Earth ChangesS


Better Earth

Heartland Meeting of Climate "Realists" a Huge Success

Joseph D'Aleo
IceCap
Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:25 UTC
Over 800 scientists and economists from 24 countries were in attendance this week at the Second Annual ICCC in New York City organized by the Heartland and with 60 co-sponsoring organizations including Icecap. They heard talks by 80 scientists from 14 countries. The opening remarks were made by the Heartland's Joe Bast. The presentations of the keynote speakers which included Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic and the European Union, Dr. Richard Lindzen, Astronaut Harrison Schmidt, former Hansen boss Dr. John Theon, Former Governor Dr. John Sununu, Dr. Arthur Robinson, Dr. Bob Carter, Lord Monckton, and Dr. Willie Soon are now all available on the Heartland ICCC 2009 web site. The others were all videotaped and will be made available over upcoming weeks. The powerpoints are now already loaded for all the excellent talks. Sections from the talks will be combined into other videos that tell the real climate story and distributed to decision makers and schools and groups that care about the truth or wish to hear both sides of the story.

One of the major outputs was Anthony Watt's report on the surface station project. He documented the results of the siting survey of the US climate network. He and his team of volunteers are now 75% through the climate network and only 11% of the stations meet the government's own published standards. He had a wonderful publication that will be widely distributed to decision makers.
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Mr. Potato

Global Warming Is Accelerating Beyond The Worst Predictions Threatening 'Irreversible Changes'

Joseph D'Aleo
IceCap
Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:57 UTC
Commentary on an article by by Jan Olsen, AP

Hundreds of leading scientists warned Thursday that global warming is accelerating beyond the worst predictions and threatening to trigger "irreversible" climate shifts on the planet. Saying there's no excuse for inaction, the nearly 2,000 climate researchers meeting in Copenhagen urged policy-makers to "vigorously" implement the economic and technological tools available to cut emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

Their stark message came at the end of a three-day conference aimed at updating the findings of a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change before U.N. talks in December on a new global climate treaty. "The worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realized," the scientists said in a statement. "There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts."

The climate change panel predicted a sea level rise of 7 to 23 inches by the end of the century, which could flood low-lying areas and force millions to flee. But more recent research presented at the conference suggested that melting glaciers and ice sheets could help push the sea level up at least 20 inches, and possibly as much as 39 inches, or about 1 meter.
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Life Preserver

Author of IPCC flagship paper admits error in urban heat islands

Warwick Hughes
Errors in IPCC climate science
Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:25 UTC
So sceptics have been correct for decades.

Yes you have to pinch yourself, the old canard so long clung to by the IPCC, that the urban influence in large area gridded data is "an order of magnitude less than the warming seen on a century timescale" is now severely compromised.

The IPCC drew that conclusion from the Jones et al 1990 Letter to Nature which examined temperature data from regions in Eastern Australia, Western USSR and Eastern China, to conclude that "In none of the three regions studied is there any indication of significant urban influence.." That has led to the IPCC claim that for decades, urban warming is less than 0.05 per century.

Comment: In a related piece of information. One of the major contributors of the original dataset that Jones et al used in their 1990 paper was from Wei-Chyung Wang professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Wei-Chyung Wang's data has been questioned and put under investigation for fraud. University at Albany, State University of New York, has responded in a manner that on the face of it appears to be a cover up to protect itself from any damage that Wang's deeds may caused.

The related article is here.

If the Wang allegations hold true iit is an additional dagger in Global Warming alarmist agenda.

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Nuke

More Global Warming Data Fraud

Peter Risdon
Freeborn John
Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:01 UTC
Last June I reported on the allegations of academic fraud levelled by a British mathematician, Doug Keenan, against Professor Wei-Chyung Wang of New York State University at Albany.

Dr Keenan alleged that in work that has come to be widely cited in climate studies, work that included the collation of data from temperature measuring stations in China, Professor Wang made statements that "cannot be true and could not be in error by accident. The statements are fabricated."

In August 2007, Dr Keenan submitted a report (pdf) of his allegations to the Vice President for Research at Wang's university and an inquiry was initiated. In February 2008 this was escalated into a full investigation by the Inquiry Committee.

All this was summarised in my earlier post, together with quotations from Dr Keenan's allegation.
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Attention

Tsunami generated by Tonga quake: warning centre


Agence France-Presse
Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:34 UTC
A major 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck off the Tonga islands region early Friday triggered a tsunami, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said.

