Al Gore kicked out of the Global Warming Club

Daily Mail
Don Surber

As the world turns away from the hysterics of the global warming crowd, the True Believers are looking for a scapegoat for their turn in fortunes. To blame Michael Mann or Phil Jones would be to admit that Climategate proved once and for all the fallacy of their “science” — that it was based on the manipulation of data and outright forgery.

Looking for dead weight in this sinking ship, Myles Allen of the Guardian has decided to toss Al Gore overboard: “Al Gore is doing a disservice to science by overplaying the link between climate change and weather. To claim that we are causing meteorological events that would not have occurred without human influence is just plain wrong.”

Now only to a true believer would there be no link between weather and climate. Myles Allen is not quite there, but he seems to recognize the problem 20 years of linking odd weather to global warming has turned into a farce. If everything proved global warming, then nothing really does.

His dump on Al Gore is refreshing: “When Al Gore said last week that scientists now have ‘clear proof that climate change is directly responsible for the extreme and devastating floods, storms and droughts that displaced millions of people this year,’ my heart sank. Having suggested the idea of “event attribution” back in 2003, and co-authored a study published earlier this year on the origins of the UK floods in autumn 2000, I suspect I may be one of the scientists being talked about.”

Yes, how dare Al Gore quote him.

The problem is not Al Gore. The problem is this ridiculous theory that mankind through its modern conveniences is creating too much carbon dioxide and this will eventually turn the world into a ball of fire. It’s rather Old Testament, conjuring up images of the demise of Sodom and Gomorrah. The problem is you cannot prove it. As Allen Myles lamented: “This illustrates an important point: human influence on climate is making some events more likely, and some less likely, and it is a challenging scientific question to work out which are which.”

Arctic ozone loss at record level

BBC News
Richard Black

The Arctic ozone hole lay over over populated regions
for parts of winter and spring

Ozone destruction takes place within polar stratospheric clouds, with chlorine the main culprit

Ozone loss over the Arctic this year was so severe that for the first time it could be called an "ozone hole" like the Antarctic one, scientists report.

About 20km (13 miles) above the ground, 80% of the ozone was lost, they say.
The cause was an unusually long spell of cold weather at altitude. In cold conditions, the chlorine chemicals that destroy ozone are at their most active.

It is currently impossible to predict if such losses will occur again, the team writes in the journal Nature.

Early data on the scale of Arctic ozone destruction were released in April, but the Nature paper is the first that has fully analysed the data.

"Winter in the Arctic stratosphere is highly variable - some are warm, some are cold," said Michelle Santee from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

"But over the last few decades, the winters that are cold have been getting colder.

Continue reading the main story

“Why [all this] occurred will take years of detailed study”

"So given that trend and the high variability, we'd anticipate that we'll have other cold ones, and if that happens while chlorine levels are high, we'd anticipate that we'd have severe ozone loss."

Ozone-destroying chemicals originate in substances such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that came into use late last century in appliances including refrigerators and fire extinguishers.

Their destructive effects were first documented in the Antarctic, which now sees severe ozone depletion in each of its winters.

Their use was progressively restricted and then eliminated by the 1987 Montreal Protocol and its successors.

The ozone layer blocks ultraviolet-B rays from the Sun, which can cause skin cancer and other medical conditions.

Longer, not colder Winter temperatures in the Arctic stratosphere do not generally fall as low as at the southern end of the world.

No records for low temperature were set this year, but the air remained at its coldest for an unusually long period of time, and covered an unusually large area.

In addition, the polar vortex was stronger than usual. Here, winds circulate around the edge of the Arctic region, somewhat isolating it from the main world weather systems.

"Why [all this] occurred will take years of detailed study," said Dr Santee.

"It was continuously cold from December through April, and that has never happened before in the Arctic in the instrumental record."

The size and position of the ozone hole changed over time, as the vortex moved northwards or southwards over different regions.

Some monitoring stations in northern Europe and Russia recorded enhanced levels of ultraviolet-B penetration, though it is not clear that this posed any risk to human health.

While the Arctic was setting records, the Antarctic ozone hole is relatively stable from year to year.
This year has seen ozone-depleting conditions extending a little later into the southern hemisphere spring than usual - again, as a result of unusual weather conditions.

Chlorine compounds persist for decades in the upper atmosphere, meaning that it will probably be mid-century before the ozone layer is restored to its pre-industrial health.

Discovery of New Ocean Current to be Blamed for Future Cooling Trend

Newly Discovered Icelandic Current Could Change Climate Picture
National Science Foundation

Current called North Icelandic Jet contributes to key component of ocean circulation

If you'd like to cool off fast in hot summer weather, take a dip in a newly discovered ocean current called the North Icelandic Jet (NIJ).

You'd need to be far, far below the sea's surface near Iceland, however, to reach it.

Scientists have confirmed the presence of the NIJ, a deep-ocean circulation system off Iceland. It could significantly influence the ocean's response to climate change.

The NIJ contributes to a key component of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), critically important for regulating Earth's climate.

