OH DEAR! THAT UNPREDICTABLE POLAR ICE

Why can't the damned stuff just MELT, like the Greenies want it to?

How quickly sea level will rise as climate warms depends mainly on how much the ocean expands from warming, how fast the polar ice sheets melt, and how fast the ice sheets discharge frozen ice into the ocean. This third process is by far the most poorly constrained, but in recent years large and rapid increases have occurred in the discharge rates of some of these outlet glaciers--as much as doubling in less than 1 year (see the Perspectives by Vaughan and Arthern and by Truffer and Fahnestock). Fricker et al. (p. 1544, published online 15 February) analyzed ice-surface elevations obtained from satellite laser altimetry in the vicinity of two important Antarctic ice streams and found rapid, local changes in the height of the ice on annual time scales. They interpret these results as the signatures of subglacial water movement between lakes at the base of the ice sheet. Howat et al. (p. 1559, published online 8 February) show that glacial discharge from ice streams in Greenland can decrease as suddenly as it can increase. Their findings illustrate the difficulty of extrapolating short-term trends in ice mass balance to longer intervals.

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OH DEAR! HOT CLIMATES PRESERVE LIFE

What has happened to all those species that global warming will send extinct?

What causes the latitudinal gradient in species diversity, with greater species richness in the tropics? Weir and Schluter (p. 1574) present data and simulations that together point to high speciation rates, not in the tropics as often assumed, but rather at temperate latitudes and low extinction rates in the tropics. This finding contradicts the hypothesis that the tropics have an elevated speciation rate relative to the temperate zones, as previously suggested.

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IMPLICATIONS OF TEMPORAL CHANGE IN URBAN HEAT ISLAND INTENSITY OBSERVED AT BEIJING AND WUHAN STATIONS

From "GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS", VOL. 34, L05711. A demonstration from China that increased measured terrestrial temperatures can be due to urban heat island effects rather than anything in the atmosphere

Abstract

Temporal change in urbanization-induced warming at two national basic meteorological stations of China and its contribution to the overall warming are analyzed. Annual and seasonal mean surface air temperature for time periods of 1961~2000 and 1981~2000 at the two stations of Beijing and Wuhan Cities and their nearby rural stations all significantly increase. Annual and seasonal urbanization-induced warming for the two periods at Beijing and Wuhan stations is also generally significant, with the annual urban warming accounting for about 65~80% of the overall warming in 1961~2000 and about 40~61% of the overall warming in 1981~2000. This result along with the previous researches indicates a need to pay more attention to the urbanization-induced bias probably existing in the current surface air temperature records of the national basic stations. Urbanization may have affected the surface air temperature (SAT) records at many city stations in continents, especially in industrial regions like Europe, North America and East Asia. However, this issue is still under debate at present. It is generally hold that urban heat island effect is of secondary importance, and it is unlikely to surpass 0.05øC in the past a hundred years on global average, a magnitude lower than the optimal estimation of the global average annual mean SAT change of 0.6øC [Jones et al., 1990; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001; Peterson, 2003; Li et al., 2004a]. On the other hand, some researches have shown that the urban heat island effect may play a significant role in the global and regional SAT trend estimated up to date, which should be paid more attention to and should be emended [Hansen et al., 2001; Kalnay and Cai, 2003; Zhou et al., 2004; Zhou and Ren, 2005].

[...]

In summary, temporal trends of annual and seasonal mean SAT for time periods of 1961~2000 and 1981~2000 at Beijing and Wuhan stations and their nearby rural stations are all significantly positive, and the annual and seasonal urban warming for the two periods for Beijing and Wuhan stations is also positive and significant. The annual urban warming at the city stations can account for about 65~80% of the overall warming in 1961~2000, and about 40~61% of the overall warming in 1981~2000. The quality control and the in-homogeneity examination and adjustment for the data of the stations used for the analysis have been made.

FULL PAPER here




GLOBAL WARMING: UNGRATEFUL GREENS BEAT UP ON THE NEW YORK TIMES

No dissent allowed by these modern-day Torquemadas

On Tuesday, The New York Times carried a story that could signal a turn in the global warming debate. It said that many scientists believed that Al Gore and his allies were guilty of exaggerations and overstatements.

"Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his three-alarm film on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," which won an Academy Award for best documentary. So do many environmentalists, who praise him as a visionary, and many scientists, who laud him for raising public awareness of climate change. But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore's central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism. "I don't want to pick on Al Gore," Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. "But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data."

When I made similar points a month or two ago, I received incensed e-mails telling me I was a fool. So I was sure The New York Times would find itself under fire from political (as opposed to scientific) environmentalists. Sure enough, the executive director of the Sierra Club is peeved at the NYT for going off-message.

