More global warming

EVERYTHING proves global warming -- even worldwide cooling

Heavy snow and bitterly cold weather have caused scores of deaths and major disruption in parts of Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia and Pakistan. Some areas have seen snow for the first time in years, with people struggling to keep warm in sub-zero temperatures amid power shortages.

In Iran, heavy snow over recent days has seen eight people frozen to death after being trapped in their cars. Tens of thousands of other motorists were rescued from their vehicles. Some desert areas in Iran reported snowfalls for the first time in living memory.

But other countries in the region have been suffering similar problems. Central Asian nations have reported unusually cold temperatures. In Kyrgyzstan, a government agency said 50 homeless people froze to death over the first four days of the new year. In Tajikistan, people are struggling to keep warm in daytime temperatures as low as -10C, at a time when cutbacks in energy exports from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan mean electricity supplies have been reduced to a total of about four hours a day.

Heavy snow has also caused casualties in Afghanistan. Five people were killed in an avalanche in the western province of Ghor, and in neighbouring Herat eight members of the same family died after their roof collapsed under heavy snow. In many provinces, including Ghor, and Badakhshan in the north-east, a large number of districts have been cut off from their provincial capitals. And the authorities are still trying to clear major roads in many parts of the country.

Snow has also caused disruption and casualties across the border in north-western Pakistan, with seven soldiers reported killed in an avalanche.

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As Arctic ice melts, South Pole ice grows

A mainstream article below. Nice to be able to endlessly tweak models to adapt to reality. The article also fails to note that nearly half a dozen recent peer-reviewed studies (including NASA studies) point to natural causes for recent Arctic ice reduction. But funnily enough there seem to be natural causes for Antarctic changes! The Warmists really are sad souls

For decades, the vast expanse of sea ice that surrounds Antarctica each winter, and all but vanishes each austral summer, has languished as the Rodney Dangerfield of Earth's cryosphere. Antarctic sea ice has gotten little respect, especially compared with its top-of-the-world cousin, or with the enormous ice sheets on Greenland and the Antarctic continent. The sea ice is hard to reach. It has little direct effect on people. And the Southern Ocean was not a cold-war playground for US and Soviet submarines, which amassed a wealth of information on changes in Arctic sea ice before the era of long-term satellite observations.

But after looking at the latest projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "Arctic sea ice is well ahead of the models, and Antarctic sea ice is well behind what the models project," says Stephen Ackley, a polar scientist at the University of Texas, San Antonio Moreover, recent studies have shown that in key regions off the Antarctic coast, sea ice shows a strong, coherent response to El Nino-La Nina cycles, decade-scale climate swings in the tropical Pacific whose length, strength, and timing may be affected in uncertain ways by global warming. Indeed, outside the tropics, Antarctica boasts the strongest climate response to El Nino of any region on the planet.

This suggests strong climate connections and feedbacks among sea, ice, and air in the Southern Ocean that are poorly understood [Surely not! The science is settled, isn't it?]. Some scientists say trends in sea ice in key spots around the continent may be bellwethers for worrisome changes that could accelerate the melt of nearby land ice, most notably the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

The overall growth in Antarctica's sea ice over the past two decades masks significant regional declines in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas - the destination for glaciers flowing from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Researchers say these glaciers are losing ice to the sea faster than snow is replenishing the ice. Thus, the large regional drops in sea ice could also signal the presence of "a very big threat to glacier ice" on the continent, says Xiaojun Yuan, a polar scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.

The leading suspect: relatively warm water upwelling near the coast as a result of global warming's effect on wind patterns in the region. To address some of these issues during the Interna-tional Polar Year, which ends in March 2009, scientists are installing a network of buoys off Antarctica's coast. The buoys will track changes in sea ice and measure the factors in air and atmosphere that trigger those changes. Last August, 10 international science groups joined forces on a project dubbed SOPHOCLES, which aims to use the latest information on the Southern Ocean and Antarctica's land and sea ice to improve climate models.

