By John Ray, Posted on Antigreen Blogspot
“We must get rid of the Medieval Warm period” was an early cry from Warmists. The period concerned is of course a complete refutation of Warmism so it had to be “got rid of” somehow. And, with his now discredited “hockeystick” graph, Michael Mann seemed to have done it. When that came unstuck they started to say that the period was just a “local” phenomenon. As there are now findings that it extended to both Argentina and New Zealand, that sure is a big locality!
Meanwhile, another big embarrassment in recent years has been the pesky non-melting of the Antarctic icecap. All observations show it as INCREASING in mass overall. But never fear! A way has now been found around that! And who is in on the fix? None other than that same old statistical faker, Michael Mann. (Warming of the Antarctic ice-sheet surface since the 1957 International Geophysical Year By Eric J. Steig, David P. Schneider, Scott D. Rutherford, Michael E. Mann, Josefino C. Comiso & Drew T. Shindell, Nature 457, 459-462 (22 January 2008)
What they have done seems pretty clear. They have used one of the old dodges that Prof. Brignell calls ”chartmanship”. They have taken a distant and unusually cold year and shown that there has been warming since then. Utterly meaningless, of course.
US researchers have pored over data from satellites and weather stations in the biggest ever study of the frozen continent’s climate and found it’s warming after all. Barry Brook, director of the University of Adelaide’s Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability, said the finding was alarming. Scientists now estimate the melting of Antarctica’s massive ice sheets will cause the world’s sea levels to rise by one to two metres by the end of the century.
Scientists already knew, he said, that the massive ice sheets of western Antarctica were melting, but the study showed they would melt more quickly. The research, contained in Thursday’s issue of Nature, was also bad news for climate change in general, Professor Brook said. It had been thought Antarctica’s cooling would help restrain global warming by acting as a “cool pack”, but this did not appear to be the case.
The US study found that eastern Antarctica - which includes the Australian zone - is getting cooler. But this is outweighed by western Antarctica and the Antarctic peninsula, which are warming. On average the continent is warming, the study found. Over the past 50 years much of Antarctica has been warming at a rate comparable to the rest of the world. Study co-author Eric Steig from the University of Washington said the satellite data was revealing. “The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling and that’s not the case,” he told Nature. Professor Brook said it had been thought Antarctica was cooling partly because of the hole in the ozone layer, which allowed the hot air out. Read more here.
For a very excellent and detailed summary of all the arguments against this new paper see this report “Scientists, Data Challenge New Antarctic ‘Warming’ Study -Comprehensive Data Round Up Debunks New Antarctic ‘Estimate of Temperature Trends’ here. In it even the UN IPCC lead author, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, not in any way a climate change skeptic, said of the study: “I remain somewhat skeptical. It is hard to make data where none exist.”
The report starts: A new study on Antarctic temperatures - which is contrary to the findings of multiple previous studies—claims “that since 1957, the annual temperature for the entire continent of Antarctica has warmed by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, but still is 50 degrees below zero.” Many media reports did not focus on the fact that the study also found Antarctic temperatures have cooled since the 1970’s.
Despite the fact that the study was immediately viewed with major skepticism by scientists who believe in anthropogenic global warming, many in the media seized on the study as a chance to attacks those skeptical of man-made climate doom. According to the release of the study: “The researchers devised a statistical technique that uses data from satellites and from Antarctic weather stations to make a new estimate of temperature trends. The scientists found temperature measurements from weather stations corresponded closely with satellite data for overlapping time periods. That allowed them to use the satellite data as a guide to deduce temperatures in areas of the continent without weather stations.”
Few media outlets noted that in 2007 Antarctic “sea ice coverage has grown to record levels since satellite monitoring began in the 1979”, according to peer-reviewed studies and scientists who study the area.” [See also other factors impacting Antarctica: ”Volcano, Not Global Warming Effects, May be Melting an Antarctic Glacier , See Map of Volcanoes, The Antarctic deep sea gets COLDER - April 21, 2008 and a January 12, 2008, peer-reviewed paper in AGU (American Geophysical Union) found “A doubling in snow accumulation in the western Antarctic Peninsula since 1850.” - See comprehensive data round up below]
By Chris Horner on Planet Gore
Before Seth Borenstein tells the woolly kids at SEJ how to spin this claim, take a quick look at what it does and does not say. While the harsh winter pounding many areas of North America and Europe seemingly contradicts the fact that global warming continues unabated, a new survey finds consensus among scientists about the reality of climate change and its likely cause. A group of 3,146 earth scientists surveyed around the world overwhelmingly agree that in the past 200-plus years, mean global temperatures have been rising, and that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.
In trying to overcome criticism of earlier attempts to gauge the view of earth scientists on global warming and the human impact factor, Doran and Kendall Zimmerman sought the opinion of the most complete list of earth scientists they could find, contacting more than 10,200 experts around the world listed in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute’s Directory of Geoscience Departments. Experts in academia and government research centers were e-mailed invitations to participate in the on-line poll conducted by the website questionpro.com. Only those invited could participate and computer IP addresses of participants were recorded and used to prevent repeat voting. Questions used were reviewed by a polling expert who checked for bias in phrasing, such as suggesting an answer by the way a question was worded.
