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Some reading for the “anti-warmalists” and “climate-change deniers”

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robman
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« Reply #200 on: July 13, 2012, 06:02:33 pm »

I wonder if they factored in the 3m of uplift from the next quake. I just shake my head and grin whenever another one of these flights of fancy gets printed.
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« Reply #201 on: July 13, 2012, 06:50:59 pm »

Quote
The research was done by National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research scientists.

Wernt these the guys that moved their Karori weather station to a new location, thus giving global warming figures a boost?
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« Reply #202 on: July 20, 2012, 07:25:53 pm »


Greenland glacier loses ice

Greenland glacier loses ice island twice the size of Manhattan

By TRACY BRYANT - University of Delaware | 7:51pm - Monday, July 16, 2012

Petermann Glacier connects the Greenland ice sheet to the Arctic Ocean. The vast flat expanse stretching into the background is Petermann Glacier, well over one-third of which has now broken off. — Photo: David Riedel, British Columbia.
Petermann Glacier connects the Greenland ice sheet to the Arctic Ocean. The vast flat expanse stretching
into the background is Petermann Glacier, well over one-third of which has now broken off.
 — Photo: David Riedel, British Columbia.


AN ICE ISLAND twice the size of Manhattan has broken off from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier, according to researchers at the University of Delaware and the Canadian Ice Service. The Petermann Glacier is one of the two largest glaciers left in Greenland connecting the great Greenland ice sheet with the ocean via a floating ice shelf.

Andreas Muenchow, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering in University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, reports the calving on July 16, 2012, in his “Icy Seas” blog. Muenchow credits Trudy Wohleben of the Canadian Ice Service for first noticing the fracture.

The discovery was confirmed by reprocessing data taken by MODIS, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites.

At 46 square miles (120 square km), this latest ice island is about half the size of the mega-calving that occurred from the same glacier two years ago. The 2010 chunk, also reported by Muenchow, was four times the size of Manhattan.

“While the size is not as spectacular as it was in 2010, the fact that it follows so closely to the 2010 event brings the glacier’s terminus to a location where it has not been for at least 150 years,” Muenchow says.

“The Greenland ice sheet as a whole is shrinking, melting and reducing in size as the result of globally changing air and ocean temperatures and associated changes in circulation patterns in both the ocean and atmosphere,” he notes.

Muenchow points out that the air around northern Greenland and Ellesmere Island has warmed by about 0.11 +/- 0.025 degrees Celsius per year since 1987.

“Northwest Greenland and northeast Canada are warming more than five times faster than the rest of the world,” Muenchow says, “but the observed warming is not proof that the diminishing ice shelf is caused by this, because air temperatures have little effect on this glacier; ocean temperatures do, and our ocean temperature time series are only five to eight years long — too short to establish a robust warming signal.”

The ocean and sea ice observing array that Muenchow and his research team installed in 2003 with U.S. National Science Foundation support in Nares Strait, the deep channel between Greenland and Canada, has recorded data from 2003 to 2009.


The Canadian Coast Guard Service vessel Henry Larsen is shown at the entrance of Petermann Fjord. The glacier in the background is a tiny, tiny side arm that feeds into Petermann Glacier. There are hundreds of these, University of Delaware's Andreas Muenchow says. — Photo: Helen Johnson, Oxford University.
The Canadian Coast Guard Service vessel Henry Larsen is shown at the entrance of Petermann Fjord.
The glacier in the background is a tiny, tiny side arm that feeds into Petermann Glacier.
There are hundreds of these, University of Delaware's Andreas Muenchow says.
 — Photo: Helen Johnson, Oxford University.


The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Henry Larsen is scheduled to travel to Nares Strait and Petermann Fjord later this summer to recover moorings placed by UD in 2009. These mooring data, if recovered, will provide scientists with ocean current, temperature, salinity and ice thickness data at better than hourly intervals from 2009 through 2012. The period includes the passage of the 2010 ice island directly over the instruments.

According to Muenchow, this newest ice island will follow the path of the 2010 ice island, providing a slow-moving floating taxi for polar bears, seals and other marine life until it enters Nares Strait, the deep channel between northern Greenland and Canada, where it likely will get broken up.

“This is definitely déjà vu,” Muenchow says. “The first large pieces of the 2010 calving arrived last summer on the shores of Newfoundland, but there are still many large pieces scattered all along eastern Canada from Lancaster Sound in the high Arctic to Labrador to the south.”

Prior to 2010, the last time such a sizable ice island was born in the region was 50 years ago. In 1962, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, on the northern coast of Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada, calved a 230-square-mile island.


http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2013/jul/glacier-071612.html
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« Reply #203 on: July 20, 2012, 07:56:04 pm »


Cracking up: Greenland’s glacier loss ‘disturbing’

By SETH BORENSTEIN - Associated Press Science Writer | 6:54pm - Wednesday, July 18, 2012

This satellite image from Monday shows a calving, crescent-shaped crack on the Petermann Glacier in northwestern Greenland. — NASA/Associated Press.
This satellite image from Monday shows a calving, crescent-shaped crack on the
Petermann Glacier in northwestern Greenland. — NASA/Associated Press.


