Saw this just now which sums up a lot of the criticisms of the global databases.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/20/demet....ing/#more-11488
Craig Loehle
Posted Jul 21, 2010 at 7:10 AM | Permalink | Reply
IF data homogenization/cleaning were done with publicly available codes, it might be ok to prefer the cleaned up data. However, in too many cases the “fixes” have turned out to be nonsense.
Early versions of the Hadley data claimed that they adjusted their data by eye.
We have seen GISS “adjust” perfectly good rural stations based on urban ones.
“Adjusted” and “homogenized” data end up having a bigger trend than pure rural stations.
The urban heat island effect is claimed to have been removed from the global data (GISS) or to be ignored (Hadley) when clearly it has not been removed and can not be ignored.
Rural stations have been dropping out of the database (the great dying of thermometers) (even though the stations still exist in most cases) and it is pretended that this can’t have any effect. etc.
In paleoclimate studies, we have seen evidence ignored that strip barks pines have anomalous growth , Tiljander proxies used upside down, lat-long locations transposed, and these errors are never acknowledged or fixed.
So people are not happy with the adjustments and would really like to see what is going on, in detail.
Thursday 22 July 2010
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Cold snap freezes South America
Cold snap freezes South America – beaches whitened, some areas experience snow for the first time in living memory at the same time as NASA tells us the East Coast US heatwave is a “global phenomenon”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=44664
Does it matter that the NASA commentary and map part company in a big way?
Do they think saying there is a global heatwave will make people doubt the evidence of their eyes?
NASA obviously received complaints because it has revised its alarmist wording about a "global phenomenon" a bit but not markedly, thus:
"Correction: This post originally stated the early July 2010 heat wave was a "global phenomenon." We have revised to make our meaning more precise: many places around the globe experienced heat waves in early July"
But, of course, still no concession that the majority of the world was cooler. How was that described? Oh, yes, with the throwaway “Not all areas are gripped by heat”. Well, thanks, NASA, that provides the required “objectivity” I guess (not).
MEANWHILE, from
Alexandre Aguiar
of MetSul Weather Center
20th July 2010
A brutal and historical cold snap has so far caused 80 deaths in South America, according to international news agencies.
Temperatures have been much below normal for over a week in vast areas of the continent. In Chile, the Aysen region was affected early last week by the worst snowstorm in 30 year. The snow accumulation reached 5 feet in Balmaceda and the Army was called to rescue people trapped by the snow.
In Argentina, the snow in the region of Mendoza, famous for its winery, was described by local meteorologists as the heaviest in a decade. The temperature in the morning of July 16th was the lowest in the city of Buenos Aires since 1991: -1.5C. The cold snap caused a record demand for energy and Argentina had to import electricity from Brazil. Many industries in Argentina were shut down due to gas shortage.
It snowed in nearly all the provinces of Argentina, an extremely rare event. It snowed even in the western part of the province of Buenos Aires and Southern Santa Fe, in cities at sea level. The most famous beach of Argentina, Mar del Plata, was whitened by the snow in the morning of July 15th, a scene only seen in recent memory in 1991, 2004 and 2007.
The snow was heavy even in Northern Argentina. In Santiago Del Estero, according to media reports, some areas experience snow for the first time .
In Uruguay, there were widespread reports of sleet and even snow mixed with rain in towns in the Southern and Eastern part of the country, even in the capital Montevideo. At leas two deaths have been blamed in Uruguay on the low temperatures. Hospitals were packed with patients with respiratory illness.
In Paraguay, at least nine people died due to the cold weather in only 3 days. Cattle were very affected and one thousand animals died of hypothermia. In Bolivia, dozes of people died in consequence of the very low temperatures. In some areas of the nation the cold period was described as the worst in 15 years. It even snowed in the Chaco of Bolivia, one of warmest areas of South America, where the local population never saw snow before. Classes were suspended in Bolivia for three days to prevent more cold related deaths (El Nacional newspaper from Bolivia).
Southern Brazil was also very affected by the cold air eruption from the Southern Pole. Last week the temperature dropped to -7.8C in the city of Urupema, Santa Catarina. In Rio Grande do Sul, in the hills of the state, temperature felt to -4.9C in the city of Cambara. In the state of Paran, the low was -6C. Only the nights were freezing, but the afternoons were very cold. In some days, temperature failed to reach 5C in many towns, the first time in a decade. Flurries observed in towns of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana and sleet was also reported in Western Santa Catarina.
The most striking scenes came from the top of Morro da Igreja, a 1800 meters elevation in the state of Santa Catarina. The area recorded snow and freezing rain. As anyone can imagine, freezing rain is extremely rare in Southern Brazil. The event was witnessed and photographed by weather observers from MetSul Marcelo Albieri and Caio Souza.
On July 14th, in the afternoon hours, temperatures in the hills of Rio Grande do Sul state in Southern Brazil were lower than in Marambio, the main polar base of Argentina in Antarctica. In Central Brazil, in the tropics, the long streak of cold days was considered extremely rare. It was so cold that thousand of animals died in this region of Brazil known for its cattle, just South of the Amazon basin.
Maybe the most notable fact took place in North South America. The cold reached Amazon and temperatures felt to as low as 7C in towns in the Amazon Forest in the states of Acre and Rondonia. Temperature even felt in Roraima, where the state capital Boa Vista record 20C (normal lows are 25C) and the wind were blowing from the South.
Boa Vista is located at 2 degrees North of latitude, so the influence of the Antarctic cold blast crossed the Equator line and reached towns in the Northern Hemisphere. It would be the same of a cold snap from the Arctic crossing the entire North America continent, the Caribbean and reaching North Brazil in cities at 2 degrees South of latitude as Santarem, a bizarre situation. PDF
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/HISTORICALCOLDSNAPFREEZESSOUTHAMERICA.pdf
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=44664
Does it matter that the NASA commentary and map part company in a big way?
Do they think saying there is a global heatwave will make people doubt the evidence of their eyes?
NASA obviously received complaints because it has revised its alarmist wording about a "global phenomenon" a bit but not markedly, thus:
"Correction: This post originally stated the early July 2010 heat wave was a "global phenomenon." We have revised to make our meaning more precise: many places around the globe experienced heat waves in early July"
But, of course, still no concession that the majority of the world was cooler. How was that described? Oh, yes, with the throwaway “Not all areas are gripped by heat”. Well, thanks, NASA, that provides the required “objectivity” I guess (not).
MEANWHILE, from
Alexandre Aguiar
of MetSul Weather Center
20th July 2010
A brutal and historical cold snap has so far caused 80 deaths in South America, according to international news agencies.
Temperatures have been much below normal for over a week in vast areas of the continent. In Chile, the Aysen region was affected early last week by the worst snowstorm in 30 year. The snow accumulation reached 5 feet in Balmaceda and the Army was called to rescue people trapped by the snow.
In Argentina, the snow in the region of Mendoza, famous for its winery, was described by local meteorologists as the heaviest in a decade. The temperature in the morning of July 16th was the lowest in the city of Buenos Aires since 1991: -1.5C. The cold snap caused a record demand for energy and Argentina had to import electricity from Brazil. Many industries in Argentina were shut down due to gas shortage.
It snowed in nearly all the provinces of Argentina, an extremely rare event. It snowed even in the western part of the province of Buenos Aires and Southern Santa Fe, in cities at sea level. The most famous beach of Argentina, Mar del Plata, was whitened by the snow in the morning of July 15th, a scene only seen in recent memory in 1991, 2004 and 2007.
The snow was heavy even in Northern Argentina. In Santiago Del Estero, according to media reports, some areas experience snow for the first time .
In Uruguay, there were widespread reports of sleet and even snow mixed with rain in towns in the Southern and Eastern part of the country, even in the capital Montevideo. At leas two deaths have been blamed in Uruguay on the low temperatures. Hospitals were packed with patients with respiratory illness.
In Paraguay, at least nine people died due to the cold weather in only 3 days. Cattle were very affected and one thousand animals died of hypothermia. In Bolivia, dozes of people died in consequence of the very low temperatures. In some areas of the nation the cold period was described as the worst in 15 years. It even snowed in the Chaco of Bolivia, one of warmest areas of South America, where the local population never saw snow before. Classes were suspended in Bolivia for three days to prevent more cold related deaths (El Nacional newspaper from Bolivia).
Southern Brazil was also very affected by the cold air eruption from the Southern Pole. Last week the temperature dropped to -7.8C in the city of Urupema, Santa Catarina. In Rio Grande do Sul, in the hills of the state, temperature felt to -4.9C in the city of Cambara. In the state of Paran, the low was -6C. Only the nights were freezing, but the afternoons were very cold. In some days, temperature failed to reach 5C in many towns, the first time in a decade. Flurries observed in towns of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana and sleet was also reported in Western Santa Catarina.
The most striking scenes came from the top of Morro da Igreja, a 1800 meters elevation in the state of Santa Catarina. The area recorded snow and freezing rain. As anyone can imagine, freezing rain is extremely rare in Southern Brazil. The event was witnessed and photographed by weather observers from MetSul Marcelo Albieri and Caio Souza.
On July 14th, in the afternoon hours, temperatures in the hills of Rio Grande do Sul state in Southern Brazil were lower than in Marambio, the main polar base of Argentina in Antarctica. In Central Brazil, in the tropics, the long streak of cold days was considered extremely rare. It was so cold that thousand of animals died in this region of Brazil known for its cattle, just South of the Amazon basin.
Maybe the most notable fact took place in North South America. The cold reached Amazon and temperatures felt to as low as 7C in towns in the Amazon Forest in the states of Acre and Rondonia. Temperature even felt in Roraima, where the state capital Boa Vista record 20C (normal lows are 25C) and the wind were blowing from the South.
Boa Vista is located at 2 degrees North of latitude, so the influence of the Antarctic cold blast crossed the Equator line and reached towns in the Northern Hemisphere. It would be the same of a cold snap from the Arctic crossing the entire North America continent, the Caribbean and reaching North Brazil in cities at 2 degrees South of latitude as Santarem, a bizarre situation. PDF
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/HISTORICALCOLDSNAPFREEZESSOUTHAMERICA.pdf
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Stephen Schneider dies
17 Jul 2010
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/the-passing-of-a-climate-warrior/
The man who produced the PNAS blacklist of deniers as his parting shot, has died.
