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Warming catches up with big glaciers

By RUTH LAUGESEN - Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 18 November 2007

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DISAPPEARING ICE: The Tasman Glacier, the biggest of New Zealand's twelve largest
glaciers, all of which are rapidly shrinking in response to regional climate warming.

Climate change is making New Zealand's biggest glaciers melt twice as quickly as comparable ice masses overseas, according to research released today.

The Southern Alps' 12 biggest glaciers had crossed a "tipping point" into faster melting as they respond to regional warming, said National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research principal scientist Jim Salinger.

"These have now passed a threshold, where the ice is collapsing, rapidly expanding lakes at the foot of the glaciers," he said.

"It is not yet clear whether the glaciers will disappear completely with future warming, but they are set to shrink further as they adjust to today's climate."

The findings come as the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases a synthesis report in Valencia today on climate change, its likely impacts, and what can be done to mitigate it or adapt to it.

The report, which builds on the findings of three IPCC reports this year, will arm policymakers as they go into the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali next month. Those talks will begin work on an international agreement for responding to climate change to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.

The Niwa research, which is the first long-term study of ice mass in the Southern Alps, found 5.8cukm of ice had been lost in the past 20 years. That was almost 11% of the total ice mass. More than 90% of this loss was from the 12 largest glaciers.

Those glaciers Tasman, Godley, Murchison, Classen, Mueller, Hooker, Ramsay, Volta/Therma, La Perouse, Balfour, Grey, and Maud had lost an average of 22m in ice thickness since 1986. In comparison, figures from the World Glacier Monitoring Service found that a sample of large world glaciers had lost an average of 9.6m in ice thickness since 1980.

Smaller glaciers, having rapidly adjusted to regional warming earlier, had not receded much in the past 20 years or in a few cases have slightly advanced. They include two well-known West Coast glaciers, the Fox and the Franz Josef.

Salinger said the glaciers overseas had responded more quickly to rising temperatures, and had thus already experienced substantial melting. New Zealand mean air temperatures have risen 0.4C since 1950 but the big glaciers here would probably not disappear any sooner than those overseas because they had taken longer to respond to warmer temperatures typically being covered in an insulating blanket of thick rock debris.

However, Salinger says, "it is already clear that they will not return to their earlier lengths without extraordinary cooling of the climate because the large lakes now block their advance".

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4277239a6442.html

Shrinking footprints

The Press | Saturday, 26 January 2008

The environmental challenges facing the world may seem overwhelming. JOHN McCRONE meets some people who are undaunted by the seeming hopelessness of responding as individuals.

The view from inside and outside a Hummer is very different. Inside is a driver feeling pride in the "power, capability, attitude, and authenticity" of a massive, military-style, 44 Yank tank.

But outside is a public now almost universally thinking "there goes a gas guzzling dickhead" says Carlin Archer, of the Christchurch eco-living webguide, ecobob. com.

"The driver's saying, ‘look at me. Aren't I great? I can afford to waste huge amounts of fuel’."

For many Kiwis, 2007 proved to be a tipping point. At least that is what those working at the grassroots of sustainable living are saying they have seen.

"People have woken up and want to know what they can do," says Rhys Taylor, national co-ordinator of the Sustainable Living Programme. "They certainly saw Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. But they say it is actually something that's been nagging away at the back of their minds for a long time. Now they are ready to act."

Taylor says for an old greenie like himself, the swiftness of the mood change has been a surprise. For decades society seemed to be going only one way - houses got bigger, cars faster, the travel more exotic. For example, he can remember when a room had one plug point. A newly built home could now have six to a room. And there will be something plugged into each of them. "If we talk about our carbon footprint, we can see it has been literally expanding."

People have got used to consuming more stuff every year. And even if it is only 2 or 3 per cent extra, it adds up. Suddenly people are looking around and realising it is not just their bodies that have grown flabby, says Taylor. Their lifestyle feels bloated, heavy-footed. There is a desire to put the process in reverse and start shedding the kilos again.

The question is how to reorganise their lives? No-one wants to go back to the past, to give up on luxury and fun. So what is the mainstream response going to be? What is the blueprint for a sustainable future?

Archer seems as much as anyone the face of the new environmentalism. EcoBob stands for "best of both" - keep your lifestyle, but also keep the world.

Running a Christchurch website development company with his brother, Daniel, Archer never planned to be a sustainability activist. After returning from London four years ago, he had the dream of using family land near Woodend to build an ecologically-sound home for him and his South African girlfriend. In fact, it could become an eco-commune because his brother, sister, parents and a few friends want to build there too.

There is no intention to stint. "An eco-home doesn't have to be a hippy hovel," Archer says. It is just a matter of intelligent design - putting in all the energy-saving features, and using low-environmental-impact materials, that traditional suburban homes still ignore.

But Archer found it a struggle to gather the names of likely builders and architects, or suppliers of solar panels, energy-efficient appliances and other eco-home technology. So he set up a website to share practical information with others and found that instead of hundreds of visitors, he was getting thousands a day.

The side project has grown to the point that it pays for itself and could become a full-time business.

Archer agrees 2007 marked an attitude change. A few years back, many of his friends would rib him. "I was known as the eco man. They would joke about coming over to my place and tipping Roundup on the garden because I wasn't pulling up the weeds."

Now there is more likely to be interest than derision. People want to hear what kind of changes will be seen if sustainable thinking moves into the mainstream.

Archer details the lifestyle alterations he has made - and apologises for the fact there is a way to go.

Living and working in a rented house high on the hill in Mount Pleasant while he plans his eco-house, Archer says one of his commitments is to go zero waste.

So he now has to remember to take his cloth bags to the supermarket. He queues for meat at the counter to avoid the tray packs. He tries to side-step any packaging which cannot be recycled. "It's a bit irritating when I put my hand out for a juice I'd like, but then have to take something else in a bottle that can be recycled," Archer confesses.

Archer says none of the changes are extreme. It is simply a question of being aware there are choices and then not being too embarrassed to act upon them. Steadily you build a new set of habits into your life.

He says it does not even have to be a big-bang lifestyle conversion. The flab has built up a few per cent every year. Rather than a crash diet that is hard to stick to, it is better to start slimming down a few per cent every year. If this becomes a mainstream attitude, the impact would be significant.

A cross in Lyttelton, there is another grassroots effort to understand what sustainability will mean in practice.

Margaret Jefferies, chairwoman of Project Lyttelton, says the project started out with quite a different mission. Years ago its purpose was preserving the historic feel of the town. The group was involved in restoring the Timeball Station and creating the Torpedo Boat Museum. Then it became about community action, and now it's sustainable living.

Jefferies says people seem to have been quietly worried about rampant consumerism for years. Now they are ready to act. She says as a port with a strong artistic community, Lyttelton has always had a stroppy edge. And some locals are proposing quite radical action.

Lyttelton already has an "enviro-kindy", a community composting scheme, and a time bank for neighbourhood work. To tackle the woeful energy-efficiency of its heritage cottages, a bulk discount on home insulation has been negotiated for the town.

The community garden behind the swimming pool is a place where locals can grow their own food, sharing both effort and know-how. And the town's farmers' market has been a big hit, doing its bit for food miles by insisting all produce comes from within a 100km radius - although you see the odd bunch of bananas from stall-holders stretching the rules, Jefferies admits.

Next on the agenda is the possibility of making Lyttelton completely plastic bag free and tapping local land owners, like Lyttelton Port, for waste ground that could be cultivated.

Jefferies says experience has taught a few lessons. One of the biggest is that a community effort has to be open-minded and positive. People have to move at their own pace and not be made to feel that partial change is failure.

She says it was a mistake at one of Lyttelton's street parties to have people manning the recycling bins, telling people where they should put the rubbish. "People were in party mode. It got up their noses."

Chipping away at the problems is the pragmatic approach, Jefferies says. "It's got to be fun, not prescriptive. If worm farms are your thing, it's what you love, then you go and concentrate on that. If you don't want to be out agitating about plastic bags, that's fine."

Jefferies has also noticed a difference between those who see sustainability as about "tack on" changes and those looking for a deeper personal or spiritual change.

She says some want the same lifestyle, just with more efficient and renewable technology. Others want to get right out of the trap of working ever harder just to own more stuff.

Lyttelton is one of a number of "transition town" experiments that have sprung up around the country. Lincoln is another with its rather more academically oriented Envirotown programme.

Jefferies says while Project Lyttelton is rather homespun, Envirotown comes with a thick manual.

Rhys Taylor says hardly anything about sustainable-living practices is new. The difference is in the will to act.

Taylor says the country has problems that need to be tackled at a higher level, of course.

However, what people need most is the information. Then they will respond intelligently.

He points out that so much of our waste is hidden. We are happy to buy cheap plastic junk from China because we have no idea of the coal being burnt, the pollution being produced.

"We've managed to export the problem."

So one of the most necessary changes is to start making waste visible again. At the sustainable living evening classes he teaches, part of the homework is to carry out energy and refuse audits.

These days you can get speedometer-like devices like the Christchurch-developed Centameter which hooks up to your power meter with a radio link and sits in the kitchen telling you how many kilowatts per hour you are burning.

Taylor says once something can be measured, a target can be set to gradually reduce usage. For example, it is not hard to check your annual car mileage, then aim to cut out enough car trips to travel, say, 5% less each year.

But can society really be turned around while there are still Hummer drivers out there taking a perverse pride in their profligacy? Why should the few make sacrifices if most probably won't?

Taylor says perhaps it is rather that the wasteful are now becoming more visible to us as we become attuned to the issue of sustainability.

Surveys are showing more of the population is ready for a change than we think, Taylor says.

But right now people are still learning what it all must mean in practice: how can we go forward in a way that still gives us the best of both, a life and a world?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4373521a13135.html

Climate change shatters huge ice shelf

‘Like an explosion’ — ancient landscape crumbles in shocking vision of global warming

By REBECCA PALMER and PAUL EASTON - The Dominion Post | Thursday, 27 March 2008

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          OFF THE SHELF: A 415sq/km chunk of the Wilkins Ice Shelf has collapsed into the Ancarctic ocean.

A gigantic Antarctic ice shelf is collapsing and global warming is being blamed.

An iceberg 41 kilometres long and 2.5km wide fell off the Wilkins Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula in late February.

That triggered the disintegration of 405 square kilometres of ice.

The entire ice shelf — the size of the Hawke's Bay region — is now in danger of disintegrating.

The destruction was captured in satellite pictures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the United States.

Scientists said a thin strand of ice about 6km wide was all that was stopping the remaining 13,680sq km shelf from collapsing.

Professor Tim Naish, of Victoria University's Antarctic Research Centre, said the breakup was part of a pattern seen for about 50 years. Ice breaks were fully expected.

"They're likely to be a more frequent event."

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OTHER-WORDLY: An image taken from a British Antarctic Survey video,
showing the breakup of the ice shelf. The BAS sent a Twin Otter aircraft
to fly the length of the main crack. Massive rectangular icebergs are
collapsing into house-sized rubble.

The Antarctic Peninsula had warmed by about 2½ degrees in the past 50 years — more than other parts of the world. Remnants of the shelf could end up near New Zealand, he said.

In 2006, large icebergs drifted up the South Island's east coast.

Professor Naish said the breakdown of the Wilkins shelf would not contribute to rising sea levels. He compared it to an ice-cube in a glass of water — when the cube melts, the water level does not go up, as it has already been displaced.

But the disappearance of ice shelves could cause connected glaciers to melt and flow into the ocean more quickly, which would raise sea levels.

Niwa principal scientist David Wratt said the ice shelf collapse was likely to be a result of climate change. "It's certainly a sign that things are happening."

The peninsula's Larsen Ice Shelf had collapsed in 2002, with 500 billion tonnes of ice breaking up into bergs in less than a month.

Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the snow and ice data center, alerted the British Antarctic Survey when he saw a big chunk of the Wilkins shelf breaking away on satellite images.

An aircraft was sent to check the size of the collapse.

"Big, hefty chunks of ice, the size of small houses, look as though they've been thrown around like rubble — it's like an explosion," researcher Jim Elliot said.

By March 08, about 570 sq km had broken off, including the chunk Dr Scambos had seen.

"I didn't expect to see things happen this quickly," British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan said. "The ice shelf is hanging by a thread."

Dr Vaughan, who earlier predicted the Wilkins shelf would collapse in 30 years, said the collapse was the result of global warming.

Dr Scambos said scientists believed the shelf had been in place for hundreds of years.

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ANTARCTIC HEATS UP

The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a plate of floating ice on the southwest Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches toward South America. Temperature rises in the region have been greater than other places on Earth.

The size of the threatened shelf is estimated to be about 13,680 square kilometres – about 22 times the size of Lake Taupo.

