Denouncing the climate caper July 16, 2009
Posted by honestclimate in Discussions.Tags: climate change, Dr Garth Paltridge, global warming, The Climate Caper
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Denouncing the climate caper
By Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 09:14am
Climatologist Dr Garth Paltridge has finally had enough of the hysteria, hype and witchhunting that’s fed the great global warming scare. Out today is his new book, The Climate Caper:
(Patridge) discusses how and why climate scientists have vastly overstated the case for disastrous global warming.
Among other things he explains why forecasts of a much dryer Australia in the future – forecasts which were the basis of the Garnaut economic recommendations which led in turn to the Emissions Trading Scheme now before parliament – are probably nonsense….
He says of climate change research: “The whole business has hardened over the last couple of decades into a semi-religious crusade in which climate scientists have developed an arrogance about their aims and activity which brooks no argument either with their interpretation of the science or with the way the science is used.”…
Much of the book is devoted to examples and discussion of how ‘the system’ keeps scientific scepticism about forecasts of climatic doom from public view. As for the rest of us, the attitude of a climate scientist can be coloured by politically correct ideas, by a need to be associated with a ‘cause’, by loyalty to colleagues and by the rise of excessive research competition. These are all powerful forces which amplify a real fear within the research community that an expression of scepticism about the current wisdom on global warming can be disastrous to one’s career.
(No link to the Connor Court press release.)
Paltridge is a critic not easily dismissed by our leading promoters of apocalyptic warming, such as mammal expert Tim Flannery, singer Peter Garrett, general practitioner Bob Brown, economist Ross Garnaut, ex diplomat Kevin Rudd and former politican Al Gore, none of whom have any of his expertise in climate science:
Dr Paltridge was a Chief Research Scientist with CSIRO and is a Fellow of the Academy of Science. His is a specialist in atmospheric physics and climatology. He took part in the establishment of the World Climate Program in the mid-1970’s, and was with the US National Climate Office during 1989 at the time of the emergence of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For ten years he was CEO of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre studying the role of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in climate. He is currently an Emeritus Professor at the University of Tasmania.
But what would he know, right?
Some Documented Solar Influences on Weather July 15, 2009
Posted by honestclimate in Discussions.Tags: climate change, global warming, solar, sun, sunspots
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Some Documented Solar Influences on Weather
By Joseph D’Aleo, AMS Fellow, CCM
Via ICECAP, Jul 14, 2009
In a number of posts this last year, we have addressed the unusually long and quiet solar cycles. A few weeks back, we noted the sunspot minimum seemed at hand as the month of June started with a series of cycle 24 sunspots and it appeared we would exceed the monthly sunspot number of 3.3 necessary to make the sunspot minimum (the lowest value in 13 month average) November 2008.
Well June despite numerous other small microdots characteristic of this cycle ended up with a monthly average of 2.6 which allowed December to drop from the 1.8 to 1.7 making December the earliest candidate for solar minimum. July would have to average below 3.5 in order for the minimum to move to January. It is unlikely to move to February as the month August would have to average below 0.5, the number in the month it will replace.
December had a 13 month average sunspot number of 1.7. Only three minima since 1750 had official minima below 1.7 (1913 1.5, 1810 0, 1823 0.1). Of course modern measurement technologies are better than older technologies so there is some uncertainty as to whether microdots back then would have been seen.
In a post Mt, Redoubt, a Quiet Sun and Your Morning Coffee, we showed how the solar cycle seems to have an influence on world production and spot market prices of coffee likely by influencing weather in the tropical growing areas. This year it may be enhanced by a developing El Nino which has similar results (all three favor an erratic monsoon season). Of course, the clueless Heidi Cullen no longer with The Weather Channel has already blamed that on global warming. We (WSI) have forecast that monsoon disruption for our ag clients since April with affects on coffee, rice, and cotton.
SOME OTHER INFLUENCES
ARGENTINA DROUGHT
Lower solar activity has a significant correlation with drought in Argentina. The last two years have seen a devastating drought in that country with major impact on winter wheat, corn and beans. This year’s drought is expected to produce lowest winter wheat yields in two decades. You can see the drought reflected in the satellite derived vegetation index (NDVI) (Source USDA Spot NDVI) which is a measure of the health of vegetation. The recent NDVI for South America is shown below. Note how the drought has extended into southern Brazil at times (Rio Grande do Sul) although recent rains have helped recharge soil moisture there. You can compare the NDVI with the correlation of precipitation rate with solar flux (Source NOAA CDC).
