The Death of the Global Warming Myth

[American Patriot]

Global Warming The Real Agenda

Editorial by Terrence Corcoran
Copyright 1998 Financial Post (Canada)
December 26, 1998

http://www.junkscience.com/dec98/corcoran.htm

What is the most important problem facing Canada? When the annual Maclean's/CBC year-end poll asked that question, there was at least one clear answer: Not the environment; in fact, anything but the environment. Ranked by percentage of people who identified one subject or another, the top worry among

Canadians is unemployment (15%), followed by government spending, the economy, health care, national unity, taxes, poverty, education and crime. At the bottom of the list, garnering only 2% support, is the environment.

The possibility that 98% of Canadians are not in a state of high anxiety over global warming, freaky weather, ozone depletion, pollution and scores of other Green scares must be a teeth-gritting irritation to environmentalists. They have, after all, spent decades fertilizing the idea that we are on the brink of environmental disaster. Ottawa and the provinces have spent billions on the campaign, which includes turning the weather into a propaganda tool and the school system into an indoctrination camp that begins in kindergarten.

The poll is a testament to the good sense of Canadians. Despite relentless scare-mongering by bureaucrats and activists, Canadians remain unwaveringly fixed on a national economic agenda of growth and prosperity rather than on fantastic claims of apocalypse. When David Suzuki says global warming 'is the most urgent slow-motion catastrophe facing humankind,' nobody is paying much attention.

Except our politicians. Backed by an army of bureaucrats and researchers, governments are systematically preparing to shut down the engines of economic progress in the name of environmentalism. In Canada, the heart of the stop-growth campaign is Environment Canada, where key bureaucrats dedicated to imposing an environmental agenda on the country have seized control. The focus of their effort is global warming and climate change, which they intend to use as a lever to impose what can only be described as a new economic order.

The politician nominally in charge of all this is Environment Minister Christine Stewart. Whether Ms. Stewart fully understands what's going on around her is unknown, but during a recent visit with the editorial board of the Calgary Herald she certainly demonstrated her conversion to the religion of global warming.

Ms. Stewart said that, 'as minister of the environment, I am very worried about global warming,' which for a politician isn't saying much. Politicians are habitually 'very worried' about one thing or another. The trouble starts when they use their power to fix problems they're worried about, even if the problems don't exist. Ms. Stewart said she's prepared to do exactly that. 'No matter if the science is all phony,' she said, 'there are collateral environmental benefits.'

Environment Canada, therefore, is prepared to act on global warming even if there's no such thing as global warming. On the strength of phony science, the federal government would still be willing to impose new taxes on energy consumption, cut economic growth, reduce our standard of living, and create bookshelves filled with new regulation governing most facets of the lives of Canadians.

In another statement quoted by the Herald, Ms. Stewart gave another reason for adopting the religion of global warming. 'Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.' Here she gets closer to the core motivation of some of the leading global warming activists. Where socialism's attempt at a global redistribution of wealth ended in economic catastrophe, global warming is being wheeled in as the next new economic crusade.

Consolidating Ms. Stewart's statements, we reach some horrific conclusions. Whether global warming actually exists is irrelevant. It is, in the hands of government and environmental activists, a convenient front for the introduction of programs and economic policies that Canadians - and most citizens of the world - would not otherwise accept.

Ms. Stewart, perhaps unintentionally, has identified the two key foundations of the global warming movement. One is based in environmentalism, which essentially claims that human beings are a problem in nature. The other foundation is the old business of economic redistribution. Both these movements are linked in the international climate change treaty Canada signed in Kyoto. Environment Canada has already given up trying to examine the science. It never really tried. Instead, it spends hundreds of millions of dollars churning out propaganda on the hypothetical effects of global warming. Its latest reports include hundreds of studies warning of everything from spreading insect-borne disease to increasing forest fires.

The Maclean's poll shows Canadians aren't going along with the government or the claims of environmentalists. If they knew what Ms. Stewart has in store for jobs and living standards, and why, they might take a greater interest.

[American Patriot]

Global Warming: A Chilling Perspective

A Brief History of Ice Ages and Warming
Causes of Global Climate Change
Playing with Numbers
A Matter of Opinion
Unraveling the Earth's Temperature Record
Stopping Climate Change

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A Brief History of Ice Ages and Warming

Global warming started long before the "Industrial Revolution" and the invention of the internal combustion engine. Global warming began 18,000 years ago as the earth started warming its way out of the Pleistocene Ice Age-- a time when much of North America, Europe, and Asia lay buried beneath great sheets of glacial ice.


Earth's climate and the biosphere have been in constant flux, dominated by ice ages and glaciers for the past several million years. We are currently enjoying a temporary reprieve from the deep freeze.


Approximately every 100,000 years Earth's climate warms up temporarily. These warm periods, called interglacial periods, appear to last approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years before regressing back to a cold ice age climate. At year 18,000 and counting our current interglacial vacation from the Ice Age is much nearer its end than its beginning.


Global warming during Earth's current interglacial warm period has greatly altered our environment and the distribution and diversity of all life. For example:

Approximately 15,000 years ago the earth had warmed sufficiently to halt the advance of glaciers, and sea levels worldwide began to rise.
By 8,000 years ago the land bridge across the Bearing Strait was drowned, cutting off the migration of men and animals to North America.
Since the end of the Ice Age, Earth's temperature has risen approximately 16 degrees F and sea levels have risen a total of 300 feet! Forests have returned where once there was only ice.

Over the past 750,000 years of Earth's history, Ice Ages have occurred at regular intervals, of approximately 100,000 years each.
Courtesy of Illinois State Museum
During ice ages our planet is cold, dry, and inhospitable-- supporting few forests but plenty of glaciers and deserts. Like a spread of collosal bulldozers, glaciers have scraped and pulverized vast stretches of Earth's surface and completely destroyed entire regional ecosystems not once, but several times. During Ice Ages winters were longer and more severe and ice sheets grew to tremendous size, accumulating to thicknesses of up to 8,000 feet!. They moved slowly from higher elevations to lower-- driven by gravity and their tremendous weight. They left in their wake altered river courses, flattened landscapes, and along the margins of their farthest advance, great piles of glacial debris.


During the last 3 million years glaciers have at one time or another covered about 29% of Earth's land surface or about 17.14 million square miles (44.38 million sq. km.) . What did not lay beneath ice was a largely cold and desolate desert landscape, due in large part to the colder, less-humid atmospheric conditions that prevailed.


During the Ice Age summers were short and winters were brutal. Animal life and especially plant life had a very tough time of it. Thanks to global warming, that has all now changed, at least temporarily.

( view full size map)	The World 18,000 Years Ago Before "global warming" started 18,000 years ago most of the earth was a frozen and arid wasteland. Over half of earth 's surface was covered by glaciersor extreme desert. Forests were rare. Not a very fun place to live.
(view full size map)	Our Present World "Global warming" over the last 15,000 years has changed our world from an ice box to a garden. Today extreme deserts and glaciers have largely given way to grasslands, woodlands, and forests. Wish it could last forever, but . . . .

In the 1970s concerned environmentalists like Stephen Schneider of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado feared a return to another ice age due to manmade atmospheric pollution blocking out the sun.


Since about 1940 the global climate did in fact appear to be cooling. Then a funny thing happened-- sometime in the late 1970s temperature declines slowed to a halt and ground-based recording stations during the 1980s and 1990s began reading small but steady increases in near-surface temperatures. Fears of "global cooling" then changed suddenly to "global warming,"-- the cited cause:


manmade atmospheric pollution causing a runaway greenhouse effect. What does geologic history have to offer in sorting through the confusion? Quite a bit, actually.

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"If 'ice age' is used to refer to long, generally cool, intervals during which glaciers advance and retreat, we are still in one today. Our modern climate represents a very short, warm period between glacial advances." Illinois State Museum

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Periods of Earth warming and cooling occur in cycles. This is well understood, as is the fact that small-scale cycles of about 40 years exist within larger-scale cycles of 400 years, which in turn exist inside still larger scale cycles of 20,000 years, and so on.

Example of regional variations in surface air temperature for the last 1000 years, estimated from a variety of sources, including temperature-sensitive tree growth indices and written records of various kinds, largely from western Europe and eastern North America. Shown are changes in regional temperature in ° C, from the baseline value for 1900. Compiled by R. S. Bradley and J. A. Eddy based on J. T. Houghton et al., Climate Change: The IPCC Assessment, Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, 1990 and published in EarthQuest, vol 5, no 1, 1991. Courtesy of Thomas Crowley, Remembrance of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic Record

Earth's climate was in a cool period from A.D. 1400 to about A.D. 1860, dubbed the "Little Ice Age." This period was characterized by harsh winters, shorter growing seasons, and a drier climate. The decline in global temperatures was a modest 1/2° C, but the effects of this global cooling cycle were more pronounced in the higher latitudes. The Little Ice Age has been blamed for a host of human suffering including crop failures like the "Irish Potato Famine" and the demise of the medieval Viking colonies in Greenland.
Today we enjoy global temperatures which have warmed back to levels of the so called "Medieval Warm Period," which existed from approximately A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1350.

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"...the Earth was evidently coming out of a relatively cold period in the 1800s so that warming in the past century may be part of this natural recovery."

