659 replies to this topic

[lucid]

What you guys really need to worry about is LOCAL WARMING!!!

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/203

lol

[biknut]

I'll forgive the hyperbole Biknut but try to keep it impersonal. You may not like what I said but perhaps it is because you are in denial not because it "is a total load of baloney".

This article outlines what I am referring to and yes the rate of melt is considerably higher than fifty years ago including only half the sea ice coverage.

At the Poles, Melting Occurring at Alarming Rate

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 22, 2007; A10

For scientists, global warming is a disaster movie, its opening scenes set at the poles of Earth. The epic already has started. And it's not fiction.

The scenes are playing, at the start, in slow motion: The relentless grip of the Arctic Ocean that defied man for centuries is melting away. The sea ice reaches only half as far as it did 50 years ago. In the summer of 2006, it shrank to a record low; this summer the ice pulled back even more, by an area nearly the size of Alaska. Where explorer Robert Peary just 102 years ago saw "a great white disk stretching away apparently infinitely" from Ellesmere Island, there is often nothing now but open water. Glaciers race into the sea from the island of Greenland, beginning an inevitable rise in the oceans.

Animals are on the move. Polar bears, kings of the Arctic, now search for ice on which to hunt and bear young. Seals, walrus and fish adapted to the cold are retreating north. New species -- salmon, crabs, even crows -- are coming from the south. The Inuit, who have lived on the frozen land for millennia, are seeing their houses sink into once-frozen mud, and their hunting trails on the ice are pocked with sinkholes.

"It affects everyone," said Carin Ashjian, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute scientist who spent early September with native Inupiats in Barrow, the northernmost town of Alaska. "The only ice I saw this year was in my cup at the cafeteria."

At the South Pole, ancient ice shelves have abruptly crumbled. The air over the western Antarctic peninsula has warmed by nearly 6 degrees since 1950. The sea there is heating as well, further melting edges of the ice cap. Green grass and beech trees are taking root on the ice fringes.

Antarctica's signature Adelie penguins are moving inland, seeking the cold of their ancestors, replaced by chinstrap and Gentoo penguins, which prefer open water. Krill, the massive smorgasbord for a food chain reaching to the whales, are disappearing from traditional spawning grounds.

"We've seen quite big changes in the living environment," John King, a lead researcher for the British Antarctic Survey, said from Cambridge, England.

The scenario is not new. What is most alarming to the scientists is the speed at which it is unfolding. A decade ago, melting at the poles was predicted to play out over 100 years. Instead, it is happening on a scale scientists describe as overnight.

When the Larsen B, an Antarctic ice shelf the size of Rhode Island, collapsed in 2002, "it was a big glaring clue that something not natural was happening," said Hugh Ducklow, director of ecosystems for MBL Laboratories in Woods Hole, Mass. "The geological evidence suggested that was stable for at least 10,000 years, back to the last ice age. And it literally disintegrated in three weeks."

The scientists say the coming scenes in the movie, as described by the historic melding of research assembled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will be even more disturbing:
(excerpt)

True the writer of this article is indulging a bit of hyperbole himself but his facts are referenced if you go to the source.

Yes the caps are melting more and faster than 50 years ago, considerably, and that means a considerable amount more fresh ice water getting into the mix. However this is not an event that goes on ad infinitum so it will start warming up or the trend might allow a reversal but generally the trend is still warmer not colder. Five years does not make a trend and the same years you are talking about 2003 to 2007 are addressed specifically in the article and reference nearly unprecedented polar and pglacial retreats worldwide.

Big deal, I can find just as many articles claiming the opposite.

Instead of accepting propaganda that other people claim to be true one way or the other I look at the reports of the actual conditions and draw my own conclusions based on facts, not what others tell me to believe. That and common sense.

Fact number one that is not in dispute. Global temperature peaked 10 years ago. The trend since then is that no year has been as warm. That alone is strong evidence that the global warming theory is wrong.

Fact number two is that for the last five years temperatures have been falling not rising. That is also good evidence that the global warming theory is wrong. Not proof, but it's not very confidence inspiring if you believe it's going to warm further.

Fact number three and for me the biggest killer for the whole global warming theory is this. When temperatures peaked back in 1998 at 0.546 above average, that was exactly what you'd expect, because that's almost exactly the amount above the average as the peak below the average. If it was anything else the average would need to be changed.

These are just the facts, without hyperbole. I predict we will not see a warmer year than 1998. If we do I'm change my opinion to suit what I see happening at that time.

Edited by biknut, 21 January 2008 - 01:10 AM.

[Lazarus Long]

Big deal, I can find just as many articles claiming the opposite.

Actually no, it is not about the claims in general, it was in rebuttal to your claim that nothing extraordinary was occurring int hat time period with respect to global melting and I showed a series of indisputable events that demonstrate it was.

Instead of accepting propaganda that other people claim to be true one way or the other I look at the reports of the actual conditions and draw my own conclusions based on facts, not what others tell me to believe. That and common sense.

I suggest you take a heavy does of your own advice and start looking at source that don't just confirm what you already believe. Your sources have been routinely biased and while you might try and say that for me too it is primarily because I am trying to get at the actual data too and not just those that spin one way or another. It so happens I do not *believe* the global warming model, I understand it and have observed it being supported by far more evidence and predictability than the alternative you suggest.

