Climate Change Study Of Scientific Consensus

[Guest Sundancefisher]

90 million years ago we had a way higher concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. The Earth's response? Grow big everything. Big trees and super giant dinosaurs. There is no doubt in my mind...to some degree...the will use the CO2 like it always does. To grow plants to in turn feed animals. As we are animals...this bodes well to an increased food supply. Those higher CO2 levels in the past did not kill the dinosaurs...but rather made everything stronger with more food.

 

IMHO

 

Cheers

 

Sun

 

 

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Cleaning The Atmosphere Of Carbon: African Forests Out Of Balance

ScienceDaily (Mar. 2, 2009)

 

Tropical forests hold more living biomass than any other terrestrial ecosystem. A new report in the journal Nature by Lewis et al. shows that not only do trees in intact African tropical forests hold a lot of carbon, they hold more carbon now than they did 40 years ago--a hopeful sign that tropical forests could help to mitigate global warming.

 

In a companion article, Helene Muller-Landau, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, says that understanding the causes of this African forest carbon sink and projecting its future is anything but straightforward.

 

Growing trees absorb carbon. Dead, decomposing trees release carbon. Researchers expect growth and death to approximately balance each other out in mature, undisturbed forests, and thus for total tree carbon stocks, the carbon held by the trees, to remain approximately constant. Yet Lewis and colleagues discovered that on average each hectare (100 x 100 meters, or 2.2 acres) of apparently mature, undisturbed African forest was increasing in tree carbon stocks by an amount equal to the weight of a small car each year. Previous studies have shown that Amazonian forests also take up carbon, although at somewhat lower rates.

 

"If you assume that these forests should be in equilibrium, then the best way to explain why trees are growing bigger is anthropogenic global change – the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could essentially be acting as fertilizer." says Muller-Landau, "But it's also possible that tropical forests are still growing back following past clearing or fire or other disturbance. Given increasing evidence that tropical forests have a long history of human occupation, recovery from past disturbance is almost certainly part of the reason these forests are taking up carbon today."

 

Muller-Landau, who directs a project to monitor carbon budgets in forest study sites worldwide as part of the Smithsonian's Center for Tropical Forest Science and the HSBC Climate Partnership, advises that this newfound sink shouldn't be taken for granted, or presumed to continue indefinitely. "While we still can't explain exactly what is behind this carbon sink, one thing we know for sure is that it can't be a sink forever. Trees and forests just can't keep getting bigger. Tropical forests are buying us a bit more time right now, but we can't count on them to continue to offset our carbon emissions in the future."

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/...90219105322.htm

 

 

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Eating less meat won’t curb climate change: study

 

Agence France-Presse

Published: Monday, March 22, 2010

 

A new study says eating less meat will not help curb climate change

 

WASHINGTON - Eating less meat will not reduce global warming, and reports that claim it will are distracting society from finding real ways to beat climate change, a leading air quality expert said on Monday.

 

"We certainly can reduce our greenhouse gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk," Frank Mitloehner, an air quality expert at the University of California-Davis, said as he presented a report on meat-eating and climate change at a conference of the American Chemical Society in California.

 

Blaming cows and pigs for climate change is scientifically inaccurate, said Mr. Mitloehner, dismissing several reports, including one issued in 2006 by the United Nations, which he said overstate the role that livestock play in global warming.

 

The UN report "Livestock's Long Shadow," which said livestock cause more anthropogenic greenhouse gases than all global transportation combined, merely distract from the real issues involved in climate change and are a distraction in the quest for true solutions to global warming, Mr. Mitloehner said.

 

The notion that eating less meat will help to combat climate change has spawned campaigns for "meatless Mondays" and a European campaign launched late last year, called "Less Meat Less Heat."

 

Former Beatle Paul McCartney, one of the world's best-known vegetarians, was a driving force behind "Less Meat Less Heat."

 

"[Mr.] McCartney and others seem to be well-intentioned but not well-schooled in the complex relationships among human activities, animal digestion, food production and atmospheric chemistry," Mr. Mitloehner said.

 

"Smarter animal farming, not less farming, will equal less heat," Mr. Mitloehner said.

 

"Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries."

 

Developing countries "should adopt more efficient, Western-style farming practices, to make more food with less greenhouse gas production," Mr. Mitloehner added.

 

Rather than focusing on producing and eating less meat, Mr. Mitloehner said developed countries "should focus on cutting our use of oil and coal for electricity, heating and vehicle fuels."

 

In the United States, transportation creates an estimated 26% of all greenhouse gas emissions, whereas raising cattle and pigs for food accounts for about 3%, he said.

 

The UN report, issued in 2006, said global livestock rearing was responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions measured in carbon dioxide equivalents. The UN report said that was more than the greenhouse gases produced by transport.

 

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2712011

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

UN body to look at meat and climate link

By Richard Black

Environment correspondent, BBC News

 

 

 

Livestock's Long Shadow calculated meat-related emissions from field to abattoir

 

 

UN specialists are to look again at the contribution of meat production to climate change, after claims that an earlier report exaggerated the link.

 

A 2006 report concluded meat production was responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions - more than transport.

 

The report has been cited by people campaigning for a more vegetable-based diet, including Sir Paul McCartney.

 

But a new analysis, presented at a major US science meeting, says the transport comparison was flawed.

 

Sir Paul was one of the figures launching a campaign late last year centred on the slogan "Less meat = less heat".

 

But curbing meat production and consumption would be less beneficial for the climate than has been claimed, said Frank Mitloehner from the University of California at Davis (UCD).

 

"Smarter animal farming, not less farming, will equal less heat," he told delegates to the American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting in San Francisco.

 

"Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries."

 

Leading figures in the climate change establishment, such as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chairman Rajendra Pachauri and Lord (Nicholas) Stern, have also quoted the 18% figure as a reason why people should consider eating less meat.

 

Apples and pears

 

The 2006 report - Livestock's Long Shadow, published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) - reached the figure by totting up all greenhouse-gas emissions associated with meat production from farm to table, including fertiliser production, land clearance, methane emissions from the animals' digestion, and vehicle use on farms.

 

But Dr Mitloehner pointed out that the authors had not calculated transport emissions in the same way, instead just using the IPCC's figure, which only included fossil fuel burning.

 

"This lopsided 'analysis' is a classical apples-and-oranges analogy that truly confused the issue," he said.

 

One of the authors of Livestock's Long Shadow, FAO livestock policy officer Pierre Gerber, told BBC News he accepted Dr Mitloehner's criticism.

 

"I must say honestly that he has a point - we factored in everything for meat emissions, and we didn't do the same thing with transport, we just used the figure from the IPCC," he said.

 

"But on the rest of the report, I don't think it was really challenged."

 

FAO is now working on a much more comprehensive analysis of emissions from food production, he said.

 

It should be complete by the end of the year, and should allow comparisons between diets, including meat and those that are exclusively vegetarian.

 

Different pies

 

Organisations use different methods for apportioning emissions between sectors of the economy.

 

In an attempt to capture everything associated with meat production, the FAO team included contributions, for example, from transport and deforestation.

 

By comparison, the IPCC's methodology collects all emissions from deforestation into a separate pool, whether the trees are removed for farming or for some other reason; and does the same thing for transport.

 

This is one of the reasons why the 18% figure appears remarkably high to some observers.

 

The majority of the meat-related emissions come from land clearance and from methane emissions associated with the animals' digestion.

 

Other academics have also argued that meat is a necessary source of protein in some societies with small food resources, and that in the drylands of East Africa or around the Arctic where crop plants cannot survive, a meat-based diet is the only option.

