You know the story. Humans are burning fossil fuels and because of their actions, the world is now warming at an unprecedented pace. This warming is stressing ecosystems throughout the world with devastating consequences to vegetation from one end of the earth to the other. If we do not act fast, we will destroy the planet and have a tough time facing our grandchildren. We can all hear it now - why didn’t you do something when there was still time to save the Earth?
Two articles have appeared recently in the scientific literature with results that may make us reconsider this entire affair. The first appears in the Journal of Geographical Sciences dealing with worldwide trends in the vigor of vegetation since the early 1980s - the results may surprise you, but they did not surprise us given all that has been written on this subject and certainly covered at World Climate Report.
Three Chinese scientists (all with the last name of Liu) used satellite data to detect changes occurring in vegetation throughout the world. Rather than use the popular satellite-based Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Liu et al. (a.k.a., Liu3) decided to use the Leaf Area Index (LAI). The scientists explain “LAI, defined as half the total leaf area per unit ground, is directly linked to vegetation activities and comparable among different ecosystems. It has removed the effects of spectral response, illumination and orbit drift during data acquisition. It should be better, at least theoretically, than NDVI as the indicator of vegetation status.” We will certainly trust their judgment.
As seen in their figure below (Figure1), the red colors absolutely dominate indicating an increase in vegetation status! Liu et al. declare:
“Results show that, over the past 26 years, LAI has generally increased at a rate of 0.0013 per year around the globe. The strongest increasing trend is around 0.0032 per year in the middle and northern high latitudes (north of 30°N). LAI has prominently increased in Europe, Siberia, Indian Peninsula, America and south Canada, South region of Sahara, southwest corner of Australia and Kgalagadi Basin; while noticeably decreased in Southeast Asia, southeastern China, central Africa, central and southern South America and arctic areas in North America.”
Quick geography question: where is the “Kgalagadi Basin”? Correct - in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa.
Figure 1. Spatial distribution of linear trends in estimated LAI from July 1981- December 2006 - enlarged (from Liu et al., 2010)
In commenting on the upward trend in LAI in the mid-to-high latitudes of the Northern Hemispheric, the trio states
“The growth of the vegetation in these middle and high latitude areas is mainly limited by temperature. Many studies correlating NDVI with land surface temperature indicate warming might be the most important factor accounting for the LAI increase in this area. Warming, causes longer active growing season length and higher growth magnitude, therefore leads to increase in LAI in this area.”
We accept their findings - we now believe that warming has been beneficial for vegetation throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere. As we look at the map above, we see red throughout many low latitude areas as well. The gloom and doomers of the climate change issue are not going to be happy with such positive results. Although not discussed in the Liu et al. paper, we cannot help but wonder what role elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations may have played in stimulating plant growth in so many areas of the world? Feel free to examine all of our essays reporting on the biological benefits of elevated CO2, let alone the benefits of warming.
Few people would argue that the planet has warmed to some extent over the past three decades, and many people feel that humans caused at least some part of this warming through their consumption of fossil fuels. Well, hold the fort because our second featured article does not arrive at that conclusion whatsoever. The article was written by two scientists from Taiwan and was published recently in Atmospheric Science Letters. Lo and Hsu begin stating:
“The global mean temperature has been rising more abruptly over the past 30 years, compared with that in the previous 50-100 years. This recent warming has occurred in most areas on Earth, becoming a truly global phenomenon. The sudden acceleration of warming, which is particularly evident in the winter Northern Hemisphere (NH), can be linked with the observation of widespread abrupt changes in the late 1980s. The nature of the late 1980s’ warming and its relationship with the dominant teleconnection patterns such as the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) are explored in this study.”
We knew we would like this - nothing better than scientists explaining warming with teleconnections related things that operate largely without any association to the buildup of greenhouse gases. The authors conducted sophisticated research with climate models and greenhouse gas scenarios developed by the United Nations’ IPCC group. They found that warming in the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere was highly related to the two teleconnections, and it led them to conclude (hold your breath) that their results “do not support the scenario that the emerging influence of the AO-like pattern in the late 1980s can be attributed to the anthropogenic greenhouse effect.” Indeed, they conclude that what we are seeing “can be attributed to natural variability.”
