Sunday, 29 August 2010

Newspeak Climate Dictionary courtesy of "1984"




Winston Smith worked on ‘improving’ the Newspeak Climate dictionary. His job was not to chronicle the ever increasing diversity of the language, but rather to limit the language in the pursuit of narrowing the possible extent of discourse.


Words are powerful. The warmists know this. As their tangled web continues to unravel, they know that their big lie cannot continue to be perpetrated without increased control of the discourse. It’s not enough to have a defacto monopoly over the opinion cartel, the language must also be manipulated to reduce the potential for us to have ‘impure thoughts’ or to accidentally become aware of the contradictions. As a result:


Warm is "warm". Cool is "unwarm". Cold is "super plus unwarm".

‘Unprecedented’ describes any event which has not been observed within recent memory.

‘Denial’ is disbelief in something that doesn’t exist.

Cold air from Antarctica (in SH winter) is an ‘extreme’ event.

‘Extreme’ applies to any weather event whose measurable properties deviate perceptibly from the long term average.

Weather is climate, except when it’s not.

The basic building block of all life on earth is a "pollutant".

Anthropogenic global warming cannot be falsified, thus climate change is science.


fhsiv

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/28/nature-notices-the-cold-global-warming-blamed/

Monday, 16 August 2010

New Zealand - Legal challenge

NIWA is being sued by the NZ Climate Coalition, mainly due to the differences in data in this graph:

Niwa sued over data accuracy

The country’s state-owned weather and atmospheric research body is being taken to court in a challenge over the accuracy of its data used to calculate global warming.

The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition said it had lodged papers with the High Court asking the court to invalidate the official temperatures record of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa).

The lobby of climate sceptics and ACT Party have long criticised Niwa over its temperature data, which Niwa says is mainstream science and not controversial, and the raw data publicly available.

The coalition said the New Zealand Temperature Records (NZTR) were the historical base of NIWA’s advice to the Government on issues relating to climate change.

Coalition spokesman Bryan Leyland said many scientists believed although the earth had been warming for 150 years, it had not heated as much as Government archives claimed.

He said the New Zealand Meteorological Service had shown no warming during the past century but Niwa had adjusted its records to show a warming trend of 1degC. The warming figure was high and almost 50 percent above the global average, said Mr Leyland.

Full story here:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4026330/Niwa-sued-over-data-accuracy



courtesy of WUWT

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/16/new-zealands-niwa-sued-over-climate-data-adjustments/


Saturday, 14 August 2010

Russia's Fires

Courtesy (as usual) of WUWT bloggers, a translation from Russian of accounts of previous fires
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/14/pi....sia/#more-23406

Here are some interesting historical accounts of forest and peat fires in Russia dating back to the 13th century. There occur every few decades. I can’t be bothered to translate it all, but have translated a selection. If you have any doubts, you can find yourself a translator. As for death rates, one can only guess.
http://therese-phil.livejournal.com/171196.html

1298: There was a wholesale death of animals. In the same year there was a drought, and the woods and peat bogs burnt.

1364: Halfway through summer there was a complete smoke haze, the heat was dreadful, the forests, bogs and earth were burning, rivers dried up. The same thing happened the following year . . .

1431: following a blotting out of the sky, and pillars of fire, there was a drought – “the earth and the bogs smouldered, there was no clear sky for 6 weeks, nobody saw the sun, fishes, animals and birds died of the smoke.

1735: Empress Anna wrote to General Ushakov: “Andrei Ivanovich, here in St Petersburg it is so smoky that one cannot open the windows, and all because, just like last year, the forests are burning. We are surprised that no-one has thought about how to stem the fires, which are burning for the second year in a row”.

1831: Summer was unbearably hot, and as a consequence of numerous fires in the forests, there was a constant haze of smoke in the air, through which the sun appeared a red hot ball; the smell of burning was so strong, that it was difficult to breathe.

The years of 1839-1841 were known as the “hungry years”. In the spring of 1840, the spring sowings of corn disappeared in many places. From midway through April until the end of August not a drop of rain fell. From the beginning of summer the fields were covered with a dirty grey film of dust. All the plants wilted, dying from the heat and lack of water. It was extraordinarily hot and close, even though the sun, being covered in haze, shone very weakly through the haze of smoke. Here and there in various regions of Russia the forests and peat bogs were burning (the firest had begun already in 1939). there was a reddish haze, partially covering the sun, and there were dark, menacing clouds on the horizon. There was a choking stench of smoke which penetrated everywhere, even into houses where the windows remained closed.

