Drove past hundreds of them on the way to Missouri a couple weeks back.
Printable View
Drove past hundreds of them on the way to Missouri a couple weeks back.
The ones in the California desert than have been there decades are also a place where dead are routinely dropped after a criminal kills them, according to a few sources several years back.
Forget Global Warming - It's Cycle 25 We Need To Worry About (And If NASA Scientists Are Right The Thames Will Be Freezing Over Again)
Quote:
Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years
January 29, 2012
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/...81_468x286.jpg
A painting, dated 1684, by Abraham Hondius depicts one of many frost fairs on the River Thames during the mini ice age
The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.
The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.
Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.
Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.
We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.
Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.
According to a paper issued last week by the Met Office, there is a 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the ‘Dalton minimum’ of 1790 to 1830. In this period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures in parts of Europe fell by 2C.
However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’ (after astronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/...28_468x286.jpg
Yet, in its paper, the Met Office claimed that the consequences now would be negligible – because the impact of the sun on climate is far less than man-made carbon dioxide. Although the sun’s output is likely to decrease until 2100, ‘This would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08C.’ Peter Stott, one of the authors, said: ‘Our findings suggest a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases.’
These findings are fiercely disputed by other solar experts.
‘World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,’ said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark’s National Space Institute. ‘It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help.’
He pointed out that, in claiming the effect of the solar minimum would be small, the Met Office was relying on the same computer models that are being undermined by the current pause in global-warming.
CO2 levels have continued to rise without interruption and, in 2007, the Met Office claimed that global warming was about to ‘come roaring back’. It said that between 2004 and 2014 there would be an overall increase of 0.3C. In 2009, it predicted that at least three of the years 2009 to 2014 would break the previous temperature record set in 1998.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/...15_468x290.jpg
So far there is no sign of any of this happening. But yesterday a Met Office spokesman insisted its models were still valid.
‘The ten-year projection remains groundbreaking science. The period for the original projection is not over yet,’ he said.
Dr Nicola Scafetta, of Duke University in North Carolina, is the author of several papers that argue the Met Office climate models show there should have been ‘steady warming from 2000 until now’.
‘If temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories,’ he said.
He believes that as the Met Office model attaches much greater significance to CO2 than to the sun, it was bound to conclude that there would not be cooling. ‘The real issue is whether the model itself is accurate,’ Dr Scafetta said. Meanwhile, one of America’s most eminent climate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said she found the Met Office’s confident prediction of a ‘negligible’ impact difficult to understand.
‘The responsible thing to do would be to accept the fact that the models may have severe shortcomings when it comes to the influence of the sun,’ said Professor Curry. As for the warming pause, she said that many scientists ‘are not surprised’.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/...76_468x290.jpg
She argued it is becoming evident that factors other than CO2 play an important role in rising or falling warmth, such as the 60-year water temperature cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
‘They have insufficiently been appreciated in terms of global climate,’ said Prof Curry. When both oceans were cold in the past, such as from 1940 to 1970, the climate cooled. The Pacific cycle ‘flipped’ back from warm to cold mode in 2008 and the Atlantic is also thought likely to flip in the next few years .
Pal Brekke, senior adviser at the Norwegian Space Centre, said some scientists found the importance of water cycles difficult to accept, because doing so means admitting that the oceans – not CO2 – caused much of the global warming between 1970 and 1997.
The same goes for the impact of the sun – which was highly active for much of the 20th Century.
‘Nature is about to carry out a very interesting experiment,’ he said. ‘Ten or 15 years from now, we will be able to determine much better whether the warming of the late 20th Century really was caused by man-made CO2, or by natural variability.’
Meanwhile, since the end of last year, world temperatures have fallen by more than half a degree, as the cold ‘La Nina’ effect has re-emerged in the South Pacific.
‘We’re now well into the second decade of the pause,’ said Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. ‘If we don’t see convincing evidence of global warming by 2015, it will start to become clear whether the models are bunk. And, if they are, the implications for some scientists could be very serious.’
It's not the Sun.
I just read two articles yesterday about the little Ice Age. They have "confirmed" volcanic activities caused it.
Global warming did it
Boats have wood stoves on them..... why can't a car?
hehehe
Astronaut to tweet photographs of Earth Hour from space station
- http://www.latimes.com/hive/images/icons/email_icon.png
- http://www.latimes.com/hive/images/icons/print_icon.png
- Comments
0
http://www.trbimg.com/img-4f75ea37/t...120330-001/600 Astronaut Andre Kuipers, aboard the International Space Station. (ESA/NASA / March 30, 2012)
By Mary Forgione Los Angeles Times Daily Travel & Deal blogger March 30, 2012, 10:46 a.m.
Lights out, camera, action?
Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers will have the perfect spot to watch Earth Hour unfold around the world Saturday evening from his seat on the International Space Station, about 240 miles above the planet.
Kuipers, who has been named an Earth Hour ambassador by the World Wildlife Fund, plans to take photos and videos of the planet as the lights go out and share them online, according to the European Space Agency.