Satellite images show about 570 square kilometres of ice have collapsed so far, including a large chunk that broke away on February 28. The rest of the shelf is "hanging by a thread", the British Antarctic Survey says.

In 1998, the shelf lost 1100 square kilometres of ice, or about 6 per cent of its surface.

Several other ice shelves have collapsed in the region in the past three decades. In 2002, the Larsen B shelf disappeared in just over 30 days.

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4452883a6479.html

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4452970a11.html

You wanna see something really spooky?

I'll post it later tonight...

Glacier to go in 20 years

NZPA | Thursday, 24 April 2008

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MELTING ICE: The terminal lake of the Tasman Glacier complete with icebergs that have calved from the terminal face
as viewed from a skiplane on Easter Monday, 24 March 2008.

Climate change will see most of the Tasman Glacier in the Southern Alps melt away over the next 20 years, scientists say.

"In the past 10 years, the glacier has receded a hell of a lot," said glaciologist Martin Brook.

"It's just too warm for a glacier to be sustained at such a low altitude — 730 metres above sea level — so it melts rapidly and it is going to disappear altogether."

The Tasman Glacier is the biggest in the Southern Alps and, at 29 kilometres, was one of the longest in the world's temperate zones.

In 1973, there was no lake in front of the Tasman Glacier. New measurements taken last week indicate the lake at its foot is now 7km long, 2km wide and 245m deep.

The lake has attracted regular excursions by boatloads of tourists, but Dr Brook warned yesterday that they may be at risk from huge chunks of ice unexpectedly breaking loose underwater and surfacing as far as 60m from the glacier face.

"There's actually a sub-surface apron of ice that slopes away under the water for at least 50m or 60m from the front of the glacier," Dr Brook said. As this ice-apron melted, blocks of ice broke off and floated to the surface.

"This happens pretty quickly and is potentially a hazard for the tour boats that cruise up to the cliff: the blocks just pop out on the surface and some are between 5m and 10m in size."

The lake has been formed as the ice which makes up the glacier melts, and is a key factor in its destruction: the deeper the lake, the faster the retreat of the glacier.

According to another glaciologist, Trevor Chinn, the development of the lake was a tipping point: no amount of snow at the head of the glacier, the neve, can compensate for melting triggered by the lake.

The last major survey of the glacier was in the 1990s. Since then, the glacier has retreated 180m a year, exposing a basin carved out of rock more than 20,000 years ago when the glacier was a lot larger and more powerful.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4494166a6479.html

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Tasman Glacier could go in 20 years

Hot air blamed for Tasman Glacier's melt

By JOHN KEAST - The Press | Thursday, 24 April 2008

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MELT DOWN: The Tasman Glacier is melting fast and will
ultimately disappear, experts fear.
— DAVID HALLETT/The Press

The Tasman Glacier in Mount Cook-Aoraki National Park is retreating at an alarming rate and will ultimately disappear, experts at Massey University warn.

Dr Martin Brook, lecturer in physical geography, said that in 1973 there was no lake in front of the glacier, but new measurements last week indicated the lake was now 7km long, 2km wide and 245m deep.

The lake is formed as ice in the glacier melts.

"In the last 10 years the glacier has retreated a hell of a lot. It's just too warm for a glacier to be sustained as such low altitude, 730 metres above sea level, so it melts rapidly and it is going to disappear altogether.

"Significantly, the deeper the lake, the faster the retreat of the glacier."

The lake could only grow to a length of 16km, which would mean a further 9km of glacier retreat.

"Using the empirical relationships between the water depth and glacier retreat rate, we could expect further retreat of between 477m and 822m each year. At these rates, it would take between 10 and 19 years for the lake to expand to its maximum," Brook said.

His work indicated that an extreme scenario for the future retreat of the glacier, developed by Dr Martin Kirkbride in the 1990s, was correct.

"The last major survey was in the 1990s and since then the glacier has retreated back 180m a year on average. This has exposed a huge rock basin which was eroded more than 20,000 years ago when the glacier was a lot larger and more powerful."

Research students are studying the glacier and lake using a new towfish sonar and echo-sounding equipment.

"The glacier followed a slow retreat phase for a while, in that a thermo-erosional notch in the ice cliff face would develop at the water line, melt back into the glacier undercutting the ice above, causing the ice to collapse into the lake.

"But what is happening now is that a short foot of ice is extending out into the lake away from the ice cliff, and the glacier is now in a period of fast retreat. This is because as the water depth increases, sodoes the speed of retreat — simply, a much larger part of the glacier is submerged and the water, even at only 2°C, is still able to melt the glacier ice," Brook said.

As well as looking at the Tasman Glacier, the team is analysing the newly exposed sub-surface landscape.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4495365a24035.html

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4494061a7693.html

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Tasman Glacier retreat extreme

Created: Wednesday, 23 April 2008 | Last updated: Thursday, 24 April 2008
Massey University News

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From left: technician David Feek, senior lecturer Dr Ian Fuller and PhD student Claire Robertson
looking at sub-bottom sediment using the towfish sonar. In the background is a high-precision
GPS transmitter attached to the towfish, which gives its location to about 5mm accuracy.

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PhD student John Appleby (left) and Honours student Rob Dykes (right) in a boat on the lake
measuring depth with an echo sounder.

The Tasman Glacier is retreating faster than ever and will ultimately disappear, glaciologists are warning.

In 1973 there was no lake in front of the Tasman Glacier, says Dr Martin Brook, lecturer in physical geography in the School of People, Environment and Planning. New measurements taken last week indicate the lake, formed by ice melt from the glacier, is now 7km long, 2km wide and 245m deep. The lake has been formed as the ice which makes up the glacier melts.

“In the last 10 years the glacier has receded a hell of a lot,” Dr Brook says. “It’s just too warm for a glacier to be sustained at such a low altitude, 730m above sea level, so it melts rapidly and it is going to disappear altogether. Significantly, the deeper the lake, the faster the retreat of the glacier.”

Dr Brook says the lake can only grow to a length of about 16km, which would mean a further 9km of glacier retreat.

“Using the empirical relationships between water depth and glacier retreat rate we could expect further retreat of between 477m and 822m each year. At these rates it would take between 10 and 19 years for the lake to expand to its maximum.”

His work indicated that an extreme scenario for the future retreat of the Tasman Glacier, developed by Dr Martin Kirkbride in the 1990s, was correct.

“The last major survey was in the 1990s and since then the glacier has retreated back 180 metres a year on average. This has exposed a huge rock basin which was eroded more than 20,000 years ago when the glacier was a lot larger and more powerful.”

Dr Brook and a number of research students are studying the glacier and the lake using a new towfish sonar and echo sounding equipment to measure the depth and analyse sediments under the lake.

“The glacier followed a slow retreat phase for a while, in that a thermo-erosional notch in the ice cliff face would develop at the water line, melt back into the glacier undercutting the ice above, causing the ice to collapse into the lake.

“But what is happening now is that a short foot of ice is extending out into the lake away from the ice cliff, and the glacier is now in a period of fast retreat. This is because as the water depth increases so does the speed of retreat — simply, a much larger part of the glacier is submerged and the water, even at only two degrees celcius, is still able to melt the glacier ice.

“The result is large pieces of ice fracturing off the ice foot and floating on the surface — the debris on the icebergs on the surface of the lake and the icebergs are a reflection of this.”

As well as addressing the future of the Tasman Glacier, which is in Aoraki Mount Cook National Park, the team is analysing the newly exposed sub-surface landscape. The project is also interested in the glacier because it is very different to the clean-ice glaciers on the West Coast. Tasman is covered in rock and debris, and has a different relationship with climate, Dr Brook says, as well as different patterns of retreat.

“In particular, although there’s a near-vertical ice cliff at the front of the glacier that terminates in the lake, there’s actually a sub-surface apron of ice that slopes away under the water for at least 50m or 60m from the front of the glacier. As this ice-apron melts, blocks of ice break off and float to the surface. This happens pretty quickly and is potentially a hazard for the tour boats that cruise up to the cliff — the blocks just pop out on the surface and some are between 5m and 10m in size.”

http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-us/news/article.cfm?mnarticle=tasman-glacier-retreat-extreme-23-04-2008

Well, look at that.  I always thought they were thinking "Look at me.....I'm a wanker".

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Plug being pulled on nature's freezer

An Arctic traverse shows the ice is in retreat

By STACEY WOOD - The Dominion Post | Saturday, 19 July 2008

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EXPEDITION LEADER: Grant Redvers traversed the Arctic ice pack on
board the Tara, which in a former life was the boat Sir Peter Blake was murdered on.
— MAARTEN HOLL/The Dominion Post

Scientists continue to debate the impact of global warming on the Arctic ice pack, but for the man who spent nearly a year and a half traversing it the picture is crystal-clear.

As expedition leader on board the Tara, Kiwi Grant Redvers oversaw atmospheric, oceanographic and meteorological testing, as the icebound boat made its way across the top of the world.

Retracing the 1893 journey of the wooden ship Fram, the crew ploughed the boat into the ice northeast of Siberia, allowing the Arctic drift to carry them more than 5000 kilometres.

In a previous life, the Tara was Sir Peter Blake's boat Seamaster. Sir Peter was murdered on the boat by Amazon River pirates in 2001.

Most of the Tara's data is being processed by scientists in France. Some startling observations speak for themselves, however.

Between the summers of 2005 and 2007 the team recorded a loss of more than a million square kilometres of ice. During one 12-month period, the ice retreated 400 kilometres, and Mr Redvers says the evidence of melting was highly visible.

"In summer, over 50 per cent of the surface area is covered in pools of surface melt."

The melting of the ice cap will not raise sea levels much, but the oceans may become warm enough to trigger more melting in Greenland. That could cause ocean levels to rise up to seven metres.

The journey, which took the Fram about three years, took half as long for the Tara. Thinner ice and stronger winds enabled Mr Redvers' team to emerge into the Fram Strait after only 507 days.

The warmer temperatures of the Arctic summer posed some problems for the crew on the Tara.

Despite being in the heart of nature's freezer, the team found it hard to keep food cold, forcing them to find other means of preservation.

"We ate a lot of Santa's reindeer," Mr Redvers says.

The schooner's sauna — "one of our few luxuries" — was turned into a meat-smoking room.

Mr Redvers was the only expedition member to stay on board for the whole journey. Others came and went by helicopter.

"It was a dream of mine," he says, "not just to go in as a researcher, but to ... live there."

Mr Redvers is back in New Zealand but heading for hotter climes. He has been invited to a premiere of a Central American film featuring the Tara. The film, De Los Mayas al Polo Norte (The Mayas at the North Pole) is one of several productions about the expedition.

After a whirlwind tour through Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, Mr Redvers will retreat to his home on the shores of Lake Taupo to write a book about the Tara expedition.

For now, the Tara has returned to France, but Mr Redvers says there is plenty more adventure on it's horizons. The boat is expected to set sail on another epic journey early next year.

THEIR OWN ICE AGE

The team adopted the term "polar time", because everything takes 10 times longer than normal in the extreme environment.

Tara's owner, Etienne Bourgois, is head of fashion label Agnes B, which made special Arctic-friendly outfits to help the team combat the cold.

The crew enjoyed fresh salads, courtesy of the world's northern-most hydroponic vege garden, grown on board.

The expedition adhered to a strict no-waste policy, and offset their emissions by donating to a carbon capture programme.

Of the 507-day journey, 230 were spent in permanent darkness, and a further 230 in constant light, with the rest somewhere in between.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4621881a27490.html

NZ glaciers smallest since records began

By TOM CARDY - The Dominion Post | Monday, 15 September 2008

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WARMING SIGN: Marion Glacier in Arawata Valley has recently withdrawn from its proglacial state.
Most of New Zealand's glaciers are the smallest they've been since records began.
— DR TREVOR CHINN/NIWA

Most of New Zealand's glaciers are now the smallest they have been since records began — and they continue to shrink at a rapid rate.

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, which made the discovery, said global warming was the main culprit.

Between April last year and March this year, glaciers in the Southern Alps lost about 2.2 billion tonnes of permanent ice — the equivalent in weight to the top section of Mount Taranaki. It is the fourth highest annual loss since monitoring began 32 years ago.

The total ice for the glaciers now comprises an estimated 44.9 cubic kilometres — the lowest on record. The volume of ice dropped by 50 per cent during the last century.

NIWA principal scientist Jim Salinger said glaciers were fed by snow, but because of the La Nina weather system over New Zealand, more easterly winds and warmer than normal temperatures during the period, there was less snow in the Southern Alps and more snowmelt.

Dr Salinger said while the glaciers were sensitive to changes in wind and precipitation as well as temperature, global warming was a big factor in their shrinking.

"It's one of the clearest signs that our climate is warming and that [the shrinkage] is a definite physical response. To have that amount of melting you would have to reduce the precipitation at least by a half or more or warm a degree," he said.

