By Paul Chesser. American Spectator
As Chris Horner blogged yesterday, the Environmental Law Center at American Tradition Institute (where I am executive director) has requested under the state’s Freedom of Information Act that the University of Virginia turn over documents and emails related to public grants sought by “hockey stick” scientist Michael Mann, who moved over to Penn State University a few years ago. UVA has been resisting (spending about $500,000 on outside lawyers for the effort) a similar, previous request by Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli, who is investigating Mann under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act.
One of the Washington Post’s Virginia Politics bloggers posted a report about our FOIA yesterday, and obtained a response from Mann:
“[ATI]’s senior director of litigation, Christopher Horner, has written two books on why he believes global warming is a hoax and gives frequently speeches on the subject. He is also a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
In a statement, Mann noted that the think tank receives funding from ExxonMobile (sic) and other corporate groups.
“Industry-funded lobbyists like Horner have been using precisely the same tactics for decades to intimidate scientists whose scientific findings proved inconvenient to the vested interests they represent such as the tobacco, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries,” he said.
“There is substantial case law defending scientists and academics against such thinly-veiled attempts to suppress scientific inquiry by harassing individual scientists. I suspect that U.Va, as other great universities have in the past, will respect that tradition and stand up against these transparent attempts not just to bully me, but to thwart the progress of science,” Mann said.
You might remember we learned after Climategate that Mann showed himself to be a believer in the preservation of public institution emails:
Penn State global warming scientist Michael E. Mann regrets he did not instantly object when a fellow climatologist asked him in 2008 to delete e-mails subject to Freedom of Information requests.
“I wish in retrospect I had told him, ‘Hey, you shouldn’t even be thinking about this,’” Mann told The Morning Call in his first interview since the university last month launched an investigation into his conduct. “I didn’t think it was an appropriate request.”
And recall that when there was a post-Climategate investigation of Mann by Penn State, he said:
“I would be disappointed if the university wasn’t doing all [it] can to get as much information as possible” about the controversy, Mann tells the Daily Collegian.
So what has changed for Mr. Transparency? We are now asking for different emails, from when he devised the hockey stick, which makes us all-the-more curious about what’s in them.
Read more here.
By CIV FI
It is an article of faith among environmentalists, conventional wisdom in the media and academia, and a massive delusion afflicting California’s voters, that the climate skeptic community receives massive backing from oil companies and other corporate “polluters.” But when you start to look at w’o stands to gain from climate “mitigation” policies, and really examine the money trail behind legislative lobbying and political campaigns, the notion that the money is on the side of the deniers doesn’t hold up.
Where the money really is in the global warming debate, as well as reasons why anthropogenic CO2 may not be pollution after all, has been explored at length already here in previous posts including Investigating Climate Alarmism, Credible Climate Skeptics, The Hijacked Public Interest in California, Public Sector Deficits & Global Warming “Mitigation”, California’s Proposition 23, Who Are The Carbon Criminals?, Implementing California’s Global Warming Act, The Climate Money Trail, and The Climate Alarm Industry. In this post, the intent is to take a closer look at who was behind the annihilation of California’s Prop. 23 last November, a citizens initiative tepidly backed by a handful of oil companies (most oil companies sat on the sidelines), that was outspent by three to one by members of what might be termed a green plutocracy. What killed Prop. 23 was money, in particular, individual donors who wrote checks for $1,000,000 or more. To view all of the major donors to the No on 23 campaign, ref. Ballotpedia. The photos and most of the biographical information is from Wikipedia. Who are these green plutocrats, what are their motives, and why are they well intentioned but misguided?
THE GREEN GODFATHERS
The Financier - Thomas Steyer, est. net worth $1.2 billion - is the founder and Co-Senior Managing Partner of Farallon Capital Management, LLC, managing $20 billion in capital for institutions and high net worth individuals. Since 1986, Steyer has been a partner and member of the Executive Committee at Hellman & Friedman, a San Francisco-based $8 billion private equity firm. Steyer is a leading Democratic activist and fundraiser. An early supporter of Hillary Clinton for President, Steyer became one of Barack Obama’s most prolific fundraisers. In 2010, Steyer and his wife, along with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, signed the Giving Pledge to donate half their fortune to charity.
