HARD TO RESCUE GLOBAL WARMING THEORY FROM THE ACTUAL DATA

Email below from David Whitehouse [david@davidwhitehouse.com]

The working hypothesis which I adhere to is that increasing carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is causing the world to warm through the greenhouse effect. The evidence for this is the physics of the greenhouse effect itself and the correlation of increasing global carbon dioxide concentration and increasing global temperature.

Carbon dioxide is clearly increasing in the Earth's atmosphere. As of July 2007 it was at about 387 ppm. Pre-industrial levels were about 285 ppm. Since 1960 it has increased linearly from about 315 ppm - the so-called Keeling curve can be viewed here.

This carbon dioxide is an important greenhouse gas because of its ability to absorb infra-red radiation and because of its atmospheric lifetime.

About 30% of incoming solar radiation is reflected with the remaining 70% absorbed warming the land, atmosphere and oceans. For the Earth's atmosphere to be in a steady state there must be a balance with infra-red radiation radiating back into space. Thus increasing the atmospheric carbon dioxide content will upset that balance by trapping more energy and causing the atmosphere to increase its temperature.

Looking at the global temperatures from 1850 to 2006 as used by NOAA and the IPCC (and Al Gore in his documentary) you will see the sharp rise from about 1978. It is obvious that the past decade has been warmer than all others in the period covered. It is well known that the warmest year was 1998 and that since then the global average temperatures have shown no increase with the years being statistically indistinguishable and well within each others error bars. Many people do not believe this and I suggest they read NOAA's annual summaries of global temperatures or indeed consult Wikipedia.

What the data shows is that over the past ten years the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has increased from about 362 ppm to 387 ppm whilst the global average temperature has remained unchanged. Clearly the earth is a complex system and there is something additional occurring than a simple greenhouse effect. Indeed it would be remarkable and out of character if the earth was so simple.

The explanation for the decoupling of atmospheric carbon dioxide and global average temperature has been attributed to aerosols in the atmosphere reflecting some of the incident sunlight into space thereby reducing the greenhouse effect. Such an explanation was proposed to account for the cooling observed between 1940 and 1978.

However, it is indeed curious that this effect (or any other explanation) has resulted in a flat global average temperature over the past decade. This requires that the quantity of aerosols put in our atmosphere must be increasing year on year at exactly the precise rate needed to offset the cumulative carbon dioxide that wants to drive the temperature higher. A constant annual injection of aerosols would only result in a blip in global average temperature followed by a delayed rise. An unchanging global average temperature requires a linearly increasing input of aerosols. If aerosols are not to blame then whatever effect or effects are responsible they have to be increasing in efficiency year by year at just the correct rate to offset carbon dioxide global warming.

To my mind this is a very peculiar circumstance that feels suspiciously unphysical. It has only two logical conclusions. Either the hypothesis of carbon dioxide induced global warming holds but its effects are being modified in what seems to be an improbable, though not impossible, way, or the working hypothesis does not stand the test of data. Which, I wonder, would Occam chose?

Also note that the global average temperatures spanning 1850 -2006 show that for 110 of those years the temperature was flat (1850 - 1920, 1950 - 1978 and 1998 - 2006). For only a third of the past 160 years has the global temperature been rising yet for all of that time the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has been increasing.





A modern curate's egg from Brussels: Green theology mixed with nuclear rationalism.

An email from Zbigniew Jaworowski [jaworo@clor.waw.pl]

TRUE HUMILITY.
Right Reverend Host. "I'm afraid you've got a bad Egg, Mr. Jones!"
The Curate. "Oh no, my Lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellect!

Nuclear energy "indispensable" says EU report. Members of the European Parliament have overwhelmingly voted in favour of a report that states that nuclear energy will be indispensable if the EU is to meet its basic energy needs (See here).

Both this resolution, and one of its bases: the "Nuclear Illustrative Programme Presented under Article 40 of the European Treaty for the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee" (COM(2006)0844), concentrate overwhelmingly on nuclear energy as a means to diminish the CO2 man-made emissions, allegedly leading to climatic catastrophe. The EU enthusiastically wishes to prevent and fight this non-existing menace, by supporting the development of nuclear energy. It is depressing to see how the EU bureaucrats are deeply immersed in the global warming hysteria, which dominates their thinking on the most important issue of the energy supply for the world. In effect the document is a mixture of a green theology with nuclear and economic rationalism.





The Environmentalist Fires

Last week, CNN delayed for a few hours the scheduled Tuesday night broadcast debut of its much-hyped documentary series "Planet in Peril" due to live coverage of the tragic wildfires that have displaced more than 500,000 people in Southern California. But that didn't keep CNN "golden boy" reporter Anderson Cooper from using the tragedy to tout the program he starred in as much as he could.

Cooper constantly claimed during the week that the fires provided further confirmation of the documentary's prediction of an eco-catastrophe. Cooper said that higher temperature due to global warming may have been a factor. It was a "timely documentary," Cooper said last Tuesday on CNN's "Larry King Live", because "California certainly seems to be in peril."

