Tuesday, August 10, 2010



US Government in Massive New Global Warming Scandal – NOAA Disgraced

Global warming data apparently cooked by U.S. government-funded body shows astounding temperature fraud with increases averaging 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Official Warmists are well-known for "adjusting" their data but this is ludicrous

By John O'Sullivan

The tax-payer funded National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has become mired in fresh global warming data scandal involving numbers for the Great Lakes region that substantially ramp up averages.

A beleaguered federal agency appears to be implicated in the most blatant and extreme case of climate data fraud yet seen. Official records have been confirmed as evidence that a handful of temperature records for the Great Lakes region have been hiked up by literally hundreds of degrees to substantially inflate the average temperature range for the northeastern United States.

The web pages at the center of this latest climate storm were created by NOAA in partnership with Michigan State University.

Someone under the pseudonym ‘Sportsmen’ anonymously tipped off skeptic blog, Climatechangefraud.com. Independent analysts affirm the web pages as genuine. In his email the faceless whistleblower explains that what precipitated the scoop was “a rather dubious report in the media that the Great Lakes temperatures have risen 10 to 15 degrees, I found it was downright laughable.” (Just a few examples of media hysteria here and here and here and here)

He continues, “ Prior to this report I would frequent the ‘Coastal Watch’ temperature maps for northern Lake Michigan. When this report came out it dawned on me that the numbers didn't match what I had been reading on the Coastal Watch temperature page.”

Under a scheme called ‘Sea Grant’ NOAA collaborates with national universities to compile an official federal temperature record. In this instance, the partnersip is with Michigan University’s ‘Coastal Watch.’

Together the two institutions show temperature maps for northern Lake Michigan registering an absurd 430 degrees Fahrenheit -yes, you read it right –that’s four hundred and thirty degrees-and this is by no means the highest temperature recorded on the charts.

In the heated debate about Earth’s ever-changing climate you certainly don’t need to be scientist to figure out that the Great Lakes would have boiled away at a mere 212 degrees so something has seriously gone awry inside this well-funded program.

In addition to its civilian employees, NOAA research and operations are supported by 300 uniformed service members who make up the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps. But don’t bet on anyone being court-martialled over this latest global warming fiasco.

Paid for entirely from federal taxes, the shamed public body’s key responsibilities include warning of dangerous weather and protection of ocean and coastal resources, and conducts research to improve understanding and stewardship of the environment.

Michigan State University Also Complicit in Fraud?

The worst evidence of hyper-inflated global warming data is on a web page entitled, ‘Michigan State University Remote Sensing & GIS Research and Outreach Services.’

While another web page identifies that Michigan State University’s ‘Coastal Watch’ site is officially connected to NOAA thus implicating both institutions in a climate data conspiracy. At the bottom of the web page mention is made of ‘Sea Grant’ that is described as a “unique partnership of public and private sectors that combines research, education and technology transfer for public service.“

The legend further boasts that such data is shared across “a national network of universities meeting the changing environmental and economic needs of Americans in coastal ocean and Great Lakes regions.”

NOAA Makes it White Hot in Wisconsin

But our intrepid anonymous whistleblower wasn’t done yet. He pointed out that Egg Harbor, Wisconsin, really got cooking this July 4th around 9:59AM, according to NOAA and Coast Watch. It was there, at the bottom left row of the temperature data points, that the records reveal on that day a phenomenally furnace-like 600 degrees Fahrenheit. (Click here if CoastWatch link does not work or disappears)

Further analysis of the web pages shows that the incredibly wide temperature swings were occurring in remarkably short 10-hour periods-and sometimes in less than 5 hours. Strangely, none of the 250 citizens of the 78 families living in the village appeared to notice this apocalyptic heatwave during their holiday festivities.

Hidden Data Spike Hikes Heating Averages

But our sharp-eyed stranger comments, “ As I understand it, the current available Gif data maps are several for the latest dates, but the archives have less dates to choose from. It's possible that in the past these numbers were incorrect but in the archive system you do not see the numbers that could have been in gross error.”

So it may reasonably be inferred climate fraudsters had a perfect opportunity here to fraudulently apply overcooked and overlooked data so that America’s Joe Public would be none the wiser that a few climate numbers vastly ramped up the national temperature averages.

Laughably, NOAA publishes a caveat at the bottom right corner of their web page warning about their data is “Not to be used for navigation purposes!”

The current head of NOAA is Dr. Jane Lubchenco, nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the United States Senate on March 19, 2009 and is the first woman to serve as NOAA administrator. On her appointment Lubchenco declared that science would guide the agency and that she expects it to play a role in developing a green economy. You can say that again!

Readers now interested in doing their own detective work may wish to peruse the further data found here and here to further ascertain whether climate doomsayers have rigged more ‘real world’ temperatures in a shabby scheme to win support for green energy tax hikes. If you find anything be sure to drop Lubchenco a line here.