OK. The earth warmed over the past 30 years. We agree (although that has largely slowed down or even stopped in the past 10 years). Atmospheric CO2 has increased. We agree. The rise in CO2 caused the warming - not according to Lo and Hsu. The warming caused vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere to thrive - Liu et al. think so.
You get the message - warming and elevated CO2 are not combining to destroy the planet’s vegetation. Quite to the contrary, they may be a blessing!
References: Lo, T.-T. and H.-H. Hsu. 2010. Change in the dominant decadal patterns and the late 1980s abrupt warming in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere. Atmospheric Science Letters, 11, 210-215.
Liu, S., R. Liu, and Y. Liu. 2010. Spatial and temporal variation of global LAI during 1981–2006. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 20, 323-332.
If the Harp seal were being found to be migrating northward, then their migration north would be blamed on “human-caused-global-warming.” Why, the poor critters are being driven from their natural habitat by evil humans burning fossil fuels and they’re having to crowd ever closer to the North Pole as the waters of the northern Atlantic warm too much for their comfort. However, a recent AP story, “Harp Seals From Canada Take a Liking to U.S. Waters” claims “no clear explanation” for a southward migration of the Harp seal! Could it be because of global cooling?
According to Wikipedia: The Harp Seal or Saddleback seal is a species of earless seal native to the northernmost Atlantic Ocean and adjacent parts of the Arctic Ocean. It now belongs to the monotypic genus Pagophilus. Its scientific name, Pagophilus groenlandicus, means “ice-lover from Greenland”, and its synonym, Phoca groenlandica means “Greenland seal”.
The Associated Press (AP) in a recent story appearing at FOXNews.com, revealed (excerpts):
Harp seals from Canada are showing up in U.S. waters in greater numbers and farther south than usual, and biologists want to know why.
Small numbers of juvenile harp seals are typically found each winter stranded along the coast of the northeastern United States. But this year, well over 100 adult harp seals - not juveniles p have been spotted, said Mendy Garron, regional marine mammal stranding coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Gloucester, Mass. The sightings are reported by 14 seal stranding and rehabilitation organizations in New England and the Middle Atlantic.
A decade ago, harp seal sightings off Maine were rare, said Lynda Doughty, marine mammal stranding coordinator for the state Department of Marine Resources. The numbers have picked up the past few years, and this year there have been 40 documented sightings - more than double the number spotted last year.
“In some areas they’re reporting three times the normal number of sightings,” Garron said. “This year, we’ve had four sightings of adult harp seals in North Carolina, which we’ve never had before. We typically don’t see them that far south.”
For now, there is no clear explanation for why more seals are showing up in U.S. waters, said Gordon Waring, who heads the seal program at NOAA’s fisheries science center in Woods Hole, Mass.
They could be making their way south because of climatic conditions or perhaps in search of food, Waring said.
Within 24 hours, we find a related story by Marnie MacLean, NECN, wherein speculation emerges that decreased ice from changing climate (aka, human-caused-global-warming), may be to blame (excerpts):
Marine biologists say they are seeing an unusual trend [with] well over 100 adult harp seal sightings from Maine all the way to North Carolina.
While scientists can’t point to an exact reason for the change, some speculate that a decrease in ice in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where harp seals live could explain the change in migration patterns.
“If you decrease that ice they are going to go in different directions to haul up and give birth,” said Charles Tilburg.
Tilburg believes the seals are a visible sign of the larger problem of climate change, and while there have been variations in ice and temperatures before it’s not been at this scale.
Here we once again have “global warming” (you know, the warming supposedly caused predominantly by humans burning fossil fuels) being subtly blamed for what otherwise would be added to evidence of progressively colder Northern Hemisphere winters indicating climate cooling! If seals are being found further south, why is there no speculation that it just might be that their migration reflects a cooling of the northern Atlantic waters from recent colder winters in that region?
Speculation of this sort is never balanced. It is always produced in support of the deeply-flawed and dying theory of human-caused-global-warming.
Bob Webster is a descendent of Daniel Webster’s father and early American patriot, Ebenezer. Bob has always had a strong interest in history, our Constitution, U.S. politics and law. A political conservative with objectivist and libertarian roots, he has faith in the ultimate triumph of truth and reason over deception and emotion. He is a strong believer in our Constitution as written and views the abandonment of constitutional restraint as a great danger to our Republic. His favorite novel is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and believes it should be required reading for every high school student.
