More "extreme" weather

From the year 1901:

In the "Morning Post", of Cairns, Queensland, Australia, we read (p. 2, issue of Tuesday, Dec. 24) a report of recent high temperatures at other Queensland centres. The paper records:

Cunnamulla 120; Charleville 115; Winton 112; Roma 114; St. George 114; Emerald 115; Charters Towers 108. On Thursday the recorded temperature at the Charters Towers Post Office was 112, probably a record for that town.

The readings are of course in degrees Fahrenheit.

SOURCE




Expanding a formal disproof of global warming theory

I led off yesterday's postings with an article that was a bit cryptic. Alan Siddons has sent me an expanded explanation of the matter -- below -- JR

I'll try to explain what Anders is getting at. The way gravity acts on a gas is pretty simple: Close to a planet's surface the atmosphere will be more dense, and further away more diffuse. Consider, then, if each molecule in that atmosphere, from diffuse top to dense bottom, were moving around at about the same speed. Would that atmosphere therefore have the same temperature throughout? No, the bottom portion will have a higher temperature if only because there will naturally be more collisions among those denser molecules -- and collisions mean more heat.

An air pump gives you some idea of this. Pump air into a tire real hard and you'll notice that the hose gets hot. You aren't holding a FLAME near the hose, of course, but the hose heats up anyway. This is known as adiabatic heating: an increase of temperature that's unrelated to any heat being gained from the surroundings. The heating is caused by increased pressure alone. Similarly, when you put out a fire with a CO2 canister, you'll see frost form on the nozzle. This is adiabatic cooling: a temperature drop that isn't related to heat being lost to colder surroundings. The cooling is due to pressure loss alone. It's the same with the atmosphere, then: air is warmer below and cooler above for the same reason. This transition from warm to cold is called the lapse rate.

But here's the thing. Although it's seldom-mentioned, greenhouse theory has it that the lapse rate is NOT due to gravity's influence on an atmosphere, rather to trace gases creating a greenhouse effect. Roy Spencer tries to explain this idea here. In a nutshell, however, the theory says that the air temperature near the ground and 10 miles up would all be the SAME (isothermal) if it weren't for those "heat-trapping greenhouse gases."

What Anders did, then, was look at my paper and simply observe: "Aha! All planets show a lapse rate between 0.1 and 1 bar of pressure, irrespective of what those atmospheres are made of. That refutes Spencer's greenhouse nonsense in one whack."

And, of course, Anders is correct!







A near-perfect prediction of temperatures from knowing solar and oceanic variations only

Eat your hearts out, Warmists!

Expanding upon the last post, the "sunspot integral" (accumulated departure in sunspots v. the monthly mean of 41.2 for the observational period of sunspots 1610-2009) shows good correlation with the temperature record. Excellent correlation (R²=.96!) with temperature is obtained by adding to the sunspot integral the most significant ocean oscillations (the PDO-Pacific Decadal Oscillation + AMO- Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation*3). Various other combinations and permutations of these factors compared to the temperature record have been posted at: 1 2 3 4 5 6, although I have not located others with a correlation coefficient of this magnitude.

Contrast the R² of .96 from this simple model (near a perfect correlation coefficient (R²) of 1) vs. the poor correlation (R²=.44) of CO2 levels vs. temperature.

SOURCE (See the original for links and graphics)





Another hole in the Warmist "models"

New Paper: Solar irradiance at Earth surface varies up to 24 times more than expected

A new peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics finds that measurements of solar irradiance at ground level at the South Pole show variations of up to 24 times more than would be expected over the course of a solar cycle. While satellite measurements find that total solar irradiance only varies 0.1% from a solar minimum to solar maximum, the ground-level measurements analyzed by the authors show a change of 1.8 ñ 1.0% in the UV-A (320-400 nm) spectrum and 2.4 ñ 1.9% in the visible (400-600 nm) spectrum over the course of a solar cycle.