In fact you offer no *rational* explanation or alternative theory except to deny this one. At least you gave up one the sun spots.

Fact number one that is not in dispute. Global temperature peaked 10 years ago. The trend since then is that no year has been as warm. That alone is strong evidence that the global warming theory is wrong.

Of course it is in dispute, it is neither confirmed or supported by evidence. All that could be even argued at this point (except by demonstrating your bias) is that perhaps we have leveled off. If might be a peak and we will know for sure in 10 more years, or it could be a step and the same ten years would also show that. It might even be a short step and as the data for the whole century demonstrates it is not a five or even ten year trend that is the issue but long term trends that have moved up for decades. Sometimes up and down but when averaged they *trend* upward continuously over the period with some small leveling off periods too.

Also even if the assumption you are making were supported by fact (which it isn't) it wouldn't be a particularly damaging issue to the model as a whole without a lot more evidence to back an alternative model. You keep looking for a single element that disproves the model but what is wrong is that you do not understand the model and it does not hang on the types pf 5 or even 10 year isolated data packets as *keystone* elements that can tear down the whole system if disproved.

Fact number two is that for the last five years temperatures have been falling not rising. That is also good evidence that the global warming theory is wrong. Not proof, but it's not very confidence inspiring if you believe it's going to warm further.

Again this is not fact at all it is your interpretation of a limited set of data that you are spinning from a leveling off to a somehow far more significant idea of a drop than it is even if your assumptions get upheld.

Fact number three and for me the biggest killer for the whole global warming theory is this. When temperatures peaked back in 1998 at 0.546 above average, that was exactly what you'd expect, because that's almost exactly the amount above the average as the peak below the average. If it was anything else the average would need to be changed.

Again, this is not a fact and it is an unsupported conclusion based on an unsupported assumption that is the result of the spin you are applying to begin with concerning an interpretation of data. AN interpretation that you have no real support to make. A leveling off does not make a drop and nor provide any guarantee that temps won't go up even higher. If they do will will immediately abandon all this nonsense you continue to present about how black is white?

I doubt it but I figured I would ask.

Here is a difference between us. I look at your data and the sources and the interpretations. I seek to see how it provides a better understanding of what we observe. I also am willing to incorporate the updated database into my personal understanding. However I do not hinge my understanding on a single specific key piece of data that is undermined in one five, or ten year period. We are talking about CLIMATE biknut, that is a subject of centuries and millenium not days, weeks, or even a few years.

You do not undermine a climate model with a discrepancy of the types you are alluding to. All of the kinds of differences you describe can easily be absorbed into the model and it remains viable, logical and functional. What model do you offer with even remotely the same degree of predictability?

These are just the facts, without hyperbole. I predict we will not see a warmer year than 1998. If we do I'm change my opinion to suit what I see happening at that time.

Promise?

[Lazarus Long]

BTW Biknut to show a little of how you are spinning the data here is the graph off the front of the site you used to cite temps.



What is interesting is that Prof. John Mitchell is not as unbiased as he attempts to purport but actually at least he argues a well crafted representation of the counter point. Yes they have their agenda too. This is a UK government sponsored meteorological site but clearly he does not have everyone in British climatological study in agreement with him. In fact quite the opposite. His claims concerning solar activity do not support the data as we see it. They a re a part of the data that no one disputes BTW. They just do not sufficiently explain the warming trend without the rest of the atmospheric model as well.

What I also find interesting is that the site is claiming specific global numbers when frankly all the data is not in, nor has all the data for 2007 been collated yet to have drawn such a conclusion at all with any certainty. So it also appears they drew their conclusions ahead of actually having the data. That is what defines bias.

No I do not buy the peak argument and their graph doesn't even look like a peak as much as a step. Just like the steps that lead up to it.

[biknut]

QUOTE
Fact number one that is not in dispute. Global temperature peaked 10 years ago. The trend since then is that no year has been as warm. That alone is strong evidence that the global warming theory is wrong.

Lazarus Long
"Of course it is in dispute, it is neither confirmed or supported by evidence. All that could be even argued at this point (except by demonstrating your bias) is that perhaps we have leveled off. If might be a peak and we will know for sure in 10 more years, or it could be a step and the same ten years would also show that. It might even be a short step and as the data for the whole century demonstrates it is not a five or even ten year trend that is the issue but long term trends that have moved up for decades. Sometimes up and down but when averaged they *trend* upward continuously over the period with some small leveling off periods too.

Also even if the assumption you are making were supported by fact (which it isn't) it wouldn't be a particularly damaging issue to the model as a whole without a lot more evidence to back an alternative model. You keep looking for a single element that disproves the model but what is wrong is that you do not understand the model and it does not hang on the types pf 5 or even 10 year isolated data packets as *keystone* elements that can tear down the whole system if disproved."

I'm sorry my friend, but this is not in dispute. The truth is is truth. No year since 1998 has been as warm. You, and others may believe there will be a warmer year at sometime in the future, but the fact remains in 10 years there hasn't.

QUOTE
Fact number two is that for the last five years temperatures have been falling not rising. That is also good evidence that the global warming theory is wrong. Not proof, but it's not very confidence inspiring if you believe it's going to warm further.