Steyer’s contribution to defeat Prop. 23 - $5,000,000. To put this in perspective, Steyer’s estimated net worth is $1.2 billion. If someone who had paid off their home and managed to save several hundred thousand dollars in a 401K plan, i.e., if they had accumulated a net worth of $1.2 million, a donation of $5,000 would make the same minor dent in their fortune as the $5,000,000 made in Steyer’s. As for Steyer’s decision to donate half his fortune to charity - isn’t Steyer a Democrat? Doesn’t he want to support government spending? Don’t Democrats base much of their economic philosophy on higher taxes for the rich? When people like Tom Steyer, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and other unbelievably wealthy individuals transfer 50% of their assets to private non-profit charities of their choosing, the rest of us pay higher taxes. So what does Steyer hope to gain by spending Prop. 23’s proponents into the ground? First of all, he probably actually believes that CO2 causes catastrophic climate change, a misconception that is possibly forgivable. But Steyer also apparently labors under a less justifiable misconception, given his formal training and extensive experience in finance and economics, which is that somehow making energy cost more - along with water, land, and other basic resources; climate mitigation policies make everything cost more - this will somehow stimulate economic growth. One can only hope Mr. Steyer will reexamine both of these premises before he writes his next big check.
Before moving on, it is important to at least wonder how Steyer’s financial concerns will benefit from CO2 emissions trading schemes. If the capital investments funded through emissions trading schemes actually yielded positive economic and environmental benefits, such as massive nuclear powered desalination plants on the southern California coast, one might be tempted to embrace the noble lies that justify them. But cramming down anthropogenic CO2 emissions will do NOTHING to alleviate pollution. What they will do is fund costly alternative energy technologies that will be obsolete before they’re deployed. And the financial commissions on CO2 emissions trading will transfer billions into Wall Street. For nothing.
The Venture Capitalist - John Doerr, est. net worth $1.7 billion - is a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in California’s Silicon Valley. Kleiner Perkins has made investing in “green” technology a major focus of their private equity funds, recently adding as partner the global warming crusader Al Gore. It has to be said that nothing is wrong with green technology - the idea of discovering methods to refine liquid fuel from biomass, either from a waste-stream or specialized crops is a terrific opportunity. That we may eventually harness electricity from the sun in a cost-effective manner is also a tantalizing possibility. Fascinating developments in water filtration for wastewater treatment or seawater desalination promise to eventually eliminate water scarcity. Advanced materials sciences promise to deliver building materials and manufactured goods that no longer require scarce resources or materials extracted in a ecologically disruptive manner. Research needs to continue along all of these vital fronts. But John Doerr, well-intentioned though he may be, has forgotten what made Silicon Valley great.
Doerr’s contribution to defeat Prop. 23 - $2,100,000. California’s Global Warming Act, which Prop. 23 would have derailed, would have done nothing to improve California’s environment. What it will do, however, is force consumers to consume products that cost far more than they should cost, in order to deliver billions of dollars of revenues to “green” technology companies whose products are not ready to compete against conventional solutions. There is no doubt that John Doerr actually believes that CO2 causes global warming - just watch his closing remarks at a recent TED Conference, where he has to fight off tears as he describes his commitment to deliver a better world to his children. Despite his sincerity, Mr. Doerr may wish to consider what happens when the entire world, starting with California, is impoverished because immature solar and impractical wind technologies are deployed in a futile and expensive attempt to satisfy global energy demand, instead of using abundant reserves of coal, gas and oil that can be developed and deployed at a fraction of the cost. Clean fossil fuel, emitting nothing but CO2, will create prosperity, which will enable the human population to stablize at 8.0 billion or less, instead of 10.0 billion or more. As the reserves of fossil fuel become somewhat more difficult to extract cost-effectively, the ability of ever-more-competitive alternatives to be voluntarily purchased by consumers is enhanced. There never has to be an energy shortage. Environmentalists, because they think CO2 is pollution, risk condemning the world to an unnecessary future of poverty, war, and overpopulation. Silicon Valley companies, and the venture capitalists who fund them, need to go back to earning money the old fashioned way, by building things that are better, faster, cheaper, and provide genuine solutions to genuine problems.