Dr. John R. Christy
(leading climate and atmospheric science expert- U. of Alabama in Huntsville) (5)

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Global warming alarmists maintain that global temperatures have increased since about A.D. 1860 to the present as the result of the so-called "Industrial Revolution,"-- caused by releases of large amounts of greenhouse gases (principally carbon dioxide) from manmade sources into the atmosphere causing a runaway "Greenhouse Effect."


Was man really responsible for pulling the Earth out of the Little Ice Age with his industrial pollution? If so, this may be one of the greatest unheralded achievements of the Industrial Age!
Unfortunately, we tend to overestimate our actual impact on the planet. In this case the magnitude of the gas emissions involved, even by the most aggressive estimates of atmospheric warming by greenhouse gases, is inadequate to account for the magnitude of temperature increases. So what causes the up and down cycles of global climate change?

Causes of Global Climate Change

Climate change is controlled primarily by cyclical eccentricities in Earth's rotation and orbit, as well as variations in the sun's energy output.
"Greenhouse gases" in Earth's atmosphere also influence Earth's temperature, but in a much smaller way. Human additions to total greenhouse gases play a still smaller role, contributing about 0.2% - 0.3% to Earth's greenhouse effect.

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Major Causes of Global Temperature Shifts

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(1) Astronomical Causes

• 11 year and 206year cycles: Cycles of solar variability( sunspot activity )
• 21,000 year cycle: Earth's combined tilt and elliptical orbit around the Sun ( precession of the equinoxes )
• 41,000 year cycle: Cycle of the +/- 1.5° wobble in Earth's orbit ( tilt )
• 100,000 year cycle: Variations in the shape of Earth's elliptical orbit ( cycle of eccentricity )

(2) Atmospheric Causes

• Heat retention: Due to atmospheric gases, mostly gaseous water vapor (not droplets), also carbon dioxide, methane, and a few other miscellaneous gases-- the "greenhouse effect"
• Solar reflectivity: Due to white clouds, volcanic dust, polar ice caps

(3) Tectonic Causes

• Landmass distribution: Shifting continents (continental drift) causing changes in circulatory patterns of ocean currents. It seems that whenever there is a large land mass at one of the Earth's poles, either the north pole or south pole, there are ice ages.
• Undersea ridge activity: "Sea floor spreading" (associated with continental drift) causing variations in ocean displacement.

For more details see:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/e...ish_233658.htm

Playing with Numbers

Global climate and temperature cycles are the result of a complex interplay between a variety of causes. Because these cycles and events overlap, sometimes compounding one another, sometimes canceling one another out, it is inaccurate to imply a statistically significant trend in climate or temperature patterns from just a few years or a few decades of data.


Unfortunately, a lot of disinformation about where Earth's climate is heading is being propagated by "scientists" who use improper statistical methods, short-term temperature trends, or faulty computer models to make analytical and anecdotal projections about the significance of man-made influences to Earth's climate.


During the last 100 years there have been two general cycles of warming and cooling recorded in the U.S. We are currently in the second warming cycle. Overall, U.S. temperaturesshow no significant warming trend over the last 100 years (1). This has been well - established but not well - publicized.

Each year Government press releases declare the previous year to be the "hottest year on record." The UN's executive summary on climate change, issued in January 2001, insists that the 20th century was the warmest in the last millennium. The news media distribute these stories and people generally believed them to be true. However, as most climatologists know, these reports generally are founded on ground-based temperature readings, which are misleading. The more meaningful and precise orbiting satellite data for the same period (which are generally not cited by the press) have year after year showed little or no warming.

Dr. Patrick Michaels has demonstrated this effect is a common problem with ground- based recording stations, many of which originally were located in predominantly rural areas, but over time have suffered background bias due to urban sprawl and the encroachment of concrete and asphalt ( the "urban heat island effect"). The result has been an upward distortion of increases in ground temperature over time(2). Satellite measurements are not limited in this way, and are accurate to within 0.1° C. They are widely recognized by scientists as the most accurate data available. Significantly, global temperature readings from orbiting satellites show no significant warming in the 18 years they have been continuously recording and returning data (1).

A Matter of Opinion

Has manmade pollution in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases caused a runaway Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming?
Before joining the mantra, consider the following:

Compiled by R.S. Bradley and J.A. Eddy based on J.T. Houghton et al., Climate Change: The IPCC Assessment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990 and published in EarthQuest, vo. 1, 1991. Courtesy of Thomas Crowley, Remembrance of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic Record

1. The idea that man-made pollution is responsible for global warming is not supported by historical fact. The period known as the Holocene Maximum is a good example-- so-named because it was the hottest period in human history. The interesting thing is this period occurred approximately 7500 to 4000 years B.P. (before present)-- long before human's invented industrial pollution.

(view full-size image) Figure 1

2. CO2 in our atmosphere has been increasing steadily for the last 18,000 years-- long before humans invented smokestacks ( Figure 1). Unless you count campfires and intestinal gas, man played no role in the pre-industrial increases. As illustrated in this chart of Ice Core data from the Soviet Station Vostok in Antarctica, CO2 concentrations in earth's atmosphere move with temperature. Both temperatures and CO2 have been steadily increasing for 18,000 years. Ignoring these 18,000 years of data "global warming activists" contend recent increases in atmospheric CO2 are unnatural and are the result of only 200 years or so of human pollution causing a runaway greenhouse effect. Incidentally, earth's temperature and CO2 levels today have reached levels similar to a previous interglacial cycle of 120,000 - 140,000 years ago. From beginning to end this cycle lasted about 20,000 years. This is known as the Eemian Interglacial Period and the earth returned to a full-fledged ice age immediately afterward.

view full-size image Figure 2

3. Total human contributions to greenhouse gases account for only about 0.28% of the "greenhouse effect" (Figure 2). Anthropogenic (man-made) carbon dioxide (CO2) comprises about 0.117% of this total, and man-made sources of other gases ( methane, nitrous oxide (NOX), other misc. gases) contributes another 0.163% . Approximately 99.72% of the "greenhouse effect" is due to natural causes -- mostly water vapor and traces of other gases, which we can do nothing at all about. Eliminating human activity altogether would have little impact on climate change.

view full-size image Figure 3

4.If global warming is caused by CO2 in the atmosphere then does CO2 also cause increased sun activity too? This chart adapted after Nigel Calder (6) illustrates that variations insun activity are generally proportional to both variations in atmospheric CO2and atmospheric temperature (Figure 3). Put another way, rising Earth temperatures and increasing CO2 may be "effects" and our own sun the "cause".

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FUNFACTS about CARBON DIOXIDE
Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants.
At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished.
CO2 is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Plants absorb CO2 and emit oxygen as a waste product. Humans and animals breathe oxygen and emit CO2 as a waste product. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient, not a pollutant, and all life-- plants and animals alike-- benefit from more of it. All life on earth is carbon-based and CO2 is an essential ingredient. When plant-growers want to stimulate plant growth, they introduce more carbon dioxide.
CO2 that goes into the atmosphere does not stay there but is continually recycled by terrestrial plant life and earth's oceans-- the great retirement home for most terrestrial carbon dioxide.

If we are in a global warming crisis today, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have a negligible effect on global climate!

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The case for a "greenhouse problem" is made by environmentalists, news anchormen , and special interests who make inaccurate and misleading statements about global warming and climate change. Even though people may be skeptical of such rhetoric initially, after awhile people start believing it must be true because we hear it so often.

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"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."
Stephen Schneider (leading advocate of the global warming theory)
(in interview for Discover magazine, Oct 1989)
"In the United States...we have to first convince the American People and the Congress that the climate problem is real."
former President Bill Clinton in a 1997 address to the United Nations "In the long run, the replacement of the precise and disciplined language of science by the misleading language of litigation and advocacy may be one of the more important sources of damage to society incurred in the current debate over global warming."
Dr. Richard S. Lindzen
(leading climate and atmospheric science expert- MIT) (3)
"Researchers pound the global-warming drum because they know there is politics and, therefore, money behind it. . . I've been critical of global warming and am persona non grata."
Dr. William Gray
(Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado and leading expert of hurricane prediction )
(in an interview for the Denver Rocky Mountain News, November 28, 1999) "Science should be both compelling and widely accepted before Federal regulations are promulgated."
Dr. David L. Lewis
(27-year veteran of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and
critic of the agency's departure from scientific rationale in favor of political agenda)
(in an interview for Nature Magazine, June 27, 1996) "Scientists who want to attract attention to themselves, who want to attract great funding to themselves, have to (find a) way to scare the public . . . and this you can achieve only by making things bigger and more dangerous than they really are."
Petr Chylek
(Professor of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia)
Commenting on reports by other researchers that Greenland's glaciers are melting.
(Halifax Chronicle-Herald, August 22, 2001) (8) "Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing -- in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."
Tim Wirth , while U.S. Senator, Colorado.
After a short stint as United Nations Under-Secretary for Global Affairs (4)
he now serves as President, U.N. Foundation, created by Ted Turner and his $1 billion "gift" "No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits.... Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."

Christine Stewart, Minister of the Environment of Canada
recent quote from the Calgary Herald

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Unraveling the Earth's Temperature Record

photo by: Vin Morgan Palaeo Environment (Ice Cores) Field Work

Because accumulating layers of glacial ice display annual bands which can be dated, similar to annual rings of a tree, the age of ice core samples can be determined. Continuous ice cores from borings as much as two miles long have been extracted from permanent glaciers in Greenland, Antarctica, and Siberia. Bubbles of entrapped air in the ice cores can be analyzed to determine not only carbon dioxide and methane concentrations, but also atmospheric temperatures can be determined from analysis of entrapped hydrogen and oxygen.