Look for Kuipers' real-time coverage from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday on his logbook blog and via tweets from @Astro_Andre. (One caveat: Don't expect to see much if it's foggy or overcast.)
Earth Hour is an annual event in which millions of people around the world collectively shut off their lights for an hour to raise awareness about climate change and energy use. The World Wildlife Fund promotes the event that began in 2007 in Australia.
This year expect lights to go out or dim at Times Square, the Las Vegas Strip, Buckingham Palace in London and the Great Wall in China. To track photos of Earth Hour or to add your own, go to the EarthHour 2012 Flickr page.
In general I prefer NO LIGHT pollution - because honestly it's been 2 years since I could set up my telescope in town. I just can't really use it any more.
However, I want everyone to turn on EVERY LIGHT in their neighborhood for this damned stupid "Earth Day" since there is no such God Damned thing as Global Warming. It's utter bullshit.
So, been re-studying weather in more depth lately.
I picked up a copy of a book called "Atlantic Pilot Atlas" written circa 2000 to 2006 or so. Not sure which date this one has since there is no copyright date information on it for some reason. But it is the 4th edition. Author is James Clarke (this intro was done in 2000, so 12 years ago).
In the Introduction he talks about "Global Climate Change"... essentially he is convinced by the "then" science that it is "apparently occurring" but goes on to state that atlases helping navigators travel across oceans would be useless using newest, modern data because it is so "variable".
Instead his atlas uses data based on long term (hundreds of years) of collection by vessels traveling across the Atlantic.
Basically, he is saying that using any short term data is a BAD idea.
Just thought I'd throw this out there.....
Funny, there were no cars, or industry at the end of the last Ice Age... wonder how this happened???
4 April 2012 Last updated at 13:16 ET CO2 'drove end to last ice age'
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...athan-amos.jpg By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...2_59482511.jpg
Ice core records from Antarctica had suggested the CO2 increase lagged behind temperature rise
A new, detailed record of past climate change provides compelling evidence that the last ice age was ended by a rise in temperature driven by an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The finding is based on a very broad range of data, including even the shells of ancient tiny ocean animals.
A paper describing the research appears in this week's edition of Nature.
The team behind the study says its work further strengthens ideas about global warming.
"At the end of the last ice age, CO2 rose from about 180 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere to about 260; and today we're at 392," explained lead author Dr Jeremy Shakun.
"So, in the last 100 years we've gone up about 100 ppm - about the same as at the end of the last ice age, which I think puts it into perspective because it's not a small amount. Rising CO2 at the end of the ice age had a huge effect on global climate."
The study covers the period in Earth history from roughly 20,000 to 10,000 years ago.
This was the time when the planet was emerging from its last deep chill, when the great ice sheets known to cover parts of the Northern Hemisphere were in retreat.
The key result from the new study is that it shows the carbon dioxide rise during this major transition ran slightly ahead of increases in global temperature.
This runs contrary to the record obtained solely from the analysis of Antarctic ice cores which had indicated the opposite - that temperature elevation in the southern polar region actually preceded (or at least ran concurrent to) the climb in CO2.
This observation has frequently been used by some people who are sceptical of global warming to challenge its scientific underpinnings; to claim that the warming link between the atmospheric gas and global temperature is grossly overstated.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...5_co_2_304.gif
But Dr Shakun and colleagues argue that the Antarctic temperature record is just that - a record of what was happening only on the White Continent.
By contrast, their new climate history encompasses data from all around the world to provide a much fuller picture of what was happening on a global scale.
This data incorporates additional information contained in ices drilled from Greenland, and in sediments drilled from the ocean floor and from continental lakes.
These provide a range of indicators. Air bubbles trapped in ice, for example, will record the past CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Past temperatures can also be inferred from ancient planktonic marine organisms buried in the sediments. That is because the amount of magnesium they would include in their calcite skeletons and shells was dependent on the warmth of the water in which they swam.
"Our global temperature looks a lot like the pattern of rising CO2 at the end of the ice age, but the interesting part in particular is that unlike with these Antarctic ice core records, the temperature lags a bit behind the CO2," said Dr Shakun, who conducted much of the research at Oregon State University but who is now affiliated to Harvard and Columbia universities.
"You put these two points together - the correlation of global temperature and CO2, and the fact that temperature lags behind the CO2 - and it really leaves you thinking that CO2 was the big driver of global warming at the end of the ice age," he told BBC News.
Dr Shakun's team has now constructed a narrative to explain both what was happening on Antarctica and what was happening globally:
- This starts with a subtle change in the Earth's orbit around the Sun known as a Milankovitch "wobble", which increases the amount of light reaching northern latitudes and triggers the collapse of the hemisphere's great ice sheets
- This in turn produces vast amounts of fresh water that enter the North Atlantic to upset ocean circulation
- Heat at the equator that would normally be distributed northwards then backs up, raising temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere
- This initiates further changes to atmospheric and ocean circulation, resulting in the Southern Ocean releasing CO2 from its waters
- The rise in CO2 sets in train a global rise in temperature that pulls the whole Earth out of its glaciated state
Cannot play media. You do not have the correct version of the flash player. Download the correct version
Prof Eric Wolff from the British Antarctic Survey was the chief scientist on the longest Antarctic ice core, which was drilled at Dome Concordia in 2001/2002. This core records eight ice ages, not just the most recent, stretching back some 800,000 years.
