Archive for the ‘Climate’ Category
March 2, 2012
Sticking to science – and experimental science at that – while ignoring the politicisation and religious overtones of “climate science”, Henrik Svensmark continues to painstakingly build his cosmic theory of climate change.
Supernova remnants → cosmic rays → solar modulation of cosmic rays →variations in cluster and sulphuric acid production → variation in cloud condensation nuclei → variation in low cloud formation → variation in climate.
When experiments or observations show that model predictions are wrong it is time to ditch the falsified hypotheses and to build new hypotheses. Far too often in ” global warming science” the hypotheses and the models become “incontrovertible dogma” and rather than test the falsifiability of the hypothesis with observations and experiment, data are fudged to fit the dogma. Svensmark’s approach is an oasis of proper science in a desert of pseudo-science.
Nigel Calder reports:
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Tags:climate change, Cloud condensation nuclei, cloud seeding, Cosmic ray, Henrik Svensmark, Nigel Calder, solar effects
Posted in Climate, Science, Solar science | 2 Comments »
February 28, 2012
An interesting paper from Curry et al. providing further evidence of a relationship between melting ice in the Arctic regions and widespread cold outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere. Forcing mechanisms are all the rage where feedback loops lead to runaway effects. In general – in my experience with things technical – natural feedback loops are most often self-correcting. Sometimes they may appear in the short-term to amplify effects but in the long-term they drive back to an equilibrium condition. If feedback mechanisms are not known or if the true cycle-time of the feedback is unknown then short-term effects can be misleading.
Jiping Liu, Judith A. Curry, Huijun Wang, Mirong Song, and Radley M. Horton. Impact of declining Arctic sea ice on winter snowfall. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 27, 2012 DOI:10.1073/pnas.1114910109
Newswise:
Since the level of Arctic sea ice set a new record low in 2007, significantly above-normal winter snow cover has been seen in large parts of the northern United States, northwestern and central Europe, and northern and central China. During the winters of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, the Northern Hemisphere measured its second and third largest snow cover levels on record.
“Our study demonstrates that the decrease in Arctic sea ice area is linked to changes in the winter Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation,” said Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech. “The circulation changes result in more frequent episodes of atmospheric blocking patterns, which lead to increased cold surges and snow over large parts of the northern continents.”
Tags:Arctic, atmospheric blocking, feedback mechanisms, ice melting, Northern Hemisphere, Polar Regions, Sea ice, self-correction
Posted in Climate, Science, Weather | Comments Off on Self-correcting feedback mechanisms? When warming leads to cooling
February 24, 2012
Global Warming: How to approach the science
pdf > RSLindzen-HouseOfCommons-2012
Seminar at the House of Commons Committee Rooms
Westminster, London
22nd February 2012
RA Lindzen: “‘Global Warming’ refers to an obscure statistical quantity, globally averaged temperature anomaly, the small residue of far larger and mostly uncorrelated local anomalies. This quantity is highly uncertain, but may be on the order of 0.7C over the past 150 years. This quantity is always varying at this level and there have been periods of both warming and cooling on virtually all time scales.
……… …. while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age.”
Tags:global warming, House of Commons of the United Kingdom, Richard Lindzen
Posted in Alarmism, Climate | Comments Off on Richard Lindzen’s address at the UK House of Commons
February 23, 2012
I have yet to come across a case where Alarmism and the invocation of the Precautionary Principle to spend billions has been justified. The Precautionary Principle itself is flawed and is usually invoked to justify actions in favour of a political ideology which go against common sense. There are no principles involved. For example the billions spent on “preventing” the alleged Y2K meltdown were shown to have been essentially unnecessary when countries which just did not have the money to spend suffered no significant ill-effects (Ukraine and Romania for example).
The Precautionary Principle: An activist is walking down the street snapping his fingers continuously. A guy stops him and asks, “Why are you snapping your fingers all the time?” The activist answers, “To keep wild elephants away.” “That’s ridiculous!”, says the guy. The activist replies, “Oh, yeah? You don’t see any wild elephants around do you?”
The AGW othodoxy is following the same path where trillions are being spent in following political objectives which have no basis and go against common sense.
Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT has been addressing the UK House of Commons.