1868: the weather was murderous. It rained once during the summer. There was a drought. The sun, like a red hot cinder, glowed through the clouds of smoke from the peat bogs. Near Peterhoff the forests and peat workings burnt, and troops dug trenches and flooded the subterranean fire. It was 40 centigrade in the open, and 28 in the shade.

1868: a prolonged drought in the northern regions was accompanied by devastating fires in various regions. Apart from the cities and villages affected by this catastrophe, the forests, peat workings and dried-up marshes were burning. In St Petersburg region smoke filled the city and its outlying districts for several weeks.

1875: While in western europe there is continual rain and they complain about the cold summer, here in Russia there is a terrible drought. In southern Russia all the cereal and fruit crops have died, and around St Petersburg the forest fires are such that in the city itself, especially in the evening, there is a thick haze of smoke and a smell of burning. Yesterday, the burning woods and peat bogs threatened the ammunitiion stores of the artillery range and even Okhtensk gunpowder factory.

1885: (in a letter from Peter Tchaikovsky, composer): I’m writing to you at three oclock in the afternoon in such darkness, you would think it was nine oclock at night. For several days, the horizon has been enveloped in a smoke haze, arising, they say, from fires in the forest and peat bogs. Visibility is diminishing by the day, and I’m starting to fear that we might even die of suffocation.

1917 (diary of Aleksandr Blok, poet): There is a smell of burning, as it seems, all around the city peat bogs, undergrowth and trees are burning. And no-one can extinguish it. That will be done only by rain and the winter. Yellowish-brown clouds of smoke envelope the villages, wide swaithes of undergrowth are burning, and God sends no rain, and what wheat there is in the fields is burning.

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Tuesday, 10 August 2010

RICHARD BLACK INVENTS RICE DECLINE SCARE STORY


STOP PRESS RICHARD BLACK ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT MISQUOTES RESEARCH FINDING IN TYPICAL BBC POLICY OF EXAGGERATING PURPORTED CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS. IT'S PADDYGATE!

Richard says "Global warming is cutting rice yields in many parts of Asia, according to research, with more declines to come. Yields have fallen by 10-20% over the last 25 years in some locations.” this was the original article that I captured here
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BBC News - Science and Environment 9th August 2010

Rice yields falling under global warming

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

Dark clouds hang over future farming under climate change, the study suggests

Global warming is cutting rice yields in many parts of Asia, according to research, with more declines to come.
Yields have fallen by 10-20% over the last 25 years in some locations.
The group of mainly US-based scientists studied records from 227 farms in six important rice-producing countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, India and China.
This is the latest in a line of studies to suggest that climate change will make it harder to feed the world's growing population by cutting yields.
We haven't seen a scenario where daytime temperatures cross over a threshold where they'd stop benefiting yields and start reducing them”
In 2004, other researchers found that rice yields in the Philippines were dropping by 10% for every 1C increase in night-time temperature.
That finding, like others, came from experiments on a research station.
The latest data, by contrast, comes from working, fully-irrigated farms that grow "green revolution" crops, and span the rice-growing lands of Asia from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu to the outskirts of Shanghai.
Describing the findings, which are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), lead researcher Jarrod Welch said"We found that as the daily minimum temperature increases, or as nights get hotter, rice yields drop."
The mechanism involved is not clear but may involve rice plants having to respire more during warm nights, so expending more energy, without being able to photosynthesise.
By contrast, higher temperatures during the day were related to higher yields; but the effect was less than the yield-reducing impact of warmer nights.
However, if temperatures continue to rise as computer models of climate project, Mr Welch says hotter days will eventually begin to bring yields down.
Warmer climates will bring changes to rainfall, potentially causing drought
"We see a benefit of [higher] daytime temperatures principally becausewe haven't seen a scenario where daytime temperatures cross over a threshold where they'd stop benefiting yields and start reducing them," he told BBC News.
"There have been some recent studies on US crops, in particular corn, that showed the drop-off after that threshold is substantial," said the University of California at San Diego researcher.
The 2007 assessment of climate impacts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that although a modest temperature rise could increase crop yields in some regions, for "temperature increases more than 3C, average impacts are stressful to all crops assessed and to all regions".
A study published at the begining of last year concluded that half of the world's population could face a climate-induced food crisis by 210 0, with the most extreme summers of the last century becoming routine towards the end of this century.