"In an odd way this is cheering news !" as they said in the CRU emails about John Daly's passing.
Climate Depot said:
Propagandist Stephen Schneider who worked on the Black List admits it was born of frustration with 'climate deniers' being granted 'equal weight' as IPCC or NAS
Morano Response: "Say What?! Schneider is upset that prominent skeptical scientists are granted 'equal weight' as IPCC or NAS? The IPCC is in disgrace and the NAS under Ralph Cicerone has descended into political hackery. Schneider actually seems to believe his own warmist propaganda. How sad."
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/the-passing-of-a-climate-warrior/
The man who produced the PNAS blacklist of deniers as his parting shot, has died.
"In an odd way this is cheering news !" as they said in the CRU emails about John Daly's passing.
Climate Depot said:
Propagandist Stephen Schneider who worked on the Black List admits it was born of frustration with 'climate deniers' being granted 'equal weight' as IPCC or NAS
Morano Response: "Say What?! Schneider is upset that prominent skeptical scientists are granted 'equal weight' as IPCC or NAS? The IPCC is in disgrace and the NAS under Ralph Cicerone has descended into political hackery. Schneider actually seems to believe his own warmist propaganda. How sad."
.........
Stephen Schneider - by Steve McIntyre
Stephen Schneider was only a few years older than me and his death seems all too early.
I had a fair bit of contact with him by email in 2004. He seemed very cheerful – a characteristic that I respect – and certainly much more likely to be good company than the fellow climate scientists that I was then encountering – a point that Ross and I discussed at the time. Schneider recalled the exchange in his recent book – a recollection that, unfortunately, was totally inaccurate.
My original contact with Schneider came in the wake of MM2003. He had severely criticized Energy & Environment for not letting Mann review our 2003 article. In keeping with that premise, he asked me to review a 2004 submission to Climatic Change by Mann et al responding to MM2003 – consistent with his public representations. It seemed to me that there was an inherent conflict of interest in such a review but this was obviously known to Schneider and I attempted to separate out my interests as a disputant from my obligations as a reviewer as much as possible.
At the time, I was very fresh to academic exchanges – this was long before Climate Audit. I’d never reviewed an academic article and my approach was informed by ideas of due diligence that were not then characteristic of academic peer reviewing. In my capacity as a reviewer, I asked to see supporting data for Mann’s supposed rebuttal to MM2003 – the topic of his submission – and to see source code to document his allegations that we’d supposedly made grievous mistakes in implementing his methodology – again an important aspect of his submission. (BTW this was all shortly after our 2004 submission to Nature.)
Schneider replied that he had been editor of Climatic Change for 28 years and, during that time, nobody had ever requested supporting data, let alone source code, and he therefore required a policy from his editorial board approving his requesting such information from an author. He observed that he would not be able to get reviewers if they were required to examine supporting data and source code. I replied that I was not suggesting that he make that a condition of all reviews, but that I wished to examine such supporting information as part of my review, was willing to do so in my specific case (and wanted to do so under the circumstances) and asked him to seek approval from his editorial board if that was required.
This episode became an important component of Climategate emails in the first half of 2004. As it turned out (though it was not a point that I thought about at the time), both Phil Jones and Ben Santer were on the editorial board of Climatic Change. Some members of the editorial board (e.g. Pfister) thought that it would be a good idea to require Mann to provide supporting code as well as data. But both Jones and Santer lobbied hard and prevailed on code, but not data. They defeated any requirement that Mann supply source code, but Schneider did adopt a policy requiring authors to supply supporting data.
I therefore re-iterated my request as a reviewer for supporting data – including the residuals that Climategate letters show that Mann had supplied to CRU (described as his “dirty laundry”). The requested supporting data was not supplied by Mann and his coauthors and I accordingly submitted a review to Climatic Change, observing that Mann et al had flouted the new policy on providing supporting data. The submission was not published. I observed on another occasion that Jones and Mann (2004) contained a statement slagging us, based on a check-kiting citation to this rejected article.
During this exchange, I attempted to write thoughtfully to Schneider about processes of due diligence, drawing on my own experience and on Ross’ experience in econometrics. The correspondence was fairly lengthy; Schneider’s responses were chatty and cordial and he seemed fairly engaged, though the Climategate emails of the period perhaps cast a slightly different light on events.
Following the establishment of a data policy at Climatic Change, I requested data from Gordon Jacoby – which led to the “few good men” explanation of non-archiving (see CA in early 2005) and from Lonnie Thompson (leading to the first archiving of any information from Dunde, Guliya and Dasuopu, if only summary 10-year data inconsistent with other versions.) Here Schneider accomplished something that almost no one else has been able to do – get data from Lonnie Thompson, something that, in itself, shows Schneider’s stature in the field.
It was very disappointing to read Schneider’s description of these fairly genial exchanges in his book last year. Schneider stated:
"The National Science Foundation has asserted that scientists are not required to present their personal computer codes to peer reviewers and critics, recognizing how much that would inhibit scientific practice.
A serial abuser of legalistic attacks was Stephen McIntyre a statistician who had worked in Canada for a mining company. I had had a similar experience with McIntyre when he demanded that Michael Mann and colleagues publish all their computer codes for peer-reviewed papers previously published in Climatic Change. The journal’s editorial board supported the view that the replication efforts do not extend to personal computer codes with all their undocumented subroutines. It’s an intellectual property issue as well as a major drain on scientists’ productivity, an opinion with which the National Science Foundation concurred, as mentioned."
This was untrue in important particulars and a very unfair account of our 2004 exchange. At the time, Schneider did not express any hint that the exchange was unreasonable. Indeed, the exchange had the positive outcome of Climatic Change adopting data archiving policies for the first time.
To further evidence Schneider’s lack of objection to my conduct as a reviewer at the time, a year later, Schneider invited me once again to act as a reviewer, this time as reviewer of Wahl and Ammann 2004 2005 2006 2007. Needless to say, this once again featured heavily in the Climategate letters. Its story was nicely told by Andrew Montford as “Caspar and the Jesus Paper” – an account that preceded the Climategate Letters. In this case, the experience was not as cordial. (Schneider’s cancer had been reported publicly just before the invitation to review Wahl and Ammann, but I was unaware of his illness until his death.)
Once again, the role of a reviewer was an odd one due to the conflict of interest. Again, I tried to separate as much as possible my adverse interest as someone being criticized from my obligations as a reviewer. In this case, there was much in Wahl and Ammann that could be objectively criticized. (e.g. the check-kiting of Ammann and Wahl, submitted to GRL and rejected, and the later replacement of all references to this article by a later article, Ammann and Wahl 2007, not even submitted as at the time of the supposed acceptance of Wahl and Ammannm which was in the last few hours of the last day, with the references to the still unaccepted and soon rejected Ammann and Wahl companion paper very much a loose end.)
Climategate documents show that Phil Jones was also a reviewer of Wahl and Ammann, observing: "This paper is to be thoroughly welcomed and is particularly timely with the next IPCC assessment coming along in 2007."
My review was less positive. Schneider terminated me as a reviewer and I didn’t have much further correspondence with him. I did write to him recently pointing out that, although I was included on his blacklist of scientists who had signed various petitions that he disapproved of, I had not actually signed any of the petitions. He replied, in effect, that the public blacklist at Anderegg’s website differed from the private blacklist used for the PNAS article and that I had not been included in the private blacklist, as though that resolved the matter.
Schneider repeatedly invoked medical metaphors in order to urge deference by the public to climate scientists.
In one of his last statements, he said:
"It is completely inappropriate, if there’s an announcement of the new cancer drug for pediatric leukemia [with] a panel of three doctors from various hospitals, to then give equal time to the president of the herbalist society, who says that modern medicine is a crock. They wouldn’t even put that person on the air, so why put on petroleum geologists—who know as much about climate as we climatologists know about drilling for oil—because they’ve studied one climate change a hundred million years ago?”
In his recent book, he made a similar point:
"If all scientists are created equal, then all MDs are likewise equivalent. So I’ll ask my podiatrist to prescribe my heart medicine and ask my cardiologist – who hasn’t touched a scalpel in 30 years – to take off my bad toe nail. My point, of course, is that these are not climate experts, as they do not represent a community expert in the details of climatology. A petroleum geologist can no more tell us about cloud feedback than a climatologist could competently tell us about oil reserves(p. 146.)"
Nonetheless, in his own valiant battle against his disease, Schneider did not passively accept dicta from authority, but sought to understand the details as best he could, describing himself as “The Patient from Hell”:
"To increase the odds against the disease, mantle cell lymphoma, Dr. Schneider, 60, involved himself in every aspect of his treatment. How he pushed his doctors to experiment with new techniques to control the cancer is the subject of a book he has just completed, tentatively titled “The Patient From Hell: Getting the Best That Modern Medicine Can Offer.” Da Capo Press/Perseus is to publish it in the fall.
As I noted above, at his best, Schneider was engaging and cheerful – qualities that I prefer to remember him by. I was unaware of his personal battles or that he ironically described himself as “The Patient from Hell” – a title that seems an honorable one.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/20/stephen-schneider/
Stephen Schneider was only a few years older than me and his death seems all too early.
I had a fair bit of contact with him by email in 2004. He seemed very cheerful – a characteristic that I respect – and certainly much more likely to be good company than the fellow climate scientists that I was then encountering – a point that Ross and I discussed at the time. Schneider recalled the exchange in his recent book – a recollection that, unfortunately, was totally inaccurate.
My original contact with Schneider came in the wake of MM2003. He had severely criticized Energy & Environment for not letting Mann review our 2003 article. In keeping with that premise, he asked me to review a 2004 submission to Climatic Change by Mann et al responding to MM2003 – consistent with his public representations. It seemed to me that there was an inherent conflict of interest in such a review but this was obviously known to Schneider and I attempted to separate out my interests as a disputant from my obligations as a reviewer as much as possible.