Lazarus Long
"Again this is not fact at all it is your interpretation of a limited set of data that you are spinning from a leveling off to a somehow far more significant idea of a drop than it is even if your assumptions get upheld."

Not so. I stand by my claim that the global average is falling for the last 5 years. Point me to one scientist disputing this data. It may not prove global warming theory is wrong, but it's still a truthful statement.

HadCRUT3

<a href="http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt" target="_blank">http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt</a>

QUOTE
Fact number three and for me the biggest killer for the whole global warming theory is this. When temperatures peaked back in 1998 at 0.546 above average, that was exactly what you'd expect, because that's almost exactly the amount above the average as the peak below the average. If it was anything else the average would need to be changed.

Lazarus Long
"Again, this is not a fact and it is an unsupported conclusion based on an unsupported assumption that is the result of the spin you are applying to begin with concerning an interpretation of data. AN interpretation that you have no real support to make. A leveling off does not make a drop and nor provide any guarantee that temps won't go up even higher. If they do will will immediately abandon all this nonsense you continue to present about how black is white?

I doubt it but I figured I would ask.

Here is a difference between us. I look at your data and the sources and the interpretations. I seek to see how it provides a better understanding of what we observe. I also am willing to incorporate the updated database into my personal understanding. However I do not hinge my understanding on a single specific key piece of data that is undermined in one five, or ten year period. We are talking about CLIMATE biknut, that is a subject of centuries and millenium not days, weeks, or even a few years.

You do not undermine a climate model with a discrepancy of the types you are alluding to. All of the kinds of differences you describe can easily be absorbed into the model and it remains viable, logical and functional. What model do you offer with even remotely the same degree of predictability?"


Ok I only meant back to 1850 because the chart I'm looking at only goes back that far, but I think that was well before the current global warming era. I'm sure it would be true a lot farther back than that though. I really don't mean to mislead.

http://www.cru.uea.a...ture/nhshgl.gif

If the evidence for the GW theory was so convincing there wouldn't be hundreds if not thousands of scientists that don't believe it.

Warming yes, man made no.

You're pointing out what might be. I'm pointing out what is.

Edited by biknut, 21 January 2008 - 02:54 AM.

[platypus]

Big deal, I can find just as many articles claiming the opposite.

No you can't. Try to have a fact-based worldview and not do too much cherrypicking of your results.

Instead of accepting propaganda that other people claim to be true one way or the other I look at the reports of the actual conditions and draw my own conclusions based on facts, not what others tell me to believe. That and common sense.

When peer-reviewed science should win over propanda. You chose the propaganda instead for some reason. Try dropping all republican sources and see if the conclusions change.

Fact number one that is not in dispute. Global temperature peaked 10 years ago. The trend since then is that no year has been as warm. That alone is strong evidence that the global warming theory is wrong.

The trend is clearly up, even though 1998 was an anomaly.

Fact number two is that for the last five years temperatures have been falling not rising. That is also good evidence that the global warming theory is wrong. Not proof, but it's not very confidence inspiring if you believe it's going to warm further.

Fact number three and for me the biggest killer for the whole global warming theory is this. When temperatures peaked back in 1998 at 0.546 above average, that was exactly what you'd expect, because that's almost exactly the amount above the average as the peak below the average. If it was anything else the average would need to be changed.

I don't understand what you're trying to say there.

These are just the facts, without hyperbole. I predict we will not see a warmer year than 1998. If we do I'm change my opinion to suit what I see happening at that time.

Great, I predict that the warming continues, as do the climate models.

[biknut]

When peer-reviewed science should win over propanda. You chose the propaganda instead for some reason. Try dropping all republican sources and see if the conclusions change.

This shows your bias. That's OK everybody is biased one way or the other.

Fact number one that is not in dispute. Global temperature peaked 10 years ago. The trend since then is that no year has been as warm. That alone is strong evidence that the global warming theory is wrong.

The trend is clearly up, even though 1998 was an anomaly.

Prove it. The trend is slightly falling since the peak.

Fact number three and for me the biggest killer for the whole global warming theory is this. When temperatures peaked back in 1998 at 0.546 above average, that was exactly what you'd expect, because that's almost exactly the amount above the average as the peak below the average. If it was anything else the average would need to be changed.

I don't understand what you're trying to say there.

Over the last 150 years most of the time the global temperature was below average with the peak being about -.6
Right now the average will have to get above .6 to be out of nature. I don't think it's going to even get that high.

http://www.cru.uea.a...ture/nhshgl.gif

These are just the facts, without hyperbole. I predict we will not see a warmer year than 1998. If we do I'm change my opinion to suit what I see happening at that time.

Great, I predict that the warming continues, as do the climate models.

This is fine. I understand why you, and others think this way.

I believe a lot of people are being blinded by science (bad science). Even though the wind is blowing in their face, science says the wind is not blowing, so they think it is alright to piss in the wind. When they do their pants still get all wet.

Edited by biknut, 21 January 2008 - 06:00 PM.

[platypus]

When peer-reviewed science should win over propanda. You chose the propaganda instead for some reason. Try dropping all republican sources and see if the conclusions change.

This shows your bias. That's OK everybody is biased one way or the other.