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whereas the press release says ”Rising temperatures during the past 25 years have already cut the yield growth rate by 10-20 percent in several locations. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/uoc--htt080610.php

Meanwhile, in the real world away from state sponsored (BBC) environmentalist blogs, rice production is STILL rising!

Do you need any more proof that the BBC is a scare-monger, NOT the squeaky-clean, be-all and end-all of climate reporting? I got the correct press release link from WUWT. Read this and the comments for the REAL picture about rice production.
Even the original research quoted was only for 6 years data on 227 farms in 6 countries. Where do they get their “25 years” from? How do they know temperature is the only or even main explanatory variable for purported differences observed?

Total CARP! Just typical scare-mongering from so-called "climate researchers” to keep the research funding flowing and themselves in a job.


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BBC to issue correction on rice yields story

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Anthony Watts
wattsupwiththat.com/


From: Richard Black
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 7:01 AM
To: Anthony Watts
Subject: RE: Your article on rice yields

Dear Anthony,

Thanks for your email. You are correct – I am mistaken – a correction will be made to the news story shortly.

Best regards,
Richard Black

But I sent Richard an email first! Where's MY reply?
Yippee! Vindication!

--------

The title of Black’s Article has been altered from
“Rice yields falling under global warming”
to
“Rice yields 'to fall' under global warming”

The opening sentence has changed from
"Global warming is cutting rice yields in many parts of Asia, according to research, with more declines to come. Yields have fallen by 10-20% over the last 25 years in some locations."
to
"Global warming is set to cut rice yields in Asia, research suggests. Scientists found that over the last 25 years, the growth in yields has fallen by 10-20% in some locations, as night-time temperatures have risen."

Later this sentence
“This is the latest in a line of studies to suggest that climate change will make it harder to feed the world's growing population by cutting yields.”
is replaced by this
“This is the latest study to suggest that climate change will make it harder to feed the world's growing population."

This new sentence is inserted
"Although yields have risen as farming methods improved, the rate of growth has slowed as nights have grown warmer."


That’s about it in terms of a "correction". Overall it's the same "future scenario" scare-mongering as before, in fact.

The role of population growth in making rice production "problematic" is hinted at but this does not stop Richard going overboard with another “global warming" scare story instead of a "global population growth" scare story.

At least he's not calling it "anthropogenic global warming" but he doesn't need to because his followers insert this word automatically for themselves. Trained like Pavlov's dogs.

Here's the new version

“Rice yields 'to fall' under global warming”

A question mark after the title would indicate that Richard Black has at least one brain cell alive to the possibility that the "predicted scenario" may not come to pass.
And why does he place "to fall" in quotes? Are we supposed to think he is being ironic?



Saturday, 7 August 2010

Hockeystick Maths fun (re Tiljanger's Proxies)

Gavin explained his frustration stemmed from people asking the same question over and over when it was already answered. He then reveals something new and closes the thread. We carry on here with one unknown guy trying to defend mann.
That’s the PROBLEM.