At the time, I was very fresh to academic exchanges – this was long before Climate Audit. I’d never reviewed an academic article and my approach was informed by ideas of due diligence that were not then characteristic of academic peer reviewing. In my capacity as a reviewer, I asked to see supporting data for Mann’s supposed rebuttal to MM2003 – the topic of his submission – and to see source code to document his allegations that we’d supposedly made grievous mistakes in implementing his methodology – again an important aspect of his submission. (BTW this was all shortly after our 2004 submission to Nature.)
Schneider replied that he had been editor of Climatic Change for 28 years and, during that time, nobody had ever requested supporting data, let alone source code, and he therefore required a policy from his editorial board approving his requesting such information from an author. He observed that he would not be able to get reviewers if they were required to examine supporting data and source code. I replied that I was not suggesting that he make that a condition of all reviews, but that I wished to examine such supporting information as part of my review, was willing to do so in my specific case (and wanted to do so under the circumstances) and asked him to seek approval from his editorial board if that was required.
This episode became an important component of Climategate emails in the first half of 2004. As it turned out (though it was not a point that I thought about at the time), both Phil Jones and Ben Santer were on the editorial board of Climatic Change. Some members of the editorial board (e.g. Pfister) thought that it would be a good idea to require Mann to provide supporting code as well as data. But both Jones and Santer lobbied hard and prevailed on code, but not data. They defeated any requirement that Mann supply source code, but Schneider did adopt a policy requiring authors to supply supporting data.
I therefore re-iterated my request as a reviewer for supporting data – including the residuals that Climategate letters show that Mann had supplied to CRU (described as his “dirty laundry”). The requested supporting data was not supplied by Mann and his coauthors and I accordingly submitted a review to Climatic Change, observing that Mann et al had flouted the new policy on providing supporting data. The submission was not published. I observed on another occasion that Jones and Mann (2004) contained a statement slagging us, based on a check-kiting citation to this rejected article.
During this exchange, I attempted to write thoughtfully to Schneider about processes of due diligence, drawing on my own experience and on Ross’ experience in econometrics. The correspondence was fairly lengthy; Schneider’s responses were chatty and cordial and he seemed fairly engaged, though the Climategate emails of the period perhaps cast a slightly different light on events.
Following the establishment of a data policy at Climatic Change, I requested data from Gordon Jacoby – which led to the “few good men” explanation of non-archiving (see CA in early 2005) and from Lonnie Thompson (leading to the first archiving of any information from Dunde, Guliya and Dasuopu, if only summary 10-year data inconsistent with other versions.) Here Schneider accomplished something that almost no one else has been able to do – get data from Lonnie Thompson, something that, in itself, shows Schneider’s stature in the field.
It was very disappointing to read Schneider’s description of these fairly genial exchanges in his book last year. Schneider stated:
"The National Science Foundation has asserted that scientists are not required to present their personal computer codes to peer reviewers and critics, recognizing how much that would inhibit scientific practice.
A serial abuser of legalistic attacks was Stephen McIntyre a statistician who had worked in Canada for a mining company. I had had a similar experience with McIntyre when he demanded that Michael Mann and colleagues publish all their computer codes for peer-reviewed papers previously published in Climatic Change. The journal’s editorial board supported the view that the replication efforts do not extend to personal computer codes with all their undocumented subroutines. It’s an intellectual property issue as well as a major drain on scientists’ productivity, an opinion with which the National Science Foundation concurred, as mentioned."
This was untrue in important particulars and a very unfair account of our 2004 exchange. At the time, Schneider did not express any hint that the exchange was unreasonable. Indeed, the exchange had the positive outcome of Climatic Change adopting data archiving policies for the first time.
To further evidence Schneider’s lack of objection to my conduct as a reviewer at the time, a year later, Schneider invited me once again to act as a reviewer, this time as reviewer of Wahl and Ammann 2004 2005 2006 2007. Needless to say, this once again featured heavily in the Climategate letters. Its story was nicely told by Andrew Montford as “Caspar and the Jesus Paper” – an account that preceded the Climategate Letters. In this case, the experience was not as cordial. (Schneider’s cancer had been reported publicly just before the invitation to review Wahl and Ammann, but I was unaware of his illness until his death.)
Once again, the role of a reviewer was an odd one due to the conflict of interest. Again, I tried to separate as much as possible my adverse interest as someone being criticized from my obligations as a reviewer. In this case, there was much in Wahl and Ammann that could be objectively criticized. (e.g. the check-kiting of Ammann and Wahl, submitted to GRL and rejected, and the later replacement of all references to this article by a later article, Ammann and Wahl 2007, not even submitted as at the time of the supposed acceptance of Wahl and Ammannm which was in the last few hours of the last day, with the references to the still unaccepted and soon rejected Ammann and Wahl companion paper very much a loose end.)
Climategate documents show that Phil Jones was also a reviewer of Wahl and Ammann, observing: "This paper is to be thoroughly welcomed and is particularly timely with the next IPCC assessment coming along in 2007."
My review was less positive. Schneider terminated me as a reviewer and I didn’t have much further correspondence with him. I did write to him recently pointing out that, although I was included on his blacklist of scientists who had signed various petitions that he disapproved of, I had not actually signed any of the petitions. He replied, in effect, that the public blacklist at Anderegg’s website differed from the private blacklist used for the PNAS article and that I had not been included in the private blacklist, as though that resolved the matter.
Schneider repeatedly invoked medical metaphors in order to urge deference by the public to climate scientists.
In one of his last statements, he said:
"It is completely inappropriate, if there’s an announcement of the new cancer drug for pediatric leukemia [with] a panel of three doctors from various hospitals, to then give equal time to the president of the herbalist society, who says that modern medicine is a crock. They wouldn’t even put that person on the air, so why put on petroleum geologists—who know as much about climate as we climatologists know about drilling for oil—because they’ve studied one climate change a hundred million years ago?”
In his recent book, he made a similar point:
"If all scientists are created equal, then all MDs are likewise equivalent. So I’ll ask my podiatrist to prescribe my heart medicine and ask my cardiologist – who hasn’t touched a scalpel in 30 years – to take off my bad toe nail. My point, of course, is that these are not climate experts, as they do not represent a community expert in the details of climatology. A petroleum geologist can no more tell us about cloud feedback than a climatologist could competently tell us about oil reserves(p. 146.)"
Nonetheless, in his own valiant battle against his disease, Schneider did not passively accept dicta from authority, but sought to understand the details as best he could, describing himself as “The Patient from Hell”:
"To increase the odds against the disease, mantle cell lymphoma, Dr. Schneider, 60, involved himself in every aspect of his treatment. How he pushed his doctors to experiment with new techniques to control the cancer is the subject of a book he has just completed, tentatively titled “The Patient From Hell: Getting the Best That Modern Medicine Can Offer.” Da Capo Press/Perseus is to publish it in the fall.
As I noted above, at his best, Schneider was engaging and cheerful – qualities that I prefer to remember him by. I was unaware of his personal battles or that he ironically described himself as “The Patient from Hell” – a title that seems an honorable one.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/20/stephen-schneider/
| Stephen Schneider—Death of an Unrepentant Hypocrite |
| Written by Phelim McAleer |
| Monday, 19 July 2010 16:49 |
 Stephen Schneider, a Global Warming scientist, has died. According to reports he suffered a heart attack whilst flying into London.Professor Schneider's death is a shock and a tragedy for his family and we at Not Evil Just Wrong offer our condolences to his relatives for their personal loss. His death was sudden and must have come as a shock to his family and colleagues. However, it has to be said that Professor Schneider died as he had lived—a completely unrepentant hypocrite. Global Warming alarmists, of which Professor Schneider was one of the most prominent, all agree that aviation and flying is one the biggest causes of Global Warming—which they believe is going to wipe out hundreds of millions of lives and make large parts of the planet uninhabitable. But just like Professor Schneider they fly and they fly and they fly. Often they will fly to conferences that come to the conclusion that others must not be allowed to fly. Of course important people such as Professor Schneider must fly because they are doing an "important" job. But people from middle America, who work hard and want to go on vacation or to visit family they must be kept at home. And the people of the developing world, they must forget about living in a modern economy burning fossils fuels or having a modern business infrastructure which involves airports and business flights. No—according to the late Professor Schneider and his colleagues they must continue to have a pre-industrial existence because industry will destroy the planet by causing Global Warming. Of course the recent Global Warming scare is not the first time that Professor Schneider wanted to call a halt to the modern industrial world. In the 1970's Prof Schneider was one of the main Global cooling alarmists—he warned we were about to enter a new Ice Age and the only solution was to end industrial output. Professor Schneider posed as an academic but hated tough questions and debate. He used Stanford's lawyers to try and censor our documentary when we interviewed him about his scientific flip-flopping. As a small film production company we had to remove his interview from our film. When I tried to push him further at the Copenhagen Climate Conference—he called an armed security guard to have our cameras switched off. But that is not why I am breaking the long standing tradition of not speaking ill of the dead. I am a journalist and used to the powerful not wanting to answer awkward questions. I am speaking strongly and truthfully about Professor Schneider because he was a hypocrite who wanted to deny the benefits of modernity to hundreds of millions across the globe whilst enjoying those benefits himself Professor Stephen Schneider died at a relatively young age. He was just 65. Perhaps if he had lived longer he would have come to realize just how the ideology, he pretended was science, would have destroyed the lives and hopes of hundreds millions in the developing and developed world. http://www.noteviljustwrong.com/blog/general/464-stephen-schneiderdeath-of-an-unrepentant-hypocrite |
Guardian Climategate Debate
19 Jul 2010
Richard Drake had a conversation with Prof Bob Watson, former occupant of Pachauri’s IPCC seat and now a Government Scientific Adviser, after the recent Guardian Debate about Climategate. Drake states
“I strongly felt Bob Watson was running away from the scene when I spoke to him after Wednesday's Guardian debate. He seemed to be saying privately quite different things than he just had publicly - the baying green mob had to be pacified after all. But there was now another crowd, a much more informed and intelligent one, that he'd not only been made aware of (in fact he must have known full well what prominent sceptics had been saying for years) but could now see was winning the argument, even at Guardian central.
