The Death of the Global Warming Myth

[American Patriot]

Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing wisdom is marginalized and called a sceptic, when in fact they are simply being good scientists. This has reached frightening levels with these scientists now being called climate change denier with all the holocaust connotations of that word. The normal scientific method is effectively being thwarted.

This SAYs IT ALL

[American Patriot]

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WILBUT.html

[American Patriot]

Cold discomfort: Globe not warming
By Michael Graham
Thursday, February 8, 2007

The headlines all send the same chilling message:

Bitter cold grips Northern states . . .

Below-zero temps close schools . . .

Chilly cold spell sweeping Hawaii . . .

They can only mean one thing: global warming!

Yes, 42 below in Minnesota this week is proof of global warming. So was last summer’s European heat wave. No major hurricanes hit the U.S. in 2006? Global warming. Katrina? Same thing.

Bad weather, good weather, your car won’t start, your kid flunks math, erectile dysfunction, whatever. Such is the power of climate change kookery. Everything that happens proves you’re right, especially the stuff that proves you’re wrong.

Thanks to an unquestioning media, Americans have been conditioned to see iceberg conditions in Indianapolis and blame global warming (or, if they’re Patriots [team stats] fans, a vengeful God). We don’t think, we just assume. In fact, we’ve all but stopped thinking about the issue of global climate change at all.

Don’t agree? Then take this quick true-or-false quiz:

1) Global temps are rising.
2) Oceans are warming.
3) The Arctic is warmer today than it’s been in at least a century.

You guessed it: They’re all false. False “facts” that the average American assumes are true.

My source for refuting these assumptions is that notorious oil-money front group, the United Nations (which, if you’re talking about Saddam’s oil money, is an accurate description). The U.N.’s new climate change study refutes the climate models used for its 2001 effort, which said we would see a measurable rise in Earth temperatures by now.

Instead, according to the U.S. National Climate Data Center, there has been no measurable warming in the past five years.

One reason might be the cooling of the oceans that began in 2003 (despite contrary predictions from the U.N. weather models). And this may contribute to the fact that no matter what Al Gore tells you, the Arctic was warmer in 1940 than it is today.

Are these facts linked? Are they prophetic? Who knows? This also happens to be the most honest description of our ability to predict the weather 100 years from now.

Casual greenies respond: “But if we’re not sure, why not do something?” That’s because most people hear “Kyoto” and think “ban SUVs” or “less coal” or “hitch a ride to the ‘Impeach Bush’ rally with Jane Fonda.”

Wrong. Kyoto says that we must make the America of 20 years from now operate on the emissions levels of 1990. And, assuming science doesn’t discover a way to heat our homes using some free and widely available commodity (say, Internet porn), lower emissions means a lot less electricity.

Imagine your house today, filled with electronic devices and wide-screen TVs, operating on the same amount of electricity you used in 1990. Now add five more power strips and imagine it again.

The only way to get carbon dioxide levels that low is to get rid of lots of people or lots of jobs. So unless the greenies plan to fling themselves off cliffs en masse, we’re going to have to scale back how much wealth we generate. A thumbnail assumption is that Kyoto will cost 5 percent of the GDP. And 5 percent of about 100 million American workers is 5 million (mostly blue collar) people without jobs.

Are you really so confident in our 100-year weather forecasts that you’re willing to fire 5 million Americans now?

By the way, George Will points out that, regardless of how many American jobs we destroy to do the “right” thing, China is scheduled to open a new coal-burning power plant every 10 days.

Is insanity a sign of global warming, too?

[American Patriot]

Al Gore is mad....

as in INSANE. What a fool.

Gore: Nations must take lead in warming
AP on Yahoo ^ | 2/7/07 | Daniel Woolls - ap



MADRID, Spain - Emerging economies such as China are justified in holding back on fighting greenhouse gas emissions until richer polluters like the United States do more to solve the problem, former Vice President Al Gore said Wednesday.


The world's top climate scientists warned in a report last week that global warming was very likely caused by humanity and would last for centuries.
Chinese officials said they would act after industrial countries such as the United States and others make changes themselves, Gore said, addressing a conference in Madrid on global warming.


"They're right in saying that. But we have to act quickly," said Gore, who was nominated last week for a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in drawing attention to global warming.


"China's reaction to the scientific report last week was disappointing, but it was instructive," Gore said.


The United States is the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gas and has refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on curbing such emissions.


President Bush contended that it would slow the U.S. economy intolerably and that it should have required reductions by poorer but fast-growing nations, such as China and India.


Gore narrated an hourlong slide presentation with graphic evidence of global warming: Antarctic ice shelves cracking and collapsing into the sea, before-and-after shots of glaciers reduced to lakes and small patches of ice, and forecasts of heavily populated land masses such as Florida shrinking drastically if glacial meltdown reaches a worst-case scenario and floods the seas.


"Never before has all of civilization been threatened," Gore said. "We have everything we need to save it, with the possible exception of political will. But political will is a renewable resource."

[American Patriot]

Science: The scientific community isn’t as monolithic on global warming as the MSM would have us believe. Interesting side story on that: In my days at NASA I heard quite a lot of talk about global warming, mostly affirming that it’s just the biggest worstest threat ever (and most of that, from astronomers who actually didn’t know much more than the average guy on the street about global warming). But one scientists who until recently was head of a NASA earth science group railed that the NASA PR people were inserting global warming tales into science releases that had nothing to do with global warming. So don’t believe all the hype coming out of the government’s various PR machines, and don’t take one scientist’s word (cough Jim Hansen cough) as though it’s holy writ for all scientists, even within NASA. It’s a large organization, employing thousands of scientists. Climate scientists don’t all agree with each other; some are just better at generating buzz than others. The warming proponents are also getting better at enforcing orthodoxy on the skeptics, via harassment and threats.