The Movie Mogul - James Cameron, est. net worth $650 million (ref. Celebrity Net Worth) - is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, with mega-hits to his credit including The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), True Lies (1994), Titanic (1997), and Avatar (2009). In total, Cameron’s directorial efforts have grossed approximately $2 billion in North America and $6 billion worldwide.
Cameron’s contribution to defeat Prop. 23 - $1,000,000. Cameron’s most recent blockbuster, Avatar, depicted a planet inhabited by sentient beings who lived in harmony with their environment, threatened by humans who wanted to extract the valuable mineral resources on the planet. This movie, which, like all of Cameron’s movies, is terrific entertainment, belies a contradiction that Mr. Cameron may wish to ponder: The amount of land destructively disrupted by mines and wells is considerably less than the amount of land destructively disrupted by biofuel plantations, solar farms, wind farms, and the many roads and transmission lines necessary to connect them to markets. James Cameron is a complex, creative, inventive man, with not only a fascination, but an aptitude for science and technology. He has been a strong advocate for a robust program of space exploration and development. Cameron may want to read the work of Burt Rutan, an aerospace pioneer, who has published a comprehensive study on what he terms the “Global Warming Science Fraud.” Cameron is also, presumably, someone who cares deeply about human rights. One has wonder if he would still support subsidizing the high tech industry’s enabling of total surveillance of citizens via “smart meters” and GPS-based mileage trackers, etc., and the denial of aspiring nations to develop cheap conventional energy in order to more rapidly lift their citizens out of poverty, if he didn’t truly believe in the alleged science of catastrophic climate change caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
There is a version of environmentalism that is entirely legitimate - eliminating toxic discharges on land, or in the water or air, preserving wilderness and wildlife, and moving systematically towards sustainable consumption - that has been eclipsed completely by the goals of CO2 mitigation. There is also a school of economics, totally ignored by the goals of CO2 mitigation, that encourages policies to channel innovation and competition towards lowering the costs for energy, water and land in order to create prosperity. And there is a school of demographics that claims prosperity is the principle cause of negative population growth - perhaps the most compelling environmentalist goal of all. Do California’s Green Godfathers understand this? Do they care? At the least, they might stop attacking “deniers” as bad people, and reopen the debate as to whether or not CO2 mitigation yields any genuine benefit to the environment. Because on that answer hangs the fate of the world today.
What California’s Green Godfathers represent are interest groups - big finance, big technology, and the entertainment/media complex, who have the financial wherewithal to control the debate over climate change. These interest groups include individuals and coporations (from PG&E to GE) who can spend as much as they wish to advance the agenda of CO2 mitigation, and who in most cases stand to make billions, if not trillions, as a result of CO2 mitigation policies. The idea that the “deniers” hold a financial advantage, or have a hidden financial agenda that eclipses the agenda of the climate alarm interests is absolutely false. The defeat of California’s Prop. 23 is just one recent example of this reality.
Read more here.
By Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, September 2008:
There is a great deal of scientific advice about the impact of climate change on rainfall, particularly in southern Australia. I’ll just give you a few examples. We know the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said by 2050 that Australia should expect around about a 25 per cent reduction in rainfall in the southern part of the Australia. We also know that in the two years before our election, what we saw were the lowest inflows into the River Murray in history, 43 per cent lower than the previous lows… So there is a very, very sound body of evidence that indicates that climate change is and will have an impact on rainfall in the Murray-Darling Basin and in southern Australia.
Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery, 2007:
Over the past 50 years southern Australia has lost about 20 per cent of its rainfall, and one cause is almost certainly global warming...We’re already seeing the initial impacts and they include a decline in the winter rainfall zone across southern Australia, which is clearly an impact of climate change, but also a decrease in run-off. Although we’re getting say a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, that’s translating to a 60 per cent decrease in the run-off into the dams and rivers. That’s because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems, and that’s a real worry for the people in the bush.
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, 2007:
Given the current uncertainty about the likely impact of climate change on rainfall patterns in (South Eastern Queensland) over coming years, it is only prudent to assume at this stage that lower than usual rainfalls could eventuate.
The weather, 2010:
AUSTRALIA experienced its third-wettest year on record during 2010 and the La Nina conditions bringing heavy rains are likely to persist into autumn. The Bureau of Meteorology has reported that the second half of the year was the wettest on record for Australia as a 14-year “long dry” was broken by the rapid transition from El Nino to La Nina conditions.
What more does the weather need to do to prove that the warming alarmists have no credibility?
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Hot-air Gore runs out of puff
Al Gore exploited the Hurricane Katrina disaster in his film An Inconvenient Truth to claim global warming was making hurricanes worse: “Now I’m going to show you, recently released, the actual ocean temperature. Of course when the oceans get warmer, that causes stronger storms. We have seen in the last couple of years, a lot of big hurricanes. Hurricanes Jean, Francis and Ivan were among them. In the same year we had that string of big hurricanes; we also set an all time record for tornadoes in the United States… And then of course came Katrina. It is worth remembering that when it hit Florida it was a Category 1, but it killed a lot of people and caused billions of dollars worth of damage. And then, what happened? Before it hit New Orleans, it went over warmer water. As the water temperature increases, the wind velocity increases and the moisture content increases. And you’ll see Hurricane Katrina form over Florida. And then as it comes into the Gulf over warm water it becomes stronger and stronger and stronger. Look at that Hurricane’s eye. And of course the consequences were so horrendous; there are no words to describe it.
My red dot on Dr Ryan Maue’s graphic - of accumulated energy of tropical cyclones around the world - marks the date Gore made that claim:
Oops. The total hurricane energy is falling, not strengthening. Dr Roger Pielke Jr says the extensive evidence suggests Gore was wrong. Yet again.
What more does the weather have to do to prove the warming alarmists wrong? And what will it take for the Nobel committee to strip Gore of his prize for serial exaggeration? See post here.
By Bob Webster
Many people cannot imagine why some scientists (whom the media claim to be a “consensus”, as if that were meaningful when considering scientific theory) would act dishonorably to their profession by participating in a scam the magnitude of the human-caused-global-warming (AGW) hoax.
The answer is not complicated. In fact, the answer is rooted in the survival instinct all humans possess and is akin to the “publish or perish” maxim of scientific researchers. And I do not refer to the survival instinct in the sense that we need to survive “human-caused-global-warming.” No, it is all about funding and the survival of budget cuts.
Those who benefit from the flow of enormous government grants and funding (in universities and government agencies) to study a perceived problem (AGW) have been charged with providing guidance to politicians. In other words, the continued receipt of study funds is dependent upon an ever-increasing concern about the magnitude of the “problem” (in this case, AGW).
Is it any surprise that these researchers continue to find evidence of human-caused-global-warming when, in fact, the planet appears to be cooling over the past 10 or so years, perhaps significantly? As of the beginning of 2011, there has still not been one scientific study to ever identify a human component of climate change. None. Never.
To create the illusion of recent warming, ground station temperature data have been manipulated without explanation or sound scientific basis. This has been going on both at the US’s GISS (James Hansen’s handiwork) and at the UK’s CRU (Phil Jones of “Climategate” fame). Neither Hansen nor Jones can provide legitimate justification for their data manipulations that are a matter of partial record (original data has been “lost”, so the record is incomplete). Hansen arrogantly alters ground station records to create the appearance of warming where none has occurred (in fact, in some locations cooling has been altered to give the appearance of warming!).