And if I "believe" in evolution, do I have a "bias" too? In global warming I'm just with the side with overwhelmingly more evidence to support their case. This is why a large majority of the scientists believe GW is real. They might be proved incorrect, but that gets more improbable every year as new evidence is pouring in.

Fact number one that is not in dispute. Global temperature peaked 10 years ago. The trend since then is that no year has been as warm. That alone is strong evidence that the global warming theory is wrong.

The trend is clearly up, even though 1998 was an anomaly.

Prove it. The trend is slightly falling since the peak.

Try plotting for example 5, 20 and 50 year moving averages on the graph and you'll see the light. The trend is up, the temperature would need to come down a lot to break the trend (in the Technical Analysis in stock prices kind-of-way). You'll also see easily that 1998 was an anomaly - it's weird you don't see that with naked eye..

I believe a lot of people are being blinded by science (bad science). Even though the wind is blowing in their face, science says the wind is not blowing, so they think it is alright to piss in the wind. When they do their pants still get all wet.

Science is by far the best method of finding the truth about issues relating to nature. The people who work in the field are pretty sure (but not completely sure) that GW is caused by man due to all the evidence that points that way. It's far more likely that the bad science is mostly in you camp.

[biknut]

In addition to the rest of the northern hemisphere that's freezing it's ass off add this local weather from a little place called North America.

updated 3:29 p.m. EST, Mon January 21, 2008

Arctic chill stretches coast to coast

(CNN) -- Bitter cold gripped most of the United States on Monday, with temperatures dipping below normal from coast to coast.
Temperatures in the Upper Midwest and Northern Plains were about 30 degrees below normal, CNN meteorologist Bonnie Schneider said.

"It's very hard to find any part of the country that's warm," Schneider said.

In Presque Isle, Maine, the overnight low dropped to 27 below zero, according to the National Weather Service. Monday's high in extreme northern Maine was not expected to make it up to zero, the service said, and the wind chill made it feel much colder.

In Butte, Montana, the temperature at 10 a.m. (noon ET) was 20 below zero, up from an overnight low of 32 below.

The cold hampered firefighting efforts in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where firefighters had to deal with frozen hydrants and frigid temperatures during a seven-alarm fire.

The pre-dawn blaze destroyed a dozen homes and sent one person to a hospital, the city's fire chief said.

Firefighters in Butler County, Pennsylvania, had a similar problem, CNN affiliate WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh reported. Water sprayed on a fire turned to ice as soon as it hit the ground, creating a slipping hazard, a fire official told the station.

Icy temperatures in Fort Collins, Colorado, forced organizers to move their celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday indoors, CNN affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver reported.

Heavy lake-effect snow blanketed parts of upstate New York.

In Fulton, New York, near Syracuse, deep snow collapsed the roof of a Department of Public Works garage, according to CNN affiliate WSYR-TV in Syracuse. The people inside escaped unharmed, but snowblowers and salt trucks needed for snow removal were stuck inside the damaged building, the station reported.

More snow was in the forecast for the region -- possibly up to 12 inches.

Snow also was expected in Chicago, Illinois, and other areas near Lake Michigan. Weather was blamed for flight delays of up to an hour and 45 minutes at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and an hour at Salt Lake City International Airport in Utah.

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning until 5 a.m. ET Tuesday for parts of Michigan. The service said snowfall could top 8 inches in some areas.

http://www.cnn.com/2...cold/index.html

[Lazarus Long]

What's your point Biknut? That it is finally winter in the north? It only took till mid January to really arrive, that is one of the reasons the lake effect snows are so great, there is still too much OPEN WATER in the Great Lakes and even many smaller lakes. Hell today was the first day in a year that I could properly split wood.

I love it when it's cold that is why I don't want to see us with all this Carolina weather we have been having, but hell I'm a minority.

You still are confusing weather and climate.

Let me spell it out; the birches, blue spruce and northern pines no longer grow around here as they did for thousands of years because the climate is too warm for those trees to survive in the wild. Those trees are like canaries in the mines because they are critically sensitive to temperature and the length of winter, they NEED the cold.

The long tracks of pine top ridges are losing all the last pine trees and the copse of birches I played in as a kid are all gone, their rotting trunks almost gone as well. It really is a shame. We do have bobcats and bears back as well as the eagles though.

[Lazarus Long]

And to your claim above that:

(Lazarus Long @ 20-Jan 2008, 05:25 PM)
Of course they are cooling short term Biknut that is also consistent with the warming model, because of the unprecedented rate of glacial and polar ice melting into them. The rate that fresh water is entering is actually adversely effecting salinity in many parts of the ocean. But the warming trend is overall still up when that is taken into account.

Tropical oceans are not cooling however and I think the list of averaging that you are referencing needs to be more clearly laid out. If you are talking about the North Sea Atlantic then yes it is cooling slightly as well as the South polar sea but the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Indian Ocean, Sea of Arabia, and mid Pacific are warmer I believe but I need to look up the data.

I'm sorry, but your first paragraph is a total load of baloney. There has always been glacial melt water going the oceans. Any additional melt water going in now compared to say 50 years ago is minuscule and very unlikely to affect global sea surface temperatures more than in the past.

