO2 into the atmosphere than all human activity. Humans account for 3% of all CO2 into the atmosphere, natural processes 97%. The CO2 follows warming, it doesn't cause it! It comes out of the oceans as they warm, since warmer water holds less CO2. Also bunk that anyone can claim galloping acidification without the CO2 being absorbed by the oceans. All computer models have the three year cooling trend continuing and intensifying in the coming fall and winter. The natural cycle is turning.
P.S. If you haven't taken calculus, statistics and college level physics, and organic chemistry, don't spout off on this subject, just as I can't spout off about law, never took law classes. The studies these prowarmists rely on are statistically and scientifically invalid. They may be right, but they certainly don't even have a smoking slingshot, let alone gun.; 5/2/12, 8:42 PM
crosspatch said...: But in any case, there has been no warming that is historically unusual in either magnitude or rate. There is nothing that correlates CO2 with warming except for one 30 year period when both rose together ending about 15 years ago.

NONE of the indications of CO2 caused global warming have ever been observed.

There is absolutely no evidence of any detrimental impact from CO2 anywhere.

It STILL has not yet warmed to where temperatures were before the LIA. Glaciers still cover a greater area than they did before the LIA.

The entire scam is just that, a scam. It is based on speculation and outright lies.; 5/2/12, 8:54 PM
Dante said...: MadisonMan said..."Pollution (aerosols) do increase the planetary albedo. So a by-product of cleaner air is a lower albedo is a warmer Earth."

Excellent point. Also, volcanoes shove up sulfur dioxide, or some compound, and cool the earth.

The point is, we definitely know how to cool the earth down. But how you gonna warm it up?

In other words, we know what to do about "catastrophic global warming" if need be (in fact, some uSoft exec was saying he could cool the earth down for a $100M a year or so).; 5/2/12, 8:55 PM
Elliott A said...: Good link for legal eagles of the transcript of the FOIA tesimony in Virginia concerning Michael Mann's UVA emails on Drudge; 5/2/12, 8:58 PM
Elliott A said...: Sorry, link on article on Whats Up With That; 5/2/12, 8:59 PM
Revenant said...: But a quick check reveals this claim, like others, is exaggerated, Check link for small sample:

Wow, 12 extinctions out of two million known species. That totally undermines the claim that virtually all of the species have survived.

The reason people keep citing the same tired handful of extinctions (dodo, passenger pigeon, auk, etc) is that there aren't very many known extinctions in recent history. Most of the human-caused extinctions occurred when humans first expanded into new territories, e.g. when we left Africa and when we crossed the land bridge into the Americas.

Since then there hasn't been much activity on that front. The estimates of mass extinctions are just wild mass guessing. :); 5/2/12, 9:02 PM
crosspatch said...: The thermometer was invented during the LIA. The instrument record basically records the recovery from the Little Ice Age which is still probably not yet complete if temperatures are to recover to where they were before that event.

If you have access to an academic library, you might be interested in

"Tree-ring-dated‘Little Ice Age’ histories of maritime glaciers from western Prince William Sound, Alaska"

Gregory C. Wiles et al

Which provides pretty good dating of glacial advance in Alaska by tree-ring comparison. They cut down a tree that is currently living next to the path of the glacier and line up the ring pattern with logs revealed during glacial retreat that were overrun when the glacier advanced through the forest during the LIA. In so doing, they can determine when those logs died and so date the advance of the glaciers.

What is interesting in the abstract of the paper is

"Stabilization of moraines on nine of the study forefields in the latter part of the nineteenth century delineates a third interval of‘Little Ice Age’ glacial advance"

Which means these glaciers were continuing to advance until the late 1800's. The current instrument record begins in the middle / late 1800's, during the end of the LIA though some records such as CET go back farther in time.

But in any case, the instrument record that we are led to believe illustrates "AGW" documents only the recovery from the Little Ice Age.; 5/2/12, 9:13 PM
kimsch said...: And then we get stories like this: “Oregon officials … want federal approval to shoot a sea bird that eats millions of baby salmon trying to reach the ocean. Oregon needs federal approval to start shooting double-crested cormorants because the birds are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.” The state has previously attempted to protect the salmon fry by paying for speedboats and firecrackers to harass the cormorants, but “harassment has ‘proved insufficient.’” Who wins?

and this:

Frozen cows to be removed by hand-saw, fire & explosives don't meet green rules

They have to hike in nearly nine miles and use hand saws because they can't use "motorized vehicles or machinery." I don't understand why they couldn't use battery powered electric chainsaws...; 5/2/12, 9:34 PM
MadisonMan said...: I love that frozen cow story.; 5/2/12, 9:52 PM
kimsch said...: MM: Cowcicles.; 5/2/12, 10:07 PM
MadisonMan said...: I'm just picturing a big explosion and cow parts raining down, and the absurdity of that makes me giggle.