It was all a bit reminiscent to that moment in the French revolution when one notable, seeing the mob stampeding out to enact another atrocity, said:
I must follow them, for I am their leader.
It's a much better class of mob on this side, of course. And we don't take kindly to those who change sides without something pretty compelling about how they came to get it so wrong for so long - all at taxpayers' expense, in the worst possible sense.”
We’ll see, as they say!
“I strongly felt Bob Watson was running away from the scene when I spoke to him after Wednesday's Guardian debate. He seemed to be saying privately quite different things than he just had publicly - the baying green mob had to be pacified after all. But there was now another crowd, a much more informed and intelligent one, that he'd not only been made aware of (in fact he must have known full well what prominent sceptics had been saying for years) but could now see was winning the argument, even at Guardian central.
It was all a bit reminiscent to that moment in the French revolution when one notable, seeing the mob stampeding out to enact another atrocity, said:
It's a much better class of mob on this side, of course. And we don't take kindly to those who change sides without something pretty compelling about how they came to get it so wrong for so long - all at taxpayers' expense, in the worst possible sense.”
We’ll see, as they say!
US Gov't Halts Funds For Climatic Research Unit
18 Jul 2010
I expect this will be a symbolic gesture, myself, and the funds re-instated after a short period.
Still, it's better than a whitewash and triple exoneration from the UK Establishment!
US Government Halts Funds For Climate Unit
Sunday, 18 July 2010 08:00 Jonathan Leake, The Sunday Times
The American government has suspended its funding of the University of East Anglia’s climate research unit (CRU), citing the scientific doubts raised by last November’s leak of hundreds of stolen emails.
The US Department of Energy (DoE) was one of the unit’s main sources of funding for its work assembling a database of global temperatures.
It has supported the CRU financially since 1990 and gives the unit about £131,000 a year on a rolling three-year contract.
This should have been renewed automatically in April, but the department has suspended all payments since May pending a scientific peer review of the unit’s work.
The leaked emails caused a global furore. They appeared to suggest that CRU scientists were using “tricks” to strengthen the case for man-made climate change and suppressing dissent.
A spokesman for the DoE said: “The renewal application was placed on hold pending the conclusion of the inquiry into scientific misconduct by Sir Alastair Muir Russell.”
Muir Russell published his report earlier this month. It said that the rigour and honesty of the CRU scientists were not in doubt but criticised them for “a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness”.
The DoE peer review panel will now sift through the report and decide if American taxpayers should continue to fund the unit.
A spokesman for the university said: “We are still waiting to hear if the latest bid for funding to the US Department of Energy has been successful and would not comment or speculate in the meantime.”
The Sunday Times, 18 July 2010
Sunday, 18 July 2010 08:00 Jonathan Leake, The Sunday Times
The American government has suspended its funding of the University of East Anglia’s climate research unit (CRU), citing the scientific doubts raised by last November’s leak of hundreds of stolen emails.
The US Department of Energy (DoE) was one of the unit’s main sources of funding for its work assembling a database of global temperatures.
It has supported the CRU financially since 1990 and gives the unit about £131,000 a year on a rolling three-year contract.
This should have been renewed automatically in April, but the department has suspended all payments since May pending a scientific peer review of the unit’s work.
The leaked emails caused a global furore. They appeared to suggest that CRU scientists were using “tricks” to strengthen the case for man-made climate change and suppressing dissent.
A spokesman for the DoE said: “The renewal application was placed on hold pending the conclusion of the inquiry into scientific misconduct by Sir Alastair Muir Russell.”
Muir Russell published his report earlier this month. It said that the rigour and honesty of the CRU scientists were not in doubt but criticised them for “a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness”.
The DoE peer review panel will now sift through the report and decide if American taxpayers should continue to fund the unit.
A spokesman for the university said: “We are still waiting to hear if the latest bid for funding to the US Department of Energy has been successful and would not comment or speculate in the meantime.”
The Sunday Times, 18 July 2010
.......
| Maybe the litigious Yanks with their oh-so-clearcut administrative rules will ultimately provide the means to bring this circus to a halt. (I also hold out great hopes for the efforts of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli who is pursuing the University Virginia and Michael Mann.) ......... This is stuff that came out at the time of the release of the Climategate e-mails, courtesy of the Air Vent and Lubos Motl http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/285693/ "Grant-funded science is a highly competitive business. Only the most skilled at it, not the most capable scientifically, survive for long. This email helps explain the animosity from the CRU Team towards those who threaten to upset their applecart - (like Steve McIntyre, although he only came on the scene later. Filename: 906137836.txt Quote:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/search.php Sounds like Keith Briffa, Big Daddy of CRU Palaeodendrochronology, was giving himself an ulcer in pursuit of more grant funding for the unit whilst also trying to get on with what he saw as his real work. Climate research is a lucrative little cottage industry in East Anglia that is fully funded by the government and dependent on the continued belief in a man made crisis. Naturally the UEA stands full square behind its CRU milch-cow in this effort to secure funds. Obviously the money doesn’t go the the researchers only, but it funds their “business” and for that business to continue, they must support AGW and fight off the opposition. The Follow-The-Money principle helps to aid navigation through the swamp of climatechaneism. Money, with its concommitant prestige and perks, not least the constant travel to attractive locations, is a powerful motivator. Science should not be held hostage to grant hogs. This nice little graph below shows how CRU's financial worries were sorted in 2001 when Phil Jones landed the money big-time. ![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tUG_evIIwWCsWuU9ORho1CxQpQsuR7CGLcplp19zYvgxgdBEaqTkjegKij94ilN8deqvipmUNNhyq1JeoLdSwXufkzeVScGC_gfYhtNBVdrc7U4oIPJE8QLKwoVw=s0-d "[image]") http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/image1.jpg Here's a spreadsheet showing individual CRU grants courtesy of Lubos Motl http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0....WUE&hl=en# All this info come to us courtsey of the climategate whistle-blower. I believe it was a whistle-blower, not an outside hacker. Thanks to him. | ||||
I expect this will be a symbolic gesture, myself, and the funds re-instated after a short period.
Still, it's better than a whitewash and triple exoneration from the UK Establishment!
GISS Land and sea weightings out of balance
18 Jul 2010
| Land and sea weight out of balance Posted on July 17, 2010 by Anthony Watts Frank Lanser finds that GISS global temperature trend is warmed up by weighting land data more. Guest post by Frank Lansner http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/gis....l-more-18 6.php and also here.http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/17/ti....nce/#more-22126 ![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uitHMR6izyvflXMR7M7MWGsFb9dsexIZFpjhZDXw_mIRLOWdKQtOVYmgSsysiywYrhb_7mOlTAxohpxknGOuMUJJ4L7-rp3d1_tUPRs2OpDOiHfg=s0-d "[image]") It seems that global temps are not only fiddled by extreme selectivity in the location of the surface stations but that the extra weighting given to the land area by GISS in its land+sea data has been steadily increasing over the 20th century. Since land is warmer than ocean this introduces an ever rising warming bias in the global temp. Why do the GISS “adjustments” ALWAYS result in a warm bias, I wonder.? The real land fraction of the Earth is of course 30%, but around 1980 GISS uses 40%, in 1988 55% – and in 1995 no less than 73%. GISS ends up in 2007 using a land weighting of 67%. On the face of it these increasing weightings look dubious. ........ JoNova discusses Frank Lansner's findings further here http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/did-gis....here/#more-9450 She entitles her article "Did GISS discover 30% more land in the Northern Hemisphere?" Good question, especially since, given the known UHI effect, extra weighting of the land surface data with respect to the total will create EVEN MORE artificial amplification of temperature and thus of the purported upward trend. She also notes that the Satellite measurement of surface temperatures corresponds very closely to the ocean temps rather than the land temps. Hmmm. Why could that be? .......
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ICE
16 Jul 2010
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
Take a look at these two graphs of the same thing - April sea ice extent 1979-2010.
![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tLq7TTFmU20O4DTngHq4HP94PDEkj89RLiO5N5E3GTKRMEccHma4fqn5d1hSBeDLIqiWyUa7_ArN1EUydZt__Bj0BMT7HwhMrQXWdxwXUXzi1r3uDkHf8Mw4Ty8iQLHxpxRrqnGaE=s0-d "[image]")
Here is another graph, from the same source (NSIDC) based on raw data and with a true April sea ice extent comparator on the vertical y-scale.
![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vvZP44Pjnf1O21Llr-u6A-E6U446I_pJTCHCcLiAc752BFR2TVJrjuS2RZCymgTjX-ZnaX2LgnncP7HeE4znq_jyhcRzKdJwYPa7ng7WR5qd87FIV5ysp3cF1AEBfHBIlRGTmYI9n4lEc52LZDqpc=s0-d "[image]")
You won’t find THIS graph being used as the scary poster child of cataclismic anthropogenic global warming because it merely shows a thirty-year, trend (there was NO satellite measurement before that) that is not in the least frightening to anyone not taking their “science” diluted with a large addition of adrenalin.
It shows a trend for April sea ice that, IF continued (big IF) won’t reach zero until the year 2385. So much for the frantic claims of a rapidly impending ice-free Arctic.
See the full article here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/24/the-sea-ice-monster-its-a-scaly-thing/
Take a look at these two graphs of the same thing - April sea ice extent 1979-2010.
Here is another graph, from the same source (NSIDC) based on raw data and with a true April sea ice extent comparator on the vertical y-scale.
You won’t find THIS graph being used as the scary poster child of cataclismic anthropogenic global warming because it merely shows a thirty-year, trend (there was NO satellite measurement before that) that is not in the least frightening to anyone not taking their “science” diluted with a large addition of adrenalin.
It shows a trend for April sea ice that, IF continued (big IF) won’t reach zero until the year 2385. So much for the frantic claims of a rapidly impending ice-free Arctic.
See the full article here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/24/the-sea-ice-monster-its-a-scaly-thing/
.........
Graph of Arctic Sea Ice Extent.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Updated daily.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Updated daily.
Press Accounts of historical alarmism
historical accounts published during the past 140 years describing climate changes and often predicting catastrophic cooling or warming.
