Alaska glaciers grew this year

Not only did the Artic cap not melt, but the ice mass in Alaska is actually growing. This is not to suggest that we should not look for alternative fuels and be good to our enviroment. But what it does suggest is that perhaps man's influence on the enviroment and specifically global warming is not as significant as the pundits would have us believe. And the costly fixes that they demand are not needed.

Global warming...My motives...

Joel responded to a post on Global warming I had written. Joel said...
"Read Peter Doran's clarification of one of the articles you posted. I bring this up because the essential part of the global warming arguement should be about facts and interpretation, not a shotgun blast of journal titles that seem to contradict other scientific findings. Also, anyone who has been involved in scientific research knows that the idea that scientists are a "team that goes along (with the 'popular' idea)" knows that statement to be far from the truth. Finally, I can say that personally, my environmentalism was caused by my learning and understanding of science. Many of you suggest that environmentalists become scientists to forward misleading theories based on previously-held beliefs. I think you are way off the mark here."

Joel suggests that I hold a belief that enviromenatalists become scientists to forward misleading theories. That is not true. What I do believe is that there is certainly a force to treat as absolute fact a cause for global warming and I have been saying that more research is needed to determine what the reasons are. Peter Doran acknowldeges that even in the Antartic that some areas show a warming trend while others show a cooling trend. He acknowledges that more needs to be studied in order to determine a actual trend. I know he believes that on a global scale, temperatures are rising. I am sure he believes it is cause by humans, but he does not know, just like I don't know that it is not.

Joel was critical of the "shot gun blast" of journal titles. That is not a shot gun blast, but a list of scholary articles, many published in refereed journals showing what other people are researching. This type of thing is essential in a scientific debate. It also shows that human caused global warming is not a fact. It is a hypothesis that still needs testing.

One of the main reason I feel strongly about showing the other side of the debate is because nothing ticks me off more than when I hear from a politician or read letter to the editor suggesting a solution to global warming is to raise taxes on gasoline. That is just idiotic. No matter how high the price of gas goes, the distance I drive to work will remain the same. I will still burn fuel. I still will put carbon dioxide into the air. And the earth will warm or cool as it pleases.

It depends how you define Consensus

I have to concede that there exists a consensus concerning man made global warming. I have to face facts. If we discard over 400 prominent scientists, the remaining scientists form a consensus

More global warming?

David Deming wrote an interesting piece in the Washington Times. David is a geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis, and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. I would say he has some credibility in the area of global warming and science in general. I do realize he is not a Nobel Peace prize recipient who is also an acomplished film maker, author and former Vice President, but never the less, I think he may have some insight.

Acccording to Dr. Deming, the global mean temperature has increased 0.7 degrees Celsius. "This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S."

I am not suggesting that this is evidence that anthropological global warming does not exist, but it does merit that true scientific investigations be conducted to answer these questions. The idea of "scientific" consensus on anything is dangerous. It is especially dangerous when skeptics are ostracized.

Moral Imperitives versus sound Science

I think Al Gore is showing some true colors ranting about ignoring the United States and urging the world to pursue a "new global regime" base on a "moral imperitive". Never mind science.

As usuall, the only solution governments can ever come up with is to tax it and hope the issue goes away. But as we have seen in the United States over our history, increase taxation does not eliminate hunger, poor education or poverty, if anything, it makes them worse.

For the record, I am not suggesting that the planet is not increasing in temperature. What I am suggesting is we do not know if this is a natural cycle or if humans have contributed to it. Based on studies I have read, I see a powerful arguement for natural cycles over man made emissions. Having said that, though, I would like nothing more than to see us become independent from oil and to do better for our enviroment. But we must do it in a scientifically sound manner rather than the folly displayed by Gore and his ilk.

Thoughts on Global Warming

Baby Tax need to save planet

Eco-Friendly Kangaroo Farts could help global warming



These article cracks me up!! It truly amazes me the hysteria generated from books like An Inconvienient Truth. I say hysteria because the defenders of the catastrophic global warming models completely reject any form of skeptism and denounce those that do as stupid and ignorant.

Supporters of global warming ( and truly what I mean is warming caused by the activity of people) say that there is a large consensus that it is, infact, occuring. They will point to the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). It is important to point out that the IPCC is itself an arm of the UN and therefore part of a political organization. Its panel members are selected by politicians and it has an agenda of its own. Several polls of professional opinion indicate that widespread scientific scepticism exists with the IPCC orthodoxy. The published science that the IPCC draws upon to make its recommendations is mostly authoritative and widely accepted but, at the same time,
many distinguished and well qualified scientists, including myself,(you are supposed to laugh here) disagree with some of its findings.


Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience or readers that all of the phenomena described in AIT fall within the natural range of previous environmental change on our planet. Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change. This is not surprising, for no such evidence has been identified. Nor – remarkably, in view of its importance to his overall thesis - does Mr. Gore mention that global average
temperature shows no greenhouse warming at the earth’s surface since at least 1998, and none in the lower atmosphere since 1979. Because of such egregious selectivity, AIT presents as propaganda for a global warming cause rather than as a balanced and well-made documentary about climate science reality.


When you have trouble making sense of your observations, check the fundamentals behind your basic premises; in this case, those behind the prediction of global warming.

When I hear predictions based on averages and standard deviations, I can tell without knowing the details of any of the various models that the person making the prediction is using the mathematics of closed, random systems. Because the phenomena being modeled are open, chaotic systems for which no good mathematics have yet been devised, the output of such models should be suspect.

In addition, the predictions and measurements to support those predictions are expressed in temperature of the atmosphere. When predictions and measurement refer to heat, the appropriate unit is calories. To translate calories into atmospheric temperature requires knowledge of each component of the system, because the specific heat of the atmosphere varies markedly with its moisture content.

The first and second laws of thermodynamics should also be considered. They require the interconvertability of all forms of energy, and the trend toward maximum entropy (disorder or chaos). Thus, radiant energy from the sun is absorbed as thermal energy that is converted in part into the dynamic energy of wind and wave, the latent energy of water vapor in the atmosphere, and the electrical energy accumulated in clouds. Combined in this chaotic mix is the thermal energy from Earth’s core and the kinetic energy of the tides, which is created by the momentum of the moon. This is a picture of multiple inputs and interlocking energy cycles-chaos indeed!!





REFERENCES of Interest


Abdussamatov, H. I. 2004 On long-term variations of the total irradiance and decrease of
global temperature of the Earth after a miximum of xxiv cycle of activity and irradiance.
Bulletin of Crimea Observatory 103, 122-127.


Alexander, W.J.R., Bailey, F., Bredenkamp, D.B., van der Merwe, A. & Willemse, N.W.
2007 Linkages betweeen solar activity, climate predicatability and water resource
development. Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering 49, 32-49.


Beer, J., Mende, W. & Stellmacher, R. 2000 The role of the sun in climate forcing.
Quaternary Science Reviews 19, 403-415.


Beck, E-G. 2007 180 years of CO2 gas analysis by chemical methods. Energy &
Environment 18, 259-282.


Bond, G., Kromer, B., Beer, J., Muscheler, R., Evans, M.N., Showers, W., Hoffmann, S.,
Lotti-Bond, R., Hajdas, I. & Bonani, G. 2001 Persistent solar influence on North Atlantic
climate during the Holocene. Science 294, 2130-2136.


Briffa, K.R., Osborn, T.J. & Schweingruber, F.H. 2004 Large-scale temperature
inferences from tree rings: a review. Global and Planetary Change 40, 11-26.


Caillon, N., Severinghaus, J.P., Jouzel, J., Barnola, J.-M., Kang, J. & Lipenkov,
V.Y. 2003 Timing of atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic temperature changes across
Termination III. Science 299, 1728-1731.


Camp, C.D. & Tung, K.K. 2007 Surface warming by the solar cycle as revealed by the
composite mean difference projection. Geophysical Research Letters 34, L14703, doi:
10.1029/2007GL030207, 2007.


Carter, R.M. 2007 The myth of dangerous human-caused climate change. Australasian
Institute of Mining & Metallurgy, New Leaders Conference, Brisbane, May 2-3 2007,
Conference Proceedings p. 61-74.


Carter, R.M., de Freitas, C.R., Goklany, I.M., Holland, D. & Lindzen, R.S. 2006 The
Stern Review: A Dual Critique. Part I: The Science. World Economics 7, 165-198.


Carter, R.M., de Freitas, C.R., Goklany, I.M., Holland, D. & Lindzen, R.S. 2007 Climate
change: Climate science and the Stern Review. World Economics 8, 161-182.


Chan, J. C. L. & Liu, S.L. 2004 Global warming & western North Pacific typhoon
activity from an observational perspective. Journal of Climate 17, 4590-4602.

CO2Science. Ice core studies prove CO2 is not the powerful climate driver climate
alarmists make it out to be.
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V6/N26/EDIT.jsp


Cunningham, S.A., Kanzow, T., Rayner, D., Baringer, M. O., Johns, W.E., Marotzke, J.,
Longworth, H.R., Grant, E.M., Hirschi, J. J.-M., Beal,L.M., Meinen, C.S. Bryden, H.L.
Science 317 (5840), 935. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1141304]


de Freitas, C. R. 2002 Are observed changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere really dangerous? Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology 50, 297-327.


