Are Greenland's Glaciers Growing and Temperatures Cooling?

Post below lifted from Newsbusters. See the original for links

One of the keys to the manmade global warming myth being espoused by soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore and the good folks at the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that glaciers in Greenland have been melting in the last fifty years at an alarming rate. In fact, both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California) claimed to witness such evidence of global warming during recent trips there.

Yet, a paper written by the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide & Global Change, and published Monday by the Science and Public Policy Institute stated that not only have temperatures been declining in Greenland in recent years, but also glaciers have actually expanded a bit:

The Greenland ice sheet would appear to have experienced no net loss of mass over the last decade for which data are available. Quite to the contrary, in fact, it was likely host to a net accumulation of ice, which Zwally et al. found to be producing a 0.03 ñ 0.01 mm/year decline in sea-level.....

Hanna and Cappelen (2003) determined the air temperature history of coastal southern Greenland from 1958-2001, based on data from eight Danish Meteorological Institute stations in coastal and near-coastal southern Greenland, as well as the concomitant sea surface temperature (SST) history of the Labrador Sea off southwest Greenland, based on three previously published and subsequently extended SST data sets (Parker et al., 1995; Rayner et al., 1996; Kalnay et al., 1996). Their analyses revealed that the coastal temperature data showed a cooling of 1.29øC over the period of study, while two of the three SST databases also depicted cooling: by 0.44øC in one case and by 0.80øC in the other. In addition, it was determined that the cooling was "significantly inversely correlated with an increased phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation over the past few decades."

In an even broader study based on mean monthly temperatures of 37 Arctic and 7 sub-Arctic stations, as well as temperature anomalies of 30 grid-boxes from the updated data set of Jones, Przybylak (2000) found that (1) "in the Arctic, the highest temperatures since the beginning of instrumental observation occurred clearly in the 1930s," (2) "even in the 1950s the temperature was higher than in the last 10 years," (3) "since the mid-1970s, the annual temperature shows no clear trend," and (4) "the level of temperature in Greenland in the last 10-20 years is similar to that observed in the 19th century." These findings led him to conclude that the meteorological record "shows that the observed variations in air temperature in the real Arctic are in many aspects not consistent with the projected climatic changes computed by climatic models for the enhanced greenhouse effect," because, in his words, "the temperature predictions produced by numerical climate models significantly differ from those actually observed."

Hmmm. So, glaciers are actually expanding, and temperatures in this region are currently cooler than in the '30s and '50s. Not what the alarmists on the left and in the media want you to think, is it?





ANOTHER BLOW TO KEY GREENIE ASSUMPTIONS: WARMING THINS HEAT-TRAPPING CIRRUS CLOUDS

The widely accepted (albeit unproven) theory that manmade global warming will accelerate itself by creating more heat-trapping clouds is challenged this month in new research from The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Instead of creating more clouds, individual tropical warming cycles that served as proxies for global warming saw a decrease in the coverage of heat-trapping cirrus clouds, says Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in UAHuntsville's Earth System Science Center.

That was not what he expected to find. "All leading climate models forecast that as the atmosphere warms there should be an increase in high altitude cirrus clouds, which would amplify any warming caused by manmade greenhouse gases," he said. "That amplification is a positive feedback. What we found in month-to-month fluctuations of the tropical climate system was a strongly negative feedback. As the tropical atmosphere warms, cirrus clouds decrease. That allows more infrared heat to escape from the atmosphere to outer space."

The results of this research were published today in the American Geophysical Union's "Geophysical Research Letters" on-line edition. The paper was co-authored by UAHuntsville's Dr. John R. Christy and Dr. W. Danny Braswell, and Dr. Justin Hnilo of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA.

"While low clouds have a predominantly cooling effect due to their shading of sunlight, most cirrus clouds have a net warming effect on the Earth," Spencer said. With high altitude ice clouds their infrared heat trapping exceeds their solar shading effect. In the tropics most cirrus-type clouds flow out of the upper reaches of thunderstorm clouds. As the Earth's surface warms - due to either manmade greenhouse gases or natural fluctuations in the climate system - more water evaporates from the surface. Since more evaporation leads to more precipitation, most climate researchers expected increased cirrus cloudiness to follow warming.

"To give an idea of how strong this enhanced cooling mechanism is, if it was operating on global warming, it would reduce estimates of future warming by over 75 percent," Spencer said. "The big question that no one can answer right now is whether this enhanced cooling mechanism applies to global warming." The only way to see how these new findings impact global warming forecasts is to include them in computerized climate models. "The role of clouds in global warming is widely agreed to be pretty uncertain," Spencer said. "Right now, all climate models predict that clouds will amplify warming. I'm betting that if the climate models' 'clouds' were made to behave the way we see these clouds behave in nature, it would substantially reduce the amount of climate change the models predict for the coming decades."

