Today I’m coming out a day early and declaring July 2010 as the slowest melting July since the AMSR-E satellite record has been kept. The once ballyhooed “death spiral” is dead.

Reminds me of that line in Tarantino’s cult film Pulp Fiction:

“Who’s Zed?”

“Zed? Zed is dead.”

At the end of June I recall seeing lots of headlines in the newspapers about a record Arctic sea ice melt occurring. Words like “alarming” and “unprecedented” were used liberally. The reports were splashed with pictures of polar bears for added effect.

One month later the media are completely silent. As the following graphic shows, this July’s Arctic sea ice melt was the slowest since this dataset has been kept.  Click Here.

July 2010 melt was the slowest July in the last 9 years.

Here are the numbers for the amount of July-melt in million square kilometers:
Year 6/30 to 7/30
2003 2.25
2004 2.08
2005 2.52
2006 2.11
2007 3.00
2008 2.45
2009 2.81
2010 1.85

It was the first time that July failed to reach 2 million sq. km. Now 2010 is on track to reach last year’s low. So far the Arctic has been cold this summer, one of the coldest summers north of 80N on record, Click Here.

Temperature above 80N from the Danish Meteorological Institute.

What’s the forecast?

Meteorologist Joe Bastardi projects a significant Arctic sea ice recovery in the couple of years ahead, flying in the face of predictions made by climate “scientists”. Bastardi’s claim is in line with the latest NOAA seasonal forecasts.

NWS/NCEP forecasts a cold Arctic in the months ahead.

La Nina is strengthening and global temperatures, dare I say, are beginning a death-spiral of their own.

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GISS Polar Interpolation
By Steve Goddard, Watts Up With That

There has been an active discussion going on about the validity of GISS interpolations. This post compares GISS Arctic interpolation vs. DMI measured/modeled data.

All data uses a baseline of 1958-2002.

The first map shows GISS June 2010 anomalies smoothed to 1200 km. The green line marks 80N latitude. Note that GISS shows essentially the entire region north of 80N up to four degrees above normal.

The next map is the same, but with 250 km smoothing. As you can see, GISS has little or no data north of 80N.

Now let’s compare the GISS 1200 km interpolation with the DMI data for June 2010.

Daily mean temperatures for the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel, plotted with daily climate values calculated from the period 1958-2002.
DMI shows essentially the entire month of June below the 1958-2002 mean. GISS shows it far above the the 1958-2002 mean. Yet GISS has no data north of 80N.

Conclusion : GISS Arctic interpolations are way off the mark. If they report a record global temperature by 0.01 degrees this year, this ↑↑↑↑↑↑↑ is why.

International scientists have injected fresh evidence into the debate over global warming, saying that climate change is “undeniable” and shows clear signs of “human fingerprints” in the first major piece of research since the “Climategate” controversy.

The research, headed by the US National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration, is based on new data not available for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of 2007, the target of attacks by sceptics in recent years. The NOAA study drew on up to 11 different indicators of climate, and found that each one pointed to a world that was warming owing to the influence of greenhouse gases, said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the UK’s Met Office, one of the agencies participating.

Seven indicators were rising, he said. These were: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, marine air temperature, sea level, ocean heat, humidity, and tropospheric temperature in the “activeweather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the earth’s surface. Four indicators were declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers, spring snow cover in the northern hemisphere, and stratospheric temperatures.

Mr Stott said: “The whole of the climate system is acting in a way consistent with the effects of greenhouse gases.” “The fingerprints are clear,” he said. “The glaringly obvious explanation for this is warming from greenhouse gases.”

Some scientists hailed the study as a refutation of the claims made by climate sceptics during the “Climategate” saga. Those scandals involved accusations -some since proven correct - of flaws in the IPCC’s landmark 2007 report, and the release of hundreds of emails from climate scientists that appeared to show them distorting certain data. “This confirms that while all of this [Climategate] was going on, the earth was continuing to warm. It shows that Climategate was a distraction, because it took the focus off what the science actually says,” said Bob Ward, policy director of the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics.

But the report nonetheless remained the target of scorn for sceptics. Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the US, said the new report would not change people’s minds. “It’s clear that the scientific case for global warming alarmism is weak. The scientific case for [many of the claims] is unsound and we are finding out all the time how unsound it is.”

Pat Michaels, a prominent climate sceptic, ex-professor of environmental sciences and fellow of the Cato Institute in the US, said the NOAA study and other evidence suggested that the computerised climate models had overestimated the sensitivity of the earth’s temperature to carbon dioxide. This would mean
that the earth could warm a little under the influence of greenhouse gases, but not by as much as the IPCC and others have predicted.

