Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Do Clouds Come From Outer Space?

Solar storm
© ESA/NASACloud killer? Research suggests that solar storms interfere with cloud formation on Earth.

Most of Earth's clouds get their start in deep space. That's the surprising conclusion from a team of researchers who argue that interstellar cosmic rays collide with water molecules in our atmosphere to form overcast skies.

As common as clouds are on Earth, the processes that produce them are not well understood. Scientists think particles of dust or pollen can serve as nuclei for water droplets, which in turn gather by the trillions into clouds. That would help explain how clouds form over urban areas: Fine particles called aerosols are emitted from the exhaust pipes of millions of vehicles and work their way into the atmosphere, where they are thought to attract water molecules. But it doesn't explain how clouds formed in preindustrial society--or how they form today over vast stretches of rainforest and ocean.

That's where cosmic rays come in. The idea goes like this: High-speed cosmic ray particles--protons and neutrons of still-mysterious origins that travel at nearly the speed of light--collide with water molecules in the atmosphere, stripping away electrons from those molecules and converting them into electrically charged ions. The ions then begin attracting other water molecules, which eventually form clouds.

The theory seems to hold water in the lab. In 2006, physicist Henrik Svensmark of the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen and colleagues produced aerosols artificially in an atmospheric chamber by bombarding water molecules with a particle beam. "More ions resulted in more aerosols," Svensmark says.

Chess

Green Science or Real Science? Hot Air or Cold Facts?

Even before our record heatwave subsided this week, politicians and journalists were ramping up their all-purpose explanation: "Global Warming." Warming it was; Global it was not. When Portland hit 106 on Tuesday, it was 61 in San Francisco, 70 in Santa Barbara, and 79 in Los Angeles. Frequently hot Pendleton was only 101, far from the record high for the Northwest of 119 set there in 1898.

Charlatans use every opportunity to promote climate hysteria, claiming that the global temperature is rising inexorably. Yet they overwhelmingly lack training in physics and meteorology. And the best satellite data show that the earth as a whole has been gradually cooling for a decade. They love "green science" because it is wonderfully suited to selling expensive climate "solutions" to the scientifically challenged. Never mind that it is neither green nor science, just politics. Never mind that climate variations are perfectly natural and unstoppable. An army of propagandists say that man is the culprit, and carbon taxes are the solution.

If President Obama's climate agenda passes, expect the problem to slowly fade because it never existed in the first place and few will tolerate escalating energy prices that dramatically lower our standard of living. Will those who have led this scam face a day of reckoning like Bernard Madoff? Unlikely. They will just blame some underling, preferably deceased, for deceiving them!

Real science is based on real evidence that can be independently verified, not on testimonials from those funded by politicians. Real evidence of climate change is easy to find. Real evidence that man caused it via greenhouse gases is completely missing. Man does cause local warming through urbanization. This biases many terrestrial temperature records, providing fodder for alarmists.

Binoculars

Multiple Wrongs Don't Make A Right, Especially When It Comes To Determining The Impacts Of ENSO

The 2009 Foster et al paper (In Press) "Comment on 'Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature' by J. D. McLean, C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter" was written by a who's who of climate scientists. The authors include G. Foster, J. D. Annan, P. D. Jones, M. E. Mann, B. Mullan, J. Renwick, J. Salinger, G. A. Schmidt, and K. E. Trenberth. Their comment is summarized by a sentence in the abstract: "Their [McLean, Freitas, and Carter's] analysis is incorrect in a number of ways, and greatly overstates the influence of ENSO on the climate system."
Link to Preprint (The Google link to the pdf version of the preprint is no longer operational): (Google Cache Link)

This post does not discuss the analysis by Carter et al nor does it examine the methods used by Foster et al to critique it. This post lists the papers cited by Foster et al that determine "the connection between ENSO and large-scale temperature variability, particularly with regard to the role of ENSO in any long-term warming trends, that has been carried out over the past two decades," and discusses the errors that are common to those papers.

Bell

Australian Senate Rejects Rudd's Cap and Trade Emissions Plan

Australia's Senate rejected the government's climate-change legislation, forcing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to amend the bill or call an early election.

Senators voted 42 to 30 against the law, which included plans for a carbon trading system similar to one used in Europe. Australia, the world's biggest coal exporter, was proposing to reduce greenhouse gases by between 5 percent and 15 percent of 2000 levels in the next decade.

Rudd, who needs support from seven senators outside the government to pass laws through the upper house, can resubmit the bill after making amendments. A second rejection after a three-month span would give him a trigger to call an election.