 

Dr Mitloehner contends that in developed societies such as the US - where transport emissions account for about 26% of the national total, compared with 3% for pig- and cattle-rearing - meat is the wrong target in efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

 

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8583308.stm

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/0...rming/?hpt=Sbin

[Guest Sundancefisher]

El Niño's Last Hurrah?

 

ScienceDaily (Mar. 24, 2010)

El Niño 2009-2010 just keeps hanging in there.

 

Recent sea-level height data from the NASA/European Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 oceanography satellite show that a large-scale, sustained weakening of trade winds in the western and central equatorial Pacific during late-January through February has triggered yet another strong, eastward-moving wave of warm water, known as a Kelvin wave.

 

Now in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, this warm wave appears as the large area of higher-than-normal sea surface heights (warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures) between 150 degrees west and 100 degrees west longitude. A series of similar, weaker events that began in June 2009 initially triggered and has sustained the present El Niño condition.

 

JPL oceanographer Bill Patzert says it's too soon to know for sure, but he would not be surprised if this latest and largest Kelvin wave is the "last hurrah" for this long-lasting El Niño.

 

Patzert explained, "Since June 2009, this El Niño has waxed and waned, impacting many global weather events. I,and many other scientists, expect the current El Niño to leave the stage sometime soon. What comes next is not yet clear, but a return to El Niño's dry sibling, La Niña, is certainly a possibility, though by no means a certainty. We'll be monitoring conditions closely over the coming weeks and months."

 

An El Niño also causes unusual changes in atmospheric circulation and convection around the globe. JPL's Microwave Limb Sounder instrument on NASA's Aura spacecraft captured a large eastward shift of deep convection from the current El Niño, indicated by large amounts of cloud ice in the upper troposphere.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/...00324135708.htm

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

People will read this and say wow...more proof. Yet my first thought is that the land in question could be sinking through compaction of fluvial sediment deposits or simple erosion from current and storms and human occupation. Seems like some people can show this story is bogus propaganda. I will be curiously watching to see if anyone comes out and get the counter argument published. I will have a contrary argument below this article.

 

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Island claimed by India and Bangladesh sinks below waves

 

New Moore in the Sunderbans falls victim to rising sea levels caused by global warming

 

Associated Press

guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday 24 March 2010 14.01 GMT

 

Island claimed by India and Bangladesh sinks below waves

 

New Moore in the Sunderbans falls victim to rising sea levels caused by global warming

 

For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island has gone.

 

New Moore island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Kolkata. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.

 

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.

 

Scientists at the school of oceanographic studies at the university have noted an alarming increase in the rate at which sea levels have risen over the past decade in the Bay of Bengal.

 

Until 2000, the sea levels rose about 3mm (0.12 inches) a year, but over the last decade they have been rising about 5mm annually, he said. Another nearby island, Lohachara, was submerged in 1996, forcing its inhabitants to move to the mainland, while almost half the land of Ghoramara island was underwater, he said. At least 10 other islands in the area were at risk as well, Hazra added.

 

"We will have ever larger numbers of people displaced from the Sunderbans as more island areas come under water," he said.

 

Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 150 million people, is one of the countries worst affected by global warming. Officials estimate 18% of Bangladesh's coastal area will be underwater and 20 million people will be displaced if sea levels rise one metre by 2050 as projected by some climate models.

 

India and Bangladesh both claimed the empty New Moore Island, which is about two miles long and 1.5 miles wide. Bangladesh referred to the island as South Talpatti.

 

There were no permanent structures on New Moore, but India sent some paramilitary soldiers to its rocky shores in 1981 to hoist its national flag.

 

The demarcation of the maritime boundary – and who controls the remaining islands – remains an open issue between the two south Asian neighbours, and the disappearance of the island does nothing to resolve it, said an official in India's foreign ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on international disputes.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/cif-green/...desh-sea-levels

 

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http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...24100749AAsBDAL

 

 

Open Question

 

Do you want to know the truth about New Moore island and global warming?

.

You may have read about a small rock in the Sunderban Islands being submerged by rising sea levels caused by global warming.

 

Whilst the rock has gone, to say that it was global warming that did it is unscientific nonsense as even the global warming websites acknowledge: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/12/…

 

QUOTE -

 

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"So sea level rise was just one of the factors. And sea level rise can also be caused by land sinking as well as the ocean rising. I found a scientific paper on the topic by Gopinath and Seralathan in Environmental Geology. (Yes, the same journal that published Khilyuk and Chilingar's tripe.)

 

Gopinath and Seralathan studied Sagar island which is just 1 km from where Lohachara used to be, so their conclusions apply to Lohachara as well. They found that reduced flows in the river were causing sediments to be deposited further upstream instead of replacing erosion at Sagar island. Furthermore, the major cause of the relative sea level rise which made for more erosion, was land subsidence, not global warming.

 

So it is wrong to blame Global Warming for the disappearance of Lohachara island. This isn't much comfort for people living on the other islands in the Sundarbans, since Global Warmingis likely to produce significant sea level rises in the future and Lohachara demonstrates that these islands are vulnerable to small rises in sea level."

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- so even the warmist blogs aren't trying to claim this as a result of global warming, only the real extremists are still plugging away with that one.

 

Here's the Times of India - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/… - on the PREVIOUS island there lost to global warming, which is now emerging once more from the sea, proving that it is sediment and erosion not global warming.

 

QUOTE -

 

-----------------------------

KOLKATA: 2007. Kodak Theatre, Hollywood. The list of Oscar presenters includes Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez. Instead of the usual million-dollar goodies, each of them receive a small glass model called the Lohachara sculpture after an island which "in December, 2006, became the first inhabited island to be lost to rising sea levels caused by global warming".

 

A little more than two years later, Lohachara island is emerging again. This was first noticed by Jadavpur University scientists in satellite images. This island in the western part of the Sunderbans it was claimed was the first inhabited one in the world to be inundated because of global warming. Along with this to go under water was the nearby island of Suparibhanga or Bedford, a land mass which was uninhabited, officially.

 

According to Tuhin Ghosh, senior lecturer, School of Oceanographic studies, JU, "Lohachara and Bedford were there in 1975 satellite data. In 1990 pictures, a small portion of Lohachara is visible. There's no sign of Bedford. In a 1995 satellite picture, Lohachara had vanished. But in satellite pictures of 2007, you can see Lohachara coming back... It's a revelation."

 

An on-the-spot survey showed that the vanished islands are indeed emerging. One can walk around on it during low tide and just before high tide, the land mass rises around three feet above the water.

 

The emergence of this island is such a new phenomenon that even many residents of Ghoramara don't know about its existence. "You will find nothing. Lohachara is not there. It has been eaten up by the river," says Arun Pramanik.

 

But hiring a trawler to around one kilometre south-west of Ghoramara gives a different picture. The island is there in front of one's eyes. Says boatman Mukunda Mondal (41), "Yes, the island is emerging. I have noticed it for the past one year. It's clearly visible in winter."

 

Judhisthir Bhuian, now a resident of Jibantala colony on the Sagar island, had his home on the Lohachara. He still goes back to the place where their house once stood. "A huge landmass is coming up, covering Lohachara and Bedford," he says.

 

According to Tuhin Ghosh, it is not unlikely. "The island can reappear because of different geomorphic reasons," says Ghosh, who has worked in the area for around nine years and done his PhD on the Ghoramara island, around a kilometre north of Lohachara. "

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Did you know the truth of the situation?

 

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...0,3895432.story

 

LA times...missed the whole point that they said the island formed AFTER a cyclone. That it is formed in a delta. This is not an island that has been around for thousands of years and just slipped away. It is no different than an island in a sandy river.