SOURCE (See the original for links)





CO2 is Not a Pollutant but a Huge Benefactor

By Joseph D’Aleo. Small excerpt only below

There is a wild debate in the skeptic community on whether CO2 plays a role in climate changes over time and if so how much. I am going to avoid getting embroiled in that discussion because no one knows, including the IPCC, which starts with the basic assumption that it does, that we understand the forcing and proceeds from there. They back into the forcing in their models which are seriously flawed with very poor understanding of the clearly important factors of water in all its forms in our atmosphere and in the role of the sun and oceans. Even with seriously contaminated surface observation data , their models are failing miserably even just a decade or two into the runs.

There was a very similar divisive argument in the meteorological community in early to middle part the last century as Dr James Fleming of Colby College documented in the book “Historical Perspectives on Climate Change”. The pertinent chapter was on the web and can be found here. This was before models and was based on theory as the write-up documents.

As a Synoptic Meteorologist and Climatologist over the years I have let the data do the talking. The data says that CO2 plays little or no role in climate change - which is cyclical and relates far better with the cycles in sun and ocean.

When correlating CO2 with temperature trends in various periods of cyclical warming and cooling the last 110 years we find a negative correlation from the late 1800s to 1917 (-0.35), positive from 1917 to 1940 (+0.43), negative during the WWII and post WWII boom from 1940 to around 1975 (-0.40), positive from 1975 to around 2000 (+0.36) and negative in the short period to 2009 (-0.56).



The Russian scientists Klashtorin and Lyubushin (2003) found a similar alternating pattern comparing GLOBAL temperature trends and World Fuel Consumption. They found a +0.92 from 1861 to 1875, a -0.71 from 1875 to 1910, +0.28 from 1910 to 1940, -0.88 from 1940 to 1975, +0.94 from 1975 to 2000.

In the paper they projected a reversal post 2000 which has verified. This on again, off-again correlation suggests that CO2 is not the primary climate driver. Since the solar TSI and ocean multidecadal cycles are much better correlated, they are more likely candidates.

As opposed to be a pollutant or an agent of harm, CO2 is a blessing, a plant fertilizer that has supported an agricultural revolution. Nurseries use CO2 to boost plant growthy in greenhouses, pumping it in at levels maybe 3 times ambient levels.

Just the increase in the last century has improved crop yields as shown by NASA greening studies and the UN’s own graph.

More HERE (See the original for links and more graphics)




More Warmist hatred

A Daily Kos contributing editor has suggested that “Steve Milloy and his buddies” commit suicide or be euthanized apparently for the crime of opposing global warming alarmism.

Amid a rant on his Examiner.com blog about skeptics “carpet-bomb[ing] newspaper editorial pages with climate change disinformation…], Steven Alexander, who writes for Daily Kos under the nom-de-plume “Darksyde,” wrote that: "… if only Milloy and his buddies could check into one of the [Soylent Corporation's] lovely medical suites for a short nature movie and a glass of wine…"

The reference is to the assisted suicide scene in the 1973 movie Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston.

The Clarity Digital Group, which owns Examiner.com, removed the offensive posting immediately upon notification.

Former Washington Post reporter David Weigel was recently fired from the paper for privately writing on the Journolist listserv that Matt Drudge should “… set himself on fire.”

Now Alexander has publicly wished a similar fate for climate skeptics.

If you wonder why the skeptics fight so vigorously against the greenshirts, the sort of intolerance exhibited by Alexander over a mere difference in opinion is one reason. God help us all, if they prevail.

SOURCE





Even Greenies are getting skeptical

A new national poll of green consumers found that belief in global warming is declining, and even the worst nightmare scenarios would not change people’s minds or behaviors.

The poll, one of four annual surveys conducted by Shelton Group, surveyed 1,098 Americans who at least occasionally buy green products and found only about half believe climate change is occurring and caused by human beings.

Asked whether they agreed with the statement, “Global warming or climate change is occurring and it is primarily caused by human activity,” 52% of green consumers agreed, compared to 49% of U.S. consumers overall. That’s down significantly from a year ago when 58% of all U.S. consumers agreed.

Respondents who disagreed, or were undecided, were then asked, "Which of the following scenarios would convince you that climate change is a real and immediate threat and cause you to make dramatic changes in your lifestyle? You wake up one morning and find out that…" followed by a list of nightmare scenarios. These included: The polar ice cap has completely melted, kids can no longer play outside in the summer and Nebraska is turning into a desert.

The top two responses were: "None of these would convince me" at 27%; and "One or more of these would convince me but I would be unlikely to make changes" at 24%.

“That means over half of those who are unconvinced about global warming are either unlikely to change their mind or unlikely to change their ways, no matter what happens,” said Suzanne Shelton, CEO of Shelton Group....

SOURCE





Lessons from the Horizon blowout: more hype than harm

Only two weeks after BP began capping the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blowout, people have begun to ask, "Where's the oil?" The fact that skimmer ships sent out to clean the water of oil are unable to find oil to clean is leading the mainstream media to question whether environmentalists tried to exploit this unfortunate event by making it seem worse than it really was for political reasons.