The centre originally issued a tsunami warning for Tonga, Niue, Kermadec Islands, American Samoa, Samoa and Fiji after the US Geological Survey said the quake hit at 6.17 am (1817 GMT), centred 210 kilometres (130 miles) south-southeast of the Tongan capital Nuku'Alofa.

The centre then issued a further statement saying "Sea level readings confirm that a tsunami was generated.
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Life Preserver

Shell dumps wind, solar and hydro power in favour of biofuels

Tim Webb
The Guardian
Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:55 UTC
Shell will no longer invest in renewable technologies such as wind, solar and hydro power because they are not economic, the Anglo-Dutch oil company said today. It plans to invest more in biofuels which environmental groups blame for driving up food prices and deforestation.

Executives at its annual strategy presentation said Shell, already the world's largest buyer and blender of crop-based biofuels, would also invest an unspecified amount in developing a new generat­ion of biofuels which do not use food-based crops and are less harmful to the environment.

The company said it would concentrate on developing other cleaner ways of using fossil fuels, such as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. It hoped to use CCS to reduce emissions from Shell's controversial and energy-intensive oil sands projects in northern Canada.

The company said that many alternative technologies did not offer attractive investment opportunities. Linda Cook, Shell's executive director of gas and power, said: "If there aren't investment opportunities which compete with other projects we won't put money into it. We are businessmen and women. If there were renewables [which made money] we would put money into it."
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Bizarro Earth

Strong quake near Tonga prompts tsunami warning


Associated Press
Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:51 UTC
The U.S. Geological Survey says that a 7.9 earthquake has struck near Tonga, prompting a tsunami warning for adjacent islands in the South Pacific.

The USGS says that the quake struck about 130 miles (200 kilometers) south-southeast of the Tongan capital of Nuku'Alofa at a depth of 6.2 miles (10 kilometers). It struck Friday morning local time.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
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Fish

Chinese trawler catches unknown 10-ton fish


RIA Novosti
Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:39 UTC
Beijing - Fishermen in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang caught on Thursday an unknown fish weighing more than 10 tons, the Sina news service reported.

The unusual fish, which was 12 meters (39 feet) in length and more than 1 meter in body diameter, was caught in a trawler's net and towed to the nearest port, where it was pulled from the water by a 15-ton cargo crane, the news service said.

Scientists will not get the opportunity to solve the mystery of the fish as it was sold to a Chinese man for about $220.

The world's biggest fish is believed to be Whale Shark (Rhinodon typus) which can often grow to 13.7 meters (45 feet) and 15 tons.
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Camera

NOAA Meteorologist Claims 'Gross, Blatant Censorship' by Media for Speaking Out Against Climate Change Alarmism

Jeff Poor
Business and Media Institute
Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:13 UTC
Stanley Goldenberg of NOAA's Hurricane Research Division tells ICCC audience global warming has no measurable impact on hurricane activity.

You often hear scientists who promote the theory of man-made global warming allege they are victims of censorship. But when it is the other way around - that scientists who dispute that claim are victims of the same thing, you never hear a peep.

That's what Stanley Goldenberg, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) Hurricane Research Division, told an audience at the The Heartland Institute's 2009 International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC) in New York on March 9. Voices that counter global warming alarmism are often subject to censorship, he said.

"The debate, as you also know, is masked by media censorship, bias and distortion," Goldenberg said. "I'm interviewed quite bit on many, many levels and thankfully most of our interviews are benign. They're trying to get out to the public."
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Frog

Rare reptile hatchling found on New Zealand

Ray Lilley
Associated Press
Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:20 UTC
baby tuatara
© AP Photo/Karori Wildlife Sanctury,Tom Lynch,HOIn this photo released by the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, a baby tuatara is held by a staff at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellington, New Zealand, Thursday, March 19, 2009.
A hatchling of a rare reptile with lineage dating back to the dinosaur age has been found in the wild on the New Zealand mainland for the first time in about 200 years, a wildlife official said Thursday.

The baby tuatara was discovered by staff during routine maintenance work at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in the capital, Wellington, conservation manager Raewyn Empson said.

"We are all absolutely thrilled with this discovery," Empson said. "It means we have successfully re-established a breeding population back on the mainland, which is a massive breakthrough for New Zealand conservation."

Tuatara are the last lizard-like descendants of a reptile species that walked the Earth with the dinosaurs 225 million years ago, zoologists say.
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