 

bunch of bozos...

[Guest Sundancefisher]

 

Forests expert officially complains about 'distorted' Sunday Times article

 

Press Complaints Commission told that newspaper story gives impression that IPCC made false Amazon rainfall claim

 

 

David Adam, environment correspondent

guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday 24 March 2010 14.28 GMT

 

 

Drought near Santarem in Brazil's Amazon state of Para

 

A small boat is trapped in a pond near Santarem, Brazil, after water levels of the Amazon river fell by some two metres. Photograph: Daniel Beltra/Greenpeace

 

A leading scientist has made an official complaint to the Press Complaints Commission over an "inaccurate, misleading and distorted" newspaper story about a supposed mistake made by the UN's panel on global warming.

 

Simon Lewis, an expert on tropical forests at the University of Leeds, says the story, published by the Sunday Times in January, is wrong and should be corrected.

 

He says the story is misleading because it gives the impression that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made a false claim in its 2007 report that reduced rainfall could wipe out up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest. The Sunday Times story was widely followed up across the world, and, in the wake of the discovery of a high-profile blunder by the IPCC over the likely melting of Himalayan glaciers, helped fuel claims that the IPCC was flawed and its conclusions unreliable.

 

Lewis said: "There is currently a war of disinformation about climate change-related science, and my complaint can hopefully let journalists in the front line of this war know that there are potential repercussions if they publish misleading stories. The public deserve careful and accurate science reporting."

 

The Sunday Times piece was originally headlined "UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim", though this was later changed on the website version. It said the 40% destruction figure was based on an "unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise".

 

The IPCC report attributed the claim to a report from campaign group WWF, which contained no reference to back the statement.

 

Lewis said he was contacted by the Sunday Times before the article was published and told them the IPCC's statement was "poorly written and bizarrely referenced, but basically correct". He added that "there is a wealth of scientific evidence suggesting that the Amazon is vulnerable to reductions in rainfall". He also sent the newspaper several scientific papers that supported the claim, but were not cited by that section of the IPCC report.

 

Lewis says in his PCC complaint that he told The Sunday Times "the IPCC statement itself was scientifically defensible and correct, merely that [it used] the incorrect reference... To state otherwise is to materially mislead the reader."

 

Lewis also complains that the Sunday Times used several quotes from him in the piece to support the assertion that the IPCC report had made a false claim. "Despite repeatedly stating to the Sunday Times that there is no problem with the sentence in the IPCC report, except the reference."

 

Lewis said he made the PCC complaint, which runs to 31 pages, only after other attempts to raise his concerns failed. A letter to the Sunday Times, he says, was not acknowledged or printed, and a comment he posted on its website was deleted.

 

"As a professional scientist I have to clear this mess up, it's important to protect my reputation in terms of providing accurate scientific information to the public."

 

The Sunday Times said it that printed two letters in response to the article. It said it was "currently dealing with Simon Lewis's complaint and hope to resolve the issue".

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010...azon-rainforest

 

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still one must realize that these studies are just based upon what if in a computer model this happens. these sorts of studies can not be proven by studying facts. dire predictive studies are all the norm and that is troubling.

 

Sun

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Prescribed Burns May Help Reduce US Carbon Footprint

ScienceDaily (Mar. 18, 2010)

 

The use of prescribed burns to manage Western forests may help the United States reduce its carbon footprint. A new study finds that such burns, often used by forest managers to reduce underbrush and protect bigger trees, release substantially less carbon dioxide emissions than wildfires of the same size.

 

"It appears that prescribed burns can be an important piece of a climate change strategy," says Christine Wiedinmyer, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and lead author of the new study. "If we reintroduce fires into our ecosystems, we may be able to protect larger trees and significantly reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by major wildfires."

 

Drawing on satellite observations and computer models of emissions, the researchers concluded that widespread prescribed burns can reduce fire emissions of carbon dioxide in the West by an average of 18 to 25 percent, and by as much as 60 percent in certain forest systems.

 

Wildfires often destroy large trees that store significant amounts of carbon. Prescribed fires are designed to burn underbrush and small trees, which store less carbon. By clearing out the underbrush, these controlled burns reduce the chances of subsequent high-severity wildfires, thereby protecting large trees and keeping more carbon locked up in the forest.

 

"When fire comes more frequently, it's less severe and causes lower tree mortality," says Matthew Hurteau of Northern Arizona University, the study's co-author. "Fire protects trees by clearing out the fuel that builds up in the forest."

 

The importance of trees

 

Forests have emerged as important factors in climate change. Trees store, or sequester, significant amounts of carbon, thereby helping offset the large amounts of carbon dioxide emitted by factories, motor vehicles, and other sources. When trees burn down or die, much of that carbon is returned to the atmosphere. It can take decades for forest regrowth to sequester the amount of carbon emitted in a single fire.

 

In the western United States, land managers for more than a century have focused on suppressing fires, which has led to comparatively dense forests that store large amounts of carbon. But these forests have become overgrown and vulnerable to large fires. Changes in climate, including hotter and drier weather in summer, are expected to spur increasingly large fires in the future.

 

This could complicate U.S. efforts to comply with agreements on reducing carbon emissions. Such agreements rely, in part, on forest carbon accounting methodologies that call for trees to store carbon for long periods of time. Large carbon releases from wildland fires over the next several decades could influence global climate as well as agreements to reduce emissions.

 

To determine whether prescribed burns would likely affect the carbon balance, the scientists first estimated actual carbon emissions from fires for 11 Western states from 2001 to 2008. They used satellite observations of fires and a sophisticated computer model, developed by Wiedinmyer, that estimates carbon dioxide emissions based on the mass of vegetation burned.

 

Their next step was to estimate the extent of carbon emissions if Western forests, during the same time period, had been subjected to a comprehensive program of prescribed burns. The scientists used maps of vegetation types, focusing on the forest types that are subject to frequent natural fires and, therefore, would be top candidates for prescribed burns. Emissions in the model were based on observations of emissions from prescribed burns of specific types of forests.

 

The results showed that carbon emissions were reduced by anywhere from 37 to 63 percent for the forests that had been subject to prescribed burns, depending on the vegetation mix and location of the forests. Overall, carbon emissions for the 11 Western states were reduced by an annual average of 14 million metric tons. That is the equivalent of about 0.25 percent of annual U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, or slightly more than the annual carbon dioxide emissions from all fossil fuel sources in some less-populated states, such as Rhode Island or South Dakota.

 

The authors cautioned, however, that the actual impacts in the Western states would likely be lower. Their study assumed that prescribed burns could be set in all suitable forests, whereas forest managers in reality would be hard-pressed to set so many fires, especially in remote regions or near developments.

 

New Mexico had the highest average annual reduction (35 percent) because of its forest types, followed by Montana, Arizona, California, and Colorado.

 

The study notes that prescribed burns could lead to additional air quality benefits. Previous research has indicated that such burns could reduce emissions of pollutants such as fine particulate matter and carbon monoxide.

 

"While it can be costly to set controlled fires, there is also a cost in leaving forests vulnerable to larger fires," Wiedinmyer says. "More research can help forest managers make better decisions about our forests and climate change."

 

The study is being published this week in Environmental Science and Technology. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/...00317121352.htm

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Climate change row over the mystery of the shrinking sheep

Scientists have questioned claims that global warming is causing sheep to change size and colour in the latest row to engulf climate change science.

 

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent

Published: 7:00AM BST 07 Apr 2010

 

The theory first emerged a year ago when scientists noticed that wild sheep on the island of St Kilda north of Scotland were getting smaller – despite the fact that according to evolutionary law larger sheep should be more successful.

