Does it surprise you that Al Gore thinks the temperature at the center of the Earth is several millions of degrees. He did not specify the scale of the several millions of degrees, but it maters not.
Click here to see Gore on TV announcing this previously unknown “fact”.
Cbdakota
Posted in Alternative Energy, Environment, Global Temperatures
The Maunder Minimum was a period of low solar activity characterized by few sunspots. During the roughly 75 years of this Minimum, global temperatures were well below normal.
David Archibald figures that the time between Cycle 23 and Cycle 24 Solar Maximum will be 15 years. The time between Solar Maximums is typically 11 years.
Archibald conclude based on the longer period of time between Maximums that:
“Activity and timing of the current minimum, as well as the timing of the Solar Cycle 24 maximum in 2015, is paralleling the start of the Maunder Minimum. There is no data to date which diverges from the pattern of the start of the Maunder Minimum.”
Dr Lief Svalgaard presented this chart at Solar Analogs II, September 22, 2009. This chart plots sunspot locations across the face of the Sun during cycles 21, 22, 23 and the new cycle 24. Svalgaard overlaid a green arrow on the trail of the sunspots toward the Equator. This movement is called Sporer’s Law and it is chacterized by this statement from Wikipedia:
“At the start of a sunspot cycle, sunspots tend to appear around 30° to 45° latitude on the Sun‘s surface. As the cycle progresses, sunspots appear at lower and lower latitudes, until they average 15° at solar maximum. The average latitude of sunspots then continues to drift lower, down to about 7° and then while the old sunspot cycle fades, sunspots of the new cycle start appearing at high latitudes.”
Archibald overlaid a yellow bar that is a measure of years between the cycle 23 and the developing cycle 24 and gets 15 years. This is technique is consistent with the measured 10 years between the former Cycles 22 and 23. The Solar cycles during the Maunder Minimum period averaged 20 years.
You can read all of David Archibald’s posting by clicking here.
Lief Svalgaard’s presentation at Solar Analogs II can be seen by clicking here.
Svalgaard is a little more reticent than Archibald about predicting solar cycles,as you will see if you read his presentation.
While I am not a big leaguer like Svalgaard and Archibald, it seems to me to be a little early to call a new Maunder Minimum.
Cbdakota
On Friday November 6th there was an asteroid near miss. This was a small asteroid that came within 14,000km of Earth. It was only spotted a short time before it made its pass at Earth.
Asteroids of a certain size could cause real problems for we Earthlings. Much bigger issue than global warming. There are people scanning the skys for Asteroids. When one is found, calculations are made to determine if they present a real danger —(I am not very confident that we are prepared to deflect the body away from Earth if it were a danger). You might be interested in some observations about the most recent miss, and a longer ranged view of the consequences of a strike.
If so, look at this one for comments about the Nov. 6th asteroid here.
This site charts the close ones every day, click here and page down to near the bottom of the site to see Near-Earth Asteroids.
And click here for a site that give some history and a cool video of the consequences of a major asteroid strike
Cbdakota
Posted in Asteroids, cap and trade, Environment
Joe D’Aleo has guest posted, on WattsUpWithThat, information about current temperatures. He prepared the chart shown above. All but 7 of the lower 48 States had temperatures below normal in October 2009.
Remember, Climate is measured in 10, 20 or more years. What you are seeing in this posting is weather, but this cold October is part of a trend of cooling global temperatures in this decade. If this goes on for several more years we’ll have confirmed Climate cooling. To read all of the story click here
Cbdakota
I have been doing only limited posting for several weeks as I am working on my Daughter’s house, preparing to put it on the market. Two more weeks–I hope will finish it.
An excellent entry in the Quadrant Online by John Reid titled “Climate Modelling Nonsense” discusses dangers of governmental legislation based on the forecasts made by the General Circulation Models (GCM) developed by the IPCC and allies. He believes that the scientific method has been abandoned by the man-made global warmist running these models.
Dr Reid is Phd who did his postgraduate work in upper atmosphere physics. He says the GCMs are not tested, but rather they are “verified”:
In the early 1980s I joined the CSIRO’s Division of Oceanography and worked in surface gravity waves (ocean waves) for a time. Much of the theoretical side of oceanography entails fluid dynamics which, because of its heavy mathematical load, is regarded as a sub-discipline of applied mathematics rather than of physics. Because of this, in my view, many practitioners of oceanography and climatology have a cavalier disregard for experimental testing and an unjustified faith in the validity of large-scale computer models.
Later in my career I was involved in running and refining numerical fluid dynamical models, so I gained some insight into how this modelling is done and how rigorously such models need to be tested. Naval architects and aerodynamical engineers do such testing in wave tanks and wind tunnels.
Meteorologists regularly test model “skill”. Climatologists don’t seem to have a concept of testing, and prefer to use the term “verification” instead—that is, they do not seek to invalidate their models; they only seek supporting evidence.