He was not involved in the Nature study. Prof Wolff told this week's Science In Action programme on the BBC World Service:
"It looks as though whatever kicked off this whole sequence of events to get out of the ice age was something really, in global terms, rather minor and regional, and yet it led to a sequence of events that led to a complete change in the way the surface of the Earth looked, with ice sheets disappearing.
"So, that just reminds us that although climate might seem quite steady to us because it's been relatively steady for the last few thousand years, it is actually capable of undergoing big changes. And as one famous palaeoclimatologist put it: 'we poke it at our peril'."
Nasa scientist: climate change is a moral issue on a par with slavery
Prof Jim Hansen to use lecture at Edinburgh International Science Festival to call for worldwide tax on all carbon emissions
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...Hansen-008.jpg Prof Jim Hansen: 'We’re handing future generations a climate system which is potentially out of their control'. Photograph: Melanie Patterson/AP
Averting the worst consequences of human-induced climate change is a "great moral issue" on a par with slavery, according to the leading Nasa climate scientist Prof Jim Hansen.
He argues that storing up expensive and destructive consequences for society in future is an "injustice of one generation to others".
Hansen, who will next Tuesday be awarded the prestigious Edinburgh Medal for his contribution to science, will also in his acceptance speech call for a worldwide tax on all carbon emissions.
In his lecture, Hansen will argue that the challenge facing future generations from climate change is so urgent that a flat-rate global tax is needed to force immediate cuts in fossil fuel use. Ahead of receiving the award – which has previously been given to Sir David Attenborough, the ecologist James Lovelock, and the economist Amartya Sen – Hansen told the Guardian that the latest climate models had shown the planet was on the brink of an emergency. He said humanity faces repeated natural disasters from extreme weather events which would affect large areas of the planet.
"The situation we're creating for young people and future generations is that we're handing them a climate system which is potentially out of their control," he said. "We're in an emergency: you can see what's on the horizon over the next few decades with the effects it will have on ecosystems, sea level and species extinction."
Now 70, Hansen is regarded as one of the most influential figures in climate science; the creator of one of the first global climate models, his pioneering role in warning about global warming is frequently cited by climate campaigners such as former US vice president Al Gore and in earlier science prizes, including the $1m Dan David prize. He has been arrested more than once for his role in protests against coal energy.
Hansen will argue in his lecture that current generations have an over-riding moral duty to their children and grandchildren to take immediate action. Describing this as an issue of inter-generational justice on a par with ending slavery, Hansen said: "Our parents didn't know that they were causing a problem for future generations but we can only pretend we don't know because the science is now crystal clear.
"We understand the carbon cycle: the CO2 we put in the air will stay in surface reservoirs and won't go back into the solid earth for millennia. What the Earth's history tells us is that there's a limit on how much we can put in the air without guaranteeing disastrous consequences for future generations. We cannot pretend that we did not know."
Hansen said his proposal for a global carbon tax was based on the latest analysis of CO2 levels in the atmosphere and their impact on global temperatures and weather patterns. He has co-authored a scientific paper with 17 other experts, including climate scientists, biologists and economists, which calls for an immediate 6% annual cut in CO2 emissions, and a substantial growth in global forest cover, to avoid catastrophic climate change by the end of the century.
The paper, which has passed peer review and is in the final stages of publication by the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, argues that a global levy on fossil fuels is the strongest tool for forcing energy firms and consumers to switch quickly to zero carbon and green energy sources. In larger countries, that would include nuclear power.
Under this proposal, the carbon levy would increase year on year, with the tax income paid directly back to the public as a dividend, shared equally, rather than put into government coffers. Because the tax would greatly increase the cost of fossil fuel energy, consumers relying on green or low carbon sources of power would benefit the most as this dividend would come on top of cheaper fuel bills. It would promote a dramatic increase in the investment and development of low-carbon energy sources and technologies.
The very rich and most profligate energy users, people with several homes, or private jets and fuel-hungry cars, would also be forced into dramatically changing their energy use. In the new paper, Hansen, director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and his colleagues warn that failing to cut CO2 emissions by 6% now will mean that by 2022, the annual cuts would need to reach a more drastic level of 15% a year.
Had similar action been taken in 2005, when the Kyoto protocol on climate change came into force, the CO2 emission reductions would have been at a more manageable 3% a year. The target was to return CO2 levels in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, down from its current level of 392ppm. The paper, the "Scientific case for avoiding dangerous climate change to protect young people and nature", also argues that the challenge is growing because of the accelerating rush to find new, harder–to-reach sources of oil, gas and coal in the deep ocean, the Arctic and from shale gas reserves.