WASHINGTON — An iceberg twice the size of Manhattan tore off one of Greenland’s largest glaciers, illustrating another dramatic change to the warming island.

For several years, scientists had been watching a long crack near the tip of the northerly Petermann Glacier. On Monday, NASA satellites showed it had broken completely, freeing an iceberg measuring 46 square miles.

A massive ice sheet covers about four-fifths of Greenland. Petermann Glacier is mostly on land, but a segment sticks out over water like a frozen tongue, and that’s where the break occurred.

The same glacier spawned an iceberg twice that size two years ago. Together, the breaks made a large change that’s got the attention of researchers.

“It’s dramatic. It’s disturbing,” said University of Delaware professor Andreas Muenchow, who was one of the first researchers to notice the break. “We have data for 150 years, and we see changes that we have not seen before.

“It’s one of the manifestations that Greenland is changing very fast,” he said.


These 2010 and 2012 images show the formation of a crack in northwestern Greenland’s Petermann Glacier. On Monday, a 46-square-mile iceberg tore off Petermann, which had spawned an iceberg twice that size in 2010. — NASA, University of Delaware/Associated Press.
These 2010 and 2012 images show the formation of a crack in northwestern Greenland’s Petermann Glacier. On Monday,
a 46-square-mile iceberg tore off Petermann, which had spawned an iceberg twice that size in 2010.
 — NASA, University of Delaware/Associated Press.


Researchers suspect global warming is to blame but can’t prove it conclusively yet. Glaciers calve icebergs naturally, but what’s happened in the last three years to Petermann is unprecedented, Muenchow and other scientists say.

“This is not part of natural variations anymore,” said NASA glaciologist Eric Rignot, who camped on Petermann 10 years ago.

Ohio State University ice scientist Ian Howat said there is still a chance it could be normal calving, like losing a fingernail that has grown too long, but any further loss would show it’s not natural.

“We’re still in the phase of scratching our heads and figuring out how big a deal this really is,” Howatt said.

Many of Greenland’s southern glaciers have been melting at an unusually rapid pace. The Petermann break brings large ice loss much farther north than in the past, said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder.

If it continues, and more of the Petermann is lost, the melting would push up sea levels, he said. The ice lost so far already was floating, so the breaks don’t add to global sea levels.

Northern Greenland and Canada have been warming five times faster than the average global temperature, Muenchow said. Temperatures have increased there by about four degrees Fahrenheit in the last 30 years, Scambos said.

The new iceberg is likely to follow the path of the one in 2010, Muenchow said.

That iceberg broke apart into smaller icebergs headed north, then west and last year started landing in Newfoundland, he said.

It’s more than glaciers in Greenland that are melting. Scientists also reported this week that the Arctic had the largest sea ice loss on record for June.


http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20120719/NEWS06/707199982/Cracking-up:-Greenland’s-glacier-loss-‘disturbing’
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« Reply #204 on: July 20, 2012, 07:56:26 pm »


Wellington's climate shows warming trend

By JIM SALINGER - The Dominion Post | 7:04AM - Friday, 20 July 2012

Wellington's climate records show a warming trend. — Professor Jim Salinger.
Wellington's climate records show a warming trend. — Professor Jim Salinger.

CLIMATE SCIENTISTS want to monitor how climate is changing and global warming progressing.

How they do this is particularly relevant as this week the New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust is trying to persuade a judge in the High Court at Auckland to invalidate New Zealand's temperature records that have been compiled and collected by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and the former government agencies.

The coalition asserts the only way NIWA can claim a warming trend of one degree Celsius over the past century is through the use of inaccurate data.

Scientists are very interested in tracking climate as human factors will be the dominant influence on climate this century, save a meteor crashing into the planet. They are interested in adjusting the readings as though they are taken from one location in an area.

Wellington has one of the longest and best climate records of any region in New Zealand. This is why climate scientists carefully adjust temperature records.

When Sir James Hector, director of the Colonial Museum in Wellington in the 1860s, established a network to monitor New Zealand's weather and climate, the primary stations were established for weather forecasting, so the priority on permanency of location of a climate monitoring site for climate change was lower.

However, we are indebted to Sir James's Scottish heritage, as in setting up the network he bought precision thermometers which were housed in Stevenson screens to ensure consistency. Observations were taken under standard conditions, in his words "rigorous".

This has given us a legacy of climate monitoring under rigorously enforced methods with very reliable observations from the 19th century, the envy of many countries.

Climate scientists, in constructing a climate record over the past 150 years for Wellington, have to adjust the measurements taken for several reasons. The climate record has been taken from not one but five sites. The various sites are in the area of Wellington city. These sites have different temperature characteristics and may be cooler or warmer than other sites because of factors such as different elevation above sea level, or urban buildup. By adjusting temperature series, changes that are caused by climate, rather than the changes in site or environment, can be monitored.

