Earth ChangesS

Cut

Real Climate's Misinformation

Roger Pielke Sr.
Climate Science
Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:43 UTC
Real Climate posted a weblog on June 21 2009 titled "A warning from Copenhagen". They report on a Synthesis Report of the Copenhagen Congress which was handed over to the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen in Brussels the previous week.

Real Climate writes:
"So what does it say? Our regular readers will hardly be surprised by the key findings from physical climate science, most of which we have already discussed here. Some aspects of climate change are progressing faster than was expected a few years ago - such as rising sea levels, the increase of heat stored in the ocean and the shrinking Arctic sea ice. "The updated estimates of the future global mean sea level rise are about double the IPCC projections from 2007โ€ณ, says the new report. And it points out that any warming caused will be virtually irreversible for at least a thousand years - because of the long residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere."
First, what is "physical climate science"? How is this different from "climate science". In the past, this terminology has been used when authors ignore the biological components of the climate system.
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Magnify

Next generation questions for global warming

Thomas Fuller
Examiner
Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:14 UTC
As with all scientific hypotheses, global warming will have to stand up under scrutiny over time. As there is no recognised clearinghouse that presents objections and answers in a structured fashion, this leads to scattergun efforts where multiple objections are raised and only partially addressed in the same forum. Popular websites such as Grist, RealClimate and Skeptical Science have tried to offer responses to some 'skeptical' talking points, but there is no forum for exchanging views and referencing papers outside the rather impenetrable associations of individual specialties, which in any event limit their discussion to issues within the specialty.

Those supporting an activist solution to the threat of anthropogenic global warming complain (sometimes loudly) that they are forced to answer the same 'primitive' objections repeatedly, only to see them resurface shortly thereafter, something that I am sure is frustrating. It's a pity that a central resource can't be agreed on and that an exchange of both views and peer-reviewed papers cannot be established.

There is a new generation of skeptical arguments advanced against the theory of anthropogenic global warming. I hope they win--not because I am on their side, but because I want very much for the Earth not to face a serious threat--we have enough of them already. So far, it appears to me that this new generation of counter claims is not receiving individual attention, but is rather being classed in with earlier skeptical arguments.

So let me try and articulate some of them here and ask for a response.
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Cell Phone

The Lying EPA

Alan Caruba
Warning Signs
Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:08 UTC
"A suppressed EPA study says old U.N. data ignore the decline in global temperatures and other inconvenient truths. Was the report kept under wraps to influence the vote on the cap-and-trade bill?

"This was supposed to be the most transparent administration ever. Yet as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on the Waxman-Markey bill, the largest increase in U.S. history on 100% of Americans, an attempt was made to suppress a study shredding supporter' arguments.

"On Friday, the day of the vote, the Competitive Enterprise Institute said was releasing 'an internal study on climate science that was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency.'"

You can read the EPA document here.

All this, of course, makes "official" what this commentator and others, many of whom credentialed meteorologists and climatologists, have been saying now for YEARS.

There is no global warming. The warming that began around1850 was an entirely NATURAL cycle, a response to a mini-ice age that had begun around 1300. There was and is no proof that the presence of so-called "greenhouse gases" such as carbon dioxide had anything to do with the warming that occurred, nor that human activity contributed to it.
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Document

Global Warming Is a Fraud

David Deming
Lew Rockwell
Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:31 UTC
As the years pass and data accumulate, it is becoming evident that global warming is a fraud. Climate change is natural and ongoing, but the Earth has not warmed significantly over the last thirty years. Nor has there been a single negative effect of any type that can be unambiguously attributed to global warming.

As I write, satellite data show that the mean global temperature is the same that it was in 1979. The extent of global sea ice is also unchanged from 1979. Since the end of the last Ice Age, sea level has risen more than a hundred meters. But for the last three years, there has been no rise in sea level. If the polar ice sheets are melting, why isn't sea level rising? Global warming is supposed to increase the severity and frequency of tropical storms. But hurricane and typhoon activity is at a record low.

Every year in the US, more than forty thousand people are killed in traffic accidents. But not one single person has ever been killed by global warming. The number of species that have gone extinct from global warming is exactly zero. Both the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets are stable. The polar bear population is increasing. There has been no increase in infectious disease that can be attributed to climate change. We are not currently experiencing more floods, droughts, or forest fires.

In short, there is no evidence of any type to support the idea that we are entering an era when significant climate change is occurring and will cause the deterioration of either the natural environment or the human standard of living.
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Binoculars

US: Senator Inhofe Calls for Inquiry Into 'Suppressed' Climate Change Report

Judson Berger
Fox News
Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:12 UTC
A top Republican senator has ordered an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency's alleged suppression of a report that questioned the science behind global warming.

The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin, pushed back on the prospect of regulating gases like carbon dioxide as a way to reduce global warming. Carlin's report argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined.