The UAHuntsville research team used 30- to 60-day tropical temperature fluctuations - known as "intraseasonal oscillations" - as proxies for global warming. "Fifteen years ago, when we first started monitoring global temperatures with satellites, we noticed these big temperature fluctuations in the tropics," Spencer said. "What amounts to a decade of global warming routinely occurs in just a few weeks in the tropical atmosphere. Then, as if by flipping a switch, the rapid warming is replaced by strong cooling. It now looks like the change in cirrus cloud coverage is the major reason for this switch from warming to cooling."

The team analyzed six years of data from four instruments aboard three NASA and NOAA satellites. The researchers tracked precipitation amounts, air and sea surface temperatures, high and low altitude cloud cover, reflected sunlight, and infrared energy escaping out to space. When they tracked the daily evolution of a composite of fifteen of the strongest intraseasonal oscillations they found that although rainfall and air temperatures would be rising, the amount of infrared energy being trapped by the cloudy areas would start to decrease rapidly as the air warmed.

This unexpected behavior was traced to the decrease in cirrus cloud cover. The new results raise questions about some current theories regarding precipitation, clouds and the efficiency with which weather systems convert water vapor into rainfall. These are significant issues in the global warming debate. "Global warming theory says warming will generally be accompanied by more rainfall," Spencer said. "Everyone just assumed that more rainfall means more high altitude clouds. That would be your first guess and, since we didn't have any data to suggest otherwise ..."

There are significant gaps in the scientific understanding of precipitation systems and their interactions with the climate, he said. "At least 80 percent of the Earth's natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds, and those are largely under the control of precipitation systems. "Until we understand how precipitation systems change with warming, I don't believe we can know how much of our current warming is manmade. Without that knowledge, we can't predict future climate change with any degree of certainty."

Spencer and his colleagues expect these new findings to be controversial. "I know some climate modelers will say that these results are interesting but that they probably don't apply to long-term global warming," he said. "But this represents a fundamental natural cooling process in the atmosphere. Let's see if climate models can get this part right before we rely on their long term projections.

Source




WHY WARMISM IS POPULAR

Post below excerpted from Word around the Net. See the original for links and a much wider discussion

Guilt and Works

Part of the reason is that most people, especially teens, feel that something is basically wrong. They know how things ought to be, deep down, but also know that this is not true in the world they see. There is a sneaking suspicion that something is wrong with the world, and what's more they suspect that we're to blame. This base feeling of guilt and concern is common to humanity, it is the basis for most religions and it is why psychiatrists and associated professionals can charge several hundred dollars an hour.

Global Warming gives people a tangible reason for this feeling. They can look at the world and believe that they have found there is something wrong, and what's better, something they can fix. If you believe that the world is warming up dangerously and catastrophe awaits, but your personal actions can stop this it not only appeals to this basic religious need, it appeals to ego and the desire to make things better for yourself. You can earn your way to global salvation by recycling and driving Prius (conveniently distinctive so everyone can see how pious you are).

This mechanism is why many religious are so successful. Take Islam, it has two basic principles: first that God is angry at humans because we do not do right, and second that you can have a paradise if only you will do the right thing. It has a terrible future - hell that you endure - if you fail to take action now, and a reward for your proper actions. A simple exchange of personal effort and reward. Many religions, even Christianity when taught falsely, follow this pattern: risk, personal works, reward. For AGW, the risk is a hellish future of catastrophe and doom, stopped by personal works that can prevent this, and a future that avoids this and is full of clean water and happy dancing children under rainbows.

Concern and Absolutes

Many of the people who believe in AGW and are calling for better management of resources and less pollution are not driven by a deep religious need or guilt, at least at a conscious level. Many are simply worried about what they see around them and want a better world to live in. Many are people who want us to not pollute as much, to care better for our world, and to have a better future. They aren't driven by hysteria, hatred of our economic system, or a desire to rush to the left, they are driven by genuine, proper concern.

Their problem for many is that without an absolute, objective basis for right and wrong, they cannot point to anything and say we ought to do something or that it is wrong to not do it. They have to find some manner of persuasion and some lever to call for change that avoids these "unfortunate relics of the past" such as morality and sin. So they climb on the bandwagon, too, even if they know it's not exactly accurate or scientifically valid.

Kneejerk Choice

Unfortunately, for many, this issue is not one that they choose sides on based on logic, reason, information, and scientific data. They choose sides based on who is on which side of the debate. For some, if Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson are on one side of an issue they must, by definition, without further examination or understanding be on the opposite side. For others, this is true for pundits like Al Gore and Michael Moore. This kind of ignorant side-taking is the primary cause of a sharp, shrill, and sometimes violent divide in our culture today: unthinking, kneejerk rejection or embrace of something merely based on voices that hold a position. That's mindless following of a leader that has led to unspeakable horrors in the past. Educate yourself.