 

It was also noticed that the Soay sheep were getting lighter as the climate warmed.

 

The idea captured the imagination of the public at a time when people were becoming increasingly concerned about the effects of climate change.

 

But scientists are now saying there is no evidence sheep shrink in a warming climate and are questioning the use of such theories to explain the impacts of global warming.

 

The row comes after a series of scandals rocked the world of climate science. Sceptics claim emails stolen from the University of East Anglia show scientists were willing to manipulate data in a row known as "climategate". United Nations scientists have also been criticised for wrongly claiming the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 in a scandal known as 'glaciergate".

 

In the latest row, which could become known as 'sheepgate', scientists in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters are questioning the theory that climate change causes sheep to change size and colour.

 

Dr Jake Gratten at the University of Sheffield said the darker, larger sheep have a different genetic make up that is more likely to be causing numbers to decrease than any environmental factor.

 

"Given the scrutiny that climate change science is currently under, attributing biological changes to global warming should surely require the highest standards of proof. In this case, there is no evidence that warming climate is responsible for the decline in frequency of dark Soay sheep on St Kilda," he said.

 

But the original author of the theory, Dr Shane Maloney at the University of Western Australia, insisted that dark sheep survive better in the cold because they absorb sunlight, therefore numbers are falling as the temperature warms and they lose their advantage. At the same time smaller sheep are better able to breed and increase in numbers in warmer climes.

 

He said the genetic make up could be an explanation for the change in numbers, but climate change was just as plausible an answer.

 

"The field of climate change science being under close scrutiny should not hinder the free exchange of ideas. We have presented a plausible hypothesis alternative to that of Gratten et al and their recent comments do not persuade us to retract that hypothesis. What we have presented is not a proof. It is an idea, just as a co-assorted QTL of unknown function [genetic make-up] is an idea," he said.

 

"Climate change is plausible as an explanation, but that does not make genetic linkage wrong. And likewise, a genetic linkage is plausible, but that does not make climate change wrong as an explanation."

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environme...king-sheep.html

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

What's the Next 'Global Warming'? Herewith I propose a contest to invent the next panic.

 

By BRET STEPHENS

 

So global warming is dead, nailed into its coffin one devastating disclosure, defection and re-evaluation at a time. Which means that pretty soon we're going to need another apocalyptic scare to take its place.

 

As recently as October, the Guardian reported that scientists at Cambridge had "concluded that the Arctic is now melting at such a rate that it will be largely ice free within ten years." This was supposedly due to global warming. It brought with it the usual lamentations for the grandchildren.

 

But in March came another report in the Guardian, this time based on the research of Japanese scientists, that "much of the record breaking loss of ice in the Arctic ocean in recent years is [due] to the region's swirling winds and is not a direct result of global warming." It also turns out that the extent of Arctic sea ice in March was around the recorded average, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

 

The difference between the two stories has little to do with science: There were plenty of reasons back in October to suspect that the Arctic ice panic—based on data that only goes back to 1979—was as implausible as the now debunked claim about disappearing Himalayan glaciers. But thanks to Climategate and the Copenhagen fiasco, the media are now picking up the kinds of stories they previously thought it easier and wiser to ignore.

 

This is happening internationally. In France, a book titled "L'imposture climatique" is a runaway bestseller: Its author, Claude Allègre, is one of the country's most acclaimed scientists and a former minister of education in a Socialist government. In Britain, environmentalist patron saint James Lovelock now tells the BBC he suspects climate scientists have "[fudged] the data" and that if the planet is going to be saved, "it will save itself, as it always has done." In Germany, the leftish Der Spiegel devotes 15 pages to a deliciously detailed account of "scientists who want to be politicians," the "curious inconsistencies" in the temperature record, the "sloppy work" of the U.N.'s climate-change panel and sundry other sins of modern climatology.

 

As for the United States, Gallup reports that global warming now ranks sixth on the list of Americans' top 10 environmental concerns. My wager is that within a few years "climate change" will exercise global nerves about as much as overpopulation, toxic tampons, nuclear winters, ozone holes, killer bees, low sperm counts, genetically modified foods and mad cows do today.

 

Something is going to have to take its place.

 

The world is now several decades into the era of environmental panic. The subject of the panic changes every few years, but the basic ingredients tend to remain fairly constant. A trend, a hypothesis, an invention or a discovery disturbs the sense of global equilibrium. Often the agent of distress is undetectable to the senses, like a malign spirit. A villain—invariably corporate and right-wing—is identified.

 

Then money begins to flow toward grant-seeking institutions and bureaucracies, which have an interest in raising the level of alarm. Environmentalists counsel their version of virtue, typically some quasi-totalitarian demands on the pattern of human behavior. Politicians assemble expert panels and propose sweeping and expensive legislation. Eventually, the problem vanishes. Few people stop to consider that perhaps it wasn't such a crisis in the first place.

 

This is what's called eschatology—a belief, or psychology, that we are approaching the End Time. Religions have always found a way to take account of those beliefs, but today's secular panics are unmoored by spiritual consolations or valid moral injunctions. Instead, we have the modern-day equivalent of the old Catholic indulgence in the form of carbon credits. It's how Al Gore justifies his utility bills.

 

Given the inescapability of weather, it's no wonder global warming gripped the public mind as long as it did. And there's always some extreme-weather event happening somewhere to be offered as further evidence of impending catastrophe. But even weather gets boring, and so do the people who natter about it incessantly. What this decade requires is a new and better panic.

 

Herewith, then, I propose a readers' contest to invent the next panic. It must involve something ubiquitous, invisible to the naked eye, and preferably mass-produced. And the solution must require taxes, regulation, and other changes to civilization as we know it. The winner gets a beer and a burger, on me, at the 47th street Pig N' Whistle in New York City. (Nachos for vegetarians.) Happy panicking!

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...;s_Most_Popular

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Hopefully they will present all data rather than just select only the few cores that support the global warming theory like the IPCC did.

 

 

*********************************************

Scientists to Unearth Ice Age Secrets from Preserved Tree Rings

 

ScienceDaily (Apr. 6, 2010) — Oxford University is involved in a research project to unearth 30,000 year old climate records, before they are lost forever. The rings of preserved kauri trees, hidden in New Zealand's peat bogs, hold the secret to climate fluctuations spanning back to the end of the last Ice Age.

 

The team, led by Exeter University, has been awarded a grant from the Natural Environment Research Council to carry out carbon dating and other analyses of the kauri tree rings. The trees store an immense amount of information about rapid and extreme climate change in the past. For instance, wide ring widths are associated with cool dry summer conditions. The scientists believe their findings will help us understand what future climate change may bring.

 

Tree rings are now known to be an excellent resource for extracting very precise and detailed data on atmospheric carbon from a particular time period. Therefore this study could help plug a large gap in our knowledge of climate change by extending historical weather records that only date back to the mid-nineteenth century.

 

There is nowhere else in the world with such a rich resource of ancient wood that spans such a large period of time. The ancient kauri logs are of enormous dimensions, up to several metres across, and have the potential to provide new detailed information about rapid, extreme and abrupt climate changes at a time when there was significant human migration throughout the globe.

 

While various records exist for historic climate change, such as those derived from ice cores, there is no easy way of correlating these records. The research will focus on the last 30,000 years, but some trees date back 130,000 years. The period towards the end of the last Ice Age is particularly difficult to understand.