Mann: 2+2=5
McIntyre No, 2+2=4
Mann; thats bizarre
Mc: 2+2=4, just say it Mike
Mann: it doesnt matter, look over here we say 3+3=6
Mc: 2+2=4
Mann: it doesnt matter, ask gavin
Amac: ya 2+2=4
Mann: it doesnt matter
Mosher: Can anybody besides steve just say that 2+2=4
Dehog: You said Piltdown Mann once.
Mc: 2+2=4
Gavin: it doesnt matter:
Tiljander: 2+2=4
Arthur Smith: I”ll look into it.
Amac; 2+2=4
Gavin: Can we change the subject, we said it doesnt matter.
Mosher: can you say 2+2=4
Lambert: Fuller is full of it.
Bishop: Mike said 2+2=5, but 2+2=4
Tamino: Bishop said 2+2=5
Mc: Bishop was explaining Mann.
Amac: 2+2=4
Kloor: why can’t we reason together?
Gavin: we try, but they wont read our answers.
Amac: 2+2=4
Gavin: There he goes again, please shut him up.
Mc; 2+2=4
RC commenter: Do your own science Mcintyre
Mc: 2+2=4 is not publishable. Mann needs to correct this.
Mann: its all in the SI
Amac: hey mann website now says 2+2=4
Gavin: The exact value of 2+2 is uninteresting. move along
RC commenter: Hey McIntyre said 2+2=5
Mc: no I didnt
RC commenter: oops, my bad, but I’m right in spirit
Gavin: discussion over, lets talk about the black list.
Kloor: all you people who think 2+2=4, can discuss this further.
Scientist: Tiljander’s paper wasn’t perfect, lets pressure test her.
Amac: but 2+2=4
Scientist: Can you give me a reading list?
Gavin: discussion over, lets talk about the black list.
Kloor: all you people who think 2+2=4, can discuss this further.
Scientist: Tiljander’s paper wasn’t perfect, lets pressure test her.
Amac: but 2+2=4
Scientist: Can you give me a reading list?
Bender: read the whole blog.
Amac: in summary 2+2=4
Deltoid Commenter: tw pls tw eqls fr
Lambert: You’ve been disemvoweled
Amac: 2+2=4
Hank Roberts: I can’t find Amac on google scholar
Jim Praul: Good I’ll put him on the list.
Mc: 2+2=4
Gavin: I will not dignify an accusation of fraud with a response.
Mc: 2+2=4
Bart Verheggen: I am unimpressed by McIntyre’s dogwhistle tactics insinuating fraud.
Shell Oil: 2+2 =4
Deep Climate: that proves McIntyre’s Oil connection.
Briffa: I got 2+2=3
Harry: I didnt write that code.
Mann: Keith, hide that decline, here borrow 2 from me.
Jones: Keith, we match Mann now 2+2=5
Obsborn: Somebody email Amman and see what he thinks.
RyanO: good luck with that, Amman never answers mail
Palmer: Perfect, ask him if our mail is confidential.
Amman:
Jones: I think Amman would agree,deny the FOIA
Briffa (CONFIDENTIAL) gene, McItyre says 2+2=4. Can you help.
Wahl: We replicated his work, 2+2=5
Holland: I heard that.
Amac: 2+2=4
Amman: Oh MAN! will this crap ever end?? (http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=887)
RyanO: Hey, how’d you get Amman to answer mail?
YAD061: 2+2=5 (+-6sigma)
Amac:2+2=4
Brian Angliss: Lots of mails you havent read might say 2+2=4
Santer: Amac, you and me in the alley.
Dehog: Christy Believes in God.
Spencer: wrong skeptic, dehog.
God: 2+2=4
Jones: Dear God, delete your mail
Overpeck: Keith we need something more compelling than the Hockey stick
Briffa: 2+2=4.1?
Overpeck: MORE compelling keith
Wigley: McIntyre may have a point on this 2+2=4 thing.
Mann: “Who knows what trickery has been pulled or selective use of data made.”
Eli rabbet: Spencer made a mistake, therefore, 2+2=5
Amac: 2+2=4
Briffa: I got it, Peck, 2+2=5
Mann: I said that first.
Gavin: In a massive waste of time and money Independent researchers have investigated this uninteresting thing.
Moshpit:{slaps forehead}
Amman: http://www.naturesongs.com/cricket1.wav
Shell Oil: Hulme we gave you 2 million last month and you want another 2 million?
Hulme: Ya, 5 should be enough. Pachauri, promised us 6, so that makes 12.
Shell oil: Who is your accountant?
Hulme: Wei-Chyung Wang, at Suny
Jones: He keeps great records ask Keenan.
Amac:2+2=4.
Deltoid commenter: can I buy a vowel?
Lambert: buy 2 get 2 free
2+2=5 because you have to account for the forcing due to CO2
Mann: He doesnt need 5, Tim.
Trenbarth: We can’t find the extra 1 and it is a travesty that we can’t!!!
Keith: It’s in compound numbers and it’s for your i’s only.
Phil: You might mean complex numbers? I can’t imagine you’d be wrong, neither could i.
Judith Curry: can you boys please stop this nonsense
Mann: They started it
Mc: did not
Gavin: did too
Amac: did somebody say 2? 2+2=4
97% of mathematicians agree that 2+2=5.
If you take into account the ERROR BARS, then 2+2=5 is perfectly correct. With error bars of +/-42.
2.5 +2.5 = 5 but we suppressed the decimal places. How dare you ask for our detailed data!
Dr. Curry: 2 + 2 is approximately 5 for reasonable values of 2 and 5. Can’t we all just get along?
And 2+2=5, for very large values of 2….
AMac: 2+2 = 1+2+1 = 1+1+1+1 = 2*2 = 2^2 = 4
Gavin: For the sake of completeness, I will simply repeat 2+2=5, for some values of 5, until further notice.....