Bell

At last, man-made climate change is a threat - engineered by the global-warming fanatics themselves

The lunatic ambitions of the "man-made" climate change fanatics are reaching new heights. They also pose a serious danger to human survival - the very objective they claim to champion. Among the latest Frankenstein proposals are "cloud ships" to generate more cloud and deflect the sun's rays. This scheme envisages 1,900 wind-powered ships cruising through the world's oceans creating bad weather.

Scientists insist the effects would be purely local (how can climate interference be localised, without a domino effect?) and that it could be reversed. This would cost a mere $9 billion, compared to the $395 trillion it would cost to launch mirrors into space to deflect the sun. We should count ourselves lucky this fruitcake scheme to switch off the light that sustains life on earth is too expensive to be implemented.

Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 6.6 Earthquake Strikes South of Tokyo; Third in Four Days

A magnitude-6.6 earthquake struck south of Tokyo at 7:49 a.m. local time today, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, the third temblor to rock the Japanese capital since Aug. 9.

The earthquake hit 312 kilometers (186 miles) south of Tokyo at a depth of 57 kilometers, shaking buildings in the capital, the weather agency said on its Web site. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

A magnitude-6.5 earthquake to the southwest of Tokyo two days ago left one person dead, 123 people injured and damaged 5,192 houses, according to Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency. A magnitude-6.9 quake struck to the west of today's quake on Aug. 9.

Magnify

Senator John Kerry Got Every Single Fact Wrong About Global Warming and National Security

Summary for Policy Makers

Senator John Kerry's statement in early August 2009 about "global warming" before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he chairs, was false in every particular, says SPPI, leading him to draw the incorrect conclusion that "global warming" was a threat to national security. The Senator got every fact wrong -

Wilkins Ice Shelf: Senator Kerry said the recent cracking of the thin "ice-bridge" linking the Wilkins Ice Shelf to the Antarctic Ice Shelf was caused by "global warming". It was not: there has been no statistically-significant "global warming" for almost 15 years.

Bell

Second Japanese Earthquake in Days With Magnitude of 6.5 Injures 100

A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 struck central Japan early Tuesday morning, injuring more than 100 people, setting off a tsunami warning and swaying buildings 90 miles away in Tokyo. The quake struck at 5:07 a.m. Tuesday off the coast of Shizuoka prefecture, 90 miles southwest of Tokyo, and was centered about 14 miles underground, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The agency immediately issued a tsunami warning for parts of Japan's Pacific coast. Small waves of around 16 inches reached Omaezaki and other coastal towns in Shizuoka before the warning was lifted about two hours later.

Bell

Best of the Web: Global Warming, a Mass Mania

Gore Warming
© Scott ThongThe Goracle
Throughout history episodic eruptions of mass manias have swept societies. These outbreaks embody the dissatisfactions, fears and hopes of their times while offering a shining path to a bright new future. They are characterised by a millenarian nature, wherein threat of punishment for past sins is accompanied by promise of salvation through a new faith.

The power of mass manias is reinforced by severe disapproval of any questioning of their certain truth. Any doubt is seen not just as error needing correction but as conscious deliberate evil deserving expulsion or extermination. With adherents permitted only to support the established dogma, these movements tend to gather followers rapidly. But they also soon become afflicted with a growing disconnect from reality which they can neither acknowledge nor adjust for.

As no believer dares express anything other than certainty, social manias tend to persist for some time after their disconnect with reality has become obvious to all. In the face of such recalcitrant reality, leaders are forced to become ever more extreme in their proclamations. This then often leads to a zenith of zealotry and disconnect just before increasingly obvious reality finally forces them to make some small admission of error. The spell is then broken and the faith collapses.

Mr. Potato

Michigan Senator: Global Warming increases bumpy airplane rides

Michigan just experienced its coldest July on record; global temperatures haven't risen in more than a decade; Great Lakes water levels have resumed their 30-year cyclical rise (contrary to a decade of media scare stories that they were drying up due to global warming), and polls show that climate change doesn't even make a list of Michigan voters' top-ten concerns.

Yet in an interview with the Detroit News Monday, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) - recently appointed to the Senate Energy Committee - made clear that fighting the climate crisis is her top priority.

Comment: Quoting Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.):
"The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes."
Scientists mull quiet '09 hurricane season

NOAA Lowers Hurricane Season Outlook

Dr. Gray's updated hurricane forecast 2009: Good news

Still No Tropical Storms? Must Be Global Warming

US: Mild season in Tornado Alley frustrates scientists

Note to NCDC climate report authors: try using the telephone next time

The mental aberrations being displayed in the global warming camp are showing more and more what our leaders are made of - or at least who and what they are.