Natural Climate Change - YES    Anthropogenic Global Warming - NO

The material on this page is based on readings and references I find interesting. 

Many articles referenced here can also be found on the ICECAP webpage.

Here is a listing and summary of reviewed work of scientists who have stated disagreement with one or more of the principles of human-caused Global Warming.

Peer-reviewed studies, analyses, and prominent scientists continue to speak out to refute climate fears. 

(More inconvenient developments for Al Gore, the United Nations, and the mainstream media.)

_{(NEW!! November 10, 2008)}

_{Check out the latest graph showing the SUN'S NUMBER of SPOTLESS DAYS!!}

_{(added November 15, 2008)}

_{Global Warming - A Political Context}

_{by Robert Ferguson, President of the Science and Public Policy Institute}

European and American statists, including activist NGOs like the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), assert that the moderate climate warming that occurred until 2002 is a man-made catastrophe, and have embraced the dystopian fantasy that coercive policies for the elimination of fossil fuel production and usage can prevent or turn back the current warming cycle. They have, thus, made the "global warming planetary emergency" into the central plank of their ongoing campaigns for more centralized government. Leftist commentator, Alexander Cockburn, put it this way:

This turn to climate catastrophism is tied into the decline of the left, and the decline of the left's optimistic vision of altering the

economic nature of things through a political programme.  The left has bought into environmental catastrophism because it thinks that if

it can persuade the world that there is indeed a catastrophe, then somehow the emergency response will lead to positive developments

in terms of social and environmental justice [liberal fascism].

Given just a decade or two of such "sustainable" policies, bolstered by Gore's religion, the world will be well on its way to a new Dark Ages, and the human misery it breeds. The American people who owe their long, comfortable and healthy lives to the accomplishments of modern industry, technology, medicine and affordable fossil energy ought to be outraged by activists' claims and policies. They should come to grasp the terrible costs and futility of the left's policies; they must understand that life lived as the left envision it for them and their children is baneful; life lived in submission to the hard natural forces of climate and disease, increasingly lived without labor-saving technology, without the fruits of sophisticated agricultural techniques, and without modern medicine, sanitation, electrification and transportation systems is, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Hobbes, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."

As Christopher Monckton has pointed out, the necessity of getting the "big" policy decisions right, applies with the greatest force to those fields of policy where wrong decisions could kill and/or impoverish millions. The international community, spurred on by "green" NGOs, "too often gets the big ones wrong, and kills tens of millions, and does not care much." The moral dimension, Monckton ever reminds us, is crucial:

"The policies advocated to mitigate climate change would condemn the Third World to remain abjectly poor, for unless all

other countries cut their carbon emissions atmospheric concentrations will continue to rise even if the entire West shuts down

and goes back to the Stone Age, but without even the ability to light fires.  It is the poor who have been the victims of unscientific

but fashionable political decisions in the recent past; it is they who will die in their tens of millions if, yet again, an unscientific but

fashionable political decision is taken by us and inflicted upon them.

We must get the science right or we shall get the policy wrong. We have failed them before. We must not fail them again."

_{(added November 8, 2008)}

_{Truly Inconvenient Truths about Climate Change Being Ignored}

_{By IPCC’s Pachauri Who Lies to Audience}

Michael Duffy, Sydney Morning Herald

Last month I witnessed something shocking. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was giving a talk at the University of NSW. The talk was accompanied by a slide presentation, and the most important graph showed average global temperatures. For the past decade it represented temperatures climbing sharply. As this was shown on the screen, Pachauri told his large audience: “We’re at a stage where warming is taking place at a much faster rate [than before]”. Now, this is completely wrong. For most of the past seven years, those temperatures have actually been on a plateau. For the past year, there’s been a sharp cooling. These are facts, not opinion: the major sources of these figures, such as the Hadley Centre in Britain, agree on what has happened, and you can check for yourself by going to their websites. Sure, interpretations of the significance of this halt in global warming vary greatly, but the facts are clear. So it’s disturbing that Rajendra Pachauri’s presentation was so erroneous, and would have misled everyone in the audience unaware of the real situation. This was particularly so because he was giving the talk on the occasion of receiving an honorary science degree from the university. Later that night, on ABC TV’s Lateline program, Pachauri claimed that those who disagree with his own views on global warming are “flat-earthers” who deny “the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence”. But what evidence could be more important than the temperature record, which Pachauri himself had fudged only a few hours earlier? In his talk, Pachauri said the number of global warming sceptics is shrinking, a curious claim he was unable to substantiate when questioned about it on Lateline.   Read more here.   Go here to see the entire lecture.

Here's a "right on" comment on the Herald Story here:   When IPCC head has to lie about global temperatures, you know there’s something seriously wrong. Personally, I find it incredible that anybody still believes a word the IPCC says. We always knew that it was a politically-motivated body whose sole aim was to find evidence to back up a conclusion already reached. Instead of acting like proper scientific investigators and saying, “well, the fact is that global temperatures are pretty steady or even declining, so let’s use this opportunity to find out why so that we can better understand the mechanics of the climate,” they lie and mislead in order to keep their preconceived ideas afloat. The IPCC has abandoned all pretence of impartiality and has become just another in the long line of alarmist organizations desperate to keep the AGW bandwagon rolling in order to achieve political objectives. As Michael Duffy says, shocking.