Should it come as any surprise that these government-paid “scientists” would manufacture “evidence” to support their continued accumulation of funds and power?
What odds would you give the survival of chickens when a fox is entrusted with providing for their security?
Tainted government-supported researchers (Michael Mann’s handiwork also comes to mind) support the objectives of politicians who seek greater control over their constituents through massive regulation of perfectly harmless materials that are the byproduct of industrious human activity. Politicians reward these scientists with continued lucrative agency funding or research grants.
It is a dirty political game that costs taxpayers twice. Once in taxes. Again in much higher ("skyrocketing" as promised by Obama) energy costs. If you think $3/gallon gasoline is high, “you ain’t seen nothing yet!” All courtesy of corrupt policy from Washington, DC.
Private concerns emerge that are supported by government subsidies to provide alternate energy sources that are not economically competitive with abundant and relatively cheap fossil fuels (coal, oil, and, yes, Nancy Pelosi, natural gas). Government agencies abet the fraud (see EPA’s new regulations concerning CO2 emissions) with fraudulently-based burdens on our energy production and use with the predictable consequence of skyrocketing energy costs and the strong likelihood of future energy rationing, even during economic depression (yes, depression ... let’s stop kidding ourselves). This energy squeeze will continue to act as a severe obstacle to economic recovery. Almost as much of an obstacle to our nation’s well-being as the corrupt politicians who’ve fostered this economic mess in the first place (all the while pointing the finger of blame elsewhere)!
It has been alleged that the passion of skeptical scientists reflects a hatred for warmist scientists who are advocating the AGW theory. This is not true. Those who oppose warmist mythology ("skeptics") do not hate warmists. They pity them for their weakness and lack of honesty. They may despise their tactics. They may abhor media complicity in the scam. They may find reprehensible the actions of self-serving pseudo-scientists (Hansen, for example) who are motivated by personal aggrandizement and a quest for agency funding. But skeptics do not “hate” these poor warmist souls.
After all, hatred is a waste of energy.
Read more here.
Croatian Times
A leading scientist has revealed that Europe could be just five years away from the start of a new Ice Age.
While climate change campaigners say global warming is the planet’s biggest danger, renowned physicist Vladimir Paar says most of central Europe will soon be covered in ice.
The freeze will be so complete that people will be able to walk from England to Ireland or across the North Sea from Scotland to northern Europe.
Professor Paar, from Croatia’s Zagreb University, has spent decades analysing previous ice ages in Europe and what caused them.
“Most of Europe will be under ice, including Germany, Poland, France, Austria, Slovakia and a part of Slovenia,” said the professor in an interview with the Index.hr.
“Previous ice ages lasted about 70,000 years. That’s a fact and the new ice age can’t be avoided.
“The big question is what will happen to the people of the Central European countries which will be under ice?
“They might migrate to the south, or might stay, but with a huge increase in energy use,” he warned.
“This could happen in five, 10, 50 or 100 years, or even later. We can’t predict it precisely, but it will come,” he added.
And the professor said that scientists think global warming is simply a natural part of the planet.
“What I mean is that global warming is natural. Some 130,000 years ago the earth’s temperature was the same as now, the level of CO2 was almost the same and the level of the sea was four metres higher.
“They keep warning people about global warming, but half of America no longer believes it as they keep freezing,” he said.
And he added: “The reality is that mankind needs to start preparing for the ice age. We are at the end of the global warming period. The ice age is to follow. The global warming period should have ended a few thousands of years ago, we should have already been in the ice age. Therefore we do not know precisely when it could start – but soon.”
The Zagreb based scientist says it will still be possible for man to survive in the ice age, but the spending on energy will be enormous.
“Food production also might be a problem. It would need to be produced in greenhouses with a lot of energy spent to heat it”, commented the professor, who remains optimistic despite his predictions.