A lifelong interest in meteorology and climatology spurred his strong interest in science. Bob earned his degree in Mathematics at Virginia Tech, graduating in 1964.
You may have heard about Google’s committee to help re-spin and further spread the ‘climate’ message, presumably in support of expensive and intrusive policies it also advocates—which depend on widespread acceptance of this very same ‘message’—and Goggle’s various various projects of the variety that are otherwise uneconomic without said policies.
For a search engine, of all things, Google’s homework was lacking. Or, it is telling.
In addition to consciously selecting Andrew Dessler as one of their advisors—whose track record includes curious insistence about non-facts and that there was nothing to that ClimateGate thing—Google has chosen a lady who pops up with some frequency in those very same ClimateGate emails, Julia Cole of University of Arizona.
At Arizona, Cole is a colleague of Jonathan Overpeck, to whom the infamous “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period” instruction and similar sentiments have been attributed, and Hockey Stick-co-author Malcolm Hughes.
We can be pretty sure the email address popping up in the ClimateGate emails, coleje@xxxxxxxxx.xxx (search eastangliaemails.com for ‘cole’ is the same Julia E. Cole (her AU address begins jecole@). And of course she’s directly cited in a few mails as an Overpeck colleague, and expressly cited as copied in others.
In the ClimateGate emails, Cole is e.g., cited by Caspar Ammann as a ‘human disturbance’ type, to Phil Jones a project partner for purpose of tweaking the IPCC’s high-profile work “Working Group I” (WG1), by Hockey Stick co-author Keith Briffa as a collaborator, as well as by Hockey Stick lead author Michael Mann, and was one of an apparently like-minded crowd copied about the looming rollout of RealClimate, among other communications including or citing her.
She’s also a fave of the not overly measured Union of Concerned Scientists.
Quickly searching the emails for the names was the first thing that came to my mind when seeing Goggle’s roster. I presume it wasn’t one of their considerations.
The illustrative part about this involves the issue of Google skewing search terms, the propriety of which I fully endorse—however one seeks to skew them—so long as they do not pretend that they are doing otherwise. Sort of like how it’s perfectly fine with me for partisan UK papers the Guardian to be as left-wing (or right) as they want, so long as they’re largely open about it and don’t play cutesy like the New York Times or Washington Post, denying it.
Somewhere between Google denying its advocacy and publicly, openly promoting their algorithm-and-sifting-as-advocacy (and telling readers why, their stake in the matter), we should find the marketplace getting the information out there. So you know what you’re dealing with.
So that,if you are so inclined, you might conclude, as Willis Eschenbach writes in his Open Letter to Google on Watts Up With That:
The problem is, now Google has a dog in the fight. You’ve clearly declared that you’re not waiting until the null climate hypothesis gets falsified. You’re not waiting for a climate anomaly to appear, something that’s unlike the historical climate. You have made up your mind and picked your side in the discussion. Here’s what that does. Next time I look up something that is climate science related, I will no longer trust that you are impartial. No way.
So, Google is an advocate of global warming policies and alarmism. This is reflected, it seems, in their product. This assemblage of climatism cheerleaders further affirms this activism and what the worldview is that underlies it. PDF with hyperlinks.
See also this Russell Cook post on Google on American Thinker “Google to fight global warming ‘ignorance’”.
NOTE: Since we posted this story about Google advocacy, a Google search on ‘Icecap’ now comes with a warning “This site may be compromised”. BTW, Yahoo, AOL, Bing, Dogpile and other searches do not give the same warning. Update: There are some indications there was some issues with site being briefly compromised 10 or 11 days ago. We are investigating.
Science published one of the first spaghetti graphs (in Briffa and Osborn 1999 here) as part of an invited comment on the Mann et al 1000-year reconstruction, then hot off the press with its supposed proof that 1998 was the “warmest year” of the millennium. Jones et al 1999, discussed recently here, contained a different spaghetti graph.
Referring to this figure, Briffa and Osborn stated that none of the reconstructions covering the MWP reach modern warmth, and thus the MBH conclusion must “surely be accepted”.