_{(added November 8, 2008)}

If You Don’t Like History, Change It!

By Meteorologist Art Horn

Recently I was looking at some graphical temperature data from NASA. I was able to find a graph of United States temperature from 1880 up to 1999. I then went to the NASA GISS site and found the most recent plot of this data. I wanted to compare the two and see if there had been any changes in the trends. Each graph was on a different scale so I had to fit one to the other so they could be compared. After that I saved each image and opened them each in a simple paint program. In this way I could toggle between the two and visually see any changes that might have taken place.   Click here to see the two graphs.  Amazing!!

Well it was quite an eye opener! Going back and forth between the images there is a clear cooling the temperatures before 1970 and a clear warming of the temperatures after 1970. It is unmistakable and quite remarkable. Figure one is the temperature data from 1880 to 1999. Figure two shows the most recent plot.

We all know that Dr. James Hansen is one of the worlds most visible global warming alarmists. He is also caretaker of the NASA GISS data. It would appear that he is not happy with the trend of temperature in the United States. It would also appear that he is doing something about it. By adjusting temperatures in the past downward and adjusting more recent temperatures upward we get an amplification (or at least the appearance of one) of the rise in temperature between the late 1970s and the late 1990s. If these adjustments continue we will eventually have a new “Hockey Stick” graph. The old Hockey Stick has been broken and thrown away by most although Dr. Mann is attempting to duct tape it back together again. Now Dr. Hansen is gradually fashioning a new stick by adjusting the United States temperatures more to his liking. On September 13th , 2008 I wrote a letter to Dr. Hansen’s boss at NASA Michael Griffin explaining my dissatisfaction of having Dr. Hansen in charge of the very data that is used to support his alarmist point of view. To date I have not received a reply.

_{(added November 8, 2008)}

Climate Change Theory in Trouble

by William K. Graham

Al Gore gathered $300 million to share the “truth” of man-induced climate change. He now warns of irreversible damage to the earth if dramatic action isn't taken before 2020. These echo the overwrought Y2K panacea which cost billions, but vanished overnight. NASA satellite temperature data confirms that atmospheric temperatures have dropped to the lowest values since 1979 when NASA started collecting data. While man-made models guarantee catastrophic global warming due to elevated CO₂; recent satellite data show significant and rapid atmospheric cooling. NASA data also shows recent ocean cooling attributed to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Some scientists observe that atmospheric cooling correlates best with decreased solar activity and subsequent cooling of ocean temperatures. They suggest the sun heats the earth, heat is stored and released by the oceans, which moderate weather and atmospheric temperatures. An innocuous gas (CO₂), which serves as a plant nutrient and occurs in trace amounts (0.04 weight %) so far has an immeasurable effect on anything but rhetoric of progressive politicians and radical environmentalists. Main stream media report little at odds with the theory. Millions of research dollars hinge on tacit acceptance of the theory. Skeptics with the temerity to question the theory may expect ad hominem attacks. But recent years have seen a sharp increase in the release of scientific facts and testimonies questioning the theory of man-induced climate change. It is at last clear that there is no "consensus" of scientists on climate change. Fortunately, the internet has transformed and accelerated information sharing. Inquiring minds have a variety of sources that present new information, none of which documents warming effects due to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Many web sites and blogs are interlinked. [i.e. icecap.us, heartland.org, climatescienceinternationl.org ]. The explosion of interest in the topic has spawned numerous seminars and books, many attacking the theory. For a theory to be scientific, it must be testable and falsifiable. The theory of global warming is being tested and data proves it is coming up short. Worldwide, thousands of scientists testify to its falsehood, both in theory and practice. [See Rich Trzupek’s slide presentation at Heartland.org] Invitation: While the theory of man-induced global climate change may be a casualty here, the greater casualty is Science itself. The scientific community and media have taken the world for a costly ride. The environmental community may have said ‘the sky is falling’ once too often. Trust, once lost, can take time to restore. I invite members of LM-AWMA to provide necessary leadership by abandoning prejudice, embracing the truth and speaking out.

Contributor: William K. Graham, P.E., Past Chair LM-AWMA

See much more in the IMAWMA newsletter 3rd quarter newsletter here.

_{(added November 1, 2008)}

_{Climate Action Plans Fail to Deliver}

By Bob Ferguson, SPPI

Around the country, localities, states and multi-state regions are convening Climate Change Task Forces aimed at developing plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As the name suggests, these groups have been created to develop Climate Action Plans that are intended to lessen the projected impacts of anthropogenic climate change around the world in general, but more particularly, in each state. In every case, the Action Plans include a lengthy list of cookie-cut, prescribed actions spread across all segments of society, and that are aimed towards reducing future emissions of greenhouse gases to a level below some arbitrarily set target.

In no case do any of the Plans lay out what quantified effects their recommended emissions cuts will have on local, regional or global climate. The reason why not? None of the Climate Action Plans will have any meaningful effect on the climate - or any change in future temperatures or sea levels.

