Posted by Kooten
Recently, Canada’s Global National News (Friday, July 16, 2010) carried a story indicating that 2010 was the hottest year on record. A follow-up article in Victoria’s Times-Colonist newspaper (July 18, 2010, p.A12) made a similar claim. The claims remind me of the children’s story “The Emperor has no Clothes,” about a tailor who managed to convince the emperor and his entourage that they were incapable of seeing the wonderful tunic he was sewing. When the emperor paraded in his new suit, a child exposed the scam by asking why the emperor had no clothes on.
Thus it is with climate. Although Victorians experienced a mild winter and spring, the last few months have been colder than usual. The Canadian prairies experienced a miserable winter and things were not much better elsewhere in North America and Europe. However, a few weeks of warm weather in Europe and eastern Canada, and it becomes easy to sell the idea that temperatures are the highest they have ever been and that 2010 is on course for become the warmest year ever! Is this so?
NASA temperature data underlie these stories. Consider the ten warmest years as reported in Table 1. The data in the table are here , but viewed on three different dates as indicated. Since data collected in August 2007 are available only through 2006, 2007 is not included in the earliest ranking given in Table 1.
Table 1: Ten Warmest Years based on Average Contiguous 48 U.S. Surface Air Temperature Anomalies, 1880 through 2006
Date when data was retrieved from NASA website
8/20/2007 5/27/2009 4/26/2010
1934 1934 1998
1998 1998 2006
1921 1921 1934
2006 2006 1921
1931 1931 1999
1999 1999 1931
1953 1953 1990
1990 1990 2001
1938 1938 2005
1939 1954 2007
NASA scientists have adjusted the data in ways that make more recent years appear warmer - scientists have dropped weather stations and/or used a different method for ‘adjusting’ the data. Thus, the number of years from the past two decades that appear in the top twenty warm years (only the top ten are shown in Table 1) has increased from 7 to 8 and finally to 11. In the May 2009 listing, 2007 is the 14th warmest year in the historical record, but it has moved up to tenth by the April 2010 listing. While it may be true that the latest adjustments are scientifically better than earlier adjustments, it seems odd that the most recent years now show up as among the warmest in the temperature record, contrary to evidence from satellite data and reconstructions by the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in the UK - reconstructions that use the same underlying data as NASA.
Other evidence fails to support the NASA story. Using the unadjusted U.S. weather station data, 22 out of 50 states recorded their highest temperature during the 1930s. Likewise, a 2006 study in the Journal of Geophysical Research found that 1941 was the warmest year experienced in Greenland between 1784 and 2005, while the 1930s and 1940s were the warmest decades; 1863 was the coldest year while the coldest decade was the 1810s (although it corresponded to two volcanic eruptions in 1809 and 1815). A 2010 study in Climatic Change reconstructs winter and spring temperatures for Stockholm going back 500 years. The warmest and coldest years are reported in Table 2. Notice that 1863 was the warmest winter/spring, while 1569 was the coldest.
Table 2: Ten coldest/warmest January-April Seasons in the Past 500 Years, Stockholm, Sweden, Temperature Anomalies in oC from 1961-90 Average
Rank Year Rank Year
Ten coldest Ten warmest
1 1569 1 1863
2 1573 2 1990
3 1557 3 1743
4 1595 4 1525
5 1572 5 1989
6 1942 6 1605
7 1614 7 1822
8 1600 8 1790
9 1574 9 1762
10 1940 10 2008
ICECAP NOTE: See (below, enlarged here) how NASA temperatures have been significantly manipulated since 1980. The changes produced a cooling of the warm blip in the 1930s and 1940s and a warming post 1980 for numerous reasons.
By Jeremy A. Kaplan
Acknowledging flaws in its reports and growing public skepticism toward the theory of manmade global warming, the United Nations hired an independent review panel in March to audit its climate-science arm. The group found plenty of problems.
The InterAcademy Council, an independent group of scientists representing agencies from around the world, presented the findings of its five-month investigation Monday morning at the United Nations. The group took issue with the structure, methods and leadership of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—the group responsible for a 2007 report that erroneously forecast the imminent melting of Himalayan glaciers, the rate of melt of polar ice caps and dwindling Amazon rainforests.
“The IPCC has raised public awareness of climate change, and driven policymakers,” said Harold Shapiro, chair of the IAC Committee to Review IPCC and former president of Princeton University. But the controversies that have erupted, and revelations of errors, have put the group under the microscope. “We recommend some significant reforms,” he told the U.N.
“The IPCC has yet to review the IAC’s findings, so I am not able to comment on its findings,” said longstanding chair Rajendra Pachauri in a press conference following the presentation. But he did note that none of the seven reviews of the IPCC to date had found flaws in the U.N. group.
“The scientific community agrees that climate change is real,” Pachauri said.
Despite his confidence, the science underlying climate change has come under great scrutiny. Yet the IAC did not spend its time analyzing the accuracy of climate models and climate science.
“We did not redo the science,” said Shapiro. Instead, the IAC focused its attention on the procedures and methodologies of the IPCC, suggesting many areas for improvement.
The rate of melt of the Himalayan glaciers was one touchstone among skeptics of manmade global warming that the group addressed. Shapiro explained that many reviewers noted the lack of substance behind the claim, but their criticism didn’t make it into the final report.
It appears that editors “didn’t follow through carefully enough on what review editors commented,” said Shapiro.
The IAC faulted the IPCC for making this type of mistake in several places, noting that the report includes several statements that are assigned high levels of confidence, Shapiro told the U.N., despite a lack of sufficient evidence behind them.
“We found in the summary for policymakers that there were two kinds of errors that came up—one is the kind where they place high confidence in something where there is very little evidence. The other is the kind where you make a statement...with no substantive value, in our judgment.”
Revising and tightening up the complex and lengthy review policy would help to address these issues.
Noted climate skeptic Don Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, agreed that this type of issue was a problem. “The IPCC report is filled with statements of ‘90% certainty’ without even saying 90% of what or providing any basis for such statements. Yet those pronouncements of certainty were used over and over as though that had been scientifically proven somehow,” he told FoxNews.com.
The IAC called for the IPCC to completely revise top leadership, including limiting the duration of people in top positions and “electing a small executive committee to act on its behalf,” one that even included non-scientists. This would lend it credibility, Shapiro said.
Questions have arisen about conflicts of interest among top leadership at the IPCC, notably chair Pachauri, who sits on the boards of numerous other climate-related groups. Shapiro stressed that this important issue was one the group did not investigate—“we didn’t consider it our charge to investigate that issue,” he replied.
Easterbrook thinks this suggestion may not go far enough.
“The IAC report makes several recommendations to fortify IPCC’s management structure, including establishing an executive committee to act on the panel’s behalf and ensure that an ongoing decision-making capability is maintained. This would be a step in the right direction, but if such an executive committee is made up of the same old political cronies, nothing will change,” he told FoxNews.com.
The IAC took issue with the IPCC’s use of so-called gray literature as well, papers from unpublished or non-peer-reviewed sources. Such material is explicitly against policy, yet authors of the IPCC’s reports do not follow the guidelines for evaluating such sources, explained the IAC.
The group recommended that these guidelines be made more specific—including adding guidelines on what types of literature are unacceptable—and strictly enforced to ensure that unpublished and non-peer-reviewed literature is appropriately flagged.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group that supports the concept of manmade global warming, agreed with the IAC’s report, calling it “a great opportunity to strengthen” the group, but not a wholesale call to rework the agency.
“It’s a substantial tune up, but not a replacement with a new vehicle,” Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy for the UCS, told FoxNews.com. “All the recommendations I’ve seen are really spot on. We’ll see what happens when the IPCC meets in October.”
The IAC’s assessment will be used at the Oct. 5 meeting that marks the beginning of the IPCC’s effort to put out the next report.
“The IPCC has been successful overall, but fundamental changes are needed,” Shapiro said.
See story here.
By Dr. Tim Ball Canada Free Press
Recently Kerry Emanuel said, “Why would anybody ask weather forecasters about their opinion on climate? I think it is because there is a hope that I don’t think is justified that ordinary people will confuse weather forecasters with climate scientists.”
Emanuel is a professor of meteorology at MIT with a specialization in atmospheric convection and hurricanes. He is a meteorologist not a climatologist and many weather forecasters are meteorologists. Indeed, his specialty is even more narrow than that required by weather forecasters.
Dr. Emanuel served on the deliberately biased Lord Oxburgh committee investigating Climategate. He argued that hurricane activity would increase with global warming, but is reportedly rethinking that position. His comments were part of a 10-minute documentary about the apparently different views of media meteorologists and climatologists. He also said, “Weather forecasters are in a unique position. I mean if they actually did study the problem, if they actually took the time to really understand it rather than just go to the blogosphere to get their favourite views and rebroadcast them, then I think they could do a lot of good in the world and I think there are some who are doing that to be fair.” Dr. Emanuel served on the deliberately biased Lord Oxburgh committee investigating Climategate, the leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). He’s a co-author with Michael Mann and dismissed the leaks as “the well-funded “public relations campaign” to drown out or distort the message of climate science, which he links to “interests where billions, even trillions are at stake “This “machine has been highly successful in branding climate scientists as a bunch of sandal-wearing, fruit-juice drinking leftist radicals engaged in a massive conspiracy to return us to agrarian society. “Emanuel’s comments are breathtaking in their naivete, arrogance and ignorance. They’re made without challenge by mainstream media because they don’t know what is wrong with them.