The temperature histories that extend through the medieval period do indicate general warmth (see the figure), although with different maxima (in the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries). Clearly none of these reach the levels of warmth seen today [although the confidence ranges (not shown here) approach them]. On the basis of their analysis, Mann et al. conclude that the 20th century is anomalously warm. Even with the very limited data available and the problems associated with interpreting many of them as unambiguous measures of hemispheric temperature change, this conclusion must surely be accepted.
The figure from Briffa and Osborn 1999 is shown below with the original caption. It stated that the Briffa version came from Briffa et al 1998 (Nature) and Briffa et al 1998 (Pr Roy Soc London), “processed to retain low-frequency signals”.
Enlarged. Original Caption: Records of past climate....Comparison of NH temperature reconstructions, all recalibrated with linear regression against the 1881-1960 mean April-September instrumental temperatures averaged over land areas north of 20ºN. All series have been smoothed with a 50-year Gaussian-weighted filter and are anomalies from the 1961-90 mean. Instrumental temperatures (1871-1997) are in black, circum-Arctic temperature proxies [1600-1990, from (2 - Overpeck)] are in yellow, northern NH tree-ring densities [1550-1960, from (3 - Briffa et al 1998(Nature); Briffa et al 1998 (Proc Roy Soc London)), processed to retain low-frequency signals] are in pale blue, NH temperature proxies [1000-1992, from (4 - Jones et al 1998)] are in red, global climate proxies [1000-1980, from (5, 6 - MBH99)] are in purple, and an average of three northern Eurasian tree-ring width chronologies [1-1993, from (10 - Briffa et al 2000)] is in green. Although representing a much more restricted spatial coverage than the other series, the last of these (also processed to maintain low-frequency climate information) is included here because of its extended length and because it suggests relatively cooler summer temperatures (at least across northern Eurasia) before A.D. 1000.
The Briffa and Osborn 1999 version of the Briffa MXD reconstruction doesn’t match the version of Briffa et al 1998 or the subsequent version of Briffa et al 2001, both of which were archived. Oddly enough, it does match (after truncation) a version archived at NCDC in December 1998 in connection with Jones et al 1998 (though not used in that article), where it occurs in the second sheet of an Excel file here. To my knowledge, this particular version of the Briffa reconstruction was not otherwise published. (The Briffa reconstruction seems to have been very fluid in this period, as the versions in IPCC TAR Zero Order Draft and First Order Draft appear to be different again and still unaccounted for.)
The following figure overlays a 50-year Gaussian smooth of the digital version at the Jones et al 1998 archive (mean padding after truncation) with approximate rescaling to match the graphic on an excerpt of the figure in Science, proving that the Science figure derives from this version.
Figure 2. Enlarged. Emulation of Briffa and Osborn 1999 Figure 1. The Briffa version is in light blue and is overprinted (thin black) with the Briffa version in the NCDC Jones et al 1998 archive, with 50-year gaussian smooth after truncation to 1960.
As previously reported, this figure, together with Jones et al 1999, are the first two bites of the poison apple of hide the decline. This is what the figure would have looked like, had all the data been shown.
Figure 3. Enlarged.Briffa and Osborn 1999 Figure 1 Excerpt showing the decline (in red).
One can reasonably wonder whether the key conclusion of Briffa and Osborn 1999 - “[despite] the problems associated with interpreting many of them as unambiguous measures of hemispheric temperature change, this conclusion [MBH] must surely be accepted” - would have stood up if the decline had been shown.
As opposed to the other possible conclusion: the “problems associated with interpreting many of them as unambiguous measures of hemispheric temperature change” remain an unsurmounted obstacle and the reason why the Mann reconstruction goes up so sharply when the Briffa reconstruction based on a very large population of temperature sensitive sites goes down remains unexplained and a critical problem within the field.
Briffa and Osborn 1999 contains a very sly reference to the divergence problem:
A number of tree-ring chronologies have displayed anomalous growth or changed responses to climate forcing on different time scales in very recent decades (3 - Briffa et al 1998 (Nature), 9 - Jacoby and D’Arrigo 1995). Understanding the reasons for these changes is important for understanding the causes and limits on past tree growth. Paradoxically, therefore, more work in the recent period is required to better interpret the early proxies. Few of the proxy series run up to the present, however, and updating these will involve considerable effort.