Then the Govt guy says Thank God we didn't drive in!; 5/2/12, 10:18 PM
kimsch said...: But they can't blow up the cows. No explosives, no fire, no machinery, no motor vehicles.

Fragile ecology dontchaknow...

I'm wonder how a half a dozen cows got in the cabin in the first place. Hiker said he saw them there alive in November.

Were four of them sitting at the kitchen table playing poker?

Were they lounging on the sofa watching TV?

I am kind of seeing them in galoshes like the cover art for Top Secret!; 5/2/12, 10:39 PM
Milwaukie guy said...: Crosspatch, you have been brilliant. I have copied your comments for my own rant and need only to add a few things. I will credit you when I send it off to my friends who are climate idiots.

You should collect them and publish them. It is a very tight analysis and very up-to-date.; 5/2/12, 10:46 PM
crosspatch said...: Thanks, Milwaukee Guy but all the stuff I have said isn't really any of my own thoughts, its all in the data. No speculation or conjecture, its just all data. Global Warming works best in a data-free environment.

Think for a moment how dumb it is that someone made the claim that the number of major league home runs is rising because of global warming.

We are talking about 1.5 degrees over 150 years. The temperature varies more than that from one night to the next. In the past 15 years we are talking a tenth of a degree of cooling. Almost all of the overall warming happened prior to 1935. It then cooled until 1976 and then began warming again and peaked again very near what it was in 1933. 1998 might show as warmer than 1933 but we are talking by hundredths of a degree. Almost all of the 20th century warming happened between 1910 and 1940.

But then again, we had Babe Ruth during that time. Roger Maris came along when climate was COOLING.

It's just crazy. People want to blame all sorts of things on "Global Warming" but there just really has not been enough warming to really amount to much.; 5/3/12, 2:04 AM
crosspatch said...: And just hot off the Internet wire, a rather technical posting but more evidence that recent temperatures have been "adjusted" drastically warmer in the CRUTEM4 database from the University of East Anglia.

The adjustment profile is the blue line in this graph where it represents the difference between the CRUTEM3 and CRUTEM4 temperatures. The red line represents the number of stations used to create the "global average" and you can see that about 1000 stations have been removed. For example, all of California is now represented by three stations, all three of those on the coast.

As you can see by the graph, CRUTEM4 temperatures have been adjusted upwards significantly for data after 2000. This would appear to be done in order to "compensate" for the fact that the raw data has been cooling since that time. CRU is the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and is a major "sponsor" of the global warming hype. They literally make millions off of it so they have a vested economic interest in keeping it going. When the raw data shows cooling, it must be "adjusted" warmer to show warming. It really is that simple.; 5/3/12, 2:23 AM
MadisonMan said...: its all in the data

In the processed data. Or you might call it massaged.

The question I have: Why are the data massaged? You propose a possible answer; I'm not sure that's the actual answer however, not having read it myself.; 5/3/12, 9:03 AM
Original Mike said...: "CO2 correlates to temperature rise in only one 30 year portion of the record over the past 150 years."

Is there any reason that there would be a lag between CO2 rise and temperature rise?; 5/3/12, 10:43 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: As you can see by the graph, CRUTEM4 temperatures have been adjusted upwards significantly for data after 2000. This would appear to be done in order to "compensate" for the fact that the raw data has been cooling since that time. CRU is the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and is a major "sponsor" of the global warming hype. They literally make millions off of it so they have a vested economic interest in keeping it going. When the raw data shows cooling, it must be "adjusted" warmer to show warming. It really is that simple.

East Anglia is also, if you are keeping track, the place where the ClimateGate information came out of. And, one of the things that became fairly obvious is that they fairly massively massaged their data, and then couldn't reproduce or justify their massaging. Their software that does this is poorly written, even more poorly documented, and at times only works through luck. They hired someone to make sense of it, and they ultimately gave up. And, a lot of their raw data, which they interpolated and massaged to get the intermediate data that they used to calculate warming, was lost in a move, because it apparently was paper voluminous.