He also says it is his belief that the early models showed little increase in global temperatures with increasing atmospheric CO2, not the “desired” temperature increases they were looking for. He adds:
However, an ingenious trick was used to make this happen. It is called “water vapour positive feedback” and appears to be used in all the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate models. Without it, the climate models would show negligible increase in global temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Water vapour positive feedback is only an assumption; but, importantly for the modellers, it is an assumption which makes the models work. There is little experimental evidence that it is true, and radiometer data collected by NASA scientist Roy Spencer and others indicate that it is not true.
Reid concludes with
People are entitled to entertain whatever apocalyptic view of the future they choose, but such ideas have nothing to do with science. Climate prediction is not science, it is pseudo-science, and sooner or later more real scientists are going to wake up to this fact.
Read his complete entry by clicking here
Cbdakota
Posted in cap and trade, Environment, Global Temperatures
There are two new climate-modeling studies that you might find interesting.
The first study uses global satellite temperature data trends for the period January 1979 through June 2009. The abstract of this work says:
“The past 12 to 13 years show cooling using both satellite data sets, with lower confidence limits that do not exclude a negative trend until 16 years.”
(The original indicated “..until 16 to 23 years” but that was corrected.)
Loehle’s Chart Shows UAH Data and the Model Projection
Loehle’s conclusions are that:
“…the satellite data shows a statistically significant cooling trend for the past 12 to 13 years, with it not being possible to reject a flat trend (0 slope) for …..16 years. This is a length of time at which disagreement with climate models can no longer be attributed to simple LTP. “
The climate models (General Circulation Models) did not predict this cooling period. And if the cooling period last for 16 or more years, it could be argued forcefully that the GCMs are not valid predictors of future climate.
I am a skeptic about the GCMs and do not believe that rational people should be planning their future based on their output. My experience with curve fitting was usually less than successful so as much as I would like to, I can’t say I am willing to buy into this model’s output either. To read more about this, click here
The other study discusses a New Method to Quantify Climate Modeling Uncertainty.
The good part of this study is based upon the conclusion “…that the range of uncertainty in climate projections may be greater than previously assumed.” The study group looked at global temperature projections under three conditions. One case, A1F1, is high economic growth and continued use of fossil fuels for the remainder of the century, another, B1, is a major reduction in fossil fuel use and the last case, A2, is a middling scenario.
The study found:
“Interestingly, when the variance or “error bars” are taken into account, there is no statistically significant difference between the projected temperatures resulting form the high fossil fuel use, A1F1 scenario and the middling A2 scenario up through 2050. “ See more of the story here.
The authors included the obligatory statement that we can bank on even higher temperatures and more heat waves after 2050 if fossil fuels are not curtailed.
Still it is refreshing to see that the error bars keep getting bigger as the modelers are beginning to get a little more nervous about their skillfulness in predicting future climate.
Can you explain to me why we have politicians that want to bet our future on climate models that can’t seem to get it right?
Cbdakota
Posted in Environment, Global Temperatures
This month’s CO2 report highlights charts of atmospheric global temperature, Ocean Heat Content, atmospheric CO2 content, sea level and additional discussions about Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, hurricane and tropical cyclone activity, a discussion of CO2 residence time in the atmosphere, etc. See full report here
Cbdakota
No hot flashes here, no pun intended, because for most of us, the fact that the Earth is cooling is not new news. However, for one of the biggest media outlets that is seemingly 100% in tune with the man-made global (AGW) warming theory to frankly admit it is cooling is a surprise. To read their posting, click here.
The biggest laugh in the BBC article is when the UK Met office says their Centre
“…. incorporates solar variation and ocean cycles into its climate models, and that they are nothing new. In fact, the centre says they are just two of the whole host of known factors that influence global temperatures – all of which are accounted for by its models.”
Get that “all of which are accounted for by its models.” If all are accounted for, then they would have predicted this cooling. How it is that scientists of all stripes can hear organizations says such obviously bogus things and be silent? The only explanation it seems is, they fear retribution meted out by the AGWers’ right arm, the media like the BBC.
The BBC says that two years ago a research team seemed to rule out solar influence.
“The scientists’ main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.
And the results were clear. “Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity,” said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”
I know I can not prove that the Sun is responsible for global warming and cooling but, come on, the level of solar activity seems to be the most promising correlation anywhere to be found.
I have said this before, and here I go again: Even though the exact mechanism linking the Sun and global climate change has not yet been definitively established, it is kind of like gravity—it is obvious even if we do not yet fully understand how it works.
cbdakota
The “American Thinker” blog has an article by John McLaughlin that shows the weakness of the man-made global warming (AGW) theory. The article Global Warming ‘Science’ discusses the fact that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sponsored by the UN, was ..
” Since its inception in 1988, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has sought to evaluate the risk of climate change brought about by human activity. There has never been a requirement to also evaluate potential natural causes.”