"We know that precipitation has not gone down in the Southern Alps. In the last quarter of a century it's gone up. So to make them retreat you've got to have more melting, which is higher temperatures.

"This is certainly a definite sign of warming in the New Zealand area."

Niwa has surveyed 50 glaciers in the Southern Alps for the past 32 years, recording the height of the snowline at the end of each summer. On average the snowline this year was 130 metres above where it would need to be for the glaciers not to shrink, Dr Salinger said.

It was unlikely the glaciers would disappear entirely, as that would require a temperature rise of 7 degrees celsius and no snow even at the top of our highest mountain, Aoraki Mount Cook.

But they would continue to retreat. Another sign of warming were 12 glacial lakes, including ones at Marion Glacier and Tasman Glacier.

"They are definitely a sign of warming. There is no doubt about it. You get a very rapid loss of snow and ice and that's what's been happening."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4692547a6479.html

---

Media Release

Glaciers continue to show significant ice loss

15 September 2008
National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA)

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Global%20Warming%20Articles%20Pix/GlobalWarming012.jpg)

The large Tasman Glacier in Aoraki-Mount Cook National Park.
(Photo: Dr Trevor Chinn, Alpine and Polar Research, Hawea)

New Zealand’s glaciers are showing the lowest total ice mass on record and most are continuing to shrink at a rapid rate.

Research released by the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) shows the Southern Alps glaciers have lost 2.5 km³ (2.2 billion tonnes) of permanent ice from April 2007 to March 2008, the fourth highest annual loss since monitoring started.

The 2008 total ice volume estimate for the Southern Alps glaciers of 44.9 km³ is the lowest on record.

For the past 32 years NIWA has been surveying 50 glaciers in the Southern Alps, using a small fixed wing aircraft, to record the height of the snow line at the end of summer.

NIWA Principal Scientist Dr Jim Salinger says the photographs taken on this year’s survey showed the glaciers had lost much more ice than they had gained during the past glacier year.

“As a result of La Niña conditions over New Zealand, more easterlies, and warmer than normal temperatures, there was less snowfall in the Southern Alps and more snowmelt.

The higher the snow line, the more snow is lost to feed the glacier. On average, the snow line this year was about 130 metres above where it would need to be to keep the ice mass constant,” Dr Salinger says.

Dr Salinger says these results match trends of ice mass lost globally. International monitoring of mountains glaciers by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland shows most glaciers are retreating. Of the glaciers where continuous data is available, the mean annual average loss in ice thickness since 1980 is close to half a metre per year.

For more information contact:

Dr Jim Salinger
NIWA, Auckland
Tel: +64 9 375 2053
Mob: +64 27 521 9468

Background Information:

Worldwide, glaciers are regarded as a useful indicator of global warming, but New Zealand’s glaciers are more complicated because they have their source in areas of extremely high precipitation. West of the Main Divide in the Southern Alps, more than 10 metres (10 000 mm) of precipitation falls each year as clouds are pushed up over the sharply rising mountain ranges. This means the mass and volume of New Zealand’s glaciers is sensitive to changing wind and precipitation patterns as well as to temperature. So, for example, the glaciers advanced during most of the 1980s and 1990s when the area experienced about a 15% increase in precipitation, associated with more El Niño events and stronger westerly winds over New Zealand. The glaciers in parts of Norway are similar.

Despite the sensitivity of New Zealand glaciers to changes in both precipitation and temperature, the volume of ice in the Southern Alps dropped by roughly 50% during the last century. New Zealand’s temperature increased by about 1°C over the same period.

Globally, most glaciers are retreating. Of the glaciers for which there are continuous data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service, the mean annual loss in ice thickness since 1980 remains close to half a metre per year. The Service has said that the loss in ice mass “leaves no doubt about the accelerating change in climatic conditions”. For world glacier data, see www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms.

The level of the glacier snow lines is not necessarily closely related to the amount of snow that falls on the country’s ski fields during winter. Most of the popular ski fields are east of the Main Divide, or in the North Island. Mount Hutt, for instance, gets its snow from big southeasterlies, whereas most of the glaciers are fed by westerlies.

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Global%20Warming%20Articles%20Pix/GlobalWarming013.jpg)

http://www.niwa.co.nz/news/mr/2008/2008-09-15

Heavy snow likely to bolster southern glaciers

By PAUL GORMAN, Science Reporter - The Press | Monday, 15 September 2008

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Global%20Warming%20Articles%20Pix/GlobalWarming014.jpg)

GLACIAL FUTURE: Heavy alpine snowfalls in the South Island
this winter could temporarily halt or even reverse the
continuing decline of some glaciers in the Southern Alps.
Meanwhile, Franz Josef Glacier (pictured) and the nearby
Fox Glacier in Westland National Park both buck the
worldwide trend as they continue to advance.
— ALAN WOOD/The Press

Heavy alpine snowfalls in the South Island this winter could temporarily halt or even reverse the continuing decline of glaciers in the Southern Alps.

The latest survey by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) draws the gloomy conclusion that the country's glaciers are shrinking at an alarming rate.

The total ice volume of the Southern Alps' glaciers is 44.9 cubic km, the least since the annual survey began 32 years ago.

The 50 glaciers in the survey lost 2.5 cu km, or 2.2 billion tonnes, of permanent ice in the 12 months from April 2007, the fourth greatest annual loss on record. That was reflected in a mean South Island snowline over the period of 1960m above sea level, 130m higher than the 1976-2008 average.

However, the stormy winter means the snowpack in some parts of the Southern Alps is the greatest it has been for about a decade.

Power company Meridian Energy is eagerly awaiting a large spring thaw and the boost it will give to its southern hydro-lakes, which are only just starting to recover from very low levels throughout the winter.

Niwa principal climate scientist Jim Salinger said that extra snow could boost the ice mass quite quickly in some smaller glaciers but would not show up in larger glaciers for years.

"It depends what happens over the summer. We've still got the snow melt to come that's November to February and maybe March. If it's a cold summer, it might halt the decline a little, but the general trend is downward."

There was also a chance of late spring snowfalls.

The shrinking of the glaciers was due to climate change, Salinger said.

"Temperatures have increased a degree over a whole century, and by about three-tenths of a degree since 1960."

The melting trend in New Zealand matched that globally.

"International monitoring of mountain glaciers by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland shows most glaciers are retreating," Salinger said.

"Of the glaciers where continuous data is available, the mean annual average loss in ice thickness since 1980 is close to half a metre per year."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4692591a19753.html

Yes, few deny climate is changing.

But is man the sole cause?

And is shuffling money the cure?

NZ's eco footprint sixth largest

NZPA | Wednesday, 29 October 2008

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Global%20Warming%20Articles%20Pix/GlobalWarming015.jpg)

NOT SO CLEAN AND GREEN: New Zealand's ecological
footprint is the sixth highest in the world, ranking
alongside the United Arab Emirates and the US in
the top 10 worst offenders.

New Zealand's ecological footprint — measured per head of population — is the sixth largest in the world, according to a global survey released today.

Swiss-based conservation group WWF said in its Living Planet report that more than three quarters of the world's population lives in countries whose consumption levels are outstripping environmental renewal.

The report, a leading statement on the planet's health, shows that only the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Kuwait, Denmark and Australia have larger ecological footprints than New Zealand on a per-head basis.

"As a country we are in dubious company in terms of our demands on the planet," said WWF-New Zealand's executive director Chris Howe.

The WWF calculations included carbon emissions from the production of imported goods and services and showed New Zealanders' use of natural resources was excessive.

Mr Howe said it made sense to look after nature as the country's health and prosperity depended on it.

"We are lucky in New Zealand to have a bountiful country with large biocapacity — but if we continue to consume our resources at this breakneck pace, its ability to provide for us will decline."

As world consumption rates increased, biodiversity was declining.

An ecological footprint measures the amount of resources humans use and the waste they generate: New Zealand has moved from requiring 5.9 "global hectares" per person in the 2006 WWF report to an average of 7.7 global hectares.

A global hectare is a standardised hectare of land able to produce resources and absorb wastes at world average levels.

Worldwide, the average ecological footprint jumped from 2.2 global hectares per person to 2.7 global hectares per person, but the world has only an average 2.1ha available per person.

"Humans are now exceeding the planet's regenerative capacity by about 30 percent," the report said.

If demand kept growing at the same rate, the equivalent of two planets would be required in the mid-2030s to sustain current lifestyles — or 3.5 planets if everyone on Earth used resources at the same pace as New Zealanders.

The report by WWF — also known as the World Wildlife Fund — said the largest human-induced pressure on the planet was from fossil fuel use.

In New Zealand, the main growth in carbon emissions since 1990 has come from the energy sector — mainly transport and electricity generation.

According to Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority reports New Zealand is now second only to the United States both in the number of cars owned per person and in the number of kilometres travelled in those cars.

Mr Howe said the most urgent priority in NZ should be given to reducing our carbon emissions.

"We have the will to change, but we need much more support from Government to do so, and that needs to happen now," he said.

The Government needed to commit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent from 2005 levels, by 2050.

---

The top 10 nations with largest ecological footprint per capita are:

1. United Arab Emirates

2. United States of America

3. Kuwait

4. Denmark

5. Australia

6. New Zealand

7. Canada

8. Norway

9. Estonia

10. Ireland

• Source: WWF Living Planet Report 2008.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4743115a7693.html

See what excessive quantites of greenhouse gases can cause?  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/MSN%20emoticons/12emdgust.gif)

---

Kiwi seas were as hot as spas scientists say

By RUTH HILL - The Dominion Post | Tuesday, 30 December 2008

If you lived in New Zealand 50 million years ago, you could have had a warm dip in the sea all year round, scientists say.

The spa-pool-like conditions that existed in the early Eocene period a time of significant global warming suggest scientists may be underestimating the likely effect of climate change.

Using sedimentary rocks from the bed of the Waipara River in North Canterbury, an international research group led by GNS Science palaeontologist Chris Hollis has reconstructed ancient sea temperatures.

They found surface sea water exceeded 30 degrees celsius, and water at the sea floor hovered around 20°C during an episode of greenhouse gas-induced global warming that lasted for between two million and three million years.

"These temperatures are at the extreme end of modern tropical water masses," Dr Hollis said. Year-round sea surface temperatures of 25°C to 30°C are today found only at the equator.

In a study to be published in the international scientific journal Geology next month, scientists have inferred warm conditions in New Zealand for this period from a wide range of fossil evidence showing the country was once covered in lush tropical forest. But, till now, the degree of warmth was uncertain.

Dr Hollis said similar freakishly warm conditions had been reported for this period in high-latitude regions of the northern hemisphere. "It now seems likely that some, as yet unknown, heat-transport mechanism comes into play during times of extreme global warmth."

Co-author Matt Huber, of Purdue University, Indiana, said the new findings were at least 10°C higher than previous estimates, which indicated climate models had underestimated past warming episodes. "It is possible that models are also underestimating future warming projections."

Dr Hollis said research into extreme climatic changes in the past would benefit from New Zealand's recent decision to join the Integrated Ocean Drilling Programme an international project extracting 2000-metre sediment cores from the ocean floor.

The recent findings, part of an eight-year study, will be presented at an international conference on climate change at Te Papa next month.

Funded by the New Zealand Government through the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, the project involves an international team of 12 research scientists and graduate students.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4805564a6479.html

No rules against spamming here huh?

I originally posted all that stuff at the old group, so I simply spent half an hour reformatting it all for SMF groups (the original HTML code wasn't compatible with these groups) and re-uploading all the image files at Photobucket, then associating the URLs with those articles; then once I had everything just right, I reposted it all into this new group!  ;D

Spam #10 New Zealand's ecological footprint — measured per head of population — is the sixth largest in the world, according to a global survey released today.
Considering that NZ produces food for 50 million people, those 50 million should be included in our equation.
More bullshit propaganda.

I agree with that.
More bullshit and propaganda.

Arctic ice ‘gone in 30 years’

NZPA | Friday, 03 April 2009

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Global%20Warming%20Articles%20Pix/2312537s-03Apr09.jpg)

Arctic sea ice is melting so fast most of it could be gone in 30 years.

A new analysis of changing conditions in the region, using complex computer models of weather and climate, says conditions that had been forecast by the end of the century could occur much sooner.

A change in the amount of ice is important because the white surface reflects sunlight back into space.

When ice is replaced by dark ocean water that sunlight can be absorbed, warming the water and increasing the warming of the planet.

The finding adds to concern about climate change caused by human activities such as burning fossil fuels, a problem that has begun receiving more attention in the Obama administration and is part of the G20 discussions under way in London.

"Due to the recent loss of sea ice, the 2005-2008 autumn central Arctic surface air temperatures were greater than 5C above what would be expected," the new study reports.

That amount of temperature increase had been expected by the year 2070.