He said: “The nuclear energy we know today will not last longer than 100 years as we simply do not have enough uranium in the world to match the needs in an ice age. But I’m still optimistic. There is the process of nuclear fusion happening on the Sun. The fuel for that process is hydrogen and such a power plant is already worked on in France as a consortium involving firms from Marseille and the European Union, the US, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea. The head of the project is a Japanese expert, and former Japanese ambassador in Croatia”, Vladimir Paar revealed.
He said the building of the new technology power plant will take at least another 10 years.
“In 40 years we’ll know how it functions. That would be a solution that could last for thousands of years. We have a lot of hydrogen and the method is an ecological one”, the professor concluded. See story here. H/T Marc Morano
By Dr. Larry Bell
As 2010 draws to a close, do you remember hearing any good news from the mainstream media about climate? Like maybe a headline proclaiming “Record Low 2009 and 2010 Cyclonic Activity Reported: Global Warming Theorists Perplexed”? Or “NASA Studies Report Oceans Entering New Cooling Phase: Alarmists Fear Climate Science Budgets in Peril”? Or even anything bad that isn’t blamed on anthropogenic (man-made) global warming--of course other than what is attributed to George W. Bush? (Conveniently, the term “AGW” covers both.)
Remember all the media brouhaha about global warming causing hurricanes that commenced following the devastating U.S. 2004 season? Opportunities to capitalize on those disasters were certainly not lost on some U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change officials. A special press conference called by IPCC spokesman Kevin Trenberth announced “Experts warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense activity.”
But there was a problem. Christopher Landsea, a top U.S. expert on the subject, repeatedly notified the IPCC that no research had been conducted to support that claim--not in the Atlantic basin, or in any other basin. After receiving no replies, he publicly resigned from all IPCC activities. And while the press conference received tumultuous global media coverage, Mother Nature didn’t pay much attention. Subsequent hurricane seasons returned to average patterns noted historically over the past 150 years, before exhibiting recent record lows with no 2010 U.S. landfalls.
Much global warming alarm centers upon concerns that melting glaciers will cause a disastrous sea level rise. A globally viewed December 2005 BBC feature alarmingly reported that two massive glaciers in eastern Greenland, Kangderlugssuaq and Helheim, were melting, with water “racing to the sea.” Commentators urgently warned that continued recession would be catastrophic.
Helheim’s “erratic” behavior reported then was recently recounted again in a dramatic Nov. 13 New York Times article titled “As Glaciers Melt, Science Seeks Data on Rising Seas.” Reporters somehow failed to notice that only 18 months later, and despite slightly warmer temperatures, the melting rate of both glaciers not only slowed down and stopped, but actually reversed. Satellite images revealed that by August 2006 Helheim had advanced beyond its 1933 boundary.
According to two separate NASA studies, one conducted by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the other by the Langley Research Center, the oceans now appear to be heading into another natural periodic cooling phase within a typical 55- to 70-year dipolar warm/cool pattern. Although Greenland has recently been experiencing a slight warming trend, satellite measurements show that the ice cap has been accumulating snow growth at a rate of about 2.1 inches per year. Temperatures only recently began to exceed those of the 1930s and 1940s when many glaciers were probably smaller than now. (We can’t be certain, because satellites didn’t exist to measure them.)
All the doomsayers seem to have overlooked(coveniently)one of nature’s phenomena..... “Sun’s Meridan Passage” The rotation of the Earth can be up to 20 minutes LONGER over a given period, thus expo....
A recent study conducted by U.S. and Dutch scientists that appeared in the journal Nature Geoscience concluded that previous estimates of Greenland and West Antarctica ice melt rate losses may have been exaggerated by double. Earlier projections apparently failed to account for rebounding changes in the Earth’s crust following the last Ice Age (referred to as “glacial isostatic adjustment").
Nils-Axel Morner, head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University in Sweden, argues that any concerns regarding rising sea levels are unfounded. “So all this talk that sea level rising, this comes from the computer modeling, not from observations. ... The new level, which has been stable, has not changed in the last 35 years. ... But they [IPCC] need a rise, because if there is no rise, there is no death threat ... if you want a grant for a research project in climatology, it is written into the document that there ‘must’ be a focus on global warming. ... That is really bad, because you start asking for the answer you want to get.”