Here are excerpts from a few of those accounts, appearing as early as 1870:
"The climate of New-York and the contiguous Atlantic seaboard has long been a study of great interest. We have just experienced a remarkable instance of its peculiarity. The Hudson River, by a singular freak of temperature, has thrown off its icy mantle and opened its waters to navigation.” – New York Times, Jan. 2, 1870
“Is our climate changing? The succession of temperate summers and open winters through several years, culminating last winter in the almost total failure of the ice crop throughout the valley of the Hudson, makes the question pertinent. The older inhabitants tell us that the winters are not as cold now as when they were young, and we have all observed a marked diminution of the average cold even in this last decade.” – New York Times, June 23, 1890
“The question is again being discussed whether recent and long-continued observations do not point to the advent of a second glacial period, when the countries now basking in the fostering warmth of a tropical sun will ultimately give way to the perennial frost and snow of the polar regions.” – New York Times, Feb. 24, 1895
Professor Gregory of Yale University stated that “another world ice-epoch is due.” He was the American representative to the Pan-Pacific Science Congress and warned that North America would disappear as far south as the Great Lakes, and huge parts of Asia and Europe would be “wiped out.” – Chicago Tribune, Aug. 9, 1923
“The discoveries of changes in the sun's heat and southward advance of glaciers in recent years have given rise to the conjectures of the possible advent of a new ice age – Time Magazine, Sept. 10, 1923
Headline: “America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-year Rise” – New York Times, March 27, 1933
“America is believed by Weather Bureau scientists to be on the verge of a change of climate, with a return to increasing rains and deeper snows and the colder winters of grandfather's day.” – Associated Press, Dec. 15, 1934
Warming Arctic Climate Melting Glaciers Faster, Raising Ocean Level, Scientist Says – “A mysterious warming of the climate is slowly manifesting itself in the Arctic, engendering a "serious international problem," Dr. Hans Ahlmann, noted Swedish geophysicist, said today. – New York Times, May 30, 1937
“Greenland's polar climate has moderated so consistntly that communities of hunters have evolved into fishing villages. Sea mammals, vanishing from the west coast, have been replaced by codfish and other fish species in the area's southern waters.” – New York Times, Aug. 29, 1954
“An analysis of weather records from Little America shows a steady warming of climate over the last half century. The rise in average temperature at the Antarctic outpost has been about five degrees Fahrenheit.” – New York Times, May 31, 1958
“Several thousand scientists of many nations have recently been climbing mountains, digging tunnels in glaciers, journeying to the Antarctic, camping on floating Arctic ice. Their object has been to solve a fascinating riddle: what is happening to the world's ice? – New York Times, Dec. 7, 1958
“After a week of discussions on the causes of climate change, an assembly of specialists from several continents seems to have reached unanimous agreement on only one point: it is getting colder.” – New York Times, Jan. 30, 1961
“Like an outrigger canoe riding before a huge comber, the earth with its inhabitants is caught on the downslope of an immense climatic wave that is plunging us toward another Ice Age.” – Los Angeles Times, Dec. 23, 1962
“Col. Bernt Balchen, polar explorer and flier, is circulating a paper among polar specialists proposing that the Arctic pack ice is thinning and that the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two." – New York Times, Feb. 20, 1969
“By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half . . . ." – Life magazine, January 1970
“In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.” – Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day, 1970
"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind. We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation." – Barry Commoner (Washington University), Earth Day, 1970
Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor, "the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born.” – Newsweek magazine, Jan. 26, 1970
“The United States and the Soviet Union are mounting large-scale investigations to determine why the Arctic climate is becoming more frigid, why parts of the Arctic sea ice have recently become ominously thicker and whether the extent of that ice cover contributes to the onset of ice ages.” – New York Times, July 18, 1970
“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, could be sufficient to trigger an ice age." – Washington Post, July 9, 1971
“It's already getting colder. Some midsummer day, perhaps not too far in the future, a hard, killing frost will sweep down on the wheat fields of Saskatchewan, the Dakotas and the Russian steppes. . . .” – Los Angles Times, Oct. 24, 1971
“An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.” – New York Times, Jan. 5, 1978
“A poll of climate specialists in seven countries has found a consensus that there will be no catastrophic changes in the climate by the end of the century. But the specialists were almost equally divided on whether there would be a warming, a cooling or no change at all.” – New York Times, Feb. 18, 1978
“A global warming trend could bring heat waves, dust-dry farmland and disease, the experts said... Under this scenario, the resort town of Ocean City, Md., will lose 39 feet of shoreline by 2000 and a total of 85 feet within the next 25 years.” – San Jose Mercury News, June 11, 1986
“Global warming could force Americans to build 86 more power plants -- at a cost of $110 billion -- to keep all their air conditioners running 20 years from now, a new study says...Using computer models, researchers concluded that global warming would raise average annual temperatures nationwide two degrees by 2010, and the drain on power would require the building of 86 new midsize power plants – Associated Press, May 15, 1989
“New York will probably be like Florida 15 years from now.” -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 17, 1989
"[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots . . . [By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers . . . The Mexican police will round up illegal American migrants surging into Mexico seeking work as field hands.” – "Dead Heat: The Race Against the Greenhouse Effect," Michael Oppenheimer and Robert H. Boyle, 1990.
"It appears that we have a very good case for suggesting that the El Ninos are going to become more frequent, and they're going to become more intense and in a few years, or a decade or so, we'll go into a permanent El Nino. So instead of having cool water periods for a year or two, we'll have El Nino upon El Nino, and that will become the norm. And you'll have an El Nino, that instead of lasting 18 months, lasts 18 years,” according to Dr. Russ Schnell, a scientist doing atmospheric research at Mauna Loa Observatory. – BBC, Nov. 7, 1997
"Scientists are warning that some of the Himalayan glaciers could vanish within ten years because of global warming. A build-up of greenhouse gases is blamed for the meltdown, which could lead to drought and flooding in the region affecting millions of people." -- The Birmingham Post in England, July 26, 1999
“This year (2007) is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, beating the current record set in 1998.” – ScienceDaily, Jan. 5, 2007
Arctic warming has become so dramatic that the North Pole may melt this summer (2008), report scientists studying the effects of climate change in the field. "We're actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time [in history]," David Barber, of the University of Manitoba, told National Geographic News aboard the C.C.G.S. Amundsen, a Canadian research icebreaker. – National Geographic News, June 20, 2008
"So the climate will continue to change, even if we make maximum effort to slow the growth of carbon dioxide. Arctic sea ice will melt away in the summer season within the next few decades. Mountain glaciers, providing fresh water for rivers that supply hundreds of millions of people, will disappear - practically all of the glaciers could be gone within 50 years. . . Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know . . . We would set the planet on a course to the ice-free state, with sea level 75 metres higher. Climatic disasters would occur continually." Dr. James Hansen (NASA GISS), The Observer, Feb. 15, 2009.
* * *
Climate change? Yes, there has been plenty of that during the past 140 years. Despite warnings by "experts of the day" of approaching climate disasters, mankind somehow managed to survive. A decade or so from now, after earth's climate changes once again, those who are old enough will recall with amusement the time, early in the 21st century, when the world went crazy over an imaginary threat called “global warming.”
Kirk Myers' columns appear several times weekly. To receive e-mail alerts when new articles are published, click on the "subscribe" button above. For a comprehensive look at global warming, please see the list of links to the right.
http://www.examiner.com/x-32936-Seminole....Washington-Post
---------
Doesn't it make you think that the only thing that differentiates current climate alarmism from that of previous eras is that today there is a damned sight more money backing the scaremongering and many more financial and economic interests now have a stake in promoting it..
Apart from that I can't see much difference myself.