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Global%20Warming%20Articles%20Pix/2312536s-03Apr09.jpg)

BEARS' HABITAT DISAPPEARING: Global warming is
destroying Arctic ice at a faster rate than expected.

The new report by Muyin Wang of the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean and James E Overland of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, appears in Friday's edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

They expect the area covered by summer sea ice to decline from about 2.8 million square miles (7.25 million sq km) normally to 620,000 square miles within 30 years.

Last year's summer minimum was 1.8 million square miles in September, second lowest only to 2007 which had a minimum of 1.65 million square miles, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre.

The Centre said Arctic sea ice reached its winter maximum for this year at 5.8 million square miles on February 28. That was 278,000 square miles below the 1979-2000 average making it the fifth lowest on record.

The six lowest maximums since 1979 have all occurred in the last six years.

Overland and Wang combined sea-ice observations with six complex computer models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to reach their conclusions. Combining several computer models helps avoid uncertainties caused by natural variability.

Much of the remaining ice would be north of Canada and Greenland, with much less between Alaska and Russia in the Pacific Arctic.

"The Arctic is often called the Earth's refrigerator because the sea ice helps cool the planet by reflecting the sun's radiation back into space," Wang said in a statement.

"With less ice, the sun's warmth is instead absorbed by the open water, contributing to warmer temperatures in the water and the air."

The study was supported by the NOAA Climate Change Program Office, the Institute for the Study of the Ocean and Atmosphere and the US Department of Energy.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/2312253

just in case yas hadn't noticed

Niwa sacks Jim Salinger
24/04/2009

One of New Zealand's top climate scientists, Jim Salinger, has been fired from his job at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa).

The high-profile scientist, whose work contributed to a Nobel prize, is reported to have been sacked for ignoring a new Niwa policy against speaking publicly without prior approval.

"I can't understand it, it's not as though I'm doing bad science, it's not as though I'm under-performing, so I'm really astounded," Dr Salinger said on TV One News tonight.

TV One said Niwa had accused Dr Salinger of serious misconduct after he took part in a programme the channel produced about glaciers.

The Green Party said Dr Salinger was dismissed earlier this week for helping TVNZ weatherman Jim Hickey with climate-related inquiries.

The scientist has frequently appeared in TV climate reports and has spoken in the media about climate change.

"Niwa's actions will make all government scientists nervous about their jobs," said Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons.

"New Zealand is on a slippery slope when trying to provide Kiwis with a greater understanding of our climate is a sackable offence."

Ms Fitzsimons said scientists should be able to help the public and the media with scientific problems, particularly around issues like climate change.

"An investigation is needed into how it came to be that one of New Zealand's foremost scientists was frog-marched out of his job for what appears to be trivial and petty reasons."

Ms Fitzsimons said the Minister of Research, Science and Technology, Wayne Mapp, should call in Niwa and tell them to "get to the bottom of this messy matter".

Greenpeace said it wanted answers from Niwa and the Government.

"Dr Salinger has done some amazing work to educate New Zealanders about climate change and he is highly respected internationally," said Greenpeace senior climate campaigner Simon Boxer.

"He was very clear about the need for urgent climate action in New Zealand."

TV One reported Dr Salinger was considering claiming unjustified dismissal.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/2361900/Niwa-sacks-Jim-Salinger/ (http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/2361900/Niwa-sacks-Jim-Salinger/)

Scientist lodges second claim
By PAUL GORMAN
The Press Last updated 05:00 30/04/2009
 Sacked scientist Jim Salinger has slapped a second grievance case on his former employer, Niwa.

The high-profile climatologist decided yesterday to challenge his firing by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) last Thursday as an unjustified dismissal.

Salinger will fight to be reinstated.

A separate personal grievance case over the way Niwa dealt with Salinger while he was still an employee had already been filed against the Crown research institute (CRI).

Salinger's lawyer, Alex Hope, confirmed the scientist wanted his job back.

A mediated hearing had been set down for mid-May, he said.

Salinger confirmed a hearing had been scheduled for May 12 or 13.

Niwa spokeswoman Michele Hollis repeated there would be no comment from the institute because it was a confidential employment issue.

Salinger yesterday declined to talk further about his sacking, which he had maintained was for doing his job and talking to the media.

However, this week he had told The Press things changed at Niwa about six months ago, before worsening in March and leading up to his firing.

"I had to pinch myself for about four weeks that this could be happening to me. It was clear what route it was going to take in the last week.

"Clearly, they weren't changing their minds along the track they were going to take. It's not nice being sacked. But, in a sense, I had prepared myself for it."

He had been threatened with "dismissal due to serious misconduct", he said, on returning to work on March 6 after taking part and commenting on an annual survey of the alpine snowline.

Two letters were waiting for him a long letter with a list of "allegations" and a smaller note on his snowline survey work, he said.

Labour Party list MP Moana Mackey, a molecular biologist who worked as a scientist, said Salinger's sacking had unnerved scientists around the country.

Scientists were now thinking twice about whether they could talk about their research.

She said Research, Science and Technology Minister Wayne Mapp had avoided answering questions in Parliament about Salinger's dismissal, saying he could not comment because it was an employment matter.

He had also evaded her question in Parliament asking if he would assure scientists they were entitled, and encouraged, to talk publicly about science, she said

Mapp told The Press the existing practices of CRIs allowing scientists to speak out would continue.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/national/2373502/Scientist-lodges-second-claim (http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/national/2373502/Scientist-lodges-second-claim)

Jim Salingers sacking has more behind it than they are prepared to say.

Huge ice chunks break away from Antarctic shelf

Massive ice chunks are crumbling away from a shelf in the western Antarctic Peninsula, researchers have said, warning that 3,370 square kilometres of ice - an area larger than Rhode Island - was in danger of breaking off in coming weeks.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf had been stable for most of the last century, but began retreating in the 1990s. Researchers believe it was held in place by an ice bridge linking Charcot Island to the Antarctic mainland.

But the 330-square-kilometre bridge lost two large chunks last year and then shattered completely on April 5.

"As a consequence of the collapse, the rifts, which had already featured along the northern ice front, widened and new cracks formed as the ice adjusted," the European Space Agency said in a statement Wednesday on its Web site, citing new satellite images.

The first icebergs broke away on Friday, and since then some 700 square kilometres of ice have dropped into the sea, according to the satellite data.

"There is little doubt that these changes are the result of atmospheric warming," said David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey.

The falling away of Antarctic ice shelves does not, in itself, raise sea levels, since the ice was already floating in the sea. But such coastal tables of ice usually hold back glaciers, and when they disintegrate that land ice will often flow more quickly into the sea, contributing to sea-level rise.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Huge-ice-chunks-break-away-from-Antarctic-shelf/tabid/209/articleID/101860/cat/61/Default.aspx?ArticleID=101860

KTJ - That bit about glaciers being sensitive indicators of climate change as above - Christ! Even in my lifetime the Franz Joseph and Fox have been up and down like a whore's drawers...

Gladys, the warmalists - well, the human induced ones anyway, will tell you that because its warming, more snow falls, thus forming glaciers that advance. (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/rolleyes.gif)  In the same breath, they will tell you that because its warming, the snow melts, thus making the glaciers retreat.

They then evolve a convoluted theory, in order to prove what they have just spun up from moonbeams and a desire for the next grant.

I heard the replay of an interview in part between Leighton Smith and Prof. Bob Carter which I found very interesting.    His opinion is worthy of note in my view.     
http://www.nzcpr.com/guest92.htm   ( about Bob Carter)

Ive been around a few years and none of the glaciers have retreated as far as they are now.
Ive never heard of gi-normous chunks of ice breaking off as they are regularly now.

I have no doubt there is climate change - as there has been numerous times in the past.  This time though things may be moving faster than in the past.

http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/glaciers.html

Some interesting before and after shots on this site.

Garath Morgan (a rabid capitalist and rightie) has got it when it comes to human-induced climate change....(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/afro.gif)

What a pity the “anti-warmalists” and “climate-change deniers” haven't got it and still have their heads in the sand! (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/MSN%20emoticons/40emthdown.gif)

NZ glacier findings upset climate theory

Research by three New Zealand scientists may have solved the mystery of why glaciers behave differently in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

Geologist David Barrell of GNS Science, Victoria University geomorphologist Andrew Mackintosh and glaciologist Trevor Chinn of the Alpine and Polar Processes Consultancy have helped provide definitive dating for changes in glacier behaviour.

They were part of a team of nine scientists, led by Joerg Schaefer of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York, who used an isotope-dating technique to get very precise ages for glacial deposits near Mt Cook.

They measured the build-up of beryllium-10 isotopes in surface rocks bombarded by cosmic rays to pinpoint dates when glaciers in the Southern Alps started to recede. The technology is expected to be widely applied to precisely date other glaciers around the world.

Glaciers are sensitive indicators of climate changes, usually advancing when it cools and retreating when it warms.

AdvertisementAdvertisement

The first direct confirmation of differences in glacier behaviour between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the new work topples theories based on climate in the Northern Hemisphere changing in tandem with the climate in the Southern Hemisphere.

The research argues that at times the climate in both hemispheres evolved in sync and at other times it evolved differently in different parts of the world.

Dr Barrell said their research presented "new data of novel high precision", though the team has so far chosen not to roll out wider interpretations too quickly.

He said much of it reinforced work done 30 years ago by Canterbury University researcher Professor Colin Burrows, who used NZ glacier data to highlight some of the similarities and differences between northern and southern records over the past 12,000 years.

The paper published in Science magazine yesterday showed the Mt Cook glaciers advanced to their maximum length 6500 years ago, and have been smaller ever since.

But glaciers in the Swiss Alps advanced to their maximum only in the past 700 years - during the Northern Hemisphere's "Little Ice Age", which ended about 1860.

During some warm periods in Europe, glaciers were advancing in New Zealand. At other times, glaciers were well advanced in both areas.

In a commentary which accompanied the research, Greg Balco, from the Berkeley Geochronology Centre in California, said the conclusion that glacier advances in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres were not synchronised was "unexpected".

Dr Barrell said the paper presented only the first instalment of the dating work, and more would be revealed at an international workshop on past climates to be held at Te Papa on May 15.

"The New Zealand findings point to the importance of regional shifts in wind directions and sea surface temperatures," he said.

Regional weather patterns such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation were superimposed on the global climate trends reflected in the behaviour of glaciers.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10569888

Did Auntie Herald copy that story from the Dominion Post newspaper (owned by their rival company, Fairfax) and republish it? Because it seems almost word-for-word with the Dom-Post article as posted in Reply #22 and originally published by the Dom-Post last Friday (1st May). I note that Auntie Herald published the story the day after the Dominion Post published it.

Incidentally, I notice the NZ Herald has a photograph of the terminal of Fox Glacier accompanying the article. Here is a photograph showing the entire length of Fox Glacier, and a second photograph showing the upper icefall and glacier névé (and Horokoau/Mount Tasman), with both images captured by me almost two weeks ago....

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/April%202009%20South%20Is%20Pix/DSCH3-03944-800px.jpg)

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/April%202009%20South%20Is%20Pix/DSCH3-03948-800px.jpg)

http://www.youtube.com/v/s5kg1oOq9tY
 ;D

Weathering the storm of Salinger sacking

WORLD OF SCIENCE — BOB BROCKIE

The Dominion Post | Monday, 04 May 2009

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Caricatures/2383661sJimSalinger25Apr09.jpg)

TVNZ'S Jim Hickey: Hello. Is that Jim Salinger, part-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, president of a world meteorological commission, companion of the Royal Society of New Zealand and renowned science communicator?

Dr Salinger: Yes. That's me.

Jim Hickey: Can you tell us about the weather?

Dr Salinger: No! I can't comment.

Jim Hickey: What do you mean, you can't comment?

Dr Salinger: You've asked the wrong person. My boss says I'm not to talk to you. You must ask the communications manager at my place of work, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research. She'll put you right. She might even put you in touch with me.

Jim Hickey: But we'd rather hear about the weather from the horse's mouth, as it were.

Dr Salinger: No. If I talk to you about the weather without permission I could get further up my boss's nose. That's more than my job's worth.

Jim Hickey: You must be joking!

No joke. Something like this must have happened to Dr Salinger. Niwa has given him the boot for publicly making unsanctioned remarks about the weather.

Scientists up and down the country are astonished and outraged at their colleague's sacking. The man has been fired for what he does best - making science intelligible to the public.

Dr Salinger's case opens a window on the inner workings of Niwa and is a telling example of the malaise that has enveloped New Zealand science in the past 17 years. The weather, the ocean, the air, lakes and rivers used to be researched by government scientific agencies until 1992, when Environment Minister Simon Upton closed them all down and rejigged them as commercial companies.