Hansen said current attempts to limit carbon emissions, particularly the European Union's emissions trading mechanism introduced under the Kyoto protocol which restricts how much CO2 an industry can emit before it has to pay a fee for higher emissions, were "completely ineffectual". Under the global carbon tax proposal, the mechanisms for controlling fossil fuel use would be taken out of the hands of individual states influenced by energy companies, and politicians anxious about winning elections.
"It can't be fixed by individual specific changes; it has to be an across-the-board rising fee on carbon emissions," said Hansen. "We can't simply say that there's a climate problem, and leave it to the politicians. They're so clearly under the influence of the fossil fuel industry that they're coming up with cockamamie solutions which aren't solutions. That is the bottom line."
NASA Global Warming Stance Blasted By 49 Astronauts, Scientists Who Once Worked At Agency
The Huffington Post | By David Freeman Posted: 04/11/2012 1:07 pm Updated: 04/11/2012 1:07 pm
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/565172/thu...MING-large.jpg NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
Is NASA playing fast and loose with climate change science? That's the contention of a group of 49 former NASA scientists and astronauts.
On March 28 the group sent a letter to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, Jr., blasting the agency for making unwarranted claims about the role of carbon dioxide in global warming, Business Insider reported.
"We believe the claims by NASA and GISS [NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies], that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data," the group wrote. "With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled."
The group features some marquee names, including Michael F. Collins, Walter Cunningham and five other Apollo astronauts, as well as two former directors of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The letter included a request for NASA to refrain from mentioning CO2 as a cause of global warming in future press releases and websites. The agency's "Global Climate Change" webpage says that "Humans have increased atmospheric CO2 concentration by a third since the Industrial Revolution began. This is the most important long-lived "forcing" of climate change."
GRAPHIC FROM NASA WEBSITE
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/565137/thu...MING-570.jpg?4
Of course, NASA isn't the only government agency to finger carbon dioxide as a key culprit in global warming.
The EPA website says that "Increasing levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times are well-documented and understood." It goes on to say that "The atmospheric buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is largely the result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels."
What does NASA say?
“NASA sponsors research into many areas of cutting-edge scientific inquiry, including the relationship between carbon dioxide and climate," the agency's chief scientist, Dr. Waleed Abdalati, told The Huffington Post in an email. "As an agency, NASA does not draw conclusions and issue 'claims' about research findings. We support open scientific inquiry and discussion...If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse.”
What do you think? Is NASA pushing "unsettled science" on global warming?
Also on HuffPost:
http://pthumbnails.5min.com/9476173/...edStandard.jpgPlay
NASA still at it too:
NASA Expert Speaks On Coal-fired Power Plants, Climate Change
April 11, 2012
http://www.redorbit.com/media/upload...06-617x416.jpg Lawrence LeBlond for Redorbit.com
A leading climate change scientist at NASA is urging the United Kingdom to cease building coal-fired power plants, and is calling for a worldwide tax on all carbon emissions, to tackle the climate change fight head-on, reports BBC Scotland.
Dr. James Hansen said, in an interview with BBC Scotland, that averting the worst consequences of human-induced climate change is a “great moral issue” on par with slavery, and added that storing up expensive and destructive consequences for the future of society is an “injustice of one generation to others.”
“In the case of civil rights the courts were able to come to the assistance of people whose civil rights were being violated by requiring governments to say what they were going to do about for example, segregated schools. In the same way, governments could be required to present a plan to reduce carbon emissions to ensure young people have a decent future,” said Hansen.
Hansen, 71, has been awarded the prestigious Edinburgh Medal at the city’s Science Festival for his contribution to science. He plans to use his acceptance speech to call for a carbon emissions tax to save the climate.
Hansen has argued that the worldwide publicity given to the referendum on Scottish independence was the ideal time for First Minister Alex Salmond to be “honest” about his long-term climate change policies.
Hansen told daily newspaper The Scotsman that US President Barack Obama failed to highlight global energy issues by targeting domestic policy, and urged Salmond not to do the same.
“Obama had the chance to say, ‘OK we’re going to fight our fossil fuel addiction’ and take on the big corporations, but instead he concentrated on health,” Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told the paper.
“Salmond should use this time and be very, very open and honest about the energy plans are for the long run and the need to move towards the post-fossil fuel era,” Hansen urged. “You might think Scotland is going to be like Norway. But that does not prevent moving towards a carbon-free economy.”
Scotland has plans for two coal-fired power facilities to be built at Grangemouth and Hunterston in Ayrshire. But Hansen believes the country would be better off building new nuclear and renewable energy facilities to prevent further climate changes.
“For base load electric power, I think that we need next generation nuclear power, which can be much safer and which can burn nuclear waste and solve that major problem with nuclear power,” he said.
US firm, Summit Power Group, is spearheading the plan to build the coal-fueled power plant at the port of Grangemouth. It said the plant would use carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in a bid to reduce emissions by more than 90 percent.