I am not sure that I would agree that CRU was a major sponsor of AGW. Rather, I would suggest that they were a major cause of it. A couple of years ago, there were five major temperature data sets (don't know any more, because there have been attempts to expand this). Three are land based, and two satellite. They had one of the terrestrial databases, along with NOAA (don't remember the third), while NASA and I think Huntsville had the satellite data sets. Fine - one of five. BUT, at least 3 of the other 4 data sets seem to have been calibrated to the Hadley CRU data.

Keep in mind that interpolating and massaging the world wide temperature data is necessary before it can be utilized. Temperature recording is far from uniform across the landmasses on this planet, and even more problematic over the oceans (at least until we started to have satellite data). Recording stations start up and shut down, and somewhere around half of the recording stations in the former Soviet Union were shut down in the aftermath of its fall (and, given their location, some have blamed AGW partially on this). Moreover, some locations have become less representative over time - for example when a city springs up around recording locations, etc.

The East Aglia CRU people attempted it in their attempt to create a data set consisting of location/temperature/date information so that global temperature trends could be, maybe, identified. This was a necessary process. It was also long, extending over a number of years, as evidenced by their having to discard much of their original data. Part of the problem though is that it looks pretty ad hoc in retrospect.

I think that the reason that I question the use of the word "sponsor" is that they may be a conduit, but much of the money is coming from governments, and ours is probably spending a lot more pushing this theory than is theirs.; 5/3/12, 11:03 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Continuing a bit from my previous post, one of the things that has bothered me, for a couple years now, is the almost complete lack of transparency, and esp. in how the global temperature data sets are created from the raw temperature data. At one point, it appears that the CRU people were only releasing their data to their friends, known to be loyal to the cause. And, what has not been publicly available is how these groups get from the commonly available raw data to their data sets that they use to make the pretty graphs and catastrophic predictions. A lot of interpolation and massaging goes on between those two points, and at least the CRU people were unable to explain or justify exactly what they had done and why, and their data sets had been apparently utilized to calibrate the others. This later means that when their data and the other group's data didn't match, the latter's data was often massaged a bit more to agree.; 5/3/12, 11:10 AM
Original Mike said...: "East Anglia ... massively massaged their data, and then couldn't reproduce or justify their massaging."

For me, this was the big revelation from ClimateGate.

"...one of the things that has bothered me, for a couple years now, is the almost complete lack of transparency, and esp. in how the global temperature data sets are created from the raw temperature data."

You would expect that when adjustments are made to the temperature record, such as crosspatch's link to the CRUTEM3 vs CRUTEM4 temperatures, it would be accompanied by a clear description of how it was accomplished and why it was done. It was done by people and for a reason. Are explanations provided?; 5/3/12, 11:22 AM
jimspice said...: Well, considering that 99.9% of man's technological advancement has occurred in the past 12,000 years, and global temperatures have not varied outside 1˚C on either side of this century's average, I suggest that, yes, we should probably try to maintain that range if possible.; 5/4/12, 6:09 PM
jimspice said...: And here's a list, by no means complete, of extinctions that roughly correspond to that same time frame. Be sure to see the note at the conclusion of the list.

