Gore refuses to debate global warming

Chicago Sun-Times article here.

Lindzen in Outside magazine

MIT climatologist Richard Lindzen is featured in an Outside magazine article here.

The closing paragraph:

"My best guess is, 20 years from now it will be accepted that global warming is not an issue, and everybody will claim they knew it all along," he [Lindzen] says, adding that he's not holding out hope of being recognized for his work by future generations. "Chances are, 20 years from now I'll be dead," he jokes, "and someone else will want to take credit."

Another quote from Lindzen is here:

...future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age.

Costs and benefits of Kyoto

Here.

An excerpt:

Abstract: The main point of this article is to say a few words supporting the number 150 billion dollars a year for the Kyoto protocol (Nicholas Stern wants much more, about 400 billion dollars a year, 1% of GDP) for the expected negligible 0.07 Celsius degree decrease of temperature in the next 50 years, both used in the Kyoto counter in the sidebar.

A quote from this piece:

A climate simulation including the effect of the as yet unimplemented Kyoto Protocol, negotiated in 1997 and calling for a world-wide 5 per cent cut in carbon dioxide emissions from 1990 levels, would reduce that increase approximately to 0.94°C - an insignificant 0.06°C averted temperature increase.

The piece includes this graph:


Speaking of Kyoto, note this 1997 quote by Al Gore:

We will not submit this [Kyoto Protocol] for ratification until there's meaningful participation by key developing nations.

Check out the video here.

Regarding U.S. energy use and carbon dioxide emissions, note this graph:



One excerpt from the link above:

As an interesting side note, the US per capita CO2 emissions, as show [above], have actually been flat to down since the early 1970’s. To the extent that Europe is doing better at CO2 reduction than the US, it may actually be more of an artifact of their declining populations vs. America’s continued growth.

Also note this excerpt from the link above:

By the way, the US is generally the great Satan in AGW circles because its per capita CO2 production is the highest in the world. But this is in part because our economic output per capita is close to the highest in the world. The US is about in the middle of the pack in efficiency, though behind many European countries which have much higher fuel taxes and heavier nuclear investments.

NPR Kids' Connection page on the IBWO "rediscovery"

Here.

An excerpt:

...But there was no mistaking this rara avis; Gallagher says it flew so close it could have flapped him in the face (in fact, he says, it was about 70 feet away). He didn’t get any pictures of it, but a member of a later search group caught a few seconds of video of an ivory-bill on his digital camera, proof positive that the pied pecker really exists.

Estimating current IBWO population numbers

Excerpt from this post:

...Taking into account the state of the forest I have personally seen on public and private land, I would guess there may be as many as 20 breeding pairs in the state and maybe a total population of 50 to 75 birds in South Carolina. If the same estimate were true throughout the range of the IBWO, I would guess there might be something in the range of 250 to 750 birds extant (there might be many, many more if most of the Mississippi River bottoms had not been converted to soybean fields and catfish ponds).

Jackson/Harrison at Ding Darling

Excerpt from this link:

Dr. Jerry Jackson, professor of "The Wild Things" on WGCU public radio and the world's foremost authority on ivory-billed woodpeckers, will lecture on reported sightings of the IBW in Arkansas and Florida with Bobby Harrison (adult admission $15). Harrison, the noted wildlife photographer who claims to have seen an ivory-bill in Arkansas, also will conduct two photo workshops on Wildlife Drive for students who pay a $100 tuition fee.

"It is possible that ivory-bills exist. I maintain that hope," Jackson told The News-Press.

"We can prove that they exist. But thus far we haven't been able to provide that proof."

Is global warming the new Sputnik?

Here.

Excerpts:

Most Russian scientists don't believe the global warming orthodoxy...Yuri Izrael, the boss of Russian climatologists and ecologists, agrees that climate change is not necessarily man-made and it is not a global threat.

An excerpt from that post's comment section:

...And as painful as it is to say this, I have to agree that the Russian and Chinese climate science is probably higher quality than what we have in the west, just because they don't have that corrupting influence...