A public inquiry is due to be carried out before the Scottish government makes a final decision on proposals for a similar facility at Hunterston. In November last year North Ayrshire Council rejected plans by Ayrshire Power for a coal-fired station but the company vowed to fight on.
Hansen, who has been arrested four times for protesting against projects he believed to be damaging to the environment, is standing strong with his opposition to coal-fired power plants in Scotland, and is ready to call for a global tax on carbon emissions, to prevent further climate change.
While acknowledging that oil and gas would be around for years to come, he said that did not preclude plans which that see money from carbon tax distributed to the public. “Using easily available oil and gas which can be traded on the international market is something that is going to happen, but we have to phase it out,” he told The Scotsman.
“We could have a gradually rising tax on carbon emissions, with the money collected from companies distributed to the public in a monthly dividend, to pay less for their fuel bills and start thinking of lifestyle changes, such a carbon-efficient car or building a home which includes energy efficient features,” he added.
“Why haven’t we done something like that before? Because fossil fuel industries have too much clout. Money talks in capitals around the world,” he said.
In an interview with The Guardian, Hansen said the latest climate models show the planet is on the brink of an emergency. Humanity is facing the threat of repeated natural disasters from extreme weather events that could affect large areas of the planet.
“The situation we’re creating for young people and future generations is that we’re handing them a climate system which is potentially out of their control,” he said. “Our parents didn’t know that they were causing a problem for future generations but we can only pretend we don’t know because the science is now crystal clear,” he said.
“We understand the carbon cycle: the CO2 we put in the air will stay in surface reservoirs and won’t go back into the solid earth for millennia. What the Earth’s history tells us is that there’s a limit on how much we can put in the air without guaranteeing disastrous consequences for future generations. We cannot pretend that we did not know,” he added.
Hansen said his proposal for a global carbon tax is based on the latest analysis of CO2 levels in the atmosphere and the impact that has on global temperatures and weather patterns.
His scientific paper on the issue, which is co-authored by 17 of his peers, including climate scientists, biologists and economists, calls for an immediate 6 percent annual cut in CO2 emissions, and a substantial growth in global forest cover to avoid catastrophic climate change by the end of this century.
The paper, which is in the final stages of publication by the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), says that a global tax on fossil fuels is the strongest tool for forcing energy firms and consumers to switch quickly to zero carbon and renewable energy sources.
In his plan, the carbon tax would increase year on year, with the tax income paid back to the public as a dividend, shared equally, rather than put into government coffers. Because the tax would greatly increase the cost of fossil fuel energy, consumers that rely on green or low carbon sources of power would benefit the most as this dividend would come on top of cheaper fuel bills. It would promote a dramatic increase in the investment and development of low-carbon energy sources and technologies.
The proposal would also require those who are the most wasteful energy users — people with several homes, private jets, and fuel-hungry vehicles — to dramatically change their energy use habits. Hansen and his colleagues warn that failing to cut CO2 emissions by 6 percent now will mean annual cuts would need to reach a more drastic 15 percent per year by 2022.
Hansen said current attempts to limit carbon emissions have been “completely ineffectual.” Under a global tax proposal, the mechanisms for controlling fossil fuel use would be taken out of the hands of individual states influenced by energy companies, and politicians anxious about winning elections.
“It can’t be fixed by individual specific changes; it has to be an across-the-board rising fee on carbon emissions,” Hansen told The Guardian. “We can’t simply say that there’s a climate problem, and leave it to the politicians. They’re so clearly under the influence of the fossil fuel industry that they’re coming up with cockamamie solutions which aren’t solutions. That is the bottom line.”
Hansen, regarded as one of the most influential figures in climate science, is the creator of one of the first global climate models, and his work in pioneering warnings about global warming is frequently cited by climate campaigners such as former US vice president Al Gore.
He will be appearing at the 2012 Edinburgh International Science Festival tonight in the “Our Climate Future” discussion at 8 p.m. local time, and then again tomorrow in “Fixing The Planet” at 5:30 p.m., both being held at the National Museum of Scotland.
More information can be obtained at www.sciencefestival.co.uk
Hansen’s climate change stance is, in part, the subject of debate by a group of 49 former NASA scientists and astronauts who sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week, criticizing the agency for its role in advocating a high degree of certainty that human-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting practical evidence that calls the theory into question.
The group, which includes seven Apollo astronauts and two former directors of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, indicated in the letter that they were disappointed over the failure of NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) to make an objective assessment of all available scientific data on climate change. They believe that NASA is relying too heavily on complex climate models that have proven scientifically inadequate in predicting climate change only one or two decades in advance.
H. Leighton Steward, chairman of the non-profit Plants Need CO2, said many of the former NASA scientists have doubts about the significance of the CO2 climate change theory and have concerns over NASA’s advocacy on the topic. While making presentations in late 2011 to many of the signatories of the letter, Steward realized that the NASA scientists should make their concerns known to NASA and the GISS.