And so it goes! Thanks to the guys at ClimateAudit engaging a rare moment of fun here
http://climateaudit.org/2010/08/06/mosher-on-gavins-frustration/#comment-238046

Friday, 6 August 2010

NW Passage open “first time in history” and all that…

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Anthony Watts http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/06/cl.... at/#more-23059

2007: Impassable Northwest Passage Open For First Time In History (Uh?)

2010: Ship find shows Arctic Sea Ice conditions similar to 1853
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/08/ship-find-shows-arctic-sea-ice.html

[image]


This 1851 illustration shows the HMS Investigator on the north coast of Baring Island in the Arctic. Arctic archaeologists have found the ship that forged the final link in the Northwest Passage and was lost in the search for the Franklin expedition.

The international news media are hailing the archaeological find of a British naval ship the HMS Investigator on July 25 in an area far north (600 km) of the Arctic Circle that was previously unreachable due to sea ice. The HMS Investigator was abandoned in 1853, but not before sailing the last leg of the elusive Northwest Passage.

From AP/MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38459028/ns/technology_and_science-science/

"Captained by Robert McClure, the Investigator sailed in 1850. That year, McClure sailed the Investigator into the strait that now bears his name and realized that he was in the final leg of the Northwest Passage, the sea route across North America.

But before he could sail into the Beaufort Sea, the ship was blocked by pack ice and forced to winter-over in Prince of Wales Strait along the east coast of Banks Island."

From the Hockey Schtick: The ship had been sent on a rescue mission for 2 other ships mapping the Northwest Passage. Now, thanks to “climate change,” archaeologists working for Parks Canada were finally able to plot a small window of time this summer to allow passage to the ship’s location:

Parks Canada had been plotting the discovery of the three ships for more than a year, trying to figure out how to get the crews so far north. Once they arrived and got their bearings, the task seemed easier than originally thought. It took little more than 15 minutes to uncover the Investigator, officials told The Globe and Mail last week. “For a long time the area wasn’t open, but now it is because of climate change,” said Marc-AndrĂ© Bernier, chief of the Underwater Archaeology Service at Parks Canada.

Interesting that the ship was lost in 1853, right at the end of the Little Ice Age, and coincidentally just 3 years after the start of the HADCRU global temperature record, from which we are led to believe the earth has warmed about 0.7C. If we are seeing “unprecedented” global temperatures and changes in Arctic sea ice, how did the HMS Investigator get this far north at the end of the Little Ice Age?


Thanks to Anthony.

A Satire on AGW

From Fitzy on WUWT, a nice piece of satire. This occurred in the course of a discussion about the PNAS blacklist


http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/05/expert-embarrassment-in-climate-change/#more-23048



August 5, 2010 at 11:32 pm


“About the only merit I can find in the AGW theory, is its a noble lie, whose unintended consequences would be the death of millions, or maybe that is the intended consequence.

Shouldn’t talk ill of the departed, I know.


Saw the AGW theory lying forlorn in a field the other day, I rushed over, as you do, to see if maybe a vet could help, but it was too late.


I knelt down and patted the poor old thing, thinking, at the least it would know it wasn’t alone.


However it was cold to the touch, and I figured it must of expired during the night. On closer inspection, I could see that it had been terribly diseased for some time. I think, but i’m no vet, it had Galloping Hubris. Thats the old name of course, country vet lingo, these days they call it Post-Modern-Sarcoma. Along with that most horrid of conditions, I could see something like gang-green had probably finished it off.


The rot had set in some time ago, goodness only knows how it had managed to last this long, I think it must of received some kind of pallative care. Probably those hippy kids down the road, bringing it little nuggets to nibble on, that was ultimately a misplaced kindness. It suffered unnecessarily, had the initial disease run its course, it would of passed away years ago.



Thats the thing about propping up a dead horse, you just prolong the misery, a bit like that War-On-Terrier across the road. Barks like mad but doesn’t get anywhere with it,

left a hell of a mess last time it got out, puking up all over the place, probably been chewing on some dead old theory floating face down in a creek somewhere.”