 

This unique archive of kauri trees is likely to be lost within the next ten years because the timber is so highly-prized for furniture, arts and crafts. Kauri (Agathis australis) are conifer trees buried in peat bogs across northern New Zealand. Trees can measure up to four metres wide and live for up to 2,000 years. As well as containing information on past climates, they could also shed light on environmental and archaeological change.

 

Samples from a network of sites with buried trees will be collected in New Zealand and taken back to the UK laboratories for preparation and analysis at Exeter and then radiocarbon measurement at Oxford.

 

Professor Christopher Ramsey, from the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford, said: 'This gives us a unique opportunity to increase our knowledge of the earth's climate and human responses to it at the end of the last Ice Age. The radiocarbon measurements should give us important new data that will help us to understand interactions between the atmosphere and the oceans during this period when there was rapid and dynamic change. Equally exciting is the prospect it will give us of more precise dating of archaeological sites from this period -- illuminating the only window we have onto how humans responded to these major changes in the environment.'

 

Lead researcher Professor Chris Turney of the University of Exeter said: 'We are facing a race against the clock to gather the information locked inside these preserved trees. It is fantastic to have this funding so we are able to gather this information before it is lost forever. While it will be fascinating to find out more about the earth 30,000 years ago perhaps more importantly we will have a better appreciation of the challenges of future climate change.'

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/...00405103837.htm

 

[ironfly]

Be honest, Sundancefisher, you just do a keyword search and post any article you find, sight unseen, right? If you actually read this stuff, you're just as guilty of wearing blinders as you accuse people of.

 

Three times now the government has listened to the anecdotal "evidence" that Polar Bear populations were becoming a problem and raised the quota, only to find that the scientific community had loads of real evidence that these particular subpopulations were in serious decline. Considering that those hunters stand to make about $25,000 for each bear, I rather doubt their testimony. Kind of reminds me of Alberta hunters and the Grizzly. Could there be any explanation for more bear sightings? How about this? The bears are starving, and are moving closer to humans, and the "easy" meals to be found.

 

Retreating sea ice is not directly linked to global warming, but rather swirling winds? The operative word is "directly". What do you think is causing the change in wind patterns?

 

I would go on, but I might write something I regret. Every time I check out this thread, I end up getting angry.

 

Tell me, what are your thoughts on ocean acidification?

[reevesr1]

Interesting article:

 

Fear of Science Will Kill Us

[Guest Sundancefisher]

I would prefer to keep this global warming related rather than polar bear hunting or vaccination based.

 

Junior. There is a wealth of information and many people just not caring enough to do any leg work. Yes I do read what I post. Yes some of it does fall in favor of global warming if you read it...some does not.

 

If you want to start a thread of all think pro global warming. Be my guest. I will read what you post just to be fair.

 

Still...not much substance in any direction.

 

As for saying what causes the wind to change direction...you prove that and you have your meterological career set in stone for life. That is the reason...we can't predict the weather tomorrow or next week with an accuracy that I would stake my life on...or $5.

 

Here is an interesting talk.

 

It was put on for Geologists. I dare you to listen... I think he is pro global warming...

 

http://cspg.insinc.com/cspgtlwebcast-osborn20100309/

 

Cheers

 

Sun

[reevesr1]

Decided to skip it. Going back to "I'm done with this argument" position.

 

 

[bigbowtrout]

I like cake

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Decided to skip it. Going back to "I'm done with this argument" position.

 

Listen to the talk Rick.

 

Contrary to popular opinion...I am not a denier...I am just trying to weed through the bull.

 

This guy actually does a good job. Listen to the end... You won't regret it.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

'No malpractice' by climate unit

 

The row surrounds e-mails hacked from the University of East Anglia

There was no scientific malpractice at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, which was at the centre of the "Climategate" affair.

 

This is according to an independent panel chaired by Lord Oxburgh, which was convened to examine the research published by the unit.

 

It began its review after e-mails from CRU scientists were published online.

 

The panel said it might be helpful if researchers worked more closely with professional statisticians.

 

This would ensure the best methods were used when analysing the complex and often "messy" data on climate, the report said.

 

"We cannot help remarking that it is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians," the panel remarked in its conclusions.

 

The e-mails issue came to light in November last year, when hundreds of messages between CRU scientists and their peers around the world were posted on the world wide web, along with other documents.

 

Critics said that the e-mail exchanges revealed an attempt by the researchers involved to manipulate data.

 

But a recent House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report into the e-mails concluded that the scientists involved had no intention to deceive.

 

And Lord Oxburgh said that he hoped these further "resounding affirmations" of the unit's scientific practice would put those suspicions to bed.

 

He stated: "We found absolutely no evidence of any impropriety whatsoever. That doesn't mean that we agreed with all of their conclusions, but scientists people were doing their jobs honestly."

 

Climate interest

 

The chair has been challenged over his other interests. Lord Oxburgh is currently president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and chairman of wind energy firm Falck Renewables.

 

Critics say clean energy companies would benefit from policies to tackle climate change. But Lord Oxburgh insists the panel did not have a pre-conceived view.

 

The panel included Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society, who had been examining the way CRU used statistical methodology to develop an average annual global temperature.

 

Climate sceptics have argued CRU's statistical methods were inadequate.

 

And Professor Hand pointed out that the translation of "messy data" into clear facts had caused problems.

 

But he said that the CRU were "to be commended for how they dealt with the data," adding that, in their research papers, they were very open about the uncertainty in the numbers.

 

It is straightforward to get a measurement precise in space and time from an individual weather station - albeit with uncertainties attached.

 

But some countries have many weather stations, while others have very few, and there are sizeable areas of the Earth with no surface measurements at all.

 

"Unfortunately," Professor Hand said, "when this research is [republished and] popularised, those caveats tend to be forgotten."

 

The panel noted that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was one of the organisations that had "oversimplified" the CRU data it used in its publications.

 

They said it had neglected to highlight the discrepancy between direct and "proxy" measurements, such as the tree ring data often used to reconstruct past temperature changes.

 

He added that CRU had been "a little naïve" in not working more closely with statisticians.

 

Lord Oxburgh said that undertaking such interdisciplinary work in the future would address the fact that the there "probably there wasn't enough involvement of people outside of the immediate [climatic research] community" in the work undertaken at CRU.

 

UEA's vice chancellor Edward Acton said he welcomed the report.

 

"It is especially important that, despite a deluge of allegations and smears against the CRU, this independent group of utterly reputable scientists have concluded that there was no evidence of any scientific malpractice," he said.

 

Dr Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, criticised the panel for producing a report that was "not even-handed" and appeared to be the product of a "rushed job".

 

He said: "This has produced a very superficial report. The panel should have taken more time to come to more balanced and trustworthy conclusions.

 

"They should have heard evidence from critical researchers who have been working in the same field for many years."

 

But Lord Oxburgh said that the seriousness of the allegations being investigated made it crucial that the panel publish their findings "as quickly as possible".

 

He explained: "We read 11 key [CRU] publications spreading back over 20 years and a large number of others. We then spent 15 person days interviewing the scientists at UEA.

 

"I don't know what more we could have done and we came to a unanimous conclusion."

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8618024.stm

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

'Climategate' scientists criticised for not using best statistical tools

Climate change scientists at the centre of an ongoing row over man-made global warming have been criticised for being "naive" and "disorganised".

 

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent

Published: 1:34PM BST 14 Apr 2010

 

An independent inquiry said the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia was "ill prepared for being the focus of public attention" when sceptics began to question their figures on climate change.

 

As well as taking issue with the researchers' record keeping, the panel of experts said better statistical methods should have been used to interpret the "messy" data on world temperatures.

