LATEST RUSSIAN RESEARCH INTO CLIMATE

Some new Russian research on global warming has just become available from one of the academic journals. Here is an excerpt:

"The researches of global variability of atmosphere, climate and the environment are foregrounds in present time. Special attention is paid to the research of the global warming (GW) origin of the climate, its manifestations over different territories and forecasts of the climate changes for the further decades. This is a fundamental problem, the answer to which has not only theoretical and applied importance but also the political-economical one. To what extent the GW has the anthropogenic origin during the last decades - this question appears to have the overriding meaning for the understanding of the climate changes character on the Earth in the past and in the future. Unfortunately, the model calculations of the quantitative contribution of CO2 into the observed and predicted global warming on the basis of contemporary climatic models show that the global temperature increases widely ranging from 1ø up to 5ø (Dymnikov et al., 2004). This does not make it possible to conclude that the warming in the 20th century is caused by the exclusively anthropogeneous factors and, moreover, to assert that only CO2 is responsible for the observed global warming.

And with that the most significant and substantiated argument, which makes us doubt that the observed GW is caused only by the contribution of CO2 of anthropogeneous origin, is the absence of the answer to the question of the causes of the existence of warm and cold periods in the last millennium. The observed correlations of long-time changes of global temperature and CO2 do not mean that the cause of GW is CO2 because the ocean temperature increase (which is really observed) also leads to the CO2 increase in atmosphere, i.e., the increase of CO2 could be the consequence, but not the cause of global warming (Monin and Shishkov, 2000)".





NASA STILL CANNOT FIGURE OUT WHAT THE SUN IS DOING

But the global warmers "just know" it is stable, of course

The most intense burst of solar radiation in five decades accompanied a large solar flare on January 20, shaking space weather theory and highlighting the need for new forecasting techniques. The solar flare occurred at 2 a.m. ET, tripping radiation monitors all over the planet and scrambling detectors on spacecraft within minutes. It was an extreme example of a flare with radiation storms that arrive too quickly to warn future interplanetary astronauts.

"This flare produced the largest solar radiation signal on the ground in nearly 50 years," said Dr. Richard Mewaldt of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, a co-investigator on NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft. "But we were really surprised when we saw how fast the particles reached their peak intensity and arrived at Earth."

Normally it takes two or more hours for a dangerous proton shower to reach maximum intensity at Earth after a solar flare, but the particles from the January 20 flare peaked about 15 minutes after the first sign. That's important," said Mewaldt, "because it's too fast to respond with much warning to astronauts or spacecraft that might be outside Earth's protective magnetosphere. In addition to monitoring the Sun, we need to develop the ability to predict flares in advance if we are going to send humans to explore our solar system."

The event also shakes current theory about the origin of proton storms at Earth. "Since about 1990, we've believed that proton storms at Earth are caused by shock waves in the inner solar system as coronal mass ejections plow through interplanetary space," says Professor Robert Lin of the University of California at Berkeley, principal investigator for the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI). "But the protons from this event may have come from the Sun itself, which is very confusing."......

However, rotating sunspots are not the whole story. The unique flare came at the end of a string of five other very large flares from the same sunspot group, and no one yet knows why this one produced more sudden high energy particles than the first four. "It means we really don't yet understand how the Sun works," says Lin, "and we need to continue to operate and exploit our fleet of solar-observing spacecraft to identify how it works."

More here





ELECTRIC CARS: ANOTHER FAILED GREENIE IDEA

Not as big a boondoggle as windmills or as costly as the opposition to nuclear power, though

Nearly 15 years ago, electric cars were all the road rage with bureaucrats and environmentalists who thought the nonpolluting vehicles would eventually take over California's freeways. But the growing popularity of hybrid cars and an upcoming state "Hydrogen Highway" proposal highlight how other cheaper, more convenient or politically expedient technologies have leapfrogged the vehicles powered by rechargeable batteries. The electric car is wheezing its last breath. Fewer than 1,000 of them remain on the road in California, and automakers have turned their backs on the technology. "The big problem with electric vehicles is that the automakers have thumped their heads on getting battery technology up to snuff," said James Bell, publisher of Campbell-based IntelliChoice, which tracks trends in the automotive industry. "They've never been able to solve the range and recharge problems to make electric cars competitive."

Pushed by tax credits and the California Air Resources Board's 1990 mandate to produce zero-emissions vehicles, the Big Three U.S. carmakers issued limited runs of electric autos from 1996 to 2003. General Motors Corp. had its EV1 compact car and an electric version of its Chevy S10 truck. Ford Motor Co. leased its TH!NK City two-passenger vehicle and Ranger EV pickup. DaimlerChrysler AG produced the EPIC Minivan EV. Foreign automakers got into the act, too. Honda Motor Co. Ltd. delivered a compact, the EV Plus, and Toyota Motor Corp. rolled out its RAV4 EV. With a few exceptions, such as the RAV4 EV, the vehicles only were available through closed-end lease agreements. At the end of the lease, the manufacturer would take the vehicle back and dismantle it. "All of these vehicles were designed to be 'proof of concept' cars," Bell said. "The cynical side says that it was a way for manufacturers to prove that rechargeable cars couldn't work and that there was no consumer demand. The manufacturers' side says that it was merely a technology in development and a half-step to hybrids."

At the height of the EV wave in 1997-98 about 5,000 all-electric vehicles were on the state's roads, and battery charging stations were installed at Sacramento sites from Arden Fair mall and the Wells Fargo Building downtown to the Mel Rapton auto dealership on Fulton Avenue. By 2000, the number of electric cars had dropped to 3,000, according to California Air Resources Board researchers. Today, the number is down to "around 900, and getting smaller all the time," said board spokesman Jerry Martin. The vehicles are mostly being supplanted by hybrids, such as the Toyota Prius, that combine a gasoline engine with an electric motor that kicks in during stops and low speeds. Also, many people think another alternative, hydrogen-fueled vehicles, is the key to selling Americans on zero emissions autos.

But electric car enthusiasts aren't letting their vehicles go without a fight. Earlier this year, Mariposa County resident and Ranger EV owner David Raboy staged an eight-day vigil in front of Sacramento's Senator Ford dealership to buy his truck after his lease ran out. Ford relented and sold the pickup to Raboy and other leaseholders for $1. "Baywatch" TV actress Alexandra Paul was arrested in March after blocking trucks that were hauling EV1 cars from a Burbank storage facility to Arizona for crushing.

GM spokesman Dave Barthmuss said the Detroit-based car manufacturer spent approximately $1 billion on all-electric car research and produced about 800 EV1s between 1996 and 2000. "We stopped making the car because we couldn't afford to keep losing money on a product with no broad public demand," Barthmuss said.

This month several environmental and pro-electric groups have organized under the DontCrush.com banner to pressure Toyota not to recycle its RAV4 EV. The company made 1,484 of the small electric SUVs from 1998 to 2003. About 600 are still on American roads, half of them purchased and the other half under lease. The rest have been crushed and recycled, said company spokeswoman Cindy Knight. For the next few years Toyota will make parts as needed for the RAV4 EV, which originally retailed for about $42,000. But made-to-order parts are expensive: A battery pack, which lasts an average of three years, costs $25,000 to replace.

It looks like public officials, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have already moved on. More than a year ago, he called for a "Hydrogen Highway" stretching the length of the state, with hydrogen fueling stations every 20 miles. The state Environmental Protection Agency has been working on a blueprint that recommends clustering the stations in Sacramento, the Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego. It proposes the state spend $54 million over five years to help build 100 hydrogen fueling stations, buy some fleet vehicles and provide incentives.

More here

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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