For some commentators, the out-of-sync trends in sea ice at the two poles is evidence that warming isn't global and doesn't deserve the international angst it triggers. Not so fast, many researchers respond. Northern and southern sea ice shouldn't necessarily act in lock-step. "Antarctic sea ice is such a different animal," says Douglas Martinson, another polar-ice specialist at Lamont-Doherty. Geographic and oceanographic differences - a virtually landlocked ocean in the north versus an open ocean in the south - encourage the buildup of thick, long-lasting, multiyear ice in the Arctic Ocean. Antarctica's sea ice, by contrast, is largely thin and seasonal. In winter, Antarctic sea ice covers an area nearly twice the size of Europe. By the end of summer, it shrinks to one-sixth of its winter extent.

These wide swings make it difficult to tease out long-term trends in ice cover there. The first big advance in monitoring Antarctic sea ice came in 1972, when the federal government launched a satellite with a microwave device to monitor ice 24/7, regardless of cloud cover. The results were eye-opening, says Claire Parkinson, a researcher who tracks sea-ice trends at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. During three of the first four years the instrument gathered data, an enormous open area in the ice, or polynya, appeared in the Weddell Sea - a phenomenon no one has seen there since. (A grocery-store tabloid had the obvious explanation: that scientists had discovered evidence of an undersea base run by space aliens - heat from the alleged facility had melted the ice. "It was one of our images," says a bemused Dr. Parkinson. "But it wasn't our interpretation.")

Since 1978, the satellite record shows that Antarctica's sea ice has expanded by about half a percent a year. Declines in sea ice recorded between 2000 and 2002 have significantly moderated the overall rise. These long-term data have let scientists tease out relationships between Antarctic sea ice and natural climate variations, such as swings between El Nino and La Nina in the tropical Pacific.

Recent modeling work has given scientists a sense that they are on the right track as they explore the processes affecting sea ice. Dr. Yuan, who uncovered Antarctica's coherent response to El Nino, has developed a seasonal sea-ice forecast model for key regions that scientists now use to plan expeditions. The ice also plays a key ecological role in the region, some of which bears on the exchange of CO2 between the atmosphere, ocean, and ice, and on cloud formation.

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Even the Arctic is beginning to look pesky for the Greenies now:

Look carefully at the red line below. Note that the 2007 line is no longer the lowest -- meaning that the ice seems to be GROWING!



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Leftist unrealism over Mathematical Models

I just don't understand American liberals and their attitude toward mathematical models. The left places an inordinate amount of faith in untested models predicting man-made warming of the global climate, while ignoring time-tested mathematical models in another important field important to all Americans.

Global warmists place unquestioning faith mathematical models of anthropogenic global warming, declaring their predictions to be settled science, as if the models completely and flawlessly took account of all significant variables in one of the most complex systems ever studied, the earth's atmosphere.

Yet experience teaches us that modeling atmospheric phenomena is an uncertain business, even in atmospheres much less complex than the planetary system. Far simpler artificial atmospheres or "climates" are routinely created and modeled in the semiconductor industry. Working in sealed vessels within which chemical vapor deposition (CVD) forms nanometer-scale thin solid films on silicon wafer surfaces, in order to produce integrated circuits and many other semiconductor products. Last year I wrote about the many difficulties these simple atmospheric models encounter:

Closed systems are also much easier to model as compared to systems open to the atmosphere (that should tell us something already). Computer models are used to inform the engineering team as the design the shape, temperature ramp, flow rates, etc, etc, (i.e. the thermodynamics) of the new reactor.

Nonetheless, despite the fact that 1) the chemical reactions are highly studied, 2) there exists extensive experience with similar reactors, much of it recorded in the open literature, 3) the input gases and materials are of high and known purity, and 4) the process is controlled with incredible precision, the predictions of the models are often wrong, requiring that the reactor be adjusted empirically to produce the desired product with quality and reliability.

The fact that these artificial "climates" are closed systems far simpler than the global climate, have the advantage of the experimental method, and are subject to precise controls, and yet are frequently wrong, should lend some humility to those who make grand predictions about the future of the earth's atmosphere.

So serious are the problems, sometimes, that it is not unheard of for an experimental reactor to be scrapped entirely in favor of starting from scratch in designing the process and equipment. Often a design adjustment predicted to improve performance actually does the opposite. This does not mean that process models are useless, for they undergird the engineer's understanding of what is happening in the process and help him or her make adjustments to fix the problem. But it means that they cannot be relied upon by themselves to predict results. These new adjustments and related information are then used to improve the models for future use in a step by step process tested time and again against experimental reality.