Here's why. In 2007, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) - the primary greenhouse gas emitted by human industrial activities - totaled 27,600 million metric tons. The United States, as a whole, contributed 5,900 million metric tons of CO₂ to that total, or about 21.4%. Individual localities, states, etc., contributed much less (see columns 2 and 3 in the Table referenced at the link below for a state by state breakdown of total and percentage of global emissions). Even more importantly, the percentage of global, manmade CO₂ emissions from the U. S. (and each individual state) will decrease over the 21st century as the growing demand for power in developing countries such as China and India - and beginning in 2012, the Middle East - rapidly outpaces the growth of our CO₂ emissions (EIA, 2007). In no case do any of the plans lay out what quantified effects their recommended emissions cuts will have on local, regional or global climate. During the past 5 years, global emissions of CO₂ from human activity have increased at an average rate of 3.5%/yr, with China alone contributing nearly 2/3rds of the new emissions (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2008).

This means that the annual increase of global CO₂ emissions is several times greater than the total emissions from most of the individual 50 states. Therefore, even a cessation of all CO₂ emissions from any particular state will be completely subsumed by global emissions growth in only a matter of months!

In fact, emissions increases produced by China alone rapidly overwhelm any emissions reductions made in the U.S.!!

See rest of the story and the state-by-state table here.   For New York, the reduced emissions would result in a temperature "savings" of 0.0039 °C by 2050 and a "savings" in sea level of 0.0496 cm ( less than one-half millimeter).  AT WHAT COST?  Why not spend the money that will be wasted in reducing emissions on any ACTUAL effects caused by natural climate change?

_{(added October 30, 2008)}

Global Cooling is Here! Evidence for Predicting Global Cooling for the Next Three Decades

By Professor Don Easterbrook, Western Washington University

In 2007-2008, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC) and computer modelers who believe that CO₂ is the cause of global warming still predict the Earth is in store for catastrophic warming in this century. IPCC computer models have predicted global warming of 1F per decade and 5-6C (10-11F) by 2100, which would cause global catastrophe with ramifications for human life, natural habitat, energy and water resources, and food production. All of this is predicated on the assumption that global warming is caused by increasing atmospheric CO₂ and that CO₂ will continue to rise rapidly. However, records of past climate changes suggest an altogether different scenario for the 21st century. Rather than drastic global warming at a rate of 0.5C (1F) per decade, historic records of past natural cycles suggest global cooling for the first several decades of the 21st century to about 2030, followed by global warming from about 2030 to about 2060, and renewed global cooling from 2060 to 2090 (Easterbrook, D.J., 2005, 2006a, b, 2007, 2008a, b); Easterbrook and Kovanen, 2000, 2001). Climatic fluctuations over the past several hundred years suggest ~30 year climatic cycles of global warming and cooling, on a general rising trend from the Little Ice Age.

Now a decade later, the global climate has not warmed 1F as forecast by the IPCC but has cooled slightly until 2007-08 when global temperatures turned sharply downward. In 2008, NASA satellite imagery confirmed that the Pacific Ocean had switched from the warm mode it had been in since 1977 to its cool mode, similar to that of the 1945-1977 global cooling period. The shift strongly suggests that the next several decades will be cooler, not warmer as predicted by the IPCC.

Global temperature projection for the coming century, based on warming/cooling cycles of the past several centuries.

The ‘A’ projection is based on assuming next cool phase will be similar to the 1945-1977 cool phase. The ‘B’ projection is based on assuming next cool phase will be similar to the 1880-1915 cool phase. The predicted warm cycle from 2030 to 2060 is based on projection of the 1977 to 1998 warm phase and the cooling phase from 2060 to 2090 is based on projection of the 1945 to 1977 cool cycle.  The minute increase of anthropogenic CO₂ in the atmosphere (0.008%) was not the cause of the warming - it was a continuation of natural cycles that occurred over the past 500 years. The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling, perhaps much deeper than the global cooling from about 1945 to 1977. Just how much cooler the global climate will be during this cool cycle is uncertain. Recent solar changes suggest that it could be fairly severe, perhaps more like the 1880 to 1915 cool cycle than the more moderate 1945-1977 cool cycle. A more drastic cooling, similar to that during the Dalton and Maunder minimums, could plunge the Earth into another Little Ice Age, but only time will tell if that is likely. Read more details here.

_{(added October 14, 2008)}

_{The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is NOT Shrinking!!}

Is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) growing or shrinking? Climate alarmists would have everyone believe that it is rapidly disappearing; while the illuminati—Al Gore and James Hansen—prophetically proclaim that we have but a few short years in which to (1) repent of our profligate usage of fossil fuels, (2) preserve the ice at the planet’s southern pole by curbing our appetite for fossil-fuel energy and stopping global warming, and (3) avoid the catastrophic rise in sea level that would otherwise inundate the world’s coastal lowlands. But are these zealots correct in what they preach? In what follows, we briefly review the findings of several researchers who have focused their attention on the mass balance of the WAIS in an attempt to help reason prevail over rhetoric in this important but contentious war of words.

See the rather extensive article at this link or download this PDF file (1.4Mb).