Thursday, 5 August 2010

DMI polar data shows cooler Arctic temperature since 1958

From Frank Lansner at Hide the Decline

From DMI (Danish Meteorological Institute) we learn, that Arctic 80N-90N temperatures in the melt season this year is colder than average. This was the case last year too, while earlier years in the DMI analysis period (1958-2010) hardly ever shows Arctic melt season temperatures this cold.

This is how DMI temperature averages for Arctic 80N-90N melt season appears when plotted to allow comparison over time:

Fig2 (When i speak of “the melt season” i refer to the period where temperatures 80N-90N are above zero Celsius. The green line above is the DMI temperature average, a little over 0,9 Celsius)

It seems that average Arctic temperatures 80N – 90N in melt season of the years 2004, 2009 and 2010 are around 0,4-0,5K whereas the temperatures in 1991 and 1993 where around 1,3 K. In general DMI´s data (if correct) reveals a cooling from the mid 1990´ies till today.

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How very different from the Hot Arctic purveyed by JamesHansen at NASA/GISS

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Danish Meteorological Institute

Daily Mean Temperatures in the Arctic 1958 - 2010

Daily mean temperatures for the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel, plotted with daily climate values calculated from the period 1958-2002.

Calculation of the Arctic Mean Temperature
The daily mean temperature of the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel is estimated from the average of the 00z and 12z analysis for all model grid points inside that area. The ERA40 reanalysis data set from ECMWF, has been applied to calculate daily mean temperatures for the period from 1958 to 2002, from 2002 to 2006 data from the global NWP model T511 is used and from 2006 to present the T799 model data are used.

The ERA40 reanalysis data, has been applied to calculation of daily climate values that are plotted along with the daily analysis values in all plots. The data used to determine climate values is the full ERA40 data set, from 1958 to 2002.


Click here to view a blink comparison of every year's historical data
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php







China Coal-based Super Power


Are you aware that the TOTAL annual CO2 emissions of the UK are only equal to three months’ of the GROWTH in CO2 emissions that are taking place continuously NOW in China?

Helps you get things in proportion, doesn’t it? Our 2008 Climate Change Act mandates a cut of 80% from 1990 emissions levels by 2050. (Gulp - How??)

I just came across this very interesting talk on video given by Roger Pielke jr at the 8th Environmental Policy Conference of the Washington Policy Center last week in Seattle.

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/08/recent-talk-of-mine.html

Roger devotes lot of his speech to the UK's energy position.
Towards the end he brings in China's situation which is very relevant to our previous discussion here. It might help clarify the clear confusion of some of the participants here.

Please watch it. Roger’s talk begins 17 minutes in. You can adjust the start time by clicking on the inverted T logo on the control panel.

It's a fascinating approach. Roger is by no means a climate sceptic or denier. He is an environmental economist.

Wednesday, 4 August 2010

Jasper Kirby CERN video


Jasper Kirby explains the possible relationship between cosmic rays causing cloud condensation nuclei and the cloud albedo effect on temperature


http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073

CME Coronal Mass Ejection

A large solar flare seen on the sun on the 1st August 2010 has just hit the earth (3/4th August).

These sudden increases in the solar wind have the effect of temporarily depressing the amount of galactic cosmic radiation reaching the earth. The galactic radiation increases cloud condensation nucei and therefore cloud formation particularly over the oceans which has a cooling effect because of increased albedo.

When the formation of these cloud condensation nuclei is temporarily interrupted due to an increase in solar wind there is less cloudiness and therefore higher temperatures on earth it is hypothesised.

It would be interesting to see whether this latest “Forbush” event will result in an observable increase in temperature. This is the sort of empirical observation that climatologists should be studying. Sadly they are not, at least the IPCC hacks are not. It is astrophysicists and the like who are currently keeping this little flame of genuine scientific enquiry alive.





Brought you courtesy of ItstheSunStupid Department.

US ENERY BILL IS DEAD ON ARRIVAL IN SENATE

"Senate Democrats on Tuesday 3rd August 2010 abandoned all hopes of passing even a slimmed-down energy bill before they adjourn for the summer recess, saying that they did not have sufficient votes even for legislation tailored narrowly to respond to the Gulf oil spill.

Although the majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, sought to blame Republicans for sinking the energy measure, the reality is that Democrats are also divided over how to proceed on the issue and had long ago given up hope of a comprehensive bill to address climate change."