Meteorology Before Climatology
The confusion is between, meteorology, weather and climate and is largely the result of how they evolved historically. Aristotle wrote a book titled Meteorology that was concerned with processes and phenomenon of the atmosphere. The intent was to understand mechanisms for weather forecasting. This declined until the 19th century when development of instruments such as the thermometer and barometer combined with a desire to measure and understand the constituents of the atmosphere. An early example was discovery of oxygen independently by Scheele in 1773 and Priestley in 1774. Physics became more dominant so that by the beginning of the 20th century it dominated meteorology. In Canada for example, to become a government weather forecaster a Masters degree in Physics was required. After which, a brief in–house course taught weather forecasting. There was virtually no climate instruction. The pattern was similar around the world.
Even today few people know about climatology or the difference between weather and climate. When I began public speaking I started talks with a definition of climatology. First I told how, when speaking about the weather to a class studying the Fur Trade, the teacher introduced me as a climatologist. Immediately a hand went up and the young student wanted to know how many mountains I’d climbed. People laughed because it was obviously wrong, but most didn’t know the correct answer. Mark Twain knew the difference when he said climate is what you expect, weather is what you get, but for most, the weather, meteorology as physics of the atmosphere, had taken over.
Climate is derived from the Greek word klimat that refers to the angle of the Sun or inclination. They understood how this created three different climate regions, cold, temperate and hot. These were average conditions because climate is the average weather over time or in a region. The angle of the sun is a major factor in determining the climate, but it is only one of a myriad of factors. When Sir Francis Drake set out for the west coast of North America he expected to find a climate similar to that in England because it was equal in latitude so the sun’s angle was similar. They didn’t know how the ocean currents transported vast amounts of heat toward the Pole to alter the pattern of climate in Western Europe.
There was a brief flurry of interest in climate at the end of the 19th century as the concept of climatic determinism was embedded in environmental determinism. It held that people were a product of the climatic region in which they were born and lived. It reached an extreme with Ellsworth Huntington and publications like Civilization and Climate in 1915. His work evolved from Friedrich Ratzel’s Anthropogeographie published in two volumes published (1882 and 1891). All this provided an intellectual framework for white supremacy in Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
Ironically, during the war Hubert Lamb working as a meteorologist and gradually became aware of changing climate in historic times. He wanted to improve the forecasts and spent time studying historical records and by 1972 had established the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia. He wrote, “When the Climatic Research Unit was founded, it was clear that the first need was to establish the facts of the past record of the natural climate in times before any side effects of human activities could well be important.” Only one other climate research establishment in the world at the time was Reid Bryson’s Center for Climatic Research at Madison, Wisconsin. CRU had insufficient funds because nobody was interested in climate at that time.
A major problem was the growth of specialization in academia, but climate is a generalist topic. It’s the average weather that is the product of a multitude of factors from cosmic radiation from deep space, to geothermal heat from within the Earth, and everything in between. Meteorology is a subset of the weather like oceanography and each of these have subsets. One of them involves the specialized tropical convection and hurricane research of Emanuel. He only studies one piece of a very complex puzzle. It explains why he incorrectly predicted increased hurricane activity due to global warming. As Henri Poincare said, “Science is built of facts the way a house is built of bricks; but an accumulation of facts is no more science than a pile of bricks is a house.” Someone also said about economists that. “They try to predict the tide by measuring one wave.” Climate science does the same thing and Emanuel sides with the argument that the one wave is CO2.
See post here.
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Interview on Climate Change Issues
by Kim Greenhouse on August 23, 2010
Joe D’Aleo joins us to discuss Surface Temperatures: A Policy Driven Deception, a new report that he co-wrote with Anthony Watts. Joe separates fact from fiction about CO2 and outlines its benefits and functions. Join us and learn how the EPA declared CO2 a toxin based on an analysis by a team with an agenda to control carbon and how we use energy and energy sources. Listen to this one hour interview here.
UPDATE: In a program “Green Swindle” devoted to exposing the roots of the global warming scandal, Sean Hannity featured many climate skeptics on his Fox News program - part 1 here, part 2 here. 500,000 to some estimate as many as 2 million descended on Washington, D.C. for the 8-28-10 Restoring Honor Rally, CSPAN televised the event.
The event was streamed live via Facebook. It was a very uplifting event. Beck like Hannity have shown how the global warming issue is a fraud and how it evolved and who are involved. There was no politics at the rally though. It was all restoring traditional American values and pride in our heritage.
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Ice Sheet Loss Cut in Half
By Doug Hoffman
Much concern has been raised by climate scientists regarding ice loss from the world’s two remaining continental ice sheets. Rapid loss of ice-mass from the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica are cited as proof positive of global warming’s onslaught. The latest measurements involve the use of satellite gravimetry, estimating the mass of terrain beneath by detecting slight changes in gravity as a satellite passes overhead. But gravity measurements of ice-mass loss are complicated by glacial isostatic adjustments - compensation for the rise or fall of the underlying crustal material. A new article in Nature Geoscience describes an innovative approach employed to derive ice-mass changes from GRACE data. The report suggests significantly smaller overall ice-mass losses than previous estimates.
The storage of water or ice on land - the presence of large bodies of water or glacial ice sheets - affect the Earth’s gravitational field. This effect is detected by the NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites. Twin satellites were launched in March 2002, to make detailed measurements of Earth’s gravity field. Since then, GRACE has been used to study tectonic features, estimate ground water volumes and calculate the amount of ice contained in the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. However, other factors can contribute to the GRACE measurements than just the volume of ice in an ice sheet. These factors include the response of Earth’s crust (the lithosphere) to past changes in ice load.
Antarctica was found to be rising, but not as fast as previously thought.
As the weight of covering ice varies, the underlying surface rock can be pushed down or rise up, buoyed by the magma that the crust floats on. This would obviously impact efforts to measure the height of terrain, including glaciers. Compensating for the rise and fall of bedrock is termed glacial isostatic adjustment, and it can have a significant impact on estimated ice-mass losses. Changes in the spatial distribution of the atmospheric and oceanic masses can also enter into the picture. Correctly assessing these different factors is the key to accurately calculating ice-sheet mass balance. Xiaoping Wu and colleagues have proposed a new method for untangling these factors from GRACE measurements. In a News and Views commentary on the work by Wu et al., David H. Bromwich and Julien P. Nicolas sum up the problem:
The atmospheric and oceanic contributions are commonly derived from global reanalyses or other global climate models that assimilate observations. However, the contribution from glacial isostatic adjustment is more difficult to evaluate because the Earth’s mantle is viscoelastic and therefore responds to changes in surface loading with a long delay. Indeed, the variations of the mass and extent of the ice sheets since the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000 years ago, continue to affect present-day changes in bedrock elevation. Assessments of the glacial isostatic adjustment typically rely on deglaciation models - which simulate the evolution of the ice sheets since the Last Glacial Maximum - together with assumptions about the viscosity profile of the mantle. Much is still unknown regarding the history of the ice sheets, and even less is known about the behaviour of the mantle in response to loading and unloading.
The method used by Wu et al., in “Simultaneous estimation of global present-day water transport and glacial isostatic adjustment,” estimates ice-mass changes and glacial isostatic adjustment simultaneously, instead of estimating the latter separately from deglaciation models as had been done before. The problem is expressed in terms of a single matrix equation, with the observed surface-height changes decomposed into their different contributions. The equation is then solved for ice-mass changes using matrix inversion. While the glacial isostatic adjustment that results is not directly generated by deglaciation models, the inversion method still requires a first-guess estimate to begin the calculations.
Ice loss in Greenland has been significantly overestimated.
In describing their work, Wu et al. state: “Here we combine gravity measurements and geodetic data of surface movement with a data-assimilating model of ocean bottom pressure to simultaneously estimate present-day water transport and glacial isostatic adjustment. We determine their separate contributions to movements in the geocentre, which occur in response to changes in the Earth’s mass distribution, with uncertainties below 0.1 mm yr−1.” They further describe their methodology as follows:
From April 2002 to December 2008, linear trends are derived from GRACE gravity data with empirically calibrated full covariance matrices, and from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s data-assimilating ocean bottom pressure (OBP) model. These are combined with three-dimensional surface velocities at 664 globally distributed sites. Although the durations of the surface geodetic time series are diverse, most of the data are collected by the global positioning system (GPS) technique during the 2000s and processed up to August 2007. Spherical harmonic coefficients of both PDMT and GIA signatures as well as other relevant parameters are then estimated from the data combination.
Here PDMT stands for present-day surface mass trend and GIA for glacial isostatic adjustment. Those interested in the theoretical framework - including the relevant measurement equations, data sets and uncertainty assessment - should look in the Methods section of the paper and the Supplementary Information pdf.
What is really interesting here is the resulting trend data for the change of bedrock height - the geoid height trend. The new method found that estimates used in the past were significantly in error. Antarctica was found to be rising, but not at as fast a rate as previously thought. Greenland, on the other hand, is actually sinking, particularly in the center of the ice sheet. Previous change estimates had Greenland rising everywhere.
“The negative GIA geoid trend in Greenland could be new evidence for additional net past ice accumulation (-100–300 m of ice depending on rheological properties and onset time) in comparison with the a priori model,”
the researchers state, noting that past accumulation over certain parts of Greenland has been suggested before by other models. The study results can be seen in the figure below, taken from the report.
Unfiltered GIA geoid height trends.
In the figure a, shows rates estimated in the study, and b,those predicted by the ICE-5G/IJ05/VM2 model. While Wu et al. report that both Greenland and Antarctica are loosing ice-mass, they are doing so at a much lower rate than previous estimates and that both are gaining ice in their interiors. “The mass loss in Greenland is concentrated along the coastal areas, and is particularly heavy in the west, and in the southeast with the large Kangerdlugssuaq and Helheim glaciers,” they state. “In contrast, the interior of Greenland shows significant positive mass balance.”