We conclude our Summary with a brief review of the paper of Krinner et al. (2007), who used the LMDZ4 atmospheric general circulation model (Hourdin et al., 2006) to simulate Antarctic climate for the periods 1981-2000 (to test the model’s ability to adequately simulate present conditions) and 2081-2100 (to see what the future might hold for the mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and its impact on global sea level). This work revealed, first of all, that “the simulated present-day surface mass balance is skilful on continental scales,” which gave them confidence that their results for the end of the 21st century would be reasonably skilful as well. Of that latter period a full century from now, they determined that “the simulated Antarctic surface mass balance increases by 32 mm water equivalent per year,” which corresponds “to a sea level decrease of 1.2 mm per year by the end of the twenty-first century,” which would in turn “lead to a cumulated sea level decrease of about 6 cm.” This result, in their words, occurs because the simulated temperature increase “leads to an increased moisture transport towards the interior of the continent because of the higher moisture holding capacity of warmer air,” where the extra moisture falls as precipitation, causing the continent’s ice sheet to grow. The results of this study—based on sea surface boundary conditions taken from IPCC Fourth Assessment Report simulations (Dufresne et al., 2005) that were carried out with the IPSL-CM4 coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (Marti et al., 2005), of which the LMDZ4 model is the atmospheric component—argue strongly against climate-alarmist predictions of future catastrophic sea level rise due to mass wastage of the Antarctic Ice Sheet caused by CO2-induced global warming. In fact, they suggest just the opposite, i.e., that CO2-induced global warming would tend to buffer the world against such an outcome. And that seems to be the message of most of the other major studies of the subject as well. We have nothing to fear but fear itself ... plus Al Gore and James Hansen, who seem to be its chief purveyors.

_{(added September 29, 2008)}

_{Global Warming has Paused (Reversed?)}

By Syun-Ichi Akasofu, Community Perspective on Newsminer.com

Recent studies by the Hadley Climate Research Center (UK), the Japan Meteorological Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the University of East Anglia (UK) and the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) show clearly that the rising trend of global average temperature stopped in 2000-2001. Further, NASA data shows that warming in the southern hemisphere has stopped, and that ocean temperatures also have stopped rising.

Note the steady INCREASE in CO₂ while the TEMPERATURE TRENDS (dashed lines) are DECREASING

The global average temperature had been rising until about 2000-2001. The International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) and many scientists hypothesize rising temperatures were mostly caused by the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide (CO₂), and they predicted further temperature increases after 2000. It was natural to assume that CO₂ was responsible for the rise, because CO₂ molecules in the atmosphere tend to reflect back the infrared radiation to the ground, preventing cooling (the greenhouse effect) and also because CO₂ concentrations have been rapidly increasing since 1946. But, this hypothesis on the cause of global warming is just one of several. Unfortunately, many scientists appear to forget that weather and climate also are controlled by nature, as we witness weather changes every day and climate changes in longer terms. During the last several years, I have suggested that it is important to identify the natural effects and subtract them from the temperature changes. Only then can we be sure of the man-made contributions. This suggestion brought me the dubious honor of being designated “Alaska's most famous climate change skeptic.”

The stopping of the rise in global average temperature after 2000-2001 indicates that the hypothesis and prediction made by the IPCC need serious revision. I have been suggesting during the last several years that there are at least two natural components that cause long-term climate changes. The first is the recovery (namely, warming) from the Little Ice Age, which occurred approximately 1800-1850. The other is what we call the multi-decadal oscillation. In the recent past, this component had a positive gradient (warming) from 1910 to 1940, a negative gradient (cooling - many Fairbanksans remember the very cold winters in the 1960s) from 1940 to 1975, and then again a positive gradient (warming - many Fairbanksans have enjoyed the comfortable winters of the last few decades or so) from 1975 to about 2000. The multi-decadal oscillation peaked around 2000, and a negative trend began at that time. The second component has a large amplitude and can overwhelm the first, and I believe that this is the reason for the stopping of the temperature rise. Since CO₂ has only a positive effect, the new trend indicates that natural changes are greater than the CO₂ effect, as I have stated during the last several years. Future changes in global temperature depend on the combination of both the recovery from the Little Ice Age (positive) and the multi-decadal oscillation (both positive and negative). We have an urgent need to learn more about these natural changes to aid us in predicting future changes. See more here.

_{(September 23, 2008)}

_{New Solar Cycle (#24) Sunspot and an Analysis of Sunspot Cycles}

Here is a new way to look at sunspot numbers. This is a Morlet wavelet transform of smoothed sunspot numbers (SSN).

Time is read along the horizontal axis, and a time scale is drawn across the top of the image. Frequency is read on the vertical axis. Lines are drawn at approximately 11 yrs, 22 yrs, and 44 yrs. Amplitude is indicated by color. The basic 11 year Schwabe cycle is clearly indicated by the red ovals bisected by the line for 11 years. Also noted is the Dalton Minimum, which is clearly different in character than the other cycles - with weaker and longer solar cycles. There is clearly enhanced activity, and of longer duration, at the end of the 20th century. There is also a weaker, but distinct, level of activity at 22 years, the double sunspot of Hale cycle. The last three Hale cycles have been stronger than earlier Hale cycles. There is some indication of a double Hale cycle (~44 years) and at the top of the graph, we're in Gleissberg cycle territory. Now, for an interesting observation and speculation:  note that at present, which is at the right edge of the chart, from the 11 yr line to the top, it is all blue. There is only one other place on the entire chart where we can draw a vertical line from the 11 yr line to the top without it crossing some portion of color other than blue. Can you find it? (It is right at the beginning of Solar Cycle 5, i.e. the Dalton Minimum). Are we watching the beginning of a new 200 year cycle like what began with the Dalton Minimum in the early 1800's? Obviously, no one knows. But the current transition is certainly unusual, and invites comparison to past transitions.