THE diagram shows the record of mean temperature at the five sites: Knowles Observatory, halfway between the harbour and Tinakori hills; the Government Astronomical Observatory on a hill in the Bolton Street cemetery; Buckle Street; the Thorndon Esplanade; and then the current one at the top of the Botanic Gardens at Kelburn, 125 metres above sea level. This is the highest, and coolest, of all the Wellington city long-term climate recording sites.

To obtain a consistent record to monitor global warming locally, adjustments are made so that the readings reflect those at the current site.

To make these changes climate data are rigorously checked for any obvious errors. Adjustments are made by comparing a period of overlap between the old and new site, and comparing climate data before and after the site change with other neighbouring climate stations.

By these means adjustments to the mean temperature have been calculated for the Wellington sites. All earlier sites are warmer than the current well-ventilated Kelburn site by as much as 1C because they are much lower in altitude.

It is from Wellington's adjusted long-term record that true climate trends can be obtained. The long-term record from Wellington city thus calculated shows that there is year-to-year variability which can be as much as 1.5°C between years.

However, there is an overall clear trend with Wellington mean annual temperatures by 2011 1.3°C warmer than in the early 1860s.

This has been noticeable in the ability of gardeners to now grow frost-sensitive plants in warmer parts of Wellington. Both the shorter climate series from the single sites at Palmerston North and Westport show extremely similar trends and variations, with mean annual temperature increases of about 0.8°C from the 1930s to 2011.

Long-term monitoring is essential to detect small but significant changes in climate. As records are taken from several sites in a locality these require adjustments to reflect the true climate trends.

Wellington's temperature readings have been carefully adjusted with each site change to provide a consistent and reliable long-term record.

The excellent climate record from Wellington shows a clear warming trend over the past 150 years.


Jim Salinger is a visiting professor at Stanford University.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/7311522/Wellingtons-climate-shows-warming-trend
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« Reply #205 on: July 20, 2012, 08:43:21 pm »

Sorry - I switched off when I saw Jim Salingers name.
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« Reply #206 on: July 20, 2012, 09:32:06 pm »

Sorry - I switched off when I saw Jim Salingers name.
Ditto..
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« Reply #207 on: August 02, 2012, 12:05:53 pm »

Another nail for the warmalists coffin.  Like their hocky stick, the figures they rely on and the predictions made with them that have failed to materialise.................

http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7400061/Climate-change-science-tackled
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« Reply #208 on: August 02, 2012, 01:42:19 pm »

Another nail for the warmalists coffin.  Like their hocky stick, the figures they rely on and the predictions made with them that have failed to materialise.................

http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7400061/Climate-change-science-tackled

Wow! This exclamation is due to the fact that Fairfax even allowed an opinion piece opposing their bias.

I say this because Fairfax media have a vested interest in pushing the warmist hyperbole being significant financial partners to Earth Hour (this is why Fairfax media hype Earth Hour so much.) Fairfax owns roughly one third of Earth Hour

Dr David Evans used to be a believer and promoter of the warmist hyperbole. That he has joined the sceptic camp has proved irksome to true believers. Not that he is alone. Sure many have gone from the Hockey Team to luke warm (e.g. Dr Judith Curry) rather than to outright sceptism, but to find any scientist going from sceptic to believer is as rare as hen's teeth.

I suspect that is why the media make such a fuss over Professor Muller with his media invented conversion from sceptic to believer; trying to find people who go the other way is quite hard that they have to create them.
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« Reply #209 on: August 03, 2012, 03:12:41 pm »


Southern climate once like Queensland

By MATT STEWART - Fairfax NZ News | 5:00AM - Thursday, 02 August 2012

NEW ZEALAND once had a climate like Queensland, at a time when palm trees swayed in the balmy subtropical rainforests of Antarctica, new research shows.

A global team of scientists, who left from Wellington, analysed Antarctic pollen and spores, opening a window on the ancient climate of the continent about 52 million years ago, which showed humid weather similar to modern coastal Queensland.

Mean summer temperatures ranged between 20 and 27 degrees Celsius and frost-sensitive vegetation abounded, according to the study, which drilled sub-seabed rock samples from off the coast of what is now known as Wilkes Land, due south of Australia.

Even by the poles, scientists found the ‘Greenhouse' Eocene epoch — 55 to 48 million years ago — was very warm, leading to the growth of "highly diverse, near-tropical forests".

The research, published in the science journal Nature this week, confirmed what many scientists suspected — that Antarctica once boasted an enviable summer.

New Zealand's climate would have been similar during the epoch and there may also have been land mammals, like possums, on Antarctica, said Dr Ian Raine, team researcher and a micro-paleontologist at GNS Science in Lower Hutt.

Apart from recurring ice ages, Dr Raine said, Antarctica had been frozen for just a fraction of its history — the latest freeze starting about 35 million years ago.

The study showed winter temperatures on the Wilkes Land coast during the epoch topped 10°C, despite three months of polar blackness.