"Professional managers", not necessarily scientists, were appointed to run these companies for profit. Some of the new bosses may have successfully managed a brewery, a drug company or a football team but few understood what scientists do. The new men brought their business suits and ethics to their jobs and imposed these strange managerial protocols on their scientists.

Commercial and scientific enterprises have different motivations, methods and goals. A lot of commerce is competitive and secretive but scientists were not accustomed to that. They worked collaboratively and in the public eye. Now, managers worry that talkative scientists might embarrass their institutions or, worse, give away information that they might otherwise sell.

Scientists find it belittling and demeaning to ask their new masters' permission to speak about their science, as though they can't be trusted to comment diplomatically. Many scientists I know find themselves disempowered and their discipline degraded.

Dr Salinger's sacking would be understandable if serious commercial or political issues were at stake but his managers appear to have given him the elbow on trivial grounds. Goodness knows how many other petty in-house protocols stand in the way of publicising science.

Scientists see this as more than just an employment issue. His sacking overrides scientific conventions - not a good look for science or for the country.

Outlook: Stormy.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/opinion/2382545/Weathering-the-storm-of-Salinger-sacking

Yes I believe in global warming, but I think it is part of a natural cycle which will eventually lead to a new ice age and there is very little we humans can do to change it, bar changing earth's orbit round the sun........what will be, will be.

Scientists warn on ocean acidification

NZPA | Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Bluff's oyster fisheries in Foveaux Strait may be at the top of a hit list of species vulnerable to increasing acidity levels in the oceans, New Zealand scientists say.

But the global phenomenon of ocean acidification may pose a threat not only to New Zealand's fisheries and aquaculture industries, but to marine ecosystems around the world, according to the national science academy, the Royal Society.

"Concerns exist over acidification and its potential, within decades, to severely affect marine organisms, food webs, biodiversity and fisheries," the society said in a paper released yesterday.

The oceans are becoming more acidic as they store more carbon dioxide from the rising levels in the Earth's atmosphere. Oceans store about 50 times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere, and they have absorbed more than 30 percent of the carbon dioxide released by human activity.

The Royal Society is planning to hold a workshop on the issue in Wellington on September 9.

Carbon dioxide-saturated oceans pose a threat to New Zealand's corals, crustaceans and shellfish, because they may thin the calcium carbonate shells not only of the adult organisms, but their juvenile stages.

Acidification may also be threatening calcifying algae which cover 80 percent of the Otago coast and provide the habitat for larvae of species such as paua and kina. Mussels, Pacific and Bluff oysters, paua and scallops make up a $300 million industry.

A key form of calcium carbonate, aragonite, which is used by corals and other sea life may become less available before the middle of the century, according to Professor Keith Hunter, head of Otago University's chemistry department.

A National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) scientist at the university, Dr Philip Boyd, said kina, mussels, oysters, and paua were among important coastal species which could be affected.

In the open ocean micro-organisms such as some plankton at the base of global food webs may be left with weaker and thinner shells.

"We will see a significant 'tipping point' in terms of ocean chemistry by as early as 2030," said Dr Boyd. "We may see the shells of some of these 'calcifiers' dissolve".

Both scientists emphasised there were huge gaps in knowledge of how marine life and ecosystems would change, but said the only plausible way to slow down the changes was to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.

Coastal organisms may have extra resilience because the conditions in which they live vary naturally, and corals in the southern fjords may also have some adaptions in place because of acidic tannins in bush run-off.

But Antarctic ecosystems will be very vulnerable, because colder water can take up more carbon dioxide, and many cold-water organisms such as corals are slow-growing.

Proposals for helping aquaculture adapt have included breeding species capable of tolerating acidity, reducing the acidity of water in which larval stages develop, and changing the species farmed.

Prof Hunter said Australian research had shown that Sydney rock oysters could be selectively bred to tolerate higher levels of acidity.

"There may be some future for the aquaculture industry to adapt," he said.

The September workshop has been planned to alert government and private sector agencies to the scientific and technical issues, and to inform scientists of the most important priorities in future research.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/2406762/Scientists-warn-on-ocean-acidification

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Spectre of seas without shells

By ABIGAIL SMITH - The Dominion Post | Wednesday, 13 May 2009

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POISONED SEA: Abigail Smith says the oceans are
becoming more acidic by the day, affecting the
ability of shellfish and coral to create the shells
and skeletons vital to their survival. — REUTERS.

Remember Silent Spring? It was in 1962 that Rachel Carson's book alerted the world to the problems of the insecticide DDT in the food chain. Birds of prey were particularly vulnerable, with their eggshells becoming so thin they could no longer contain growing embryos. The threat of springtime with no birdsong catapulted the world into a new awareness of ecology and conservation.

Forty-seven years on, a new threat is looming, this time in the sea. Once again the busy rhythm of people is causing an ecological crisis. Not as complicated as modelling global warming, not as simple as banning a pesticide, our newest planetary drama is called ocean acidification. It happens because of the connections between air, water, and shells.

We know that human activities, particularly the burning of coal, oil, petrol and wood, have for the past 200 years increased the amount of carbon dioxide, or CO2, in the atmosphere. While these molecules float around in the air, they act like a blanket keeping Earth warm and eventually changing the whole climate. The warming effects of CO2 have been less than they could have been, however, because about a third of CO2 from the air gets mopped up by the oceans.

What's good for global climate change, however, is bad for the sea. When you add CO2 to sea water, it becomes more acid. And that means that the carbonate ion, CO3, gets scarcer. That might seem like no big deal, but many marine plants and animals use carbonate, along with calcium, for constructing protection and structure.

Clams, snails, urchins, corals, some algae, and many plankton all use calcium carbonate (CaCO3) to build their shells.

Marine ecologists have only just begun to investigate the potential problems that a more acid ocean might pose to creatures in the sea. What they have found so far is alarming. Tiny plankton, zillions of which form part of the basis of the marine food chain, are usually protected by a robust and complex ball of carbonate.

But when you grow them in more acid conditions, these little shells become thinner and more frail. Even more alarming, experiments with corals show that under acid conditions, some do not make a skeleton. They sit there like a jelly glob with no sign of the complex architecture that makes coral reefs so diverse and so attractive to tourists - and to fish.

This isn't just a problem for squishy marine critters. Marine aquaculture and multimillion-dollar fisheries such as mussel farming are likely to be affected.

Tourism to coral reefs is another multimillion-dollar industry, and some economies are wholly reliant on it. There is even the suggestion that a more acid ocean could be more corrosive and thus affect shipping and ports.

The sea is growing more acid by the day. Early estimates suggested that acidity could go up 30 per cent by the end of this century. Now scientists are warning that, in the Southern Ocean, we could be seeing measurable changes within a few decades. The effects of what we have already pumped into the air are probably irreversible. There are no practical solutions or cures - no antacid for the sea's indigestion. The only thing we can do is to slow it down.

Luckily, we already want to reduce carbon emissions and know we need to stop the invisible clouds of CO2 rising into the air. We already have mechanisms in place to change how we live and travel. Ocean acidification provides another, and perhaps a more urgent, reason for continuing on this path as fast as possible.

We still have birds of prey. That is because people cared, listened and took action. Ordinary gardeners stopped using DDT, and eventually governments also responded. Now you can't buy DDT and you can't spray it around.

Geologists, who specialise in the long- term view, are beginning to call the present time period the anthropocene epoch.

They mean that the activities of humans are so pervasive that they will be the dominant signal in the geologic record of our time. So far it appears that the anthropocene will be renowned for its great extinction event - a period in which Earth became so unhealthy that hundreds of species of animals and plants ceased to be. Given that acidification is to be added to the effects of coastal pollution, ongoing development, sedimentation and over-fishing, it is not surprising that our coastal ecosystems are set to crash.

We can choose to make a difference. Just don't drive. Turn off the power. Think about all those millions of plankton making their complex and perfect skeletons. Think about that exhaust, puffing out the back of every car, each little bit of CO2 heading into the air, into the sea, a little drop of poison for our planet. Each of us can make small differences. Think about what you could do, today, to save just one plankton, just one coral. Because a sea without shells is like springtime without birds.

• Associate Professor Abigail M Smith is a geochemist in the Marine Science Department at the University of Otago.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/opinion/2407463/Spectre-of-seas-without-shells

Tip of the iceberg for wonder

By KATARINA FILIPE - The Timaru Herald | Friday, 29 May 2009

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ADRIFT: Wintry conditions have blown icebergs down
to the southern end of the Tasman Glacier terminal lake.

Iceberg fans are in for a treat this winter.

More than 50 icebergs of all shapes and sizes have been blown down to the southern end of the Tasman Glacier terminal lake, giving people the chance for a close inspection.

Strong winds at Aoraki Mount Cook blew the icebergs down the lake and cold temperatures froze the waters around them, leaving them stuck in place.

Glacier Explorers operations manager Bede Ward said it was a "fitting finale to an absolutely bumper season".

"All the ice in the lake will be our iceberg ‘stock’ for next summer."

Glacier Explorers passengers have seen the largest iceberg calvings on the terminal lake since the season began last September.

In the most significant single calving in the lake's 25-year existence, a giant slab of ice about 250 metres long by 250m wide by 80m high plunged into the lake, causing a three-metre tidal wave on February 10.

A second iceberg about quarter of the size calved from the face soon afterwards.

The event followed a huge chunk of turquoise basal ice eight metres wide and 30m high calving from an iceberg into the lake on February 04.

Mr Ward said reports of the retreat of the two-million-year-old, 27-kilometre-long Tasman Glacier had been a great drawcard for business.

"We're getting more and more icebergs now so we're naming them in order to track and communicate changes," he said.

Since the terminal lake began forming in 1973, the Tasman Glacier's retreat had quickened because the lake was expanding all the time and causing a more rapid melt of the glacier face, Mr Ward said.

"From now on I think we may be looking at major calving from the terminal face as an annual event."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/2454997/Tip-of-the-iceberg-for-wonder

Are people these something like train spotters?

Ice caps melting — astronaut

REUTERS | 12:52AM - Monday, 27 July 2009

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EARTH BELOW: Space Shuttle Endeavour is seen docked
to the International Space Station. A Canadian astronaut,
returning to space after 12 years, says Earth's ice caps
appear to be melting. — NASA.

A Canadian astronaut aboard the International Space Station says it looks like Earth's ice caps have melted since he was last in orbit 12 years ago.

Bob Thirsk, who is two months into a planned six-month stay aboard the station, said he is mostly in awe when he looks out the window, particularly at the sliver of atmosphere wrapped around the planet.

"It's a very thin veil of atmosphere around the Earth that keeps us alive," Thirsk said during an in-flight news conference.

"Most of the time when I look out the window I'm in awe. But there are some effects of the human destruction of the Earth as well.

"This is probably just a perception, but I just have the feeling that the glaciers are melting, the snow capping the mountains is less than it was 12 years ago when I saw it last time," Thrisk said. "That saddens me a little bit."

If Thrisk needs a sympathetic ear, he has 12 crewmates with him, at least until Tuesday, when visiting shuttle Endeavour astronauts are scheduled to depart.

The astronauts delivered a Japanese-built experiment platform, installed new batteries for the station's solar power system and stashed spare parts to keep the station operational after shuttles are retired next year after seven more flights.

The $100 billion station, a project of 16 nations, is nearing completion after more than a decade of work.

Endeavour astronauts Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn are scheduled for a fifth spacewalk on Monday to rewire a station gyroscope, fix insulation on its Canadian-built robot and install television cameras needed to guide a Japanese cargo vessel into its docking port. The HTV cargo hauler is slated for its debut flight in September.

"All in all I think it's an extremely successful mission in spite of a lot of really interesting curveballs that have been thrown our way," Endeavour commander Mark Polansky told reporters.

The latest glitch occurred on Saturday when the station's US air-scrubber shut down, prompting NASA to call in extra flight controllers to oversee the device manually. The machine strips deadly carbon dioxide, a by-product of respiration, from the station's air.

"It's not something that we want to do long term, because (of) the number of commands we have to send from the ground. But in the short term, we've got the carbon dioxide removal system back up and running and operating at close to its normal capacity," Smith said.

A backup air-scrubber is due to be launched aboard NASA's next shuttle mission, targeted for launch in August.

Endeavour is due back at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Friday.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/2677865/Ice-caps-melting-astronaut

Maybe global warming has not come here yet its freezing cold,

I was expecting sunny days and my own beach  ::)

In Woodville?  :o  ::)

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I was in woodville once when the sun shone [well actually, I've been in Woodville often - just not usually when the sun was shining] - and I'm sure theres a beach somewhere near the bridge over the Manawatu....

We do get realy hot days in the summer but its freezing cold right now and there is still no sign of my beach yet. :o

Arctic tundra hotter, boosts global warming

REUTERS | 9:39AM - 30 July 2009

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GETTING HOT IN HERE: Arctic tundra around
the world are heating up rapidly and boosting
the process of global warming. — REUTERS.