Bottom line on the new work is that ice-mass loss has been overestimated by previous studies. “These findings confirm the ongoing shrinkage of the polar ice sheets,” state Bromwich and Nicolas. “However, and most importantly, the newly estimated ice-sheet mass losses represent less than half of other recent GRACE-based estimates for the same time interval: -230 +/- 33 Gt yr-1 for Greenland2 and -132 +/- 26 Gt yr-1 for West Antarctica.” According to Wu et al. “We conclude that a significant revision of the present estimates of glacial isostatic adjustments and land–ocean water exchange is required.” Perhaps this technique could be applied to the previous GRACE results for Himalayan glaciers as well.
So, when the more exact measurement separation methodology of Wu et al. is applied to the GRACE geoid data, ice sheet shrinkage, which has been systematically overestimated, is cut in half. “The differences between the work by Wu and colleagues and earlier studies may reflect errors in present deglaciation models with respect to the ice-load history and response of the Earth’s mantle,” conclude Bromwich and Nicolas. According to Wu et al.
“significant revision” is required. The general result - the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets will be with us for a long time to come. See post here.
See Al Gore’s take on this based on the Liu and Curry 2010 model here that predicts future loss. See Bob Tisdale’s analysis here.
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM
It has been, typical of La Nina summers after an El Nino winter, very warm in the east and central US. Some of our hottest summers have come in such years including most recently 1999, 1995, 1988, and 1977.
Here is the anomaly since June 1, 2010 (below, enlarged here).
Alarmists including Michael Mann, Joe Romm and Al Gore and their friends in the mainstream media have used the heat in the east and south and in parts of Russia along with the heavy rains in Pakistan as further proof of global warming. They conveniently ignore the concurrent record cold in coastal California, the record cold and snow in South America, Africa and Australia.
Last summer when the heat was notable by its absence for the second straight year in the UK and in the central US, it was proclaimed as the vagaries of weather and not climate and anyone who made a big deal of that was admonished that they did not understand the difference between the two.
Last July (2009) was in fact the coldest July on record (131 years) in parts of the Ohio Valley east to PA and nearly the coldest in the North Central states, the Tennessee Valley and Mid-Atlantic where the heat has focused this year (below, enlarged here).
Then came the Northern Hemisphere winter. The winter was the coldest ever in parts of the south (dark blue areas) and well below normal in most of the south and central (below, enlarged here).
Heavy snow fell in many of the southern states east to the Mid-Atlantic. All time record seasonal snowfall occurred in the Mid-Atlantic (Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Atlantic City). Record February snowfall fell in New York City. It was the second snowiest on record in Dallas and as far north as Des Moines, Iowa. We had the longest stretch of sub 80F temperatures in much of the south from Texas and Arkansas to the Carolinas to Florida and the longest stretch of sub 50F days on record in parts of Florida (link).
Extreme cold and heavy snows also fell across much of Eurasia. In parts of Russia it was the coldest ever. In most other locations the coldest since 1977/78. It was the coldest since 1962/63 in Scotland, since 1971/72 in North China (below, enlarged here).
It had followed two straight winters when extreme cold and all time record snows fell in many parts of the northern United States and Southern Canada. And winters where snow, paralyzing in spots fell in unusual places worldwide including Iraq, Saudi Srabia, South Africa, Brazil, southern China (below, enlarged here).
But that was weather we are told. In fact as we discussed here it was the result of a number of natural factors and a sign of things to come with respect to weather AND climate. Meantime, don’t be surprised to hear the media play the summer up big time this year, in sharp contrast to how they ignored the inconvenient weather in recent years. For example see this story although it achieves some balance with a reality check by meteorologists. See more on 2010 Perception vs Reality here and New Scientist’s story correctly blaming the extremes on an errant jet stream. The persistence of those wiggles in the jets tream may be solar related as we indicated in that story.
See PDF here.
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Critical Details About Climate
by Kim Greenhouse on August 23, 2010
Joe D’Aleo joins us to discuss Surface Temperatures: A Policy Driven Deception, a new report that he co-wrote with Anthony Watts. Joe separates fact from fiction about CO2 and outlines its benefits and functions. Join us and learn how the EPA declared CO2 a toxin based on an analysis by a team with an agenda to control carbon and how we use energy and energy sources. Listen to this one hour interview here.
By Walter Cunningham, 8/24/2010
The subjects and style of my writing attracts rebuttals. I usually resist the temptation to respond, but the article by Robert Curl, Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor of Natural Sciences Emeritus at Rice University and Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry is just too good to resist. His article is typical of academics with all those advanced degrees, and who know what is best for the rest of us - if we would just listen. In typical global warming alarmist fashion, it attacks the credentials, the economic interests or the politics (or all three) of those who disagree with them, and does not cite any empirical data that would prove their critics do not know what they are talking about.
After citing the National Academy of Sciences endorsement of AGW, Professor Curl emphasizes the credentials of the members and claims the NAS is “objective.” Maybe we’re supposed to ignore bad science if the perpetrators’ credentials are good. NAS is certainly a prestigious organization, but, along with several other scientific organizations lately, it has descended into the world of science politics.
What about the 31,000 scientists who signed the Oregon Petition, saying they DO NOT think humans are making a noticeable contribution to global warming, global cooling, climate change or catastrophic climate change?
Professor Curl suggests that we “download a layman’s explanation… from the National Academy’s website at . . . to obtain the most authoritative information on the subject.” The site is quite representative of the alarmists’ approach to “explanation. Instead of attempting to make the case, it treats AGW as a given. They do offer the reader several articles on dealing with human caused global warning as a “fact of life” Professor Curl’s “authoritative” source leaves a lot to be desired unless you are already a true believer in AGW.
Curl goes on to say, “all of humanity is faced with some difficult choices. No matter what we do, from a major course correction to doing nothing, it will be unpleasant and expensive.” Doesn’t that amount to an admission that even if we meet and exceed the CO2 cuts targeted by the IPCC, our temperature will not return to normal - whatever that is?
Curl is right when he says that any actions to restrict CO2 will be “unpleasant and expensive.” A reduction in CO2 will have to come from a reduction in fossil fuel use. President Obama has talked about reducing U.S. fossil fuel use by 80 percent by 2050. That would leave our projected population in 1950 with a fossil fuel energy consumption of 40 million Btu/year-per-capita - about equal to our per capita consumption back in 1880. Given the direct relationship between energy consumption and standard of living, such a move would be worse than “unpleasant.”
He does admit, “These sobering conclusions about future warming are projections based upon elaborate models of the Earth.” These are models built to prove their hypothesis that human caused CO2 is a dominant factor in controlling the Earth’s temperature. Models are built on assumptions, not data; assumptions are (or, should be) based on interpretation of empirical data. It is in the biased interpretation of historical data where we should be having a public debate. Models are not data.
An American Meteorological Society survey in November 2009, found that a full 62 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed with “Global climate models are reliable in their predictions for a warming of the planet.” In the same survey, 50 percent of the respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the IPCC assertion, “Most of the warming since 1950 is very likely human-induced.”
The real crisis today is that so many people seem bent on making decisions based on, as yet, unproven scientific hypotheses that will cost all of us dearly - in standard of living, not just dollars. All of that in case the miniscule contribution humans make to the tiny amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could devastate the planet in the next 50-100 years.
When the concern is serious enough, the question should be researched objectively and publically. Those climate scientists who have not bought into the alarmists radical hypothesis deserve the same access to government grants as the fear mongers who have absorbed most of the $30 billion the government has expended to support AGW in the last 20 years.
We cannot always judge what a man says by his credentials. What he understands and can explain is most important. Look past the credentials and consider the logic of their case - if they try to make one. Better yet, look at the data yourself. That doesn’t mean models, which have not accurately predicted anything to do with climate.
What is wrong with laying out the data in a common setting so each advocate can understand why the other can’t see the light. We should be relying on the best objective data to draw scientific conclusions. How many times in the last decade have you seen a proponent of the new global warming hypothesis willing to publically debate a climate scientist supporting the historical theory of our global climate?
For those who do not feel comfortable assessing the empirical data themselves, I recommend a paper that looks at how the historical data is used or misinterpreted to conclude that temperatures during our lifetime are unusual and that humans are responsible for temperature change. PDF The paper is by Burt Rutan, the engineer behind Spaceship One and Spaceship Two. Like me, Burt is not a climate scientist and neither of us has an axe to grind on the question of AGW. Burt looks at each of the arguments the alarmists use to frighten us into believing that if we do not severely limit human CO2 emissions, they will devastate our planet by the end of the 21st century.
Show me the data. If it supports the claims of global warming alarmists, I will be glad to help alert the public. Unfortunately, the data I have been reviewing for the last 20 years provide no such support. See post here.
Walter Cunningham received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Physics in 1960. He received a Master of Arts degree in Physics in 1961 from the University of California at Los Angeles. He was lunar module pilot on the first manned Apollo mission (Apollo 7)
By Dr. Anthony Lupo
Early in 2010, all signs pointed toward a warmer summer in the middle Mississippi region [1], and this would be related to the weakening El Nino [2],[3]. The forecast, however, did not go far enough because we did not anticipate how quickly La Nina conditions would take hold [4]. When asked about the possibility of a warm summer, I reminded people that the last few summers have been relatively cool, so even a normal summer may seem warm.
As the summer moves into late August, I have heard many in the media and in the local general public wonder aloud about this summer being the consequences of anthropogenic global warming, and that this summer has been the hottest in recent decades [5]. Putting this summer into context locally* would demonstrate that while it is the hottest summer of the decade, and the warmest since 1980, it is only the 11th warmest overall in 120 years. Of the ten warmest summers nine of them occurred before 1960. Summers as of late have been cooler in our region.