_{(September 21, 2008)}

_{Is this the Beginning of Global Cooling?}

_{by Allan MacRae}

Many scary stories have been written about the dangers of catastrophic global warming, allegedly due to increased atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the combustion of fossil fuels. But is the world really catastrophically warming? NO. And is the warming primarily caused by humans? NO. Since just January 2007, the world has cooled so much that ALL the global warming over the past three decades has disappeared! This is confirmed by a plot of actual global average temperatures from the best available source, weather satellite data that shows there has been NO net global warming since the satellites were first launched in 1979.

Since there was global cooling from ~1940 to ~1979, this means there has been no net warming since ~1940, in spite of an ~800% increase in human emissions of carbon dioxide. This indicates that the recent warming trend was natural, and CO₂ is an insignificant driver of global warming. Furthermore, the best fit polynomial shows a strong declining trend. Are we seeing the beginning of a natural cooling cycle? YES. Further cooling, with upward and downward variability, is expected because the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has returned to its cool phase, as announced by NASA this year. Global warming and cooling have closely followed the phases of the PDO. The most significant pattern of PDO behavior is a shift between “warm” and “cool” phases that last 20 to 30 years. In 1905, the PDO shifted to its “warm” phase. In 1946, the PDO changed to its “cool” phase. In 1977, the PDO returned to its “warm” phase and produced the current warming. In 2007-8, the PDO turned cold again, so we can expect several decades of naturally-caused global cooling. Some scientists are predicting that this cooling will be severe, and is a greater threat to humanity than global warming ever was. Meanwhile, politicians are still obsessing about global warming.

(added September 8, 2008)

_{The Public is Cooling on Global Warming}

_{from "The Modern Environmentalist"}

Comments and reports about global warming are getting silly and even ridiculous. Al Gore says we have ten years left. We’re told cooling is due to warming. More rain and flooding and less rain and drought are both due to warming. More hurricanes are predicted while fewer occur. Global temperatures declined as much in the first few months of 2008 as they increased in the previous 100 plus years due to warming. Recently we were told global warming is causing an increase in kidney stones in a travesty of geographic correlation assuming cause and effect. One blogger who began recording, with tongue in cheek, all the events attributed to global warming was John Brignell.

Actually, ridiculous statements and definitive claims of doom are a good sign. Good because they are a sign of desperation as evidence accumulates that human CO₂ is not causing warming or climate change. Good because people and governments are changing their positions faced with the evidence and the costs already incurred by wrong policies and actions. Good because governments are coming to their senses and getting their priorities right. India putting development to feed starving citizens ahead of unsubstantiated threats of climate change is a great advance. It also provides an argument that transcends and regains the moral high ground environmentalists claim. There are troubling aspects with how far the myth of human caused climate change has been carried because so much has already become entrenched in legislature, commerce and behavior.

For example, the fact they have the direction wrong as we prepare for warming while cooling occurs and is expected to continue. Director of the Space and Science Research Center, John L. Casey, declared: “After an exhaustive review of a substantial body of climate research, and in conjunction with the obvious and compelling new evidence that exists, it is time that the world community acknowledges that the Earth has begun its next climate change. In an opinion echoed by many scientists around the world, the Space and Science Research Center (SSRC), today declares that the world’s climate warming of the past decades has now come to an end. A new climate era has already started that is bringing predominantly colder global temperatures for many years into the future. In some years this new climate will create dangerously cold weather with significant ill-effects world wide. Global warming is over – a new cold climate has begun.”   read the entire story here -> Space & Science

More extreme stories predicting disasters at worst or unprecedented change at best are due to growing desperation as awareness builds among the public that humans are not causing warming or climate change. However, they are also the legacy of the mandate and procedures of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We heard about the 2,500 members being a consensus of scientists, but this is anything but the truth. A majority, 1,900, only look at the impacts of global warming or climate change. Most are bureaucrats not scientists. Worse, they start from a false assumption because they accept the results of the Science Report that changes are due to human activity and then speculate on the impacts.

“As a dissenting physicist, I simply can no longer buy the notion that CO2 produces any significant warming of the atmosphere at any rate. I’ve studied the atomic absorption physics to death, from John Nicol’s extensive development to the much longer winded dissertation by Gerlich & Tscheuschner and everything in between, it simply doesn’t add up."    read the entire story here -> Qando.net

“On a global basis, sea ice anomalies in May 2008 continue to be above the long-term average during the 1979-2008 satellite period - the 10th highest on record. SH (Southern Hemisphere) sea ice is off a bit (in anomaly terms) from record levels earlier in 2008, but remains at near record levels (3rd highest May anomaly).”    read the entire story here -> Climate Audit

Debate exists on many blogs about whether their actions are malfeasance or incompetence. Were the errors made in the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) data showing 1998 the warmest year in the US record when it was actually 1934 a genuine error or an adjustment that reinforced the claim by the Director James Hansen and his friend Al Gore that the warming in the 1990s were evidence of the human cause of warming and climate change? It is a debate that will and should expand once it reaches the public forum through mainstream media.