"He came out with the truth. They don't want the truth at the EPA," Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a global warming skeptic, told FOX News, saying he's ordered an investigation. "We're going to expose it."

The controversy comes after the House of Representatives passed a landmark bill to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, one that Inhofe said will be "dead on arrival" in the Senate despite President Obama's energy adviser voicing confidence in the measure.
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Bizarro Earth

At least 15 earthquakes hit Taiwan's Hualien region in single day


Taiwan News
Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:10 UTC
At least 15 earthquakes hit the Hualien region of East Taiwan Sunday, with the heaviest measuring 5.6, the Central Weather Bureau said. The most serious tremor hit at 5:34 p.m. and was felt across most of Northern Taiwan, though no immediate damage was reported.

A total of 14 quakes had their epicenter located at a distance roughly between 16 and 21 kilometers northeast of the Hsiulin Earthquake Monitoring Station. An additional temblor, at 5.52 p.m., hit 21.4 kilometers south of Nan'ao in Ilan County, in an area on the east coast not so far from the Hualien area.

The Central Weather Bureau explained the high number of quakes as a rarely seen series of small quakes leading up to the main tremor, and followed by aftershocks.
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Einstein

Flashback Best of the Web: Global Warming Pathology: How we know they know they are lying

John Brignell
Number Watch
Thu, 01 Jan 2009 20:37 UTC
Image
© Unknown
It is to some extent forgivable when people adopt extreme positions out of misapprehension or delusion. It is quite another matter if they mislead others by deliberate falsehood. Politicians, of course, treat the lie as part of their professional equipment. Indeed, in some circumstances they are obliged to use it (when, for example, telling the truth about the economy would cause a run on the currency). In science, up to recent times, there is no circumstance in which a deliberate falsehood is justifiable. It requires at a minimum being drummed out of one's learned society.

All that has changed with the rise of authoritarian government. In Britain this took the form of nationalisation of the universities, begun under Thatcher and completed under Blair. In the USA it took the form of new state-funded bureaucracies, such as the EPA, who maintained control by the monopoly of funding. The global warming religion changed everything.

There is a contrast in the behaviour of people who speak from conviction and those who speak from convenience. This enables us to uncover those who are lying deliberately and distinguish them from the merely deluded. As M. Maigret once remarked "It is always the clever ones who leave a clue."
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Fish

Australia: Migaloo - Rare White Humpback Whale

Loren Coleman
Crpytomundo
Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:26 UTC
Albino humpback whale
© Unknown
Migaloo, a 45.9 feet (14-meter), 34.4 ton (35-ton) pure white humpback whale, is seen here swimming along the east coast off Australia, near Coffs Harbour with another whale, Tuesday, June 15, 2005. (Sea Experience Charters, Greer Atkinson).

Migaloo is a rare white male humpback whale first spotted in 1991. Experts believe he is now about 21 to 23 years old.

Slipping silently past his biggest fans along the Gold Coast of August - during the dead of night - the big white whale did it again.
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Sun

Heatwave set to be declared as UK temperatures soar

Maev Kennedy
The Guardian
Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:52 UTC
Image
© Manchester Evening News SyndicationChildren cooling off in the fountains at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester.
An official heatwave is likely to be declared in Britain today, with temperatures in the south likely to hit 33C (91.4F) later this week.

If officials raise the threat level from amber to red, measures including putting social services and hospitals on alert for a wave of casualties of scorching days and sleepless nights will come in to force.

Temperatures on the outskirts of London hit 30C yesterday, remained in the low 20s overnight in some areas and are expected to top that today.

Torrential downpours have been predicted to hit the north, along with scattered thundery showers in the south, but without any relief from the heat until the weekend.
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Bizarro Earth

Sarychev Peak Volcano Eruption Earlier This Month Affecting Sunsets (and Weather?)

Joseph D'Aleo
IceCap
Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:16 UTC
Sarychev Peak Eruption, Kuril Islands
© NASA Earth ObservatorySarychev Peak Eruption, Kuril Islands
Thanks to Spaceweather.com for coverage of this eruption.

Perfect timing. On June 12th, just as Russia's Sarychev Peak volcano was erupting for the first time in 20 years, the International Space Station flew directly overhead. Astronauts had their camera ready and snapped one of the most dramatic Earth-science photos ever taken from space.

Researchers are studying this rare photo to learn about the early stages of powerful volcanic eruptions. A few phenomena stand out.

(1) The volcano erupted with such force, the plume actually punched through the atmosphere. Note how clouds around the volcano have parted in a circular ring--that is a result of a shock wave produced by the upward blast.

(2) The plume is a mixture of brown ash and white steam. A "dirty thunderstorm" complete with lightning could be in progress within the roiling cloud.

(3) The smooth white bubble on top of the plume is probably a mass of water condensing from air shoved upward by the rising ash column. If so, it is akin to the iridescent pileus clouds sometimes featured on spaceweather.com.
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