Your second paragraph is also inaccurate. Tropical oceans are cooling. This is the excuse scare mongers are using why 2008 is going to continue the global cooling trend that's been happening the past few years. I guess they're at a loss to explain 2007 or 2006.

I love the way rational thinking people accept the concept that if it warms up that's evidence of global warming, and if it cools down that's evidence of global warming.

Deal with these FACTS and not your preferential spin on them. It appears the facts don't support your point about the rate of glacial melting or the cold water current diffusion as determined by the latest in the field observations and global data. What is even more interesting is that the data appears to be suggesting that the global warming models are not accurate because they are not predicting warming to a fast enough or extreme enough extent rather than that they are too extreme.

Warm water of the central Pacific is going to the arctic faster than expected and thus is moving colder water back to the central Pacific faster as it is cooled along with that glacial melt and returns, as I suggested above.

Also the rate of polar cap and global glacial melt is NOT normal but significantly higher than anything even the worst models appear to predict.

If the evidence for the GW theory was so convincing there wouldn't be hundreds if not thousands of scientists that don't believe it.

That is called science. It is not about belief, it is about healthy skeptical informed debate. It is the politics and economics which are now distorting and perverting the debate. Economics does not determine truth anymore than creationism should for science.

Warming yes, man made no.

Actually it is Warming yes, Man made also

You're pointing out what might be. I'm pointing out what is.

It seems you have this backward too.

Arctic ice-cap loss twice the size of France: research

by Guy Clavel
Wed Jan 23, 6:04 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - The Arctic ice cap has shrunk by an area twice the size of France's land mass over the last two years, the Paris-based National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said Wednesday.

"The year 2008 promises to be a critical year on every level," said Jean-Claude Gascard, the body's research director and coordinator of European scientific mission Damocles, which is monitoring the effects of climate change across the Arctic.

September 2007 measurements show ice covering 4.13 million square kilometres (1.6 million square miles), down from 5.3 million square kilometres in 2005.

"Melting could result in the loss of another million in one (2008) summer," he added at a press conference.

"Summer 2007 was marked by a major retreat in the ice-cap, one we were not anticipating," Gascard said. "The rate of decline is also two or three times faster than (observed) beforehand."

International models used to predict retreating ice have some "catching-up" to do, he said.

Over the last 20 years, 40 percent of the ice-cap has melted with the average thickness halved from three to 1.5 metres.

Year-round ice coverage has reduced, with summer melting also lasting longer, the centre reported.

The Damocles' exploration vessel Tara has been able to cross the 5,000-kilometre Arctic Ocean in just over 16 months -- less than half the time taken by a late 19th century Norwegian explorer.

Gascard said the ship had been able to travel at "twice the pace expected by organisers, and three times the speed models suggested".

Disruption to the thermal layers of atmosphere stacked over Earth's far north was cited as the principal cause by Swedish researchers earlier this month, in a study published in the journal Nature.

The Tara team recorded a temperature of 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) at altitudes between 500 and 1,000 metres.

"The reduction in the intensity of cold (temperatures) during winter over these last 20 years corresponds to an accumulation (rise) of 1,000 degrees Celsius," Gascard said.

The team highlighted the role of ocean currents, namely in the northern Pacific, behind warming of waters.

Gascard's research colleague, Gerard Ancellet, also spoke of recently-formed Arctic mist, pollution clouds which "trap" Earth's naturally-emitted infrared rays thereby raising temperatures.

"Internal" Arctic pollution is the source, Ancellet said, highlighting Russian and northern Scandinavian gas and oil exploitation.

Carbon dioxide emissions among the major north American, European and south-east Asian economies was not the only other factor, he added.

Shipping traffic with additional nitrogen oxide emissions is a growing complication, given he estimated that 25 percent of the increase in future maritime transport "will be confined to the Arctic zone".

In summer 2007, the Northwest Passage, historically an ice-jammed potential shortcut between Europe and Asia, was "fully navigable" for the first time since monitoring began in 1978, according to the European Space Agency.

It lasted five weeks, according to Canada's environment ministry, with 100 vessels getting through.

[biknut]

The Arctic didn't go away, it just moved to Texas. We're freezing our asses off down here.

[marcopolo]

Record snowfall in West US & more is expected. 1/29
http://news.yahoo.co...us/winter_storm

Widespread heavy snow brings chaos to China & more is expected. 1/29
http://news.bbc.co.u...fic/7214562.stm

Baffin ice down 50%. gone by 2050? Little ice age was due to volcanos? 1/28
http://www.colorado....es/2008/29.html

Mozambique forcibly evacuates 10,000. Tropical cyclone approaches. 1/27
http://news.yahoo.co...yCdzYbrDsu96Q8F

Mozambique flooding has long term impact. 1/24
http://news.yahoo.co...xeiODb3iaq96Q8F

CO2 at record peak atmosphere concentration. 1/20
http://www.enn.com/p...n/article/29608

Oldest Arctic ice has nearly totally melted. 1/18
http://dsc.discovery...c-ice-melt.html

Amazon deforestation increases. 1/17
http://www.enn.com/e...s/article/29448

Extreme cold predicted for Russia, Siberia and Georgia. 1/16
http://www.allheadli...cles/7009739004