 

"We found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention," said Lord Oxburgh, an academic and former head of Shell, who conducted the inquiry.

 

However, there was no evidence of "deliberate scientific malpractice", meaning the conclusion that mankind is causing global warming is probably correct.

 

The independent panel said any exaggeration of the extent of global warming was made by other organisations, including public bodies and governments, that took the information produced by academics but failed to inform the public about the uncertainties.

 

Supporters of the scientists said the investigation upheld the science behind global warming and undermined the arguments of critics.

 

The "climategate" scandal erupted after thousands of emails were stolen from the CRU at the end of last year. One email referred to a "trick" to "hide the decline" in global temperatures, prompting claims that scientists were willing to manipulate the data to exaggerate the extent of global warming.

 

The incident led to a public outcry, casting doubt over climate change just as the United Nations was meeting in Copenhagen to try to agree a deal to stop global warming.

 

Lord Oxburgh was asked to look back at 20 years of research by CRU in order to check the scientific methods were sound. In a detailed review of 11 scientific papers he found "absolutely no evidence of any impropriety whatsoever".

 

"Whatever was said in the emails, the basic science seems to have been done honestly and fairly," he said.

 

Lord Oxburgh said any exaggeration of the extent of global warming happened when the data produced by CRU was presented to the public by various organisations, including the UN body in charge of climate change the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that went on to advise Governments around the world. The IPCC has also been criticised for incorrectly claiming the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035.

 

"I am sure that they [public bodies including the IPCC] took the uncertainties into account making policy but in the way some of this has been presented to the public, it has not," he said.

 

The statistical methods used by the scientists could also have been improved, according to the panel.

 

Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society and a member of the review panel, said improved techniques developed by computers over recent years could have been used.

 

"I think that CRU perhaps did not use the most advanced statistical tools. But it's not clear to me that that, had they done, that they would have drawn different conclusions," he said.

 

However Professor Hand did say that "inappropriate methods" were used by a separate university to draw up the infamous "hockey stick" graph showing the rise in global temperatures over more than 1,000 years.

 

Again, he said the basic shape of the graph would not have been changed but the rise in temperature during the 20th century compared to the past was exaggerated.

 

Overall Prof Hand said the scientists at CRU were to be commended for making clear there are uncertainties in the extent of global warming – although that does not change the overall trend.

 

"There is no evidence of anything underhand – the opposite, if anything, they have brought out into the open the uncertainties with what they are dealing with," he said.

 

Edward Acton, Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, said the report was a great relief to the individuals involved including the head of the CRU at the time Prof Phil Jones.

 

"This has been a horrendous experience for Phil Hones and a turbulent time for CRU," he said. "We have had months of vilification against our most precious asset of scientific integrity which, as this report confirms yet again, was totally unjustified."

 

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science, called for an apology from the sceptics.

 

"I think those so-called sceptics who have attempted to undermine the credibility of climate change science on the basis of the hacked emails now need to apologise for misleading the public about their significance.”

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environme...ical-tools.html

 

[Swede]

I don't know if its just weather cycles or global warming. But winters are a joke compared to when I was younger. We don't get even a fraction of the snow we use to get. Winters are much warmer now, sure we might get a week or so of 35 below. I remember working a 2 week shift north of Zama city it never warmed up above 50 below. The coldest day was 57 below with winds that made it feel like 100 below, worst night of my life by far. That whole month it was 40 below or colder. Anyways winters were a F---k of alot colder and a ton more snow than we have now.

 

Also in my life Ive noticed a lot of high country streams I fish don't carry anywhere near as much water as they did. Some actually shock me when I think back. My sister has a farm on the shore of a lake, oh wait the lake is 1/2 mile away now.

 

To me it's a lot warmer now than it was, sure it could be just a cycle in our weather or there could be some truth to global warming. I think its pretty naive to think that we're not affecting our weather.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

I don't know if its just weather cycles or global warming. But winters are a joke compared to when I was younger. We don't get even a fraction of the snow we use to get. Winters are much warmer now, sure we might get a week or so of 35 below. I remember working a 2 week shift north of Zama city it never warmed up above 50 below. The coldest day was 57 below with winds that made it feel like 100 below , worst night of my life by far. That whole month it was 40 below or colder. Anyways winters were a F---k of alot colder and a ton more snow than we have now.

Also in my life Ive noticed a lot of high country streams I fish don't carry anywhere near as much water as they did. Some actually shock me when I think back. My sister has a farm on the shore of a lake, oh wait the lake is 1/2 mile away now

 

To me its a lot warmer now than it was , sure it could be just a cycle in our weather or there could be some truth to global warming. I think its pretty naive to think that where not affecting our weather.

 

We can never use just our lifetimes as a basis for defining global warming. The Earth has warmed and cooled repeatedly via cycles that are poorly understood for the last billion or so years. The current question revolves around wondering if the current warming cycle...which stopped in 1998 was natural or man made and if man made or influenced was that in whole or in part.

 

Very few people will say the Earth has not warmed...regardless of which side of the debate they are on. I agree with the geologist forum speaker insofar as emotions now make up a large portion of the debate and facts have been manipulated and truths stretched on either side to the point many like myself find it hard to believe either way.

 

If you want to look to our weather...the mountains, play a part but general consensus is that El Nino ocean currents have a huge impact on our climate. When it is around, we are warmer and drier like now. When it is gone...we are cooler and wetter like the olden days you remember. The El Nino current has been surprisingly present and strong for many, many years. Is that a natural ocean cycle...or man made. I don't think we are capable of saying anything along the lines of climate change other than pure best guesses based upon a very limited ability to understand the complex relationship in the climate world.

 

Still...I was flyfishing over 2 weeks earlier this year than last. That is good. Question is what will happen over the next 100 years or 1000 years?

 

Cheers

 

Sun

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Low solar activity link to cold UK winters

By Mark Kinver

Science and environment reporter, BBC News

 

A period of low solar activity could lead to more cold winters in the UK

 

 

The 'Big Freeze' explained

The UK and continental Europe could be gripped by more frequent cold winters in the future as a result of low solar activity, say researchers.

 

They identified a link between fewer sunspots and atmospheric conditions that "block" warm, westerly winds reaching Europe during winter months.

 

But they added that the phenomenon only affected a limited region and would not alter the overall global warming trend.

 

The findings appear in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

 

"By recent standards, we have just had what could be called a very cold winter and I wanted to see if this was just another coincidence or statistically robust," said lead author Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading, UK.

 

To examine whether there was a link, Professor Lockwood and his co-authors compared past levels of solar activity with the Central England Temperature (CET) record, which is the world's longest continuous instrumental record of such data.

 

The researchers used the 351-year CET record because it provided data that went back to the beginning of the Maunder Minimum, a prolonged period of very low activity on the Sun that lasted about half a century.

 

The Maunder Minimum occurred in the latter half of the 17th Century - a period when Europe experienced a series of harsh winters, which has been dubbed by some as the Little Ice Age. Following this, there was a gradual increase in solar activity that lasted 300 years.

 

Professor Lockwood explained that studies of activity on the Sun, which provides data stretching back over 9,000 years, showed that it tended to "ramp up quite slowly over about a 300-year period, then drop quite quickly over about a 100-year period".

 

He said the present decline started in 1985 and was currently about "half way back to a Maunder Minimum condition".

 

This allowed the team to compare recent years with what happened in the late 1600s.

 

"We found that you could accommodate both the Maunder Minimum and the last few years into the same framework," he told BBC News.

 

Big chill

 

Professor Lockwood said that there were a number of possibilities that could explain the link, but the team favoured the idea of a meteorological phenomenon known as "blocking".