The Gulf oil spill was a disaster for many reasons. Eleven lives were tragically cut short. Millions of dollars of equipment was destroyed. Several million barrels of oil rather being put to productive spewed into the Gulf. While we don't yet have a full accounting of the environmental damage the oil spill might ultimately cause, there is no question that the gulf's wildlife, the shore and the region's fisheries and recreation industries have suffered.

Environmentalists hyped the spill - in the absence of good evidence - variously as "America's Chernobyl," (Sierra Club), as "an unprecedented environmental disaster," (Natural Resources Defense Council) and "an unprecedented ecological and human tragedy," (Environmental Defense).

Echoing the environmentalist's claims, on several occasions, President Obama has called the Horizon blow out "the worst environmental catastrophe in U.S. history." Fortunately, these are proving gross overstatements, since the damage from the spill is proving far less than their frightful claims.

For instance, the Horizon blowout has killed far less than 1 percent of the number of birds killed by the Exxon Valdez spill. And while we've heard horror stories and seen pictures of oil coated marine mammals, it turns out to be the same pictures shown over and over again since wildlife response teams have only collected three visibly oil coated dead mammals thus far. It's true that about 350 acres of Louisiana's valuable coastal marshes have been soaked by oil. However, this far less that the 15,000 acres of wetlands lost each year due in no small part to the Federal programs including: the cutting of channels and canals for transport and the Army Corps stranglehold on the Mississippi's path of flow; federally subsidized flood and hurricane insurance that encourages people to develop (and redevelop after storms) coastal wetlands; and federal agriculture subsidies that encourage overproduction and the overuse of pesticides and fertilizers - the runoff of which contributes each year to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite the spill, the region's fish and shrimp have tested clean, prompting the gradual lifting of the harsh restrictions that had shut down the fishing and shrimping industries.

Environmentalists hyped the spill in an attempt to push the Senate to pass the largest energy tax in history. Though the Senate's energy bill had nothing to do with the safety of offshore oil rigs, the Green lobby tried to link the two in the public's mind. Fortunately, neither the public, nor ultimately, many Senators were buying it.

Unfortunately, environmentalists were successful in convincing the Obama Administration to shut down new offshore oil and gas production after the spill. This was despite that fact that the scientific panel which President Obama appointed to recommend a response, said that a moratorium was unjustified and could make a bad situation worse. Though, the Administration's moratorium was struck down by two separate courts as illegal, in the meantime, offshore oil rig workers, their suppliers, and associated industries joined Gulf fishermen and hotel employees in the unemployment line. Thirty-three offshore rigs were shuttered. And the public coffers suffered a significant loss of revenues.

Theories for why the damage from the blowout has not been as great as expected range from the surface evaporation of much of the oil, to microbes eating it, to the currents and the dispersants simply dissipating the oil faster and to a greater degree than anticipated. One possibility that few people are discussing is that we simply never had a reliable estimate of how much oil was spilled. While it was almost certainly a larger amount than BP and the government originally claimed, it was also likely considerably less than gargantuan claims made by environmentalists.

It is too soon to tell what long-term harms, if any, may result from the spill, but for the moment, it appears that we can all be thankful that the worst doomsday claims made by the green lobby have little relation to reality. The spill, as bad as it was, was another instance of environmentalists playing the role of Chicken Little. The sky was not falling, though we did experience some rough weather.

SOURCE





Can all states be “particularly vulnerable” to global warming?

One of the most frequent tricks used by global warming alarmists to induce a state legislature to pass costly carbon dioxide restrictions is to claim the particular state is “particularly vulnerable” to global warming for various reasons, justifying costly, state-specific action.

“Particularly vulnerable” is a relative term, of course, and not all states can be “particularly vulnerable” relative to each other.

For example, the July 22 Nashville Tennessean claims, “The Southeast is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change.” However, a quick Google search for “global warming” and “particularly vulnerable” shows a plethora of states, regions, and groups alleged to be “particularly vulnerable” to global warming. A partial list includes:

The Northeast
The Southeast
The Southwest
The Gulf Coast
The Atlantic Coast
The Great Plains
Latinos
Native Americans
Children
Senior citizens
Cities
Rural areas
Developing nations
Developed nations
California
Connecticut
Florida
Hawaii
Idaho
Indiana
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Montana
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Oregon
Rhode Island
Texas
Virginia

The Tennessean is not entirely to blame for its disingenuous claim of the Southeast being “particularly” vulnerable to global warming. After all, the newspaper is merely reporting the claims of a new report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Of course, EPA is the source for many of the other “particularly” vulnerable claims above, as well.

While “particularly vulnerable” is used as a rallying cry in various states to push for state-specific global warming laws, the truth of the matter is that “particularly vulnerable” has become an absolutely meaningless term. If all states are “particularly vulnerable,” then none are.

SOURCE

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