Flooding worsens in Mozambique & Zimbabwe 1/16
http://news.yahoo.co...UZgkwi3Ko696Q8F

Zimbabwe flooding threatens to be worst ever recorded. 1/16
http://news.yahoo.co...ZisvgPY9aW96Q8F

Flood warnings enacted as severe weather strikes England & Wales. 1/15
http://news.bbc.co.u...ews/7187628.stm

70,000 displaced by Mozambique floods. More rain for weeks? 1/14
http://news.yahoo.co...obB1CPMUAy96Q8F

New England gets major snow after "snowiest December on record" 1/14
http://www.usatoday....ow_N.htm?csp=34

Oh heck, there’s more, flooding in Australia, state wide record breaking cold in Florida, flooding and landslides in Indonesia, Antarctica warming at five times the global average, etc. You can find these by wading through the archives of ecology news stories on my web site at http://www.mindsing....ewsArchive.html That snow in China is amazing to my wife who was born and lived in South Chna for 30 years where she never saw anything like this.

What is happening in China is really freaky. I lived there for awhile and just out of curiosity I checked some of the daily tempuratures and forcasts of a few of the cities there I visited. I lived in Chengdu which has a climate similar to Central California, they are expecting snow and rain mixed with daily high temps in the 30's (F). What is even freakier is I checked the weather for Guilin, the area of those famous karst hills in southern China, which is about 100 miles north of the Vietnamese border and has a tropical to subtropical climate much like southern Florida. Snow and rain/snow mixed is expected over the next 5 days with high temps in the upper 30's to low 40's, and lows in the 20's and lower 30's (fahrenheit scale), not just a brief cold snap like they sometimes get in Florida but sustained cold weather like you would expect in a much more northern locale. Hong Kong is in the tropics, about the same latitude as the Hawaiian island of Kaui, and they are getting cold rain(temp 40 to low 50's F) like you would expect to see in San Francisco or even London this time of year.

[marcopolo]

Well, it looks like Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today, so I guess global cooling wins for now, at least for another six weeks.

[biknut]

Tokyo snow fall measured 3.5 inches in the center of the capital on Saturday, the heaviest accumulation in eight years.

http://www.usatoday....okyo-snow_x.htm

Seems like the fever has broke.

[biknut]

Maybe the reason there's not much snow in the east is because they're getting it all in the west.

Idahna, Ore. buried in snow; mayor asks for emergency help

01:11 PM PST on Sunday, February 3, 2008

By KGW and kgw.com Staff

In Idahna, Ore., there is so much snow, residents' roofs are starting to collapse. The mayor has requested that Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski declare the area a state of emergency and send help.

Eighteen inches of snow fell in the last 24 hours on top to 6 feet of snow already there, Idahna Mayor Karen Clark said Sunday.

There is literally nowhere to put the snow.

"We have buildings with snow on them in danger of collapsing. Snow around doors in danger of bursting, some homes have already sustained damage," Clark said.

The town does not have the resources to deal with so much snow, according to the mayor.

Also: Heavy snow covers Detroit, Ore.

Oregon State Corrections sent inmates in to help, but they need heavy equipment to get the snow off of road ways and homes.

“We are out of room and snow plowing money so are in danger of having to suspend snow plowing of the streets. Our citizens have now become in imminent danger as a result. We are also concerned about the citizens of Marion County that are out of our city limits and we are unable to help," Clark said.

Slideshow: Photos of snow-covered Oregon passes

"We are asking the Governor of Oregon for an immediate Declaration of State of Emergency and the National Guard to come in with heavy equipment.”

http://www.kgw.com/n...y.87f351d5.html

[biknut]

Storm-hit China calls for 'faith'

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has urged people to "have faith" that some of the worst snow storms in 50 years can be overcome, state media says.
Mr Wen called the extreme weather a "severe natural disaster" as he travelled to Hunan province, one of the worst-affected.

The weather has caused travel chaos and left thousands of people stranded.

One woman has been trampled to death in the southern city of Guangzhou, in a stampede to board a train.

Another southern city, Chenzhou, has reportedly had no power for a week, and many of its 4m resident have also been without a stable water supply for days.

Furious clashes

Elsewhere in Hunan province, heavy fog further paralysed the transport network, delaying flights and road traffic.

Elsewhere, travellers clashed with police and soldiers after being stranded on Sunday at an airport in Guangzhou, the capital of southern Guangdong province.

The BBC's Daniel Griffiths witnessed furious scuffles as passengers demanded airline officials put them on another flight after a cancellation.

Our correspondent says the authorities took several hours to resolve the stand-off, and there were similar scenes here throughout the day.

'More snow'

At Guangzhou train station on Saturday, a woman died after falling during a stampede to board a train home to Hubei province in central China, state media reported.

Hundreds of thousands of stranded people have been forced to spend the night in the open in sub-zero temperatures at the station.

Travellers are trying to get home for this week's Lunar New Year holiday. For many workers it is their only chance to see their families all year.

The government has set up a command centre to coordinate its response to the crisis, deploying more than 300,000 soldiers and almost 1.1m reservists.

Xinhua quoted the prime minister as assuring his country people: "We have the faith, courage and ability to overcome the severe natural disaster."

The provincial weather bureau has forecast more snow for Monday and Tuesday.