“These American heroes – the astronauts that took to space and the scientists and engineers that put them there – are simply stating their concern over NASA’s unusual advocacy for an unproven theory,” said Steward. “There’s a concern that if it turns out that CO2 is not a major cause of climate change, NASA will have put the reputation of NASA, NASA’s current and former employees, and even the very reputation of science itself at risk of public ridicule and distrust.”
Damn the LUCK! Those DAMNED cheating glaciers!
Global warming mystery: Some Himalayan glaciers getting bigger
The Himalayan glaciers are the planet's largest bodies of ice outside the polar caps. New research shows some Himalayan glaciers got bigger between 1999-2008.
By Nina Chestney, Reuters / April 16, 2012
An aerial view shows mountains of the Karakoram range, the Himalayan region. New research shows that the Karakoram glaciers have not followed the global trend of glacial decline over the past three decades.
REUTERS/Inter Services Public Relations
London
Some glaciers in the Himalayas mountain range have gained a small amount of mass between 1999 and 2008, new research shows, bucking the global trend of glacial decline.
The study published on Sunday in the Nature Geoscience journal also said the Karakoram mountain range in the Himalayas has contributed less to sea level rise than previously thought.
With global average temperature rising, glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets melt and shed water, which contributes to the increase of sea levels, threatening the populations of low-lying nations and islands.
IN PICTURES: Disappearing Glaciers
The research at France's University of Grenoble estimates that the Karakoram glaciers have gained around 0.11 to 0.22 metres (0.36 feet to 0.72 feet) per year between 1999 and 2008.
"Our conclusion that Karakoram glaciers had a small mass gain at the beginning of the 21st century indicates that those central/eastern glaciers are not representative of the whole (Himalayas)," the experts at the university said.
The study appears to confirm earlier research that had suggested the Karakoram glaciers have not followed the global trend of glacial decline over the past three decades. The mountain range's remoteness had made it hard to confirm its behavior.
The Karakoram mountain range spans the borders between India, China, and Pakistan and is covered by 19,950 square kilometers (7,702 square miles) of glaciers. It is home to the second highest mountain in the world, K2.
"We suggest that the sea-level-rise contribution for this region during the first decade of the 21st century should be revised from +0.04 mm per year to -0.006 mm per year sea-level equivalent," the study said.
MELTING ICE
The Himalayas hold the planet's largest body of ice outside the polar caps and feed many of the world's great rivers, including the Ganges and Brahmaputra, on which hundreds of millions of people depend.
The world's glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets have shed around 4,200 cubic kilometres (1,007 cubic miles) from 2003 to 2010, experts suggest, which is enough to raise sea levels by 12mm over that period.
Stephan Harrison, associate professor in quaternary science at the UK's University of Exeter, said the new research had showed there is "considerable variability" in the global climate and in how glaciers respond to it.
The Karakoram glaciers are also unusual because they are covered with thick layers of rock debris, which means their patterns of melting and mass gain are driven by changes in that debris as well as in the climate.
Much of their mass gain also comes from avalanches from the high mountains surrounding them, Harrison said.
"Overall, the impact of melting glaciers such as these on sea level rise is known to be negligible, but it does mean that there is much more to be learned about exactly how the world's glaciers will respond to continued global warming," he added.
A separate study in February found that Himalayan glaciers and ice caps as a whole were losing mass less quickly than once feared, offering some respite to a region already feeling the effects of global warming. (Editing by Alessandra Rizzo)
Well BEFORE cars' exhaust.... and the "industrial age".
Global warming began in oceans 135 years ago, suggests study
A study of temperature recordings from the 1870s suggests that the oceans began warming more than 100 years ago, much earlier than previously believed.
By Joseph Castro, LiveScience Staff Writer / April 2, 2012
This undated handout photo provided by NOAA shows Arctic ice. A new study reveals that ocean surface temperatures have been increasing for twice as long as previously believed.
NOAA/AP/File
The world's oceans have been warming for more than 100 years, twice as long as previously believed, new research suggests.
The findings could help scientists better understand the Earth's record of sea-level rise, which is partly due to the expansion of water that happens as it heats up, researchers added.
"Temperature is one of the most fundamental descriptors of the physical state of the ocean," said the study's lead author,Dean Roemmich, an oceanographer at the University of California, San Diego. "Beyond simply knowing that the oceans are warming, [the results] will help us answer a few climate questions."
From 1872 to 1876, the HMS Challenger sailed the world's oceans along a 69,000-nautical-mile track, crossing the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. During the voyage, scientists among the 200-person crew took 300 ocean-temperature profiles, or measurements at several depths in each spot, with pressure-protected thermometers.