Regions of Arctic tundra around the world are heating up very rapidly, releasing more greenhouse gases than predicted and boosting the process of global warming, a leading expert said.

Professor Greg Henry of the University of British Columbia also said higher temperatures meant larger plants were starting to spread across the tundra, which is usually covered by small shrubs, grasses and lichen. The thicker plant cover means the region is getting darker and absorbing more heat.

He said tundra covers about 15 percent of the world's surface and makes up around 30 percent of Canadian territory.

Henry, who has been working in the Arctic since the early 1980s, said he had measured "a very substantial change" in the tundra over the last three decades, citing greater emissions and plant growth.

Since 1970, he said, temperatures in the tundra region had risen by one degree Celsius per decade — equal to the highest rates of warming found anywhere on the planet.

"We're finding that the tundra is actually giving off a lot more nitrous oxide and methane than anyone had thought before," Henry told reporters on a conference call from Resolute in the northern Canadian territory of Nunavut.

"We're really trying to get a handle on this because if (further tests show) that's true, this actually changes the entire greenhouse gas budget for the North, and that has global implications," he said.

Scientists blame climate change on a surge in emissions of greenhouse gases. The effects in Canada's North and Arctic regions have been particularly notable.

Henry said his research station in Nunavut had recorded record high temperatures virtually every summer since the early 1990s. The warmer temperatures mean plants are growing bigger and faster, while larger species are spreading northward.

"The tundra is getting a lot weedier all the way around the globe. This has major implications," said Henry, who also chairs an international project studying tundra.

"You're changing the color of the surface of the earth by making it darker... so the consequence of that is increased warming again."

Some scientists also fear that as the permafrost in the Arctic melts, it will release vast amounts of carbon and methane into the atmosphere.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/2703353/Arctic-tundra-hotter-boosts-global-warming

Hotel collapses in Taiwan typhoon

Climate-change havoc

Stuff.co.nz (http://www.stuff.co.nz) with Associated Press | Monday, 10 August 2009

A six-story hotel in Chihpen, Taitung county, Taiwan collapses and plunges into a river after floodwaters eroded its base as typhoon Morakot passed through the area. The Typhoon caused the worst flooding in the area in 50 years.

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                      The hotel on a lean before collapsing. — Associated Press/ETTV Television.


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                            The hotel begins to topple. — Associated Press/ETTV Television.


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                        The toppling hotel hits the water. — Associated Press/ETTV Television.


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         The full weight of a six storey hotel creates an enormous splash. — Associated Press/ETTV Television.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/2737145/Hotel-collapses-in-Taiwan-typhoon

Worst flooding in 50 years.  Wow!     

50 years is a just a speck in time.     

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The NATs “do” enviroment stuff....

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Ice shelf finding ‘debunks claims of sceptics’

By KIRAN CHUG - The Dominion Post | 5:00AM - Wednesday, 11 November 2009

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DEEP FROZEN: A mooring line encased in platelet ice
after being immersed in supercooled water from under
the McMurdo Ice Shelf. Alex Gough of Otago University
is in the background. — ANDREW MAHONEY.

New Zealand scientists say massive ice shelves are protecting Antarctica from experiencing the same rapid decline in sea ice as the Arctic.

The research team says the discovery further debunks the claims of sceptics who have pointed to the continent's growth as evidence against global warming.

The team was led by Otago University physics researcher Andrew Mahoney, who said the eight-month study focused on a topic scientists understood little about.

Dr Mahoney said findings would help climate scientists make predictions about the future.

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research oceanographer Mike Williams said the research explained why Antarctic sea ice was not decreasing at a similar rate to that of the Arctic.

Figures from America's National Snow and Ice Data Center show that Arctic sea ice shrank by about 4 per cent of 500,000 square kilometres each decade during the past 30 years. By contrast, Antarctic sea ice was not believed to have changed much in size and may have increased slightly.

However, Antarctic Research Centre director Tim Naish, who was not part of the research team, said the latest data issued in a report by Nasa indicated that the amount of Antarctic sea ice lost since 2003 could have doubled.

Dr Naish said the New Zealand team's findings were exciting as they would help scientists understand which parts of the continent would become vulnerable in the future.

Scientists already knew the hole in the ozone layer meant a mass of cold air was channelled over Antarctica, suppressing the effects of warming temperatures.

This study added another explanation to why the sea ice was not decreasing rapidly, and provided a more complete response to the questions of global warming sceptics, Dr Naish said.

"The simple answer is that the balance of evidence is completely overwhelming."

Although the ice shelves provided sea ice with a buffer against warming waters, that buffer would not last forever, he said.

Scientists needed now to understand why the ice shelves provided a better buffer in some areas, so as to predict how fast and how much sea levels could rise.

This was one of the most serious consequences of climate change, and Dr Naish said it was an area that would be central to discussions in Copenhagen for the United Nations climate change conference next month.

The more scientists could do to understand why and predict when sea ice would decrease, would help determine sea level rises, he said. Once the buffer of ice shelves was lost — and Dr Naish said it was unknown how stable they were – the Antarctic sea ice would be less protected from global warming.

That could lead to sea-level rises around New Zealand's coastline.

Dr Mahoney said the findings meant that in the future climate-change scientists would need to take into account how warm water would interact with ice shelves, and not just floating ice-sheets.

Dr Williams said understanding how sea ice would change would help scientists better predict how weather systems would change in the southern hemisphere.


WHAT THE SCIENTISTS FOUND

• Massive ice shelves make up half the Antarctic coastline;

• Cold water melts from these ice shelves;

• The melted water protects the ice sheets from the warming effects of climate change;

• This causes ice sheets to grow in winter, although they still melt in summer;

• This is why Antarctic sea ice has not declined as quickly as Arctic sea ice in response to global warming.

Arctic sea ice:

• Is landlocked;

• Covers about 15 million sq km in the winter;

• Melts to cover about 7 million sq km in the summer;

• Extends all the way to the North Pole.

Antarctic sea ice:

• Floats freely in the ocean;

• Covers about 18 million sq km in the winter;

• Melts to cover about 3 million sq km in the summer;

• Does not reach the South Pole.

Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, Colorado.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/3050096/Ice-shelf-finding-debunks-claims-of-sceptics (http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/3050096/Ice-shelf-finding-debunks-claims-of-sceptics)

And if all else fails, you merely silence  [literally] thopse critics who disagree with the Global Warming Machine...




http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/3054281/Muted-Wishart-angry-at-scientists

East coast swelters as heatwave continues

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THE heat has left Melbourne and Adelaide sweltering will hit Sydney this week bringing temperatures nearing 40C tomorrow and remaining in the high 30s though to next weekend.

And there is no relief in sight just yet.

High temperatures are expected for the rest of summer. The bureau predicts minimum temperatures will be well above average from November to January.

Emergency services on alert

In South Australia emergency crews were kept busy containing a series of blazes in blistering heat, with three of the largest fires destroying nearly 300ha.

On Yorke Peninsula, farm machinery is believed to have started a 60ha grass fire at Maitland about 11.30am.

Six Country Fire Service appliances, a bulk water carrier and specialist farm units brought the flames under control within an hour and protected a house.

At Wynarka, about 50km east of Murray Bridge, about 200ha was destroyed in a grass fire on the Tailem Bend-Karoonda road that started at about 1pm. Police closed the road after visibility was reduced because of thick smoke, and re-opened it by 3.30pm.

CFS spokeswoman Karina Loxton appealed for continued vigilance over the coming few days.

"We urge everyone to do the right thing and watch their activities, particularly in total fire ban areas," she said. Meanwhile, a number of events have been cancelled today due to the heat.

These include the Rundle Street Market, The Big Aussie Swap event that was to have been held in Whitmore Square, the Gilles St markets and the Ovarian Cancer Challenge Walkathon scheduled for 10am at Semaphore.

Monarto zoo is also closed due to the threat of bushfires.

In Victoria temperatures in the Mallee region are predicted to hit 41C on Saturday and Sunday and 37C on Monday.

Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) state duty officer Dennis Ward warned people conducting their own bushfire preparations in parts of the state without fire restrictions to remain vigilant.

"People need to be aware that we've had a long, hot, dry period and it's going to continue for bit,'' he said.

"The main thing is that people be aware and be careful, particularly those doing their own fire protection.''

El Nino driving temperatures

NSW Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Elly Spark said the hot weather was caused by a backdrop of El Nino and a very hot air mass over central Australia.

Northwesterly winds, generated by a high-pressure system in the Tasman Sea, were carrying this hot air to the NSW coast.

"Generally, conditions over inland NSW have been hot to very hot, and they will continue that way for some time," Ms Spark said.

"On November 3, the temperature at Penrith hit 39.4 degrees.

"There will be a change on Tuesday, but by the end of the week conditions are going to get very hot again.

"On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, temperatures in western Sydney will be on the rise.

"Penrith is expected to have a 37-degree day on Thursday, followed by 39 degrees on Friday."

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26349733-421,00.html

And dont we live in the luck country with its brrrrrrrrr cold weather  ::)

NZ glaciers continuing to shrink

NZPA | 10:55AM - Monday, 23 November 2009

New Zealand's glaciers are continuing to shrink, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) says.

NIWA's annual end-of-summer survey of the snowline on key South Island glaciers showed they lost much more ice than they gained between April 2008 and March 2009.

Scientists flew over 50 glaciers in the Southern Alps and Kaikoura area and photographed the positions of snowlines on glaciers during the survey.

NIWA snow and ice scientist Jordy Hendrikx said above-normal temperatures, near or below-normal rainfall and above-normal sunshine were among the reasons for the continued shrinking.

This year's snowline was, on average, 95 metres above where it needed to be to keep the ice mass constant, NIWA said.

This indicated the loss of glacier mass observed in the 2007-2008 survey had continued.

Over the past 33 years, there had been an overall decrease in the glacier mass balance, despite periods where the balance had increased for a few years.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/3088709/NZ-glaciers-continuing-to-shrink (http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/3088709/NZ-glaciers-continuing-to-shrink)

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Glaciers continue to shrink

New Zealand’s glaciers lost significant ice mass again last summer.

National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (http://www.niwa.co.nz) | 23 November 2009

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When one portion of snow melts, it takes about two equivalent portions of snow fall to keep a glacier's mass balance the same.

The National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has just released the results of its annual end-of-summer survey of the snowline on key South Island glaciers, showing continued loss of glacier mass.

The survey uses a small fixed wing aircraft to fly over 50 glaciers in the Southern Alps and Kaikoura. Scientists take photographs and then analyse the images to determine the position of the snowline after the summer melt but before the first winter snowfall. This provides an index of the mass balance or ’health’ of the glaciers of New Zealand. The survey has been going since 1977.

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                                                        ROLLESTON GLACIER

NIWA Snow and Ice Scientist Dr Jordy Hendrikx says weather patterns over the course of the year from April 2008 to March 2009 meant that overall the glaciers had lost much more ice than they had gained. This was mainly due to the combination of above normal temperatures and near normal or below normal rainfall for the Southern Alps during winter, and La Niña-like patterns producing more northerly flows creating normal-to-above normal temperatures, above normal sunshine, and well below normal precipitation for the Southern Alps particularly during late summer.

The higher the snowline, the more snow is lost to feed the glacier. On average, the snowline this year was about 95 metres above where it would need to be to keep the ice mass constant. This indicates that the loss of glacier mass observed in 2007-08 has continued.

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                                                   GODLEY & CLASSEN GLACIERS

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                           AORAKI-MOUNT COOK, TASMAN GLACIER & HOCHSTETTER ICEFALL

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                                 AORAKI-MOUNT COOK & TASMAN GLACIER TERMINAL LAKE

When studying and reporting what is happening to glaciers, it is important to look at more than one factor. The position of the end of summer snowline is only part of the story; in New Zealand, an estimated 90% of ice loss from glaciers since 1976 is due to down-wasting and lake calving. NIWA’s snowline surveys show an overall decrease in the glacier mass balance (and thereby volumes) over the past 33 years — but this is punctuated by periods where the prevailing weather conditions caused the glacier mass balance to increase for a few years.

Similarly, glacier terminus position (the “length” of a glacier) can be misleading when considered on its own because total volume can be decreasing even while terminus length is increasing.

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Global%20Warming%20Articles%20Pix/NIWA005r_BonarGlacierAndMountAspiri.jpg)
                                              BONAR GLACIER & MOUNT ASPIRING

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Global%20Warming%20Articles%20Pix/NIWA006r_ParkPass.jpg)
                                                               PARK PASS

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Global%20Warming%20Articles%20Pix/NIWA007r_TutokoAndTheDonneGlacier.jpg)
                                               MOUNT TUTOKO & DONNE GLACIER

For more information, contact:

Dr Jordy Hendrikx
NIWA Snow & Ice Scientist
Mob: +64 21 039 4711

For images:

Large sized high resolution glacier photographs and graphs showing the changes in glacier ice mass can be downloaded at ftp://ftp.niwa.co.nz/niwamedia/glaciers (http://ftp://ftp.niwa.co.nz/niwamedia/glaciers).