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/02/0...-random-links/

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/...ming020507.htm

Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide

Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?

By Timothy Ball
Monday, February 5, 2007
Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was one of the first Canadian Ph.Ds. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.

What would happen if tomorrow we were told that, after all, the Earth is flat? It would probably be the most important piece of news in the media and would generate a lot of debate. So why is it that when scientists who have studied the Global Warming phenomenon for years say that humans are not the cause nobody listens? Why does no one acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes on?

Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification. For example, Environment Canada brags about spending $3.7 billion in the last five years dealing with climate change almost all on propaganda trying to defend an indefensible scientific position while at the same time closing weather stations and failing to meet legislated pollution targets.

No sensible person seeks conflict, especially with governments, but if we don't pursue the truth, we are lost as individuals and as a society. That is why I insist on saying that there is no evidence that we are, or could ever cause global climate change. And, recently, Yuri A. Izrael, Vice President of the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this statement. So how has the world come to believe that something is wrong?

Maybe for the same reason we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat: a matter of faith. "It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species," wrote Lowell Ponte in 1976.

I was as opposed to the threats of impending doom global cooling engendered as I am to the threats made about Global Warming. Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.

Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.

No doubt passive acceptance yields less stress, fewer personal attacks and makes career progress easier. What I have experienced in my personal life during the last years makes me understand why most people choose not to speak out; job security and fear of reprisals. Even in University, where free speech and challenge to prevailing wisdoms are supposedly encouraged, academics remain silent.

I once received a three page letter that my lawyer defined as libellous, from an academic colleague, saying I had no right to say what I was saying, especially in public lectures. Sadly, my experience is that universities are the most dogmatic and oppressive places in our society. This becomes progressively worse as they receive more and more funding from governments that demand a particular viewpoint.

In another instance, I was accused by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki of being paid by oil companies. That is a lie. Apparently he thinks if the fossil fuel companies pay you have an agenda. So if Greenpeace, Sierra Club or governments pay there is no agenda and only truth and enlightenment?

Personal attacks are difficult and shouldn't occur in a debate in a civilized society. I can only consider them from what they imply. They usually indicate a person or group is losing the debate. In this case, they also indicate how political the entire Global Warming debate has become. Both underline the lack of or even contradictory nature of the evidence.

I am not alone in this journey against the prevalent myth. Several well-known names have also raised their voices. Michael Crichton, the scientist, writer and filmmaker is one of them. In his latest book, "State of Fear" he takes time to explain, often in surprising detail, the flawed science behind Global Warming and other imagined environmental crises.

Another cry in the wildenerness is Richard Lindzen's. He is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT, renowned for his research in dynamic meteorology - especially atmospheric waves. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has held positions at the University of Chicago, Harvard University and MIT. Linzen frequently speaks out against the notion that significant Global Warming is caused by humans. Yet nobody seems to listen.

I think it may be because most people don't understand the scientific method which Thomas Kuhn so skilfully and briefly set out in his book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." A scientist makes certain assumptions and then produces a theory which is only as valid as the assumptions. The theory of Global Warming assumes that CO2 is an atmospheric greenhouse gas and as it increases temperatures rise. It was then theorized that since humans were producing more CO2 than before, the temperature would inevitably rise. The theory was accepted before testing had started, and effectively became a law.

As Lindzen said many years ago: "the consensus was reached before the research had even begun." Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing wisdom is marginalized and called a sceptic, when in fact they are simply being good scientists. This has reached frightening levels with these scientists now being called climate change denier with all the holocaust connotations of that word. The normal scientific method is effectively being thwarted.

Meanwhile, politicians are being listened to, even though most of them have no knowledge or understanding of science, especially the science of climate and climate change. Hence, they are in no position to question a policy on climate change when it threatens the entire planet. Moreover, using fear and creating hysteria makes it very difficult to make calm rational decisions about issues needing attention.

Until you have challenged the prevailing wisdom you have no idea how nasty people can be. Until you have re-examined any issue in an attempt to find out all the information, you cannot know how much misinformation exists in the supposed age of information.

I was greatly influenced several years ago by Aaron Wildavsky's book "Yes, but is it true?" The author taught political science at a New York University and realized how science was being influenced by and apparently misused by politics. He gave his graduate students an assignment to pursue the science behind a policy generated by a highly publicised environmental concern. To his and their surprise they found there was little scientific evidence, consensus and justification for the policy. You only realize the extent to which Wildavsky's findings occur when you ask the question he posed. Wildavsky's students did it in the safety of academia and with the excuse that it was an assignment. I have learned it is a difficult question to ask in the real world, however I firmly believe it is the most important question to ask if we are to advance in the right direction.

Dr. Tim Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (www.nrsp.com), is a Victoria-based environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. He can be reached at letters@canadafreepress.com

[American Patriot]

Global Warming Skeptics Shunned
By Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
February 08, 2007

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.a...20070208c.html

(CNSNews.com) - The political climate isn't good for scientists with dissenting views on global warming, leaving some researchers to fear that honest research could be blackballed in favor of promoting a "consensus" view.

A dispute erupted this week in Oregon, where Gov. Ted Kulongoski is considering firing the state's climatologist George Taylor, who has said human activity isn't the chief cause of global climate change.

That view is not in line with the state policy of Oregon to reduce "greenhouse gases," which are considered by many researchers to be the chief cause of global warming.

And Taylor is not alone.

Although a recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report summary said there is 90 percent confidence that human activity is the main cause of global warming, climatologist are far from unanimous in that view.

"It seems if scientists don't express the views of the political establishment, they will be threatened and that is a discomforting thought," said Alabama state climatologist John Christie, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Christie told Cybercast News Service that while research has not been politicized in his state, he's concerned about others. State climatologists in Virginia and Delaware as well as Oregon have faced scrutiny from state government officials for their views on global warming.

Christie stressed that Taylor and others do not deny that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are problematic to the environment, nor do they deny that global warming exists. Rather, he said, they argue that the matter is not as catastrophic as environmentalists argue.

Environmental groups have argued that global warming skeptics should be ignored or marginalized, but the American Association of State Climatologists urges policymakers to move cautiously when addressing the matter.

"Policy responses to climate variability and change should be flexible and sensible," the AASC says in a policy statement . "The difficulty of prediction and the impossibility of verification of predictions decades into the future are important factors that allow for competing views of the long term climate future."

The policy statement recommends that "policies related to long-term climate not be based on particular predictions, but instead should focus on policy alternatives that make sense for a wide range of plausible climate conditions regardless of future climate."

"Climate is always changing on a variety of time scales and being prepared for the consequences of the variability is a wise policy," it says.

Delaware state climatologist and leading skeptic David R. Legates recently filed a friend of the court brief opposing his state's position in a multi-state lawsuit to force the Bush administration to impose stronger regulations on autos.

The state's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control objected because Delaware has taken the position that changes are needed to curb the risk of rising sea levels.

In Virginia, Gov. Tim Kaine has sought to distance himself from state climatologist and global warming skeptic Patrick Michaels by noting that he is not a gubernatorial appointee.

But Michaels, a professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia, was appointed in 1980 by then-Gov. John N. Dalton (R), according to press reports. Nonetheless, Kaine insists that Michaels is speaking only as a research professor and not on behalf of the state.

There are 47 state climatologists, each recognized by the director of the National Climatic Data Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They are typically professors of a state university.

Former Vice President Al Gore - whose film on climate change "An Inconvenient Truth" has been nominated to win an Oscar for best documentary - is the latest global warming proponent to echo allegations that skeptics are offering money to scientists to debunk global warming claims.

But Christie counters that it's the "alarmist" view that is driven by money.

"Follow the money," he said Wednesday. "To justify their funding, they have to show a huge problem."

There should be room for both sides of the argument, says Jan Curtis, a board member of the state climatologists group who works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Center in Portland, Ore.

"It's a complex issue and we encourage open debate," Curtis said.

He declined to take a position in the global warming debate, but said of the skeptics, "They are concerned about the limited resources and our dependence on foreign fuels. They just believe you don't need the reason of climate change to do common sense things.

"The real issue here is conservation of limited resources as the population grows," Curtis said.

See Also:
Climate Skeptics Now 'Relegated to the Fringe' (Feb. 2, 2007)
Oil Giant Accused of Funding Global Warming 'Disinformation' (Jan. 4, 2007)

Make media inquiries or request an interview with Fred Lucas.

Subscribe to the free CNSNews.com daily E-brief.

E-mail a comment or news tip to Fred Lucas.

Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.

[American Patriot]

Today's Featured Article

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Global Warming Smear
The political campaign to shut up an American think tank.

Friday, February 9, 2007 3:00 p.m. EST

Mark Twain once complained that a lie can make it half way around the world before the truth gets its boots on. That's been the case of late in the climate change debate, as political and media activists attempt to stigmatize anyone who doesn't pay homage to their "scientific consensus."

Last week the London Guardian published a story headlined, "Scientists Offer Cash to Dispute Climate Study." The story alleges that the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative-leaning think tank in Washington, collected contributions from ExxonMobil and then offered climate scholars $10,000 so they could lobby against global warming legislation.

Another newspaper, the British Independent, picked up on the story and claimed: "It has come to light that one of the world's largest oil companies, ExxonMobil, is attempting to bribe scientists to pick holes in the IPCC's assessment." (The IPCC is the United Nations climate-change panel.)

It would be easy to dismiss all this as propaganda from British tabloids, except that a few days ago the "news" crossed the Atlantic where more respectable media outlets, including the Washington Post, are reporting the story in what has become all too typical pack fashion. A CNNMoney.com report offered that "a think tank partly funded by ExxonMobil sent letters to scientists offering them up to $10,000 to critique findings in a major global warming study released Friday which found that global warming was real and likely caused by burning fossil fuels."

Here are the facts as we've been able to collect them. AEI doesn't lobby, didn't offer money to scientists to question global warming, and the money it did pay for climate research didn't come from Exxon.

What AEI did was send a letter to several leading climate scientists asking them to participate in a symposium that would present a "range of policy prescriptions that should be considered for climate change of uncertain dimension." Some of the scholars asked to participate, including Steve Schroeder of Texas A& M, are climatologists who believe that global warming is a major problem.

AEI President Chris DeMuth says, "What the Guardian essentially characterizes as a bribe is the conventional practice of AEI -- and Brookings, Harvard and the University of Manchester -- to pay individuals" for commissioned work. He says that Exxon has contributed less than 1% of AEI's budget over the last decade.

As for Exxon, Lauren Kerr, director of its Washington office, says that "none of us here had ever heard of this AEI climate change project until we read about it in the London newspapers." By the way, commissioning such research is also standard practice at NASA and other government agencies and at liberal groups such as the Pew Charitable Trusts, which have among them spent billions of dollars attempting to link fossil fuels to global warming.

We don't know where the Brits first got this "news," but the leading suspects are the reliable sources at Greenpeace. They have been peddling these allegations for months, and the London newspaper sleuths seem to have swallowed them like pints on a Fleet Street lunch hour.

So, apparently, have several members of the U.S. Senate. Yesterday Senators Bernard Sanders, Patrick Leahy, Dianne Feinstein and John Kerry sent a letter to Mr. DeMuth complaining that "should these reports be accurate," then "it would highlight the extent to which moneyed interests distort honest scientific and public policy discussions. . . . Does your donors' self-interest trump an honest discussion over the well-being of the planet?"

Every member of AEI's board of directors was graciously copied on the missive. We're told the Senators never bothered to contact AEI about the veracity of the reports, and by repeating the distortions, these four Democratic senators, wittingly or not, gave credence to falsehood.

For its part, Exxon appears unwilling to take this smear campaign lying down. Bribery can be a crime, and falsely accusing someone of a crime may well be defamation. A company spokesman says Exxon has written a letter to the Independent demanding a retraction.

One can only conclude from this episode that the environmental left and their political and media supporters now believe it is legitimate to quash debate on climate change and its consequences. This is known as orthodoxy, and, until now, science accepted the legitimacy of challenging it.

[American Patriot]

PROOF of Global Warming!

[American Patriot]

Study finds puzzle in Greenland glacier melt

By Bloomberg | February 9, 2007

The melting of Greenland's glaciers can slow as rapidly as it can accelerate, making the ice's effect on rising sea levels tough to forecast, a study says.

After two glaciers on Greenland's east coast exhibited "dramatic" shrinkage between 2000 and 2005, the rate slowed in 2006, said Ian Howat, a researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle and a study author. He said the size of the ice sheets were able to change in a matter of months.

The findings, published in the journal Science, may affect how researchers view the interaction between rising sea levels and global warming. A recent United Nations report on climate change acknowledged uncertainties over sea-level forecasts due to "limited" understanding of the dynamics of the ice sheets, and didn't include observations made since 2003.

"Before, we thought ice sheets tended to respond on the century- to millennial-scale," Howat said yesterday in a telephone interview. The study, involving the Kangerdlugssuaq and Helheim glaciers, showed "the ice sheets can respond more on the scale of months or even less."

"What's happened is the glaciers retreated back to a point where they could regain some of their footing and are now decreasing the rate at which they're losing mass," Howat said.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

[American Patriot]

No change in political climate

(Ellen Goodman: Global warming deniers are like Holocaust deniers)

Boston Globe ^ | February 9, 2007 | Ellen Goodman

On the day that the latest report on global warming was released, I went out and bought a light bulb. OK, an environmentally friendly, compact fluorescent light bulb.

*snip*

By every measure, the U N 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is "unequivocal." The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get.

I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.

*snip*

Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is goodman@globe.com.

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

[Phil Fiord]

Breaking on Drudge and funny too...

From a flash on www.drudgereport.com

HOUSE HEARING ON 'WARMING OF THE PLANET' CANCELED AFTER SNOW/ICE STORM
HEARING NOTICE
Tue Feb 13 2007 19:31:25 ET

The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building has been postponed due to inclement weather. The hearing is entitled “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?”

The hearing will be rescheduled to a date and time to be announced later.

DC WEATHER REPORT:

Wednesday: Freezing rain in the morning...then a chance of snow in the afternoon. Ice accumulation of less than one quarter of an inch. Highs in the mid 30s. Northwest winds around 20 mph. Chance of precipitation 80 percent.

Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy. Lows around 18. Northwest winds around 20 mph.

[American Patriot]

Rotflmao!!!!!!!!!!

[American Patriot]

From The Sunday Times
February 11, 2007
An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change
Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged

When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.

The small print explains “very likely” as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain’s top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.

Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.

Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter’s billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages. The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.

So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you’re at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it’s confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.

Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.

The Chinese population doubled then, while in Europe the Vikings and cathedral-builders prospered. Fascinating relics of earlier episodes come from the Swiss Alps, with the rediscovery in 2003 of a long-forgotten pass used intermittently whenever the world was warm.

What does the Intergovernmental Panel do with such emphatic evidence for an alternation of warm and cold periods, linked to solar activity and going on long before human industry was a possible factor? Less than nothing. The 2007 Summary for Policymakers boasts of cutting in half a very small contribution by the sun to climate change conceded in a 2001 report.

Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun’s brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.

He saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier.

The only trouble with Svensmark’s idea — apart from its being politically incorrect — was that meteorologists denied that cosmic rays could be involved in cloud formation. After long delays in scraping together the funds for an experiment, Svensmark and his small team at the Danish National Space Center hit the jackpot in the summer of 2005.

In a box of air in the basement, they were able to show that electrons set free by cosmic rays coming through the ceiling stitched together droplets of sulphuric acid and water. These are the building blocks for cloud condensation. But journal after journal declined to publish their report; the discovery finally appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society late last year.

Thanks to having written The Manic Sun, a book about Svensmark’s initial discovery published in 1997, I have been privileged to be on the inside track for reporting his struggles and successes since then. The outcome is a second book, The Chilling Stars, co-authored by the two of us and published next week by Icon books. We are not exaggerating, we believe, when we subtitle it “A new theory of climate change”.

Where does all that leave the impact of greenhouse gases? Their effects are likely to be a good deal less than advertised, but nobody can really say until the implications of the new theory of climate change are more fully worked out.

The reappraisal starts with Antarctica, where those contradictory temperature trends are directly predicted by Svensmark’s scenario, because the snow there is whiter than the cloud-tops. Meanwhile humility in face of Nature’s marvels seems more appropriate than arrogant assertions that we can forecast and even control a climate ruled by the sun and the stars.

The Chilling Stars is published by Icon. It is available for £9.89 including postage from The Sunday Times Books First on 0870 165 8585

[American Patriot]

On Global Warming: Follow the Money Indeed!

Monday, February 12, 2007
By David Asman

It takes a certain kind of gumption to stand up to the status quo.

Folks who challenge the mainstream media and popular culture are subjected to some of the nastiest insults and character assassinations. And such retribution is nowhere more severe than for those who take issue with popular views about global warming.

There are a number of very bright climatologists and meteorologists out there who believe that this century’s warming trend is neither critical nor man made. Now you can agree or disagree with these folks. But you can’t pretend that these folks are crazies or ill informed or just in it for the money. They believe that the models used by the “We’re all going to die!” global warming worriers are far too severe and fail to take enough natural factors into consideration in their climate models. For their audacity to take on the status quo, they have been censured, excoriated and labeled as lackeys for the oil companies.

So who are these folks? Well, it turns out that on the whole they are just a bunch of number-crunching scientists who have been doing their work for years for the love of what they do, rather than the thrill of celebrity status. They include (but are by no means limited to) folks like Oregon State University climatologist George Taylor, Alabama State climatologist John Christy, Colorado State climatologist William Gray and Alabama meteorologist James Spann.

Mr. Spann was particularly upset with the charge that only those with ties to big oil could argue the way he and his colleagues do. In fact, he says, the truth is exactly the opposite: “Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon … 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.” Click here to read the entire blog.

Mr. Spann’s suspicions were born out in a terrific bit of investigative journalism by two of my own colleagues here at FOX News, George Russell and Claudia Rosett. In the course of investigating a high United Nations official, one who has become something of a hero to the global warming worriers, they found that the official’s motivations may not have been entirely altruistic. Click here to read their full report.

Maurice Strong is a founding director of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP), a division of the U.N. that has grown into a bureaucratic monstrosity with an annual budget of $136 million. Mr. Strong left his post at UNEP in the 1970s but kept his ecological credentials and helped organize a 1992 environmental summit in Rio de Janeiro, which become the forerunner of the Kyoto Accords. While Strong has spent a lifetime parlaying his UN contacts into business associations, nowhere has he done so more successfully than with his ecological “credentials.”

Recently Strong has been spending most of his time in China, where he’s been linked, among other things, to planned attempts to market Chinese-made automobiles in North America. But his presence there raises some awkward questions for Russell and Rosett: “For one thing, China, while one of the world’s biggest producers of industrial pollution, has been profiting from the trading of carbon emissions credits – thanks to heavily politicized U.N.-backed environmental deals engineered by Strong in the 1990s.”

Could Mr. Strong be benefiting from deals that he helped put together while he was working at the U.N.? We don’t know. What we do know is that Mr. Strong is now on voluntary leave from the U.N. while questions are sorted out concerning a $1 million check that was passed to him by South Korean businessman Tongsun Park, who was convicted last summer in New York Federal Court of conspiring to bribe U.N. officials on behalf of Baghdad.

Now the Maurice Strong story, however it sorts itself out, is not to say that all or even most of the heroes in the global-warming-worriers network are spreading the message just to get rich. I’m sure that they are mostly good people who believe in their views just as sincerely as those on the opposite side. But the ad hominem charges hurled at global warming skeptics, particularly the charge that they’re just in it for the money, can just as easily be hurled right back at some very prominent proponents of the other side of the debate.

Billions of dollars have been invested so far in studying climate change ($20 billion from the Bush administration alone), and very little of that money has landed in the laps of those outside of the global warming orthodoxy. As weatherman James Spann says: “I would not listen to anyone that is a politician, a journalist, or someone in science who is generating revenue from this issue.” The only problem is that would leave out an enormous number of scientists who have already cashed in on it.

E-mail your comments to observer@foxnews.com

David Asman is the host of "Forbes on FOX" which airs on the FOX News Channel, Saturdays at 11 a.m. ET.

[American Patriot]

Experts question theory on global warming
Hindustan Times ^ | February 12, 2007 | Anil Anand



Some experts have questioned the alarmists theory on global warming leading to shrinkage of Himalayan glaciers. VK Raina, a leading glaciologist and former ADG of GSI is one among them.


He feels that the research on Indian glaciers is negligible. Nothing but the remote sensing data forms the basis of these alarmists observations and not on the spot research.


Raina told the Hindustan Times that out of 9,575 glaciers in India, till date, research has been conducted only on about 50. Nearly 200 years data has shown that nothing abnormal has occurred in any of these glaciers.
It is simple. The issue of glacial retreat is being sensationalised by a few individuals, the septuagenarian Raina claimed. Throwing a gauntlet to the alarmist, he said the issue should be debated threadbare before drawing a conclusion.


"Claims of global warming causing glacial melt in the Himalayas are based on wrong assumptions," Raina, a trained mountaineer and skiing expert ...
His views were echoed by Dr RK Ganjoo, Director, Regional Centre for Field Operations and Research on Himalayan Glaciology, who is supervising study of glaciers in Ladakh region including one in the Siachen area. He also maintained that nothing abnormal has been found in any of the Himalyan glaciers studied so far by him.


Another leading geologist MN Koul of Jammu University, who is actively engaged in studying glacier dynamics in J&K and Himachal holds similar views. Referring to his research on Kol glacier ( Paddar, J&K) and Naradu (HP), he said both the glaciers have not changed much in the past two decades.


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

[American Patriot]

Lawmakers Cancel Global Warming Hearing as Mammoth Snowstorm Heads East
Fox News ^ | Wednesday, February 14, 2007 | Not listed / AP



Snow-laden western New York braced for another wintery onslaught Wednesday as storms closed schools, menaced motorists and knocked out power in communities from the Midwest to the Northeast. The storms were blamed for at least one death in Ohio.


New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer activated elements of the state Army National Guard to assist in removing the massive amounts of snow in Oswego County on Lake Ontario and to prepare for other missions as needed.


Last Thursday, the governor declared a state disaster emergency for Oswego County and other areas battered by lake-effect snows since Feb. 2.
.............


U.S. House lawmakers canceled a morning subcommittee meeting on global warming as the mammoth snowstorm that has caused chaos across the Midwest headed east. The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing entitled "Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?" will be rescheduled at a later time, the committee announced.


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

[American Patriot]

Giuliani criticizes Gore for not going far enough on Global Warming
Pajamas Media ^ | February 13, 2007 | Bill Bradley



Pajamas Media’s Bill Bradley has been following Rudy Giuliani on the hustings in California. (Bill will be similarly covering John McCain and Hillary Clinton on their trips to the Golden State in coming weeks).



Here, at a press conference in the Silicon Valley, Giuliani responds to a press question about Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth and discusses the global warming issue in general.



Link to Video Excerpt of Giuliani Press Conference on 2/12/2007: Giuliani criticizes Gore for not going far enough on Global Warming (by not offering solutions)

[American Patriot]

Global Warming and Pseudo-Science (Hawaii)
Hawaii Reporter ^ | 2/13/2007 1:06:24 PM | Michael R. Fox Ph.D.

The forces related to the current global warming debate swirl with political agendas, even on the international scale. As it has evolved global warming has become much more of a political issue than a scientific one. Global warming is badly muddled featuring the exaggerations of the media, Hollywood, and Al Gore would do anything for the environment except take a science course. As a result the media, Hollywood, and Al Gore have not done well in their “science” movies.

The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been a major power behind much of this, and as we have learned the UN crawls with anti American sentiments. As such it hasn’t performed science very well either. It has been aided, abetted, and misrepresented by the US media, Hollywood, state and federal elected officials, and many environmental organizations.

The global warming “catastrophe” promoted by this movement uses the same template as in years past: manipulating public opinion, scaring the uninformed public, and creating a movement that will help implement their political agenda. Many of these issues have origins in science, statistics, statistical significance, cause and effect, advanced mathematics, quantification, leaving a non-scientific frightened public extremely vulnerable to manipulation of science. Pseudoscience is still not science.

For the politically active this has been extremely useful in promoting destructive political agendas for decades as the world-wide DDT ban followed by the preventable deaths of millions. The 3-step template has been used for years by the environmental movement to manipulate pubic opinion. The first step is to identify a looming catastrophe, the second is to identify the cause, and the third, propose a solution---usually by eliminating the targeted cause.

Mass fear, hysteria, and pseudoscience are essential in converting such issues into a mass movement and political action. To frighten the masses the media have performed heroically in this and are complicit in manufacturing mass hysteria. After all the media for the majority of people is the only source of information they have had since graduation, and are deemed trustworthy by too many. The media, largely untrained in hardball science, betray the public repeatedly and remorselessly.

If one wants to know if the climate is warming ask for the temperature data, not pictures of glaciers calving, not pictures of polar bears frolicking on ice bergs, not movies of tidal waves roaring through downtown Manhattan. Show me the T data, and lots of such data, world wide data, since it varies from place to place.

Consider some of the pillars of the global warming hypothesis. First, there was the “hockeystick”, a graphic reconstruction by the IPCC of the past 1000 years of global temperatures. According to this chart the global temperature trend was unchanged for 1000 years until the beginning of the 20th century when it showed temperatures were increasing dramatically to the present. This chart was featured in the 2001 IPCC report entitled Climate Change 2001 Third Annual Report, as a compelling and urgent sign that such a warming trend was ominous and needed to be reversed.

Later analyses of the “hockeystick” chart showed that it was not a reproduction of actual temperature data for this period, but instead a computer reconstruction of many sources of 1000 years of temperature data from proxies, such as tree rings. The “hockeystick” was shown to be seriously flawed in its data reconstruction. Although gravely flawed the “hockeystick” was a major statistical pillar of the IPCC Third Annual Report (TAR). It omitted the Little Age Warming centered around 1000 AD. It omitted the Little Ice Age centered around 1550 and lasting until the 1800s.

According to insiders the latest IPCC report will not include the hockeystick at all and it won’t be made public for several more months. Honest scientists would have explained why this is being done, and would apologize to the world and the scientific community for introducing it in the first place. This is only one of several acts of strange and unscientific behavior by the IPCC.

Global temperatures

According to the IPCC the global temperature has risen 0.6 deg C + 0.2 deg C over the past 140 years (http://tinyurl.com/2vt3ep). This is about 1 deg F. This is not a very big number and no cause for alarm. Much of this increase occurred before 1940 when atmospheric CO2 concentrations were lower. There was a cooling period from 1940 to about 1975, during a period when CO2 emissions were much greater. The rest of the 0.6 deg C warming has occurred since 1975. All of this indicates that the relationship between CO2 emissions and global warming is complex, apparently quite weak, and probably not global, if it exists at all. For the record according to Dr. Art Robinson there has never been a single experiment which shows that mankind has had an effect on global temperatures.

For example the temperature records and the South Pole show that the temperature has been declining at the Amundsen-Scott Base for the past 50 years (http://tinyurl.com/y6cyso) while the CO2 air concentrations have increased. We should also doubt that mankind has been the cause of such cooling either.

There are many uncertainties in understanding our climate not the least of which has been the actual measurement of temperature. These uncertainties require caution in whatever conclusions are attempted. The IPCC itself has said “There are uncertainties in the annual data due to data gaps, random instrumental errors and uncertainties, uncertainties in bias corrections in the ocean surface temperature data and also in adjustments for urbanization over the land. Over both the last 140 years and 100 years, the best estimate is that the global average surface temperature has increased by 0.6 ±0.2°C." (http://tinyurl.com/2v4vpb). Thus the estimate of 0.6 deg C warming is itself suspect because of the uncertainties in measuring global temperatures. It is only an estimate and well beyond direct measurement and verification with accurate gauges.

Thanks to the great literature work by Fred Singer and Denis Avery we now know that in the past 1 million years there have been 600 warming periods. The CO2 concentrations have varied as well during this time. However, the maximum temperatures usually occurred 600-800 years before the maximum of the atmospheric CO2. This calls into question the true relationship between CO2 and global temperatures. Is there such a relationship and what is it? The Sun remains the primary suspect driving these climate forcing functions.

Global Warming on Mars

There also appears to be a warming trend taking place on Mars as deposits of ice and solid CO2 (known on earth as dry ice) shrink towards the Martian South Pole (http://tinyurl.com/56lom) and here (http://tinyurl.com/2fj6as). Obviously, the one thing in common with the Earth and Mars is our sun varying in its energy output. There are no man-made sources of CO2 on Mars, nor were there significant man-made sources of CO2 on Earth 1 million years ago.

There have also been about 20 ice ages in the last 2 million years ((http://tinyurl.com/yxqn42). The Vostok Ice core from Antarctica goes back in time 420,000 years. Since that time they found have that there have been 5 interglacial periods including the present one we are in. (http://tinyurl.com/yxqn42). The temperatures in those interglacial periods were all warmer than the current interglacial period by about 2 deg. C. Today’s temperatures simply are not that unusual when placed in historical context.

Sea Water Temperatures

We are told that the sea temperatures are rising and that more severe hurricanes are on their way. We were told that more hurricanes would hit the US in 2006, none did. As with so many other issues in climate factors our climate system is very complex and poorly understood.

To claim a mastery of climate understanding, let alone claim pending doom, and let alone propose legislation to alter the climate, is simply not science.

Thus the situations with sea water temperatures are also complex and poorly understood, and vary noticeably around the world. In a recent article (http://tinyurl.com/ytrvgw) we have learned that the ocean temperatures have cooled since 2003 to a depth of 750 meters (more than 2400 feet), possibly deeper.

This is a significant heat loss in the oceans which was discovered by better temperature collection equipment, and improved data analyses of past temperature measurements. The actual causes of sea water temperature fluctuations are not well known, but since sea water contains 1000 times more energy than the atmosphere, we’d do well to understand it better and minimize errors in measuring it.

For policy makers to make Draconian energy policy solutions based on such poor understanding is more than a fool’s errand, it is in fact dangerous for our nation.

Sea levels

We have seen the alarmist stories of rapid sea levels rising 20 feet or 200 feet, tidal waves smashing into New York City and islands being submerged. Actual sea level data from around the world tell a more mundane, if not boring story.

According to climatologist Robert Balling the sea level has been rising a modest 1.8 mm/yr for the past 8000 years, perhaps longer. We’d expect this after emerging from thousands of years in a deep ice age.

This is has been affirmed by Holgate and Woodworth who report a 1.45mm/yr rise from 1954 to 2003 (http://tinyurl.com/2tq9rb). Their study also found that;

1. The earth had NOT warmed to a degree that is unprecedented over many millennia;

2. The warming had NOT resulted in an accelerated melting of the vast majority of the world's mountain glaciers and polar ice caps, and

3. Global sea level had NOT risen at an ever increasing rate. The real-world data-based results of Holgate and others clearly suggest that all of these claims are likely to be false. (http://tinyurl.com/3yjxmr) and here (http://tinyurl.com/2tq9rb).

For those who worry about sea levels keep in mind that sea levels have been rising and falling for millions of years. In the Hawaiian Islands there is clear evidence of past sea levels both meters above and below the current sea level.

Antarctic Ice Sheet

Finally, there is growing evidence that the Antarctic Ice Sheet is growing, not melting, as many have convinced themselves. See (http://tinyurl.com/ymcq6d) and here (http://tinyurl.com/2tq9rb).

The global warmers themselves are in deep denial that there are hundreds of scientific articles produced by hundreds of scientists who are questioning if not refuting their hysterical screams of alarm.

While the global warmers like to say there is a small minority of skeptics who don’t accept the majority view, there is in fact a huge body of literature which does not support the global warmers.

While it is permissible to suppress, ignore, adverse testimony in the courtrooms of the land, and to attack/discredit adverse witnesses, it is most assuredly not permissible in science.

We must distinguish between science and such unprofessional lawyerly tactics. Such courtroom tactics in science is scientific malpractice. The data must settle the disputes, not willful deception.

Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., is retired and living in Kaneohe. He has nearly 40 years experience in the energy field. He has also taught chemistry and energy at the University level. His interest in the communications of science has led to several communications awards, hundreds of speeches, and many appearances on television and talk shows. He can be reached via email at mailto:foxm011@hawaii.rr.com

[American Patriot]

The Good Greenhouse
ScienceNOW Daily News ^ | 8 February 2007 | Phil Berardelli

Carbon dioxide has received quite a bit of bad press recently because of its connection with atmospheric warming. But in another epoch, the gas might have prevented Earth from plunging into a permanent deep freeze, according to a new study. During its first billion years, Earth was a hellish place. Nearly constant volcanic eruptions pumped out huge amounts of lava, gas, and dust.

Despite all this heat, however, Earth eventually cooled significantly and seemed destined for a fate similar to that of Mars, with temperatures falling well below 0 degrees Celsius. This big chill would have locked the planet's water into permanent ice caps and probably precluded the emergence of life.

The reason: Back then, the sun was 25% to 30% dimmer than it is now, and less solar energy reached our planet. Yet Earth's average temperature somehow managed to remain above 0 degrees Celsius and allowed oceans to form in a phenomenon called "the faint young sun paradox."

Scientists have long suspected that atmospheric CO2 was the key to that paradox. But now a team of researchers claims to have found conclusive data in ancient sedimentary rocks discovered by Canadian geologists in 2001 in northern Quebec. The rocks are at least 3.77 billion years old, according to chemical dating tests, the researchers found, and contain iron carbonates. "The only way to make those carbonates in a marine environment was in an atmosphere that was loaded with CO2," says geologist Stephen Mojzsis of the University of Colorado in Boulder. In the 28 February issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Mojzsis and colleagues conclude, based on the composition of the rocks, that the CO2 content of early Earth's atmosphere was at least 1000 times higher than it is today--the byproduct of volcanic activity. That much CO2 would have gone a long way toward preserving the planet's heat, the scientists say.

The remaining wild card in the process is how much methane ancient volcanoes expelled, because methane also would have contributed to the warming, Mojzsis says. That answer will require further testing, he says, "to see if there's a methane signal in the rocks."

The iron carbonate found in the Quebec rocks strongly suggests a high CO2 content in early Earth's atmosphere that would have caused substantial warming and confirms the existence of liquid water, enough to produce seas from which the rocks precipitated, says geoscientist Jim Kasting of Pennsylvania State University in State College. "It's hard to see otherwise," he adds. Regarding the role of methane, Kasting says it probably did help to elevate Earth's temperature, but to a lesser extent than CO2. "If there was too much methane (in the atmosphere), it would have created a haze and counteracted the greenhouse effect," he says.

[American Patriot]

Tibetan shepherds welcome climate change
By Richard Spencer at the Karo-la Pass in Tibet
Last Updated: 1:52am GMT 15/02/2007



Global warming is melting the snows and glaciers — and the peasant farmers of the Tibetan plateau are delighted.





Crossing a snowless mountain path by yak near Yamdrok-so Lake

While much of the world worries about the impact of climate change, for these hardy Himalayan shepherds, battling the elements in the world's highest mountains, a gentler climate can only be good news.

"Yes, it's definitely getting warmer," said Tsawang Dumi, 56, a Tibetan shepherd watching over a flock of 60 sheep and goats amid the winter snows of a Himalayan hillside. "Fewer animals died of the cold this winter."

Mr Tsawang lives on the side of the 23,600ft massif of Nozing Kangtsang, between the Tibetan capital Lhasa and Mount Everest to the south.

The glacier that falls from its peak has shrunk by nine per cent in recent years. "I have heard of global warming, though I don't really understand what it means," said Tashi, 30, another shepherd, watching his sheep lower down the mountainside.

"But you can see there is less snow on the mountains. In the old days, all those rocks would be covered. I don't have to take my sheep so far away from the mountain in lambing season now."

While global warming makes their tough lives a little easier, the changes unfolding around these farmers have triggered warnings from scientists, alarmed the Chinese government, and spread a panic worldwide which has affected even American politics.

Tibet's 46,000 glaciers — permanent fields of ice that feed some of Asia's biggest rivers and supply water to the biggest concentrations of humanity on the globe — are shrinking fast. "The Tibetan plateau needs our attention," said Professor Liu Shiyin, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who has monitored the glaciers' decline.

In some areas, average loss has been well in excess of 10 per cent since measurements began in the 1960s and 70s. The United Nations Development Programme has published even more dramatic figures, saying the plateau's glaciers could have almost entirely disappeared by the end of the century.

As average temperatures continue to rise, 50 square miles are lost each year.


"As the catastrophe unfolds, China is under threat," the UNDP's human development report said at the end of last year. "The 300 million farmers in China's arid western region are likely to see a decline in the volume of water flowing from the glaciers."

The winter in Tibet has been freakishly warm, with monks this week strolling round the monasteries of Lhasa — altitude over 12,000ft — with bare arms warmed by the afternoon sun.

In Qamdo, Eastern Tibet, the mercury hit a record 71 degrees Fahrenheit on the first Friday in January.

Like the melting ice-caps of the North and South Poles, the Tibetan plateau is an indicator of the worldwide effects of climate change. Al Gore, the former American vice-president, used its fate in his campaigning documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, which is credited with changing attitudes in the US towards greater action on the issue.

But the big melt is more than just a marker of global change. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, which sustain much of China's population, rise on the plateau. So do rivers such as the Mekong, the Salween, and the Brahmaputra which flow into south and south-east Asia.

In September a joint Indian-Chinese research team will survey the remote mountains and monitor the sources of the Sutlej and Brahmaputra rivers — an indication of the international repercussions for water supplies.

"The melting of the ice sheets and the glaciers is a crisis in the Himalayas," H.P.S. Ahluwalia, who runs the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, said in announcing the project.

Present-day consequences are uncertain. In some areas, precipitation is increasing, meaning more snows in winter are swelling glaciers in some parts of the plateau. But they are in a minority. In the meantime, the melting of the plateau's permafrost is already thought to be turning its expansive grasslands into semi-desert where they meet the vast expanses of the Gobi and the Taklamaken.

But as he surveys the dazzling peaks surrounding him and counts his flock, it is hard to persuade Mr Tsawang that this is a problem. "Things are getting better and better," he said. So far this year I have only lost seven sheep."