Roemmich and his colleagues compared Challenger temperatures with data from the modern-day Argo project, which uses 3,500 free-drifting floats to measure the temperature and salinity, or salt content, of the world's oceans every 10 days. The comparison showed a 1.1-degree Fahrenheit (0.59-degree Celsius) temperature increase at the ocean's surface over the last 135 years, a result corroborated by a large body of sea-surface temperature data that goes back more than 100 years. [The World's Biggest Oceans and Seas]
"That is a substantial amount of warming," Roemmich told LiveScience. Ocean warming has been previously linked to glacial melting and mass coral bleaching.
The team also looked at subsurface temperature differences between Challenger and Argo, taking into account several sources of error in the Challenger readings.
One issue with the Challenger data, Roemmich explained, is that the vessel's scientists didn't directly measure the depth of their thermometers; they measured only the length of the line extending the instruments into the water. Because of ocean currents, it's nearly impossible to get a line to be completely vertical in the water, resulting in an actual depth that is a little less than the full length of the line.
"What you are then going to see is a temperature that is a little warmer than it would have been if the line has been perfectly vertical," Roemmich said, referring to the fact that temperatures are typically warmer at shallower depths. Other Challenger errors include incorrect measurements of pressure effects on the thermometers and faulty thermometer readings, he added.
Accounting for these issues, Roemmich and his team found that, on average, global ocean temperatures increased by 0.59 degrees F (0.33 degrees C) in the upper ocean down to about 2,300 feet (700 meters). This global temperature change is twice what scientists have observed for the past 50 years, suggesting that the oceans have been warming for much longer than just a few decades.
Given that thermal expansion is believed to be a major contributor to sea-level rise, Roemmich believes that the results of the study will help scientists better understand the historical record of the rising sea levels, which have been increasing since the 19th century.
Roemmich also thinks the results have important implications for understanding the imbalance of the planet's energy budget. Previous research has shown that the Earth is absorbing more heat than it is radiating, and that 90 percent of the excess heat added to the climate system since the 1960s has been stored in the oceans. "So that means that the ocean temperature is probably the most direct measure we have of the energy imbalance of the whole climate system," he said.
The study was published online yesterday (April 1) in the journal Nature Climate Change and supported by U.S. Argo through a grant by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Heartland Institute grows isolated as three more donors disassociate
Ultra-conservative climate sceptic thinktank continues to lose mainstream support, damaging its prospects of expansion
- Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
- guardian.co.uk,
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...land-I-007.jpg Three donors the latest in a rush of companies to distance themselves from Heartland after an ad campaign featuring Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Photograph: The Heartland Institute
Heartland Institute was cut off by three more corporate donors on Monday, further isolating the ultra-conservative thinktank from the mainstream business world.
The defections reinforce the sense of Heartland's isolation, ahead of its major climate contrarian conference in Chicago next week. A number of prominent speakers also pulled out of the conference after Heartland put up a billboard on a Chicago expressway suggesting believers in climate change were akin to serial killers.
In statements to advocacy groups, pharmaceutical giant Eli Llily, BB&T bank and PepsiCo confirmed they would not fund Heartland in 2012 – dealing a blow to the thinktank's plans of building long-term relationships with major corporations.
The three were the latest in a rush of companies to distance themselves from Heartland after the ad campaign featuring Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.
"Lilly is not funding Heartland in 2012 and has no plans to do so in the future," David Marbaugh, communications director of Corporate Responsibility for Eli Lilly informed Forecast the Facts by email. "That type of ad is not consistent with how Lilly engages in public debate."
In purely monetary terms, Monday's defections will have very little effect on Heartland.
None of the three had contributed to Heartland in 2011, according to confidential documents obtained by the water scientist Peter Gleick, and released without the thinktank's permission.
PepsiCo's contributions in 2010 amounted to only $5,000. Eli Lilly donated $25,000 in 2010 and BB&T $16,105.
However, they make it very difficult for Heartland to pursue its expansion plans for 2012 and disprove its efforts to project itself as a mainstream organisation seeking to act as an honest mediator in debates over climate policy.
The Heartland budget and ambitious expansion plans for 2012 had been predicated on returning those donors to the fold. It had projected a $3m budget increase for 2012, based on those plans.
Specifically, Heartland had hoped to raise $1.5m or half of those funds from "lapsed" corporate donors like Eli Lilly.
But it appears that the exposure of Heartland's key mission of discrediting climate change – including a project to influence kindergarteners – has turned off public corporations.
Many publicly traded companies outwardly endorse climate change and sustainability as part of their corporate brand – and that makes association with Heartland politically awkward.
Those contradictions intensified after the Gleick leak last February when advocacy groups began focusing more intensely on Heartland's corporate donors – even those funding programmes that have nothing to do with clinate change.
Pepsi made up its mind to steer clear of Heartland well before the Kaczynski ad.
"As previously stated, our relationship ended in 2011," Paul Boykas, vice-president of public policy and government affairs for PepsiCo told Forecast the Facts by email. The advocacy group noted the PepsiCo's website reaffirms its belief in climate change.
BB&T told Greenpeace, meanwhile, it had not received requests for 2012 funding.
"We do not have any active request from or any planned contribution to Heartland Institute in 2012," Maria Lachapelle, vice-president of corporate communications for BB&T, told Greenpeace by email.