Background information:

1. Worldwide, glaciers are regarded as a useful indicator of global warming, but New Zealand’s glaciers are more complicated because they have their source in areas of extremely high precipitation. West of the Main Divide in the Southern Alps, more than 10 metres (10 000 mm) of precipitation falls each year as clouds are pushed up over the sharply rising mountain ranges. This means the mass and volume of New Zealand’s glaciers is sensitive to changing wind and precipitation patterns as well as to temperature. So, for example, the glaciers advanced during most of the 1980s and 1990s when the area experienced about a 15% increase in precipitation, associated with more El Niño events and stronger westerly winds over New Zealand. The glaciers in parts of Norway are similar.

2. Despite the sensitivity of New Zealand glaciers to changes in both precipitation and temperature, the volume of ice in the Southern Alps dropped by roughly 50% during the last century. New Zealand’s temperature increased by about 1°C over the same period.

3. Globally, most glaciers are retreating. Of the glaciers for which there are continuous data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service, the mean annual loss in ice thickness since 1980 remains close to half a metre per year. The Service has said that the loss in ice mass “leaves no doubt about the accelerating change in climatic conditions”. For world glacier data, see www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms (http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms)

4. The level of the glacier snowlines is not necessarily closely related to the amount of snow that falls on the country’s ski fields during winter. Most of the popular ski fields are east of the Main Divide, or in the North Island. Mount Hutt, for instance, gets its snow from big southeasterlies, whereas most of the glaciers are fed by westerlies. The melt season is also of critical importance, so while a glacier may receive “normal” snow accumulation, it could be subject to above normal melt and the net result is a higher snowline and less ice.

5. An estimated 90% of the ice loss from New Zealand glaciers in the Southern Alps since 1976 is due to down-wasting and lake calving mainly from 12 of the largest glaciers on the eastern side of the main divide. These processes are:

• Down-wasting: ice melts from the top surface of the trunk. Trunks go from their original convex shape to near-straight or even concave (slight hollow in the centre).

• Lake calving: ice melting at the foot of glaciers & meltwater forming lakes. Some chunks of ice ‘calve’ off glaciers into the lakes (like ice bergs).

http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/glaciers-continue-to-shrink2 (http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/glaciers-continue-to-shrink2)

Are you ready

to meet your maker?

The future....

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons/3094310sNoFlashPhotography25Nov09.jpg)

Wellington could be more like Venice by 2100

By EMILY WATT - The Dominion Post | 5:00AM - Saturday, 05 December 2009

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix/Wellington_2100.jpg)

SEA RISE SCENARIO: The computer graphic shows that low-lying parts of central Wellington are at risk of flooding if the sea level rises one metre.

If you want to go to the library, you'll get your feet wet, Wellington police will need boats to get to work, and parts of Customhouse Quay might get a bit soggy.

Wellington City Council has issued a graphic to show how rising sea levels would affect the capital.

"It's important to remember that, for areas such as the CBD, doing nothing is clearly not an option," councillor Ray Ahipene-Mercer said.

"Tools like this help us to assess a range of appropriate response options, and will also help people understand why it is important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." Local authorities should be preparing for a rise of up to one metre in sea levels by 2100, he said.

The council was shown the computer-generated graphic this week. It showed, if nothing was done to protect the city centre, low-lying parts were at risk of flooding. Sea level rise could also increase erosion and the effects of storm surge.

The council's strategy and policy committee considered this week the draft 2010 climate change action plan. It looked at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for a rise in temperature and sea level.

Mr Ahipene-Mercer said Wellington had assets worth billions of dollars which could be affected, including roads, railway lines and the city centre.

The council planned to shift the focus to community emissions rather than just the actions of businesses and organisations.

It has set a target to cut community emissions by 3 per cent by June 2013 and committed $35 million towards plans with a climate change focus in its 2009-19 Long-Term Council Community Plan. Projects include walking and cycling plans, intensifying development in the city centre and retro-fitting homes with better insulation.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/local/3129355/Wellington-could-be-more-like-Venice-by-2100 (http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/local/3129355/Wellington-could-be-more-like-Venice-by-2100)

---

See the following interesting pages on the Wellington City Council website:

• New Technology Helps City Plan for Climate Change (http://www.wellington.govt.nz/news/display-item.php?id=3780)

• Climate Change — Introduction (http://www.wellington.govt.nz/services/environment/climate/climatechange.html)

Galciers were getting smaller in 1888 too... and seeing as that dramatic waterworld graphic of downtown Wellington is being spammed across threads...




THE GLACIAL PERIOD.

Otago Witness , Issue 1893, 2 March 1888, Page 31


The intense cold of the Glacial Period must not be regarded as having been caused by conditions which were permanent in their nature. The period known to geology as the Ice Age was comparatively recent, but there is little doubt that similar periods of great cold preceded it at widely separated intervals, and that these were not occasioned by any mere terrestrial changes, but must be explained by cosmical causes. The most generally accepted explanation of these remarkable conditions is that the orbit of the earth has been in times past much more eccentric, or elongated, than now. This fact, Dr James Croll remarks in his work, " Climate and Time," would not of itself, perhaps, fully account for the low temperature producing the Glacial Period.; but through physical conditions caused by it this term of severe cold might be induced.

It is always, assumed that, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, the winter of. the Northern Hemisphere at this time occurred when the earth was in aphelion, or at the point of its orbit furthest from the sun.

Croll estimates that the heat received then 1 at this point would be so much less than now that the mid-winter temperature would be lowered to an enormous extent, and the winters would not only be much colder, but also much longer than now.
The result of this would be an enormous accumulation of snow and ice during the winter, which the short summer would not suffice to melt.

The influences which brought the Ice Age to a close are supposed by Croll to be a gradual lessening of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, the movement of the equinoxes bringing the winter solstice of the Northern Hemisphere back to perihelion, or the action of the ocean currents and the trade winds. He supposed, further, that the region of the equator was, during the Glacial Period, submerge — a fact which would tend to the free motion of the waters and the increase of the average warmth of the Southern Hemisphere, and a still further lowering of the temperature on the northern half of the globe. But the elevation of the land about the equator subsequently caused a deflection of the ocean currents northwards and the creation of the great current of the Gulf Stream, which has an enormous influence in the distribution of heat in the Northern Hemisphere.

But the important causes bringing the earth up to its present temperature, like those creating the very great depression of the Glacial Period, were those acting from without rather than existing conditions on the surface of the earth itself.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=OW18880302.2.135.4&srpos=9&e=-------10--1----2%22ice+age%22-all

It's about time they bit back!!

(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/afro.gif)

---

UN hits back at climate sceptics amid e-mails row

The UN's official panel on climate change has hit back at sceptics' claims that the case for human influence on global warming has been exaggerated.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said it was "firmly" standing by findings that a rise in the use of greenhouse gases was a factor.

It was responding to a row over the reliability of data from East Anglia University's Climatic Research Unit

Leaked e-mail exchanges prompted claims that data had been manipulated.

Last month, hundreds of messages between scientists at the unit and their peers around the world were put on the internet along with other documents.

Some observers alleged one of the e-mails suggested head of the unit Professor Phil Jones wanted certain papers excluded from the UN's next major assessment of climate science.

Professor Jones, who denies this was his intention, has stood down from his post while an independent inquiry takes place.

In a statement, Professor Thomas Stocker and Professor Qin Dahe, co-chairmen of the IPCC's working group 1, condemned the act of posting the private e-mails on the internet, but avoided commenting on their content.

They went on to point to a key finding that states: "The warming in the climate system is unequivocal".

"[It] is based on measurements made by many independent institutions worldwide that demonstrate significant changes on land, in the atmosphere, the ocean and in the ice-covered areas of the Earth."

"Through further independent scientific work involving statistical methods and a range of different climate models, these changes have been detected as significant deviations from natural climate variability and have been attributed to the increase of greenhouse gases."

They added: "The body of evidence is the result of the careful and painstaking work of hundreds of scientists worldwide.

"The internal consistency from multiple lines of evidence strongly supports the work of the scientific community, including those individuals singled out in these e-mail exchanges."

The row comes ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit which starts on Monday.

Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chairman of the IPCC, said it was no coincidence the information was released in the run-up to the summit.

He claimed unnamed conspirators could have paid for Russian hackers to break into the university computers to steal the e-mails.

He said the theft was a scandal and was "probably ordered" to disrupt the confidence negotiators have in the science.

Earlier, Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband told the BBC he would be "very surprised" if there had been any wrongdoing on the part of the East Anglia University scientists.

"We're in a moment when the world is about to make some big political decisions," he said.

"And there will be people who don't want the world to make those big decisions and they are trying to use this in part to say somehow this is all in doubt and perhaps we should put the whole thing off.

"Well, I just think they're wrong about that."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the scientific evidence was "very clear" and called doubters a "flat Earth group".

He said: "There is an anti-change group. There is an anti-reform group. There is an anti-science group, there is a flat Earth group, if I may say so, over the scientific evidence for climate change."

'Open and transparent'

Meanwhile, the Met Office said it would publish all the data from weather stations worldwide, which it said proved climate change was caused by humans.

Its database is a main source of analysis for the IPCC.

It has written to 188 countries for permission to publish the material, dating back 160 years from more than 1,000 weather stations.

John Mitchell, head of climate science at the Met Office, said the evidence for man-made global warming was overwhelming - and the data would show that.

"So this is not an issue of whether we are confident or not in the figures for the trend in global warming, it's more about being open and transparent," he told the BBC.

The Met Office said it had already planned to publish the material long before the row and denied reports that government ministers had tried to block the publication.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8397265.stm

More about that leaked data:

Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?

The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka  CRU) and released 61 megabytes of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

One of the alleged emails has a gentle gloat over the death in 2004 of John L Daly (one of the first climate change sceptics, founder of the Still Waiting For Greenhouse site), commenting:

“In an odd way this is cheering news.”

But perhaps the most damaging revelations  – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.

Here are a few tasters.

Manipulation of evidence:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Suppression of evidence:

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:

Next
time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat
the crap out of him. Very tempted.

Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):

……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….

And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.
“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?”

“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”“It results from this journal having a number of editors. The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past. I’ve had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got nowhere. Another thing to discuss in Nice !”

Hadley CRU has form in this regard. In September – I wrote the story up here as “How the global warming industry is based on a massive lie” -  CRU’s researchers were exposed as having “cherry-picked” data in order to support their untrue claim that global temperatures had risen higher at the end of the 20th century than at any time in the last millenium.  CRU was also the organisation which – in contravention of all acceptable behaviour in the international scientific community – spent years withholding data from researchers it deemed unhelpful to its cause. This matters because  CRU, established in 1990 by the Met Office, is a government-funded body which is supposed to be a model of rectitude. Its HadCrut record is one of the four official sources of global temperature data used by the IPCC.

I asked in my title whether this will be the final nail in the coffin of Anthropenic Global Warming. This was wishful thinking, of course. In the run up to Copenhagen, we will see more and more hysterical (and grotesquely exaggerated) stories such as this in the Mainstream Media. And we will see ever-more-virulent campaigns conducted by eco-fascist activists, such as this risible new advertising campaign by Plane Stupid showing CGI polar bears falling from the sky and exploding because kind of, like, man, that’s sort of what happens whenever you take another trip on an aeroplane.

The world is currently cooling; electorates are increasingly reluctant to support eco-policies leading to more oppressive regulation, higher taxes and higher utility bills; the tide is turning against Al Gore’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. The so-called “sceptical” view – which is some of us have been expressing for quite some time: see, for example, the chapter entitled ‘Barbecue the Polar Bears’ in WELCOME TO OBAMALAND: I’VE SEEN YOUR FUTURE AND IT DOESN’T WORK – is now also, thank heaven, the majority view.

Unfortunately, we’ve a long, long way to go before the public mood (and scientific truth) is reflected by our policy makers. There are too many vested interests in AGW, with far too much to lose either in terms of reputation or money, for this to end without a bitter fight.

But to judge by the way – despite the best efforts of the MSM not to report on it – the CRU scandal is spreading like wildfire across the internet, this shabby story represents a blow to the AGW lobby’s credibility from which it is never likely to recover.


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

Being there and done that Bennyboo....

It turned out the guy who commissioned the whole thing is a oil Barron with vested interests in both mining and oil.
It kind of deflated the whole thing really......

A rather weak case in anyone's books.

If only they would show their science backing their claims then perhaps people might listen.
Attacking others is pointless unless you have something to back your own claims up...


