"Climate Corrections"

Wall Street Journal article here.

An excerpt:

...There's a lot less to that "scientific consensus" than meets the eye.

When millennial climate change patterns are mentioned, many people point to the "2,500 scientists from 130 countries" who have agreed that global warming is caused by the greenhouse effect. Yet not even the International Panel of Climate Change to which these people refer presents definitive scientific proof that the present warming is mostly caused by the greenhouse effect. It is simply an assumption that has morphed into a fact.

Since the physics behind CO2's greenhouse effect has long been well known, the IPCC made the assumption that post-1900 warming was caused by it. They assembled a large number of scientists, mostly meteorologists and physicists (but, interestingly, not many climatologists), and tried to prove their hypothesis using supercomputer models. They have continued to work in this way despite important new evidence from ice-core data showing that temperature rises tend to precede CO2 increases by about 1,000 years. With all of the media attention that this assumption now enjoys, natural temperature changes have been mostly forgotten. Yet in reality they persist; they're simply not being studied. This is the single greatest failing of the IPCC.

About the author:

Mr. Akasofu is the former director of the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska. This essay is adapted from an article appearing in the Sept. 2007 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review.

The 'Old' Consensus?

Here.

An excerpt:

On July 9, 1971, the Post published a story headlined "U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming." It told of a prediction by NASA and Columbia University scientist S.I. Rasool. The culprit: man's use of fossil fuels.

The Post reported that Rasool, writing in Science, argued that in "the next 50 years" fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun's rays that the Earth's average temperature could fall by six degrees.

Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, Rasool claimed, "could be sufficient to trigger an ice age."

Aiding Rasool's research, the Post reported, was a "computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen," who was, according to his resume, a Columbia University research associate at the time.

So what about those greenhouse gases that man pumps into the skies? Weren't they worried about them causing a greenhouse effect that would heat the planet, as Hansen, Al Gore and a host of others so fervently believe today?

"They found no need to worry about the carbon dioxide fuel-burning puts in the atmosphere," the Post said in the story, which was spotted last week by Washington resident John Lockwood, who was doing research at the Library of Congress and alerted the Washington Times to his finding.

Please read the whole thing.

Study Says Bones Found in Far East Are of a Distinct Species

Regarding this New York Times article, a reader writes:

Bottom line: If new species, $$$$$. If not, ho-hum, back to the usual routine.

Seriously misinforming the public

Last May, this appeared in the New York Times:

When people worry about the effects of global warming, they worry more about hurricanes than anything else . In surveys, almost three-quarters of Americans say there will be more and stronger hurricanes in a warming world. By contrast, fewer than one-quarter worry about increased coastal flooding.

People who watched "An Inconvenient Truth" are led to believe that a scientific "consensus" supports that fear.



But check this out:

A leading expert in the field of tropical storms and hurricanes has withdrawn from participation in the writing of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (due out in late 2007), citing concerns that the IPCC has become too politicized, and “motivated by pre-conceived agendas.”

Dr. Christopher Landsea, from the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, has withdrawn from authorship of the Fourth Assessment Report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a compendium due to be published in 2007. Landsea, author of over 40 refereed scientific publications over the past 12 years on hurricanes and other tropical storm systems has been a contributing author in the last two IPCC Assessments, primarily responsible for the sections describing the past, present, and future behavior of tropical cyclones.

In a ‘Open Letter’ to his colleagues, Landsea announced and justified his decision.

An excerpt from his 'Open Letter' (found at the link above):

...All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.

Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supported by the most recent credible studies that any impact in the future from global warming upon hurricane will likely be quite small. The latest results from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Knutson and Tuleya, Journal of Climate, 2004) suggest that by around 2080, hurricanes may have winds and rainfall about 5% more intense than today. It has been proposed that even this tiny change may be an exaggeration as to what may happen by the end of the 21st Century (Michaels, Knappenberger, and Landsea, Journal of Climate, 2005, submitted).

A professor's last lecture

Here.

F-16 Bird Strike Video

Here.

Issues with weather stations

A little background reading is here and here.