Climategate scientists were well aware of the importance of figures. Briffa and Osborn knew that the graphic with the deletion of the decline would leave a different impression than one that disclosed the decline. The sly wording of the running text compounds the problem. Yes, there are proxies that need updating, but the MXD data used in the Briffa reconstruction came right up to the early 1990s. Unavailability of data is not the reason why the Briffa reconstruction ends in 1960.
Briffa and Osborn 1999 contain a number of sensible caveats about the Mann and other reconstructions, raising caution about the role of bristlecones ( the “amplitude series relating to the first principal component of a group of high-elevation tree-ring chronologies in the western United States") in the Mann reconstruction and readers are referred to the original here.
These sensible caveats occasioned a flurry of Climategate correspondence among the Team in April and May 1999 ( see 98. 0924120405.txt; 99. 0924532891.txt; 100. 0924613924.txt; 105. 0925829267.txt; 106. 0926010576.txt; 107. 0926012905.txt; 108. 0926026654.txt; 109. 0926031061.txt; 111. 0926681134.txt ) in which Mann objected vociferously to even these reasonable caveats. Even Bradley was nonplussed by Mann’s conduct. In 99. 0924532891.txt on Apr 19, 1999, entitled CENSORED!!!!!, Bradley observed:
As for thinking that it is “Better that nothing appear, than something unnacceptable to us”...as though we are the gatekeepers of all that is acceptable in the world of paleoclimatology seems amazingly arrogant.
A few weeks later, Bradley commented on Mann’s effort to smooth the waters: “Excuse me while I puke...”
Needless to say, a few years later, when our criticisms appeared, Bradley adopted the attitude that he criticized here: Better that nothing appear, than something unacceptable to us.
An auroral and unusually big ‘supermoon’ was seen lighting up the sky on Saturday, offering a visual treat to an enthusiastic audience of curious sky-gazers.
The phenomenon was special, as the moon came closest to the earth in 18 years, becoming the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. The moon was around 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than the other full moons, Nehru Planetarium Director N. Rathnasree said.
“The ‘supermoon’ is the biggest and brightest of 2011,” C.B. Devgun, director of the Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE), told PTI.
The moon was only 3,56,577 km away. The phenomenon occurred in 1955, 1974, 1992 and 2005.
Full moons coinciding with the moon’s closest point to the earth in fact happen after every one year, one month and 18 days when it is about 3,63,104 km from the earth, Mr. Devgun said. “This is because the moon’s orbit is an ellipse, with one side 50,000 km closer to the earth than the other. In astronomy, the two extremes are called ‘apogee’ [far away] and ‘perigee’ [nearby].”
A public sky-watch with telescopes and a live show with full dome visuals were organised by the Nehru Planetarium on Saturday evening for sky-gazers to have a better view of the perigee full moon, Ms. Rathnasree said. Hundreds of people thronged the planetarium to see the earth’s natural satellite, she said, adding it was totally safe to watch the moon with naked eyes.
Dispelling reports that a correlation existed between the moon and earthquakes, she said the data for the past 100 years and more showed no correlation.
A perigee full Moon brings with it extra-high “perigean tides,” but this is nothing to worry about, according to NOAA. In most places, lunar gravity at perigee pulls tide waters only a few centimeters (an inch or so) higher than usual. Local geography can amplify the effect to about 15 centimeters (six inches)--not exactly a great flood.
The Moon looks extra-big when it is beaming through foreground objects--a.k.a. “the Moon illusion.” Indeed, contrary to some reports circulating the Internet, perigee Moons do not trigger natural disasters. The “super moon” of March 1983, for instance, passed without incident. And an almost-super Moon in Dec. 2008 also proved harmless.
Okay, the Moon is 14% bigger than usual, but can you really tell the difference? It’s tricky. There are no rulers floating in the sky to measure lunar diameters. Hanging high overhead with no reference points to provide a sense of scale, one full Moon can seem much like any other.
is the same Julia E. Cole (her AU address begins jecole@). And of course she’s directly cited in a few mails as an Overpeck colleague, and expressly cited as copied in others.