The extreme weather, now in its fourth week, has affected an estimated 100m people, and caused 54bn yuan (£3.8bn) of damage.

Officials say emergency medical teams have treated over 200,000 sick and injured people, and that 60 people have died.

Officials have warned of future food shortages because of damaged winter crops.

http://news.bbc.co.u...fic/7224871.stm

[biknut]

UNITED STATES
Climate Summary
January 2008


The average temperature in January 2008 was 30.5 F. This was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 49th coolest January in 114 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.

2.21 inches of precipitation fell in January. This was -0.01 inches less than the 1901-2000 average, the 65th driest such month on record. The precipitation trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is -0.01 inches per decade.

http://www.ncdc.noaa...ch/cag3/na.html

Edited by biknut, 07 February 2008 - 03:37 PM.

[Lazarus Long]

Not up here in the NE where we have been having one of the warmest winters on record. So far it has been raining and in the 40 - 50's the last few days and most of both January and now February. I say again please try and understand that global wild weather patterns are a part of the global warming scenario and arguing about daily weather and month to month patterns is almost meaningless.

No more hockey for us. The lakes are almost completely melted.

[biknut]

The Global Cooling mother load.

The Sun Also Sets

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, February 07, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Climate Change: Not every scientist is part of Al Gore's mythical "consensus. "Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV — the sun.

Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.

To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better "eyes" with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth's climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.

And they're worried about global cooling, not warming.

Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

Tapping reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.

Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a "stethoscope for the sun." But he and his colleagues need better equipment.

In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun's emissions more rapidly and accurately.

As we have noted many times, perhaps the biggest impact on the Earth's climate over time has been the sun.

For instance, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany report the sun has been burning more brightly over the last 60 years, accounting for the 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth's temperature over the last 100 years.

R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center of Canada's Carleton University, says that "CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales."

Rather, he says, "I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of energy on this planet."

Patterson, sharing Tapping's concern, says: "Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth."

"Solar activity has overpowered any effect that CO2 has had before, and it most likely will again," Patterson says. "If we were to have even a medium-sized solar minimum, we could be looking at a lot more bad effects than 'global warming' would have had."

In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov made some waves — and not a few enemies in the global warming "community" — by predicting that the sun would reach a peak of activity about three years from now, to be accompanied by "dramatic changes" in temperatures.

A Hoover Institution Study a few years back examined historical data and came to a similar conclusion.

"The effects of solar activity and volcanoes are impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were one in 100," according to Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.

The study says that "try as we might, we simply could not find any relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption and changes in global temperatures."

The study concludes that if you shut down all the world's power plants and factories, "there would not be much effect on temperatures."

But if the sun shuts down, we've got a problem. It is the sun, not the Earth, that's hanging in the balance.

http://ibdeditorial....287279412587175

Edited by biknut, 08 February 2008 - 05:45 PM.

[aim1]

Lunatic Fringe...

David Suzuki Demands Jail Time for Global Warming Skeptics

At a Montreal conference last Thursday, the prominent scientist, broadcaster and Order of Canada recipient exhorted a packed house of 600 to hold politicians legally accountable for what he called an intergenerational crime. Though a spokesman said yesterday the call for imprisonment was not meant to be taken literally, Dr. Suzuki reportedly made similar remarks in an address at the University of Toronto last month.

"What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there's a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they're doing is a criminal act," said Dr. Suzuki, a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. […]

"He sounded serious," said McGill Tribune news editor Vincci Tsui, who covered the event.

[aim1]

Part II

Gore: Everyone Who Opposes Me Is Corrupt
AZCONSERVATIVE ^| 22 Dec 2007 | John Semmens




Posted on 12/25/2007 9:13:16 AM PST by John Semmens


The U.S. Senate report indicating that over 400 scientists have "voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called 'consensus' on man-made global warming" was dismissed by Nobel Laureate Al Gore as "unworthy of consideration."

"Man-made global warming is settled science," Gore asserted. "Anyone who contests this fact cannot really be called a scientist. They're no better than those who appeased Hitler."

Gore charged that these "so-called scientists have likely been tainted or corrupted by corporate cash from the petroleum industry. They are putting their own financial advantage ahead of their responsibility to Mother Nature. Contempt shall be their wages for such apostasy." The former vice-president rejected suggestions that his own financial gains—rumored to total over $100 million—from touting global warming might "taint" his credibility. "When you are doing God's work you can expect to be rewarded," Gore said. "The abundance of that reward is but further evidence of the truth of my cause."

[biknut]

Science

Solar Activity Diminishes; Researchers Predict Another Ice Age

Michael Asher (Blog) - February 9, 2008 11:53 AM

Global Cooling comes back in a big way


Dr. Kenneth Tapping is worried about the sun. Solar activity comes in regular cycles, but the latest one is refusing to start. Sunspots have all but vanished, and activity is suspiciously quiet. The last time this happened was 400 years ago -- and it signaled a solar event known as a "Maunder Minimum," along with the start of what we now call the "Little Ice Age."

Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, says it may be happening again. Overseeing a giant radio telescope he calls a "stethoscope for the sun," Tapping says, if the pattern doesn't change quickly, the earth is in for some very chilly weather.