An excerpt from that first link:

The preliminary results show Watts and his volunteers have surveyed about a quarter of the 1,221 stations making up the U.S. Historical Climatology Network. Of those, more than half appear to fall short of federal guidelines for optimum placement.

Some examples include weather stations placed near sewage treatment plants, parking lots, and near cars, buildings and air-conditioners — all artificial heat sources which could affect temperature records.

An excerpt from that second link:

Now I know there will be the usual critics who will jump in and say "This can be adjusted for!". Ok here is your chance, show me the equations to untangle Titusville's temperature record from microsite bias. Personally, it looks FUBAR to me.

The view from 1974

Here.

An excerpt:

Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F.

Remember, from the 1940s to 1974, a whole lot of fossil fuel was burned, and CO2 levels continued to rise.

If CO2 is such a powerful driver of global warming, why did we observe this decades-long period of significant global cooling?

Fishcrow again

Check out the 9/19/07 entry here.

Take the Global Warming Test

Here.

You may still believe that scientists skeptical of catastrophic AGW hype have evil financial motivations.

I think they're skeptical largely because they're working with better information than you are generally getting from the mainstream media.

If you are at all interested in the global warming debate, I think it's in your own best interest to take the above test and to carefully examine the accompanying facts.

If you've got basic math and logic skills, I think you'll see that there are some very sound reasons for skepticism about the catastrophic hype.

(I scored 10 of 10 on this test).

"...out on a costly limb"

IBWO story here.

Harrison dropped from the Eagle Optics site?

This Eagle Optics link no longer works.

An old excerpt from that page:

Eagle Optics is proud to announce sponsorship of Bobby Harrison’s search to capture the ultimate footage of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker — focusing on the Big Woods of Arkansas. Eagle Optics is also proud to bring you exclusive updates about his search on our website.

More from Bobby Harrison

1. Jerome Jackson will evidently be the keynote speaker at Harrison's next IBWO Foundation Gala (Feb '08).

2. Regarding the official IBWO Recovery Plan, Harrison's site says:

Here's where you post your pleasure with 27 million dollars being spent on the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. Send your letter to this address:...

"Ex-Judge Consults Wee Friends"

Wall Street Journal article here.

Some related text from the WSJ:

In the Philippines, a judge was fired last year after stating he sought the counsel of elves only he could see. The ex-judge is now a celebrity and is seeking the return of his job and vengeance on the Supreme Court -- allegedly with the elves' help.

Are polar bears really doomed?

Here.

An excerpt:

The Government of Nunavut is conducting a study of the Davis Strait bear population. Results of the study won't be released until 2008, but Taylor says it appears there are some 3,000 bears in an area - a big jump from the current estimate of about 850 bears.

"That's not theory. That's not based on a model. That's observation of reality," he says.

And despite the fact that some of the most dramatic changes to sea ice is seen in seasonal ice areas such as Davis Strait, seven or eight of the bears measured and weighed for the study this summer are among the biggest on record, Taylor said.

Yet anecdotes abound of skinny polar bears wandering from their traditional hunting grounds in search of food - such as an email circulated recently with a photo of a gaunt bear with skin hanging off its bones, spotted 160 kilometres inland from Ungava Bay.

Taylor bristles at that photo's mention. He says the bear is clearly an elderly male in its late 20s, rather than a young female, as it has been otherwise identified.

"It probably wandered out there to end its life in peace," he said. "That's nature. It's not climate change."

Jeff Bahls to speak

An excerpt from this page:

The public is invited to attend the meeting on Thursday, Sept. 20, of the Horicon Marsh Bird Club.

Club President Jeff Bahls will be speaking at 7 p.m. about his experiences in searching for the ivory-billed woodpecker.

The meeting will be held at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Visitors Center, W4279 Headquarters Road, Mayville.

The facility is located three miles south of Highway 49 on County Trunk Z.

Believed to be extinct for 60 years, the ivory-billed woodpecker made news when credible sightings and recordings were made in Arkansas in 2004.

In February of this year, Bahls was chosen from a nationwide selection process to help with the search for the elusive bird.