“I think it is the lack of frankness about this that emerged with Climategate, and that seems to continue [that make people doubt the findings],” he said.
Steve Goddard, a blogger, said the conclusion that the first half of 2010 showed a record high temperature was “based on incorrect, fabricated data” because the researchers involved did not have access to much information on Arctic temperatures.

David Herro, the financier, who follows climate science as a hobby, said NOAA also “lacks credibility”.

But Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of NOAA, said the study found that the average temperature in the world had increased by 0.56C (1F) over the past 50 years. The rise “may seem small, but it has already altered our planet ... Glaciers and sea ice are melting, heavy rainfall is intensifying, and heat waves are more common.”

The Journolist story demonstrates active, covert collaboration among leftists to plant political themes in the media. Long-time listeners of conservative talk radio are aware of audio montages where old-line media talking heads repeat verbatim a set of words that can’t be anything other than shared talking points. A perfect example was the 2000-era Dick Cheney “gravitas” showcased by Rush Limbaugh.

It’s one thing to ask how proper reporting of Obama might have changed the outcome of the election. I’ll ask a bigger question: Did old-line media journalists share talking points to prop up the global warming issue?

In his August 2007 American Thinker article “Global Warming Propaganda Factory,” Christopher Alleva described the coordinated efforts of the Society of Environmental Journalists:

I have often wondered how the media are in such lock step on Global Warming. Well, I wonder no more. Recently, I came across a website for the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ). This website is veritable tool box for any budding reporter assigned to the global warming beat. If you’re an editor at the Palookaville Post, all you have to do is send your cub reporters to this site and they’ll have everything they need to write an article that fits the template and action line perfectly.

In my own simpleminded quest to find out why skeptic scientists did not appear on one of the last bastions of fair-and-balanced news outlets, the PBS NewsHour, I received a reply from the PBS ombudsman in a phrase eerily repeated by others in the media dismissing the need to present skeptics:

Yes, we *could* have one of them [skeptics] in a story, or on a show, and have a representative of the “other side.” But that would be false balance.

The concept of a “false journalistic need for balance” goes as far back as 1995, generated by a journalist named Ross Gelpspan and spread by a network of activists and institutions. The story is detailed in my American Thinker article earlier this month, “Smearing Global Warming Skeptics.”

After writing that article, I still wanted to find out just how biased the NewsHour was in its global warming presentations, so I copied and counted online transcripts of the NewsHour going back to 1996. Out of 212 global warming-centered program segments, including some online background info pages, only three on-air segments had discussion of basic skeptic science, featuring Western Fuels CEO Fred Palmer, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Chris Horner, and Joe Barton (R-TX), respectively, along with one web page. Barton’s science quotes were very brief. All the other segments and web pages offered virtually no rebuttal to statements about man-caused global warming.

IPCC scientists Michael Oppenheimer, Stephen Schneider, and Kevin Trenberth spoke unopposed a great length about man-caused global warming seven, four, and two times, respectively. No skeptic scientists ever had an opportunity to present the myriad faults in the idea of man-caused global warming.

The most disturbing revelation was found in the December 5, 1997 interview of Fred Palmer, fourth-from-last paragraph:

MARGARET WARNER: ...but that because carbon dioxide, once it’s up in the atmosphere, really doesn’t disappear for a hundred years or more, that by the time the buildup gets enough--high enough to prove it--it’s almost too late to do anything[.]

Her statement seems eerily paraphrased from Ross Gelbspan’s The Heat is On book, released earlier that same year, top of page 12:

And since carbon dioxide lingers in the atmosphere for one to two hundred years, it will continue to disturb the global climate long after we drastically cut our fuel emissions ... By the time we actually feel the heavy brunt of climate-driven catastrophes, it may well be too late for us to preserve any semblance of democratic order.....

The “Journolist” problem is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to the manipulation of global issues by a small number of people. Read post and comments here.

A group of Boston and New Hampshire TV weathermen, past and present, meet twice each year for a “weatherman/women’s” lunch to talk about old times and discuss important weather topics.

Over the past year, we have been discussing the so-called global warming issue, becoming increasingly frustrated because the current on-air weathermen are forbidden from even suggesting that they disagree with the so-called “consensus” opinion that the atmosphere is warming due to man’s emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of oil, coal and gas.

The retired weathermen among us can express ourselves publicly, however. A reasonable starting point is a primer that may help ordinary citizens arrive at their own conclusions on the issue.

The Greenhouse Dilemma: The “Greenhouse Effect” is a natural process that warms the Earth by about 60 degrees, as sunlight heats the Earth’s surface, and long-wave heat energy is radiated skyward.