The Independent: Is catastrophic global warming, like the Millenium Bug, a mistake?
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Tags:AGW, Alarmism, global warming, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Precautionary Principle, Richard Lindzen
Posted in Alarmism, Climate | Comments Off on Spending billions for no return: AGW alarmism going the way of the Y2K panic
February 23, 2012
The Global Warming priesthood have long experience in fudging data, cheating and suppressing opposing views. But Peter Gleick, a true acolyte of the religion, has now been reduced not only to lying, cheating and stealing but also to forgery and fakery.
The blogosphere has been full of the Fakegate or the Peter Gleick affair for the last week. First he used impersonation and lying to extract confidential documents from Heartland. He clearly has broken some laws. But he found nothing very damaging regarding climate sceptics so he forged a “summary” document so as to be able to add some spice to the affair. He then disseminated the documents widely and these were immediately publicised by a gullible and hypocritical orthodoxy.
Peter Gleick - Faker
Of course Gleick is a climate alarmist and activist and for him and his friends Heartland remains the “villain” and his ends of “exposing” the alleged bad guys apparently justifies his dishonest and criminal means. His authorship of the forged document was recognised by Steven Mosher and Climate Audit just from his writing style and bad punctuation. Needless to say Gleick is considered by the global warming priesthood as an expert exponent of integrity in science research. In this sordid case some are delusional enough to see him as a hero.
Gleick’s own work is unimportant and lacking any real scientific content. His lack of ethics (apart from his poor writing and general incompetence) is of no great significance. But his behaviour exposes and is in the tradition established by the Hockey Stick crowd (Mann, Jones, Hansen, Trenberth et al) of fudging and cheating and suppression of opposing views.
BREAKING: Gleick Confesses
Peter Gleick Confesses
Gleick’s AGU Resignation
Megan McArdle gives Mosher and the blogosphere props for pointing to Gleick
Peter Gleick Confesses to Obtaining Heartland Documents Under False Pretenses
FakeGate: Just Another Day at Team Green
Fakegate Illustrates Global Warming Alarmists’ Deceit and Desperation
Tags:Climate Audit, climate change, Fakegate, Forgery, global warming, Heartland Institute, Megan McArdle, Peter Gleick, Scientific misconduct
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Corruption, Ethics, Fraud | 1 Comment »
February 21, 2012
The key requirement for the method of science is scepticism.
The scientific method is to make falsifiable hypotheses and then to check the hypothesis by gathering the evidence to check the falsifiability.
The IPCC and the Global Warming Orthodoxy have been making alarmist predictions for the last 20 years and their hypothesis comes in three parts:
- That global warming is occurring and will continue for at least the next 100 years
- That human activities are the primary cause of the global warming being observed, and
- That man-made emission of carbon-dioxide is the most significant human activity driving climate change.
In the last 20+ years, comparing actual observations show that each one of these 3 parts of this global warming hypothesis is – at best – oversimplified and – at worst – just plain wrong. “Wrong” in the sense that the causality proposed does not exist and that the mechanisms proposed for the causality are incorrect or non-existent. The IPCC predictions are being proved wrong and it is time to ditch the hypothesis.
IPCC predictions falsify global warming hypothesis
The 27th January article in the Wall Street Journal “No Need to Panic about Global Warming” by a number of scientists displaying true scientific scepticism was immediately criticised by members of the Orthodoxy. The original authors now reply to these criticisms in the WSJ:
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Tags:Alarmism, Falsifiable hyptheses, global warming, IPCC, Scientific misconduct, Wall Street Journal
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Environment, Science | Comments Off on When IPCC model predictions are wrong it is time to ditch the hypothesis
February 8, 2012
We have been down to -22°C over the weekend and it’s -10°C today. The cold spell is likely to last another 10 days or so. There are few clouds and day time temperatures are 10+°C higher than at night.
It’s only weather of course but a timely reminder that – anywhere in the world – daily temperature variations are of the order of 10-15 °C and seasonal variations every year are of the order of 30 – 50 °C. And this variation is entirely due to the effects of the sun and the winds and the cloud cover. The effects of carbon dioxide and climate scientology are insignificant. But it’s only weather.
An extract from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) for 4th February makes the point:
SMHI:
All of Sweden has had it much colder than normal for the season.