Socialism

There are other reasons why AGW and the Global Warming hysterics are so well received. Consider Vice President Gore's recommendations for how to save us all before his ten-year deadline is up (summary courtesty Free Frank Warner):

* Ban any increase in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, and then start reducing emissions. Tax CO2 emissions (and simultaneously eliminate all payroll taxes) to encourage clean-coal technology and other greenhouse gas reducers.

* Change the U.S. auto industry to reduce use of oil. Encourage GM and Ford to switch to flex-fuel, plug-in, hybrid vehicles. Gore says in the average gasoline-driven car today, 90 percent of the energy is wasted.

* Change U.S. factories, to penalize CO2 emissions, reward the capture and use of heat that now goes to waste, and encourage use of computerized energy-use monitors to save fuel.

* Encourage U.S. farms to produce more fuel, to plant more trees and to stop deforestation. In the timber industry, lengthen the harvest cycle, giving trees more time to make oxygen.

* Encourage retrofitting of U.S. homes for better fuel efficiency by making special low-interest mortgages available. Immediately require that architectural designs cut in half the use of fossil fuels in new buildings and make all new buildings "carbon neutral" by 2030.

* Encourage greater use of windmills and photovoltaic solar cells. Encourage more private buying and selling of U.S. electricity into the national grid. Increase ethanol and biodiesel production.

* Modestly increase use of nuclear power. Gore sees no significant increase in global electricity production from atomic power, first, because nuclear plants are expensive, and, second, because if nuclear power expands around the world, more nations will be tempted to use nuclear fuel for atomic weapons.

* Sign the US onto the Kyoto Treaty so we join the Carbon Credits trading (which, coincidentally, is a business that Al Gore owns).

Count, if you will, how many of these are government-mandated, top-down centrally planned ideas. Of the eight, six are government requirements, federal government power over the states and the people. This gives us a glimpse into how this appeals to many, particularly on the left. The solutions that the AGW prophets of doom offer almost always involve greater government control over the market, over businesses, and over individual behavior. There's a word for this, and it is called "socialism," the economic system in which the central government has direct control over business and the economy.

This idea is very popular on the left, who believe that centrally planned and regulated economies and businesses are fairer and better run than a free market economy. Other suggestions include a ban on cremation (all that CO2 released with fire!), changing Daylight Saving Time by a few weeks (no appreciable change in energy use), British efforts to control garbage by fines and limitations - including picking up the garbage half as often to encourage recycling (link requires subscription), and so on. Luxury taxes are proposed for excessive carbon use - a sort of required carbon credit purchase - legislation to limit the number and type of cars that can be owned and made, requirements on reducing emissions on cars already on the road, and so on are all proposed. The Kyoto Accords, a failure in every country except France, according to self-reporting from various countries requires a huge drop in several minor greenhouse gas emissions by the signatory countries. These reductions would require severe and extreme government regulation, slashing the economy and crippling business.

If there was any sort of reasonable basis for AGW as it was thought in the 90's, this might be something to consider. But since there is no basis for this and the best, most recent science points away from humans, this would cause a worldwide depression for no reason other than a desire to have governments control the economy and limit human activity. Particularly troubling is the idea that the UN or some intergovernmental panel would govern these changes, making the demands and recommendations that nations then would have to obey. So you can add loss of national sovereignty to the fun.

Even when the suggestions are not government mandates, they are extreme in many cases. One scientist demands reducing the population of the earth by 83% because humans are the "AIDS of the Earth," a thought echoed by Kate Templeton who calls having more than 2 children an "Eco-Crime," and Ms Behar on the View who called having many children "ecologically irresponsible" because they "snort up" all the oxygen.

This movement is not new. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich wrote a book called The Population Bomb in which he examined global trends and food production, and declared catastrophe. We had too many people, he argued, and we've got to stop having babies. The world is overpopulated and we're doomed:

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate..."

"a minimum of ten million people, most of them children,will starve to death during each year of the 1970s. But this is a mere handful compared to the numbers that will be starving before the end of the century"

Ehrlich based his ideas on the number of people in the world, the land they worked, and the production of food at the time of his writing. He presumed no changes in food productivity and farming, he assumed technology in the field of agriculture was totally static, and that the world would not change. He also ignored the possibility of farming in areas not presently being used because they are more difficult to reach or less productive. He even presumed that food production might decrease. Fear not, he had some answers - again, involving central government planning and control:

Our position requires that we take immediate action at home and promote effective action worldwide. We must have population control at home, hopefully through changes in our value system, but by compulsion if voluntary methods fail.

luxury taxes could be placed on layettes, cribs, diapers, diaper services, [and] expensive toys...

When he suggested sterilizing all Indian males with three or more children, we should have applied pressure on the Indian government to go ahead with the plan.