Like glass in a greenhouse, our atmosphere is transparent to sunlight, but not to its outgoing heat energy, which is partially trapped by “greenhouse gases” in the air.

The most effective of these natural gases, by far, is water vapor, with contributions from carbon dioxide (CO2) and other minor gases. These gases facilitate life on Earth as we know it.

Since the Industrial Revolution, increased burning of carbon-based fuels has added CO2 to our atmosphere. Significant increases of CO2 would be a problem if substantial planetary warming ensued, but not if any warming were minor. Therein lies the dilemma - how much additional warming is likely as we continue to increase our carbon emissions?

Measuring Temperature Trends: Correctly measuring and quantifying planetary temperatures requires many thermometers that must meet several requirements, including accuracy, stability and proper, long term placement. Few qualify, and the relevance of their records is questionable due to the effects of substantial urbanization. In recent decades, satellites have measured temperatures worldwide, but decades is insufficient for any conclusions regarding a long-term accounting. Indeed, satellites indicate a cooling over the past decade.

Proxies and History: Tree rings, ice cores, glaciers, sea sediments, and other “proxies” can adequately estimate general trends in the earth’s past weather. But it’s difficult to use them to calculate specific global temperatures.

These proxies are helpful, however, in showing that the global climate has been significantly warmer and colder than at present. We’ve learned about major glaciations that buried New England under ice in the distant past, and 10-15,000 year warming interludes.

More recently, areas of Greenland that were once settled and farmed are now glaciated. Man-made CO2 cannot be blamed for these climate changes, but they do provide incontrovertible proof that man is not the only factor affecting our climate.

The Dispute: Scientists still debate whether global temperatures are rising, and by how much. There is continuing debate over the validity of computer models to forecast future warming. Reports of ongoing substantial global warming and forecasts of its escalation have been brought into some disrepute because these doomsday scenarios have been publicized by some of the same scientists who, 35 years ago, forecast an ice age, beginning about now.

Although short-term forecasts for the next few days have improved dramatically in the last two decades, forecast for 5-7 days, and beyond, remain painfully inaccurate.

Models from which such forecasts are derived require solving extremely complex equations which are based on some poorly understood physical processes. Such limitations degrade short term forecasts, and inevitably have an even greater effect on long-range climate projections.

Summary: CO2 levels have been rising steadily since observations began in the 1930s. Meanwhile, the Earth’s temperature has gone up and down.

Discerning long-term warming in such gyrations is difficult, and climate models designed to calculate the effects of rising CO2 concentrations have neither forecast the fluctuations nor the cooling of recent years.

Since the Earth’s temperature has risen less than a degree during the last century, model forecasts of significant warming have bred considerable skepticism.

Naturally occurring global fluctuations and an inability to quantify the effects of CO2 increases limit our knowledge and make decisions risky. They both lead to disagreements among scientists concerning the scope and possible remediation of human contributions to global warming.

Conclusion: Our purpose is not to convince anyone that the Earth is warming, or cooling, or staying the same. The scientific evidence does not support a definitive conclusion.

Rather, we encourage the public and scientific community to maintain an open mind and promote informed dialog regarding humankind’s potential impact on climate change.

Our inability to quantify the effects of CO2 increases, or to distinguish long-term man-made temperature trends from those which occur naturally, should humble anyone attempting to make public policy on the basis of the current temperature record, by suggesting ways to remediate human contributions to global warming.

Bob Copeland of Littleton is formerly of WCVB-TV; Mish Michaels of Boston is formerly of WBZ-TV; Bruce Schwoegler of Waterville Valley is formerly of WBZ-TV); Bill Hovey of Center Harbor is formerly of WCVB-TV; and Fred Ward of Stoddard is formerly of WNAC-TV, now WHDH-TV.

Barring the trickery of a lame-duck conference committee, cap-and-trade is dead as a door nail in the 111th Congress. As you’d expect, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth, with Obama officials, Democratic leaders in Congress, and environmental lobbyists all saying it’s all the other guy’s fault.

Columnist Darren Samuelsohn provides several juicy quotes in Politico today. My favorite is from an unnamed “exasperated Administration official who lambasted environmentalists - led by the Environmental Defense Fund - for failing to effectively lobby GOP senators”:

They spent like $100 million and they weren’t able to get a single Republican convert on the bill.

Sure, it was just a matter of poor lobbying skills! The fact that nobody knows how to power the economy with solar panels, wind turbines, and cellulosic ethanol had nothing to do with it! The fact that energy taxes kill jobs and jobless rates remain shockingly high had nothing to do with it! The blame gamers are in denial.