Acorn pearly mussel
Allen's Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel
Alvord cutthroat trout
Ameiva cineracea
American cheetahs
American Chestnut Moth
American Giant Armadillo
American lion
American mastodon
American scimitar cats
Amistad gambusia
Ancient bison
Antillean Cave Rail
Antillean Cave Rat
Antillean Giant Rice Rat
Antioch Dunes shieldback katydid
Arc-form pearly mussel
Arizona Jaguar
Arizona Wapiti
Ash Meadows killifish
Atitlan Grebe
Atzlan Rabbit
Bachman's Warbler
Bahaman Barn Owl
Banff longnose dace
Banks Island Wolf
Beautiful Armadillo
Beringian cave lion
Bermuda Night Heron
Blackfin cisco
Blue walleye
Brace's Emerald
Cahaba pebblesnail
California tapirs
Californian Turkey
Caribbean ground sloths
Caribbean Monk Seal
Caribbean monk seal nasal mite
Carolina elktoe
Carolina Parakeet
Cascade Mountains Wolf
Catahoula salamander
Central Valley grasshopper
Chasmaporthetes
Chendytes lawi
Chestnut Ermine Moth
Clear Lake splittail
Closed elimia
Cobble elimia
Colorado Hog-nosed Skunk
Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbit
Columbian mammoth
Conkling's Pronghorn
Constricted elimia
Coosa elktoe
Corozal Rat
Cuban Red Macaw
Cuban Teratorn
Culebra Island giant anole
Daggett's Eagle
Deepwater cisco
Dhole
Dire wolf
Dusky Seaside Sparrow
Eastern Cougar
Eastern Elk
Eelgrass limpet
Eskimo Curlew
Excised slitshell
Florida giant beaver
Florida saber-toothed cat
Florida spectacled bear
Fort Ross weevil
Fusiform elimia
Giant beaver
Giant Deer Mouse
Giant Horse
Giant hutia
Giant polar bear
Giant short-faced bear
Glyptotherium
Goff's Pocket Gopher
Golden coqui
Golden toad
Gould's Emerald
Grand Cayman Thrush
Grass Valley speckled dace
Great Auk
Greater Puerto Rican Agouti
Guadalupe Caracara
Guadalupe Storm-petrel
Guadeloupe Burrowing Owl
Guadeloupe Parakeet
Guadeloupe Parrot
Gull Island Vole
Hagerman horse
Harelip sucker
Harlan's ground sloth
Harlan's muskox
Harrington's mountain goat
Hearty elimia
Heath Hen
Hemigrapsus estellinensis
High-spired elimia
Holmes's capybara
Imperial mammoth
Imperial Woodpecker
Independence Valley tui chub
Insular Cave Rat
Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Jefferson's ground sloth
La Brea Stork
Labrador Duck
Lake Ontario kiyi
Las Vegas dace
LeConteâ€™s peccary
Lesser Antillean Macaw
Lesser Puerto Rican Agouti
Lesser Puerto Rican Ground Sloth
Lewis pearly mussel
Lined pocketbook
Long-nosed peccary
Longjaw cisco
Louisiana Vole; 5/4/12, 9:29 PM
jimspice said...: Maravillas red shiner
Martinique giant ameiva
Martinique House Wren
Martinique lizard
Martinique Parrot
Maryland darter
Mauge's Parakeet
Merriam's Elk
Merriam's Teratorn
Mexican horse
Mona tortoise
Mono Lake diving beetle
Mottled coqui
Mount matafao different snail
Mountain deer
Navassa curly-tailed lizard
Navassa iguana
Navassa Island dwarf boa
Nearby pearly mussel
Nevada water mite
North American capybara
Northern pampathere
Ochlockonee arcmussel
Oncorhynchus rastrosus
Pacifastacus nigrescens
Pagoda slitshell
Pahranagat spinedace
Pahrump Ranch killifish
Pallid Beach Mouse
Panamerican ground sloth
Passenger Pigeon
Passenger pigeon mite
Pavo californicus
Pecatonica River mayfly
Phantom shiner
Phleophaga Chestnut Moth
Phoenicopterus copei
Phoenicopterus minutus
Pleistocene Black Vulture
Procambarus angustatus
Puerto Rican Hutia
Puerto Rican Long-nosed Bat
Puerto Rican Long-tongued Bat
Puerto Rican Obscure Bunting
Puerto Rican Paca
Puerto Rican Shrew
Pupa elimia
Puzzle elimia
Pygmy elimia
Pygmy mammoth
Pygmy Onager
Pygmy Rabbit
Pyramid slitshell
Raycraft Ranch killifish
Recovery pearly mussel
Ribbed elimia
Ribbed slitshell
Robert's stonefly
Rocky Mountain locust
Rough-lined elimia
Round slitshell
Saber-tooth cats
Saiga antelope
Saint Croix Macaw
Saint Croix racer
Sampson's pearly mussel
San Marcos gambusia
Scott's horse
Sea Mink
Semper's Warbler
Shasta ground sloth
Sherman's Pocket Gopher
Shoal sprite
Short-spired elimia
Shortnose cisco
Shoshone pupfish
Shrub-ox
Shuler's Pronghorn
Silver trout
Slender-billed Grackle
Smith Island Cottontail
Snake River sucker
Spectacled Cormorant
Stag-moose
Steller's Sea Cow
Steppe wisent
Steward's pearly mussel
Stilt-legged llama
Stout-legged llama
Striate slitshell
Stygobromus lucifugus
Sulcate blind snake
Syncaris pasadenae
Tacoma Pocket Gopher
Tar-pit pronghorn
Tecopa pupfish
Thicktail chub
Titanis walleri
Tule Shrew
Turgid-blossom pearly mussel
Umbilicate pebblesnail
Utah Lake sculpin
Vegas Valley Leopard Frog
Virgin Islands Screech-Owl
Web-footed coqui
Western camel
Woolly mammoth
Xerces Blue
Yellowfin cutthroat trout
Yukon wild horse

This list covers North American ONLY.; 5/4/12, 9:30 PM