Larger table here.
Larger image here.
SOUTH AFRICAN RAINFALL
Hydrologist Dr. Will Alexander found in a multi-author study in the Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering, a strong correlation of rainfall and river flow in the Vaal River. He showed a deficit in the three years leading up the minimum and heavy rainfall in the three years following.
Larger table here.
In all but one sequence (Vaal River 1965/66, data not available), the three-year totals after the minima of both river flow and sunspot numbers, are substantially greater than the three-year totals before the minima. This information demonstrates the close association between major variations in river flow and corresponding variations in sunspot activity, with a high degree of confidence.
There are several interesting features in this table. There is an almost three-fold, sudden increase in the annual flows in the Vaal River from the three previous years to the three subsequent years. This is directly associated with a six-fold increase in sunspot numbers. The second important point is the consistency in the range of sunspot numbers before and after the reversal. The totals for the three prior years varied between 25 and 60, and the totals of the three immediately subsequent years varied between 250 and 400. It is very clear that these are systematic changes associated with the sunspot minima, and are not random events. (Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering – Volume 49 Number 2 June 2007)
Given this study, one should expect the upcoming three years to be wet as we come off the protracted minimum although perhaps not as wet as some periods if the upcoming cycle is a dud. See much more with correlations with the upper atmosphere and with high latitude blocking (the arctic oscillation has been the lowest of the recent record for the June to mid-July period) in the full post here. Next week’s post is on the El Nino, now official (preview here).
The cool weather has even had an effect on potato and tomato gardens from Ohio to New England.
Mystery mechanism drove global warming 55 million years ago July 14, 2009
Posted by honestclimate in Discussions.Tags: climate change, global warming
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Mystery mechanism drove global warming 55 million years ago
Yahoo News
July 13, 2009
PARIS (AFP) – A runaway spurt of global warming 55 million years ago turned Earth into a hothouse but how this happened remains worryingly unclear, scientists said on Monday.
Previous research into this period, called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, estimates the planet’s surface temperature blasted upwards by between five and nine degrees Celsius (nine and 16.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in just a few thousand years.
The Arctic Ocean warmed to 23 C (73 F), or about the temperature of a lukewarm bath.
How PETM happened is unclear but climatologists are eager to find out, as this could shed light on aspects of global warming today.
What seems clear is that a huge amount of heat-trapping “greenhouse” gases — natural, as opposed to man-made — were disgorged in a very short time.
The theorised sources include volcanic activity and the sudden release of methane hydrates in the ocean.
A trio of Earth scientists, led by Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawaii, try to account for the carbon that was spewed out during PETM.
They believe that levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) rose by 70 percent during PETM’s main phase to reach 1,700 parts per million (ppm), attaining a concentration of between four and five times that of today.
But all this CO2 can only account for between one and 3.5 C (1.8-6.3 F) of PETM’s warming if the models for climate sensitivity are right, the team found.
There must have been some other factor that stoked temperatures higher.
Even though there are big differences between Earth’s geology and ice cover then and now, the findings are relevant as they highlight the risk of hidden mechanisms that add dramatically to warming, says the paper.
Some of these so-called “positive feedbacks” are already known.
For instance, when a patch of Arctic sea ice melts, this exposes the uncovered sea to sunlight, depriving it of a bright, reflective layer.
That causes the sea to warm, which leads to the loss of more ice, which in turn helps the sea to warm, and so on.
But these “feedbacks” are poorly understood and some scientists believe there could be others still to be identified.
“Our results imply a fundamental gap in our understanding about the amplitude of global warming associated with large and abrupt climate perturbations,” warns Zeebe’s team.
“This gap needs to be filled to confidently predict future climate change.”
After the big warm-up, the planet eventually cooled around 100,000 years later, but not before there had been a mass extinction, paving the way to the biodiversity that is familiar to us today.
Man-made global warming, driven mainly by the burning of oil, gas and coal, has amounted to around 0.8 C (1.12 F) over the past century.
Last week in L’Aquila, Italy, the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised countries and other economies that together account for 80 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions pledged to try to limit overall warming to 2 C (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times.