Although there is no record of accurate prediction for the totally unproven and skepticism-worthy models of the warmist climatologists, liberals are convinced that there is a "scientific consensus" over an impending Anthropogenic Global Warming Crisis that requires undertaking immediate extreme measures including increased carbon taxes as well as new "private sector" solutions such as carbon-trading and selling of carbon-credits.

Actuaries are mathematical professionals who build statistical models of human populations in order to plan for life-insurance, health-insurance and pension benefits. The accuracy of their models can have far reaching consequences. Errors might cost their private sector employers' millions and even billions of dollars. Fortunately, the actuarial profession's record in accurate prediction is quite good, particularly since their relatively simple statistical models are informed with reliable data collected from census figures as well as hospital and mortuary records. While predicting one individual's healthcare needs and time-of-death is impossible, when averaged across millions of people, such statistics can be quite reliable.

Today, a consensus of actuaries agrees that the Social Security system is in need of major overhaul otherwise it will experience debilitating financial shortfalls in a few decades as more and more "baby-boomers" retire with full benefits. In the face of this consensus however, liberals demur and minimize the importance of this crisis, undercutting President Bush's attempts to draw attention the problem as his prelude to proposing reforms. Unpopular measures such as cutting benefits, needs-based benefits, raising retirement ages or increasing payroll taxes are not to even discussed according to liberals.

Furthermore, President Bush's proposals to increase investment returns on the Social Security trust fund are met with universal derision by liberals as unholy "privatization" unworthy of this New Deal institution, although one glance at the incredible returns being achieved with professional management of university endowments shows the enormous potential of this approach to solving the actuarial "crisis". Al Gore famously said the Social Security Trust Fund should be kept in a "lock-box", the financial equivalent of stuffing cash in a mattress for safe-keeping.

Do not attempt to understand the inconsistency over when liberals will heed a professional "consensus". It will only give you a headache.

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Where humans live, coral fails - study

So it's not global warming after all! Generalizing from the primitive economies of much of the Caribbean to areas such as Australia's Great Barrier reef would be hazardous, however. It may be hard for outsiders to believe, but something like the most Northern 500 miles of the reef is bordered by an almost uninhabited coast -- a Greenie paradise, really. Odd that most Greenies live in those evil big cities isn't it?



The world's coral reefs are in alarming decline, but what - or who - is most to blame? A groundbreaking study published today singles out human settlement, especially coastal development and agriculture, as the main culprit, even more so than warming sea waters and acidification linked to global warming. The study focuses on the Caribbean, where declining reefs are endangering species of wildlife as well as tourism and fishing that are vital for the local economy, says lead author, Camilo Mora, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. "The continuing degradation of coral reefs may be soon beyond repair if threats are not identified and rapidly controlled," he said.

Teasing apart the complicated web of factors driving reef destruction - overfishing, runoff of pesticides and pollution, hurricanes, climate change - is crucial for devising the best conservation strategies. There might not be enough time for second or third chances, Mr Mora said. But a welter of contradictory evidence, most of it gathered from single sites, has made it nearly impossible to figure out what causes what.

Which is why Mr Mora and University of Miami marine biologist Robert Ginsburg decided to compare several large-scale databases that had never been systematically cross-referenced. Focusing on corals, fishes and macroalgae, or seaweed, in 322 sites across 13 countries in the Caribbean, the study matched environmental and ecological data against patterns of human population density, coastal development and agricultural land use. Also included were data on hurricanes, biodiversity, fish populations and coral disease. Sifting through all these statistics showed clearly that the number of people is the main driver of the mortality of corals, along with declining fish biomass and increases in algae.

But different kinds of human activity resulted in different impacts, the study revealed. Higher population density in coastal areas produces more sewage and depletes fish stocks, both of which are directly responsible for coral mortality. But chemical discharges from agricultural land drives an increase in macroalgae, which is indirectly linked to coral loss.