“The Weather Channel” Mess

An excerpt from this post:

Well, well. Some “climate expert” on “The Weather Channel” wants to take away AMS certification from those of us who believe the recent “global warming” is a natural process. So much for “tolerance”, huh?

I have been in operational meteorology since 1978, and I know dozens and dozens of broadcast meteorologists all over the country. Our big job: look at a large volume of raw data and come up with a public weather forecast for the next seven days. I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can’t find them...

"Recent Rapid Decline in (Northern) Sea Ice caused by Unusual Winds, says NASA"

Here.

Again, one major problem with "consensus" global climate models is that there has been no warming measured at the South Pole for 50 years.

An excerpt from Steve McIntyre is here:

As I’ve discussed elsewhere (and readers have observed), IPCC AR4 has some glossy figures showing the wonders of GCMs for 6 continents, which sounds impressive until you wonder - well, wait a minute, isn’t Antarctica a continent too? And, given the theory of “polar amplification”, it should really be the first place that one looks for confirmation that the GCMs are doing a good job. Unfortunately IPCC AR4 didn’t include Antarctica in their graphics. I’m sure that it was only because they only had 2000 or so pages available to them and there wasn’t enough space for this information.

Update: A related excerpt from here:

One of my favorite topics in climate discussion is "what is normal?" We have observed climate really intensely for maybe 30 years, and with any kind of reliable measurements for no more than about a hundred years. So given that climate moves in hundred thousand and million year cycles, how can we be sure our reference point, given 30 years of observation, is really "normal." One funny aspect of this is how often the headline has been flashed over the last few weeks that Arctic ice is at an "all-time" low. Really? You mean the lowest it has been in the 6 billion year history of earth? Well, no, just the lowest since 1979 when we started measuring by [satellite]. (For those without a calculator, "since 1979" is really only 0.0000005% of "all-time.")

Another claimed Ivory-bill sighting

An excerpt from this article on artist David Everett:

When the artist starts to speak about his relationship with nature, his eyes light up. "Having grown up on the Southeast Texas Gulf Coast, you saw incredibly complex natural imagery ... pelicans, spoonbills, skimmers, all the seabirds; you had to know about them and of course you had to watch out for the alligators," he says. As a child he had a rare sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker: "My grandfather pulled me aside and told me, 'You need to look at this; this is a big deal.' ... The thing was about as big as a goose."

According to his biography here, Everett was born in 1950.

Update from Hill

Here.

Yet another reason that climate change may be more complicated than you think

An article on the Asian Brown Cloud is here.

An excerpt:

This phenomenon also might help explain why carbon dioxide emissions and global temperatures don't track very well, if at all.

Partial list of scientists opposing the alleged catastrophic climate consensus

Here:

Arthur B. Robinson, Ph.D. Chemistry, University of California, San Diego, USA
Arthur Rorsch, Ph.D. Emeritus Professor of Molecular Genetics, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Ben Herman, Ph.D. Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona, USA
Benny Peiser, Ph.D. Professor of Social Anthropology, Liverpool John Moores University, UK
Bjørn Lomborg, Ph.D. Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Chris de Freitas, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Geography and Environmental Science, University of Auckland, Australia
Claude Allegre, Ph.D. Physics, University of Paris, France
Christopher Essex, Ph.D. Applied Mathematics Professor, University of Western Ontario, Canada
Christopher Landsea, Ph.D. Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, USA
Craig D. Idso, M.S. Agronomy, Ph.D. Geography, Arizona State University, USA
David Deming, B.S. Geology, Ph.D. Geophysics, University of Utah, USA
David Evans, B.Sc. Applied Mathematics and Physics, M.S. Statistics, Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, Stanford, USA
David J. Bellamy, B.Sc. Botany, Ph.D. Ecology, Durham University, UK
David R. Legates, Ph.D. Climatology, University of Delaware, USA
Dennis Avery, M.S. Agricultural Economics, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Dennis P. Lettenmaier, Ph.D. Professor of Hydrology, University of Washington, USA
Douglas Leahey, Meteorologist, Calgary, Canada
Douglas V. Hoyt, Solar Physicist and Climatologist, Retired, Raytheon, USA
Frederick Seitz, Ph.D. Physics, Princeton University, USA
Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus, Physics, Princeton, USA
Gary D. Sharp, Ph.D. Marine Biology, University of California, USA
Gary Novak, M.S. Microbiology, USA
George H. Taylor, M.S. Meteorology, University of Utah, USA
George V. Chilingarian, Ph.D. Geology, University of Southern California, USA
Habibullo Abdussamatov, Ph.D. Astrophysicist, The University of Leningrad, Russia
Henrik Svensmark, Solar System Physics, Danish National Space Center, Denmark
Howard Hayden, Ph.D. Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Connecticut, USA
Hugh W. Ellsaesser, Ph.D. Meteorology, Formerly with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA
Ian D. Clark, Professor Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, Canada
Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology, University of Adelaide, Australia
Jack Barrett, Ph.D. Physical Chemistry, Manchester, UK
James O’Brien, Ph.D. Meteorology, Texas A&M University, USA
James Spann, AMS Certified Meteorologist, USA
Ján Veizer, Professor Emeritus Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, Canada
John J. Ray, Ph.D. Psychology, Macquarie University, Mensa, Sydney, Australia
John R. Christy, Ph.D. Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois, USA
Joseph Conklin, M.S. Meteorology, Rutgers University, USA
Joseph D’Aleo, M.S. Meteorology, University of Wisconsin, USA
Keith D. Hage, Ph.D. Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, University of Alberta, Canada
Luboš Motl, Ph.D. Theoretical Physicist, Harvard, USA
Madhav Khandekar, Ph.D. Meteorology, Florida State University, USA
Marcel Leroux, Professor Emeritus, Climatology, University of Lyon, France
Marlo Lewis, B.A. Political Science, Ph.D. Government, Claremont McKenna College, USA
Mel Goldstein, Ph.D. Meteorology NYU, USA
Michael Crichton, A.B. (summa cum laude) Anthropology, M.D. Harvard, USA
Michael Savage, B.S. Biology, M.S. Anthropology, M.S. Ethnobotany, Ph.D. Nutritional Ethnomedicine, USA
Nir J. Shaviv, Ph.D. Astrophysicist, Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D. Ecological Climatology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Patrick Moore, B.Sc. Forest Biology, Ph.D. Ecology, University of British Columbia, Canada
Petr Chylek, Ph.D. Physics, University of California, USA
Philip Stott, Professor Emeritus, Department of Biogeography, University of London, UK
Randall Cerveny, Ph.D. Geography, University of Nebraska, USA
Reid A. Bryson, B.A. Geology, Ph.D. Meteorology, University of Chicago, USA
Richard C. Willson, Ph.D. Atmospheric Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, USA
Richard S. Courtney, Ph.D. Geography, The Ohio State University, USA
Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT, USA
Roger A. Pielke, Ph.D. Meteorology, Penn State, USA
Robert C. Balling, Ph.D. Geography, University of Oklahoma, USA
Robert Giegengack, Ph.D. Geology, Yale, USA
Robert H. Essenhigh, M.S. Natural Sciences, Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, University of Sheffield, UK
Robert Johnston, M.S. Physics, B.A. Astronomy, USA
Robert M. Carter, B.Sc. (Hons) Geology, Ph.D. Paleontology, University of Cambridge, Australia
Ross McKitrick, Ph.D. Economics, University of British Columbia, Canada
Roy Spencer, Ph.D. Meteorology, University of Wisconsin, USA
S. Fred Singer, Ph.D. Physics, Princeton University, USA
Sallie Baliunas, Ph.D. Astrophysics, Harvard, USA
Sherwood B. Idso, Ph.D. Soil Science, University of Minnesota, USA
Simon C. Brassell, B.Sc. Chemistry & Geology, Ph.D. Organic Geochemistry, University of Bristol, UK
Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, Ph.D. Department of Geography, University of Hull, UK
Steve Milloy, B.A. Natural Sciences, M.S. Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, USA
Stephen McIntyre, B.Sc. Mathematics, University of Toronto, Canada
Syun-Ichi Akasofu, Ph.D. Founding Director International Arctic Research Center, USA
Tad S. Murty, Ph.D. Oceanography and Meteorology, University of Chicago, USA
Thomas A. Birkland, Ph.D. Political Science, University of Washington, USA
Thomas Gale Moore, Ph.D. Economics, University of Chicago, USA
Tim Patterson, Ph.D. Professor of Geology, Carleton University, Canada
Timothy F. Ball, Ph.D. Geography, Historical Climatology, University of London, UK
Vaclav Klaus, app. Ph.D. Economics, University of Economics, Prague, Czechoslovakia
Vincent Gray, Ph.D. Physical Chemistry, Cambridge University, UK
Wibjorn Karlen, Ph.D, Emeritus Professor of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden
William Cotton, M.S. Atmospheric Science, Ph.D. Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University, USA
William J.R. Alexander, Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa
William M. Gray, M.S. Meteorology, Ph.D. Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, USA
Willie Soon, Ph.D. Astrophysics, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, USA
Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D. Ph.D. D.Sc., Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Poland