Explain this, Mr Gore July 14, 2009
Posted by honestclimate in Discussions.Tags: al gore, climate change, global warming
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Explain this, Mr Gore
By Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
July 14, 2009
Will Al Gore be up to the challenge?
THIS is the chart climate change sceptic Senator Steve Fielding hopes will convince Al Gore that global warming is not real.
Senator Fielding is trying to score a one-on-one meeting with Mr Gore, who is in Australia promoting several environmental causes, to prove to him that climate change sceptics are right.
Senator Fielding has promised to clear his schedule for any chance to meet the former US vice-president and Nobel Prize-winning environmental campaigner.
I’m betting that Gore, who already avoids taking questions at his well-paid speeches, will find his schedule too full for Fielding.
UPDATE
Normally the demonstrations over global warming are dominated by people in panda suits or waving the green triangle of the Greens. So I guess Gore was surprised yesterday to instead see this outside the venue for his talk:
Dear MP: explain or abstain July 13, 2009
Posted by honestclimate in Discussions.Tags: climate change, global warming, penny wong
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Dear MP: explain or abstain
By Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun, Monday, July 13, 09
If our politicians can’t explain this graph, how can they vote for Kevin Rudd’s ruinous plan to slash emissions?
Family First Senator Steve Fielding has now sent all Senators the graph, which shows the world cooling over the past eight years despite a rise in the emissions we’re told are warming the world to hell. And he’s challenged them as he challenged hapless Climate Minister Penny Wong
This runs counter to the assumption underpinning the CPRS which says that increasing carbon dioxide emissions are the leading cause of global warming. Given the Rudd Government has failed to explain this obvious contradiction I can’t understand how any member of the Australian parliament can vote for an emissions trading scheme.
Aussie Aussie Aussie CRAP CRAP CRAP July 12, 2009
Posted by honestclimate in Discussions.Tags: al gore, Carbon Really Aint Pollution, climate change, CRAP, global warming
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Aussie Aussie Aussie CRAP CRAP CRAP*
On Monday July 13, 2009, the world’s top “climate scientist” and Nobel Prize winner, Mr Al Gore will be jetting into Melbourne to launch Safe Climate Australia, hosted by VicSuper.
It’s not every superannuation fund boss who can persuade environmental activist Al Gore to come to Melbourne but Bob Welsh, chief executive of the $6 billion VicSuper fund, can — partly because he is one of the biggest local investors in Generation Investment Management, the London-based fund manager that Mr Gore chairs.
For those of you who know that man-made climate change is BS (Bad Science), you have the opportunity to join a protest at this event, organised by The Climate Sceptics, Please bring a placard. Try to be humourous as well as educational. T shirts saying “Global warming? CRAP Carbon Really Aint Pollution” will be available to buy & wear.
More details here.
*CRAP = Carbon Really Aint Pollution
The G-8 Economic Suicide Pact July 11, 2009
Posted by honestclimate in Discussions.Tags: climate change, G-8, global warming
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The G-8 Economic Suicide Pact
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY, July 09, 2009
Climate Change: Channeling King Canute, G-8 leaders agree to wreck the world’s economy, and ours, by pledging to prevent temperatures from rising more than 4 degrees by 2050. What if the Earth has other plans?
Canute was the legendary king whose sycophantic followers praised his power and wisdom. He was The One of his time. He once stood on the shore and commanded the waves to halt. As the story goes, he was exercising his ego when in fact he was giving his followers a dose of reality — the power of man over nature is finite and inconsequential.
We were reminded of this as members of the G-8 met in Italy on Wednesday to agree in principle to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050. The aim is to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012. In December, the U.N. is convening a meeting in Copenhagen to forge a binding consensus on reduction targets.
The announced goal, which President Obama has signed on to, is to keep the earth’s average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). That should not be a problem. While the warm-mongers tout 1998 as a record warm year, no year since has been as warm as the earth has, in fact, cooled during an unusually quiet solar cycle.
Last August was the first month in nearly a century in which the sun was completely devoid of sunspots, an indicator of solar activity. While the earth’s temperature charts nicely with the solar cycles over time, it correlates not at all with rising CO2 levels. In fact, the earth has been cooling even as these levels rise, and the earth is no warmer than it was in 1979.