The question of accountability for the damage done is another issue. Al Gore’s ten year threat implies a tipping point. James Hansen and others similarly warn we are close to such a point. Ironically, we are reaching a tipping point, but it is not the one they envisioned. Rather it is the tipping point created by their extremism. A point where the increasing claims and threats become so irrational and ridiculous that they force people to change their perspective even if they still don’t understand the science.

(added August 18, 2008)

Media Gets Failing Grade on Climate Change Coverage

by Dr. Joseph Aleo in the Energy Tribune

If there is a proof of bias towards a cause that would serve a certain political and ideological view of the world, this must be the position that the much of the popular media has taken on global warming. As an institution ,the press has abdicated its position in providing fair and balanced coverage of climate change. It has become advocacy journalism and most all the major networks and magazines are guilty of it. But thanks to magazines and websites like the Energy Tribune and the internet blogosphere and talk radio, the truth can still be found.

12 Facts about Global Climate Change That You Won’t Read in the Popular Press

1. Global temperatures have been cooling since 2002 (0.3F), even as carbon dioxide has continued to rise (3.5%).

2. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas and by itself will produce little warming. Also, as CO₂ increases, the incremental warming is less, as the effect is logarithmic so the more

    CO₂, the less warming it produces.

3. CO₂ has been totally uncorrelated with temperature over the last decade, and significantly negative since 2002.

4. CO₂ is not a pollutant, but a naturally occurring gas. Together with chlorophyll and sunlight, it is an essential ingredient in photosynthesis and is, accordingly, plant

    food.

5. Reconstruction of paleoclimatological CO₂ concentrations demonstrates that carbon dioxide concentration today is near its lowest level since the Cambrian Era some

    550 million years ago, when there was almost 20 times as much CO₂ in the atmosphere as there is today without causing a “runaway greenhouse effect.”

6. Temperature changes lead, not lag.  CO₂ changes on all time scales. The oceans may play a key role, emitting carbon dioxide when they warm as carbonated beverages

    lose fizz as they warm and absorbing it as they cool.

7. Most of the warming in the climate models comes from the assumption that water vapor and precipitation increase as temperatures warm, a strong positive feedback.

    Water vapor is a far more important greenhouse gas than CO_2. However, that assumption has been shown in observations and peer-reviewed research to be wrong, and

    in fact water vapor and precipitation act as a negative feedback that reduces any small greenhouse warming from carbon dioxide.

8. Indeed, greenhouse models show the warming should be greatest at mid to high atmosphere levels in the tropics. But balloon and satellite observations show cooling

    there. The greenhouse signature or DNA does not match reality, and the greenhouse models thus must greatly overstate the warming and in a court of law would have to

    be acquitted of any role in global warming

9. The sun has both direct and indirect effects on our climate. Solar activity changes on cycles of 11 years and longer. When the sun is more active it is brighter and a

    little hotter. More important though are the indirect effects. Ultraviolet radiation increases much more than the brightness and causes increased ozone production,

    which generates heat in the high atmosphere that works its way down, affecting the weather. Also, an active sun diffuses cosmic rays, which play an important role in

    nucleation of low clouds, resulting in fewer clouds. In all these ways the sun warms the planet more when it is active. An active sun in the 1930's and again near the end 

    of the last century helped produce the observed warming periods. The current solar cycle is the longest in over 100 years, an unmistakable sign of a cooling sun that

    historical patterns suggest will stay so for decades.

10. The multidecadal cycles in the ocean correlate extremely well with the solar cycles and global temperatures. These are 60 to 70 year cycles that relate to natural

    variations in the large-scale circulations. Warm oceans correlate with warm global temperatures. The Pacific started cooling in the late 1990's and it accelerated in

    the last year, and the Atlantic has cooled from its peak in 2004. This supports the observed global land temperature cooling, which is strongly correlated with ocean

    heat content. Newly deployed NOAA buoys confirm global ocean cooling.

11. Warmer ocean cycles are periods with diminished Arctic ice cover. When the oceans were warm in the 1930' to the 1950's, Arctic ice diminished and Greenland

    warmed. The recent ocean warming, especially in the 1980's to the early 2000's, is similar to what took place 70 years ago and the Arctic ice has reacted much the

    same way, with diminished summer ice extent.

12. Antarctic ice has been increasing and the extent last year was the greatest in the satellite monitoring era.

What will it take for the media to let go of their biases and begin doing their job, reporting the truth?

(added August 16, 2008)
The CCSP: A New All-Time Low for NOAA
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, Fellow AMS

As Roger Pielke Sr. reported “This US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) report is Co-Chaired by Thomas R. Karl, Jerry Melillo, and Thomas C. Peterson with the Senior Editor and Synthesis Team Coordinator Susan J. Hassol. These are the same individuals who have led past CCSP reports (e.g. see and see), with Tom Karl and Tom Peterson deliberately excluding scientific perspectives that differ from their viewpoints (i.e. see). Susan Hassol was writer of the HBO Special “Too Hot Not to Handle”. This HBO show clearly had a specific perspective on the climate change issue, and lacked a balanced perspective. The HBO Executive Producer was Ms. Laurie David. A clear real conflict of interest is obvious.”

Anthony Watts echoed Roger “To say the least, I’m shocked that NCDC’s leadership has changed from being the nation’s record keeper of weather and climatic data, to being what appears to me now as an advocacy group. The draft document reads more like a news article in many places than it does a scientific document, and unlike a scientific document, it has a number of what I would call “emotionally based graphics” in it that have nothing to do with the science.”