Here are excerpts from a few of those accounts, appearing as early as 1870:
"The climate of New-York and the contiguous Atlantic seaboard has long been a study of great interest. We have just experienced a remarkable instance of its peculiarity. The Hudson River, by a singular freak of temperature, has thrown off its icy mantle and opened its waters to navigation.” – New York Times, Jan. 2, 1870
“Is our climate changing? The succession of temperate summers and open winters through several years, culminating last winter in the almost total failure of the ice crop throughout the valley of the Hudson, makes the question pertinent. The older inhabitants tell us that the winters are not as cold now as when they were young, and we have all observed a marked diminution of the average cold even in this last decade.” – New York Times, June 23, 1890
“The question is again being discussed whether recent and long-continued observations do not point to the advent of a second glacial period, when the countries now basking in the fostering warmth of a tropical sun will ultimately give way to the perennial frost and snow of the polar regions.” – New York Times, Feb. 24, 1895
Professor Gregory of Yale University stated that “another world ice-epoch is due.” He was the American representative to the Pan-Pacific Science Congress and warned that North America would disappear as far south as the Great Lakes, and huge parts of Asia and Europe would be “wiped out.” – Chicago Tribune, Aug. 9, 1923
“The discoveries of changes in the sun's heat and southward advance of glaciers in recent years have given rise to the conjectures of the possible advent of a new ice age – Time Magazine, Sept. 10, 1923
Headline: “America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-year Rise” – New York Times, March 27, 1933
“America is believed by Weather Bureau scientists to be on the verge of a change of climate, with a return to increasing rains and deeper snows and the colder winters of grandfather's day.” – Associated Press, Dec. 15, 1934
Warming Arctic Climate Melting Glaciers Faster, Raising Ocean Level, Scientist Says – “A mysterious warming of the climate is slowly manifesting itself in the Arctic, engendering a "serious international problem," Dr. Hans Ahlmann, noted Swedish geophysicist, said today. – New York Times, May 30, 1937
“Greenland's polar climate has moderated so consistntly that communities of hunters have evolved into fishing villages. Sea mammals, vanishing from the west coast, have been replaced by codfish and other fish species in the area's southern waters.” – New York Times, Aug. 29, 1954
“An analysis of weather records from Little America shows a steady warming of climate over the last half century. The rise in average temperature at the Antarctic outpost has been about five degrees Fahrenheit.” – New York Times, May 31, 1958
“Several thousand scientists of many nations have recently been climbing mountains, digging tunnels in glaciers, journeying to the Antarctic, camping on floating Arctic ice. Their object has been to solve a fascinating riddle: what is happening to the world's ice? – New York Times, Dec. 7, 1958
“After a week of discussions on the causes of climate change, an assembly of specialists from several continents seems to have reached unanimous agreement on only one point: it is getting colder.” – New York Times, Jan. 30, 1961
“Like an outrigger canoe riding before a huge comber, the earth with its inhabitants is caught on the downslope of an immense climatic wave that is plunging us toward another Ice Age.” – Los Angeles Times, Dec. 23, 1962
“Col. Bernt Balchen, polar explorer and flier, is circulating a paper among polar specialists proposing that the Arctic pack ice is thinning and that the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two." – New York Times, Feb. 20, 1969
“By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half . . . ." – Life magazine, January 1970
“In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.” – Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day, 1970
"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind. We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation." – Barry Commoner (Washington University), Earth Day, 1970
Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor, "the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born.” – Newsweek magazine, Jan. 26, 1970
“The United States and the Soviet Union are mounting large-scale investigations to determine why the Arctic climate is becoming more frigid, why parts of the Arctic sea ice have recently become ominously thicker and whether the extent of that ice cover contributes to the onset of ice ages.” – New York Times, July 18, 1970
“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, could be sufficient to trigger an ice age." – Washington Post, July 9, 1971
“It's already getting colder. Some midsummer day, perhaps not too far in the future, a hard, killing frost will sweep down on the wheat fields of Saskatchewan, the Dakotas and the Russian steppes. . . .” – Los Angles Times, Oct. 24, 1971
“An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.” – New York Times, Jan. 5, 1978
“A poll of climate specialists in seven countries has found a consensus that there will be no catastrophic changes in the climate by the end of the century. But the specialists were almost equally divided on whether there would be a warming, a cooling or no change at all.” – New York Times, Feb. 18, 1978
“A global warming trend could bring heat waves, dust-dry farmland and disease, the experts said... Under this scenario, the resort town of Ocean City, Md., will lose 39 feet of shoreline by 2000 and a total of 85 feet within the next 25 years.” – San Jose Mercury News, June 11, 1986
“Global warming could force Americans to build 86 more power plants -- at a cost of $110 billion -- to keep all their air conditioners running 20 years from now, a new study says...Using computer models, researchers concluded that global warming would raise average annual temperatures nationwide two degrees by 2010, and the drain on power would require the building of 86 new midsize power plants – Associated Press, May 15, 1989
“New York will probably be like Florida 15 years from now.” -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 17, 1989
"[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots . . . [By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers . . . The Mexican police will round up illegal American migrants surging into Mexico seeking work as field hands.” – "Dead Heat: The Race Against the Greenhouse Effect," Michael Oppenheimer and Robert H. Boyle, 1990.
"It appears that we have a very good case for suggesting that the El Ninos are going to become more frequent, and they're going to become more intense and in a few years, or a decade or so, we'll go into a permanent El Nino. So instead of having cool water periods for a year or two, we'll have El Nino upon El Nino, and that will become the norm. And you'll have an El Nino, that instead of lasting 18 months, lasts 18 years,” according to Dr. Russ Schnell, a scientist doing atmospheric research at Mauna Loa Observatory. – BBC, Nov. 7, 1997
"Scientists are warning that some of the Himalayan glaciers could vanish within ten years because of global warming. A build-up of greenhouse gases is blamed for the meltdown, which could lead to drought and flooding in the region affecting millions of people." -- The Birmingham Post in England, July 26, 1999
“This year (2007) is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, beating the current record set in 1998.” – ScienceDaily, Jan. 5, 2007
Arctic warming has become so dramatic that the North Pole may melt this summer (2008), report scientists studying the effects of climate change in the field. "We're actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time [in history]," David Barber, of the University of Manitoba, told National Geographic News aboard the C.C.G.S. Amundsen, a Canadian research icebreaker. – National Geographic News, June 20, 2008
"So the climate will continue to change, even if we make maximum effort to slow the growth of carbon dioxide. Arctic sea ice will melt away in the summer season within the next few decades. Mountain glaciers, providing fresh water for rivers that supply hundreds of millions of people, will disappear - practically all of the glaciers could be gone within 50 years. . . Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know . . . We would set the planet on a course to the ice-free state, with sea level 75 metres higher. Climatic disasters would occur continually." Dr. James Hansen (NASA GISS), The Observer, Feb. 15, 2009.
* * *
Climate change? Yes, there has been plenty of that during the past 140 years. Despite warnings by "experts of the day" of approaching climate disasters, mankind somehow managed to survive. A decade or so from now, after earth's climate changes once again, those who are old enough will recall with amusement the time, early in the 21st century, when the world went crazy over an imaginary threat called “global warming.”
Kirk Myers' columns appear several times weekly. To receive e-mail alerts when new articles are published, click on the "subscribe" button above. For a comprehensive look at global warming, please see the list of links to the right.
http://www.examiner.com/x-32936-Seminole....Washington-Post
---------
Doesn't it make you think that the only thing that differentiates current climate alarmism from that of previous eras is that today there is a damned sight more money backing the scaremongering and many more financial and economic interests now have a stake in promoting it..
Apart from that I can't see much difference myself.
Arctic Warms Seals Vanish Icebergs melt
Headline from
The Washington Post
November 2nd, 1922.
Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.
(The newspaper article was located in the Library of Congress archives by James Lockwood.)
I have taken the trouble to type out the archive report which was the basis for the above headline because it is so interesting in view of the present hysteria concerning contemporary arctic sea ice melt
November, 1922. MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW
THE CHANGING ARCTIC
BY George Nicolas Ifft
(under date of October 10, 1922, the American Consul in Norway submitted the following report to the State Department, Washington, D.C.)
The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas about Spitzbergen and the eastern Arctic, all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, and hitherto unheard of high temperatures in that part of the earth’s surface.
In August, 1922, the Norwegian Department of Commerce sent an expedition to Spitzbergen and Bear island under the leadership of Dr Adolf Hoel, lecturer on geology at the University of Christiana. Its purpose was to survey and chart the lands adjacent to the Norwegian mines on those islands, take soundings of the adjacent waters, and make other oceanographic investigations.
Dr Hoel, who has just returned, reports the location of hitherto unknown coal dposits on the eastern shors of Advent Bay - deposits of vast extent and superior quality. This is regarded as of first importance, as so far most of the coal mined by the Norwegian companies on those islands has not been of the best quality.
The oceanographic observations have, however, been even more interesting. Ice conditions were exceptional. In fact, so little ice has never before been noted. The expedition all but established a record, saling as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes in ice-free water. This is the farthest north ever reached with modern oceanographic apparatus.
The character of the waters of the great polar basin has heretofor been practically unknown. Dr Hoel reports that he made a section of the Gulf Stream at 81 degrees north latitude and took soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters. These show the Gulf Stream very warm, and it could be traced as a surface current till beyond the 81st parallel. The warmth of the waters makes it probable that the favorable ice conditions will continue for some time.
Later a section was taken of the Gulf Stream off Bear Island and off the Isfjord, as well as a section of the cold current that comes down along the west coast of Spitbergen off the south cape.
In connection with Dr Hoel’s report, it is of interest to note the unusually warm summer in Arctic Norway and the observations of Capt. Martin Ingebrigtsen, who has sailed the eastern Arctic for 54 years past. He says that he first noted warmer conditions in 1918, that since that time it has steadily gotten warmer, and that today the Arctic of that region is not recognizable as the same Arctic region of 1868 to 1917.
Many old landmarks are so changed as to be unrecognizable. Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now often morraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended far into the sea they have entirely disappeared.
The change in the temperature, says Capt. Ingebrigtsen, has also brought about great change in the flora and fauna of the Arctic. This summer he sought for white fish in Spitsbergen waters. Formerly great shoals of them were found here. This year he saw none, although he visited all the old fishing grounds.
There were few seal in Spitzbergen waters this year, the catch being far under the average. This, however, did not surprise the captain. He pointed out that formerly the waters about Spitzbergen held an even summer temperature of about 3 degrees Celsius; this year recorded temperatures of about 15 dgrees Celsius, and last year the ocean did not freeze over even on the north coast of Spitzbergen.
With the disappearance of white fish and seal has come other life in these waters. This year herring in great shoals were found along the west coast of Spitzbergen, all the way from the fry to the veritable great herring. Shoals of smelt were also met with.
ooooo
Isn’t the internet wonderful - giving people like me access to this fabulous historical archive? It is like going back in time. What a privilege to retype this old story here for modern readers to appreciate. I hope you do appreciate it and draw the appropriate conclusions from it.
NB This warming, which was also experienced in Greenland, lasted from 1918 to C1939.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.c....y_wx_review.png
![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_v8lFHPtnVsv6hf6WLbxym1gavQrBggXeecgWxvzPR-9Z0PMFA58GEi1eT0_HaOkGLUb7rMmnxIDGgmn-O3QABAho23ubmVJuz78Zop9l1YbFYaOZSOOhi2_RUKhJfY7UtHBbbbdYdGdRa6nS0NnN33UfezeA=s0-d "[image]")
Map of the Arctic Ocean, perhaps more accurately described as the "Great Polar Basin" in the above report. Also shows the lines of latitude. Spitzbergen is described as the Svalbard Archipelago these days.
Being almost landlocked, the Arctic Ocean is a rather special case, as oceans go, I guess.
An anecdote I recently heard about Svalbard. There are more polar bears (2000) there than humans and you can carry a gun to protect yourself from them. So much for the endangered species.
"Firearms for protection against polar bears
Firearm permits for protection against polar bears may be issued to persons that fulfil the general applicant requirements. Permits are normally issued for rifles of calibre .308W/30-06 or 12-gauge shotguns or corresponding. Single-hand firearm permits are generally not issued for protection against polar bears.
Permits are conditional: Valid only for protection against polar bears on Svalbard."
http://www.sysselmannen.no/hovedEnkel.aspx?m=58146&amid=2828912
........
The Washington Post
November 2nd, 1922.
Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.