But ironically, much of the reason California is in peril is due not to climate change, but to the very environmental policies championed by Cooper's documentary and our new Nobel laureate, Al Gore. While, in its statement praising Gore, the Nobel Committee said that global warming may "threaten the living conditions of much of mankind," the current wildfires show that the more immediate threat to man comes from the champions of the gnatcatcher, kangaroo rat, and the Delhi Sands Flower-Loving fly.

Environmental mandates have made fire safety for humans take a back seat to the well-being of the aforementioned California creatures, as well as that of every bug and rat lucky enough to be listed as an "endangered species" under federal and state law. For over a decade, environmentalists have hamstrung Californians in their efforts to clear the dry brush that is providing the fuel for this massive fire. If any of these endangered or even "threatened" species are found in shrubs or bushes on public or private property, it becomes very difficult to give this vegetation even the slightest haircut. This is true even if city codes require firebreaks to be built.

An example of the legal strait jacket that homewoners faced in the areas hit by the fires is the "brush management guide" on the City of San Diego web site. The confusing instructions state that vegetation within 100 feet of homes in canyon areas "must be thinned and pruned regularly." But then, the same sentence goes on to state that this must be achieved "without harming native plants, soil or habitats."

Then in fine print at the bottom of the page, the real kicker comes in:

"Brush management is not allowed in coastal sage scrub during the California gnatcatcher nesting season, from March 1st through August 15th. This small bird only lives in coastal sage scrub and is listed as a threatened species by the federal government. Any harm to this bird could result in fines and penalties."

Coastal sage scrub is a low plant ubiquitous near coastal California that grows like a weed under almost any condition. And since gnatcatcher nesting season lasts almost six months, there could be much buildup of sage scrub that becomes hard for homeowners to control. Especially since the maintenance rules severely restrict the use of mechanical brush-clearing devices even when gnat nesting season is over.

The tragedy is that this shows that not much has changed even after previous warnings from experts that environmental rules were on a collision course with fire safety in California and many other places, because they prevented the removal of "excess fuel" for fires from dense stands of trees and vegetation. Southern California homes were lost in 1993 after the federal Fish and Wildlife Service told homeowners that mechanical clearing of brush would likely violate the Endangered Species Act. The reason: it could alter the habitat of a newly-listed endangered species called the Stephens kangaroo rat.

Some exemptions were made, and clarifications were issued, but landowners still face the lingering risk that the simple act of building a firebreak can send them down the river if an endangered species is anywhere near their property. California's Blue Ribbon Fire Commission, which had been created after wildfires in 2003 by then-Governor Gray Davis and whose members included Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., as well as state legislators of both parties, concluded that "habitat preservation and environmental protection have often conflicted with sound fire safe planning."

But did this bipartisan finding or any of the documented harms to fire safety from environmental rules make it into CNN's exploration of possible causes of the current fires? Not a gnatcatcher's chance. Instead, climate "expert" Cooper told viewers Wednesday night that the wildfires were "symptoms of a planet in peril. Fire, drought, deforestation; it's all connected."

Yet the data show that temperature for areas hit by the fire was well within average ranges, and came nowhere near the record highs. On Monday the 23rd, for instance the high temperature in Escondido was 84 degrees, and the high in Santa Ana was 87 degrees. According to temperature statistics from the National Weather Service, the mean high in both cities for that date is 79 degrees. What's more, the record high for that date is 102 degrees in Escondido (in 1929) and 103 degrees in Santa Ana (in 1965). So tell us again, Anderson, how global warming is to blame, when the weather where the fires struck was not nearly as hot as it was more than 40 years ago and almost 80 years ago!

What about those harsh Santa Ana winds? Well, they are pretty strong. Here's one writer's description: "It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch." Woooo! What a great description of the winds last week. Except that this passage wasn't written last week, last month, or last year. It was written by detective fiction master Raymond Chandler to describe the Santa Ana winds of about 70 years ago. It's in the opening paragraph of his famous short story "Red Wind," first published in 1938. So rough winds are nothing new under the California sun!

What's really changing the "climate" in Southern California is that there is more fuel for fires, since much less of the brush, as well as disease-infested trees, can be cleared, thanks to environmental mandates.

The problem is even worse on land owned by the federal and state governments. To satisfy the feds, San Diego has placed more than 170,000 acres off limit to development for the exclusive purpose, in the city's words, of "protect[ing] habitat for over 1,000 native and non-native plant species and more than 380 species of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals." Hugh Hewitt, the California radio talk show host and author who is also a real estate attorney, has noted in the Weekly Standard:

"The land that has passed into `conserved' status is at even greater risk of fire than private land that is home to a protected species because absolutely no one cares for its fire management policy. The scrum of planners, consultants and G-11s that put together these plans should be monitoring these areas closely. Instead, they regulate and move on to savage the property rights of the next region."