During the Little Ice Age, global temperatures dropped sharply. New York Harbor froze hard enough to allow people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island, and in Britain, people reported sighting eskimos paddling canoes off the coast. Glaciers in Norway grew up to 100 meters a year, destroying farms and villages.

But will it happen again?

In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov predicted the sun would soon peak, triggering a rapid decline in world temperatures. Only last month, the view was echoed by Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. who advised the world to "stock up on fur coats." Sorokhtin, who calls man's contribution to climate change "a drop in the bucket," predicts the solar minimum to occur by the year 2040, with icy weather lasting till 2100 or beyond.

Observational data seems to support the claims -- or doesn't contradict it, at least. According to data from Britain's Met Office, the earth has cooled very slightly since 1998. The Met Office says global warming "will pick up again shortly." Others aren't so sure.

Researcher Dr. Timothy Patterson, director of the Geoscience Center at Carleton University, shares the concern. Patterson is finding "excellent correlations" between solar fluctuations, a relationship that historically, he says doesn't exist between CO2 and past climate changes. According to Patterson. we shouldn't be surprised by a solar link. "The sun [is] the ultimate source of energy on this planet," he says.

Such research dates back to 1991, when the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study showing that world temperatures over the past several centuries correlated very closely with solar cycles. A 2004 study by the Max Planck Institute found a similar correlation, but concluded the timing was only coincidental, as the solar variance seemed too small to explain temperature changes.

However, researchers at DMI continued to work, eventually discovering what they believe to be the link. The key factor isn't changes in solar output, but rather changes in the sun's magnetosphere A stronger field shields the earth more from cosmic rays, which act as "seeds" for cloud formation. The result is less cloud cover, and a warming planet. When the field weakens, clouds increases, reflecting more light back to space, and the earth cools off.

Recently, lead researcher Henrik Svensmark was able to experimentally verify the link between cosmic rays and cloud formation, in a cloud chamber experiment called "SKY" at the Danish National Space Center. CERN plans a similar experiment this year.

Even NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies -- long the nation's most ardent champion of anthropogenic global warming -- is getting in on the act. Drew Shindell, a researcher at GISS, says there are some "interesting relationships we don't fully understand" between solar activity and climate.

http://www.dailytech...rticle10630.htm

[biknut]

So what's the sun been doing this week? Humm, looks like not much action.


Joint USAF/NOAA Report of Solar and Geophysical Activity 05 Feb 2008

STATUS REPORT
Date Released: Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Source: Space Environment Center (NOAA)

STATUS REPORT
Date Released: Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Source: Space Environment Center (NOAA)

Product: Report of Solar-Geophysical Activity
Issued: 2008 Feb 05 2253 UTC
Prepared jointly by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NOAA,
Space Weather Prediction Center and the U.S. Air Force.

Joint USAF/NOAA Report of Solar and Geophysical Activity
SDF Number 036 Issued at 2200Z on 05 Feb 2008

IA. Analysis of Solar Active Regions and Activity from 04/2100Z to 05/2100Z: Solar activity was very low.

IB. Solar Activity Forecast: Solar activity is expected to be very low for the next 3 days (06-08 February).

IIA. Geophysical Activity Summary 04/2100Z to 05/2100Z: The geomagnetic field was at quiet levels. Solar wind speed at ACE continues its downward trend with current values around 420 km/s. The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit was at high levels again today.

IIB. Geophysical Activity Forecast: The geomagnetic field is expected to be at predominately quiet levels for the next two days (06-07 February). Activity is expected to be unsettled on the third day (08 February).

http://www.spaceref.....html?pid=26925

[biknut]

It's the sun stupid. Just look at how much effect the sun has in one years time.

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

Lorne Gunter, National Post
Published: Monday, February 25, 2008

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.

But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.

And it's not just anecdotal evidence that is piling up against the climate-change dogma.

According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona -- two prominent climate modellers -- the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong.

"We missed what was right in front of our eyes," says Prof. Russell. It's not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind's effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt.

But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the current Arctic warming.

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.

It's way too early to claim the same is about to happen again, but then it's way too early for the hysteria of the global warmers, too.

http://www.nationalp....html?id=332289

[biknut]

Where are all my little global warming playmates? You guys sure are quite latey. Won't your daddy algore let you come out and play?

[Lazarus Long]

Biknut I am far too busy getting a February tan in upstate NY to take much time to play with you. We have had an unusually warm winter but I realize you don't want to hear it so why bother. Today it has again been in the mid 40's (not to mention the 60 degree weather last week) instead of the normal sub freezing February weather but tonight we are due another storm so we plow and salt, then it melts the next day after it ends.

I really cannot fathom why you think snow in winter is such an odd occurrence?

[biknut]

Biknut I am far too busy getting a February tan in upstate NY to take much time to play with you. We have had an unusually warm winter but I realize you don't want to hear it so why bother. Today it has again been in the mid 40's (not to mention the 60 degree weather last week) instead of the normal sub freezing February weather but tonight we are due another storm so we plow and salt, then it melts the next day after it ends.

I really cannot fathom why you think snow in winter is such an odd occurrence?

Lazarus I respect you very much, but hope that in a few more years when it becomes obvious to everyone that the climate is cooling you won't become the Hillary Clinton of global warming.