Based on historical air temperatures inferred from ice core analyses from the Antarctic Vostok station in 1987, relative to the average global temperature in 1900 it has been determined that from 160,000 years ago until about 18,000 years ago Earth temperatures were on average about 3° C cooler than today.
Except for two relatively brief interglacial episodes, one peaking about 125,000 years ago (Eemian Interglacial), and the other beginning about 18,000 years ago (Present Interglacial), the Earth has been under siege of ice for the last 160,000 years.

Compiled by R.S. Bradley and J.A. Eddy based on J. Jouzel et al., Nature vol. 329. pp. 403-408, 1987 and published in EarthQuest, vol. 5, no. 1, 1991. Courtesy of Thomas Crowley, Remembrance of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic Record

As illustrated in this final graph, over the past 800,000 years the Earth has undergone major swings in warming and cooling at approximately 100,000 year intervals, interrupted by minor warming cycles at shorter intervals. This represents periods of glacial expansion, separated by distinct but relatively short-lived periods of glacial retreat.

Temperature data inferred from measurements of the ratio of oxygen isotope ratios in fossil plankton that settled to the sea floor, and assumes that changes in global temperature approximately tracks changes in the global ice volume. Based on data from J. Imbrie, J.D. Hays, D.G. Martinson, A. McIntyre, A.C. Mix, J.J. Morley, N.G. Pisias, W.L. Prell, and N.J. Shackleton, in A. Berger, J. Imbrie, J. Hats, G. Kukla, and B. Saltzman, eds., Milankovitch and Climate, Dordrecht, Reidel, pp. 269-305, 1984.Courtesy of Thomas Crowley, Remembrance of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic Record

The Polar Ice Cap Effect

As long as the continent of Antarctica exists at the southern pole of our planet we probably will be repeatedly pulled back into glacial ice ages. This occurs because ice caps, which cannot attain great thickness over open ocean, can and do achieve great thickness over a polar continent-- like Antarctica. Antarctica used to be located near the equator, but over geologic time has moved by continental drift to its present location at the south pole. Once established, continental polar ice caps act like huge cold sinks, taking over the climate and growing bigger during periods of reduced solar output. Part of the problem with shaking off the effects of an ice age is once ice caps are established, they cause solar radiation to be reflected back into space, which acts to perpetuate global cooling. This increases the size of ice caps which results in reflection of even more radiation, resulting in more cooling, and so on.
Continental polar ice caps seem to play a particularly important role in ice ages when the arrangement of continental land masses restrict the free global circulation of equatorial ocean currents. This is the case with the continents today, as it was during the Carboniferous Ice Age when the supercontinent Pangea stretched from pole to pole 300 million years ago.
Stopping Climate Change

Putting things in perspective, geologists tell us our present warm climate is a mere blip in the history of an otherwise cold Earth. Frigid Ice Age temperatures have been the rule, not the exception, for the last couple of million years. This kind of world is not totally inhospitable, but not a very fun place to live, unless you are a polar bear.
Some say we are "nearing the end of our minor interglacial period" , and may in fact be on the brink of another Ice Age. If this is true, the last thing we should be doing is limiting carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, just in case they may have a positive effect in sustaining present temperatures. The smart money, however, is betting that there is some momentum left in our present warming cycle. Environmental advocates agree: resulting in a shift of tactics from the "global cooling" scare of the 1970s to the "global warming" threat of the 1980s and 1990s.
Now, as we begin the 21st century the terminology is morphing toward"climate change," whereby no matter the direction of temperature trends-- up or down-- the headlines can universally blame humans while avoiding the necessity of switching buzz-words with the periodicity of solar cycles. Such tactics may, however, backfire as peoples' common sensibilities are at last pushed over the brink.
Global climate cycles of warming and cooling have been a natural phenomena for hundreds of thousands of years, and it is unlikely that these cycles of dramatic climate change will stop anytime soon. We currently enjoy a warm Earth. Can we count on a warm Earth forever? The answer is most likely... no.
Since the climate has always been changing and will likely continue of it's own accord to change in the future, instead of crippling the U.S. economy in order to achieve small reductions in global warming effects due to manmade additions to atmospheric carbon dioxide, our resources may be better spent making preparations to adapt to global cooling and global warming, and the inevitable consequences of fluctuating ocean levels, temperatures, and precipitation that accompany climatic change.
Supporting this view is British scientist Jane Francis, who maintains:

" What we are seeing really is just another interglacial phase within our big icehouse climate." Dismissing political calls for a global effort to reverse climate change, she said, " It's really farcical because the climate has been changing constantly... What we should do is be more aware of the fact that it is changing and that we should be ready to adapt to the change."

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				THIS PAGE BY: Monte Hieb and Harrison Hieb This site last updated August 28, 2006
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...EMAIL COMMENTS TO: mhieb@geocraft.com

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References
(1) A scientific Discussion of Climate Change, Sallie Baliunas, Ph.D., Harvard- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Willie Soon, Ph.D., Harvard- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
(2) The Effects of Proposals for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction; Testimony of Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, before the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee on Science, United States House of Representatives
(3) Statement Concerning Global Warming-- Presented to the Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works, June 10, 1997, by Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(4) Excerpts from,"Our Global Future: Climate Change", Remarks by Under Secretary for Global affairs, T. Wirth, 15 September 1997. Site maintained by The Globe - Climate Change Campaign
(5) Testimony of John R. Christy to the Committee on Environmental and Public Works, Department of Atmospheric Science and Earth System Science Laboratory, University of Alabama in Huntsville, July 10, 1997.
(6) The Carbon Dioxide Thermometer and the Cause of Global Warming; Nigel Calder,-- Presented at a seminar SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex, Brighton, England, October 6, 1998.
(7) Variation in cosmic ray flux and global cloud coverage: a missing link in solar-climate relationships; H. Svensmark and E. Friis-Christiansen, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar- Terrestrial Physics, vol. 59, pp. 1225 - 1232 (1997).
(8) First International Conference on Global Warming and the Next Ice Age; Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, sponsored by the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and the American Meteorological Society, August 21-24, 2001.



Additional Reading
Geological Constraints on Global Climate Variability: Dr. Lee C. Gerhard-- A variety of natural climate drivers constantly change our climate. A slide format presentation. 8.5 MB.
Thoughts of Global Warming: "The bottom line is that climatic change is a given. It is inescapable, it happens. There is no reason to be very concerned about it or spend bazillions of dollars to try and even things out.
NOAA Paleoclimatology: An educational trip through earths distant and recent past. Also contains useful information and illustrations relating to the causes of climate change.
Cracking the Ice Age: From the PBS website-- NOVA online presents a brief tour of the causes of global warming.
Little Ice Age (Solar Influence - Temperature): From the online magazine, "CO2 Science."
Solar Variability and Climate Change: by Willie Soon, January 10, 2000
Earth's Fidgeting Climate: NASA Science News "It may surprise many people that science cannot deliver an unqualified, unanimous answer about something as important as climate change"

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[American Patriot]

Eco Imperialism - Articles
http://www.eco-imperialism.com


So now we’re Holocaust deniers
Climate change alarmists sink to new lows in attacking those who doubt catastrophe theories
by Roy Spencer
April 21, 2006

As part of the current media frenzy over the “imminent demise” of Planet Earth from global warming, it has become fashionable to demonize global warming skeptics through a variety of tactics. This has recently been accomplished by comparing scientists who don’t believe in a global climate catastrophe to “flat-Earthers,” those who denied cigarettes cause cancer, or even those who deny the Holocaust.

It is interesting that it is not the scientists who are making the comparisons to Holocaust-deniers, but members of the media. For instance, Scott Pelley, who recently interviewed NASA’s James Hansen for CBS’s “60 Minutes,” has been quoted on the CBS News PublicEye blog saying:

“There is virtually no disagreement in the scientific community any longer about ‘global warming.’ … The science that has been done in the last three to five years has been conclusive.”

Pelley also posted this quote to the same blog:

“If I do an interview with [Holocaust survivor] Elie Wiesel, am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?”

This comparison between global warming skeptics and Holocaust-deniers illustrates the upside-down worldview that makes the public increasingly distrustful of the media. The photographs, movie footage, concentration camps, artifacts, death showers, ovens, human bones.

What does manmade global warming have? The theory that mankind has caused the globally averaged temperature to be 1 degree F warmer than it was a century ago. (I’m sure holocaust survivors appreciate the minimization of their ordeal through use of this analogy.)

In stark contrast, what we do have as a direct result of the environmentalist-led restrictions on the use of DDT is tens of millions of deaths, and hundreds of millions of cases of severe illness, from malaria in Africa. The silence from scientists and many in the media on this is remarkable. Thankfully, the trend against DDT bans is finally changing, with countries like South Africa virtually eliminating malaria with DDT. Is mankind really ready for another major policy catastrophe based upon environmentalist (and media) rhetoric?

Whenever you see any media statement that “the science is settled” on global warming, you will observe that there is no mention of what exactly is “settled” about global warming. If something specific were mentioned, the statement would either be false, or at least it would not convey the necessary urgency that we much “do something immediately about global warming.” Of course, it might also be that today’s journalists cannot deal with that level of complexity. However, for the time being, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.

So, just what part of “the science is settled on global warming” is really settled? Well, I would say that our current period of globally-averaged warmth is pretty indisputable, though possibly over-estimated. I say “globally-averaged” because some areas have actually cooled in the last 100 years. Furthermore, the majority of climate scientists would probably agree that some part of that warmth is manmade. But in contrast to the warmth itself, which has actually been measured with thermometers, attributing some or all of that warming to mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions is only one possible explanation among many.

A number of us would suggest that we really don’t know how much of the current warmth is manmade versus natural. I suspect we are the Holocaust-denying, cancer-ignoring, flat-Earthers who still think the Moon landing was staged.

Marc Morano of Cybercast News Service recently reported on a curious teleconference, in which environmental group representatives, members of the media and a Democratic congressional staffer joined in bashing those who would stand in the way of convincing the public that we should all “be worried, be very worried” about global warming, as the Time magazine cover recently intoned. One of those participating was Mark Hertsgaard, author of an article in the recent Earth Day issue of Vanity Fair, which had a (literally) green cover included environmental “experts” Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Robert Kennedy, Jr. and (of course) Al Gore.

In his article, Morano related some of Hertsgaard’s comments:

“People in the American media in the last six weeks have begun to say ‘the debate is over.’ There is] a lot more coverage than we have ever seen of ‘global warming’; a lot more pointed coverage than we have ever seen. It is very striking that it is years behind the coverage in Europe,” Hertsgaard said.

“People in Europe talked about the ‘the climate loonies in the United States.’ The Brits do not understand why people pay attention [to skeptics],” he added.

So, once again, we apparently need to look to Europe for our cues on what we should believe about global warming and climate policy, just as we should rely on their judicial rulings.

Further, the teleconference group derided “free-market think tanks.” Reporter Paul Thacker offered, “I have often felt that these think tanks are kinda there just to dissuade journalists from covering these issues effectively.” Yes, and you know it’s a well kept secret that free-market advocates only exist to keep everyone from learning how well socialism has worked throughout history. (Note the free-market comfort from which a free speech-loving journalist in a wealthy free-market economy can so freely bite the invisible hand that feeds him.)

Even Dr. Global Warming himself, James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies – who participated in the same teleconference – cautioned the others against pushing the rhetoric too far: “I am a little concerned about this, in the sense that we are still at a point where the natural fluctuations of climate are still large – at least, the natural fluctuations of weather compared to long-term climate change,” Hansen said. This is good advice – though it is a much more moderate musing than some of his recent views, which include the warning that we might have only ten years left to turn things around on the global warming front, or it will be too late.

Dr. Hansen’s advice might be too late. Recent Gallup Poll results indicated that Americans believe global warming will probably be worse than the media coverage suggests; nevertheless, on a 10-point environmental worries scale, global warming still only rates a 2. This suggests that environmentalists still have a lot of convincing to do. With upcoming movies, books and the inevitable stream of still more news stories about global warming science being settled, the tone of the debate does not appear to be ready to moderate any time soon.

Still, I’m left wondering … why does the global warming issue seem so much more important to the media than to the public – to the point where “journalists” have do demonize skeptics with ad hominem attacks? Do they know something we don’t know? I suspect it is more the reverse.

And how, exactly, do the media make the jump from “global warming is real” to “the warming is entirely manmade” … to the warming is “catastrophic” … to the warming is the fault of the US government for not implementing policy changes (Kyoto, McCain-Lieberman, Domenici-Bingaman) that will do virtually nothing to help solve the problem anyway?

That wasn’t a rhetorical question. I really do want to know the answer. Send me an e-mail if you happen to know.

___________________

Dr. Roy Spencer is a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He’s also member of the TCS Science Roundtable. This article was originally published on www.TCSDaily.com


© 2004 Eco-Imperialism.com. All rights reserved.

[American Patriot]

Eco Imperialism - Articles
http://www.eco-imperialism.com


So now we’re Holocaust deniers
Climate change alarmists sink to new lows in attacking those who doubt catastrophe theories
by Roy Spencer
April 21, 2006

As part of the current media frenzy over the “imminent demise” of Planet Earth from global warming, it has become fashionable to demonize global warming skeptics through a variety of tactics. This has recently been accomplished by comparing scientists who don’t believe in a global climate catastrophe to “flat-Earthers,” those who denied cigarettes cause cancer, or even those who deny the Holocaust.

It is interesting that it is not the scientists who are making the comparisons to Holocaust-deniers, but members of the media. For instance, Scott Pelley, who recently interviewed NASA’s James Hansen for CBS’s “60 Minutes,” has been quoted on the CBS News PublicEye blog saying:

“There is virtually no disagreement in the scientific community any longer about ‘global warming.’ … The science that has been done in the last three to five years has been conclusive.”

Pelley also posted this quote to the same blog:

“If I do an interview with [Holocaust survivor] Elie Wiesel, am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?”

This comparison between global warming skeptics and Holocaust-deniers illustrates the upside-down worldview that makes the public increasingly distrustful of the media. The photographs, movie footage, concentration camps, artifacts, death showers, ovens, human bones.

What does manmade global warming have? The theory that mankind has caused the globally averaged temperature to be 1 degree F warmer than it was a century ago. (I’m sure holocaust survivors appreciate the minimization of their ordeal through use of this analogy.)

In stark contrast, what we do have as a direct result of the environmentalist-led restrictions on the use of DDT is tens of millions of deaths, and hundreds of millions of cases of severe illness, from malaria in Africa. The silence from scientists and many in the media on this is remarkable. Thankfully, the trend against DDT bans is finally changing, with countries like South Africa virtually eliminating malaria with DDT. Is mankind really ready for another major policy catastrophe based upon environmentalist (and media) rhetoric?

Whenever you see any media statement that “the science is settled” on global warming, you will observe that there is no mention of what exactly is “settled” about global warming. If something specific were mentioned, the statement would either be false, or at least it would not convey the necessary urgency that we much “do something immediately about global warming.” Of course, it might also be that today’s journalists cannot deal with that level of complexity. However, for the time being, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.

So, just what part of “the science is settled on global warming” is really settled? Well, I would say that our current period of globally-averaged warmth is pretty indisputable, though possibly over-estimated. I say “globally-averaged” because some areas have actually cooled in the last 100 years. Furthermore, the majority of climate scientists would probably agree that some part of that warmth is manmade. But in contrast to the warmth itself, which has actually been measured with thermometers, attributing some or all of that warming to mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions is only one possible explanation among many.

A number of us would suggest that we really don’t know how much of the current warmth is manmade versus natural. I suspect we are the Holocaust-denying, cancer-ignoring, flat-Earthers who still think the Moon landing was staged.

Marc Morano of Cybercast News Service recently reported on a curious teleconference, in which environmental group representatives, members of the media and a Democratic congressional staffer joined in bashing those who would stand in the way of convincing the public that we should all “be worried, be very worried” about global warming, as the Time magazine cover recently intoned. One of those participating was Mark Hertsgaard, author of an article in the recent Earth Day issue of Vanity Fair, which had a (literally) green cover included environmental “experts” Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Robert Kennedy, Jr. and (of course) Al Gore.

In his article, Morano related some of Hertsgaard’s comments:

“People in the American media in the last six weeks have begun to say ‘the debate is over.’ There is] a lot more coverage than we have ever seen of ‘global warming’; a lot more pointed coverage than we have ever seen. It is very striking that it is years behind the coverage in Europe,” Hertsgaard said.

“People in Europe talked about the ‘the climate loonies in the United States.’ The Brits do not understand why people pay attention [to skeptics],” he added.

So, once again, we apparently need to look to Europe for our cues on what we should believe about global warming and climate policy, just as we should rely on their judicial rulings.

Further, the teleconference group derided “free-market think tanks.” Reporter Paul Thacker offered, “I have often felt that these think tanks are kinda there just to dissuade journalists from covering these issues effectively.” Yes, and you know it’s a well kept secret that free-market advocates only exist to keep everyone from learning how well socialism has worked throughout history. (Note the free-market comfort from which a free speech-loving journalist in a wealthy free-market economy can so freely bite the invisible hand that feeds him.)

Even Dr. Global Warming himself, James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies – who participated in the same teleconference – cautioned the others against pushing the rhetoric too far: “I am a little concerned about this, in the sense that we are still at a point where the natural fluctuations of climate are still large – at least, the natural fluctuations of weather compared to long-term climate change,” Hansen said. This is good advice – though it is a much more moderate musing than some of his recent views, which include the warning that we might have only ten years left to turn things around on the global warming front, or it will be too late.

Dr. Hansen’s advice might be too late. Recent Gallup Poll results indicated that Americans believe global warming will probably be worse than the media coverage suggests; nevertheless, on a 10-point environmental worries scale, global warming still only rates a 2. This suggests that environmentalists still have a lot of convincing to do. With upcoming movies, books and the inevitable stream of still more news stories about global warming science being settled, the tone of the debate does not appear to be ready to moderate any time soon.

Still, I’m left wondering … why does the global warming issue seem so much more important to the media than to the public – to the point where “journalists” have do demonize skeptics with ad hominem attacks? Do they know something we don’t know? I suspect it is more the reverse.

And how, exactly, do the media make the jump from “global warming is real” to “the warming is entirely manmade” … to the warming is “catastrophic” … to the warming is the fault of the US government for not implementing policy changes (Kyoto, McCain-Lieberman, Domenici-Bingaman) that will do virtually nothing to help solve the problem anyway?

That wasn’t a rhetorical question. I really do want to know the answer. Send me an e-mail if you happen to know.

___________________

Dr. Roy Spencer is a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He’s also member of the TCS Science Roundtable. This article was originally published on www.TCSDaily.com


© 2004 Eco-Imperialism.com. All rights reserved.

[American Patriot]

ExxonMobil Responds to Union of Concerned Scientists (Funding of Global Warming Denial Efforts)
ExxonMobil ^ | January 4, 2007 | ExxonMobil

Press Release:

ExxonMobil's Response to a Report by the Union of Concerned Scientists

ExxonMobil believes the Union of Concerned Scientists' paper is deeply offensive and wrong.

ExxonMobil engages in public policy discussions by encouraging serious inquiry, analysis, the sharing of information and transparency.

Our support of scientific research on climate change is made public on our web site and it includes more than 40 peer reviewed papers authored by ExxonMobil scientists, and our participation on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and numerous related scientific bodies. While there is more to learn on climate science, what is clear today is that greenhouse gas emissions are one of the factors that contribute to climate change, and that the use of fossil fuels is a major source of these emissions.

With regard to contributions that ExxonMobil provides to various public policy organizations, our support is transparent and appears on our web site. The support extends to a fairly broad array of organizations that research significant domestic and foreign policy issues and promote discussion on issues of direct relevance to the company. These groups range from the Brookings Institution to the American Enterprise Institute and from the Council on Foreign Relations to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

As these organizations are independent of their corporate sponsors and are tax-exempt, we don’t control their views and messages, and they do not speak on our behalf. In many cases and with respect to the full range of policy positions taken by these organizations, we find some of them persuasive and enlightening, and some not. We annually review our support of tax-exempt organizations and make appropriate adjustments. In addition, we publish the complete list of such organizations on our web site - and we update this list once per year.

Supporting scientific and public policy research leads to better informed and more open discussion of options to address such a serious, global issue as climate change.

Supplementary article:

Scientists say Exxon misinforms public
Oil giant: Group trying to defame name on global-warming issue (excerpted to focus on ExxonMobil's statements)


WASHINGTON — ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in an effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday.

...

ExxonMobil called the scientists’ report Wednesday “yet another attempt to smear our name and confuse the discussion of the serious issue of CO2 emissions and global climate change.”

ExxonMobil lists on its Web site nearly $133 million in 2005 contributions globally, including $6.8 million for “public information and policy research” distributed to more than 140 think tanks, universities, foundations, associations and other groups.

...

The company said its financial support doesn’t mean control over any group’s views.

“We find some of them persuasive and enlightening, and some not,” ExxonMobil spokesman Dave Gardner said. “But there is value in the debate they prompt if it can lead to better informed and more optimal public policy decisions.”

He said the company believes that despite many scientific uncertainties, the risk that greenhouse gas emissions may have serious environmental effects justifies taking action to limit them.

[American Patriot]

Ancient global warming was jarring, not subtle, study finds
Los Angeles Times ^ | January 5, 2007 | Robert Lee Hotz



Foreshadowing potential climate chaos to come, early global warming caused unexpectedly severe and erratic temperature swings as rising levels of greenhouse gases helped transform Earth, a team led by researchers at UC Davis said Thursday.


The global transition from ice age to greenhouse 300 million years ago was marked by repeated dips and rises in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and wild swings in temperature, with drastic effects on forests and vegetation, the researchers reported in the journal Science.


"It was a real yo-yo," said UC Davis geochemist Isabel Montanez, who led researchers from five universities and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in a project funded by the National Science Foundation. "Should we expect similar but faster climate behavior in the future? One has to question whether that is where we are headed."


The provocative insight into planetary climate change counters the traditional view that global warming could be gradual and its regional effects easily anticipated.
Over several million years, carbon dioxide in the ancient atmosphere increased from about 280 parts per million to 2,000 ppm, the same increase that experts expect by the end of this century as remaining reserves of fossil fuels are burned.


No one knows the reason for so much variation in carbon dioxide levels 300 million years ago, but as modern industrial activity continues to pump greenhouse gases into the air at rapid rates, the unpredictable climate changes that took millions of years to unfold naturally could be compressed into a few centuries or less today, several experts said.


Carbon dioxide levels last year reached 380 ppm, rising at almost twice the rate of a decade ago, experts said. Average global temperatures have been rising about 0.36 of a degree Fahrenheit per decade for the last 30 years.
Still, the transformation


(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...

[American Patriot]

Wait! WAIT! They COULDNT have had global warming, there wasn't any damned CARS or OIL or PEOPLE. WTF??? WHO'S LYING NOW!

[American Patriot]

Climate change causes collapse of civilisations
Pravda ^ | January 8 | Alexander Timoshik

"New research suggests that climate change led to the collapse of the most splendid imperial dynasty in China’s history and to the extinction of the Maya civilisation in Central America more than 1,000 years ago.

There has never been a satisfactory explanation for the decline and fall of the Tang emperors, whose era is viewed as a highpoint of Chinese civilisation, while the disappearance of the Maya world perplexes scholars.

Now a team of scientists has found evidence that a shift in monsoons led to drought and famine in the final century of Tang power. The weather pattern may also have spelt doom for the Maya in faraway Mexico at about the same time, they say."

(Excerpt) Read more at english.pravda.ru ...

[American Patriot]

Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - 12:00 AM
ANYA JOHNSON / OP ART

John M. Wallace

Dennis L. Hartmann




Guest columnists
Hot air in D.C. hinders global-warming fight By John M. Wallace and Dennis L. Hartmann
Special to The Times

Despite repeated warnings from noted committees made up of respected scientists, many of our political leaders in Washington, D.C., still question the reality of human-induced global warming. They cite a small cadre of climate skeptics who support their view, ignoring the overwhelming majority of scientists who actually do climate research.


Among scientists, the debate about greenhouse warming is all but over. It is widely agreed that the Earth has warmed by about 1 degree Fahrenheit during the past century, that most of this warming is due to carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, that projected increases in global carbon emissions will likely lead to additional warming in the range of several degrees Fahrenheit over the next 50 years, and that a warming of this magnitude will have serious consequences.


It is true that a few of our colleagues remain skeptical, but they are but a tiny fraction of climate scientists. This is one of the rare occasions on which the scientific community speaks with near unanimity and with a strong sense of urgency.


Yet, the voice of science has been falling on deaf ears. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, immediate past chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, devoted two days of his committee's time in July to airing largely irrelevant technical issues raised by global-warming skeptics. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who just ended his time as chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, has labeled the threat of catastrophic greenhouse warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and has vowed to do his part to ensure the tiny gang of skeptics is heard.


President Bush held a private audience with Michael Crichton, a popular author and self-proclaimed climate skeptic who presents his views in the epilogue of his 2004 novel "State of Fear." Reports prepared by government scientists have been modified to reflect the view of global warming held by the White House. Closer to home, Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, a member of the House Science Committee, has issued conflicting statements on what role he believes human activities play in global warming.


Regardless of what they really believe about global warming, maintaining a semblance of doubt has been important to Barton, Inhofe and other congressional leaders who share their views, because raising doubt can justify taking no action. They were reluctant to let their committees pursue agendas calling for action because they feared that steps to avert global warming would be ineffective or harmful to U.S. business interests.


We do not share their pessimism. Promoting energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources such as wind and biofuels does slow the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Reducing fossil-fuel consumption also serves to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and to help American businesses compete in a world economy in which oil and other natural resources are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive.


Efforts to address past environmental crises — the smog that used to blanket our cities, acid rain that threatened our forests and chlorofluorocarbon buildup that was destroying the stratospheric ozone layer — have been highly successful in achieving their objectives. They also have spurred important technological innovations that have benefited U.S. companies.


In the absence of leadership at the national level, governors and mayors are taking steps to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Promoting conservation and the use of renewable resources buys time while we await the development of technologies such as carbon sequestration and safer nuclear reactors, which offer the hope of more substantial reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions a decade or two from now.


But without leadership at the national level, it will be difficult to generate the level of investment needed to get global warming under control before it is too late to avert serious ecological and human consequences and their attendant economic impacts. We hope the new congressional leadership will take up this challenge.


John M. Wallace is a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor and director of the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Oceans at the UW. Dennis L. Hartmann is a professor and chairman of the UW Department of Atmospheric Sciences.
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

[American Patriot]

Warnings of warming 'refined'
Waterbury Republican-American ^ | January 16, 2007 | Editorial

When warmists wax on catastrophic climate change, one agency they quote a lot is the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body comprised mostly of warmists bent on proving their man-made global-warming theory, the facts and their limited understanding of how climate works be damned.

The IPCC's last report in 2001 predicted planetary warming of up to 10 F and a sea-level rise of nearly 3 feet by 2100. Since then, it has been "refining" its numbers, weighing new data and supposedly developing a better understanding of climate science. Its "fourth assessment report," due out in February, will conclude civilization's threat has been overstated, so it will lower its warming projection to 2.7 F to 7.5 F, and adjust its guess on sea-level rise to 17 inches.

Still, the IPCC is worried because carbon-dioxide emissions have risen by 3 percent in the past five years. Relying on past IPCC work, The Earth Institute at Columbia University concluded this year that atmospheric concentrations of CO2, now 0.00038 percent, could reach 0.00055 percent "well before the end of the century, with potentially disastrous implications for human well-being and the Earth's natural systems." At the present rate, it would be more than 9,000 years before CO2 reached 1 percent.

Those numbers are meaningless without context, so here's some: CO2 is abundant on Venus, a hellishly hot planet that warmists say portends earth's fate unless mankind curbs its greenhouse-gas emissions now. But Venus' atmosphere is 97 percent carbon dioxide, giving it 255,000 times more CO2 by volume than earth's and making warmists' fears laughably overheated.

But even if fossil fuels were banned tomorrow, the effect on the climate would be at best immeasurably small. "So whether the climate changes we are observing are reversible is a nonissue," said Steve Milloy of junkscience.com. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., put the IPCC's revisions in perspective: "Climate science is always going through these 'refinements.' The media (have) alternated between four separate global cooling and warming scares since 1895, (including) the erroneous prediction of a coming ice age in the 1970s." Still, the IPCC and other warmists should be encouraged to keep refining their data until this latest warming scare disappears.

[American Patriot]

http://pennsylvanianinexile.blogspot...g-here-is.html


Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Debunking Global Warming

Here is a excerpt from a good article on The Global Warming Myth.

But Why Invent Global Warming?

Answer: to get research funds that have been made available. The Australian government recently granted $7.8 million to the CSIRO to investigate Greenhouse Gases. Some gases are sure to be found. In the 1960s geophysicists believed that with enough resources they could predict earthquakes, lobbied hard, and in 1966 the Japanese government funded a $270million per year program. In 1997, after wasting $2.7 billion dollars on no results, the program was axed. A research team is presently in Antarctica to study ice depth. They envisage this to be a 10 year project. In 2004 $4.3 billion was earned by the glbal warming industry. Most was invested in research and development, but media fed at the trough too, while various governments instituted new bureacracies and taxed emissions industries.

Fear is bankable. If a population can be convinced that global warming is occurring, there is money to be made. What started off as a small group now has thousands of employees drawing wages.

In the 1980s the term "Greenhouse Effect" came into our vocabulary to try to explain the high temperatures the world was experiencing. The fact that in the following early 1990s we were in a below average period which saw cooler temperatures, particularly during the winter months in both hemispheres, went unreported and unnoticed by those now firmly entrenched on the GW bandwagon. By now other 'problems' found research funds that were being willingly provided. Ozone-depletion, first written up in 1974 and immediately laughed at by the world of science, suddenly became an area of serious study, as did CO2, El Nino/La Nina and just recently, methane, as funds again started to flow into researchers' pockets.

Methane
Do we seriously believe that the farts of cows can alter the world's climate? NZ was once teeming with farting birdlife. They're nearly all gone. The US was covered with farting buffalo, Canada with farting caribou. Europe had the farting mammoth and mastoden. All now gone. In India and Africa wildlife has been hunted almost to extinction. There are LESS animals and so less farters, honkers, snorters and burpers now than there have EVER been on this planet, which is why we have the notion of endangered species. One only has to walk behind one duck for 10 minutes to see what emerges from the blunt end of a walking methane factory. Also, methane is inflammable which means it will be destroyed by the next wiff of lightning. There are over 2000 electrical storms happening around the globe every second. What is not broken down in this way is attacked by hydroxyls(called "nature's detergents") in upper air layers. Methane has actually been decreasing for the last 17 years.

So what about the land-based ice?
Land-based ice only represents 1.5% of the Earth's surface at the South Pole. (Roughly 3% of the total Earth's surface is polar. So 1.5% is Southern polar. Roughly half of that is landbased making it around 0.7%) A recent report from the University of Tasmania Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre states "The Antarctic ice-sheet's effective volume is equivalent to 55 meters of global sea level. It is NOT expected that it would melt as a result of a warming of two or three degrees. This is because temperatures in most of Antarctica are well below the melting point of ice.." Down at the South Pole, temperatures cool to under -80deg in winter, so 2 or 3 deg won't even dent it.

In fact, Antartcica has been recorded at -90degC in winter. So for the poles to melt and stay melted all year around, they have to go up in temperature by at least 90deg. And even that only gets them up to zero. If the poles rise by 90deg you can barely imagine what the temperature of the middle latitudes will become. Let's assume the poles might one day reach this horrendous temperature. So what will happen to the oceans? Well, 90deg is nearly the boiling point of water. The oceans will not rise. They will all have evaporated.

Rising Sea Levels
When you pin a global warmingist down, he'll say the oceans are expected to rise between 10cms and 1m over the next century due to them being warmed. 10cms is only four and a half inches..a century? That's nothing to an incoming and outgoing tide. 1m's a bit more, to be sure, but why do they always quote the upper end? So, depending on who you listen to, they seem to have an error of between 10cms and 55m, or roughly 5000%. And if they're so unsure, then how are they so certain the sealevels are rising at all?? And what is making the seas warmer? To warm a pot of water you have to have heat from below. Has anyone found a big heater yet under the sea that wasn't there before?

Then there's the question of the 2 or 3 degrees supposed rise over the last century. In most places on Earth 10 degreeC variation occurs during every day, but no one seems too put out. In actual fact, the sealevels are decreasing around the top half of the North Island, increasing around the bottom half of the South is, falling in the top half of the UK and rising in the south of the UK. It is the land which is rising or falling, giving only a virtual sealevel change. So how can we tell which is rising - land or sea when both are measured against each other?

Another thing that is a bit weird is that the Pacific atolls are supposed to be submerging, while the highwater mark on most NZ's beaches remains the same. Sealevel is supposed to be the same everywhere. That's why it's used so much as a iniversal standard. No one is bothering to point out that Pacific atolls are very volcanic and are rising and falling all the time. Just by the way, NZ is also extremely tectonically active.

A Sydney University study commissioned by the late Prime Minister of Tuvalu two years ago reported back that sealevels around that news-grabbing atoll were actually reducing, but this report did not make sensational headlines and not surprisingly went largely unreported.

In comparing sealevel-days, when do they make their comparisons? It's not good just looking at the tide high water mark and saying it looks higher than when I was a boy. Different lunar factors make for a higher or lower tide level - New or full moons, perigees, the 18.613 cycle, declination, the Moon crossing the equator twice a month going in opposite directions, wind forces, wind direction and high pressure zones which lower the sealevel or low pressure zones which tend to raise it. All of these factors are on the move all of the time and there is no one date which brings them all together so that they can be safely compared to another date.

Inaccurate Predictions
Some scientists are sometimes outrageously wrong. In March 1998 they declared that a 2km wide asteroid called 1997 XF11 was on a near collision course with Earth. It was later discovered that the asteroid would miss the earth by at least a million kilometres.

Halley’s Comet was another fizzer. After all the hype, you needed high powered binoculars to even see it. There has been a recent call to look at the possibility of future meteor strikes and what to do if they presented a threat to mankind. Then there's volcanoes, earthquakes, comets, gamma rays - someone only has to suggest something no one else has thought of to worry over for a while for it to hit the big headlines.

During the Gulf War there was the fear of a permanent oil shortage, and everyone installed LPG in their vehicles. Before that, the threat of nuclear war, and lots of people had bunkers built in their gardens. Then in Auckland, the water scare, and everyone put in their own water tanks. Then there was Y2K, which had those with a PC panicking for a while. But these pass and things return to normal.

Perhaps another threat is surely coming to a neighborhood near you. Someone will be asking for research grants, paid for by you, the taxpayer. Recently the then NZ Associate Minister for the Environment said global warming is "inextricably related to climate instability and poses one of the biggest threats to our economy". NZ's current Energy Minister has said the science of global warming is undeniable. But perhaps there is a bigger and more direct economic threat to every country's economy; the creaming off of massive funds to study non-existent dangers.

[American Patriot]

[American Patriot]

[American Patriot]

Global Warming Fascism
Marquette Warrior ^ | 1/18/07 | John McAdams



We fully expect people to get pretty hot under the collar about hot-button social issues like abortion, gay marriage and affirmative action.

It’s not even surprising when people on one side of the debate try to shut up people on the other side. The gay lobby is particularly likely to do this, as cases in Canada, in the U.K., in U.S. schools of Social Work, and indeed from the Gay/Straight Alliance right here at Marquette.

But what about an issue like supposed “global warming?” That’s an arcane scientific issue, right? People should be tolerant of differing views, right?

Apparently not.

Case One: Punish Meteorologists Who Question Global Warming

From The Independent:

A leading climatologist on the Weather Channel in the United States has caused a squall in the industry by arguing that any weather forecaster who dares publicly to question the notion that global warming is a manmade phenomenon should be stripped of their professional certification.

The call was made by Heidi Cullen, host of a weekly global warming programme on the cable network called The Climate Code, and coincides with a stretch of severely off-kilter weather across the US this winter and moves by Democrats to draft strict new legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Specifically, Ms Cullen is suggesting that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) revokes the “seal of approval” that it normally extends to broadcast forecasters in the US in cases where they have expressed scepticism about man’s role in pushing up planetary temperatures.

“It’s like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather," she wrote in her internet blog. “It’s not a political statement . . . it’s just an incorrect statement.”

Ms Cullen is not alone in trying to marginalise doubters, who mostly argue that recent rises in temperatures are caused by normal cyclical weather patterns. They were described as “global warming deniers” by former vice-president Al Gore in his recent film An Inconvenient Truth.

The problem is that whether hurricanes rotate clockwise (in the northern hemisphere) is not a controversial political issue, while global warming is.

Claiming that global warming as a result of human activity has been “proven” to the satisfaction of all serious scientists is simply untrue.

But note that, even if it had been, a century ago it had been “proven” to the satisfaction of scientists who dealt with human intelligence that blacks were less intelligent than whites.

Just thirty years ago, the media were abuzz with predications of a “New Ice Age.”

There really is a strong consensus among economists that the Minimum Wage is a bad idea. Should any economist who favors that policy have his Ph.D. revoked? Should any academic who says that a centrally planned economy is better than a market economy be fired for incompetence?

Case Two: Senators Try To Intimidate Oil Company

This page October, liberal Senators John D. Rockefeller IV and Olympia Snowe sent a letter to the CEO of ExxonMobil Corporation demanding that it cease funding of scientists who are critical of the “global warming theory.” The following passage gives an idea of the tone of the letter:

In light of the adverse impacts still resulting from your corporations activities, we must request that ExxonMobil end any further financial assistance or other support to groups or individuals whose public advocacy has contributed to the small, but unfortunately effective, climate change denial myth. Further, we believe ExxonMobil should take additional steps to improve the public debate, and consequently the reputation of the United States. We would recommend that ExxonMobil publicly acknowledge both the reality of climate change and the role of humans in causing or exacerbating it. Second, ExxonMobil should repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make public its funding history. Finally, we believe that there would be a benefit to the United States if one of the world’s largest carbon emitters headquartered here devoted at least some of the money it has invested in climate change denial pseudo-science to global remediation efforts. We believe this would be especially important in the developing world, where the disastrous effects of global climate change are likely to have their most immediate and calamitous impacts.

Coming from members of Congress, such a demand has to be considered a threat of adverse political action.

As the Wall Street Journal noted:

The Senators aren’t dumb enough to risk an ethics inquiry by threatening specific consequences if Mr. Tillerson declines this offer he can’t refuse. But in case the CEO doesn’t understand his company’s jeopardy, they add that “ExxonMobil and its partners in denial have manufactured controversy, sown doubt, and impeded progress with strategies all-too reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years.” [Our emphasis.]

The Journal goes on to observe:

Every dogma has its day, and we’ve lived long enough to see more than one “consensus” blown apart within a few years of “everyone knowing” it was true. In recent decades environmentalists have been wrong about almost every other apocalyptic claim they’ve made: global famine, overpopulation, natural resource exhaustion, the evils of pesticides, global cooling, and so on. Perhaps it’s useful to have a few folks outside the “consensus” asking questions before we commit several trillion dollars to any problem.

Case Three: Put Global Warming Skeptics on Trial

Jeff Jacoby explains what some of the environmentalists have been saying.

Then there is “Grist,” an environmental webzine whose staff writer David Roberts recently proposed that global warming skeptics be put on trial like Nazi war criminals.

“When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming . . . we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg,” Roberts wrote. Negative publicity led him to recant, but he is far from the only one invoking the Holocaust as a way to silence global warming heretics.

Environmental writer Mark Lynas, for example, puts dissent on climate change “in a similar moral category to Holocaust denial -- except that this time the Holocaust is yet to come, and we still have time to avoid it. Those who try to ensure we don’t will one day have to answer for their crimes.” This totalitarian view is taking root everywhere, making skepticism on climate change taboo and subjecting anyone reckless enough to question the global-warming dogma to mockery and demonization. Former vice president Al Gore lumps “global warming deniers,” some of whom are eminent scientists, with the “15 percent of the population (who) believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona” and those who “still believe the earth is flat.”

In any moralistic crusade, a diversity of opinions is not welcome. What matters is orthodoxy, and the urge to silence heretics is intense.

[American Patriot]

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=3a9bc8a4-802a-23ad-4065-7dc37ec39adf

Posted by Marc Morano marc_morano@epw.senate.gov


After EPW blog post yesterday Weather Channel Climate Expert Calls for Decertifying Global Warming Skeptics
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=32abc0b0-802a-23ad-440a-88824bb8e528 check out this blog post from ABC-TV Alabama affiliate weatherman James Spann
http://www.jamesspann.com/blog.htm
Also check out Weather Channel response to the controversy http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.c...n_id=&Issue_id= From Spann blog - his bio:


"In 2005 I upgraded the AMS seal of approval to the new "Certified Broadcast Meteorologist" designation. The CBM is the highest level of certification from the AMS, and involves academic requirements, on-air performance, a rigorous examination, and continuing education.


Official bio here: http://www.abc3340.com/news/talent.hrb?i=188
The Weather Channel Mess

January 18, 2007 | James Spann | Op/Ed

Well, well. Some “climate expert” on “The Weather Channel” wants to take away AMS certification from those of us who believe the recent “global warming” is a natural process. So much for “tolerance”, huh?

I have been in operational meteorology since 1978, and I know dozens and dozens of broadcast meteorologists all over the country. Our big job: look at a large volume of raw data and come up with a public weather forecast for the next seven days. I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can’t find them. Here are the basic facts you need to know:

*Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up. This is big money, make no mistake about it. Always follow the money trail and it tells a story. Even the lady at “The Weather Channel” probably gets paid good money for a prime time show on climate change. No man-made global warming, no show, and no salary. Nothing wrong with making money at all, but when money becomes the motivation for a scientific conclusion, then we have a problem. For many, global warming is a big cash grab.

*The climate of this planet has been changing since God put the planet here. It will always change, and the warming in the last 10 years is not much difference than the warming we saw in the 1930s and other decades. And, lets not forget we are at the end of the ice age in which ice covered most of North America and Northern Europe.

If you don’t like to listen to me, find another meteorologist with no tie to grant money for research on the subject. I would not listen to anyone that is a politician, a journalist, or someone in science who is generating revenue from this issue.

In fact, I encourage you to listen to WeatherBrains episode number 12, featuring Alabama State Climatologist John Christy, and WeatherBrains episode number 17, featuring Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University, one of the most brilliant minds in our science.

WeatherBrains, by the way, is our weekly 30 minute netcast.

I have nothing against “The Weather Channel”, but they have crossed the line into a political and cultural region where I simply won’t go.

[American Patriot]

Scientists fear they've oversold global warming
Houston Chronicle ^ | 1-22-07 | Eric Berger

Climate scientists feeling the heat

As public debate deals in absolutes, some experts fear predictions 'have created a monster'

Scientists long have issued the warnings: The modern world's appetite for cars, air conditioning and cheap, fossil-fuel energy spews billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, unnaturally warming the world.

Yet, it took the dramatic images of a hurricane overtaking New Orleans and searing heat last summer to finally trigger widespread public concern on the issue of global warming.

Climate scientists might be expected to bask in the spotlight after their decades of toil. The general public now cares about greenhouse gases, and with a new Democratic-led Congress, federal action on climate change may be at hand.

Problem is, global warming may not have caused Hurricane Katrina, and last summer's heat waves were equaled and, in many cases, surpassed by heat in the 1930s.

In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.

"Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.

Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected "tension" among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.

The science of climate change often is expressed publicly in unambiguous terms.

For example, last summer, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: "I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. ... In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history."

Vranes says, "When I hear things like that, I go crazy."

Nearly all climate scientists believe the Earth is warming and that human activity, by increasing the level of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, has contributed significantly to the warming.

But within the broad consensus are myriad questions about the details. How much of the recent warming has been caused by humans? Is the upswing in Atlantic hurricane activity due to global warming or natural variability? Are Antarctica's ice sheets at risk for melting in the near future?

To the public and policymakers, these details matter. It's one thing to worry about summer temperatures becoming a few degrees warmer.

It's quite another if ice melting from Greenland and Antarctica raises the sea level by 3 feet in the next century, enough to cover much of Galveston Island at high tide.

Models aren't infallible Scientists have substantial evidence to support the view that humans are warming the planet — as carbon dioxide levels rise, glaciers melt and global temperatures rise. Yet, for predicting the future climate, scientists must rely upon sophisticated — but not perfect — computer models.

"The public generally underappreciates that climate models are not meant for reducing our uncertainty about future climate, which they really cannot, but rather they are for increasing our confidence that we understand the climate system in general," says Michael Bauer, a climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York.

Gerald North, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, dismisses the notion of widespread tension among climate scientists on the course of the public debate. But he acknowledges that considerable uncertainty exists with key events such as the melting of Antarctica, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 200 feet.

"We honestly don't know that much about the big ice sheets," North says. "We don't have great equations that cover glacial movements. But let's say there's just a 10 percent chance of significant melting in the next century. That would be catastrophic, and it's worth protecting ourselves from that risk."

Much of the public debate, however, has dealt in absolutes. The poster for Al Gore's global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth, depicts a hurricane blowing out of a smokestack. Katrina's devastation is a major theme in the film.

Judith Curry, an atmospheric scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has published several research papers arguing that a link between a warmer climate and hurricane activity exists, but she admits uncertainty remains.

Like North, Curry says she doubts there is undue tension among climate scientists but says Vranes could be sensing a scientific community reaction to some of the more alarmist claims in the public debate.

For years, Curry says, the public debate on climate change has been dominated by skeptics, such as Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and strong advocates such as NASA's James Hansen, who calls global warming a ticking "time bomb" and talks about the potential inundation of all global coastlines within a few centuries.

That may be changing, Curry says. As the public has become more aware of global warming, more scientists have been brought into the debate. These scientists are closer to Hansen's side, she says, but reflect a more moderate view.

"I think the rank-and-file are becoming more outspoken, and you're hearing a broader spectrum of ideas," Curry says.

Young and old tension Other climate scientists, however, say there may be some tension as described by Vranes. One of them, Jeffrey Shaman, an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at Oregon State University, says that unease exists primarily between younger researchers and older, more established scientists.

Shaman says some junior scientists may feel uncomfortable when they see older scientists making claims about the future climate, but he's not sure how widespread that sentiment may be. This kind of tension always has existed in academia, he adds, a system in which senior scientists hold some sway over the grants and research interests of graduate students and junior faculty members.

The question, he says, is whether it's any worse in climate science.

And if it is worse? Would junior scientists feel compelled to mute their findings, out of concern for their careers, if the research contradicts the climate change consensus?

"I can understand how a scientist without tenure can feel the community pressures," says environmental scientist Roger Pielke Jr., a colleague of Vranes' at the University of Colorado.

Pielke says he has felt pressure from his peers: A prominent scientist angrily accused him of being a skeptic, and a scientific journal editor asked him to "dampen" the message of a peer-reviewed paper to derail skeptics and business interests.

"The case for action on climate science, both for energy policy and adaptation, is overwhelming," Pielke says. "But if we oversell the science, our credibility is at stake."

[samizdat]

I've been wondering for some time what global warming was-
Now I get it.

edited by bureaucrats, The world's global average temperature has risen about 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit from 1901 to 2005.

But Why Invent Global Warming?

Answer: to get research funds that have been made available

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070123/...climate_report

[American Patriot]

Global Warming on [Planet] Pluto Puzzles Scientists

[occuring throughout the solar system -- LOL]


SPACE.com ^ | October 9, 2002 | Robert Roy Britt

Global Warming on Pluto Puzzles Scientists By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 09 October 2002 01:25 p.m. ET

In what is largely a reversal of an August announcement, astronomers today said Pluto is undergoing global warming in its thin atmosphere even as it moves farther from the Sun on its long, odd-shaped orbit.

Pluto's atmospheric pressure has tripled over the past 14 years, indicating a stark temperature rise, the researchers said. The change is likely a seasonal event, much as seasons on Earth change as the hemispheres alter their inclination to the Sun during the planet's annual orbit.

They suspect the average surface temperature increased about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit, or slightly less than 2 degrees Celsius.

Pluto remains a mysterious world whose secrets are no so easily explained, however. The warming could be fueled by some sort of eruptive activity on the small planet, one astronomer speculated.

The increasing temperatures are more likely explained by two simple facts: Pluto's highly elliptical orbit significantly changes the planet's distance from the Sun during its long "year," which lasts 248 Earth years; and unlike most of the planets, Pluto's axis is nearly in line with the orbital plane, tipped 122 degrees. Earth's axis is tilted 23.5 degrees.

Though Pluto was closest to the Sun in 1989, a warming trend 13 years later does not surprise David Tholen, a University of Hawaii astronomer involved in the discovery.

"It takes time for materials to warm up and cool off, which is why the hottest part of the day on Earth is usually around 2 or 3 p.m. rather than local noon," Tholen said. "This warming trend on Pluto could easily last for another 13 years."

Stellar observations

The conclusion is based on data gathered during a chance passage of Pluto in front of a distant star as seen from Earth. Such events, called occultations, are rare, but two of them occurred this summer.

In the occultations, which are like eclipses, astronomers examined starlight as it passed through Pluto's tenuous atmosphere just before the planet blotted out the light.

The first occultation, in July, yielded limited data because of terrestrial cloud cover above key telescopes. Marc Buie, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory, scrambled to observe the event from northern Chile using portable 14-inch (0.35-meter) telescope. Afterward, Buie said he was baffled by what seemed to be global cooling of Pluto's atmosphere punctuated by some surface warming.

Then on Aug. 20, Pluto passed in front of a different star. The latter event provided much better data captured by eight large telescopes and seems to clarify and mostly reverse the earlier findings.

The results were compared to studies from 1988, the last time Pluto was observed eclipsing a star.

James Elliot of MIT led a team of astronomers who coordinated their observations and presented the findings today at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's (AAS) Division for Planetary Sciences in Birmingham, Ala.

Elliot said the Aug. 20 occultation was the first that allowed such a deep probing of the composition, pressure and the always-frigid temperature of Pluto's atmosphere, which ranges from -391 to -274 degrees Fahrenheit (-235 to -170 degrees Celsius).

Volcanoes on Pluto?

Elliot hinted at the possibility of another factor fueling Pluto's warming trend.

He compared Pluto to Triton, a moon of Neptune. Both have atmospheres made mostly of nitrogen. In 1997, Triton occulted a star and astronomers found that its atmosphere had warmed since the last observations were made in 1989 during the Voyager mission. Back then, Voyager found dark material rising above Triton, indicating possible eruptive activity.

"There could be more massive activity on Pluto, since the changes observed in Pluto's atmosphere are much more severe," Elliot said. "The change observed on Triton was subtle. Pluto's changes are not subtle."

There is no firm evidence that Pluto is volcanically active, but neither is there evidence to rule out that possibility. Even the Hubble Space Telescope can barely make out Pluto's surface.

Elliot added that the process affecting Pluto's temperature is complex. "We just don't know what is causing these effects," he said.

Let's go there

Elliot and others believe this poor understanding of our solar system's tiniest planet is grounds for sending a robot to investigate. Pluto is the only planet not visited by a spacecraft.

NASA has shelved a mission that would explore Pluto and the Kuiper Belt of frozen objects in which it resides.

Congress, however, appears to view the mission as worthy of some funds. A House budget panel this week followed the lead of the Senate in approving $105 million for the mission. If final approval comes, NASA would be compelled to undertake the project.

Interestingly, while Pluto's atmosphere has been growing warmer in recent years, astronomers have argued that a Pluto mission must launch by 2006, lest it miss the opportunity to study Pluto's atmosphere before it completely freezes out for the winter.

Tentative mission plans call for a robotic probe that would not reach Pluto for several years, making a flyby sometime prior to 2020 prior to investigating other objects deeper in the solar system.

Meanwhile, astronomers are looking forward to a space telescope called SOFIA, slated to begin operations in 2004. SOFIA will carry an instrument designed specifically to observe occultations and is expected to be employed when Pluto passes in front of other stars in coming years.

The Pluto observations this summer were funded by NASA, the Research Corporation and the National Science Foundation. Observations were made using the telescopes at the Mauna Kea Observatory, Haleakala, Lick Observatory, Lowell Observatory and the Palomar Observatory.

[American Patriot]

Polar Plunge Underway
accuweather.com ^ | 1/25/2007 | staff



(State College, PA) - An arctic air mass continues to pour out of Canada and into the Midwest and Northeast, bringing the coldest temperatures so far this winter over the next two days.


Temperatures overnight in Ontario and Quebec plunged to as low as -38°F (-39°C) as the arctic boundary passed, while the overnight low in Saranac Lake, New York fell to -26°F. The cold front will continue across the mid-Atlantic states today and the arctic air mass will reach the Carolinas by Friday.


The cold wind blowing across the long fetch of the warm waters of the Great Lakes is leading to heavy lake-effect snow to the lee of the lakes. Full information on the snow event is included in the Midwest Regional News report.


The Severe Weather Center lists all of the Wind Chill and Snow Advisories in effect in the Northeast.


A strengthening storm well off the New England coast will bring additional strong winds to much of the Northeast tonight into Friday, with gusts to 45 mph forecast for Cape Cod.


The biting winds will make it feel much colder, with RealFeel® temperatures falling below zero today and Friday as far south as New Jersey, Pennsylvania and southern Michigan.


While today will be the coldest day of the week across the Great Lakes, the core of arctic air passing overhead will make it even colder Friday, which will be the coldest day since last winter.


(Excerpt) Read more at a.accuweather.com ...


Can you say "Global Warming"? LOL

[American Patriot]

Massive Snow Fall Causes City to Shrink
KTUU-TV.com ^ | Jan. 24, 2007 | Rebecca Palsha

Anchorage, Alaska - Anchorage has been hit with more than 74 inches of snow this season, and according to the city, it's reaching a crisis level, with snow removal on the streets becoming a big problem.

The roads are looking smaller these days around town, as two-lane roads are quickly becoming one. The city can plow the roads, but where it can remove the snow to another location is a problem.

It is a long, tiring day for Joyce Elliston.

"I've lived in Alaska since 1967 and I don't remember ever having this much snow before," Elliston said.

It's everywhere, covering her cars and her house. Digging out from 74 inches of snow is slow going for everyone.

"It's just a small street and with the added snow, I don't know where we're going to put it all," said Elliston.

That's a problem even the city faces. The city can plow it off the road, but then what? It's not legal to move the snow onto people's property, so it all starts piling up, leaving drivers with skinny streets.

"Makes it a lot more difficult to access houses," said fireman Jeff Hoke from Station 14

That's scary news for the Anchorage Fire Department.

"The rigs are hard to maneuver. Their big and with the added snow and already narrow streets, it makes it a lot more difficult for us," said Hoke.

The city is already $2 million over budget for snow removal this season, and says the situation is nearing crisis, with clearing crews working six day weeks.

And it won't be completely done until the white stuff turns into the wet stuff.

City officials says Anchorage has been hit with twice the amount of snow that typically falls during the winter, and the season is only half over potentially.

The city also says that only police can write tickets for illegally-parked cars due to snow accumulation, or for residents pushing snow into streets.

But community service operators have been working these past two weeks taking information about illegal snow removers and passing that information on to police, who can then either write a ticket or give a warning.