 

This affects the dynamics of jet streams, which are very strong winds about 7-12km above the Earth's surface that can have a major influence on weather systems. There is one jet stream present in each hemisphere.

 

"Europe is particularly susceptible because, firstly, it lies underneath the (northern hemisphere's) jet stream," he explained.

 

A "blocking" occurs when the jet stream forms an "s" shape over the north-eastern Atlantic, causing the wind to fold back over itself.

 

"If you haven't got blocking, then the jet stream brings the mild, wet westerly winds to give us the weather we are famous for."

 

But, he added, if the jet stream is "blocked", and pushed further northwards, then cold, dry winds from the east flow over Europe, resulting in a sharp fall in temperatures.

 

"This... 'blocking' does seem to be one of the things that can be modulated by solar activity," he said.

 

Recent studies suggest that when solar activity is low, "blocking" events move eastwards from above north-eastern North America towards Europe, and become more stable.

 

A prolonged "blocking" during the most recent winter was responsible for the long spell of freezing conditions that gripped Europe.

 

Written observations from the period of the Maunder Minimum referred to the wind coming from the east during particularly cold winters, which strengthened the team's "blocking" hypothesis.

 

The way in which solar activity affects the behaviour of blocking episodes is linked to the amount of ultraviolet (UV) emissions being produced by the Sun.

 

Solar UV heats the stratosphere (20-50km above the surface), particularly the equatorial stratosphere. This results in a temperature gradient, which leads to the formation of high level winds.

 

"The change in solar activity undoubtedly changes the stratospheric winds," said Professor Lockwood.

 

Studies have shown that the state of the stratosphere can make a considerable difference to what happens in the troposphere, which is where the jet stream occurs, Professor Lockwood explained.

 

"There has been some quite simple modelling that indicated that heating the equatorial stratosphere with more UV would actually move the jet streams a little bit, by just a few degrees.

 

"That, of course, has the potential to change the behaviour of the jet streams - and that is the sort of thing that we think we are seeing."

 

'Blocking central'

 

Professor Lockwood was keen to stress that "blocking" only affected a limited geographical region, and would not have a widespread impact on the global climate system.

 

To illustrate the point, he said that while the CET record showed that this winter was the UK's 14th coldest in 160 years, global figures listed it as the fifth warmest.

 

He said that one of his colleagues at the University of Reading referred to Europe as "blocking central".

 

"The reason is largely because the jet stream has to come to us over the Atlantic Ocean and it is slowed down when it hits the land in Europe.

 

"You don't quite have the same combination of circumstances anywhere else in the world that gives you such strong blocking."

 

While the current decline in solar activity is expected to continue in the coming decades, he cautioned that more frequent "blocking" episodes would not result in Europe being plunged into sub-zero temperatures every winter.

 

"If we look at the last period of very low solar activity at the end of the 17th Century, we find the coldest winter on record in 1684, but the very next year - when solar activity was still low - saw third warmest winter in the entire 350-year (CET) record."

 

A number of other meteorological factors also influenced the weather systems over Europe, so a number of parameters had to be met before a "blocking" occurred, he observed.

 

Responding to the team's findings, Dr Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the UK Met Office, said: "This paper provides some additional evidence that what happens in the stratosphere could be important for climate at the surface."

 

But he added: "The findings are suggestive of a possible effect but more research is needed to pin down the mechanisms and determine how significant such effects could be for determining the probability of cold winters in the UK.

 

"At the Met Office, we are already working on research into incorporating better representation of the stratosphere into our seasonal and decadal forecasting models."

 

Professor Lockwood said he now planned to examine the influence of low solar activity on European weather during the summer months.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8615789.stm

 

 

[Swede]

THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN. Period. They can guess, they can try to extrapolate with historical records, or use computer models. But they don't know. If you're a reasonable person you should want to improve how clean our energy is no matter what. We should want to become more efficient no matter what. We shouldn't need a bunch of jackasses changing their course every 10 years trying to scare us into it. And that's exactly what they've done. Every ten years it goes from warming to cooling and they always say there were right. We should become more ecofriendly because it's the intelligent thing to do, not because Al Gore says if we don't the world will end. politics of fear.

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Could Iceland's Volcano Slow Global Warming?

Apr 16 2010, 12:31 PM ET

 

Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano has been erupting for nearly a month, but it wasn't until clouds of ash halted air traffic in Europe this week that the eruption drew global attention. The volcano could continue erupting for months on end -- the last time it blew, in 1821, the eruption lasted for two years -- so climatologists are questioning whether the volcano will have a cooling effect on the earth's climate.

 

When volcanoes erupt, they release sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, where the gas transforms into sulfuric acid droplets, also known as aerosols, which reflect sunlight. Historically, large volcanic eruptions have caused discernible global cooling. When Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it emitted 17 million tons of sulfur dioxide that caused a 0.5-0.6°C drop in the Northern Hemisphere's temperature. Mexico's Mount Chichon eruption in 1982 also had a demonstrable cooling effect.

 

Advocates of geoengineering, or manipulating climatic elements in order to slow climate change, have suggested mimicking this cooling effect by spewing sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. One of the flaws in their argument, in addition to the need for an 18-mile-long vertical hose, is that sulfur dioxide is not all fun and cooling games. The gas also causes acid rain and wears away the ozone layer, a key barrier to the sun's rays.

 

At this point, scientists think Iceland's eruption is too small to cause cooling -- notwithstanding the massive disruptions it is causing to air travel in northern Europe. If Eyjafjallajokull continues to spew gas into the atmosphere, though, that could change. The eruption is already ten times more powerful than a different Icelandic one last month, and the ash cloud extends seven miles into the stratosphere -- so at least the sunsets are cool.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive...-warming/39066/

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

One of the hardest things for me is looking at that Projected Global Temperature Increase graph and seeing that firstly the ranges don't make from present to the future projections and that future projections are so variable. Looking at the worst case projection it makes we want to jump on board. Problem is not a single projection has come in to date on the mid to high end. Always on the low end. Then you look at the low and think...hey...maybe this is just a natural global temperature ossilation cycle?

 

Still...Mrs Little...you have to worry about the sky...don't you?

 

Sun

 

 

******************************************

Wednesday, 21 April 2010 20:17 UK

 

'Paltry' Copenhagen carbon pledges point to 3C world

By Richard Black

Environment correspondent, BBC News

 

 

Pledges made at December's UN summit in Copenhagen are unlikely to keep global warming below 2C, a study concludes.

 

Writing in the journal Nature, analysts at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research in Germany say a rise of at least 3C by 2100 is likely.

 

The team also says many countries, including EU members and China, have pledged slower carbon curbs than they have been achieving anyway.

 

They say a new global deal is needed if deeper cuts are to materialise.

 

"There's a big mismatch between the ambitious goal, which is 2C... and the emissions reductions," said Potsdam's Malte Meinshausen.

 

"The pledged emissions reductions are in most cases very unambitious," he told BBC News.

 

In their Nature article, the team uses stronger language, describing the pledges as "paltry".

 

"The prospects for limiting global warming to 2C - or even to 1.5C, as more than 100 nations demand - are in dire peril," they conclude.

 

Between now and 2020, global emissions are likely to rise by 10-20%, they calculate, and the chances of passing 3C by 2100 are greater than 50%.

 

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this implies a range of serious impacts for the world, including

 

significant falls in crop yields across most of the world

damage to most coral reefs

likely disruption to water supplies for hundreds of millions of people.

 

More than 120 countries have now associated themselves with the Copenhagen Accord, the political document stitched together on the summit's final day by a small group of countries led by the US and the BASIC bloc of Brazil, China, India and South Africa.