The author discusses the impact the infamous Hockey Stick Temperature Graph had on the IPCC reports.
“Their reports include a graph derived from mathematical models showing average global temperatures back to 1000 AD. The graph appears relatively flat for over 900 years. Then, about 1920, temperatures begin to rocket upward with but a brief pause around 1970 before heading still higher with no relief in sight. So startling was this graph when it first appeared, it became known as the “Hockey Stick” chart. The IPCC concluded the graph’s sudden change in character during the early 20th Century correlated with the introduction and increasing use of fossil fuel energy in that period, and that production of carbon dioxide (CO2) represented the principal man-made greenhouse gas culprit.”
The Hockey Stick Temperature Graph
(Note, no medieval warm period & the “hockey stick” jump in temperatures)
Then he walks you through the story of how the Graph was exposed as a fraud:
As political hysteria over “man-made” or anthropogenic global warming (AGW) increased, other scientists began checking the mathematical analysis and measurements behind the hockey stick chart because it did not correlate with other known historical temperature data. In 2003 Professor McKitrick teamed with a Canadian engineer, Steve McIntyre, in attempting to replicate the chart and finally debunked it as statistical nonsense. They revealed how the chart was derived from “collation errors, unjustified truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, incorrect principal component calculations, geographical mislocations and other serious defects” — substantially affecting the temperature index.
And perhaps worse, the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics concluded that:
“……the statistical methodology underpinning the hockey stick version was, indeed, profoundly flawed. The Wegman panel submitted a report to the U.S. House of Representatives (which should have been available to all House members including Rep. Waxman) which cited results of an earlier National Research Council panel endorsing the work and results of McIntyre and McKitrick. Wegman’s work also found the McIntyre and McKitrick analysis independently verifiable, their observations of the IPCC flaws correct and “valid,” and their arguments “compelling.”
McLaughlin also demonstrates that man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) can not be a significant cause of global warming.
“Numerous gases make up the Earth’s atmosphere. Of these, nitrogen represents about 78% by volume, oxygen comprises just under 21%, and other gases (including “greenhouse gases”) make up slightly over 1% by volume remaining. Of the principal greenhouse gases, water vapor is by far the most prevalent. Second place belongs to carbon dioxide (CO2) at 0.04% with methane and nitrous oxide finishing a very distant third and fourth.
What complicates analysis of any manmade greenhouse effect is the relatively overwhelming prevalence of water vapor — a gas ignored by the IPCC. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates water vapor makes up 95% of identified greenhouse gases and, of that amount, less than 0.001% can be attributed to manmade causes. Thus, the IPCC and AGW proponents have focused on CO2 as the principal anthropogenic greenhouse gas.”
And :
Put another way, if accumulation of greenhouse gases has any impact on global warming, Department of Energy data indicates nearly 99.9% would have to be attributed to natural causes. Nevertheless, AGW proponents blame approximately 1/1000 of all produced planetary CO2 — this trace gas which, in its totality, comprises less than 4/10,000 of the atmosphere — as the principal cause of climate change because it provides the only way to link global warming to human activity.
Numerous scientists and climatologists point to the terrible flaw that the IPCC analysis totally ignores the impact upon climate of solar activity, water vapor, and effects of cloud formation on global air pressure, temperature and winds. As Dr. Tim Ball, a former climate scientist at the University of Winnipeg, put it: “The analogy that I use is that my car is not running that well, so I’m going to ignore the engine (which is the sun) and I’m going to ignore the transmission (which is the water vapor) and I’m going to look at one nut on the right rear wheel (which is the human-produced CO2) … the science is that bad!“
He discusses that fact that actual data regarding global warming and sea level rise contradict the alarmists’ scare stories; the fallacy of the “Consensus “ argument; and finishes with conclusions that contradict the thinking ChairmanWaxman used to justify the House of Representatives passing of the Cap and Trade bill. To read the article in its entirety, click here
Many things have recently come to light that further contradict the man-made global warming theory. I will try to bring those to you in future blogs.
See The Weakness of the AGW Theory-Part 2
The Weakness of the AGW Theory-Part 3
Cbdakota
While the admistration was coercing the OMB into coming up with the “it will only cost the price of a postage stamp a day (ca. $175/year)” for the impact of the House passed Cap and Trade bill, it was burying the Treasury Department’s assessment that the cost would be more than $1700 per family per year.
Cartoon by Ramirez—See his marvelous array of cartoons here
We have previously discussed the fact that the OMB’s “postage stamp” was bogus as it neglected to take in the effect on the GNP. see here The Treasury’s number coincides with that of the Heritage Foundation, the Brookings Institute and others. The Treasury’s figure was pried-out by Chris Horner using the Freedom of Information Act. Even then much of it was redacted. So much for Obama’s promise of a “transparent administration”.
See the full story here
Cbdakota
Posted in cap and trade, Environment
Climate Change Sanity 