Studies by the International Union for Quaternary Research conclude that some ocean levels have even fallen in recent decades. The Indian Ocean, for example, was higher between 1900 and 1970 than it has been since.
Other world climate alarm bells chimed when it was reported in the media that September 2007 satellite images revealed that the Northwest Passage--a sea route between the U.K. and Asia across the top of the Arctic Circle--had opened up for the first time in recorded history. (This “recorded history” dates back only to 1979 when satellite monitoring first began, and it should also be noted that the sea route froze again just a few months later (winter 2007-2008).
The Northwest Passage has certainly opened up before. Diary entries of a sailor named Roald Amundson confirm clear passage in 1903, as do those of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Arctic patrol crew that made regular trips through there in the early 1940s. And in February 2009 it was discovered that scientists had previously been underestimating the re-growth of Arctic sea ice by an area larger than the state of California (twice as large as New Zealand). The errors were attributed to faulty sensors on the ice.
But these aren’t the sorts of observations that most people generally receive from the media. Instead, they present sensational statements and dramatic images that leave lasting impressions of calving glaciers, drowning polar bears and all manner of other man-caused climate calamities.
Many intentionally target impressionable young minds and sensitive big hearts with messages of fear and guilt. Take, for example, a children’s book called The North Pole Was Here, authored by New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin. It warns kids that some day it may be “easier to sail than stand on the North Pole in summer.” Imagine such images through their visualization: How warm it must be to melt that pole way up north. Poor Santa! And Rudolph! Of course it’s mostly their parents’ fault because of the nasty CO2 they produce driving them to school in SUVs.
Lots of grown-ups are sensitive people with big hearts too. Don’t we all deserve more from the seemingly infinite media echo chamber of alarmism than those windy speculations, snow jobs and projections established on theoretical thin ice?
Weekly columnist Larry Bell is a professor at the University of Houston and author of Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax, which will be released on Jan. 1, 2011. It can be previewed at: www.climateofcorruption.com.
By Paul Hudson, BBC Weather
Local and national records continue to be set as the UK remains firmly in the grip of exceptional weather. Last night Northern Ireland had its coldest night since records began in the 1800’s.
Here in Yorkshire there were no new records set over the weekend. But the month is turning out to be without precedent. December 1981 holds the record locally as the coldest December; nationally December 1981 was the coldest December of the last century.
The diagram below (enlarged here) shows Leeming’s average minimum temperatures so far this month, and compares it with December 1981 and January and February 1963. The winter of 1962/63 was the coldest of the last century.
It gives a graphic illustration of just how cold the last few weeks have been. It’s safe to say that so far this winter has been unprecedented.
The longest data set in the world is the Central England Temperature data set (CET) which allows us to look back all the way to 1659. The diagram below shows the coldest Decembers by rank.
So far, with a mean (average of maxima and minima) CET of -0.4C, December 2010 is the 3rd coldest December since records began in 1659.
But with some models trending milder in the period from Christmas to New Year, it’s probably safer to say that December 2010 is likely to be the 7th coldest December since records began in 1659, and the coldest since 1890 (itself the coldest on record), beating the coldest December of the last century, which was 1981 with a CET of +0.3C (below, enlarged here).
Weatherwise, another intense frost is expected tonight with -14C likely at Topcliffe in North Yorkshire. From Wednesday through to Christmas Eve a northeasterly wind will increase cloud and bring the risk of snow showers especially to eastern areas.
Temperatures will recover a little, especially close to the coast, but CET mean temperatures are unlikely to get much above 0C.
The latest American and midnight European operational models bring milder air in from the west during the second half of next weekend, bringing with it the risk of disruptive snow, followed by near normal temperatures next week.
The latest UK Met Office model is very similar. Other solutions I’ve seen in the last 24 hours, including the midnight run of the UK Met Office, keep a blocking high pressure across the country next weekend, which prevents milder air making any inroads.
Past history shows that models are often too fast in displacing entrenched cold air with milder Atlantic air, and so on balance the best estimate would be for a slow transition to milder conditions from the end of next weekend and into early next week, with a risk initially of further snowfall especially across eastern Britain.
This is the third winter running when we have had very cold and snowy conditions hitting the UK. It comes at a time of continued, unusually weak, solar activity.
In my blog ‘could the sun cast a shadow on global temperatures’ I wrote about how Australian scientist David Archibald was convinced that prolonged weak solar activity could mean much colder winters in future. He wrote his paper in February 2009.
Perhaps we all need to get used to colder winters across the UK in the next few years. Read more here.
GWPF Press Release
London, 21 December 2010: The Global Warming Policy Foundation has called on the Government to set up an independent inquiry into the winter advice it received by the Met Office and the renewed failure to prepare the UK for the third severe winter in a row (see here).
“The current winter fiasco is no longer a joke as the economic damage to the British economy as a result of the country’s ill-preparedness is running at 1bn pounds a day and could reach more than 15 billion pounds,” said Dr Benny Peiser, the GWPF’s Director.
“It would appear that the Met Office provided government with rather poor if not misleading advice and we need to find out what went wrong. Lessons have to be learned well in advance of the start of next year’s winter so that we are much better prepared if it is severe again,” Dr Peiser said.
Last summer, the Department of Transport carried out a study of the resilience of Britain’s transport infra structure in the light of the two previous severe winters.
The Met Office informed the government that the chance of a severe winter would be relatively small and that the effect of climate change had further reduced the probability of severe winters in the UK.
The transport minister Philip Hammond said yesterday that he has asked the government’s chief scientific adviser whether the three winters was a ‘step change’ in weather in the UK.
“The Met Office appears to deny this possibility. But the key question is: if there was a ‘step change’ in the UK weather, what would it look like? The answer is, of course, it would look like what we have seen in recent years. Hence there is no logical case to say there hasn’t been a step change - we will have to wait and see but it cannot be ruled out,” said Dr David Whitehouse, the GWPF’s science editor.
In light of the renewed failure to prepare the UK for a prolonged and harsh winter, the following questions need to be addressed in order to avoid future debacles:
1. Why did the Met Office publish estimates in late October showing a 60 per cent to 80 per cent chance of warmer-than-average temperatures this winter? What was the scientific basis of this probabilistic estimate?
2. Has the October prediction by the Met Office that this winter would be mild affected planning for this winter? If so, what is the best estimate of how much this has cost the country?
3. Last year, the Met Office predicted a 65% chance that winter will be milder than normal. Has the Met Office subsequently explained what went wrong with its computer modelling?
4. What is the statistical and scientific basis for the Met Office’s estimate of a 1-in-20 chance of a severe winter?
5. Has the Met Office changed its view, or its calculations, following the harsh winters of 2008, 2009 and 2010?
6. Is the Met Office right to claim that the severe winters of the last three years are not related?
7. Which severe weather alerts were issued by the Met Office and when?
8. Although the Met Office stopped sending its 3-month forecasts to the media, it would appear that this service is still available to paying customers, the Government and Local Authorities for winter planning. What was their advice, in September/October, for the start of winter 2010?
9. Has the Met Office been the subject of any complaints from its paying customers regarding the quality of its advice?
10. Is it appropriate that the chairman of the Met Office is a member, or a former member of climate pressure groups or carbon trading groups?
11. Should senior Met Office staff (technically employed by the MoD) make public comments advocating political action they see necessary to tackle climate change?
12. Has the government evaluated different meteorological service providers and has it ensured that it is using the most accurate forecaster?
13. What plans has the government to privatise the Met Office?
Read post here. Read here how the Met Office advised against investment in snow clearing equipment as a cluster of cold winters was unlikely and thus this one would be warm in cotrast to the prior two brutal Dickensian winters. Wrong again.