 

The accord "recognises" the 2C target as indicated by science. It was also backed at last year's G8 summit.

 

Many of those 120-odd have said what they are prepared to do to constrain their greenhouse gas emissions - either pledging cuts by 2020, in the case of industrialised countries, or promising to improve their "carbon intensity" in the case of developing nations.

 

Some of the pledges are little more than vague statements of intent. But all developed countries, and the developing world's major emitters, have all given firm figures or ranges of figures.

 

The EU, for example, pledges to cut emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020; China promises to improve carbon intensity by 40-45% by 2020 compared against 2005; and Australia vows an emission cut of 5-25% on 2000 levels by 2020.

 

The Potsdam team concludes that many of the detailed pledges are nowhere near as ambitious as their proponents would claim.

 

They calculate that the EU's 20% pledge implies an annual cut of 0.45% between 2010 and 2020, whereas it is already achieving annual reductions larger than that.

 

EUROPE'S 'AMBITIOUS' CARBON CUTS

 

The Potsdam team calculates that the EU's emissions have fallen on average by 0.6% per year since 1980

During 2009, emissions from the bloc's power sector alone fell by 11% owing to the recession

Consequently, the current 20% by 2020 pledge equates to 0.45% per year - less than the historical average

 

 

China's 40% minimum pledge also amounts to nothing more than business as usual, they relate; and among developed countries, only pledges by Norway and Japan fall into the 25-40% by 2020 range that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommends as necessary to give a good chance of meeting the 2C target.

 

Hot air

 

Whereas many countries, rich and poor, have indicated they are willing to be more ambitious if there is a binding global deal, the Potsdam team notes that in the absence of a global deal, only the least ambitious end of their range can be counted upon.

 

Writing in the BBC's Green Room this week, Bryony Worthington from the campaign group Sandbag argues that the EU can easily move to its alternative higher figure of 30% - and that it must, if it wants to stimulate others to cut deeper.

 

"Many countries are looking to Europe to show how it is possible to achieve growth without increasing emissions," she said.

 

"Only when they see that this is possible will they be inclined to adopt absolute reduction targets of their own."

 

An additional factor flagged up in the analysis is that many countries have accrued surplus emissions credits under the Kyoto Protocol.

 

Countries such as Russia and other former Eastern bloc nations comfortably exceeded their Kyoto targets owing to the collapse of Communist economies in the early 1990s.

 

Without a binding global agreement preventing the practice, these nations would be allowed to put these "banked" credits towards meeting any future targets - meaning they would have to reduce actual emissions less than they promised.

 

These "hot air" credits could also be traded between nations.

 

Stern words

 

This is not the first analysis of the Copenhagen Accord pledges, but it is one of the starkest.

 

Lord Stern's team at the Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change and the Environment in London has also run the figures; and although their conclusions on the numbers are similar, they do not see things in quite such a pessimistic light.

 

"You cannot characterise an emissions path for a country or the world by focusing solely on the level in 2020 or any other particular date," said the institute's principal research fellow Alex Bowen.

 

"It is the whole path that matters, and if more action is taken now to reduce emissions, less action will be required later, and vice versa."

 

The Potsdam team acknowledges that if emissions do rise as they project, it would still be possible to have a reasonable chance of meeting 2C if very strict carbon curbs were applied thereafter, bringing emissions down by 5% per year or so.

 

"In an ideal world, if you pull off every possible emission reduction from the year 2021 onwards, you can still get to get to 2C if you're lucky," said Dr Meinshausen.

 

"But it is like racing towards the cliff and hoping you stop just before it."

 

They argue that positive analyses may "lull decision-makers into a false sense of security".

 

The UN climate process continues through this year, with many countries saying they still want to reach a binding global agreement by December.

 

But stark divisions remain between various blocs over emission cuts, finance, technology transfer and other issues; and it is far from certain that all important countries want anything more binding than the current set of voluntary national commitments.

 

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8635765.stm

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Global Temperatures Push March 2010 to Hottest March on Record

 

ScienceDaily (Apr. 21, 2010) — The world's combined global land and ocean surface temperature made last month the warmest March on record, according to NOAA. Taken separately, average ocean temperatures were the warmest for any March and the global land surface was the fourth warmest for any March on record. Additionally, the planet has seen the fourth warmest January -- March period on record.

 

The monthly National Climatic Data Center analysis, which is based on records going back to 1880, is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides government, business and community leaders so they can make informed decisions.

 

* The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for March 2010 was the warmest on record at 56.3°F (13.5°C), which is 1.39°F (0.77°C) above the 20th century average of 54.9°F (12.7°C).

 

* The worldwide ocean surface temperature was the highest for any March on record --1.01°F (0.56°C) above the 20th century average of 60.7°F (15.9°C).

* Separately, the global land surface temperature was 2.45°F (1.36°C) above the 20th century average of 40.8 °F (5.0°C) -- the fourth warmest on record. Warmer-than-normal conditions dominated the globe, especially in northern Africa, South Asia and Canada. Cooler-than-normal regions included Mongolia and eastern Russia, northern and western Europe, Mexico, northern Australia, western Alaska and the southeastern United States.

* El Niño weakened to moderate strength in March, but it contributed significantly to the warmth in the tropical belt and the overall ocean temperature. According to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, El Niño is expected to continue its influence in the Northern Hemisphere at least through the spring.

* For the year-to-date, the combined global land- and ocean-surface temperature of 55.3°F (13.0°C) was the fourth warmest for a January-March period. This value is 1.19°F (0.66°C) above the 20th century average.

* According to the Beijing Climate Center, Tibet experienced its second warmest March since historical records began in 1951. Delhi, India also had its second warmest March since records began in 1901, according to the India Meteorological Department.

 

Other Highlights

 

* Arctic sea ice covered an average of 5.8 million square miles (15.1 million square kilometers) during March. This is 4.1 percent below the 1979-2000 average expanse, and the fifth-smallest March coverage since records began in 1979. Ice coverage traditionally reaches its maximum in March, and this was the 17th consecutive March with below-average Arctic sea ice coverage. This year the Arctic sea ice reached its maximum size on March 31st, the latest date for the maximum Arctic sea ice extent since satellite records began in 1979.

* Antarctic sea ice expanse in March was 6.9 percent below the 1979-2000 average, resulting in the eighth smallest March ice coverage on record.

* In China, the Xinjiang province had its wettest March since records began in 1951, while Jilin and Shanghai had their second wettest March on record. Meanwhile, Guangxi and Hainan provinces in southern China experienced their driest March on record, according to the Beijing Climate Center.

* Many locations across Ontario, Canada received no snow, or traces of snow, in March, which set new low snowfall records, according to Environment Canada.

 

Scientists, researchers, and leaders in government and industry use NOAA's monthly reports to help track trends and other changes in the world's climate. This climate service has a wide range of practical uses, from helping farmers know what and when to plant, to guiding resource managers with critical decisions about water, energy and other vital assets.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/...00420225712.htm

 

1. Why talk about a 1979-2000 average instead of 1979 to 2008 average? What happens if to the numbers if you include more recent data?

2. Why comment about local snowfall lows but not say others had highs? El Nino is also not mentioned that this weather fact causes these issues also

3. Also why talk about glacier areas shrinking with no mention about mass increases or decreases. Scientists know that there could be cycles of thickening before expansion.

4. Also 1991's major volcanic event could of left a lot of ash on glaciers...any idea if this is a cause? India has proven that coal and ash from fires and industry is actually falling out on the Himalayas and causing melting.

 

IMHO

 

Sun