But the continental interior was noticeably cooler, with a climate supporting temperate southern beech rainforests similar to those found in the South Island today.

The finding highlights extreme contrasts between modern and ancient climates.

The "greenhouse" epoch was the warmest time in the past 66 million years and showed temperature gradients from the pole to the equator were less pronounced than they are now, Dr Raine said.

The study sounds a warning for climate change, with scientists forecasting Earth could again heat up in a few hundred years as fossil fuel burning accelerates carbon dioxide (CO²) to the levels which allowed the lush forests to thrive near the South Pole.

Back then atmospheric CO² concentrations were more than twice as high as today. "If the current CO² emissions continue unabated due to the burning of fossil fuels, CO² concentrations in the atmosphere, as they existed in the distant past, are likely to be achieved within a few hundred years,” lead researcher Professor Jorg Pross said.

“By studying naturally occurring climate warming periods in the geological past, our knowledge of the mechanisms and processes in the climate system increases. This contributes enormously to improving our understanding of current human-induced global warming.”


http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7400971/Southern-climate-once-like-Queensland
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« Reply #210 on: August 03, 2012, 03:18:23 pm »


Wild US weather explained

Fairfax NZ News | 12:01PM - Thursday, 02 August 2012

THE heatwaves, wildfires, and droughts scorching the United States may not just be a fluke.

According to scientists from the UN's climate body, the freak weather across America is a direct result of climate change.

In the first congressional hearing on climate science in more than two years, scientists from the ICPP told lawmakers that man-made climate change was one of the culprits behind the streak of strange weather seen all around the country lately.

"It is critical to understand that the link between climate change and the kinds of extremes that lead to disaster is clear," Christopher Field, a leading ICPP scientist, told lawmakers.

Climate experts at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing pointed to the number of natural disasters the US has had lately, the Guardian recaps: In 2011, there were 14 major, billion-dollar weather events, well surpassing the previous record of nine.

The last time an ICPP scientist appeared before the committee was in February 2009, but legislative action on climate change was quickly halted by the partisan divide on the issue.

Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, a leading sceptic of climate change, protested the hearing, telling the committee: "The global warming movement has completely collapsed."

Indeed, Barack Obama's climate change agenda was left in the dust near the beginning of his presidency. But environmental advocates hope to revitalise the movement, Bloomberg reports.

"The whole world is debating global warming," said Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who has made something of a mission out of refuting Inhofe's claims. "We can't run away from the issue. We need to put it front and centre."


http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7400175/Wild-US-weather-explained
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« Reply #211 on: August 03, 2012, 03:30:42 pm »


Richard Muller's volte face on climate change is good for science

          (The Guardian — July 31, 2012)



Richard Muller: ‘Humans Are Almost Entirely The Cause’ Of Climate Change

          (The Huffington Post — July 29, 2012)
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« Reply #212 on: August 03, 2012, 11:02:45 pm »


From the Los Angeles Times....

Conversion of climate change skeptic not likely to sway GOP

By DAVID HORSEY | 12:38AM - Thursday, August 02, 2012

Republicans heads are buried in the climate change sand. — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times/August 02, 2012.
Republicans heads are buried in the climate change sand. — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times/August 02, 2012.

ARE TWO OF the left’s most useful villains, Charles and David Koch, not quite as unredeemable as liberals believe? Could it be they might change their minds about climate change and admit that it is real?

UC Berkeley physics professor Richard A. Muller says that, after years of paying for studies by global warming skeptics, the Koch brothers honestly want to get the science clarified. They helped fund Muller who, only three years ago, doubted that the Earth was heating up to dangerous levels due to human activity. Now, with his Koch-funded research complete, he has reversed himself.

In a column published in the New York Times, Muller wrote, “Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.”

Muller can now be welcomed into the enormous club of scientists who have, for years, been warning about this impending threat to life as we have known it on this planet. The question is whether his conversion can bring along any conservative politicians, such as most of the Republicans in Congress. Scientific research is unlikely to convince them (Why should facts sway them now if they have resisted the truth up to this point?). But Republicans might possibly reassess if the word comes down from two of their biggest financial backers, the Koch brothers.

Through their super PAC, Americans for Prosperity, the Kochs have dumped a mountain of money into Republican campaigns. They were the sugar daddies behind Herman Cain’s curious run for president and now are doing their best to elect Mitt Romney. When these libertarian billionaires snap their fingers, Republicans rush to do their bidding.

Muller told U.S. News & World Report blogger Elizabeth Flock that the Kochs do not match the caricature liberals draw of them. "People think they can look into the minds of Charles and David Koch," Muller said to Flock. "But I have had conversations with them where they are interested in the science and the proof, so that these issues [of climate change] would be resolved."

I will believe it when I see it.