(The newspaper article was located in the Library of Congress archives by James Lockwood.)
I have taken the trouble to type out the archive report which was the basis for the above headline because it is so interesting in view of the present hysteria concerning contemporary arctic sea ice melt
THE CHANGING ARCTIC
BY George Nicolas Ifft
(under date of October 10, 1922, the American Consul in Norway submitted the following report to the State Department, Washington, D.C.)
The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas about Spitzbergen and the eastern Arctic, all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, and hitherto unheard of high temperatures in that part of the earth’s surface.
In August, 1922, the Norwegian Department of Commerce sent an expedition to Spitzbergen and Bear island under the leadership of Dr Adolf Hoel, lecturer on geology at the University of Christiana. Its purpose was to survey and chart the lands adjacent to the Norwegian mines on those islands, take soundings of the adjacent waters, and make other oceanographic investigations.
Dr Hoel, who has just returned, reports the location of hitherto unknown coal dposits on the eastern shors of Advent Bay - deposits of vast extent and superior quality. This is regarded as of first importance, as so far most of the coal mined by the Norwegian companies on those islands has not been of the best quality.
The oceanographic observations have, however, been even more interesting. Ice conditions were exceptional. In fact, so little ice has never before been noted. The expedition all but established a record, saling as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes in ice-free water. This is the farthest north ever reached with modern oceanographic apparatus.
The character of the waters of the great polar basin has heretofor been practically unknown. Dr Hoel reports that he made a section of the Gulf Stream at 81 degrees north latitude and took soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters. These show the Gulf Stream very warm, and it could be traced as a surface current till beyond the 81st parallel. The warmth of the waters makes it probable that the favorable ice conditions will continue for some time.
Later a section was taken of the Gulf Stream off Bear Island and off the Isfjord, as well as a section of the cold current that comes down along the west coast of Spitbergen off the south cape.
In connection with Dr Hoel’s report, it is of interest to note the unusually warm summer in Arctic Norway and the observations of Capt. Martin Ingebrigtsen, who has sailed the eastern Arctic for 54 years past. He says that he first noted warmer conditions in 1918, that since that time it has steadily gotten warmer, and that today the Arctic of that region is not recognizable as the same Arctic region of 1868 to 1917.
Many old landmarks are so changed as to be unrecognizable. Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now often morraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended far into the sea they have entirely disappeared.
The change in the temperature, says Capt. Ingebrigtsen, has also brought about great change in the flora and fauna of the Arctic. This summer he sought for white fish in Spitsbergen waters. Formerly great shoals of them were found here. This year he saw none, although he visited all the old fishing grounds.
There were few seal in Spitzbergen waters this year, the catch being far under the average. This, however, did not surprise the captain. He pointed out that formerly the waters about Spitzbergen held an even summer temperature of about 3 degrees Celsius; this year recorded temperatures of about 15 dgrees Celsius, and last year the ocean did not freeze over even on the north coast of Spitzbergen.
With the disappearance of white fish and seal has come other life in these waters. This year herring in great shoals were found along the west coast of Spitzbergen, all the way from the fry to the veritable great herring. Shoals of smelt were also met with.
ooooo
Isn’t the internet wonderful - giving people like me access to this fabulous historical archive? It is like going back in time. What a privilege to retype this old story here for modern readers to appreciate. I hope you do appreciate it and draw the appropriate conclusions from it.
NB This warming, which was also experienced in Greenland, lasted from 1918 to C1939.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.c....y_wx_review.png
........
Map of the Arctic Ocean, perhaps more accurately described as the "Great Polar Basin" in the above report. Also shows the lines of latitude. Spitzbergen is described as the Svalbard Archipelago these days.
Being almost landlocked, the Arctic Ocean is a rather special case, as oceans go, I guess.
An anecdote I recently heard about Svalbard. There are more polar bears (2000) there than humans and you can carry a gun to protect yourself from them. So much for the endangered species.
"Firearms for protection against polar bears
Firearm permits for protection against polar bears may be issued to persons that fulfil the general applicant requirements. Permits are normally issued for rifles of calibre .308W/30-06 or 12-gauge shotguns or corresponding. Single-hand firearm permits are generally not issued for protection against polar bears.
Permits are conditional: Valid only for protection against polar bears on Svalbard."
http://www.sysselmannen.no/hovedEnkel.aspx?m=58146&amid=2828912
........
Hmmm.
This doesn't look like the 10ft thick ice the silly Pen Hadrow expedition told us used to be the norm for the arctic. This is a photo of a US Atomic sub surfacing at the North Pole c 1958
![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vxP4BUh1FUutDmPVTVCXa-c91WfVuZpD1sesmBsWuh7uUc6MeEGJJ7MbRmOO21nHH2N757wyytSd2q47iMNzC5QnwVo3EHK76LH73Qh5CEmk81DllUWj5VWpBRk2x5OTkMH8aSao8_boMH64rP2I9vGT5bicQIQjLJr4A=s0-d "[image]")
This doesn't look like the 10ft thick ice the silly Pen Hadrow expedition told us used to be the norm for the arctic. This is a photo of a US Atomic sub surfacing at the North Pole c 1958
..........
Nor this
![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tLHi1S31fHg9ZibLUFmUCrNlgK5ovjwxIotKQKeN6CpYgsdexeLPbCLtBgtgW_Mlcllj5XMBtuJDEabKXe9EKbx8WCw8YV3nLPUEckZl6fSJmVp_y9yyELPURWEk9CzXedH4O8AT5XwVphcA=s0-d "[image]")
It’s 1958. That’s the North Pole. There’s no ice. Gore and his global warming brethren have repeatedly told us that the ice has never been as thin in the arctic as it is today, but this photo tells another story. It’s pretty clear that in 1958 the arctic was…well…pretty clear.
Not only did the the Skate surface in virtually ice-free water at the North Pole, but the weather was mild enough that crewmen went out to chip a bit of ice off the sub’s hull.
One crew member aboard the USS Skate which surfaced at the North Pole in 1959 and numerous other locations during Arctic cruises in 1958 and 1959 said:
"the Skate found open water both in the summer and following winter. We surfaced near the North Pole in the winter through thin ice less than 2 feet thick. The ice moves from Alaska to Iceland and the wind and tides causes open water as the ice breaks up. The Ice at the polar ice cap is an average of 6-8 feet thick, but with the wind and tides the ice will crack and open into large polynyas (areas of open water), these areas will refreeze over with thin ice. We had sonar equipment that would find these open or thin areas to come up through, thus limiting any damage to the submarine. The ice would also close in and cover these areas crushing together making large ice ridges both above and below the water. We came up through a very large opening in 1958 that was 1/2 mile long and 200 yards wide. The wind came up and closed the opening within 2 hours. On both trips we were able to find open water. We were not able to surface through ice thicker than 3 feet."
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
It’s 1958. That’s the North Pole. There’s no ice. Gore and his global warming brethren have repeatedly told us that the ice has never been as thin in the arctic as it is today, but this photo tells another story. It’s pretty clear that in 1958 the arctic was…well…pretty clear.
Not only did the the Skate surface in virtually ice-free water at the North Pole, but the weather was mild enough that crewmen went out to chip a bit of ice off the sub’s hull.
One crew member aboard the USS Skate which surfaced at the North Pole in 1959 and numerous other locations during Arctic cruises in 1958 and 1959 said:
"the Skate found open water both in the summer and following winter. We surfaced near the North Pole in the winter through thin ice less than 2 feet thick. The ice moves from Alaska to Iceland and the wind and tides causes open water as the ice breaks up. The Ice at the polar ice cap is an average of 6-8 feet thick, but with the wind and tides the ice will crack and open into large polynyas (areas of open water), these areas will refreeze over with thin ice. We had sonar equipment that would find these open or thin areas to come up through, thus limiting any damage to the submarine. The ice would also close in and cover these areas crushing together making large ice ridges both above and below the water. We came up through a very large opening in 1958 that was 1/2 mile long and 200 yards wide. The wind came up and closed the opening within 2 hours. On both trips we were able to find open water. We were not able to surface through ice thicker than 3 feet."
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
.......
Nor this in 1962
![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vyur9OBLPIKVjzcnp7EfLMtSbZ_ixis8mGrJYGPoA1M6aM8ny9RzTUHiA2ykPplqyG9osoCt2SoXpmNSWKRgYOlzMU3SDf9xEP_lMh1HONr9MvO7a2J5eNkG_Q3pGsxoqDz5w1gibdrFWwjbcaA5LMBaPkC9jp01THGLBvOg=s0-d "[image]")
.......
Nor this
![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_twE4wOx9xZEsxeNrzU6nf9RovVEQdYzOZUSfC4BNrGoXTHL_zjvxBQC89KbgOkBoczFVR4LSrA-iyH-AQsAkLfHb68I_GsupZ7ZsdlUMxWzjs6Qt9pQr_-RUHErGvYXRyDZthyQcJeX1RTuGF02kAZ=s0-d "[image]")
.......
Then again in 1999 there was ice at the North Pole
![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vWhE9P7Cxo9nBfWy5jl_Qe9NAOFGzLwJrKI6KIvWoMSe6iXQk_4ryh89nZ9nz7XsBsqVIZIvSGP1Gfkd9Y2UKVoETdDNkSowusyB-ZI84RY7rvQa7REPw6tfFqyq_xS-i8QQCQt7_g7KoTD7DGDBCsNPuGv7XN=s0-d "[image]")
Looks to me as if arctic ice is pretty variable and not at all an infallible indicator of AGW.
........
"The Russians have been using the Northeast Passage for seventy years.
The records from whaling ships in the arctic record years of almost no ice. I don’t know where you live but if you visit Vancouver, BC and go to their Maritime Museum, they have preserved the ship the St. Roch that routinely made the Northwest Passage during the 20s and 30s.
A couple times it got caught in the ice and had to overwinter but generally, it sailed from Vancouver (British Columbia) to Halifax (Nova Scotia) in one season. And that was while it was stopping at villages and doing work (she was an R.C.M.P. patrol boat) — her voyages were not some mad dash trying to set a record.
The ice comes and it goes."