Doran, P.T., Priscu, J.C., Lyons, W.B., Walsh, J.E., Fountain, A.G., McKnight, D.M.,
Moorheat, D.L., Virginia, R.A., Wall, D.H., Clow, G.D., Fritsen, C.H., McKay, C.P. &
Parsons, A.N. 2002 Antarctic climate cooling and terrestrial ecosystem response. Nature
415, 517-520.


Dyck, M.G., Soon, W., Baydack, R.K., Legates, D.R., Baliunas, S., Ball, T.F. &
Hancock, L.O. 2007 Polar Bears of western Hudson Bay and climate change: Are
warming spring air temperatures the ‘ultimate’ survival control factor? Ecological
Complexity [in press].


Eamus, D. 1996 Responses of field grown trees to CO2 enrichment. Commonwealth
Forestry Review 75, 39-47.


Foley, J. A. & Coe, M. T. 2001 Decline of Lake Chad. Journal of Physical Research -
Biogeosciences (reported in the National Geographic News at
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/04/0426_lakechadshrinks.html.


Gore, A. 2006 An Inconvenient Truth. Rodale, USA, 327 pp.


Gray, V. 2006 Temperature trends in the lower atmosphere. Energy & Environment,
17:707-714.


Hastenrath, S. 2001 Variations of East African climate during the past two
centuries. Climatic Change 50, 209-217.


Hay, S.I., Cox, J., Rogers, D.J., Randolph, S.E., Stern, D.I., Shanks, G.D., Myers, M.F. &
Snow, R.W. 2002 Climate change and the resurgence of malaria in the East African
highlands. Nature 415, 905-909.


Hendy, E.J., Lough, J.M. & Gagan, M.K. 2003 Historical mortality in massive Porites
from the central Great Barrier Reef, Australia: evidence for past environmental
stress? Coral Reefs 22, 207-215.


IPCC 2001 Climate Change, The Scientific Basis. Cambridge University Press, London,
2001.

IPCC 2007 Fourth Assessment Report: Summary for Policymakers. IPCC, Geneva.
Jevrejeva, S., Grinsted, A., Moore, J.C. & Holgate, S. 2006 Nonlinear trends and
multiyear cycles in sea level records. Journal of Geophysical Research 111, C09012,
doi:10.1029/2005JC003229.


Johannessen, O.M., Khvorostovsky, K., Miles, M.W. & Bobylev, L.P. 2005 Recent icesheet
growth in the interior of Greenland. Science Express, 20 October.


Keatinge, W. R. & Donaldson, G. C. 2004 The impact of global warming on health and
mortality. Southern Medical Journal 97, 1093-1099.


Khandekar, M.L., Murty, T.S. & Chittibabu, P. 2005 The global warming debate: a
review of the state of science. Pure & Applied Geophysics 162, 1557-1558.


Kiehl, J. T. & Trenberth, K. E. 1997 Earth’s annual global mean energy
budget. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 78, 197–208.


Klyashtorin, L. B. & Lyubushin, A. A. 2003 On the coherence between dynamics of the
world fuel consumption and global temperature anomaly. Energy and Environment,
14:733-782.


Knutson, T. R. & Tuleya, R. 2004 Impact of CO2-induced warming on simulated
hurricane intensity and precipitation: sensitivity to the choice of climate model and
convective parameterization. Journal of Climate 17 (18): 3477-3494.


Kouwenberg, L., Wagner, R., Kurschner, W. & Visscher H., 2005 Atmospheric CO2
fluctuations during the last millennium reconstructed by stomatal frequency analysis of
Tsuga heterophylla needles. Geology 33, 33-36.


Landsea, C. W., R. A. Pielke, R.A., Mestas-Nuñez, A.M. & Knaff, J.A. 1999 Atlantic
basin hurricanes: indices of climatic changes. Climatic Change 42, 89–129.


Latif, M., Boning, C., Willebrand, J., Biastoch, A., Dengg, J., Keenlyside, N.,
Schweckendiek, U. & Madec, G. 2006 Is the thermohaline circulation changing? Journal
of Climate 19, 4631-4637.


Lewis, M. 2007 Al Gore's Science Fiction: A Skeptic's Guide to An Inconvenient Truth.
A Congressional Working Paper -Competitive Enterprise Institute.
http://www.cei.org/pdf/5820.pdf.


Lockwood & Frohlich 2007: Recent oppositely-directed trends in solar climate forcings
and the global mean surface air temperature. Proceedings of the Royal Society A,
London, July 10, 2007, doi: 10.1098/prsa.2007.1880.

Lomborg, B. 2007 Perspective on Climate Change. Joint Hearing of the Subcommittee on
Energy and Air Quality and the Subcommittee of Energy and Environment of the House
Committee on Science and Technology, March 21.