Two questions were key: have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures. About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second. In analyzing responses by sub-groups, Doran found that climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role. Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 and 64 percent respectively believing in human involvement.
Any details about what was actually asked would be enlightening, because, at least as reported, the prompt-and-response prima facie actually say nothing ("human activity,” “a role,” “involvement"), and are already being spun as saying everything (that the very authors find this necessary tells you what you need to know about the results’ worth). Despite much pre-buttal in the release about the integrity of the questions, the actual questions were not provided. Surely they will be in the journal article when published.
The importance of this is that the common and surely the intended usage here of “global warming” is of the projected future, catastrophic man-made variety (via GHGs), while as reported the conclusions say nothing about GHGs, the future, or catastrophism. Instead, it addresses the past mild, benign (beneficial) warming also coming on the heels of the Little Ice Age ending.
So the idea they seek to dispel is the inconvenient and growing public understanding that there isn’t actually a consensus (like the one Naomi Oreskes argues exists) about future projections of catastrophism - and unless we promptly enact their agenda. Yet these survey results might well reflect 100 percent agreement that Man had a significant role in the past century’s beneficial warming which, due to CO2’s logarithmic Global Warming potential, has already been imposed to the fullest extent possible. Land use is the obvious, other potential culprit which the question apparently permitted to slip in under the (subsequently advocated) guise of blaming greenhouse-warming). Or maybe respondents are saying that Europe cleaning its air a bit in the past few decades did indeed significantly contribute to the past warming, as recently reported. Read much more here.
By Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe
In nominating John Holdren to be director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy - the position known informally as White House science adviser - President-elect Barack Obama has enlisted an undisputed Big Name among academic environmentalists. Holdren is a physicist, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, director of the Woods Hole Research Center, and author or coauthor of many papers and books.
He is also a doom-and-gloomer with a trail of erroneous apocalyptic forecasts dating back nearly 40 years - and a decided lack of tolerance for environmental opinions that conflict with his. The position of science adviser requires Senate confirmation. Holdren’s nomination is likely to sail through, but conscientious senators might wish to ask him some questions. Here are eight:
1. You were long associated with population alarmist Paul Ehrlich, and joined him in predicting disasters that never came to pass. For example, you and Ehrlich wrote in 1969: “If . . . population control measures are not initiated immediately and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come.” In 1971, the two of you were adamant that “some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century.” In the 1980s, Ehrlich quoted your expectation that “carbon dioxide-induced famines could kill as many as a billion people before the year 2020.” What have you learned from the failure of these prophecies to come true?
2. You have advocated the “long-term desirability of zero population growth” for the United States. In 1973, you pronounced the US population of 210 million as “too many” and warned that “280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many.” The US population today is 304 million. Are there too many Americans?
3. You opposed the Reagan administration’s military buildup in the 1980s for fear it might “increase the belligerency of the Soviet government.” You pooh-poohed any notion that “the strain of an accelerated arms race will do more damage to the Soviet economy than to our own.” But that is exactly what happened, and President Reagan’s defense buildup helped win the Cold War. Did that outcome alter your thinking?
4. You argued that “a massive campaign must be launched . . . to de-develop the United States” in order to conserve energy; you also recommended the “de-development” of modern industrialized nations in order to facilitate growth in underdeveloped countries. Yet elsewhere you observed: “Affordable energy in ample quantities is the lifeblood of the industrial societies and a prerequisite for the economic development of the others.” Which is it?
5. In Scientific American, you recently wrote: “The ongoing disruption of the Earth’s climate by man-made greenhouse gases is already well beyond dangerous and is careening toward completely unmanageable.” Given your record with forecasting calamity, shouldn’t policymakers view your alarm with a degree of skepticism?
6. In 2006, according to the London Times, you suggested that global sea levels could rise 13 feet by the end of this century. But the latest assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that sea levels are likely to have risen only 13 inches by 2100. Can you explain the discrepancy?
7. “Variability has been the hallmark of climate over the millennia,” you wrote in 1977. “The one statement about future climate that can be made with complete assurance is that it will be variable.” If true, should we not be wary of ascribing too much importance to human influence on climate change?
8. You are withering in your contempt for researchers who are unconvinced that human activity is responsible for global warming, or that global warming is an onrushing disaster. You have written that such ideas are “dangerous,” that those who hold them “infest” the public discourse, and that paying any attention to their views is “a menace.” You contributed to a published assault on Bjorn Lomborg’s notable 2001 book “The Skeptical Environmentalist” - an attack the Economist described as “strong on contempt and sneering, but weak on substance.” In light of President-elect Obama’s insistence that “promoting science” means “protecting free and open inquiry,” will you work to soften your hostility toward scholars who disagree with you? See story here.