These are all quotes from The Population Bomb. In a later book How to be a Survivor, Ehrlich expanded on these ideas:

However, those who claim that the government could never intrude into such a private matter as the number of children a couple produces may be due for an unpleasant surprise. There is no sacred legal "right" to have children. The argument that family size is God's affair and not the business of the government would undoubtedly be raised -- just as it was against outlawing polygamy. But the government tells you precisely how many husbands or wives you can have and claps you in jail if you exceed that number.

A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. Treating only the symptoms of cancer may make the victim more comfortable at first, but eventually he dies -- often horribly. A similar fate awaits a world with a population explosion if only the symptoms are treated. We must shift our efforts from treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions. The pain may be intense. But the disease is so far advanced that only with radical surgery does the patient have a chance of survival.

Wow. So why do we have an even larger world population now and less starvation? Well, unlike Dr Ehrlich's predictions, agricultural technology got better, techniques improved, and the world produces more food than ever. We have more food per person than we did at the time he wrote this book. In any case, his arguments were ludicrous, the world is nowhere near being overpopulated by any standard even now.

If any of this looks familiar, it ought to. The utter failure and laughable error that Ehrlich's hysterical proclamations proved to be don't stop people from calling for us to cull the population now. They've just changed their tune. Instead of worrying about lack of food production, they cry climate change that destroys food production. The fact that even if their worst predictions are true simply means that we will produce food further north where it is now not feasible or possible doesn't matter, the goal is an old, old one.

Smash the State

In 1811 many people looked around themselves at the squalor, poverty, and misery the world presented in England at the time. They were living through the first true world war (the Napoleonic Wars) and could see things were just terrible. The solution, they believed, was that we'd gone too far with technology. The horrible weapons used in the war, the ghastly factories and the machines of the time were clearly an abomination. An entire movement rose up, the Luddites, who wanted to return to a simpler, more pastoral time. The Luddites engaged in wrecking machines and sabotaging technology at the time, and over a dozen were put to death.

Their legacy lives on. There are many, primarily in the more radical environmentalist movements, who believe the same way still. They reject the idea of technology bringing benefit, they believe that advancement brings misery, and that we are "meant" (by whom is usually not explained, although the vague generic earth goddess Gaia is sometimes brought up) to live a simpler life. To this end, they oppose all expansion, all new technology, any attempt to make life easier or build, and any efforts to harvest trees or energy.

The exact opposition is usually framed differently: don't build a highway here, the spotted wood louse is endangered. Don't build a dam here, the beauty of this unspoiled area will be destroyed. Don't build a nuke here, it will melt down and kill us all, etc. But the central and core goal is the same: oppose advancement and technology, become more simple.

Global Warming is a bandwagon that these groups have leaped up on with joy. Here was a big metanarrative to share all their efforts at once; this could be the lever by which to end advancement and push us back into the time we ought to live, to make people live simpler lives. Get rid of those cars, those cities, those factories, and we can live the simple life of the savage who lived in tune with their land (not exactly accurate, but that's for another essay). Wars, greed, pollution, sickness, crime, all those evils are caused by our senseless misuse of our land and advancement beyond what we should be.

As a bonus, the path to reach this idyllic utopia is the greater power of the government, increased government control over everyone's lives and business. This is a dream come true to the radical leftist: their lifelong goals all visible on the horizon thanks to global warming. Who cares if it's not exactly accurate, the goals are noble, and that's what matters most.






U.N. HEAD INVITES OUTSPOKEN CZECH PRESIDENT TO GLOBAL WARMING CONFERENCE

Czech President Vaclav Klaus will address a conference on global warming in late September in New York as he has been invited by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the event, Klaus's spokesman Petr Hajek told CTK Tuesday. Klaus is known as a fierce challenger of both the human factor in and the widely forecast effects of global warming. He opposes the views advocated by people like Al Gore, arguing that the "hysteria" surrounding the warming issue threatens freedom and democracy.

One of his slogans is that freedom, not climate is endangered. He regularly lashes out against "ambitious environmentalism." Earlier this year, he published "Blue, Not Green Planet", a book summarizing his opinions challenging some scenarios of the planet's further development with regard to global warming.

Klaus told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) last week that he plans to deliver a very radical speech in New York. "It will be a gathering of 'Gore-ites,' so they're going to be shocked that they invited me 'by mistake,' too. And I'm going to give a very tough speech," he told the radio.

Source

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The Lockwood paper was designed to rebut Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle" film but it is in fact an absolute gift to climate atheists. What the paper says was of course all well-known already but the concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years really is invaluable. And the one fact that the paper documents so well -- that solar output is on the downturn -- is also hilarious, given its source. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that the sun's influence has not stopped and that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! Unprecedented July 2007 cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even be the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards. See my post of 7.14.07 for more detail on the Lockwood paper

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL 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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