Lowenstein, T. K. & Demicco, R. V. 2006 Elevated Eocene atmospheric CO2 and its
subsequent decline. Science 313, 1928.


Lyman, J. M., Willis, J. K. & Johnson G. C. 2006 Recent cooling of the upper ocean.
Geophsysical Research Letters 33, L18604, doi: 10.1029/2006GL027033 (see also
corrected version at http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/04/15/the-correction-to-thelyman-
et-al-2006-paper-is-available/).


Mackey, R. 2007 Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the
Earth’s climate. Journal of Coastal Research, ICS2007 Proceedings, pp. 955-968,


Michaels, P. J., Knappenberger, P.C. & Landsea, C.W. 2005 Comments on Impacts of
CO2-induced warming on simulated hurricane intensity and precipitation: sensitivity to
the choice of climate model and convective scheme. Journal of Climate, in press.


Molg, T., Hardy, D.R. & Kaser, G. 2003 Solar-radiation-maintained glacier recession on
Kilimanjaro drawn from combined ice-radiation geometry modeling. Journal of
Geophysical Research 108, 10.1029/2003JD003546.



Mudelsee, M. 2001 The phase relations among atmospheric CO2 content, temperature
and global ice volume over the past 420 ka. Quaternary Science Reviews 20, 583-589.


Neff, U., Burns, S.J., Mangini, A., Mudelsee, M., Fleitmann, D. & Matter, A. 2001
Strong coherence between solar variability and the monsoon in Oman between 9 and 6
kyr ago. Nature 411, 290-293.


Nicholson, S.E. 2001 Climatic and environmental change in Africa during the last two
centuries. Climate Research 17, 123-144.


Ollier, C.D. 2007 Glaciers and ice sheets: modern problems and tectonic associations.
New Concepts in Global Tectonics Newsletter 42, 38-40.


Petit, J.R., Jouzel, J., Raynaud, D., Barkov, N.I., Barnola, J.-M., Basile, I., Bender, M.,
Chappellaz, J., Davis, M., Delaygue, G., Delmotte, M., Kotlyakov, V.M., Legrand, M.,
Lipenkov, V.Y., Lorius, C., Pepin, L., Ritz, C., Saltzman, E. & Stievenard, M. 1999
Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core,
Antarctica. Nature 399, 429-436.


Pielke, R.A., Landsea, C., Mayfield, M., Laver, J. & Pasch, R. 2005 Hurricanes and
global warming. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 86, 1571-1575.

Pielke, R.A., Gratz, J., Landsea, C.W., Collins, D., Saunders, M.A., & Musulin, R. 2007
Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1900-2005. Natural Hazards
Review, in press.


Pinker, R.T., Zhang, B. & Dutton, E.G. 2005 Do satellites detect trends in surface solar
radiation? Science 308, 850-854.


Przybylak, R. 2000 Temporal and spatial vatiation of surface air temperature over the
period of instrumental observations in the Arctic. International Journal of Climatology
20, 587-614.


Raicich, F. 2007 A study of early Trieste sea level data (1875-1914). Journal of Coastal
Research 23, 1067-1073.Reiter, P. 2000 From Shakespeare to Defoe: Malaria in England
in the Little Ice Age. Emerging Infectious Diseases 6, 1-11.


Robinson, A. R., Baliunas, S. L., Soon, W. & Robinson, Z. W. 1998 Environmental
Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm.


Saxe, H., Ellsworth, D. S. & Heath, J. 1998 Tree and forest functioning in an enriched
CO2 atmosphere. New Phytologist 139, 395-436.


Schwartz, S.E. 2007 Heat capacity, time constant, and sensitivity of Earth's climate
system. Journal of Geophysical Research, in press.


Shanks, G.D., Biomndo, K., Hay, S.I. & Snow, R.W. 2000 Changing patterns of clinical
malaria since 1965 among a tea estate population located in the Kenyan
highlands. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 94, 253-
255.


Shepherd, A. & Wingham, D. 2007 Recent sea-level contributions of the Antarctic and
Greenland ice sheets. Science 315, 1529-1532.


Singer, F. S. & Avery, T. A. 2006. Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.


Smith, D.M., Cusack, S., Colman, A.W., Folland, C.K., Harris, G.R. & Murphy, J.M.
2007 Improved surface temperature prediction for the coming decade from a global
climate model. Science 317, 796-799.


Solanki, S.K., Usoskin, I.G., Kromer, B., Schüssler, M. & Beer, J. 2005 Unusual activity
of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years. Nature 436,
174, doi: 10.1038/436174b.


Soon, W.W.-H. 2005 Variable solar irradiance as a plausible agent for multidecadal
variations in the Arctic-wide surface air temperature record of the past 130 years.
Geophysical Research Letters 32.