As part of the planet's reciprocal relationship between ocean circulation and climate, the AMOC transports warm surface water to high latitudes where the water warms the air, then cools, sinks and returns toward the equator as a deep flow.

Crucial to this warm-to-cold oceanographic choreography is the Denmark Strait Overflow Water (DSOW), the largest of the deep, overflow plumes that feed the lower limb of the AMOC and return the dense water south through gaps in the Greenland-Scotland Ridge.

For years it has been thought that the primary source of the Denmark Overflow was a current adjacent to Greenland known as the East Greenland Current.

However, this view was recently called into question by two oceanographers from Iceland who discovered a deep current flowing southward along the continental slope of Iceland.

They named the current the North Icelandic Jet and hypothesized that it formed a significant part of the overflow water.

Now, in a paper published in the August 21st online issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, the team of researchers--including the two Icelanders who discovered the current--has confirmed that the Icelandic Jet is not only a major contributor to the DSOW but "is the primary source of the densest overflow water."

"We present the first comprehensive measurements of the NIJ," said Robert Pickart of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Instititution in Massachusetts, one of the co-authors of the paper.

"Our data demonstrate that the NIJ indeed carries overflow water into Denmark Strait and is distinct from the East Greenland Current. The NIJ constitutes approximately half of the total overflow transport and nearly all of the densest component."

The researchers used a numerical model to hypothesize where and how the NIJ is formed.

"These results implicate water mass transformation and exchange near Iceland as central contributors to the deep limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, and raise new questions about how global ocean circulation will respond to future climate change," said Eric Itsweire, program director in the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research.

"We've identified a new paradigm," Pickart said, likely a new, overturning loop of warm to cold water.

The results, Pickart says, have "important ramifications" for ocean circulation's impact on climate.

AGW Movement Jumps Shark, Cites Space Aliens as Reason to Curb CO2

The Guardian

Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists

Rising greenhouse emissions could tip off aliens that we are a rapidly expanding threat, warns a report

It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim.

Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.

This highly speculative scenario is one of several described by a Nasa-affiliated scientist and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University that, while considered unlikely, they say could play out were humans and alien life to make contact at some point in the future.

Shawn Domagal-Goldman of Nasa's Planetary Science Division and his colleagues compiled a list of plausible outcomes that could unfold in the aftermath of a close encounter, to help humanity "prepare for actual contact".

In their report, Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis, the researchers divide alien contacts into three broad categories: beneficial, neutral or harmful.

Beneficial encounters ranged from the mere detection of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), for example through the interception of alien broadcasts, to contact with cooperative organisms that help us advance our knowledge and solve global problems such as hunger, poverty and disease.

Another beneficial outcome the authors entertain sees humanity triumph over a more powerful alien aggressor, or even being saved by a second group of ETs. "In these scenarios, humanity benefits not only from the major moral victory of having defeated a daunting rival, but also from the opportunity to reverse-engineer ETI technology," the authors write.


Other kinds of close encounter may be less rewarding and leave much of human society feeling indifferent towards alien life. The extraterrestrials may be too different from us to communicate with usefully. They might invite humanity to join the "Galactic Club" only for the entry requirements to be too bureaucratic and tedious for humans to bother with. They could even become a nuisance, like the stranded, prawn-like creatures that are kept in a refugee camp in the 2009 South African movie, District 9, the report explains.

The most unappealing outcomes would arise if extraterrestrials caused harm to humanity, even if by accident. While aliens may arrive to eat, enslave or attack us, the report adds that people might also suffer from being physically crushed or by contracting diseases carried by the visitors. In especially unfortunate incidents, humanity could be wiped out when a more advanced civilisation accidentally unleashes an unfriendly artificial intelligence, or performs a catastrophic physics experiment that renders a portion of the galaxy uninhabitable.

To bolster humanity's chances of survival, the researchers call for caution in sending signals into space, and in particular warn against broadcasting information about our biological make-up, which could be used to manufacture weapons that target humans. Instead, any contact with ETs should be limited to mathematical discourse "until we have a better idea of the type of ETI we are dealing with."

The authors warn that extraterrestrials may be wary of civilisations that expand very rapidly, as these may be prone to destroy other life as they grow, just as humans have pushed species to extinction on Earth. In the most extreme scenario, aliens might choose to destroy humanity to protect other civilisations.

"A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilisation may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand. Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilisational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of the Earth's atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions," the report states.

"Green" aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. "These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets," the authors write.

Even if we never make contact with extraterrestrials, the report argues that considering the potential scenarios may help to plot the future path of human civilisation, avoid collapse and achieve long-term survival.

• This article was amended on 19 August 2011. The subhead said the report was "for Nasa". This has been corrected.

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Blockbuster: Planetary temperature controls CO2 levels — not humans

JoNova

There goes another “fingerprint”…

It’s not just that man-made emissions don’t control the climate, they don’t even control global CO2 levels.

Judging by the speech Murry Salby gave at the Sydney Institute, there’s a blockbuster paper coming soon.

 Listen to the speech: “Global Emission of Carbon Dioxide: The Contribution from Natural Sources”

Professor Murry Salby is Chair of Climate Science at Macquarie University. He’s been a visiting professorships at Paris, Stockholm, Jerusalem, and Kyoto, and he’s spent time at the Bureau of Meterology in Australia.

Over the last two years he has been looking at C12 and C13 ratios and CO2 levels around the world, and has come to the conclusion that man-made emissions have only a small effect on global CO2 levels. It’s not just that man-made emissions don’t control the climate, they don’t even control global CO2 levels.

The higher levels of CO2 in recent decades appear to be mostly due to natural sources. He presented this research at the IUGG conference in Melbourne recently, causing great discussion and shocking a few people. Word reached the Sydney Institute, which rushed to arrange for him to speak, given the importance of this work in the current Australian political climate.



The ratio of C13 to C12 (two isotopes of carbon) in our atmosphere has been declining, which is usually viewed as a signature of man-made CO2 emissions. C12 makes up 99% of carbon in the atmosphere (nearly all atmospheric carbon is in the form of CO2). C13 is much rarer — about 1%. Plants don’t like the rarer C13 type as much; photosynthesis works best on the C12 -type -of-CO2 and not the C13-type when absorbing CO2 from the air.

Prof Salby points out that while fossil fuels are richer in C12 than the atmosphere, so too is plant life on Earth, and there isn’t a lot of difference (just 2.6%) in the ratios of C13 to C12 in plants versus fossil fuels. (Fossil fuels are, after all, made in theory from plants, so it’s not surprising that it’s hard to tell their “signatures” apart). So if the C13 to C12 ratio is falling (as more C12 rich carbon is put into the air by burning fossil fuels) then we can’t know if it’s due to man-made CO2 or natural CO2 from plants.

Essentially we can measure man-made emissions reasonably well, but we can’t measure the natural emissions and sequestrations of CO2 at all precisely — the error bars are huge. Humans emits 5Gt or so per annum, but the oceans emit about 90Gt and the land-plants about 60Gt, for a total of maybe 150Gt. Many scientists have assumed that the net flows of carbon to and from natural sinks and sources of CO2 cancel each other out, but there is no real data to confirm this and it’s just a convenient assumption. The problem is that even small fractional changes in natural emissions or sequestrations swamp the human emissions.

UPDATE Inserted: E.M.Smith covered this point well in 2009

“It is often asserted that we can measure the human contribution of CO2 to the air by looking at the ratio of C12 to C13. The theory is that plants absorb more C12 than C13 (by about 2%, not a big signature), so we can look at the air and know which came from plants and which came from volcanos and which came from fossil fuels, via us. Plants are ‘deficient’ in C13, and so, then, ought to be our fossil fuel derived CO2.

The implication is that since coal and oil were from plants, that “plant signature” means “human via fossil fuels”. But it just isn’t that simple. Take a look at the above chart. We are 5.5 and plants are putting 121.6 into the air each year (not counting ocean plants). There is a lot of carbon slopping back and forth between sinks and sources. Exactly how closely do we know the rate of soil evolution of CO2, for example?”

Chiefio also found some interesting quotes pointing out that corn (a C4 plant) absorbs more C13, and our mass fields of corn might just muck up the stats… (it’s a good post).

The sources of CO2 don’t seem to be industrialized areas

Suspiciously, when satellites record atmospheric CO2 levels around the globe they find that the sources don’t appear to be concentrated in the places we’d expect — industry or population concentrations like western Europe, the Ohio Valley, or China. Instead the sources appear to be in places like the Amazon Basin, southeast Asia, and tropical Africa — not so much the places with large human emissions of CO2!

Arctic 'tipping point' may not be reached

BBC
Matt McGraff

Scientists say current concerns over a tipping point in the disappearance of Arctic sea ice may be misplaced.

Danish researchers analysed ancient pieces of driftwood in north Greenland which they say is an accurate way to measure the extent of ancient ice loss.

Writing in the journal Science, the team found evidence that ice levels were about 50% lower 5,000 years ago.

They say changes to wind systems can slow down the rate of melting.

They argue, therefore, that a tipping point under current scenarios is unlikely.

While modern observations by ship and by satellite give us a very accurate picture of the recent state of the ice, historic information is limited. The ice comes and goes without leaving a permanent record.

But a Danish team believes it has found an indirect method that gives a clear picture of the ice loss dating back 11,000 years.

Dr Svend Funder from the Natural History Museum of Denmark led several expeditions to inhospitable regions of Northern Greenland. On these frozen shores the Danish team noticed several pieces of ancient driftwood. They concluded that it could be an important method of unlocking the secrets of the ancient ice.

"Driftwood cannot float across the water, it has to be ferried across the ocean on ice, and this voyage takes several years, which means that driftwood is actually a signal of multi-year sea ice in the ocean and it is this ice that is at risk at the moment" said Dr Funder.

Carbon dating was used to determine the age of the wood. And figuring out its origins also yielded important information.

"It's so lovely that drift wood from Siberia is mainly larch and from North America is mainly spruce. So if we see there was more larch or spruce we can see that the wind system had changed and in some periods there was little spruce and in other periods there was lots," he said.

Wind delay?
As well as the driftwood, the scientists mapped beach ridges for 500km (310 miles) along the coast. This proved that at one time the waves had reached the shore unhindered by the ice.

Dr Funder and his team say their data shows a clear connection between temperature and the amount of sea ice. The researchers concluded that for about 3,000 years, during a period called the Holocene Climate Optimum, there was more open water and far less ice than today - probably less than 50% of the minimum Arctic sea ice recorded in 2007.

But the researcher says that even with a loss of this size, the sea ice will not reach a point of no return.

"I think we can say that with the loss of 50% of the current ice, the tipping point wasn't reached."

The idea of an Arctic tipping point has been highlighted by many scientists in recent years. They have argued that when enough ice is lost it could cause a runaway effect with disastrous consequences.

"I don't say that our current worries are not justified, but I think that there are factors which will work to delay the action in relation to some of the models that have been in the media.

"I think the effect of temperature and global warming may cause a change in the general wind systems which maybe will delay the effects of the rapidly rising temperatures a little bit."

The researchers are now set to examine DNA from the fossils of polar bears to try and find out how the animals fared when the temperatures were higher and there was much less ice.

Rural Temperatures Around Washington DC In Steep Decline

Steven Goddard

Lincoln. Virgina is a small town 45 miles west of Washington D.C. and is the closest USHCN station to DC. Since the 1930s, annual maximum temperatures there have dropped by several degrees.

Aerosals Blamed for Lack of Global Warming

First China, then Volcanoes now this:

Aerosols affect climate more than satellite estimates predict

Eurekalert

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Aerosol particles, including soot and sulfur dioxide from burning fossil fuels, essentially mask the effects of greenhouse gases and are at the heart of the biggest uncertainty in climate change prediction. New research from the University of Michigan shows that satellite-based projections of aerosols' effect on Earth's climate significantly underestimate their impacts.

The findings will be published online the week of Aug. 1 in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Aerosols are at the core of "cloud drops"---water particles suspended in air that coalesce to form precipitation. Increasing the number of aerosol particles causes an increase in the number of cloud drops, which results in brighter clouds that reflect more light and have a greater cooling effect on the planet.

As to the extent of their cooling effect, scientists offer different scenarios that would raise the global average surface temperature during the next century between under 2 to over 3 degrees Celsius. That may not sound like a broad range, but it straddles the 2-degree tipping point beyond which scientists say the planet can expect more catastrophic climate change effects.

The satellite data that these findings poke holes in has been used to argue that all these models overestimate how hot the planet will get.

"The satellite estimates are way too small," said Joyce Penner, the Ralph J. Cicerone Distinguished University Professor of Atmospheric Science. "There are things about the global model that should fit the satellite data but don't, so I won't argue that the models necessarily are correct. But we've explained why satellite estimates and the models are so different."

Penner and her colleagues found faults in the techniques that satellite estimates use to find the difference between cloud drop concentrations today and before the Industrial Revolution.

"We found that using satellite data to try to infer how much radiation is reflected today compared to the amount reflected in the pollution-free pre-industrial atmosphere is very inaccurate," Penner said. "If one uses the relationship between aerosol optical depth---essentially a measure of the thickness of the aerosols---and droplet number from satellites, then one can get the wrong answer by a factor of three to six."

These findings are a step toward generating better models, and Penner said that will be the next phase of this research.

"If the large uncertainty in this forcing remains, then we will never reduce the range of projected changes in climate below the current range," she said. "Our findings have shown that we need to be smarter. We simply cannot rely on data from satellites to tell us the effects of aerosols. I think we need to devise a strategy to use the models in conjunction with the satellite data to get the best answers."

The paper is called "Satellite-methods underestimate indirect climate forcing by aerosols." The research is funded by NASA.

PNAS Early Edition: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/recent

Joyce Penner: http://aoss.engin.umich.edu/people/penner

The University of Michigan College of Engineering is ranked among the top engineering schools in the country. At $180 million annually, its engineering research budget is one of largest of any public university. Michigan Engineering is home to 11 academic departments, numerous research centers and expansive entrepreneurial programs. The College plays a leading role in the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute and hosts the world-class Lurie Nanofabrication Facility. Michigan Engineering's premier scholarship, international scale and multidisciplinary scope combine to create The Michigan Difference. Find out more at http://www.engin.umich.edu/.

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Volcanoes Now Blamed for Lack of Global Warming

Researchers Blame Asian Factories for Lack of Global Warming in Past Decade

Ice age threat should ease EPA global warming regs

The Washington Examiner
Shannon Goessling

Rather than spiraling into a global warming meltdown, we may be heading into the next ice age.

The U.S. National Solar Observatory, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and astrophysicists across the planet report that the nearly all-time low sunspot activity may result in a sustained cooling period on Earth.

The news has sent global warming theory advocates scrambling to discount and explain away the impact on global temperatures. However, the "news" is not really that new.

Many reputable scientists have been warning for decades that we are nearing the end of the 11,500-year average period between ice ages. And the last similar crash in sunspot activity coincided with the so-called "Little Ice Age" in the 1600s that lasted nearly a century.

Despite increasing evidence that "global warming" climate change is not the unified scientific theory it has been promoted to be, vested interests continue to push for stringent limits on carbon dioxide emissions.

Certain investment banks and trading houses that stand to make billions on so-called "carbon credits," and the environmental sociologists who have as a stated purpose to change our way of life, are a powerful bloc.

In the Obama administration, this cabal has a willing "big stick" in the form the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has enacted draconian measures that will, by President Obama's admission, make energy costs "skyrocket."

The subject of intense litigation, the EPA regulations were enacted this year without congressional approval as required by the Clean Air Act and other laws. Estimates put the economic damage of these regulations at $1 trillion over the next 20 years, with a loss of between four and 10 million jobs.

Ironically, the current rush by global warming advocates to uncouple mounting evidence of global cooling from the global warming regime is not the first time they've backpedaled.

As referenced in ongoing litigation, the EPA admitted that generally applicable regulations would lead to "absurd" results, leading the agency to create a so-called "Tailoring Rule."

For example, global warming alarmists admit by their own calculations that reducing carbon emissions among a sample of large U.S. "emitters" to EPA-required levels might reduce the surface temperature by .00071 degree Celsius -- or 70 times lower than what is detectable.

Annual emission reductions sought would be replaced in 13 days by industrial growth in China. "Absurd" is understatement. So how do we handle "global cooling?"

In the 1970s and '80s, climatologists and astrophysicists were setting off alarms about pending global cooling and "the new ice age." Headlines in major weekly news magazines warned of a cooling catastrophe, with experts like famed astronomer Carl Sagan calling on industrialized countries to produce more carbon dioxide to offset the pending disaster.

Volcanoes Now Blamed for Lack of Global Warming

Editor's Note:  Previously, mainstream media began the slow, tacit admission that global warming hasn't manifested in the way it was so definitively predicted 10 years ago.   This admission was presented last month through a recent study suggesting that Çhina's sulfur emissions were to blame for the lack of global warming.  Floods resulting from late melting mountain snow-packs  offer unique challenges this summer to the country's eroding infrastructure.   Little preparation for anticipated heavy winters will be the norm as the propaganda for disastrous anthropomorphic global warming will only increase in the near future.

If you have a group of environmentalists in your area that refer to global warming as one of the reasons for cool concepts like localization, cleaning up the eco-sphere or reducing automobile exhaust, introduce some of the contradictory information involving climate change and see how they react to you.  Pay close attention to the way they try to  dismiss you or shape the argument away from what you present in support of recent conventional climate research.   See if they actually answer your questions or address the specific points you present.  Turning over this rock may involve an ugly discovery underneath.

Study: volcanoes curbing warming

Volcanic particles high in the atmosphere might have had a cooling effect over the past decade, perhaps easing global warming, a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows.
The finding could have important implications for projections of future warming as well, the study's authors say.

The scientists examined satellite measurements of sulfuric acid droplets called aerosols in the upper atmosphere, most of which come from volcanic eruptions.

The particles can reflect sunlight back into space, the researchers said, perhaps reducing the warming effects climate scientists say are driven mainly by release of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by humans.

The study, led by Susan Solomon, an atmospheric scientist who recently retired from NOAA, showed that such particles have been gradually increasing over the past decade.

That was enough to cool the Earth's atmosphere by 0.1 watts per meter squared between 2000 and 2010.

But while it might have blunted the effects of global warming, it would not be enough to overcome the trend; carbon dioxide emissions warmed the planet during the same period by 0.3 watts per meter squared.

A separate NOAA study showed that the 2000s were the warmest decade on record.

"It's almost certain that, without volcanic aerosols in the stratosphere, Earth would be warmer," said Charlie Zender, an Earth System Science professor and atmospheric physicist at UC Irvine. "It did mask some of the warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases."

Zender says the idea of mimicking the effects of volcanoes by injecting aerosols into the stratosphere in order to cool the planet should be studied more extensively.

The study on volcanic particles was published this month in the journal, Science.

Polarbeargate?

Telegraph
James Dellingpole

This is too good a story not to repeat, not least for the headline it invites: (H/T Ed West; Julian Morris)

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A federal wildlife biologist whose observation in 2004 of presumably drowned polar bears in the Arctic helped to galvanize the global warming movement has been placed on administrative leave and is being investigated for scientific misconduct, possibly over the veracity of that article.

Charles Monnett, an Anchorage-based scientist with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, or BOEMRE, was told July 18 that he was being put on leave, pending results of an investigation into “integrity issues.”

Something about this story is very odd. Surely, under the Obama administration any government official who was discovered to have been “emotionalising the issue” in order to raise public awareness of the terrible dangers of ManBearPig would be given a promotion, and a Congressional Medal of Honor at the very least? Can it really be possible that BOEMRE remains so principled and inviolate that it still insists its employees cleave to the truth?

It’s definitely one to watch, anyway. After all, the “drowning polar bear” story was instrumental in the US Interior Department’s controversial decision in 2008 to have Ursus maritimus declared a “threatened species.” (Despite evidence that polar bear populations have increased roughly five-fold in the last 50 years: not so much a threatened species, you might say; more like a plague or an infestation). It also prompted the silly scene in Al Gore’s fantasy movie An Inconvenient Truth where an animated polar bear is shown drowning because of “global warming.”

At Watts Up With That you’ll find an excellent World Climate Report essay reporting on the background to the “drowning polar bear” story.

But the part of the study that garnered the press attention so much so that it has become ingrained in global warming lore was that Monnett et al. reported the sighting of four polar bear carcasses floating in the sea several kilometers from shore, presumably having drowned. All four dead bears were spotted from the plane a few days after a strong storm had struck the area, with high winds and two meter high waves. Since polar bears are strong swimmers, the authors concluded that it was not just the swimming that caused the bears to drown, but that the swimming in association with high winds and waves, which made the exertion rate much greater, sapping the bears of their energy and leading to their deaths. The authors also suggested that the frequency and intensity of late summer and early fall storms should increase (as would the wave heights) because of global warming and thus the risk to swimming bears will increase along with the number of bears swimming (since there will be less ice) and subsequently more bears will drown. But they didn’t stop there—they suggested that the increased risk will not be borne by all bears equally, but that lone females and females with cubs will be most at risk—putting even more downward pressure of future polar bear populations. And thus a global warming poster child (or cub) is born.

But does all of this follow from the data? Again, we haven’t heard of any reports of polar bear drownings in Alaska in 2005, 2006, or 2007—all years with about the same, or even less late-summer sea ice off the north coast of Alaska than in 2004, the year of the documented drownings.

Lubos Motl, as is his splendid way, has some trenchant things to say on the subject.

One of the commenters at Watts Up With That thinks this story could turn out to be really juicy. His rationale is that no way would BOEMRE bring an action against an employee for something as innocent as having honest, peer-reviewed research twisted, misrepresented and exaggerated by the media. No, it would have to be way more serious than that.

The news is especially tragic for those of an eco-alarmist persuasion, coming as it does on the same day as new research from NASA (of all places: where’s Jimmy “death train” Hansen when he’s needed to put the correct spin on things?) blows yet another massive hole in CAGW theory.

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA’s Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.
“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”

Anyhoo, weep not for the polar bear. The polar bears are doing just fine.

New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism

YahooNews
James Taylor

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA's Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA's Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.

"The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show," Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. "There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans."

In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.

The new findings are extremely important and should dramatically alter the global warming debate.
Scientists on all sides of the global warming debate are in general agreement about how much heat is being directly trapped by human emissions of carbon dioxide (the answer is "not much"). However, the single most important issue in the global warming debate is whether carbon dioxide emissions will indirectly trap far more heat by causing large increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds.

Alarmist computer models assume human carbon dioxide emissions indirectly cause substantial increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds (each of which are very effective at trapping heat), but real-world data have long shown that carbon dioxide emissions are not causing as much atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds as the alarmist computer models have predicted.

'BBC's biased climate science reporting isn't biased enough' claims report

Telegraph
James Delingpole

Before commenting on the BBC Trust’s report into the BBC’s science coverage, I thought I’d take the trouble of reading the actual document rather than the press previews. I’m very glad I waited because the finished product is an absolute corker. Let me take you through some of my favourite moments.

The report, as you may be aware, was written by my fellow Telegraph columnist Steve Jones. Besides being a fine and engaging writer, Dr Jones is a geneticist of  distinction and I would certainly never dream of questioning his judgement in his fields of expertise (notably Drosophila and snails). Fortunately, as becomes quite clear reading the report, climate science isn’t one of them.

Dr Jones sets out his ideological position fairly early on when he strives to bracket global warming “denialism” with a range of other syndromes: believing that “AIDS has nothing to do with viruses, the MMR vaccine is unsafe, complex organs could never evolve, or even that the 9/11 disaster was a US government plot.” I’d love to see his evidence for this casual slur-by-association.

The distinction he tries to make between “scepticism” (good, up to a point, he thinks) and “denialism” (bad, obviously) is in any case a straw man argument. Of all the sceptics I’ve ever met or read, not a single one has ever striven to deny that climate changes nor that modest global warming has been taking place since 1850 (when we began emerging from the Little Ice Age).

What many of these sceptics – or deniers, if you must – do question is

a) whether – and if so by how much – this warming is anthropogenic (ie human-caused)

b) whether the warming constitutes a threat – or whether its benefits might in fact far outweigh its drawbacks

c) whether this warming likely to continue or whether – as happened without human influence at the end of the Roman warm period and the Medieval warm period – it will be followed by a period of natural cooling

d) whether the drastic policy measures (tax, regulation, “decarbonisation”, the drive for renewables) being enacted to ‘combat climate change’ will not end up doing far more harm than good.

Jones concedes at one point that “A debate remains, and it deserves to be reported with as much objectivity as would any other unresolved issue.” But the apparent reasonableness here is certainly not borne out by the rest of his screed against sceptics, whom he caricatures as “proponents of the idea that global warming is a myth” – while neglecting to engage with the subtleties of the arguments mentioned above.