Sure, it is entirely possible that the Kochs do accept Muller’s findings. There are probably plenty of people like them at the highest levels of the oil and coal industries who already believe climate change is real and is caused by CO² emissions from human activities. These folks are not dummies, after all. But they are also the people who put the special in special interests. Petrochemical kings like the Kochs might understand that the burning of fossil fuels is pushing humanity toward a precipice, yet not really give a damn. When fortunes are at stake and economic power is on the line, quarterly profits invariably outweigh the fate of future generations.

It is no longer necessary to accept abstract science to believe in climate change. The severe drought striking much of the West, Midwest and South presents much more tangible and alarming evidence. Climatologists say drought may be the new normal in those regions. But will the many Republican politicians from those parts of the country stop denying the reality of climate change? Will they spring into action to help their constituents living on that drying land?

Nope, they will do nothing — unless the money men of industry snap their fingers and say jump.


http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-climate-change-skeptic-20120802,0,5819816.story
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« Reply #213 on: August 04, 2012, 11:39:27 am »

More sophistry, is the author of that tract claiming that every year and decade should be exactly the same as the previous ones? It's commonly held that the 20th century was an unusually wet period for the mid west and the climate and rainfall has always been notoriously fickle. What do you think caused the Anastasi to abandon their cliff cities? it was good old climate change with no human trigger or artificial guilt complex attached to it.
There are more people living and farming in the midwest now than there ever were in the entire history of the North American continent and they're there due to.... climate change, that's right folks, the climate got a bit wetter for a while there over the last century or so and humans being what they are soon took advantage of it. The trouble is that when it flips back to the bad old climate that it had before, they all begin to cry about how unfair it is and being American they begin to cast about looking for someone to blame.
That'll be you and me being accused by their useful idiots.
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« Reply #214 on: August 04, 2012, 01:05:03 pm »

1. Muller never converted to anything. The closest he came to sceptism was claiming that he could no longer trust Michael Mann's work.

2. The 1930s were far worse in America than the present. It was known as the dustbowl.

I suggest you do some research KTJ before posting.
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« Reply #215 on: August 04, 2012, 01:11:22 pm »

Muller's conversion to warmism is identical to the Pope converting to Catholicism.
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« Reply #216 on: August 06, 2012, 10:13:15 pm »


New study links current events in weather to climate change

By SETH BORENSTEIN - Associated Press Science Writer | 8:20PM - Saturday August 04, 2012

WASHINGTON — The relentless, weather-gone-crazy type of heat that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent years is so rare that it can’t be anything but man-made global warming, says a new statistical analysis from a top government scientist.

The research by a man often called the “godfather of global warming” says that the likelihood of such temperatures occurring from the 1950s through the 1980s was rarer than 1 in 300. Now, the odds are closer to 1 in 10, according to the study by NASA scientist James Hansen. He says that statistically what’s happening is not random or normal but pure and simple climate change.

“This is not some scientific theory. We are now experiencing scientific fact,” Hansen told the Associated Press in an interview.

Hansen is a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at Columbia University. But he also is a strident activist who has called for government action to curb greenhouse gases for years. While his study was published online Saturday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, it is unlikely to sway opinion among the remaining climate-change skeptics.

However, several climate scientists praised the new work.

In a blunt departure from most climate research, Hansen’s study — based on statistics, not the more typical climate modeling — blames these three heat waves purely on global warming:

Last year’s devastating Texas-Oklahoma drought.

The 2010 heat waves in Russia and the Middle East, which led to thousands of deaths.

The 2003 European heat wave blamed for tens of thousands of deaths, especially among the elderly in France.

The analysis was written before the current drought and record-breaking temperatures that have seared much of the United States this year. But Hansen believes this, too, is another prime example of global warming at its worst.

The new research makes the case for the severity of global warming in a different way than most scientific studies and uses simple math instead of relying on complex climate models or an understanding of atmospheric physics. It also doesn’t bother with the usual caveats about individual weather events having numerous causes.

The increase in the chance of extreme heat, drought and heavy downpours in certain regions is so huge that scientists should stop hemming and hawing, Hansen said.

“This is happening often enough, over a big enough area that people can see it happening,” he said.

Scientists generally have responded that it’s impossible to say whether single events are caused by global warming because of the influence of natural weather variability.

However, that position has been shifting in recent months, as other studies, too, have concluded climate change is happening right before our eyes.

Hansen hopes his new study will shift people’s thinking about climate change and goad governments into action. He wrote an op-ed piece that appeared online Friday in the Washington Post.

“There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time,” he wrote.

The science in Hansen’s study is excellent “and reframes the question,” said Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia who was a member of the Nobel Prize-winning international panel of climate scientists that issued a series of reports on global warming.

“Rather than say, ‘Is this because of climate change?’ That’s the wrong question. What you can say is, ‘How likely is this to have occurred with the absence of global warming?’ It’s so extraordinarily unlikely that it has to be due to global warming,” Weaver said.

For years, scientists have run complex computer models using combinations of various factors to see how likely a weather event would happen without global warming and with it. About 25 different aspects of climate change have been formally attributed to man-made greenhouse gases in dozens of formal studies. But these are generally broad and nonspecific, such as more heat waves in some regions and heavy rainfall in others.