The hand-picked authors are all of one mind in this issue. They include Ben Santer who single handedly reversed the climate science of the IPPC 2nd Assessment and Jonathan “we have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period” Overpeck.

Bob Davis University of Virginia suggested this preface to the CCSP:USP   “This report is not intended to be an unbiased review of climate change science; rather, it is a political document that emphasizes the worst possible theorized impacts of climate change in the hopes that the U.S. Government will use this report in support of a decision to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.”

I personally or jointly sent in 9 comments. There were hundreds of submitted comments. We have posted some on Icecap (in box “Search Icecap” insert CCSP). Another site is putting together a list of submitted comments. We will announce when that is available with link.

Comment #1: Data Integrity Problems Contaminate The Historical Record That Is The Underpinning Of The Entire Report can be found here.

Comment #2: Heat Waves can be found here.

Comment #3: Northeast Regional can be found here.

Comment #4: Key Finding #9, “The Past Can No Longer Be used to Predict the Future” can be found here.

Comment #5: “Global warming is unequivocal and is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases and other pollutants” can be found here.

Comment #6: “Arctic sea ice and the large ice sheets on Greenland and parts of Antarctica are melting faster than expected” can be found here.

Comment #7: “Warming is causing sea-level to rise as land-based ice melts and the warmer oceans expand. Many of these observed changes are occurring more rapidly than projected even a few years ago” can be found here.

Comment #8: NW Regional (with George Taylor) can be found here.

Comment #9: Bias Towards Negative Effects While Ignoring Benefits Of Slight Warming And Increased CO₂ with Madhav Khandekar can be found here.

(added August 1, 2008)

Here's the REAL REASON why this Human-Caused Global Warming is so important to certain people!!

Al Gore's Carbon Empire:  Cashing in on Climate Change

By Fred Lucas, Capital Research Foundation Watch

Al Gore says everyone will benefit when new government rules require companies to pay to reduce global warming.  But some people will benefit more than others, as will some companies.  Benefiting most are those like the ex-vice president who can set up and invest in companies that will profit from the federal regulations imposing heavy costs on others.

Who pays for Gore’s crusade?  In accounting for the $300 million in costs for the public education campaign of the Alliance for Climate Protection, the group’s website says that Al Gore pays for much of the project himself using the proceeds from his film and book, An Inconvenient Truth, and the $750,000 cash prize attached to the Nobel Peace Prize.  It adds that he “has since received additional support in the form of private donations from those concerned about solving the climate crisis.”

Andrew C. Revkin of the New York Times reported on the newspaper’s Dot Earth blog March 31 that the Alliance raised half the sum - $150 million - for the ad campaign.  But from whom?  Gore says he put up about $3 million, but when asked the question on TV’s “60 Minutes,” he would not identify other funders.  Solar and wind power companies?  Hedge funds and venture capitalists?  Gore’s own company, Generation Investment Management?

Gore and the global warming crowd are usually quick to challenge the credibility and sincerity of any scientist, climatologist or policy organization skeptical of man-made global warming.  They call skeptics “shills” for Big Oil or, worse, “deniers,” invoking the term used against anti-Semites who deny the Holocaust.  But they refuse to acknowledge their own growing financial interest in the carbon control industry.  Barack Obama has said if he is elected president, he will be sure to find a prominent role for Al Gore in his administration.  If that happens, will anyone raise questions about Al Gore’s conflict of interest?

Since leaving public office, Al Gore has become a one-man conglomerate: He writes books, stars in a movie, commands massive speaking fees, and sits on numerous corporate boards.  According to Bloomberg News, Gore had less than $2 million when he left the vice presidency in 2001.  Today his fortune is more than $100 million (Fast Company, July 2007) and the prospects are that he will grow even richer mounting his crusade against global warming.

The prospect of carbon regulation is why major corporations have latched onto Gore.  He is the environmental movement’s bullhorn to the world, proclaiming the crisis of planetary warming.  But the truth is that Gore also has become a bullhorn for corporations that are ready to cash in on the hysteria.   Read much more here.

(added July 22, 2008)

Time to end Democratic Party's Obstruction

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, gave a floor speech on America’s energy policy today.  Here are some selected Excerpts of Inhofe’s Energy Speech.

“I believe that America is not running out of oil and gas or running out of places to look for oil and gas. America is running out of places where the Democrats in Congress are allowing us to look for oil and gas. Again I ask, why should producing America’s own resources be a partisan issue? It shouldn’t be, but it is. The Democrats in Congress refuse to increase our supply of energy, and gas prices keep rising. I call on the Democrats to act to expand refinery capacity and to open the nation’s access to the Outer Continental Shelf, ANWR, and the Rocky Mountain oil shale, and preserve access to Canadian oil sands. Today’s American oil producer operates with the most sophisticated environmental technologies and policies on the planet. 67 percent of the American people recognize the need for development and support action. It’s time to end the Democratic Party’s obstruction. The American public must demand that the Democrats in Congress allow us to produce our own resources.

Read the full testimony here.