The records from whaling ships in the arctic record years of almost no ice. I don’t know where you live but if you visit Vancouver, BC and go to their Maritime Museum, they have preserved the ship the St. Roch that routinely made the Northwest Passage during the 20s and 30s.
A couple times it got caught in the ice and had to overwinter but generally, it sailed from Vancouver (British Columbia) to Halifax (Nova Scotia) in one season. And that was while it was stopping at villages and doing work (she was an R.C.M.P. patrol boat) — her voyages were not some mad dash trying to set a record.
The ice comes and it goes."
......
Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Balance
E. Hanna1, J. Box, P. Huybrechts
Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, UK
Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University, USA
Departement Geografie, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/report07/essay_hanna.html
Summary
"Recent relatively high summer temperatures (1995-2005) are associated with increased net ice loss over Greenland. Recent warm events are about the same magnitude, if not smaller, than those of the early 20th century warm period (1918-1947). 2006 was not as warm as other recent years such as 2003 or 2005. Physical response mechanisms, such as hydraulic acceleration of the ice sheet from continued warming, remain incompletely understood."
.."Over the past century, years in Greenland that register as abnormally warm, 1929, 1932, 1941, 1947, and 1960 are outstanding, having temperatures warmer than observed recently."
E. Hanna1, J. Box, P. Huybrechts
Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, UK
Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University, USA
Departement Geografie, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/report07/essay_hanna.html
Summary
"Recent relatively high summer temperatures (1995-2005) are associated with increased net ice loss over Greenland. Recent warm events are about the same magnitude, if not smaller, than those of the early 20th century warm period (1918-1947). 2006 was not as warm as other recent years such as 2003 or 2005. Physical response mechanisms, such as hydraulic acceleration of the ice sheet from continued warming, remain incompletely understood."
.."Over the past century, years in Greenland that register as abnormally warm, 1929, 1932, 1941, 1947, and 1960 are outstanding, having temperatures warmer than observed recently."
.......
John L. Daly's plots of non-urban surface station temperature graphs from all round the Arctic Basin. A real eye-opener! NO "unprecendented" warming over more than a century.
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/Arctic.htm
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/Arctic.htm
NASA EXAMINES ARCTIC SEA ICE CHANGES LEADING TO RECORD LOW IN 2007
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html
.....The scientists observed less perennial ice cover in March 2007 than ever before, with the thick ice confined to the Arctic Ocean north of Canada. Consequently, the Arctic Ocean was dominated by thinner seasonal ice that melts faster. This ice is more easily compressed and responds more quickly to being pushed out of the Arctic by winds. Those thinner seasonal ice conditions facilitated the ice loss, leading to this year's record low amount of total Arctic sea ice.
Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. "Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.
"The winds causing this trend in ice reduction were set up by an unusual pattern of atmospheric pressure that began at the beginning of this century," Nghiem said....
..........
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html
.....The scientists observed less perennial ice cover in March 2007 than ever before, with the thick ice confined to the Arctic Ocean north of Canada. Consequently, the Arctic Ocean was dominated by thinner seasonal ice that melts faster. This ice is more easily compressed and responds more quickly to being pushed out of the Arctic by winds. Those thinner seasonal ice conditions facilitated the ice loss, leading to this year's record low amount of total Arctic sea ice.
Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. "Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.
"The winds causing this trend in ice reduction were set up by an unusual pattern of atmospheric pressure that began at the beginning of this century," Nghiem said....
..........
The work of ice-breakers by the nations bordering the arctic ocean in keeping shipping lines open may also be implicated in the break up of arctic sea-ice and the ease with which the wind canflush it out of the Polar Basin southwards where it melts.
Changes in Arctic sea-ice, like every other aspect of climate, is an enormously complex interaction of many variables. To try to pin it all on AGW is naive. Perhaps the effect of the ice-breaker is the nearest to an unequivocal "anthropogenic signal" we can find in the arctic.
Changes in Arctic sea-ice, like every other aspect of climate, is an enormously complex interaction of many variables. To try to pin it all on AGW is naive. Perhaps the effect of the ice-breaker is the nearest to an unequivocal "anthropogenic signal" we can find in the arctic.
.........
Quote from Hubert Lamb, (founder of the CRU) “Climate Present, Past, and Future,” vol. 2 page 516:
“There was a period of severe ice on the SE coast of Greenland even in the spring of 1938 owing to the exceptional rapidity of the outflow of ice from near the North Pole (fig. 7.4 vol. 1). The late summer of that year saw the most extensive open water ever known north of the coast of Asia.”
It seems as though someone was measuring the ice in 1938.
“There was a period of severe ice on the SE coast of Greenland even in the spring of 1938 owing to the exceptional rapidity of the outflow of ice from near the North Pole (fig. 7.4 vol. 1). The late summer of that year saw the most extensive open water ever known north of the coast of Asia.”
It seems as though someone was measuring the ice in 1938.
.........
Thanks to WUWT for this delve into conveniently forgotten archives. This book was written in 1943. So what's new?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/02/ca....gen/#more-19179
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![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vZizOZ0S2NzkSWZjWG4VEPYZGY2yl0hQUCqvXYIoS8vvaEp4pXgKB8Y8ReUz8VaERXFLoydOE-3tue0mLMo5rppjVdVi6wECE0YTzQfn0FXSD0kTN3nlc5dg-xYUu5ktPG9YXkEQ=s0-d "[image]")
![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ufqpeDxmTF3Tu6sFSazjpy1yk1o-0bz_nkTQTItWv5AWO92EZCuOUGxXWMI77hV_zdgvkKVSlS1kwmKR7WweQLGCE1JjQbwvL-bKugbv16LBwELLNXAWUyt75yX9t6LR4Xl8VC=s0-d "[image]")
![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uqocEXZuXBQBmZuT0MBhhw8qHXbuU0ioO4Lrkp85gbTZc2eYgHH6Op3IdYdb2__1bwU5Nh359xE4PF1Xn98lhKP2blDWpN2Fe2SJO5C7k5k1D_yeBm4bz4uZZAXvI7BxKwDjwsibfdOScgY6zPEFgn3A=s0-d "[image]")
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/02/ca....gen/#more-19179
............
If the earth were as smooth as only an expert plasterer could render it (pun alert!) it would be entirely covered by
ocean several miles deep!
Bear that in mind if you have any doubt that this is a watery planet and that water is by far its most important
constituent part.
In searching for the average depth of the oceans I came across first this website which I imagine is aimed at school children.
www.enchantedlearnin...
It contains some interesting information. What struck me most was that the Arctic is BY FAR the shallowest of the oceans
which I imagine is not unconnected with its propensity to freeze. It is also by far the smallest in extent,
more accurately described in the past as “The Great Polar Basin”.
Average depth in feet ........................ Area in Million Sq Miles
Pacific ....... 15,215 ..................................... 64 million
Atlantic ...... 12,881 ..................................... 33 million
Indian .........13,002 ..................................... 28 million
Southern .... 15,000 ....................................... 8 million
Arctic .......... 3,953 ....................................... 5 million
ocean several miles deep!
Bear that in mind if you have any doubt that this is a watery planet and that water is by far its most important
constituent part.
In searching for the average depth of the oceans I came across first this website which I imagine is aimed at school children.
www.enchantedlearnin...
It contains some interesting information. What struck me most was that the Arctic is BY FAR the shallowest of the oceans
which I imagine is not unconnected with its propensity to freeze. It is also by far the smallest in extent,
more accurately described in the past as “The Great Polar Basin”.
Average depth in feet ........................ Area in Million Sq Miles
Pacific ....... 15,215 ..................................... 64 million
Atlantic ...... 12,881 ..................................... 33 million
Indian .........13,002 ..................................... 28 million
Southern .... 15,000 ....................................... 8 million
Arctic .......... 3,953 ....................................... 5 million
00000000
Almost 200 years ago, the President of the Royal Society wrote this to the admiralty :
“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.
(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.”
URBAN HEAT ISLAND is alive and well
| UHI is alive and well Anthony Watts California Counties by population show a distinct UHI signature. My friend Jim Goodridge, former California State Climatologist identified the statewide UHI signature issues way back in 1996. This graph had a profound effect on me, because it was the one that really made an impact on me, switching my views to being skeptical. Yes, I used to be a warmer, but that’s another story. Goodridge, J.D. (1996) Comments on “Regional Simulations of Greenhouse Warming including Natural Variability” . Bull, Amer. Meteorological Society 77:1588-1599. Goodrich (1996) showed the importance of urbanization to temperatures in his study of California counties in 1996. He found for counties with a million or more population the warming from 1910 to 1995 was 4F, for counties with 100,000 to 1 million it was 1F and for counties with less than 100,000 there was no change (0.1F). ![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_u1niZmVLJ70Fl0I1ipkbSKIFeRO7XO-66p8yQuWotqa0CsROT-zxnyIR3G4rOraRoxuJX7lRFxo9eVhxbcX2dyhx5HTUkEkuu9Qpes_klFBSaJqjgdS5UIWbDWwDEmrf1mZk9Z3yDpi1-BtFaqpwfrLsOPHNA=s0-d "[image]") He’s been quietly toiling away in his retirement on his computer for the last 15 years or so making all sort of data comparisons. One plot which he shared with me in 2003 is a 104 year plot map of California showing station trends after painstakingly hand entering data into an Excel spreadsheet and plotting slopes of the data to produce trend dots. He used every good continuous piece of data he could get his hands on, no adjusted data like the climate modelers use, only raw from Cooperative Observing Stations, CDF stations, Weather Service Office’s and Municipal stations. The results are quite interesting. Here it is: ![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sNGwM-W9th54GxgWluvmpxGp6pGZNGwleu1NilwXiBKg45-auQTcDWlHKZJ13MvFlWDCAuHxAn7h8OSHQ2P81OuWD8Yl_usJrfmF7s0BAdb-SAbPGbb3rXrFI9lcSM1Q=s0-d "[image]") part of an article by Anthony Watts at WUWT here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/31/uhi-is-alive-and-well/#more-15890 IPCC Big Guns may be well funded, but it's the sceptics who have the masses of volunteer informed infantry mobilised! .........
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