Another upcoming study by Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, links the 2010 Russian heat wave to global warming by looking at the underlying weather that caused the heat wave. He called Hansen’s paper an important one that helps communicate the problem.

But there is bound to be continued disagreement. Previous studies had been unable to link the two, and one by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that the Russian drought, which also led to devastating wildfires, was not related to global warming.

White House science adviser John Holdren praised the paper’s findings in a statement. But he also said it is true that scientists can’t blame single events on global warming: “This work, which finds that extremely hot summers are more than 10 times more common than they used to be, reinforces many other lines of evidence showing that climate change is occurring and that it is harmful.”

Skeptical scientist John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville said Hansen shouldn’t have compared recent years to the 1950s-1980s time period because he said that was a quiet time for extremes.

But Derek Arndt, director of climate monitoring for the federal government’s National Climatic Data Center, said that range is a fair one and often used because it is the “golden era” for good statistics.

Granger Morgan, head of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, called Hansen’s study “an important next step in what I expect will be a growing set of statistically based arguments.”

In a landmark 1988 study, Hansen predicted that if greenhouse-gas emissions continue, which they have, Washington, D.C., would have about nine days each year of 95 degrees or warmer in the decade of the 2010s. So far this year, with about four more weeks of summer, the city has had 23 days with 95 degrees or hotter temperatures.

Hansen says now he underestimated how bad things would get.

And while he hopes this will spur action including a tax on the burning of fossil fuels, which emit carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas, others doubt it.

Science policy expert Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado said Hansen clearly doesn’t understand social science, thinking a study like his could spur action. Just because something ought to happen doesn’t mean it will, he said.

In an email, he wrote: “Hansen is pursuing a deeply flawed model of policy change, one that will prove ineffectual and with its most lasting consequence a further politicization of climate science (if that is possible!).”


http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20120805/NEWS03/708059895/New-study-links-current-events-in-weather-to-climate-change
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« Reply #217 on: August 06, 2012, 10:49:42 pm »

The evidence against Ewen Macdonald was more compelling and yet you swear he's innocent..
Are all of your personalities in a constant state of conflict?
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« Reply #218 on: September 07, 2012, 04:24:24 pm »


Climate sceptics fail in NIWA case

By TREVOR QUINN - Fairfax NZ News | 3:22PM - Friday, 07 September 2012

A GROUP of climate change sceptics has failed in its case against the National Institute for Atmospheric and Water Research (NIWA) who they brought to court over what they said was inaccurate temperature recordings.

The New Zealand Climate Education Trust — a branch of the NZ Climate Science Coalition — challenged NIWA figures, in the High Court at Auckland earlier this year, which showed a rise in temperatures in New Zealand of 1 degree Celcius over the past 100 years.

The group said the temperature increase of 1°C was significantly higher than global warming figures around the world and almost 50 per cent above the global average.

In the High Court judgement, released today, Justice Geoffrey Venning ruled that the New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust had not been successful in any of the challenges they brought against NIWA.

Justice Venning also decided that NIWA's cost should be paid by the trust and he said that if an agreement on the costs could not be reached he would make another ruling at a later stage.

During the hearing in July the trust said they believed there had been no warming or a trivial warming of around 0.2°C. The trust also said that NIWA's calculating procedures were unscientific and unreliable.

In the judgement Justice Venning said he thought the court should be cautious about making judgements based on decisions made and conclusions drawn by a specialist body such as NIWA.

He said NIWA acted "within its own sphere of expertise".

Justice Venning said unless the trust could point to some defect in NIWA's decision-making process or show that the decision was clearly wrong in principle or in law the court could not intervene.

"This Court should not seek to determine or resolve scientific questions demanding the evaluation of contentious expert opinion."

The judge also said that he thought the court should be cautious about making judgements based on decisions made and conclusions drawn by a specialist body, such as NIWA.


http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/7634556/Climate-sceptics-fail-in-Niwa-case



Another related thread posted to this General Forum messageboard @ XNC2....

While the “anti-warmalists” and “climate-change deniers” fiddle, Rome burns!
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« Reply #219 on: September 08, 2012, 09:41:15 am »

Errrm.......Yes?
So the court states that Niwa operates by its own rules and that this court is not going to get involved in an arguement between scientists?

About the only contentious thing there, is I felt he could have ordered both parties pay their own costs.  After all, niwa has a bottomless money-pit in the form of the government................
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« Reply #220 on: September 12, 2012, 09:32:07 pm »


Brian Rudman

One small word, one giant setback for denial

Brian Rudman on National Issues

The New Zealand Herald | 5:30AM - Wednesday, September 12, 2012

UNLIKE bloggers and tweeters, judges can't just let fly with a string of expletives. But they do have a quiver of high-sounding Latinisms up their sleeves to slip into a judgment when their exasperation meter flies into the red zone.

Words like prolix, which sounds so much more polite than declaring the submission just waded through was tediously prolonged, long-winded, palaverous, rambling and/or waffling.