Regressions based on all 17 solstice periods indicate approximate 1.8% and 2.4% decreases in ground-level irradiance for the wavelength regions 320-400 nm and 400-600 nm, respectively, from solar maximum to solar minimum. The associated uncertainty ranges are approximately 0.8-2.7% for the UV-A and 0.5%-4.3% for the visible.

Changes in extraterrestrial irradiance over the solar cycle surely contribute a portion of the variability deduced at the polar surface for the 320-400 nm region, although the magnitude of this contribution is uncertain. However, the inferred solar cycle dependence in the 400-600 nm visible band is too large to be of extraterrestrial origin unless one adopts values at the lowest end of the error range.

The UV-A and visible portions are the most energetic and significant portions of the solar spectrum heating the Earth. While the authors are uncertain of the origin of this variability at the surface, they note that it is "too large to be of extraterrestrial origin." Climate models assume that the solar irradiance reaching the Earth's surface only varies 0.1% over solar cycles in accordance with satellite measurements, but as shown by this paper, that may be an incorrect assumption.

Another recent study has shown that solar UV activity has increased almost 50% over the past 400 years. The antiquated assumption in climate science that the effect of the Sun upon the Earth's climate is a constant (they even call it "the solar constant") is in dire need of reassessment. The IPCC, however, is only mandated to assess anthropogenic climate change and only pays lip service to the role of the Sun.

More HERE (See the original for links)




Data Corruption by corrupt people at NASA/GISS

I’ve reported on this before, but here is a more in depth explanation: In 1999, Hansen wrote a report which was largely inconsistent with his current claims. Twelve years ago he understood that the US climate was hotter and more extreme in the 1930s. He also knew that 1934 was the hottest year in the US.



http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/

Note the US temperature graph above, and compare that with the current US temperature graph below.



http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.gif

In the original version, 1934 was much warmer than 1998. Sometime in the year 2000, the data was “adjusted” to make 1998 warmer. The blink comparator shows the radical change which occurred.



This corruption of the data is bad enough, but it gets worse. On Tuesday, January 18 2011 at 6:33:14 PM, the original graph was corrupted and is no longer visible – as seen below. I do image processing professionally, and I compared the underlying byte data of the image with the original version. I don’t see how this could have happened without someone having touched the file. Files don’t normally change unless someone writes to them.



http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/

In industry, people would be prosecuted for this sort of blatant shenanigans.

SOURCE







Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Green the Capitol initiative is over at the House's Longworth cafeteria

After about a month in control of the House of Representatives, Republicans haven't managed to undo as many deeds of their Democratic predecessors as they'd like. They couldn't get rid of "Obamacare," and they haven't made much headway in slashing the president's $4-trillion budget. But the GOP has succeeded in short order in one critically important venture: getting rid of the "compostable" cornstarch-based knives, forks and spoons that were a universally - and bipartisanly - hated feature of the House cafeteria operation.

The tableware, the color of mucus and as bendable as a pocket watch in a Salvador Dali painting (and thus unable to pierce any foodstuff firmer than the innards of Brie cheese), was the most visible manifestation of recently deposed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Green the Capitol initiative. That was her carbon-cutting effort to use the food-service and other House operations to fight global warming and a host of other perceived environmental, health and social ills. During the lunchtime rush, you could observe dozens of staffers struggling to stab lettuce leaves and poultry pieces with fork tines that appeared to be double-jointed as well as dull.

But on Jan. 25, Dan Lungren, the GOP congressman from the Sacramento area who now heads the House Administration Committee, directed the House chief administrative officer to trash - so to speak - the composting program, which converts the dining service's cornstarch tableware, along with its biodegradable plates, trays, cups and drinking straws, into garden mulch.

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It turns out that the composting program not only cost the House an estimated $475,000 a year (according to the House inspector general) but actually increased energy consumption in the form of "additional energy for the pulping process and the increased hauling distance to the composting facility," according to a news release from Lungren.