According to the link above, scientists on the other side of the debate include:

Gavin Schmidt, Ph.D. Applied Mathematics (RealClimate.org)
James Hansen, Ph.D. Physics (NASA)
Lonnie Thompson, Ph.D. Geological Sciences
Michael Mann, Ph.D. Geology & Geophysics (RealClimate.org)
Richard C. J. Somerville, Ph.D. Meterology
Bill Nye, B.S. Mechanical Engineering (Bill Nye the Science Guy)

Believers exchanging some ideas

Thread here.

Update: You might particularly enjoy this post.

No climate "consensus" within the IPCC

If you're still under the impression that recent IPCC reports represent a clear "climate consensus" by thousands of scientists, you really should spend some time reading the IPCC comment documents available here.

I've spent a short time reading the comments, and it's been very interesting to get a better look at how the IPCC works internally. It's clear that IPCC reviewers provided plenty of specific opposition to the alleged climate consensus.

Here's one comment from this link:

There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn't the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community - instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda. Attribution can not happen until understanding has been clearly demonstrated. Once the facts of climate change have been established and understood, attribution will become self-evident to all. The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted.
[Andrew Lacis]

Some background on Andrew Lacis is here.

A related excerpt from this link:

In “Peer Review? What Peer Review?” McLean writes, “The IPCC would have us believe that its reports are diligently reviewed by many hundreds of scientists and that these reviewers endorse the contents of the report. Analyses of reviewer comments show a very different and disturbing story.”

In Chapter 9, the key science chapter, the IPCC concludes that "it is very highly likely that greenhouse gas forcing has been the dominant cause of the observed global warming over the last 50 years". The IPCC leads us to believe that this statement is very much supported by the majority of reviewers. The reality is that there is surprisingly little explicit support for this key notion. Among the 23 independent reviewers just 4 explicitly endorsed the chapter with its hypothesis, and one other endorsed only a specific section.

Moreover, only 62 of the IPCC’s 308 reviewers commented on this chapter at all. As with other chapters, simple corrections, requests for clarifications or refinements to the text which did not challenge the IPCC’s conclusions are generally treated favourably, but comments which dispute the IPCC’s claims or their certainty are treated with far less indulgence.

It appears that the IPCC review comments were only placed online after some "Freedom of Information"-type pressure was applied. Some background is here and here.

Fishcrow to speak

Here.

Check out the flyer here.

New season for Fishcrow

Here.

Check out his "bino-cam" here.