Incredibly enough, a New Republic pundit compared the NYT to National Review, home to the world's loudest global warming skeptics. What a churlish bunch. They got upset with the New York Times for running one skeptical article under the fold on the cover of the weekly Science section and forget about the 318 stories that have mentioned global warming on the NYT's front page -- few of which did anything to throw water on the contentions of political environmentalists that global warming is the moral/political/scientific crisis of modern times.

318 to one, and they're not satisfied. How did I come up with the 318 figure? I did an open-ended Nexis search for New York Times articles mentioning global warming that appeared in Section A on Pg. 1 or Page 1.

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THE SOURCES OF GREEN/LEFT GLOOM

Some excerpts below from an interview conducted by Benny Peiser with Freeman Dyson. Dyson is "a British-born American physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum mechanics, solid-state physics, nuclear weapons design and policy, and for his serious theorizing in futurism and science fiction concepts, including the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He is a lifelong opponent of nationalism, and proponent of nuclear disarmament and international cooperation" (Quote from Wikipedia). Lubos Motl also picks out some highlights of the interview

Benny Peiser: Britain's leading cosmologists seem to be particularly gloomy about the future of civilisation and humankind. The so-called Doomsday Argument seems to have had a significant influence on many Cambridge-based scientists. It has induced among them a conviction that global catastrophe is almost imminent. Martin Rees, for instance, estimates that there is a 50% chance of human extinction during the next 100 years. How do you explain this apocalyptic mood among leading cosmologists in Britain and the almost desperate tone of their pronouncements?

Freeman Dyson: My view of the prevalence of doom-and-gloom in Cambridge is that it is a result of the English class system. In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status. As a child of the academic middle class, I learned to look on the commercial middle class with loathing and contempt. Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher, which was also the revenge of the commercial middle class. The academics lost their power and prestige and the business people took over. The academics never forgave Thatcher and have been gloomy ever since.

Benny Peiser: Your sociological reading raises the question whether the current fashion of issuing doomsday predictions could be interpreted as the revenge by leading academics against the business community? After all, their very activities, success and societal role are blamed for impending catastrophe. Could it be that the scientific prophets of doom are trying to regain some of their lost influence by portraying themselves as saviours who, at the same time, provide governments with strong incentives for increased state power and intervention?

Freeman Dyson: I agree with your diagnosis of the academic disease. The academics are suffering from business envy, in the USA as well as in Britain. And of course there are companies like Halliburton that it is reasonable to hate, enjoying political power in the Bush government and profiteering from the war that they encouraged Bush to start. Opposition to the war is mixed up with opposition to the business community. But I agree with you that there is a longer-lasting envy of the business community that has nothing to do with the war. The academics preaching doom and gloom are indeed hoping to take their revenge on the business community by capturing the government.

Benny Peiser: There has been an apparent shift among the political left and liberals from what used to be called progressive ideas to more dystopian anxieties. What are the reasons that you have not been carried away by this tide of cultural and technological pessimism. And why have so few academics and authors of popular science been able to resist this shift towards unhappiness and desperation? In other words, how much of our optimism is shaped by people around us and positive experiences, and how much is due to rational thought, I wonder?

Freeman Dyson: I do not agree that there has been a recent shift from progressive ideas to dystopian anxieties. The best writers have always been dystopian. In the 1890s we had Wells's Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau'. In the 1930s Huxley's Brave New World. These were the classics that I grew up with seventy years ago. Nothing that has been written recently is gloomier than Wells and Huxley. And in spite of that, there have always been optimists like me and Amory Lovins. I recommend Amory Lovins as an antidote to gloom and doom.

Benny Peiser: Finally, let me ask you about your thoughts regarding Britain, the country of your birth, the USA, the country of your choice, and the future of the Western democracies. At the end of your new book you write that "without religion, the life of a country would be greatly impoverished." Perhaps nothing symbolises the glaring differences between Britain and the USA more than the gradual fading of religion in the cultural life of the UK and the profound permeation of religion on public life in the US. Sometimes I wonder whether both extremes may be detrimental to a stable, liberal and open-minded society. In a world of mounting intellectual dogmatism, is there, in your view, a middle way between the Scylla of nihilist despair and the Carybis of fundamentalist unreasonableness?

Freeman Dyson: I do not agree with your assessment of religion in Britain and the USA. The extremes of religious dogmatism in the USA and of atheistic dogmatism in Britain are greatly exaggerated by the media. In both countries, the average atheist and the average Christian are not dogmatic or unreasonable. So far as I can see, there is about the same variety of beliefs on both sides of the ocean. Certainly we do not need any accurate navigation to find a middle way between the two extremes. Probably ninety percent of the population are somewhere in the middle. It is also interesting in this connection to observe the similarity, in optimistic mood and rapid material progress, between China and India. Although China is traditionally non-religious and India is traditionally permeated with religion, this does not seem to make much difference. In both countries, rapidly growing wealth and technological progress create a mood of optimism, with or without religion.

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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 generally 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

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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