(added July 19, 2008)

Shifting of Pacific Decadal Oscillation signals Cooling Period

Addressing the Washington Policymakers in Seattle, WA, Dr. Don Easterbrook said that shifting of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) from its warm mode to 

its cool mode virtually assures global cooling for the next 25-30 years and means that the global warming of the past 30 years is over. The announcement by NASA 

that the (PDO) had shifted from its warm mode to its cool mode is right on schedule as predicted by past climate and PDO changes (Easterbrook, 2001, 2006, 2007) 

and is not an oddity superimposed upon and masking the predicted severe warming by the IPCC. This has significant implications for the future and indicates that the 

IPCC climate models were wrong in their prediction of global temperatures soaring 1 deg F per decade for the rest of the century. 

The cool water anomaly in the center of the image shows the lingering effect of the year-old La Nina. However, the much broader area of cooler-than-average 

water off the coast of North America from Alaska (top center) to the equator (as measured from April 14-21, 2008) is a classic feature of the cool phase of the 

Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).  The cool waters wrap in a horseshoe shape around a core of warmer-than-average water. (In the warm phase, the pattern is 

reversed). Unlike El Nino and La Nina, which may occur every 3 to 7 years and last from 6 to 18 months, the PDO can remain in the same phase for 20 to 30 years. 

As shown by the historic pattern of PDOs over the past century and by corresponding global warming and cooling, the pattern is part of ongoing warm/cool cycles 

that last 25-30 years. Each time the PDO mode has shifted from warm to cool or cool to warm, the global climate has changed accordingly.  In 1977, the PDO 

shifted from cool mode to warm mode and set off the global warming from 1977 to 1998, often referred to as the “Great Climate Shift.” The recent shift from 

PDO warm mode to cool mode is similar to the shift that occurred in the mid-1940’s and resulted in 30 years of global cooling. The global warming from ~1915 to 

~1945 was also brought on by a mode shift in the PDO.  Every indication points continuation of the PDO patterns of the past century and global cooling for the 

next 30 years. Thus, the global warming the Earth has experienced since 1977 appears to be over! 

Here's a link to the full PDF of this report.  If nothing else is concluded from this report, it's that, once again, the climate models being used by the IPCC and 

Al Gore to boost their agenda of human-caused global warming are NOT CORRECT.  If these models can't determine what the climate is doing in the early stages of

their output period, how can they be expected to predict anything near the truth in 50 years?  Anytime any computer model begins to stray from predictions, the

situation degrades even further as time progresses.

Did the UN bias its attribution of “global warming” to humankind?

(added July 13, 2008)

Still not sure that the Global Warming Alarmists are wrong?

Please then....go the article here and read it carefully

"The Sky is NOT Falling"  (161 kb PDF)

A submission to the Garnaut Climate Change Review

Here's a link about Professor Garnaut and this Australian Commission

This article has a definite Australian slant to it, but a vast majority of the presentation is applicable to any country. 

The article contains many links to peer-reviewed information, something that is sorely lacking in many discussions about global warming.

Four Scientists:  Global Warming Out, Global Cooling In

(added July 13, 2008)

Four scientists, four scenarios, four more or less similar conclusions without actually saying it outright - the global warming trend is done, and a cooling trend is 

about to kick in. The implication: Future energy price response is likely to be significant.

(updated November 10, 2008)

October 2008 Sunspot numbers continue trend - high number of totally SPOTLESS days

Sunspot Numbers show a direct correlation with temperature.

Therefore....  more RED indicates COOLING TEMPERATURES, and....

Starting back with the Maunder Minimum, low sunspot numbers have meant colder than normal temperatures.

In some cases, much colder than normal.

The Maunder Minimum:  Early records of sunspots indicate that the Sun went through a period of inactivity in the late 17th century.  Very few sunspots were seen on the Sun from about 1645 to 1715. Although the observations were not as extensive as in later years, the Sun was in fact well observed during this time and this lack of sunspots is well documented.  This period of solar inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the "Little Ice Age" when rivers that are normally ice-free froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes.  There is evidence that the Sun has had similar periods of inactivity in the more distant past.  The connection between solar activity and terrestrial climate is an area of on-going research.

(added July 4, 2008)

Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO₂ over Geologic Time 

Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya -- 270 mya) is the only time period 

in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures 

were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period ).

Temperature after C.R. Scotese http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm

"DO as I SAY, NOT as I DO"  by Al Gore

(posted July 3, 2008)

(full story here)

Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gas
by John Coleman, one of the founders of The Weather Channel

So what about Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth"?  He MUST be telling us the TRUTH, right?  NOT SO FAST....

Archived Article is here.

PLEASE BE AN INFORMED WORLD CITIZEN

_{*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *}

New York State Electricity Users will soon get zapped for $120 million

Did you see the front page of Section B in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle today, Saturday, August 16, 2008?

A new regulation taking effect this year will cost electricity customers about $120 million annually, according to the state agency responsible for overseeing how the money is spent.  But the bill could go much higher, a spokesman for a trade group of energy producers warned.  The $120 million is the price tag for the state's participation in a group of Northeast and mid-Atlantic states that plan to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.  The state plans to start selling permits to energy producers to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in December.  This is just the BEGINNING people.  Just wait until the environmentalists and the Algores take charge of all our energy!  Some have even said that farmers will be charged by the number of cattle they have because of their "emissions".  Here's a link:

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080816/NEWS01/808160341/1002/NEWS#pluckcomments

_{*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *}