Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Earthquake of 5.0 magnitude shakes central Colombia

An earthquake of moderate intensity shook central Colombia early Friday morning, with no reports of casualties or damage, said the National Seismological Network of Colombia (NSNC).

The NSNC said the epicenter of the earthquake, measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale, was located in the municipality of Chaparral in the central department of Tolima, at a depth of 30 kilometers, which was considered superficial.

"Most cities in central Tolima, the southwestern departments of Valle del Cauca and Huila, and the mid-western departments of Risaralda and Quindio felt relatively strong shakes when the earthquake took place at local time 5:04 a.m. (1004 GMT)," said a spokesman of the NSNC.

Sheeple

Scottish sheep are shrinking

Scientists made their 25th visit to the Scottish Island of Hirta in the Outer Hebrides to complete a study and made a stunning discovery; the sheep on the island were shrinking, literally.

Each year of the study the sheep shrank by 81g, about 5% of their body mass, and scientist think that this is because of climate change rather than natural adaptation.

Natural changes would have led to larger body sizes, not the smaller body mass that was exhibited.

Camera

The Suspicious Science Behind Man-Made Global Warming

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, had an op-ed in Monday's New York Times in which he called anyone who's skeptical of man-made global warming a "traitor to the Earth."

Now, I don't have a PhD in Economics (although I do have one in another field), nor do I have a Nobel Prize, but that accusation seems a bit over the top. Perhaps it's just another example of the growing societal acrimony frequently discussed on Minyanville.

I'd like to take a look at the evidence for global warming resulting from increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere: The argument is that more infrared radiation released by the Earth is captured given the higher concentration of CO2 in the air, thereby warming the planet. However, if you're looking for scientifically rigorous experiments linking CO2 to increased temperatures, I have bad news for you: It doesn't exist.

Binoculars

US: Chicago has a rare chilly summer day

What has happened to summer? That was the question from many area residents Wednesday amid May-level 60-degree temperatures. The day's high of 65-degrees marked the chilliest open to a July here since 1930 and was one of the three coolest July 1 readings on the books in 139 years of weather records since 1871. Summer temperatures at that level are truly rare. Of 7,452 meteorological summer (June through August) highs on the books since 1928 at Midway, only 184 of them--just 2 percent---have registered temperature as cool or cooler.

Cloud Lightning

Bangladesh floods strand half a million in their homes

Torrential rains triggered landslides and flash floods killing six people and stranding half a million in their homes in Bangladesh, officials said on Saturday. The landslides occurred near Habiganj district town, some 200 km (125 miles) northeast of the capital Dhaka Saturday, burying all six members of a family.

Officials said the situation had worsened at three other nearby districts, with some 500,000 people stranded at their homes as the rivers Surma and Khusiara, flowing into Bangladesh from northeastern India, burst their banks following incessant rains over the last four days.

Binoculars

There is No Evidence by Dr. David Evans

ipcc predictions versus data
© unknown

Let's break down the case for human-caused global warming logically:
  1. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has been occurring recently.
  2. There is ample evidence that carbon emissions causes warming and that the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing.
  3. But there is no evidence that carbon dioxide emissions are the main cause of the recent global warming.
The alarmists focus you entirely on the first two points, to distract you from the third. The public is increasingly aware of this misdirection. Yes, every emitted molecule of carbon dioxide (CO2) causes some warming - but the crucial question is how much warming do the CO2 emissions cause? If atmospheric CO2 levels doubled, would temperatures rise by 0.1, 1.0, or by 10.0C?

Bulb

Global warming cover up?

co2 increase with global cooling
© unknownA graph taken from Alan Carlin’s report. The solid line illustrates global temperatures were decreasing during this period, while the dotted line shows carbon dioxide levels were increasing.

Washington - Global warming may not be occurring primarily because of carbon dioxide emissions, according to a report suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Alan Carlin, who has worked for the EPA for more than 35 years and has a bachelor's degree in physics and a doctorate degree in economics from Massachusetts Institution of Technology, co-wrote a report for "Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act." According to the report, there are some inconsistencies with the theory that humans have caused global warming because of increased carbon dioxide emissions.

"The problems become particularly evident when one examines the downtrend period from roughly 1940 through the early 1970s," Carlin stated in the report. "There does not appear to be any relationship between carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures."

This report was written before a controversial climate change bill, also known as cap and trade, was discussed in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill was designed to limit the amount of carbon dioxide industries released into the air, and would be one of the largest tax increases in U.S. history. But Al McGartland, director of the EPA National Center for Environmental Economics, decided not to release the information publicly and censored the report from lawmakers before they cast their vote.

Sun

The Sun puts on some fireworks for the 4th of July

sunspot july 4 2009
© SOHO

Leif Svalgaard has been saying for sometime now that Solar Cycle 24 seems to be getting underway. Seeing sunspot group 1024 today, I'm tending to agree.

The magnetic polarity (seen on the SOHO magnetogram) of the spot group combined with the middle latitude indicates it is a cycle 24 spot.

From Spaceweather.com:
The most active sunspot of the year so far is emerging in the sun's southern hemisphere: movie. Sunspot 1024 has at least a dozen individual dark cores and it is crackling with B-class solar flares. This morning, amateur astronomer David Tyler caught one of the flares in action from his backyard solar observatory in England:

Evil Rays

Cosmic Ray Decreases Affect Atmospheric Aerosols and Clouds

Henrik Svensmark et al have a new GRL paper in press entitled: 'Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds'

The Abstract states:

Close passages of coronal mass ejections from the sun are signaled at the Earth's surface by Forbush decreases in cosmic ray counts. We find that low clouds contain less liquid water following Forbush decreases (FDs), and for the most influential events the liquid water in the oceanic atmosphere can diminish by as much as 7%. Cloud water content as gauged by the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) reaches a minimum around 7 days after the Forbush minimum in cosmic rays, and so does the fraction of low clouds seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and in the International Satellite Cloud Climate Project (ISCCP). Parallel observations by the aerosol robotic network AERONET reveal falls in the relative abundance of fine aerosol particles which, in normal circumstances, could have evolved into cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Thus a link between the sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale.

Better Earth

Message in the CLOUD for Warmists: The end is near?

You've probably all heard of Svensmark and the Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) to cloud cover modulation theory by now. Lot's of warmists say it is "discredited". However, CERN in Switzerland isn't following that thinking, and after getting some encouraging results in the CLOUD06 experiment, they have funded a much larger and more comprehensive CLOUD09 experiment. I figure if it is "discredited", a bunch of smart guys and gals like CERN wouldn't be ramping up the investigation. There's also word now of a new correlation:
GCR solar correlation
© unknownCorrelation recently reported between solar/GCR variability and temperature in Siberia from glacial ice core, 30 yr lag (ie. ocean currents may be part of response)

I get so many tips now it is hard to choose, but this one is a gem. If you look at nothing else this month, please take the time to download the slide show from CERN's Jasper Kirkby at the end of this article.

He does a superb job of tying it all together. I found Kirkby's slide show quite interesting, and I've grabbed some slides for our WUWT readers. He proposes a GCR to cloud droplet mechanism, which to me, makes sense meteorologically. He also touches on the possibility that the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) may have been shifted due to GCR modulation during the LIA/Maunder Minimum. This ties in with Willis Eschenbach's theories of the ITCZ being a "thermostatic mechanism" for the planet with some amplification effects. - Anthony