Sometimes, in his enthusiasm to put all these evil “deniers” in their place, Dr Jones appears to forget the basic rules of science altogether. For example, he describes how measured levels of atmospheric C02 have increased since 1959, and how “basic physics show that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas” and how “three independent sets of records of global temperature agree that 2010 was one of the three hottest years since figures were first collected.” Dr Jones might be surprised to learn the “deniers” agree with him on this. Where they differ is over a fundamental scientific concept: “Correlation is not causation.” We are, remember, emerging from the Little Ice Age. So the rise in global temperatures is perfectly explicable in terms of natural climatic cycles. Furthermore, you could reasonably argue that the theory of anthropogenic CO2 as a driver of catastrophic global warming has already been “falsified” (or, as I prefer to think of it, torpedoed below the waterline, hit in the magazine and blown out of the sea). That’s because, as even the great Dr Phil Jones of the CRU has acknowledged, “global warming” stopped in 1998 (even as anthropogenic CO2 levels, notably in China) continued to rise.

Another category error Dr Jones falls into is in his use of the Argumentum ad Verecundiam, the appeal to authority. He tells us:

The IPCC concluded that it is beyond doubt that the climate is warming and more than 90% likely that this has been driven by human activity.

And he cites an open letter to the journal Science by two hundred and fifty members of the US National Academy of Sciences:

“(T)here is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.”

But as both Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn could have explained to Dr Jones, science does not advance through “consensus”; and as Einstein could have told him, science is not a numbers game. When Hitler commissioned the book 100 Authors Against Einstein, Einstein coolly replied that if he were wrong, one author would have been enough.

Scientists Gagged From Interpreting Study That Links Climate Change To Cosmic Rays

Alexander Higgins

Head of the world’s leading physics lab has issued a gag order preventing scientists from stating their interpretation of a study that links historical climate changes to cosmic rays

For years now scientists and physicists have presented study after study showing data, along with their personal interpretations, supporting the hypothesis that the alleged Global Warming phenomenon is due to man-made environmental factors affecting climate change.

Now, a major scientific experiment to conducted study the interaction between cosmic rays and cloud formation reveals that historical climate patterns coincide with the penetration of cosmic rays into the earth’s atmosphere.

However, the Chief of world’s leading physics lab at CERN in Geneva who conducted the study has prohibit scientists from presenting their own interpretations of the CLOUD experiment.

The UK’s Register suggests one reason that the “gag order” may have been issued is because the experiment invites a politically unacceptable hypothesis on climate change, or to say it another way, the study shows that Global Warming may not be a human caused phenomenon.

Under any interpretation the data can simply not be ignored since the study reveals that at the least cosmic rays play some part in climate change and Global warming.

Assuming that Global warming is is occurring, the question of whether cosmic rays are the sole cause or just a contributing factor along with man-made and other issues is really just a red herring.

The real issue here is why are scientist being ordered not to give interpretations of data that would suggest a theory that is contradicts the politically popular view? Is science not allowed to suggest an alternate hypothesis to the man-made Global warming theory even when the data shows otherwise?

Science needs to be factually unbiased and provide information that is independent of a politics.
Many critics of Global warming, and the theory it is man-made, already believe the studies supporting have been fabricated for politicians who paid for skewed data so they can push through their own political agendas.

Clearly this gag order will do little to quiet those skeptics.
The study will also raises another interesting question about the effect that the man-made cloud seeding operations conducted by the government will have on the climate over time.

A Peer-Reviewed Deception

 

Deconstructing Anthropogenic Global Warming Alarmism

http://skepticdenialism.blogspot.com/2011/06/peer-reviewed-deception.html

Researchers Blame Asian Factories for Lack of Global Warming in Past Decade

Editor's note: Here is a rare admission by the establishment that global warming has not occurred in the last 10 years. The article, of course, had to lump the news together with a study reaffirming human caused global warming. One key demand for reporting scientific research is its funding source and that should be an elementary inclusion in any article.

Asia pollution blamed for halt in warming: study

(Reuters) - Smoke belching from Asia's rapidly growing economies is largely responsible for a halt in global warming in the decade after 1998 because of sulphur's cooling effect, even though greenhouse gas emissions soared, a U.S. study said on Monday.

The paper raised the prospect of more rapid, pent-up climate change when emerging economies eventually crack down on pollution.

World temperatures did not rise from 1998 to 2008, while manmade emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuel grew by nearly a third, various data show.

The researchers from Boston and Harvard Universities and Finland's University of Turku said pollution, and specifically sulphur emissions, from coal-fueled growth in Asia was responsible for the cooling effect.

Sulphur allows water drops or aerosols to form, creating hazy clouds which reflect sunlight back into space.

"Anthropogenic activities that warm and cool the planet largely cancel after 1998, which allows natural variables to play a more significant role," the paper said.

Natural cooling effects included a declining solar cycle after 2002, meaning the sun's output fell.