Warmer sea surfaces are also contributing to coral decline, but not hurricanes, said the study, published in the journal Nature. "The human expansion in coastal areas inevitably poses severe risks to the maintenance of complex ecosystems such as coral reefs," Mr Mora said. Within a reef, predators prey on plant-eating fish, herbivores graze on seaweed, which in turn interacts with living coral. "A threat in any one group may escalate to the entire ecosystem," Mr Mora said. "The array of human stressors ... are significantly affecting all major groups of coral reef organisms."

The study also concluded that while Marine Protected Areas help restore fish populations, they do nothing to protect coral. A fifth of the world's marine reefs have already been destroyed and half are threatened because of human impact, whether directly or as a consequence of rising temperatures driven by climate change, according to the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Coral reefs support some of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world, including many species that depend on reefs for shelter, reproduction and foraging. Coral reefs also provide livelihoods for 100 million people and form the basis for industries such as tourism and fishing, worth $US30 billion ($34bn) a year, says the IUCN.

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The follies of government "planning"

After more than 30 years of reviewing government plans, including forest plans, park plans, watershed plans, wildlife plans, energy plans, urban plans and transportation plans, I've concluded that government planning almost always does more harm than good.

Most government plans are so full of fabrications and unsupportable assumptions that they aren't worth the paper they are printed on, much less the millions of tax dollars spent to have them written. Federal, state and local governments should repeal planning laws and shut down planning offices

Everybody plans. But private plans are flexible, and we happily change them when new information arises. In contrast, special-interest groups ensure that the government plans benefiting them do not change -- no matter how costly. Like any other organization, government agencies need to plan their budgets and short-term projects. But they fail when they write comprehensive plans (which try to account for all side effects), long-range plans or plans that attempt to control other people's land and resources. Many plans try to do all three.

Comprehensive plans fail because forests, watersheds and cities are simply too complicated for anyone to understand. Chaos science reveals that very tiny differences in initial conditions can lead to huge differences in outcomes -- that's why mega-projects such as Boston's Big Dig go so far over budget. Long-range plans fail because planners have no better insight into the future than anyone else, so their plans will be as wrong as their predictions are.

Planning for other people's land and resources fails because planners will not pay the costs they impose on other people, so they have no incentive to find the best answers.

Most of the nation's 32,000 professional planners graduated from schools that are closely affiliated with colleges of architecture, giving them an undue faith in design. This means many plans put enormous efforts into trying to control urban design while they neglect other tools that could solve social problems at a much lower cost. For example, planners propose to reduce automotive air pollution by increasing population densities to reduce driving. Yet the nation's densest urban area, Los Angeles, has only 8 percent less commuting by auto than the least dense areas. Meanwhile, technological improvements over the past 40 years, which planners often ignore, have reduced the pollution caused by some cars by 99 percent.

Some of the worst plans today are so-called growth management plans prepared by states and metropolitan areas. They try to control who gets to develop their land and exactly what those developments should look like, including their population densities and mixtures of residential, retail, commercial and other uses. About a dozen states require or encourage urban areas to write such plans. Those states have some of the nation's least-affordable housing, while most states and regions that haven't written such plans mostly have very affordable housing. The reason is simple: Planning limits the supply of new housing, which drives up the price of all housing.

In states with growth management laws, median housing prices in 2006 were typically four to eight times median family incomes. In most states without such laws, median home prices are only two to three times median family incomes. Few people realize that the recent housing bubble, which affected mainly regions with growth management planning, was caused by planners trying to socially engineer cities. Yet it has done little to protect open space, reduce driving or do any of the other things promised.

Politicians use government planning to allocate scarce resources on a large scale. Instead, they should make sure that markets - based on prices, incentives and property rights -- work. Variably priced toll roads have helped reduce congestion. Pollution markets do far more to clean the air than exhortations to drive less. Giving people freedom to use their property, and ensuring only that their use does not harm others, will keep housing affordable.

Unlike planners, markets can cope with complexity. Futures markets cushion the results of unexpected changes. Markets do not preclude government ownership, but the best-managed government programs are funded out of user fees that effectively make government managers act like private owners. Rather than passing the buck by turning sticky problems over to government planners, policymakers should make sure markets give people what they want.

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