The "greenhouse effect" misnomer

A reader writes:

...One thing that I find particularly grating is the continuous use of the expression "Greenhouse Effect" to describe the additional warming of the atmosphere produced by infrared radiation absorbing and reflecting gases such as H2O vapor, CO2, methane, etc. It is a minor quibble as things get misnamed all the time but I think it has some significance. The point being that the warming of greenhouses has nothing to do with glass being an infrared absorber and reflector as demonstrated by a simple and elegant experiment by Wood in the early 20th century. More information is in the enclosed PDF file.

(See Section 2.5 "Experiment by Wood" beginning on page 32 here.)

More information on real greenhouses is here:

The term 'greenhouse effect' originally came from the greenhouses used for gardening, but it is a misnomer since greenhouses operate differently [10] [11]. A greenhouse is built of glass; it heats up primarily because the Sun warms the ground inside it, which warms the air near the ground, and this air is prevented from rising and flowing away. The warming inside a greenhouse thus occurs by suppressing convection and turbulent mixing. This can be demonstrated by opening a small window near the roof of a greenhouse: the temperature will drop considerably. It has also been demonstrated experimentally (Wood, 1909): a "greenhouse" built of rock salt (which is transparent to IR) heats up just as one built of glass does. Greenhouses thus work primarily by preventing convection; the atmospheric greenhouse effect however reduces radiation loss, not convection. It is quite common, however, to find sources (e.g., [12] [13]) that make the "greenhouse" analogy.

"The 2007 IPCC Assessment Process - Its Obvious Conflict of Interest"

Former (1999-2006) Colorado State Climatologist Roger A Pielke Sr writes:

If instead of evaluating research in climate, suppose a group of scientists introduced a new cancer drug that they claimed could save many lives. There were side effects, of course, but they claimed that the benefit far out weighed these risks. The government than asked these scientist to form an assessment Committee to evaluate this claim. Colleagues of the group of scientists who introduced the drug are then asked to serve on this Committee, along with the developers.

If this occurred, of course, there would be an uproar of protest! This is a clear conflict of interest.

Yet this is what has happened with the IPCC process! The same individuals who are doing primary research in the role of humans on the climate system are then permitted to lead the assessment! There should be an outcry on this obvious conflict of interest, but to date either few recognize this conflict, or see that since the recommendations of the IPCC fit their policy and political agenda, they chose to ignore this conflict. In either case, scientific rigor has been sacrificed and poor policy and political decisions will inevitably follow.

More about Pielke is here.

IBWO story to air on PBS in Texas

Excerpts from this link:

For twenty-two years the Texas Parks and Wildlife television series has aired on PBS stations statewide....
...
The second week of October, Abe Moore has got a really fantastic story on the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, which is extinct – maybe...

A related link is here.

More "magic" along I-40

Here.

More from Freeman Dyson

Excerpts from a 9/29/07 salon.com article:

I believe global warming is grossly exaggerated as a problem. It's a real problem, but it's nothing like as serious as people are led to believe. The idea that global warming is the most important problem facing the world is total nonsense and is doing a lot of harm. It distracts people's attention from much more serious problems. That's an example. It's not so much to do about science. It's really a political question.
...
...Take Al Gore, who is sort of the chief propagandist. I think for him it really is a religion. He has this unshakable belief that it's his mission to spread the gospel of global warming according to Al. So there's nothing I can do about that. His film is a brilliant piece of work. It looks wonderful when you see it. The fact is of course that the pictures don't actually prove what he's saying is true.
...
There is this very strong organization, the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It's a group of officially anointed experts who produce statements every five years. This community of people is regarded as sacrosanct. And they're very intolerant. They always regard any criticism as a hostile act that has to be fought. I think they have behaved pretty badly. But that's rather an unusual case in the world of science -- that's where the politics has corrupted the science. But in general, scientists are not largely against heretics. This is something rather peculiar to climate studies. It also has to do with the way [the studies are] funded. The whole community of climate experts is funded on the basis that it's an urgent problem. So [they] can't possibly say it's not urgent or else they'll lose their thumbs.