Having failed to snooker Senate Republicans into providing bipartisan cover for cap-and-tax, Democratic leaders must now take sole responsibility for EPA’s endangerment rule and the ensuing regulatory cascade. Waxman-Markey and most other cap-and-trade bills contained language preempting EPA regulation of greenhouse gases under various Clean Air Act provisions. The sponsors repeatedly tried to sell their bills as only way to avoid heavier and more unpredictable regulation under the Clean Air Act.

This was always a lame sales pitch. Its success depended on Rs being too dumb to figure out that Democratic leaders were actually promising to commit political suicide rather than wielding a mighty legislative hammer. Colorado State University Prof. Roger Pielke, Jr. and the Breakthrough Institute’s Michael Shellenberger warned more than a year ago that threatening to sic EPA and eco-litigators on the economy unless Rs lined up behind cap-and-trade was a strategy that could easily backfire:

Pielke, Jr.: Republicans must be drooling over the possibility that EPA will take extensive regulatory action on climate change. Why? Because the resulting political fallout associated with any actual or perceived downsides (e.g., higher energy prices) will fall entirely on Democrats and the Obama Administration. Far from being an incentive for Congress to act on its own, the looming possibility that EPA will take regulatory action is a strong incentive for Republicans to stalemate Congressional action and a nightmare scenario for Democrats.

Shellenberger: In other words, the White House “threat” to Republicans and moderate Democrats to regulate carbon is the equivalent of threatening your enemy with suicide. ("Don’t make me raise energy prices! You’ll really be in trouble with your voters when I raise their energy prices!")

On June 10, the Senate voted 53-47 against S.J.Res.26, Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval to overturn the legal force and effect of EPA’s endangerment rule. Had S.J.Res.26 become law, it would have stopped EPA and the trial lawyers from imposing unlegislated climate policy on the nation. President Obama threatened to veto the resolution. All 41 Senate Republicans and six Democrats voted for S.J.Res.26. It failed because 53 Democrats voted against it.

Thanks to the vote on S.J.Res.26, the Democratic leadership has become the Party of Endangerment - the party endangering America’s economic future by taking exclusive ownership of EPA’s endangerment rule and the regulatory chain reaction it has set in motion.

Unsurprisingly, congressional Democrats are now looking for a way to have their cake and eat it - claim to protect their constituents from regulatory excess while actually protecting EPA’s purloined power to make climate policy. “The time has come to prevent EPA from going forward next year with regulations on stationary sources [of greenhouse gases],” Rep. Rick Boucher (D.-Va.) told Energy and Environment News (subscription required). Other Ds are making similar noises.

Their vehicle of choice is a bill sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D.-W.Va.), which would postpone EPA regulation of stationary sources of greenhouse gases for two years. Some key points to keep in mind.

Most energy-intensive investments have much longer planning horizons than two years. Thus, the Rockefeller bill would leave a cloud of regulatory uncertainty hanging over the economy, deterring many firms from starting new projects this year and next.

To provide real protection, re-enacting the bill would have to become an annual ritual on Capitol Hill. That, however, is not something any of its sponsors indicate they intend or want to happen.

The bill would leave the endangerment rule intact, setting the stage for money-is-no-object regulation of greenhouse gases under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) program.

The Rockefeller bill’s chief purposes are not economic but political. It was designed to siphon off Democrat support from the Murkowski resolution, and it may well have provided the legislative margin of victory for the Party of Endangerment.

The bill’s main purpose now is to obscure what the vote on S.J.Res.26 made so clear - namely, which Members of Congress actually oppose regulatory excess and which do not, and which Members actually want politically accountable policymaking and which do not.

My unsolicited advice to the friends of democratic accountability in Congress is to safeguard and refresh the hard-won political clarity they achieved in the vote on S.J.Res.26. They can do this by seeking votes on amendments to toughen and improve the Rockefeller bill. Here are two obvious ideas:

An amendment to suspend stationary source regulation of greenhouse gases until Congress votes to remove the suspension. A vote on this amendment would clearly distinguish those who want the people’s representatives to determine climate policy from those who want non-elected bureaucrats, trial lawyers, and activist judges to be in charge.

An amendment to suspend stationary source regulation of greenhouse gases until the rate of unemployment falls to 5.5%.  A vote on this amendment would clearly distinguish those whose priority is to grow the economy from those whose priority is to grow EPA’s power. What if the amendments are defeated? Congress could still pass the Rockefeller bill, which at least would put EPA on hold for two years. More importantly, even if defeated, such amendments would separate the real champions of prosperity and self-government from the pretenders.

Read more here.