For Justice Geoffrey Venning, the original statements of claim by the climate change deniers, accusing the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd of cooking the books over atmospheric warming was so, shall we say, prolix, that he couldn't help declaring as much in page two of his recent decision, throwing the claim out of court and ordering the flat-earthers of the NZ Climate Science Coalition to pay NIWA its costs, reported to be "well over $100,000".

Even more damaging to the credibility of the NZCSC, the judge dismissed much of the "expert evidence" of two of the lobby group's three main witnesses, in particular co-founder Terry Dunleavy, "retired journalist" and former National Party candidate.

The judge ruled that for Mr Dunleavy's evidence to be admissible, he would have to be "an expert in the particular field of the science of meteorology and/or climate. He is not. He has no applicable qualifications. His interest in the area does not sufficiently qualify him as an expert". Worse, parts of his evidence were not "impartial".

Mr Dunleavy and his fellow travellers went to court two years ago, alleging that, in effect, the Government's climate institute had acted fraudulently in preparing documentation to show that New Zealand's temperature had warmed by about 1°C in the past 100 years.

Justice Venning said the court should be cautious about interfering with the conclusions made by specialist bodies within its own sphere of influence and that unless the NZCSC "can point to some defect in NIWA's decision-making process or show that the decision was clearly wrong in principle and in law this court will not intervene". It was not for the court "to determine or resolve scientific questions".

His conclusion was that Niwa's procedure "was in accordance with internationally recognised and credible scientific methodology" and was "peer reviewed".

Of course peer review is something the flat-earthers will never risk for their own claims. For years the deniers have been challenged to publish their arguments in a reputable scientific journal and allow it to be subjected to the examination of recognised experts in the field. Of course, to the deniers, the world's climate experts are all part of some global United Nations-backed conspiracy promoting "the lie" of man-made global warming. Just why they conspire is still to be explained.

For Mr Dunleavy, and NZCSC co-founder Professor Bob Carter, this defeat won't help their reputations in their parallel roles at the top of the International Climate Science Coalition.

The retired journalist is labelled "strategic director and founding chairman" of this world body and Professor Carter, who failed to convince Justice Venning in the NIWA case, is chief science adviser.

A taste of Mr Dunleavy's impartiality is on show in a YouTube clip of him addressing the second International Conference on Climate Change, run by the Heartland Institute in New York, March 2009. They were there, he declares, "to save the planet ... from being swamped by a tsunami of false propaganda about a catastrophe caused by we humans emitting a little too much of a colourless, odourless gas, carbon dioxide". The lies were being preached by "zealots" working under the auspices of the "United Nations".

The only light relief I could find regarding the Heartland Institute is that its headquarters are on South Wacker Drive, Chicago. But if our wackos were hoping to touch up their Wacker Drive mates for a loan to pay their court costs, they might be in for a surprise.

A misjudged billboard campaign by the ultra-conservative Heartland Institute this year resulted in a mass exodus of corporate donors. In May, Heartland erected billboards across Chicago with huge mugshots of notorious criminals, the Unabomber and cult leader and murderer Charles Manson, with the text "I still believe in global warming. Do you?"

The signs were removed within 24 hours but not before the departure of many supporters and several larger donors. Which suggests that Mr Dunleavy's best bet might be hoping he can persuade rich supporters like expat millionaire Alan Gibbs, listed No.2 on the ICSC advisory board, to come to the party.


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10833373
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« Reply #221 on: September 17, 2012, 08:07:33 am »


Editorial: Judge's ruling in climate case refreshing


5:29 AM Monday Sep 17, 2012

Scathing judgment backing Niwa represents damning of sceptics' crusade.

 
A year ago, James Hansen, one of the world's top climate scientists, conceded that climate sceptics were winning the argument with the public over global warming. This, he said, was occurring even as climate science itself was showing ever more clearly that the Earth was in increasing danger from rising temperatures.
 
Part of the reason for this outcome is the professional communications approach employed by the climate sceptics. Scientists have not been able to compete with this. One of the main thrusts of this strategy has been to allege that scientists have behaved without integrity or honesty. It is in this context that a recent High Court judgment has considerable importance.
 
The case saw a branch of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, a group of sceptics, seeking to have temperatures collected by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research declared invalid.
 
It could hardly have failed more comprehensively.
 
Justice Geoffrey Venning ruled that the coalition had not succeeded in any of its challenges against Niwa, and said it must pay the crown research institute's costs.

 The coalition alleged that the method used to collect national temperature records, which show a national warming trend of almost one degree Celsius in the past century, almost 50 per cent above the global average, had been unscientific. That had created an unrealistic and unreliable indication of climate warming, it said.
 
If the coalition had managed to discredit Niwa's methods, it would also have discredited the evidence for climate change, and the part played by human activities.
 
But Justice Venning said Niwa had applied "internationally recognised and credible scientific methodology" and, as such, did not breach any obligation it may have had to pursue excellence.
 