In parts of northern Norrland it was more than 20 °C colder than normal. It was coldest in Kvikkjokk-Årrenjarka in Lapland with a temperature of -42.7 °C, which is the lowest temperature recorded there since surveys began in 1888. It was 25°C colder than what is normal for the season where “normal temperature” means the average daily temperature between the years 1961-1990.
The reason for the extreme cold was the northern and easterly winds in combination with very clear weather. Without any insulating cloud cover night-time temperatures plummeted.
For the country as a whole it was a fairly even distribution of about 20 °C colder in the north to over 10 °C colder than normal in southern Götaland. At the Norwegian border, with Lakes Vänern and Vättern and along the Östergötland and Småland coast, it was between 8 and 10 °C colder than normal. It was mildest in southern Öland, with temperatures of only 6 to 7 °C lower than normal.
Sweden temparature anomalies on 4th February 2012 - SMHI
Tags:climate scientology, daily temperature, global warming, SMHI, Sweden, temperature anomaly
Posted in Climate, Sweden, Weather, Winter | Comments Off on The big freeze: Sun and wind and clouds – not climate scientology or carbon dioxide
February 3, 2012
As Europe freezes in Siberian weather and people die it is not so difficult to imagine what life would be like in the throes of a Little Ice Age. Humans have endured and survived during the ice ages but have only developed and thrived and expanded when the Earth goes through its interglacial periods.
It is global cooling and the potential for a little ice age that poses the real threat to humans. Not some fantasy about anthropogenic global warming. The demonisation of carbon dioxide in the assumed – but unproven – belief that it contributes to global warming will turn out to be one of the most wasteful contentions of modern science.
If only it was that easy to change the climate!
NoTricksZone reports:
Germany’s no. 1 daily Bild (by circulation numbers) reports on the Killer Cold now paralyzing Europe and Asia, and calls it the worst in 25 years. The cold has hit Eastern Europe especially hard, with temperatures plummeting to -30°C throughout the Ukraine and Poland. So far the cold has claimed 139 lives, with 3 in Germany.
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Tags:coldest winters, Europe, global cooling, global warming, Little Ice Age, winter
Posted in Climate, Solar science, Weather, Winter | Comments Off on Hundreds die as cold wave in Europe provides a taste of what a little ice age could do
February 1, 2012
Well now!!!
Perhaps this just panders to my opinions but I find this more convincing than the Hockey Stick.
Bicentennial Decrease of the Total Solar Irradiance Leads to Unbalanced Thermal Budget of the Earth and the Little Ice Age by Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Science, St. Petersburg, 196140, Russia
Applied Physics Research ISSN 1916-9639 (Print) ISSN 1916-9647 (Online)
Abstract
Temporal changes in the power of the longwave radiation of the system Earth-atmosphere emitted to space always lag behind changes in the power of absorbed solar radiation due to slow change of its enthalpy. That is why the debit and credit parts of the average annual energy budget of the terrestrial globe with its air and water envelope are practically always in an unbalanced state. Average annual balance of the thermal budget of the system Earth-atmosphere during long time period will reliably determine the course and value of both an energy excess accumulated by the Earth or the energy deficit in the thermal budget which, with account for data of the TSI forecast, can define and predict well in advance the direction and amplitude of the forthcoming climate changes. From early 90s we observe bicentennial decrease in both the TSI and the portion of its energy absorbed by the Earth. The Earth as a planet will henceforward have negative balance in the energy budget which will result in the temperature drop in approximately 2014. Due to increase of albedo and decrease of the greenhouse gases atmospheric concentration the absorbed portion of solar energy and the influence of the greenhouse effect will additionally decline. The influence of the consecutive chain of feedback effects which can lead to additional drop of temperature will surpass the influence of the TSI decrease. The onset of the deep bicentennial minimum of TSI is expected in 2042±11, that of the 19th Little Ice Age in the past 7500 years – in 2055±11.
The full paper (pdf) is here: Abdussamatov App Physics Research
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Tags:Abdussamatov, climate change, global cooling, Little Ice Age, Pulkovo Observatory, Russian Academy of Science, solar effects on climate
Posted in Climate, Solar science | 1 Comment »
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