Since Al Gore released his feature-length cartoon “An Inconvenient Truth” in October 2006, the Earth has cooled about 0.74 F, almost the same amount that the U.N.’s climate panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claims was gained in the entire 20th century.
Read the rest here
Meet the man who has exposed the great climate change con trick July 10, 2009
Posted by honestclimate in Discussions.Tags: climate change, global warming, Heaven and Earth, Professor Ian Plimer
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Meet the man who has exposed the great climate change con trick
By James Delingpole
The Spectator, 8th July 2009
James Delingpole talks to Professor Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist, whose new book shows that ‘anthropogenic global warming’ is a dangerous, ruinously expensive fiction, a ‘first-world luxury’ with no basis in scientific fact. Shame on the publishers who rejected the book
Imagine how wonderful the world would be if man-made global warming were just a figment of Al Gore’s imagination. No more ugly wind farms to darken our sunlit uplands. No more whopping electricity bills, artificially inflated by EU-imposed carbon taxes. No longer any need to treat each warm, sunny day as though it were some terrible harbinger of ecological doom. And definitely no need for the $7.4 trillion cap and trade (carbon-trading) bill — the largest tax in American history — which President Obama and his cohorts are so assiduously trying to impose on the US economy.
Imagine no more, for your fairy godmother is here. His name is Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at Adelaide University, and he has recently published the landmark book Heaven And Earth, which is going to change forever the way we think about climate change.
‘The hypothesis that human activity can create global warming is extraordinary because it is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology,’ says Plimer, and while his thesis is not new, you’re unlikely to have heard it expressed with quite such vigour, certitude or wide-ranging scientific authority. Where fellow sceptics like Bjorn Lomborg or Lord Lawson of Blaby are prepared cautiously to endorse the International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) more modest predictions, Plimer will cede no ground whatsoever. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory, he argues, is the biggest, most dangerous and ruinously expensive con trick in history.
To find out why, let’s meet the good professor. He’s a tanned, rugged, white-haired sixtysomething — courteous and jolly but combative when he needs to be — glowing with the health of a man who spends half his life on field expeditions to Iran, Turkey and his beloved Outback. And he’s sitting in my garden drinking tea on exactly the kind of day the likes of the Guardian’s George Monbiot would probably like to ban. A lovely warm sunny one.
Read the rest here
Hysteria is the real threat, not global warming July 9, 2009
Posted by honestclimate in Discussions.Tags: climate change, global warming, Professor Ian Plimer
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Hysteria is the real threat, not global warming
By Andrew Alexander
The Daily Mail, July 9, 2009
With Tony Blair launching his own plan to save the world (groans), and the G8 leaders also unveiling their thoughts about global warming, this is a big week for environmental fanaticism.
Whatever he or they offer, it will not be enough to quell the warmists’ semi-religious fervour.
They are like medieval preachers, proclaiming to baying crowds that the end of the word is nigh.
Well, is it? There are two separate climate issues – the extent of global warming and the role that humanity plays in it.
Some facts help. The famous 1996 report by the International Panel on Climate Change predicted serious global warming and blamed mankind.
But, since then, the world has disobligingly stopped warming. And two years of global cooling erased nearly 30 years of recorded temperature rises.
What was the worrying rise in temperature – so exciting for those whose computer models used the past to predict a grim future?
Given the margin of error associated with the old-style thermometers which were, until only recently, used to record temperatures, it should be stated thus: over the past 100 years, temperature has risen by 0.7C – plus or minus 1.3 degrees!
The only importance the serious scientists can attach to such a figure is that less serious people think it meaningful.
My own science teacher would have kept me in after school for saying this was a valuable figure.
But, as you will have noticed, it worked. The catastrophists piled in – some of whom had previously flourished warnings about global cooling. For some, any figure will do, especially when it gives them a media profile (and grants for research)
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The Skeptics Handbook July 8, 2009
Posted by honestclimate in Discussions.Tags: climate change, global warming, Skeptics Handbook
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The Skeptics Handbook
Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun, July 08, 2009
Perth-based science communicator Joanne Nova has published a sensational Skeptics Handbook, already translated into German, French and Norwegian.
It crisply summarises the biggest weaknesses in the arguments that man is heating the world to hell, and suggests the best ways to argue against alarmists. Please circulate widely.
An Honest Climate Debate 