Earth ChangesS


Better Earth

Why I am a Climate Realist

So, I am a climate realist because the available evidence indicates that climate change is predominantly, if not entirely, natural. It occurs mostly in response to variations in solar heating of the oceans, and the consequences this has for the rest of the Earth's climate system. There is no evidence to support the hypothesis runaway catastrophic climate change due to human activities.
In 1996 the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Second Assessment Report was released, and I was listed as one of approximately 3000 "scientists" who agreed that there was a discernible human influence on climate.

I was an invited reviewer for a chapter dealing with the economic impact of sea level rise on small island nations. In keeping with IPCC procedures, the chapter was written and reviewed in isolation from the rest of the report, and I had no input into the process after my review of the chapter draft. I was not asked if I supported the view expressed in my name, and my understanding at the time was that no evidence of a discernible human influence on global climate existed.

The chapter I reviewed dealt primarily with the economic consequences of an assumed sea level rise of 1 m causing extensive inundation. My response was that I could not comment on the economic analysis, however, I disagreed with the initial assumptions, particularly the assumed sea level rise in the stated time period. Further, there was good evidence at the time that sea level rise would not necessarily result in flooding of small island nations, because natural processes on coral atolls were likely to raise island levels.

The IPCC Second Assessment Report assessed sea level rise by AD 2100 as being in the range 0.20-0.86 m, with a most likely value of 0.49 m (less than half the rate assumed for the economic analysis). Subsequent research has demonstrated that coral atolls and associated islands are likely to increase in elevation as sea level rises. Hence, the assumptions were invalid, and I was convinced that IPCC projections were unrealistic and exaggerated the problem.

Bulb

Global Warming Pauses

The tide on climate change is starting to turn. The Australian government is becoming more cautious.

It is rare to read a new book likely to make a huge difference to public opinion. Professor Ian Plimer's 500 page book with 2300 footnotes "Heaven and Earth. Global Warming: The Missing Science" is such a book. 30,000 copies were sold in its first month.

Plimer is not a climate change denier, because history shows the planet is dynamic and the climate is always changing, sometimes drastically.

Ice Ages have come and gone and we don't know why. History has seen glaciers at the equator and at one time Scandinavia was under 5 kilometres of ice. Sea levels have been 130 metres lower than today. Some consolation comes from the fact that ice sheets predominated for only 20 per cent of the earth's history.

Cloud Lightning

Tennis ball-sized hail stones pound French villages

Image
© AFPFirefighters said they had found stones as big as tennis balls
Roanne - Fist-sized hail stones "like rocks from the sky" smashed roofs and car windows across a 20-kilometre (13-miles) wide strip of central France, witnesses and firefighters said Friday.

The violent 15-minute squall blew up at around nightfall on Thursday after an otherwise pleasant day around Roanne, a small town in central France. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

"I was just feeding the horses when the first hail fell. At first, for about 20 seconds, it was light and scattered, then it was a deluge, like rocks from the sky," said a resident of Pouilly-sous-Charlieu.

"The flowers and orchards were ripped to shreds and some of the cars in the neighbourhood look like they've been worked over with a hammer. Many of them had shattered windscreens," he said.

Magnify

Flashback North Korean Earthquake Magnitude 4.3 During Nuclear Testing

Magnitude:
4.3 (Light)

Date-Time:
- Monday, October 09, 2006 at 01:35:28 (UTC) - Coordinated Universal Time
- Monday, October 09, 2006 at 10:35:28 AM - local time at epicenter

Magnify

North Korean Earthquake Magnitude 4.7 A Possible Nuclear Test

Suspicious earthquake Korea 1
© USGS
The shallow seismic event that occurred on 25 May 2009 at 00:54:43 UTC has been claimed as a nuclear test by North Korea, according to news reports.

While the USGS cannot confirm that the recent event was a nuclear test, it was shallow and located in the vicinity of the October 2006 North Korean nuclear test (magnitude 4.3).

Evil Rays

Roger Pielke Sr. responds to disparaging remarks of AGW proponent Stephen Schneider: Let's Talk Science

There is part one of an interview with Professor Stephen Schneider regarding global warming and climate change issues published on Examiner.com on May 24 2009. It is titled "The global warming debates: Stephen Schneider" and is written by Thomas Fuller who is the San Francisco Policy Environmental Policy Examiner reporter. This interview is an excellent example of the failure to present a balanced presentation of the climate science issues.

The reporter asked the following question
"More specifically, the principal skeptic websites (Watt's Up With That, Climate Skeptic, Climate Audit and Climate Science) that I look at regularly seem to think they are winning the day. They think data is coming in that questions the established paradigm."
First, the reporter erroneously presented my perspective as a "skeptic" website.

Steve Schneider, unfortunately, chose not only to fail to correct this error, but demeaned the scientific value of these websites.

Attention

Uncertain climate

A person needn't be a buffoon or political hack to be skeptical of global warming. That would be news to The Washington Post's news desk, however.

A Post article on May 19 falsely reported that there is a "consensus" among scientists and a growing portion of the American public that human carbon emissions are causing a dangerous, long-term increase in worldwide temperatures. The facts, overwhelmingly, show no such consensus.

The Post's David A. Fahrenthold reported that Republican "warming skeptics" are becoming ever bolder on Capitol Hill even as "most" or a "consensus" of "scientists around the globe have rejected their main arguments - that the climate isn't clearly warming, that humans aren't responsible for it, or that the whole thing doesn't amount to a problem." He continued: "Public opinion has also shifted" in favor of warming's existence and importance.

Bizarro Earth

5.2 earthquake shakes Zambales, Metro Manila

An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale shook Iba, Zambales and Subic, Olongapo City Sunday morning.

The tremor, which occurred at 9:06 a.m., was also felt in Quezon City; Ortigas Ave., Pasig City, and Makati City, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said.

Bizarro Earth

Strong quake hits Macedonia near Greek border

Skopje - A strong earthquake struck southern Macedonia near the Greek border on Sunday night, damaging some houses, officials said. No casualties were immediately reported

Fish

Thieving Whale Caught on Video Gives Rare Clues about Hunting Strategy, Sound Production

sperm whale
© ScrippsSnapshots from the unique May 2006 sperm whale video off Sitka, Alaska.
Marine mammal videotaped stealing fish provides information about animal's physical features

Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San Diego
For decades scientists have been intrigued by the variety of sounds emitted by sperm whales, partly due to a popular theory that suggests that the sounds might contain information about the animals' size. But historically it has been extremely difficult to demonstrate that these curious clicking noises can reveal information about the physical characteristics of the massive marine mammals. Now, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego are unlocking some of the mysteries of sperm whale sound production in collaboration with Jan Straley, assistant professor of marine biology at the University of Alaska Southeast, Sitka Campus, and fisherman Kendall Folkert of Sitka, Alaska.