As far as carbon emissions were concerned, Lungren concluded that the reduction was the "nominal ... equivalent to removing one car from the road each year." He plans to switch the House to an alternate waste-management system recommended by the Architect of the Capitol, in which dining-service trash would be incinerated and the heat energy captured.

"Composting releases methane," said Lungren's spokesman, Brian Kaveney, and methane gas, as even the most warming-conscious among us have to admit, traps atmospheric heat far more efficiently than carbon dioxide, the usual bugaboo of the climate-change crowd.

Lungren's stick-a-biodegradable-fork-in-it (if you can) stance toward a linchpin of Pelosi's grand green plan marks the latest skirmish in a lifestyle war that may on its surface seem purely partisan: GOP global-warming skeptics versus a Gaia-worshipping Democratic Party. But I'd say the battle lines are really between an elite determined to impose upon a captive populace its notions of what is good for it - cost be damned - and the populace itself, which would rather not be coerced.

In Pelosi's home territory, the city of San Francisco, composting is mandatory for householders, who face a fine if they throw orange peels into the trash rather than into their city-provided composting bins. Plastic bags are against the law in large-chain stores, and plastic water bottles are against the law in City Hall. In the name of health you can't buy a soft drink on public property in San Francisco, and soon you won't be able to buy a Happy Meal with a toy at McDonald's for your kid. The uber-bohemians of San Francisco love this sort of thing; others, maybe not so much.

Green the Capitol was launched in 2007, soon after Pelosi became speaker. The Longworth cafeteria, catering to House employees but also serving the public, was to be the carbon-neutral jewel in Pelosi's green crown. Out went the familiar mystery meatloaf and high-fat coconut cake and in came food that was organic, sustainable, locally grown and fair-traded.

I visited the Longworth cafeteria in early 2008, soon after it reopened under Pelosi's rule. Not only had food been replaced with "cuisine" (roasted corn and poblano chili, anyone?), but there was also a sea of didactic signage. One sign reminded you that the beef in the hamburgers was "humanely raised" and "antibiotic-free." Other placards touted "cage-free eggs" and "rBGH-free milk." A poster trumpeted the "pulper," a costly machine that made compostable cubes out of food waste. And then there were the recycling stations, where a lengthy set of rules instructed diners on how to separate trash items and dump them into four different slots (coffee cups in the "compostable" slot, coffee lids in the "landfill" slot).

No sooner did the cafeteria reopen than the grousing began, from both sides of the political aisle. Some diners tried to puzzle out what turkey escabeche might be and wondered what happened to the fried chicken. Others complained about the new high prices that accompanied the new haute offerings.

"I just wished my pay improved" along with the food quality, a Democratic aide complained to a reporter for Politico.

But the bitterest carping was over that compostable flatware. A Hill urban legend circulated that the spoons would melt in a cup of hot coffee. They don't, but they do bend readily enough to make you think you're Uri Geller.

When I revisited the Longworth cafeteria last week, three years later, I could not help noticing that although the flimsy cornstarch tableware was still in use - it will be retired as soon as the stock on hand is used up - a sea change had otherwise occurred. The sermony signage was gone, as was much of the art-food: the purple Peruvian potatoes and the "panzanella station," where you could build a salad out of arugula, figs and large wedges of stale bread. The salad bar these days is, well, a salad bar, with trays of chopped olives, shredded carrots and garbanzo beans to top the lettuce. Serious efforts have been made to cater to the needs of House employees who can't afford Armani suits. Among the stations with the longest lunchtime lines was one labeled simply "BBQ." Its special was a $5.50 pulled-pork platter with two sides (including classic mac and cheese) and cornbread.

The years from 2006 through 2010, starting with the Democratic takeover of the House and ending with the party's rout after two years of Barack Obama's presidency, were four years of an effort by a know-it-all liberal elite to impose sweeping and extreme social and fiscal measures on a centrist-to-right public: four years of turkey escabeche, so to speak.

Now, with a GOP House and divided government, there seems to be a return to normalcy, and it's beginning with the promise of knives and forks that work.

SOURCE

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

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