In another blow to Heartland, a meterologist from the National Hurricane Center on Monday publicly disassociated himself with the organisation.
Chris Landsea, the hurricane centre's science and operations officer, asked Heartland to remove him from its website, the Washington Post reported on Monday.
It quoted a posting from Landsea to the website BigCityLib Strikes Back saying: "The billboard campaign that you all have recently been displaying is not in good taste nor is it furthering the advancement of better undstanding of how our climate fluctates and changes. Please remove my name from your list of experts."
More non-scientific bullshit.
Pollution in thunderclouds increases global warming
Posted on May 21, 2012 - 03:00 by Kate Taylor
Tweet
Share on emailEmail
More Sharing ServicesShare
Pollution is leading thunderstorm clouds to capture heat, increasing global warming in a way that climate models have failed to take into account.
http://img.tgdaily.com/sites/default...undercloud.jpgIt strengthens them, causing their anvil-shaped tops to spread out high in the atmosphere and capture heat, especially at night, says Jiwen Fan of the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
"Global climate models don't see this effect because thunderstorm clouds simulated in those models do not include enough detail," says Fan. "The large amount of heat trapped by the pollution-enhanced clouds could potentially impact regional circulation and modify weather systems."
Thunderstorm clouds - known as deep convective clouds - are an important part of the climate cycle. They reflect a lot of the sun's energy back into space, trap heat that rises from the surface and return evaporated water back to the surface as rain.
Previous work has shown that when it's not too windy, pollution leads to bigger clouds. This occurs because more pollution particles divide up the available water for droplets, leading to a higher number of smaller droplets that are too small to rain. Instead, they ride the updrafts higher, where they freeze and absorb more water vapor. Collectively, these events lead to bigger, more vigorous convective clouds that live longer.
To find out which factors contribute the most to this invigoration effect, the team set up computer simulations for two different types of storm systems: warm summer thunderstorms in southeastern China and cool, windy frontal systems on the Great Plains of Oklahoma.
The simulations had a resolution that was high enough to allow the team to see the clouds develop. The researchers then varied conditions such as wind speed and air pollution.
And they found that for the warm summer thunderstorms, pollution led to stronger storms with larger anvils. Compared to cloud anvils that develop in clean air, the larger anvils both warm more, by trapping more heat, and cool more, by reflecting additional sunlight back to space. On average, however, the warming effect dominates.
The warming was surprisingly strong at the top of the atmosphere during the day when the storms occurred. The pollution-enhanced anvils also trapped more heat at night, leading to warmer nights.
"Those numbers for the warming are very big, but they are calculated only for the exact day when the thunderstorms occur," says Fan. "Over a longer time-scale such as a month or a season, the average amount of warming would be less because those clouds would not appear everyday."
Methane Gas Leak in Arctic Throws Scientists a Climate Change Curveball
Scientists say a naturally occurring methane leak could make climate change even harder to gauge
By Jason Koebler
April 25, 2012 RSS Feed Print http://www.usnews.com/pubdbimages/im...283.arcticlake Although the methane is most likely naturally occurring, ice melts potentially caused by climate change have allowed it to escape into the atmosphere.
Humans might not be to blame for the latest piece of news that has caused new concerns about global warming. A newly-discovered, naturally occuring methane leak over the Arctic Ocean could play a role in future climate change, according to a NASA scientist.
Scientists have long known that there are naturally-occurring pockets of methane gas along many of the oceans' surfaces, but openings in Arctic sea ice fields have allowed the gas to leak into the atmosphere, which lead researcher Eric Kort says may play a "non-negligible" role in future global warming.
[Study: Carbon Dioxide Increase Caused End of Ice Age]
"We suggest that the surface waters of the Arctic Ocean represent a potentially importance source of methane," the researchers wrote in Sunday's edition of the journal Nature Geoscience. "The potential atmospheric impact of this Arctic marine source has not been previously assessed."
The finding makes predicting global climate change even more difficult—Kort called methane the "second most important contributor" to global warming, after carbon dioxide. Although methane traps more than 20 times as much heat as carbon dioxide, it dissipates after about 15 years. He believes the methane leaking out of the Arctic is likely smaller than that of other human-influenced methane sources such as natural gas systems, coal mining and landfills. Although the methane is most likely naturally occurring, ice melts potentially caused by climate change have allowed it to escape into the atmosphere. Scientists had long known that methane existed in the Arctic Ocean, but, in his e-mail, Kort wrote that he was surprised the gas was leaking.
"We didn't expect to see methane being emitted from the remote Arctic Ocean," he wrote. According to the researchers, the amount of methane coming from the Arctic Ocean is about as big as the pockets of the gas being released from an ice shelf in Siberia. In 2010, the National Science Foundation said that the "release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the [Siberian] shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming."
Jason Koebler is a science and technology reporter for U.S. News & World Report. You can follow him on Twitter or reach him at jkoebler@usnews.com.