While the years 2005-2007 were warmer than normal, these summers did not rank in among the top 20 for our region. This current summer follows a stretch of summers that have been cooler overall as four of the last eight have been below normal, some of these by quite a bit. The summer of 2004 and 2009 ranked as the 3rd and 9th coolest overall in our region, respectively.
Adding to the woes of this summer locally have been the relatively high dew points brought on by excessive precipitation in our region in the early part of the summer. Additionally, it has not been the maximum temperatures that have been the problem (we have failed to reach 100 degrees for the third consecutive year), it has been the consistently high minimum temperatures. While it is too early to tell what has happened nationwide, my guess is the story is much the same in other regions as well.
Globally, we have heard about the heat in Russia and the Middle East, and flooding in Pakistan. While this may seem like it is a consequence of climate change, this summer season is not unlike another recent summer, that of 2003. That year, it was warm summer that followed the relatively cold winter of 2002-2003. That year, like this one followed a weak El Nino event.
This El Nino that was different from others in that main sea surface temperature anomaly was located over the central tropical Pacific rather than the over the eastern Tropical Pacific. We [2], [3] have found that these type of weak El Ninos could be associated with colder winters over the eastern USA rather than warmer winters which are routinely forecast to occur. Additionally, we have found that as El Nino transitions back toward La Nina, a warm summer over North America is generally the result [2][3].
In 2003, as a warm summer set in, a strong heat wave also occurred over western Europe and many in France perished. This year, we have seen a repeat of these type of conditions as the Northern Hemisphere has been relatively warm. The excessive heat became established over Russia instead during this summer due to a phenomenon called blocking [6]. Blocking causes large-scale weather patterns to stagnate, and if a ridge is established over a continent during the summer, it will be hot. We have seen this type of activity over Europe in 2003, Alaska in 2004 [7], and now Russia in 2010[8].
Is this really the hottest summer globally? While some have reported that it is [8], an examination of the global weather as a whole would suggest it is not [9]. Lost in much of the noise has been the fact that in the Southern Hemisphere, especially South America, conditions have been much colder during their winter with unprecedented snows in many areas not used to them. There is also some speculation that this summer’s global warmth has been exaggerated by those with an agenda.
So, while this summer has seemed to be miserable compared to the last few, it has been much worse in the past, is due to natural phenomenon (not anthropogenic climate change), and thankfully the heat should be winding down as August wears on and September comes in. Additionally, it is hoped that the Russian heat wave will draw more attention to the weather phenomenon of blocking that is difficult to forecast [6], [7] but largely overlooked.
*Here we used the Columbia, MO temperatures, which are representative of much of central Missouri. The story has been similar elsewhere across the state. These summer temperatures are only complete as of 1 June to August 18.
[2] Lupo, A.R., Kelsey, E.P., D.K. Weitlich, I.I. Mokhov, F.A. Akyuz, Guinan, P.E., J.E. Woolard, 2007: Interannual and interdecadal variability in the predominant Pacific Region SST anomaly patterns and their impact on a local climate. Atmosfera, 20, 171- 196
[3] Lupo, A.R., E. P. Kelsey, D.K. Weitlich, N.A. Davis, and P.S. Market, 2008: Using the Monthly classification of
global SSTs and 500 hPa height anomalies to predict temperature and precipitation regimes one to two seasons in advance for the mid-Mississippi region. Nat. Wea. Dig., 32:1, 11-33
[6] Wiedenmann, J.M., A.R. Lupo, I.I. Mokhov, and E. Tikhonova, 2002: The Climatology of Blocking Anticyc- lones for the Northern and Southern Hemisphere: Block Intensity as a Diagnostic. J. Clim., 15, 3459-3473.
[7] Hussain, A., and A.R. Lupo, 2010: Scale and stability analysis of blocking events from 2002 to 2004: A case study of an unusually persistent blocking event leading to a heat wave in the Gulf of Alaska during August 2004. Advances in Meteorology, in press.
See PDF.
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The Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010
World Climate Report
The longer and deadlier the heat wave in western Russia becomes, the more frequently it is being linked to anthropogenic global warming.
But global warming theory doesn’t come anywhere close to explaining why it’s so darn hot this summer in Moscow.
Long-term observations suggest a more basic cause - an unusual and unprecedented (at least since 1950) confluence of several naturally-occurring atmospheric circulation patterns that together combined to set the stage for extreme warmth. Add to that urbanization, changing forestry practices, and perhaps throw in a dash of global warming for good measure, and you take a situation that would otherwise be “very hot” and up it a notch to “record hot.”
The driving force of the 2010 heat wave has been a stationary weather system that has remained locked in place over western Russia since mid-June. The atmospheric is termed to be “blocked” when atmospheric circulation patterns remained fixed in place, instead of being progressive. The prolonged snow and cold in the eastern half of the U.S. last winter was caused by an atmospheric block which locked in a pattern which allowed arctic air to slide southward and storm systems to track up the east coast. The heat in Russia is caused by a blocking pattern which has locked in high pressure over Moscow and environs which favors southerly (warm) flow, a lot of sunshine, and little rain.
Atmospheric blocking is not unique to today’s climate. It is associated with atmospheric teleconnection patterns, described the National Weather Services Climate Prediction Center (CPC) as “and persistent, large-scale patterns of pressure and circulation anomalies that span vast geographical areas.” The CPC ‘s description continues:
Teleconnection patterns are also referred to as preferred modes of low-frequency (or long time scale) variability. Although these patterns typically last for several weeks to several months, they can sometimes be prominent for several consecutive years, thus reflecting an important part of both the interannual and interdecadal variability of the atmospheric circulation.
All teleconnection patterns are a naturally occurring aspect of our chaotic atmospheric system, and can arise primarily a reflection of internal atmospheric dynamics.
Teleconnection patterns reflect large-scale changes in the atmospheric wave and jet stream patterns, and influence temperature, rainfall, storm tracks, and jet stream location/ intensity over vast areas. Thus, they are often the culprit responsible for abnormal weather patterns occurring simultaneously over seemingly vast distances.
The CPC identifies and monitors about 10 different teleconnection indices, each with specific patterns of atmospheric circulation and associated impacts on surface temperatures and precipitation. The CPC has compiled the history of these teleconnection indices back to January 1950 and up through the present.
Several of the teleconnection patterns impact temperatures in the vicinity of western Russia, these include teleconnections named “West Pacific Pattern” (WP), “Polar/Eurasia Pattern” (POL), and the “East Atlantic/Western Russia Pattern” (EA/WR).
Figure 1 shows the July pattern of surface temperature anomalies when each of these three teleconnections is in their positive mode. When the teleconnections are in their negative mode, the temperature anomaly patterns are reversed. Notice that all three have “hot spots” in an around western Russia. The value of the WP, POL, and EA/WR indices for July, respectively were -2.93, 1.7, and -1.55. This means that each of these teleconnections was in a configuration that leads to higher than normal temperatures in western Russia.
Figure 1. Pattern of temperature anomalies that is associated with the positive mode of three teleconnections influencing western Russia (figures from the Climate Prediction Center). Enlarged here.
Figure 2 shows the observed surface temperature anomalies for July, which include the big bull’s eye of high temperatures over western Russia - an expected result of the chance combination of the three teleconnection patterns.
Figure 2. Surface temperature anomalies (C) for July, 2010 (figure from the Climate Prediction Center). Enlarged here.
Figure 3 shows the timeseries of the combination (sum) of the July values for the WP, POL, and EA/WR teleconnection indices (we first flipped the sign of the WP and EA/WR indices so that the combined index reflects the same sign of the temperature anomalies over western Russia).
Figure 3. Combined index of the WP, POL, and EA/WR telectonnection values for the month of July, 1950-2010 (data from the CDC). Enlarged here.
There are several things of note:
1) The July 2010 combined value is the highest since 1950 - nearly 50% greater than the second highest value which occurred in 1952.
2) The combined index has been mostly positive since 1981, and mostly negative from 1955 through 1980. This behavior imparts an overall positive trend since 1950.
3) The 2010 value is about 3 times greater than the value expected based on the trend alone.
Is anthropogenic global warming behind any of this behavior?
It is hard to know for sure, but one thing that is certain is that if global warming does have a hand in the game (perhaps through the trend term), what it’s holding is pretty weak.
Figure 4 is a map of temperature anomalies for July 1936 - another very hot month in western Russia. Notice how the general pattern of temperature anomalies looks a lot like those from July 2010 (in Figure 2). This would suggest that the combined teleconnection index for July 1936 was also quite high - we don’t know how high, because the compiled data from the CPC only goes back to 1950. But clearly, it can get hot in Moscow and western Russia without our help.
Figure 4. Surface temperature anomalies (C) for July, 1936 (figure from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies).
The lack of data on teleconnections prior to 1950 limits the historical setting within which we can place the 2010 event. Would the increasing trend exhibited in Figure 3 look the same if we had that included the known warm period of the 1930s? Just how high was the combined teleconnection index in July of 1936?
We don’t know. And lacking that knowledge, it is hard to ascertain what role other factors such as urbanization, smoke, or global warming may have had in making this summer a record summer in western Russia.
On its own, the summer of 2010 would have gone down in history as an extremely hot one in Moscow, with or without any influence from enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations.
Did our changes to the environment, locally, regionally, or globally add even a bit more to what nature had in store already?
Possibly? Probably?
The jury is still way out on this one.
See post on this one.
ICECAP NOTE: Recall this same area had one of the coldest (in places said to be the coldest) winter on record this past winter, again as the blocking pattern locked in, then with the ridge in the North Atlantic. Enlarged here.
But then we were told that was weather and the extremes were consistent with AGW.
Scientists can now study climate change in far more detail with powerful new computer software released by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO. The Community Earth System Model (CESM) will be one of the primary climate models used for the next assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
CESM is the latest in a series of NCAR-based global models developed over the last 30 years. The models are jointly supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), which is NCAR’s sponsor. Scientists and engineers at NCAR, DOE laboratories, and several universities developed the CESM.
“The Community Earth System Model is yet another step toward representing improved physics and biogeochemistry in a coupled model,” says Anjuli Bamzai, program director in NSF’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, which funds NCAR.
“As our understanding of climate-relevant processes improves, it is imperative to represent these processes in the model.”
The new model’s advanced capabilities will help scientists shed new light on some of the critical mysteries of global warming, including:
• What impact will warming temperatures have on the massive ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica?
• How will patterns in the ocean and atmosphere affect regional climate in coming decades?
• What will be the likely interaction of climate change and tropical cyclones, including hurricanes?
• How will tiny airborne particles, known as aerosols, affect clouds and temperatures?
CESM is one of about a dozen climate models worldwide that can be used to simulate the many components of Earth’s climate system, including the oceans, atmosphere, sea ice, and land cover. The model and its predecessors are unique in that they were developed by a broad community of scientists. CESM is freely available to researchers worldwide.
“With the Community Earth System Model, we can pursue scientific questions that we could not address previously,” says NCAR scientist James Hurrell, chair of the scientific steering committee that developed the model. “Thanks to its improved physics and expanded biogeochemistry, it gives us a better representation of the real world.”
Climate scientists rely on computer models to better understand Earth’s climate system because they cannot conduct large-scale experiments on the atmosphere itself. Climate models, like weather models, rely on a three-dimensional mesh that reaches high into the atmosphere and into the oceans. At regularly spaced intervals, or grid points, the models use laws of physics to compute atmospheric and environmental variables, simulating the exchanges among gases, particles, and energy across the atmosphere.
Because climate models cover far longer periods than weather models, they cannot include as much detail. Thus, climate projections appear on regional to global scales rather than local scales. This approach enables researchers to simulate global climate over years, decades or millennia. To verify a model’s accuracy, scientists typically simulate past conditions and then compare the model results to actual observations.
The CESM builds on the Community Climate System Model, which NCAR scientists and collaborators have regularly updated since first developing it more than a decade ago. The new model enables scientists to gain a broader picture of Earth’s climate system by incorporating more influences.
Using the CESM, researchers now can simulate the interaction of marine ecosystems with greenhouse gases; the climatic influence of ozone, dust, and other atmospheric chemicals; the cycling of carbon through the atmosphere, oceans, and land surfaces; and the influence of greenhouse gases on the upper atmosphere. In addition, an entirely new representation of atmospheric processes in CESM will allow researchers to pursue a much wider variety of applications, including studies of air quality and biogeochemical feedback mechanisms.
Scientists have begun using both the CESM and the Community Climate System Model for an ambitious set of climate experiments to be featured in the next IPCC assessment reports, scheduled for release during 2013-14. Most of the simulations in support of that assessment are scheduled to be completed and publicly released beginning in late 2010, so that the broader research community can complete its analyses in time for inclusion in the assessment.
The new IPCC report will include information on regional climate change in coming decades. Using the CESM, Hurrell and other scientists hope to learn more about ocean-atmosphere patterns such as the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which affect sea surface temperatures as well as atmospheric conditions. Such knowledge, Hurrell says, can eventually lead to forecasts spanning several years of potential weather impacts, such as a particular region facing a high probability of drought, or another region likely facing several years of cold and wet conditions.
“Decision makers in diverse arenas need to know the extent to which the climate events they see are the product of natural variability and, hence, can be expected to reverse at some point, or are the result of potentially irreversible, human-influenced climate change. CESM will be a major tool to address such questions.”
Icecap Note: the model obviously has built in global warming - I thought the models were by nature supposed to be totally objective and let the chips fall as they may. They did not promise ability to predict important multi decadal ocean cycles, changes in the thermohaline circulations and no mention of improvements in use of solar factors. AR4 models virtually ignored solar changes and forcing. It sounds like the same old GHG, ozone chemistry, aerosol driven model with more land/sea interaction run at a higher resolution. Don’t expect any breakthrough findings or leap in skill.
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM
Last year, Bruce Hall plotted monthly heat and cold records for the 50 states. The 1930s showed up as by far the record decade over the last century (below, enlarged here).
This was in sharp contrast to the claims by NOAA, NCAR, the EPA and IPCC which all claimed the heat records were increasing at an alarming or accelerating rate.
We looked at Des Moines, Iowa, a continental climate that should reflect the heat more than coastal areas. We looked at the daily records in June and July. Again it was the 1930s that showed up as the clear winner. 1988 was a hot La Nina summer (similar to this year following an El Nino). It had 5 record highs. There have been no records after 1988 (below, enlarged here).
This morning I did a radio interview in Detroit. In preparation, I looked at record highs during the summer months of June, July and August. Again 1930s was the clear winner with 30 record highs. The warm era from the 1930s to the early 1950s had two and a half times the number of record highs the last three decades. Only two records were set this decade (2006) (below, enlarged here).
Though this summer has been a warm summer and may end up in the top ten warmest for Detroit, there have been no record heat days so far. There were 10 days with 90F temperatures in June and 2 this August. August was the warmest of the three summer months, mainly due to higher minimums due to more clouds and higher dewpoints thanks to moisture from air flowing over very wet grounds in WI and IA.
It has been indeed hot in the east and south central. But that was expected. It happens reliably when La Nina follows El Nino winters (1999, 1995, 1988, 1966) or after a El Nino with super blocking like this year (1977).
The heat in the east was intense in July but Dr Richard Keen showed how there is no trend in highest annual temperatures in Philadelphia since 1873 (below, enlarged here).
Back in 1999, when NOAA still was an honest broker about US temperatures, the USHCN temperatures looked like this (below, enlarged here).
James Hansen of NASA remarked about this data then: “The U.S. has warmed during the past century, but the warming hardly exceeds year-to-year variability. Indeed, in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934.”
It showed the peak in the 1930s to 1940 was higher than the late century warmth. NOAA removed the urbanization adjustment in 2007 and suddenly the warmest decades became the recent ones (below, enlarged here).
NASA’s Dr Edward Long looked at rural versus urban stations and found rural stations much more in line with the 1990s USHCN version (below, enlarged here).
On a global scale, using the NASA version in 1980 compared to the NASA version in 2010, we see how efforts were made to not only show more warming in recent decades but suppress the warmth in the early to mid century (below, enlarged here).
So when you hear it proclaimed it was the warmest month, season, year or decade, remember that is in the world of manipulated data. Yes this was a warm summer in many places (in San Diego it has been the coldest spring and summer on record to date - averaging 5F below normal). But last winter some parts of the US and Asia had the coldest winter ever and many locations since 1977/78, 1962/63 or 1971/72 even in the manipulated data. Then we were told that was weather not climate and to be expected with global warming and to ignore it. Do the same with the pockets of extreme warmth this summer.....and expect, like they are experiencing in the Southern Hemisphere another cold winter although with La Nina more like 2007/08 and 2008/09 than last winter and a resumption of the multidecadal cooling that began in 2002.
See post here.
Oh and if you want another example of how NOAA is assuming an advocacy role, Heidi Cullen, formerly The Weather Channel’s leading global warming advocate now with George Soros funded Climate Central, an advocacy group sent to the Association of State Climatologists materials that promote and explain global warming that it compiled together with CICS, a NOAA cooperative institute on materials promoting AGW.
By Michael Marshall, New Scientist
UPDATE: Temperatures have turned quite cool (49F) in Moscow and showers in Pakistan become more scattered as the persistent block broke down.
Raging wildfires in western Russia have reportedly doubled average daily death rates in Moscow. Diluvial rains over northern Pakistan are surging south - the UN reports that 6 million have been affected by the resulting floods.
It now seems that these two apparently disconnected events have a common cause. They are linked to the heatwave that killed more than 60 in Japan, and the end of the warm spell in western Europe. The unusual weather in the US and Canada last month also has a similar cause.
According to meteorologists monitoring the atmosphere above the northern hemisphere, unusual holding patterns in the jet stream are to blame. As a result, weather systems sat still. Temperatures rocketed and rainfall reached extremes.
Renowned for its influence on European and Asian weather, the jet stream flows between 7 and 12 kilometres above ground. In its basic form it is a current of fast-moving air that bobs north and south as it rushes around the globe from west to east. Its wave-like shape is caused by Rossby waves - powerful spinning wind currents that push the jet stream alternately north and south like a giant game of pinball.
In recent weeks, meteorologists have noticed a change in the jet stream’s normal pattern. Its waves normally shift east, dragging weather systems along with it. But in mid-July they ground to a halt, says Mike Blackburn of the University of Reading, UK (see diagram). There was a similar pattern over the US in late June.
Stationary patterns in the jet stream are called “blocking events”. They are the consequence of strong Rossby waves, which push westward against the flow of the jet stream. They are normally overpowered by the jet stream’s eastward flow, but they can match it if they get strong enough. When this happens, the jet stream’s meanders hold steady, says Blackburn, creating the perfect conditions for extreme weather.
A static jet stream freezes in place the weather systems that sit inside the peaks and troughs of its meanders. Warm air to the south of the jet stream gets sucked north into the “peaks”. The “troughs” on the other hand, draw in cold, low-pressure air from the north. Normally, these systems a constantly on the move - but not during a blocking event. See below, enlarged here.
And so it was that Pakistan fell victim to torrents of rain. The blocking event coincided with the summer monsoon, bringing down additional rain on the mountains to the north of the country. It was the final straw for the Indus’s congested river bed (see “Thirst for Indus water upped flood risk").
Similarly, as the static jet stream snaked north over Russia, it pulled in a constant stream of hot air from Africa. The resulting heatwave is responsible for extensive drought and nearly 800 wildfires at the latest count. The same effect is probably responsible for the heatwave in Japan, which killed over 60 people in late July. At the same time, the blocking event put an end to unusually warm weather in western Europe.
Blocking events are not the preserve of Europe and Asia. Back in June, a similar pattern developed over the US, allowing a high-pressure system to sit over the eastern seaboard and push up the mercury. Meanwhile, the Midwest was bombarded by air from the north, with chilly effects. Instead of moving on in a matter of days, “the pattern persisted for more than a week”, says Deke Arndt of the US National Climatic Data Center in North Carolina.
So what is the root cause of all of this? Meteorologists are unsure. Climate change models predict that rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will drive up the number of extreme heat events. Whether this is because greenhouse gas concentrations are linked to blocking events or because of some other mechanism entirely is impossible to say. Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado - who has done much of this modelling himself - points out that the resolution in climate models is too low to reproduce atmospheric patterns like blocking events. So they cannot say anything about whether or not their frequency will change. ICECAP NOTE: These models are worthless on any scale or time frame.
There is some tentative evidence that the sun may be involved. Earlier this year astrophysicist Mike Lockwood of the University of Reading, UK, showed that winter blocking events were more likely to happen over Europe when solar activity is low - triggering freezing winters (New Scientist, 17 April, p 6).
Now he says he has evidence from 350 years of historical records to show that low solar activity is also associated with summer blocking events (Environmental Research Letters, in press). “There’s enough evidence to suspect that the jet stream behaviour is being modulated by the sun,” he says.
ICECAP NOTE: Hurd ‘Doc’ Willett of MIT presented at the 2nd Annual Northeast Storm Conference in 1978 a view of how the 22 year cycle affected weather patterns. His Hale Cycle work would have suggested the recent minimum 2007-2010 should be one of high “persistence” and thus low “variability”. This may have been augmented by the 106/213 year cycle concurrence. The patterns intraseasonally have been amazingly persistent since 2007. Willett passed in 1992. We are glad to see Professor Lockwood is back doing good science. See below, enlarged here.
Blackburn says that blocking events have been unusually common over the last three years, for instance, causing severe floods in the UK and heatwaves in eastern Europe in 2007. Solar activity has been low throughout.
Thirst for Indus water upped flood risk
It isn’t just heavy rain that is to blame for the current floods in Pakistan: water management has also exacerbated the risk of such events.
Both Pakistan and India depend heavily on the Indus river for their water needs. Since independence in 1947 Pakistan has virtually doubled the amount of land it irrigates with Indus water and the picture is similar for India. This thirst for water carries a heavy cost.
The Indus drains the Himalayan mountain chain and carries vast amounts of sediment. As more water is diverted into irrigation, the river flow has been severely reduced, and can’t now carry its accustomed cargo of sediment downstream. A growing number of levees and man-made channels also trap sediment on its way out to sea.
“More silt has been deposited into sand bars, reducing the capacity of the river,” says Daanish Mustafa, an expert on Indus water management at Kings College London, UK. “There is no doubt that infrastructure has exacerbated the flood risk significantly.
“Antiquated irrigation systems in Pakistan may also have made the problem worse. “Pakistan unfortunately has one of the worst irrigation efficiencies in the world,” says Uttam Sinha, a water security researcher from the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, India. Repairing the leaks and installing modern irrigation technology may help to reduce the flood risk in future. Kate Ravilious
See the New Scientist story here.
By Joseph D’Aleo
The Inspector General wrote on behalf of NOAA a response to Congressman Barton and Rohrabacher and the other committee members about the issues raised about the US climate data base (USHCN) (see attached letter and report here). They spoke with the NWS, NCDC, ATDD, several state climatologists, the AASC, the USGRP and the AMS to form their response. They examined quality control procedures, background documentation, operating procedures, budget requirements and management plans.
They examined the USHCN program to ensure that steps were taken to ensure quality control of the data. NOAA admitted to issues with siting, undocumented relocation, instrument changes, urbanization and missing data but claimed that these issues were being addressed in their new version 2 with its new ‘pal reviewed’ algorithm designed to detect “previously undisclosed inhomogenieties”.
The write up and description of the process of pal review is very amusing including an internal review, a mixed journal review with one reviewer claiming a number of issues had not been addressed. Ironicaly the reviews were apparently with one exception accidently eaten by the NOAA mascot dog and were unavailable to the Insprector General. Though there was one negative review, the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, not surprisingly given their advocacy goal, chose to publish it giving it ‘peer review’ status credit.
The inspector general spoke with several other individuals not directly involved in the review process and got comments from one that NOAA needed to explain the process more and a humorous claim by the chair of the Applied Climatology committee of the AMS that the developers of the new algorithm did a ‘fantastic job’ with the new algorithm.
All reviewers to their credit admitted there was a need for an improved climate data set not requiring the many adjustments made to the existing one. NOAA is requesting $100 million to implement a new national station network. This is so even though the pilot program in Alabama cost only $30,000 to implement and make operational. It’s only your tax dollars. Though they argued against what Anthony Watts, Roger Pielke Sr, I and others have claimed about the issues with their network, this is an tacit admission that these issues were real and in need of addressing (progress made).
THE VERSION 2 ALGORITHM
Despite intimation that the algorithm corrects for all the deficiencies ADMITTED by NOAA, the new algorithm really only address 2 well. It is a change point algorithm looking for discontinuities that would indicate previously undocumented station moves/land use change or instrument changes. It is not clear how many of these issues among the 1221 stations in the network were uncovered with the new algorithm.
Here is an enlarged version of the example (courtesy of Anthony Watts surface station.org effort) of a land use change that the new algorithms ‘should’ have caught.
Here a tennis court was built around a station in Tahoe City CA. The enclosure around the Stevenson shelter, housing the sensor included a trash burn barrel within 5 feet. The data plot for Tahoe City reflected the change made around 1980.
What is left uncovered and unaddressed are far worse issues, urbanization and bad siting. The new algorithms would never catch the following slow ramp up of temperatures you find in most cities and towns as they grow (as in Sacramento below, enlarged here. Oke (1973) noted that even small towns can develop a significant urban warm bias (population of just 1000 - 2C).
Nor would the new algorithm catch the slow degradation of siting as trees grow up and pavement, buildings or other heat sources slowly encroach around a station or the shelter is not properly maintained as in the Snake Creek, Utah one below enlarged here.
In actual fact version 2 took a step backwards by removing a previous urbanization adjustment. Far more stations both urban areas and even small to moderate size towns exhibited growth and many airports saw growth of the city around them. This introduced a warming trend in what had been a cooling linear trend since 1940 and about which even James Hansen admitted in 1999:
“The U.S. has warmed during the past century, but the warming hardly exceeds year-to-year variability. Indeed, in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934.”
The temperature plot at that time in USHCN version 1 looked like this (enlarged here) with the recent warming significantly less than that around 1940.
After removing the urban adjustment in 2007, the US plot looked like this (enlarged here.
The difference in the two is shown below (enlarged here):
This change introduced a cooling of the previous warm period from the 1910s to 1940s and a warming post 1985 but especially after 2000.
IS THE URBAN ADJUSTMENT REALLY NECESSARY?
Literally dozens of papers have documented it is. See our paper on Surface Temperature Records: A Policy Driven Deception for a lengthy discussion of it and of the siting issue which despite NCDC’s claims is not properly addressed for in the version 2. Almost every night your local television broadcaster will make a forecast like ‘lows tonight in town near 60 but down in the upper 40s the colder (more rural) spots.’
NOAA uses a paper by their own Tom Peterson who played statistical games with a data set and claimed it showed an urban adjustment was no longer needed.
Steve McIntyre challenged NOAA’s Peterson (2003), who had said, “Contrary to generally accepted wisdom, no statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual temperatures” by showing that the difference between urban and rural temperatures for Peterson’s own 2003 station set was 0.7C and between temperatures in large cities and rural areas 2C (below, enlarged here).
Despite the new algorithm which might catch a few station moves or changes that previously went undocumented, NOAA’s USHCN remains seriously flawed. In fact it is likely WORSE than it was a decade ago when it adjusted for urbanization. Ironically their global data set GHCN is even less trustworthy because it has huge holes in and much more missing monthly data requiring infilling, a process that may require using data from 1200km away to estimate the missing data (the equivalent of using New York City to fill in for missing months in Birmingham, Alabama) (below, enlarged here).
More to come. See PDF here.
By Paul Driessen
If 10% ethanol in gasoline is good, 15% (E15) will be even better. At least for some folks.
We’re certainly heading in that direction - thanks to animosity toward oil, natural gas and coal, fear-mongering about global warming, and superlative lobbying for “alternative,” “affordable,” “eco-friendly” biofuels. Whether the trend continues, and what unintended consequences will be unleashed, will depend on Corn Belt versus consumer politics and whether more people recognize the downsides of ethanol.
Federal laws currently require that fuel suppliers blend more and more ethanol into gasoline, until the annual total rises from 9 billion gallons of EtOH in 2008 to 36 billion in 2022. The national Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) also mandates that corn-based ethanol tops out at 15 billion gallons a year, and the rest comes from “advanced biofuels” - fuels produced from switchgrass, forest products and other non-corn feedstocks, and having 50% lower lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum.
These “advanced biofuels” thus far exist only on paper or in laboratories and demonstration projects. But Congress apparently believes passing a law will turn wishes into horses and mandates into reality. Create the demand, say ethanol activists, and the supply will follow. In plain-spoken English: Impose the mandates and provide sufficient subsidies, and ethanol producers will gladly “earn” billions growing crops, building facilities and distilling fuel.
Thus, ADM, Cargill, POET bio-energy and the Growth Energy coalition will benefit from RFS and other mandates, loan guarantees, tax credits and direct subsidies. Automobile and other manufacturers will sell new lines of vehicles and equipment to replace soon-to-be-obsolete models that cannot handle E15 blends. Lawmakers who nourish the arrangement will continue receiving hefty campaign contributions from Big Farma.
However, voter anger over subsidies and deficits bode ill for the status quo. So POET doubled its Capital Hill lobbying budget in 2010, and the ethanol industry has launched a full-court press to have the Senate, Congress and Environmental Protection Agency raise the ethanol-in-gasoline limit to 15% ASAP. As their anxiety levels have risen, some lobbyists are suggesting a compromise at 12% (E12).
Not surprisingly, ethanol activism is resisted by people on the other side of the ledger - those who will pay the tab, and those who worry about the environmental impacts of ethanol production and use.
* Taxpayer and free market advocates point to the billions being transferred from one class of citizens to another, while legislators and regulators lock up billions of barrels of oil, trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, and vast additional energy resources in onshore and offshore America. They note that ethanol costs 3.5 times as much as gasoline to produce, but contains only 65% as much energy per gallon as gasoline.
* Motorists, boaters, snowmobilers and outdoor power equipment users worry about safety and cost. The more ethanol there is in gasoline, the more often consumers have to fill up their tanks, the less value they get, and the more they must deal with repairs, replacements, lost earnings and productivity, and malfunctions that are inconvenient or even dangerous.
Ethanol burns hotter than gasoline. It collects water and corrodes plastic, rubber and soft metal parts. Older engines and systems may not be able to handle E15 or even E12, which could also increase emissions and adversely affect engine, fuel pump and sensor durability.
Home owners, landscapers and yard care workers who use 200 million lawn mowers, chainsaws, trimmers, blowers and other outdoor power gear want proof that parts won’t deteriorate and equipment won’t stall out, start inadvertently or catch fire. Drivers want proof that their car or motorcycle won’t conk out on congested highways or in the middle of nowhere, boat engines won’t die miles from land or in the face of a storm, and snowmobiles won’t sputter to a stop in some frigid wilderness.
All these people have a simple request: test E12 and E15 blends first. Wait until the Department of Energy and private sector assess these risks sufficiently, and issue a clean bill of health, before imposing new fuel standards. Safety first. Working stiff livelihoods second. Bigger profits for Big Farma and Mega Ethanol can wait. Some unexpected parties recently offered their support for more testing.
Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Joe Barton (R-TX) and Fred Upton (R-MI) wrote to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, advising her that “Allowing the sale of renewable fuel… that damages equipment, shortens its life or requires costly repairs will likely cause a backlash against renewable fuels. It could also seriously undermine the agency’’s credibility in addressing engine fuel and engine issues in the future.”
* Corn growers will benefit from a higher ethanol RFS. However, government mandates mean higher prices for corn - and other grains, as corn and switchgrass incentives reduce farmland planted in wheat or rye. Thus, beef, pork, poultry and egg producers must pay more for corn-based feed; grocery manufacturers face higher prices for grains, eggs, meat and corn syrup; and folks who simply like affordable food cringe as their grocery bills go higher.
* Whether the issue is food, vehicles or equipment, blue collar, minority, elderly and middle class families would be disproportionately affected, Affordable Power Alliance co-chairman Harry Jackson, Jr. points out. They have to pay a larger portion of their smaller incomes for food, and own older cars and power equipment that would be particularly vulnerable to E15 fuels.
* Ethanol mandates also drive up the cost of food aid - so fewer malnourished, destitute people can be fed via USAID and World Food Organization programs.
Biotechnology will certainly help, by enabling farmers to produce more biofuel crops per acre, using fewer pesticides and utilizing no-till methods that reduce soil erosion, even under drought conditions. If only Greenpeace and other radical groups would cease battling this technology. However, there are legitimate environmental concerns.
* Oil, gas, coal and uranium extraction produces large quantities of high-density fuel for vehicles, equipment and power plants (to recharge batteries) from relatively small tracts of land. We could produce 670 billion gallons of oil from Arctic land equal to 1/20 of Washington, DC, if ANWR weren’t off limits.
By contrast, 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol requires cropland and wildlife habitat the size of Georgia, and for 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuel we’d need South Carolina planted in switchgrass.
* Ethanol has only two-thirds the energy value of gasoline ‘ and it takes 70% more energy to grow and harvest corn and turn it into EtOH than what it yields as a fuel. There is a “net energy loss,” says Cornell University agriculture professor David Pimental.
* Pimental and other analysts also calculate that growing and processing corn into ethanol requires over 8,000 gallons of water per gallon of alcohol fuel. Much of the water comes from already stressed aquifers - and growing the crops results in significant pesticide, herbicide and fertilizer runoff.
* Ethanol blends do little to reduce smog, and in fact result in more pollutants evaporating from gas tanks, says the National Academy of Sciences. As to preventing climate change, thousands of scientists doubt the human role, climate “crisis” claims and efficacy of biofuels in addressing the speculative problem.
Meanwhile, Congress remains intent on mandating low-water toilets and washing machines, and steadily expanding ethanol diktats. And EPA wants to crack down on dust from livestock, combine operations and tractors in farm fields.
“With Congress,” Will Rogers observed, “every time they make a joke it’s a law, and every time they make a law it’s a joke.” If it had been around in 1934, he would have added EPA. Let’s hope for some change. (PDF)
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.
By Paul MacRae, August 5, 2010
The recent report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows that surface temperatures have increased in the past decade. In fact, the NOAA report, “State of the Climate in 2009,” says 2000-2009 was 0.2 Fahrenheit (0.11 Celsius) warmer than the decade previous. The press release was so splashy it made the front page of Toronto’s Globe and Mail with the headline: “Signs of warming earth ‘unmistakable’”.
Of course, given that the planet is in an interglacial period, we would expect “unmistakable” signs of warming, including melting glaciers and Arctic ice, rising temperatures, and rising sea levels. That’s what the planet does during an interglacial.
Furthermore, we’re nowhere near the peak reached by the interglacial of 125,000 years ago, when temperatures were 1-3C higher than today and sea levels up to 20 feet higher, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change itself. In other words, the Globe might as well have had a headline reading “Signs of changing weather ‘unmistakable’.”
Similarly, the NOAA report laments: “People have spent thousands of years building society for one climate and now a new one is being created - one that’s warmer and more extreme.” The implication is that we can somehow freeze-dry the climate we’ve got to last forever, which is absurd.
Sea levels have risen 400 feet in the past 15,000 years, causing all kinds of inconvenience for humanity in the process-and all quite naturally. As the interglacial continues, sea levels will rise and temperatures will increase-until the interglacial reaches its peak, at which point the planet will again move toward glacial conditions. To think that we can somehow stop this process is insane.
Even die-hard alarmists admitted 2000-2009 cooling
But what about the NOAA claim that the surface temperature increased .11C during 2000-2009? Although they did everything possible to hide this information from the public, media, politicians, and even fellow scientists, by the late 2000s even die-hard alarmists were eventually forced to accept that the surface temperature record showed no warming as of the late 1990s, and some cooling as of about 2002. In other words, overall, for the first decade of the 21st century, there was no warming and even some cooling.
One of the consistent themes in the Climategate emails was consternation that the planet wasn’t warming as expected by the models (that is, about 0.2C per decade). For example, as early as 2005 the then head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), Phil Jones, wrote in an email: “The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.”
Fellow Climategate emailer and IPCC contributor Kevin Trenberth wrote to hockey-stick creator Michael Mann in 2009: “The fact is that we cannot account for the lack of warming at the moment and it’s a travesty that we can’t.” Note the date: 2009, the last year of the decade. As far as Trenberth knew-and he should have known as a leading IPCC author-the planet hadn’t warmed for several years up to that time.
Even Tim Flannery, author of the arch-alarmist The Weather Makers, acknowledged in November 2009: “In the last few years, where there hasn’t been a continuation of that warming trend, we don’t understand all of the factors that creates Earth’s climate, so there are some things we don’t understand, that’s what the scientists were emailing about. These people [the scientists] work with models, computer modeling. When the computer modeling and the real world data disagree you have a problem.”
Jones tries for climate honesty
Yes, you do have a problem, to the point where, in February 2010, after he’d been suspended as head of the CRU following the Climategate scandal, and in an attempt to restore his reputation as an honest scientist, Jones came a bit clean in an interview with the BBC. For example, Jones agreed with the BBC interviewer that there had been “no statistically significant warming” since 1995 (although he asserted that the warming was close to significant), whereas in his 2005 email he was at pains to hide the lack of warming from the public and even fellow researchers.
Jones admitted that from 2002-2009 the planet had been cooling slightly (-0.12C per decade), although he contended that “this trend is not statistically significant.” In short, as far as Jones knew in February 2010-and as the keeper of the Hadley-CRU surface temperature record he was surely in a very good position to know-the planet hadn’t warmed on average over the decade.
In the BBC interview, Jones calculated the overall surface temperature trend for 1975 to 2009 to be +0.16C per decade. Since that includes the warming years 1975-1998, it seems incredible that NOAA could manufacture a warming of 0.11C for 2000-2009, as shown in this graph from the 2009 NOAA report, page 5.
To show this level of warming, NOAA must have included lead-up to the January-March 2010 El Nino. A surge in warming at the end of the decade would tend to pull the 2000-2009 average up, but this doesn’t negate the fact that for almost all of the last decade, the planet did not warm.
(Note that the temperature is in Fahrenheit degrees. This caused much confusion in Canadian newspapers, including the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and most newspapers on the National Post’s Postmedia news network. All reported the increase as 0.2 Celsius rather than Fahrenheit, thereby doubling the already dubious warming claimed by NOAA. On Monday, Aug. 1, I sent letters to the Globe, National Post and Victoria Times Colonist pointing out this factual error. None of these newspapers has printed either the letter or a correction.)
NOAA’s U.S. temperatures contradict 2009 report
Curiously, another part of the NOAA website directly contradicts the NOAA report. On its site, NOAA offers a gadget that lets browsers check the temperature trend in the continental United States for any two years between 1895 and 2010. Here’s what the graph shows for the years 2000-2009 in the United States:
This graph shows a temperature decline of 0.73Fahrenheit (-0.4C) for 2000-2009 in the U.S. To get a perspective on how large a decline this is: the IPCC estimates that the temperature increase for the whole of the 20th century was 1.1F, or 0.6C. In other words, at least in the United States, the past decade’s cooling wiped out two-thirds of the temperature gain of the last century.
While the U.S. isn’t, of course, the whole world, it has the world’s best temperature records, and a review of the NOAA data since 1895 shows that in the 20th century the U.S. temperature trends mirrored, quite closely, the global temperature trends. So, for example, between 1940-1975, a global cooling period, the NOAA chart showed a temperature decline of 0.14F (-0.07C).
In other words, it stretches credulity to the breaking point to believe that the global temperature trend from 2000-2009 could be a full 0.51C - half a degree Celsius - higher than the temperature trend for the United States (that is, -.4C + .11C).
Until NOAA issues a correction (which isn’t likely), the cooling of the past decade - which has been such an embarrassment to the hypothesis that human-caused carbon emissions will cause runaway warming - is gone, conjured away by a wave of the NOAA climate fairy’s magic wand.
See compilation of scientist responses to NOAA’s report by SPPI here.
Icecap Note: the warm spring and hot summer for a lot of places is characteristic of a La Nina summer post an El Nino winter. Best example may be 1988. This was used by many forecasters to warn of a hot summer. The same hypocritical alarmists touting the extreme summer heat in places (one of the coldest summers in a century in the west), told us to ignore the coldest winters in decades and in places ever in the Northern Hemisphere last winter as that was weather not climate.
See a collection of respponses back to NOAA’s recent claims on SPPI here.
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By Dr. Ross McKitrick
Summary
There are three main global temperature histories: the combined CRU-Hadley record (HADCRU), the NASA-GISS (GISTEMP) record, and the NOAA record. All three global averages depend on the same underlying land data archive, the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN). CRU and GISS supplement it with a small amount of additional data.
Because of this reliance on GHCN, its quality deficiencies will constrain the quality of all derived products. The number of weather stations providing data to GHCN plunged in 1990 and again in 2005. The sample size has fallen by over 75% from its peak in the early 1970s, and is now smaller than at any time since 1919. The collapse in sample size has not been spatially uniform. It has increased the relative fraction of data coming from airports to about 50 percent (up from about 30 percent in the 1970s). It has also reduced the average latitude of source data and removed relatively more high-altitude monitoring sites.
GHCN applies adjustments to try and correct for sampling discontinuities. These have tended to increase the warming trend over the 20th century. After 1990 the magnitude of the adjustments (positive and negative) gets implausibly large.
CRU has stated that about 98 percent of its input data are from GHCN. GISS also relies on GHCN with some additional US data from the USHCN network, and some additional Antarctic data sources. NOAA relies entirely on the GHCN network.
Oceanic data are based on sea surface temperature (SST) rather than marine air temperature (MAT). All three global products rely on SST series derived from the ICOADS archive, though the Hadley Centre switched to a real time network source after 1998, which may have caused a jump in that series. ICOADS observations were primarily obtained from ships that voluntarily monitored SST. Prior to the post-war era, coverage of the southern oceans and polar regions was very thin. Coverage has improved partly due to deployment of buoys, as well as use of satellites to support extrapolation. Ship-based readings changed over the 20th century from bucket-and-thermometer to engine-intake methods, leading to a warm bias as the new readings displaced the old. Until recently it was assumed that bucket methods disappeared after 1941, but this is now believed not to be the case, which may necessitate a major revision to the 20th century ocean record. Adjustments for equipment changes, trends in ship height, etc., have been large and are subject to continuing uncertainties. Relatively few studies have compared SST and MAT in places where both are available. There is evidence that SST trends overstate nearby MAT trends.
Processing methods to create global averages differ slightly among different groups, but they do not seem to make major differences, given the choice of input data. After 1980 the SST products have not trended upwards as much as land air temperature averages. The quality of data over land, namely the raw temperature data in GHCN, depends on the validity of adjustments for known problems due to urbanization and land-use change. The adequacy of these adjustments has been tested in three different ways, with two of the three finding evidence that they do not suffice to remove warming biases.
The overall conclusion of this report is that there are serious quality problems in the surface temperature data sets that call into question whether the global temperature history, especially over land, can be considered both continuous and precise. Users should be aware of these limitations, especially in policy sensitive applications.
See full report here.
Ross also notes the following on another paper:
You might be interested in a new paper I have coauthored with Steve McIntyre and Chad Herman, in press at Atmospheric Science Letters, which presents two methods developed in econometrics for testing trend equivalence between data sets and then applies them to a comparison of model projections and observations over the 1979-2009 interval in the tropical troposphere. One method is a panel regression with a heavily parameterized error covariance matrix, and the other uses a non-parametric covariance matrix from multivariate trend regressions. The former has the convenience that it is coded in standard software packages but is restrictive in handling higher-order autocorrelations, whereas the latter is robust to any form of autocorrelation but requires some special coding. I think both methods could find wide application in climatology questions.
The tropical troposphere issue is important because that is where climate models project a large, rapid response to greenhouse gas emissions. The 2006 CCSP report pointed to the lack of observed warming there as a “potentially serious inconsistency” between models and observations. The Douglass et al. and Santer et al. papers came to opposite conclusions about whether the discrepancy was statistically significant or not. We discuss methodological weaknesses in both papers. We also updated the data to 2009, whereas the earlier papers focused on data ending around 2000.
We find that the model trends are 2x larger than observations in the lower troposphere and 4x larger than in the mid-troposphere, and the trend differences at both layers are statistically significant (p<1%), suggestive of an inconsistency between models and observations. We also find the observed LT trend significant but not the MT trend.
If interested, you can access the pre-print, SI and data/code archive at my new weebly page.
See how these agree with many of the findings and conclusions in the compendium Surface Temperature Records: A Policy Driven Deception by Anthony Watts, E.M. Smith and I (and many others). See also further work on GHCN unedited here by E.M. Smith (Chiefio).
Investors Business Daily
Taxes: While the oil and gas companies are bearing the brunt of taxation, regulation and environmental angst, others are doing just fine, thank you. If you think cap-and-trade is dead, just follow the money.
According to a recently released Center for Responsive Politics review of reports filed with the U.S. Senate and U.S. House, General Electric and its subsidiaries spent more than $9.5 million on federal lobbying from April to June - the most it’s spent on lobbying since President Obama has been in office.
Why? As the fight over cap-and-trade grows, so does lobbying. Since January, GE and its units have spent more than $17.6 million on lobbying - a jump of 50% over the first six months of 2009.
GE is just one of many organizations and individuals that stand to make money if cap-and-trade makes it through Congress. GE makes wind turbines, not oil rigs, and has a vested interest in shutting down its fossil fuel competitors.
In an Aug. 19, 2009 e-mail obtained by Steve Milloy of JunkScience.com, General Electric Vice Chairman John Rice called on his GE co-workers to join the General Electric Political Action Committee “to collectively help support candidates who share the values and goals of GE.”
And what are those goals, and just what has GEPAC accomplished thus far? “On climate change,” Rice wrote, “we were able to work closely with key authors of the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill, recently passed by the House of Representatives. If this bill is enacted into law, it will benefit many GE businesses.”
GE is a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which advocates cap-and-trade legislation and leads the drive for reductions of so-called greenhouse gases. One of its subsidiaries was involved in Hopenhagen, a campaign by a group of businesses to build support for the recent Copenhagen Climate Conference, which was supposed to come up with a successor to the failed Kyoto Accords.
To be fair, coal and gas companies lobby too, both out of self-preservation and self-interest.
But they produce a useful product that creates jobs and boosts GDP. Alternative energy, even after huge subsidies, adds little to our energy mix. Evidence suggests alternative energy is a net job loser, siphoning resources from productive areas of the economy.
Renewable energy sources like wind, solar energy and biomass total only 3% of our energy mix. Spain’s experience is that for each “green” job created, 2.2 jobs are lost due to the siphoning off of resources that private industry needed to grow.
There’s money to be made in climate change even if the climate doesn’t change, and the profit motive may now be the main driver of cap-and-trade.
The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) was formed to buy and sell carbon credits, the currency of cap-and-trade. Founder Richard Sandor estimates the climate trading market could be “a $10 trillion dollar market.”
It could very well be if cap-and-trade legislation like Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer are signed into law, making energy prices necessarily skyrocket, and as companies buy and trade permits to emit those six “greenhouse” gases.
As we have written, profiteering off climate change hysteria is a growth industry as well as a means to the end goal of fundamentally transforming America, as the President has said was his goal.
Czech President Vaclav Klaus has called climate change a religion whose zealots seek the establishment of government control over the means of production. It reminds him, he said, of the totalitarianism he once endured.
After the Climate-gate scandal broke, Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, said of the scientists at Britain’s Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and those they worked with: “They’re criminals.” He also called them “huckstering snake-oil salesmen and ‘global warming’ profiteers.”
Like the scientists who lived off the grant money they received from scaring us to death with manipulated data, others hope to profit off perhaps the greatest scam of all time. See this important post here.