Can it be that there is a tiny glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel that the world is coming to its senses re the AGW juggernaut scam?

I sincerely hope so.

-------

So, the EPA is left to pick up “climate change” via the Clean Air Legislation where Congress dropped the debate

David A. Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin in the Washingtom Post
Wednesday, August 4, 2010

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con....0306366_pf.html

Monday, 2 August 2010

I posted this message today on the BBC's Word of Mouth Board
I would like to draw the attention of this board’s wordsmiths to something which I find interesting in the BBC's reporting of the recent floods in the North West Frontier District of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

I was away on holiday last week and not following the news at all so the first I heard of the disaster was on the radio4 1 pm news yesterday Sunday 1st August.

On this programme the lead statement was that the floods were “the worst in Pakistan’s history”.

Later, on the radio4 10pm News this, to my mind, very peculiarly phrased statement, was replaced by “the worst for several decades” by the newsreader and Lyse Ducet later in the same bulletin described it as the “worst in a generation”.

Having looked to see what other statement in this litany of misinformation might be on offer from the BBC I found “the worst in lving memory” on the BBC News web page here.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/w...

You can find the matter of the “timescale” raised here and discussed in some detail.

www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mb...

Since we are in an era of extreme sensitivity to the nuances of reporting weather because of the implications of what are now routinely called “extreme weather events” for the purported Anthrpogenic Global Warming scenario, I find this sloppy mish-mash of statements from the BBC (ALL of them wrong, as far as I can see) extraordinary. In fact the first statement I heard seemed positively designed to mislead.

Did the news-writers (yes, indeed, some “creative writing" is clearly happening here) mean to say:

1) 1947, the date Pakistan’s ‘history” began, or

2) did they mean the slightly more precise “several decades” ( 20 to 40 years, say?) or

3) did they mean the “generational" space between a mother’s birth and the birth of her first grandchild which is very short, as we know, in that neck of the woods or

4) did they mean within the personal memory of the most ancient elder in the village, which could be almost a century, say?

Is the BBC incapable of accurate research into the matter of frequency of severe floods in this region? Or do they think ANY statement about a disaster is as good as any other? I found the following level-headed report within a few seconds of googling “Pakistan history of flooding” here
http://www.southasianfloods.icimod.org/contents.php?country_code=PK&c_id=11
Floods have been recognized as a major natural calamity and the country has a long history of flooding from the Indus river and its tributaries. Floods of 1928, 29, 55, 57, 59, 73, 76, 88, 92, 95, 96 & that of 1997 are the sad yet memorable events entailing tremendous damages to the life and property.

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A little further googling informs me that several other factors are also implicated in the perception and retailing of the severity of the flooding - first, the size of the population affected which is ever increasing within the same area and second, the response of the government to the emergency. Natural disasters happen but it is how they are dealt with that leaves the memory of just how disastrous they really were.

We have here shades of the Hurricane Katrina Disaster, another “extreme weather event” laid by climate alarmists at the door of AGW. The damage was excessive certainly, but why?

Because New Orleans city planners permitted the city to grow and grow in size and population on below sea-level land, protected only by ill-maintained levées. Hurricane severity is now routinely assessed in financial terms (claims on the Insurance Industry) rather than by actual climatic variables. Hurricane Katrina was nothing special as hurricanes go. It was the place it made landfall that was special, and the inadequacy of the subsequent response of Government of the richest country on earth.

In the North West Frontier we have something similar affecting the perception of “severity”. Severe floods in this region are, sadly, rather common. What is different over time, whether it be in “Pakistan’s history”, or in time measured in “decades”, “generations” or “living memory” is that ever MORE people are affected by them due to population growth and ever MORE property damage is done because even this poor country is getting richer over time. The inadequacy of the response by a government famed for its incompetence, corruption and veniality will also play a part in the perception of the "severity" of this particular flood.

I would hate to see poor old AGW getting it in the neck again for this latest installment of the region’s natural disasters so this post is something of a pre-emptive defense of Mother Nature and an attack on the BBC and Reuters, AP etc for sloppy use of alarmist rhetoric. The floods in Pakistan are bad but they should not become a source of unfounded alarm for the rest of us.

That’s all today from the VocabularySection of the WeatherisnotClimateDepartment, folks. Cheerio.

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Yesterday I started a discussion on the same subject on the BBC Science Board, here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbradio4/F2766778?thread=7660137&skip=0&show=20#p98975272