And enviro groups also get more and more land locked up by conveniently finding more species to petition the government to protect. In California, as in other places, it's often a case of creative subdividing of essentially the same species. First it was the Stephens kangaroo rat whose designation as endangered put much brush clearance off limits. Then, in 1998, the San Bernardino kangaroo rat got listed. Also under federal protection is the Fresno kangaroo rat. And so on and so on.

Across the country, fires have become more destructive as trees and shrubs gain "protected" status preventing them form being cleared. As Bill Croke noted last week in American Thinker, In the last two decades annual timber production on the national forests in the West has decreased from roughly 12 billion board feet to less than 3 billion today. This has resulted in brush-choked forests with large "fuel loads."

The ironic thing is that all this "protection" at the expense of humans doesn't necessarily work out for the gnatcatchers -- not to mention more majestic creatures -- anyway. According to the Associated Press, the fires struck close to the San Diego Wild Animal Park, threatening condors, a cheetah, and many other animals. The Blue Ribbon Fire Commission found that the 2003 wildfires resulted in "the loss of valuable watershed, wildlife, and critical environmental habitats." Of course, saving species never really was the objective of many enviros. It's just a subterfuge for their main interest of controlling the human species.

Endangered Species Act abuses, including those that prevented fire breaks in Southern California, were an issue that helped get the GOP in power in 1994. But with some exceptions like former Rep. Richard Pombo of California, Republicans began to abandon this issue, lest they be branded as anti-green. It's time for the GOP, as well as truly moderate Democrats, to befriend again the threatened species known as the beleaguered property owner.

And if the Nobel Committee really wanted to give an award to folks preventing a hazard threatening mankind, they should rescind Al Gore's prize and hand it to the brave California firefighters whose jobs have been made so much harder by the nonsensical practices of the environmental movement.

Source






Ozone hole a natural phenomenon too

Post below lifted from No Pasaran . See the original for links

Remember that scourge to humanity, however many humanity destroying scourges before called the Hole in the Ozone Layer? The n-th thing that was supposed to prove to the the poor misguided children with running water and flush toilets that everyone in humanity was wrong about the way they live, and that environmentalist who live no differently weren't? Well No Pasaran reader and commentator Papertiger writes:

Do you remember way back when you wrote up this about the ozone hole?

As it turns out, you were right. Chemists poke holes in ozone theory.

The Montreal Protocol, agreed in 1987 and ratified two years later, stopped the production and consumption of most ozone-destroying chemicals. But many will linger on in the atmosphere for decades to come. How and on what timescales they will break down depend on the molecules' ultraviolet absorption spectrum (the wavelength of light a molecule can absorb), as the energy for the process comes from sunlight.

So Markus Rex, an atmosphere scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute of Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, did a double-take when he saw new data for the break-down rate of a crucial molecule, dichlorine peroxide (Cl2O2). The rate of photolysis (light-activated splitting) of this molecule reported by chemists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California1, was extremely low in the wavelengths available in the stratosphere - almost an order of magnitude lower than the currently accepted rate.

The rapid photolysis of Cl2O2 is a key reaction in the chemical model of ozone destruction developed 20 years ago.

If the rate is substantially lower than previously thought, then it would not be possible to create enough aggressive chlorine radicals to explain the observed ozone losses at high latitudes, says Rex. The extent of the discrepancy became apparent only when he incorporated the new photolysis rate into a chemical model of ozone depletion. The result was a shock: at least 60% of ozone destruction at the poles seems to be due to an unknown mechanism, Rex told a meeting of stratosphere researchers in Bremen, Germany, last week.

In the course of investigating global warming, I have discovered that the other planets you would expect, the ones with atmospheres, also have their analogs of "ozone holes". It seems that they are a feature of planetary rotation rather then a defect.

Here are some pictures: Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, and Mars, and finally Earth. Note: The Martian ozone hole is barely visible due to the thin atmosphere. The only reason it is viewable at all is because of a planet wide dust storm in 2002.

Good on ya, PT - and thank you. The one thing that's obvious about the things that greenies always seem to find so pressing, urgent, risk-laden, around the corner, and so forth, have far more to do with a need to be liked while they act on their urge to dismantle any available pillar of a civilization they had no part in building.

After all, who really wants to go back to the days where we were all worse off: less healthy, lived shorter and uncomfortable lives because the economy and society as a whole depended heavily on human and animal manual labor, and didn't have the advantage of energy and material resources that are affordable enough for everyone in society (and not just an elite,) could benefit from - which ultimately where the "green" movement is leading us away from, whether they know it or not.

Imagine that: a slow dissolution of individual rights over how they conduct themselves and what they do with their property for the sake of an abstraction which is supposed to be for our own good, regardless of the fact that a majority wouldn't agree... sounds mighty familiar.

As if a bunch of lit majors could even tell you what ozone even is. All they know is that someone told them that you aren't allowed to disagree with them.

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