The study said that the halt in warming had fueled doubts about anthropogenic climate change, where scientists say manmade greenhouse gas emissions are heating the Earth.

"It has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008," said the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.

A peak in temperatures in 1998 coincided with a strong El Nino weather event, a natural shift which brings warm waters to the surface of the Pacific Ocean every few years.

Subsequent years have still included nine of the top 10 hottest years on record, while the U.N. World Meteorological Organization said 2010 was tied for the record.

A U.N. panel of climate scientists said in 2007 that it was 90 percent certain that humankind was causing global warming.

COAL

Sulphur aerosols may remain in the atmosphere for several years, meaning their cooling effect will gradually abate once smokestack industries clean up.

A message to the environmental movement

James Corbett

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Experts: Food and fuel shortages imminent as new Ice Age dawns

 Note:  Intercept Media receives no money from the oil companies, but I cannot speak for the authors or scientists cited in this article.  Enjoy.

By Terrence Aym
at  helium.com

By Terrence Aym  at  helium.com

With an Ice Age comes abrupt change, and with change comes death—sometimes death on a massive scale.

More of the world's top scientists in the disciplines of geology, ecology, meteorology, astrophysics, and heliology are predicting that the two major cooling cycles are converging—the short term and long term Ice Ages—and Earth has just entered the beginnings of the dangerous cooling.

Both cooling periods are due and both seem to have started just as the sun's about to reach its solar maximum. When the sun goes quiet after 2012, it's expected to stay quiet for at least the next 30 to 50 years. During that time, the sun will generate significantly less heat and the planets—including Earth—will cool rapidly.

Mass migrations and famines

Now other scientists—including John L. Casey, the Director of the Space and Science Research Center—are warning that people in the coming decades are facing food and fuel shortages.

Some northern countries will be abandoned as the ice marches down from the Arctic; energy production will be interrupted; and shortened growing periods in the Northern Hemisphere will precipitate mass migrations, famines, food riots, regional conflicts and a loss of human life that could be measured on an apocalyptic scale.

Imminent crop damage was forecast back in 2007 and predicted to start by 2010.  Right on schedule the damage has been occurring as cold has gripped the Northern Hemisphere as far south as Cuba and southern Italy. During the next 30 months the world's temperatures are predicted to drop even more dramatically and at a faster clip than the worldwide plunge recorded during 2007 to 2008.

Sun entering an extended "hibernation period"

According to Casey, “The Earth typically makes adjustments in major temperature spikes within two to three years. In this case as we cool down from El Nino, we are dealing with the combined effects of this planetary thermodynamic normalization and the influence of the more powerful underlying global temperature downturn brought on by the solar hibernation. Both forces will present the first opportunity since the period of Sun-caused global warming period ended to witness obvious harmful agricultural impacts of the new cold climate. Analysis shows that food and crop derived fuel will for the first time, become threatened in the next two and a half years. Though the SSRC does not get involved with short term weather prediction, it would not be unusual to see these ill-effects this year much less within the next 30 months.”

Other scientists concur and some see the speed at which the temperatures will drop as frightening.

Casy's organization has been at the forefront of the climate change controversy, correctly predicting in advance three important changes in the climate that many others missed: the end of global warming cycle (1999), a long term drop in the Earth’s temperatures (starting in 2006 to 2007) the unsettling prospect of an historic contraction of the Sun’s energy resulting in a never-before-seen solar hibernation. The hibernation is now recognized by NASA's Long Range Solar Forecast through 2022 and as well as the stunning slowdown of sun's activity.

At the urging of colleagues from around the globe that concur with him, Casey has taken an unprecedented step. "In view of the importance of this new forecast I have notified the Secretary of Agriculture to take immediate actions to prepare the nation’s agricultural industry for the coming crop damage.”

Mini or major Ice Age - either are a disaster

While Casey sees a so-called mini-Ice Age occurring and lasting about 40 to 50 years, others like Robert Felix believes the data is there that supports a real possibility of a major Ice Age that could last several thousands of years. Felix believes the Earth's already entered the first stages of the mini-Ice Age and a bigger one might be close on its heels.

Felix warns: " The next Ice Age could begin any day. Next week, next month, next year...it's not a question of if, only when. One day you'll wake up—or you won't wake up, rather—buried beneath nine stories of snow. It's all part of a dependable, predictable cycle, a natural cycle that returns like clockwork every 11,500 years."

The last Ice Age happened to end almost exactly 11,500 years ago.

 Casey explains that "The present [solar] hibernation is proceeding in almost lock step as the last one which occurred from 1793 to 1830. If it continues on present course, while the cold weather impacts on food and fuel announced today are certainly important, they do not compare with what is to follow later. At the bottom of the cold cycle of this hibernation in the late 2020’s and 2030’s there will likely be years with devastating to total crop losses in the Canadian and northern US grain regions.”

A scientific paper that presents his model, "The Theory of Relational Cycles of Solar Activity" (also called the "RC Theory"), is gaining followers in the scientific community.

Perhaps that's because of the fact that of his three predictions based on the RC Theory climate model, all three are occurring.

Learn more about this author, Terrence Aym.