The coalition was also effectively branded as amateurish. The evidence of one coalition member was dismissed in large part by Justice Venning because "he has no applicable qualifications. His interest in the area does not sufficiently qualify him as an expert". This represented a refreshing approach from Justice Venning. Too often, the claims of unqualified people have been able to cast doubt on the view of the majority of active climate scientists who are certain human industry is contributing to global warming.
 
As has happened before, climate sceptics have reacted by seeking to shift the goalposts.
 
In an Opinion article in this newspaper, Auckland University associate professor Chris de Freitas played down the importance of any court ruling, saying it was no substitute for the insufficient number of attempts globally "to reassess quantitatively the nature and reliability of homogeneity adjustments to complete national sets".
 
That oddly overlooked the fact that the coalition had chosen the High Court as a battleground, thereby attaching its own importance to it. It also ignored the scathing nature of the judgment.
 
So severe was this that it rendered the case outlandish and raised questions about how it could have occupied so much of the court's time. Justice Venning's judgment was a strong riposte to the climate sceptics' ongoing claims of a conspiracy by scientists.
 
Many inquiries by British and American government agencies and independent panels have previously upheld the integrity and honesty of the scientists. This ruling reinforced that and represented a damning of the climate sceptics' case.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10834470
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« Reply #222 on: October 05, 2012, 01:12:04 pm »


From the Los Angeles Times....

Study reveals ancient greenhouse gas emissions

An analysis of Greenland ice core samples indicates significant
global methane emissions per capita during the Roman Empire
and China's Han Dynasty — much greater than had been known.


By MONTE MORIN | 4:46PM - Wednesday, October 03, 2012

The study's conclusions were based on an analysis of ice core samples from Greenland. — Photo: John McConnico/Associated Press.
The study's conclusions were based on an analysis of ice core samples from Greenland. — Photo: John McConnico/Associated Press.

CENTURIES before the Industrial Revolution or the recognition of global warming, the ancient Roman and Chinese empires were already producing powerful greenhouse gases through their daily toil, according to a new study.

The burning of plant matter to cook food, clear cropland and process metals released millions of tons of methane gas into the atmosphere each year during several periods of pre-industrial history, according to the study, published Thursday in the journal Nature.

Although the quantity of methane produced back then pales in comparison with the emissions released today — the total amount is roughly 70 times greater now — the findings suggest that man's footprint on the climate is larger than previously realized. Until now, it was assumed by scientists that human activity began increasing greenhouse gas levels only after the year 1750.

"The quantities are much smaller, because there were fewer people on Earth," said study leader Celia Sapart, an atmospheric chemist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. "But the amount of methane emitted per person was significant."

Sapart's conclusions were based on an analysis of ice core samples from Greenland. The layered ice columns, which date back 2,000 years, contain tiny air bubbles from different periods of history, and provide scientists with a view into the atmosphere's changing chemistry.

The first period of methane production captured in the ice cores — roughly from the years AD 1 to 300 — encompassed the tail ends of the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty, when charcoal was the preferred form of fuel. The second period of elevated methane emissions occurred during what's known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly, from roughly 800 to 1200, and a third was found during the Little Ice Age between 1300 and 1600.

Methane is one of a few gases that trap heat in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. It forms naturally when plant and animal matter decomposes in airless environments, and it's also released when vegetation burns. However, when methane is produced by burning, it contains heavier carbon isotopes than methane generated through decomposition.

By using a mass spectrometer to study the air trapped in the ice cores, Sapart and her colleagues were able to determine the ratio of methane produced by burning and by decomposition. The study notes that not all cases of burned vegetation were the result of human activity; forest fires, particularly in times of drought, would also contribute to so-called pyrogenic methane production. The research team used mathematical models to account for this naturally burning vegetation and other fluctuations in atmospheric methane content.

"The results show that between 100 BC and AD 1600, human activity may have been responsible for roughly 20-30% of the total pyrogenic methane emissions," the authors wrote.

The research appeared to be the result of very careful and very difficult examination of carbon isotopes and could impact global warming estimates for the pre-industrial period, according to Ed Dlugokencky, a methane expert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.

"The study gives further evidence for a contribution to the global methane burden from anthropogenic sources," said Dlugokencky, who was not involved in the study.

Sapart said that though the study helped answer questions about the past, there were still plenty that remained about the future. Of particular concern is the melting of permafrost in the Arctic regions, where methane trapped in the frozen earth and ice is allowed to escape into the atmosphere.

"To date, we do not know how natural methane sources will evolve together with human-induced climate change, but it is likely those natural sources will increase," she said.


______________________________________

Related news story:

The curious blindness of climate deniers

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-humans-climate-change-20121004,0,2962982.story
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« Reply #223 on: October 05, 2012, 02:43:27 pm »

Ho-Hum.

Bored!  Bored! - Very bored!

Do a google on "Dan Turner climate" and the usual long list of spittle-spraying diatribes on human induced climate change shows up.
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« Reply #224 on: October 30, 2012, 03:50:52 pm »





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