Personally - I wish they were right and we were wrong, I wish it was all just one big mistake and it wasn't happening...
But that's not reality.

 :)

There is no excuse for manipulating to influence such an important area of science Dazza. 

There are people grubbing for money all over the global warming industry including bankers, politicians and scientists. 

Since 1990, Phil Jones, the so called scientist behind the latest scandal, has collected £13,700,000 British pounds (US$22,600,000) in grants... if thats not incentive to make data convenient then I dont know what is.

The machine and the show go on with increased urgency - the chorused tones that the debate is over suggests a darker side to me.

The debate isnt over for NASA:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Paleoclimatology_Evidence/ 
 
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Paleoclimatology_IceCores/ 


Nor is it over for some former IPCC scientists - as you can see below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEJ5pHVKjiI&feature=player_embedded

Where's the proof that it was commissioned by anybody? The first attempt at releasing this information was at the frothing at the mouth humans are bad website Realclimate. When Gavin deleted it, it was then uploaded to Russian servers and then propagated worldwide as people realised the con. It's been spreading like wildfire ever since.

Well I'll be darned!



New Zealand climate agency accused of data manipulation

November 25, 9:23 PM

Climate scientists in New Zealand today accused the foremost climate-research institution in New Zealand of data manipulation of the same type as the East Anglia Climatic Research Institute (CRU) is alleged to have done.

The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (CSC) today issued this paper saying that a graph published by the New Zealand National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) is not only wrong but is the result of painstaking and unjustified adjustment of raw temperature data covering the period from 1853 through 2008, Ian Wishart of The Briefing Room announced today.

At issue is a claim by NIWA that the average temperature over New Zealand declined from 1853 to 1909 and then began to rise, and has been rising ever since, at an average rate of +0.92 degree (Celsius) per century.

...

Treadgold's group alleges that the NIWA graph was produced, not from the raw data that NIWA supplied, but rather from temperature readings that had been adjusted. The CSC scientists were able to obtain the adjusted dataset from an un-named associate of Dr. M. James Salinger, formerly of NIWA and, before that, of CRU. Comparison of the two datasets shows significant upward adjustments of the post-1909 data and equally significant downward adjustments of the pre-1909 data, thus producing a downtrend and then an uptrend, instead of the nearly flat trend that Treadgold's group found.

http://www.examiner.com/x-28973-Essex-County-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m11d25-New-Zealand-climate-agency-accused-of-data-manipulation

Seems we now have a New Zealand (NIWA) connection to disgraced University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka CRU)

 :)

Not to neglect those emails over how to circumvent certain tax laws. While they might be construed as tax avoidance as opposed to tax evasion it does indicate a desire to maximise profits.

I'll defend NIWA a little. They do have cause to adjust temperatures in that thermometer sites have moved (and so forth.) However in saying that they've adjusted them to certain "international accepted standards", standards that are now, obviously in disrepute. Also interesting is NIWA's adjusted figures "show" even greater temperature increases than they're warmist mates around the globe. Something I consider that demonstrates that NIWA, even by disreputed standards, is cooking the data.

The thread is here somewhere - I cant remember it's title thou!
Will keep looking.

After a very small amount of digging it all became very clear.
The guy who first released these hacked emails was the director of a large oil company up US or Canada way - he then moved over into the coal and minerals industry....

Will keep looking.
 ;D


In the meantime - I wouldn't mind seeing some numbers or other explanations explaining the sudden and rapid rises observed...  there's all this denial going on but there's nothing behind it - there's nothing on the other side of the equals sign. Remember - the climate doesn't just change 'just because' - there is always a cause, either natural or not.
So... if not humans then what (that unanswered question is now well over 5 years old on these XNC board's)?!

 :)

The The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition is funded by Exxon Mobile via The International Climate Science Coalition.
They are also strongly hooked up with ACT and their mate Alan Gibbs.... all $$$$$$$$ minded.......


Do you REALLY believe their opinion is unbiased?

 ???

So Realclimate, run by an absolute warmist at heart, is also the director of a large oil company? The things one learns on a chat forum is stunning.


The same things that are causing global warming on other planets in this solar system.

A Greenpeace claim isn't that credible you know. Especially since the only proof they've got is that they were paid to attend a conference that was sponsored by Exxon Mobil. It doesn't demonstrate before or afterwards funding.

Besides which NIWA is funded by the government. An organisation whose main aim in life is tax. Guess what balmy decision the warmist have come up with as the miraculous solution? Oh, right, an air tax.

Who in the world said anything about Real Climate?!
Sure wasn't me!


But since it has being brought up - here's what Real Climate has to say about it...

The CRU hack
Filed under: Climate Science — group @ 20 November 2009

As many of you will be aware, a large number of emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia webmail server were hacked recently (Despite some confusion generated by Anthony Watts, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Hadley Centre which is a completely separate institution). As people are also no doubt aware the breaking into of computers and releasing private information is illegal, and regardless of how they were obtained, posting private correspondence without permission is unethical. We therefore aren’t going to post any of the emails here. We were made aware of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later that day.

Nonetheless, these emails (a presumably careful selection of (possibly edited?) correspondence dating back to 1996 and as recently as Nov 12) are being widely circulated, and therefore require some comment. Some of them involve people here (and the archive includes the first RealClimate email we ever sent out to colleagues) and include discussions we’ve had with the CRU folk on topics related to the surface temperature record and some paleo-related issues, mainly to ensure that posting were accurate.

Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement. For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor that a large group of them thought that the Soon and Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and should not have been published. These sentiments have been made abundantly clear in the literature (though possibly less bluntly).

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.

It’s obvious that the noise-generating components of the blogosphere will generate a lot of noise about this. but it’s important to remember that science doesn’t work because people are polite at all times. Gravity isn’t a useful theory because Newton was a nice person. QED isn’t powerful because Feynman was respectful of other people around him. Science works because different groups go about trying to find the best approximations of the truth, and are generally very competitive about that. That the same scientists can still all agree on the wording of an IPCC chapter for instance is thus even more remarkable.

No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

The timing of this particular episode is probably not coincidental. But if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails is the only response to the weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate change, then there probably isn’t much to it.

There are of course lessons to be learned. Clearly no-one would have gone to this trouble if the academic object of study was the mating habits of European butterflies. That community’s internal discussions are probably safe from the public eye. But it is important to remember that emails do seem to exist forever, and that there is always a chance that they will be inadvertently released. Most people do not act as if this is true, but they probably should.

It is tempting to point fingers and declare that people should not have been so open with their thoughts, but who amongst us would really be happy to have all of their email made public?

Let he who is without PIN cast the the first stone.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/





... which is....?

And where exactly are you referring to?
Still Mars? lol.

It's not a GreenPeace Claim (or rather - that wasn't what I was referring to anyway).
The International Climate Science Coalition is in bed with The Heartland Institute - and The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition is a child of The International Climate Science Coalition. It is well known that The Heartland Institute is largely funded directly by Exxon Mobile and other like minded large money making machines.


Lol.. a fair enough comparison that!
(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/afro.gif)


Of course - it is only recently that NIWA has had any opinion on this matter at all.
The same for NASA and NOAA.

Realclimate is where the data was first uploaded (though Gavin did delete it). You're the one going on about some Oil Baron. The point is, your point is irrelevant.



Plenty of other planets are warming Dazza. Not just Mars.

ROTFLMAO!

Salinger has been a warmist for years. I'm trying to cast my mind back to the lecture that was presented at the University of Otago back in 1988. It boiled done to this topic being a source of revenue research funding. I'm pretty sure it was Salinger presenting.

Yer - the Oil Baron who first (FIRST) released the hacked emails - the guy  either did it himself or commissioned (cant remember) a 3rd party to actually hacked into the servers.
I'll find it.

All of this has nothing what so ever to do with Real Climate thou - other than the fact that they were bombed with it, as were many other sites at the time.


Such as ?
Pluto?

Please... don't...  it just gets sillier and sillier!

Come on - blame the sun... I dear you!
 ;D

---

Deep Solar Minimum

April 1, 2009: The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.

2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.

Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%).

It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

"This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

More >> (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm)

Wasn't talking about Salinger - I thought we were talking about NIWA.
It wasn't that long ago (around 4 years perhaps - maybe longer... but not my much) that NIWA had no opinion on the subject what-so-ever.
Just the same as NASA and NOAA.


Cant remember just what the relevance of that point was thou... I think it was something you brought up....

 :)

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0d5_1260036692
Al Gore Buys A 100FT Housboat Tto Save The Climate
 
 

Former Vice President Al Gore, the Nobel-winning self-proclaimed global prophet of green, has made a lot of money from the so-called “crisis” of global warming. He has profited from best-selling books that tout the looming climatic catastrophe, won an Academy Award for a movie about his slideshow presentation that focuses on his “sky is falling” message about a world on the brink of environmental disaster.

His business interests have been focused on the profit side of the equation when it comes to “global warming,” creating a “carbon credits” program that has put millions of dollars into the pockets of Gore and his environmental cronies. There are also financial interests benefiting from the sudden shift to the ‘environmentally friendly’ light bulbs that he has trumpeted so loudly: his friends at General Electric stand to make big money from the congressionally mandated demand for their new light bulbs.

There is no question that the alarmism and doomsday scenarios spread by Al Gore have been very, very beneficial to him personally and professionally.

But the question persists as to whether he actually buys into what he is selling. His own behavior clearly indicates that he doesn’t believe we are at a “tipping point” of worldwide environmental destruction. While he preaches that the rest of us must dramatically change our lifestyles and lower our standards of living to “save the planet” he lives by another set of rules himself.

It happens in the air, where he jets about in private planes that consume massive amounts of energy to spread his message of “conservation.”

His hypocrisy is revealed on land, where he travels in fleets of limos and SUVs to deliver speeches about the dire consequences of ignoring “man-made global warming” — and leaves the cars running throughout his entire speech in order to ensure that they will be nice and cool when he exits the building and returns to his gas-guzzling vehicles.

His supposedly “green” mansion consumes electricity that dwarfs the consumption of the typical family home.

And now, in order to complete his hypocrisy trifecta, Al Gore may now be extending his excessive consumption to the water as well. In an amazing display of conspicuous consumption, even for Al Gore, his new 100-foot houseboat that docks at the Hurricane Marina in Smithville, Tennessee is creating a critical buzz among many of his former congressional constituents. Dubbed “Bio-Solar One,” which may reflect some latent Air Force One envy, Gore has proudly strutted the small-town dock claiming that his monstrous houseboat is environmentally friendly. (Only Al Gore would name his boat B.S. One and not get the joke. Or perhaps the joke is on us?)

The boat is a custom-built Fantasy Yacht built specifically for Gore by Bill Austin of Sparta, Tennessee.

According to Austin, the engines are bio-diesel fueled and Gore can expect to use about two gallons an hour to cruise Center Hill Lake. With a 500 gallon capacity Austin says Gore won’t need a refill for “two or three years” though he admits having “no clue” about where Gore could get bio-diesel at the lake. The Hurricane Marina dock doesn’t sell it.

This boat is going to be the Toyota Prius of the houseboat business,” Austin proclaims. “It is the most eco-friendly houseboat anywhere in the country and is going to revolutionize the houseboat industry. People are increasingly worried about high gas prices and this is the answer.” Austin claims that the “Bio-Solar One” will create 40-50% less carbon emission and use half the fuel of other similar houseboats. “Gore will consume a lot more fuel driving to and from the lake than he will ever use cruising on this houseboat,” Austin asserts.

The solar panels have not yet been installed but are expected to arrive from Reno, Nevada “any day” and will be in working order “soon,” says Austin.

When the solar panels are installed the Gore boat could power itself and “most of the dock” according to Austin. In the meantime, however, Gore is plugged into the dock as his primary power source.
Austin says he has several other potential customers interested in following Gore’s lead. Austin professes reluctance to talk about “other folks business” but notes that a houseboat similar to Gore’s will cost between $500,000 to a million dollars. Austin believes that Gore’s “Bio-Solar One” will set the stage for a lot of sales. Land, air and now the sea. Will space will be the final frontier?

Let’s not forget: Gore made similar claims about the environmental benefits of the solar panels and other “green” additions he made to his 10,000 square foot home in Belle Meade, a cushy neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee. The environmental savings promised from his “investments” failed to produce the results that he touted. In fact, his “energy efficient” renovations to his home actually INCREASED his electrical consumption by 10% rather than producing the promised reductions. Ultimately, Gore’s water-based excursions on his giant houseboat may prove more environmentally friendly than his fleet of limos, his private jets or his mansion. Perhaps the B.S. One will never live up to its nickname, but the jet ski on the boat is clearly powered by something other than solar or bio-diesel.

Maybe Al is buying carbon credits from himself to offset that particular energy usage.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=098_1218128385

(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/2funny.gif)

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=331_1178832113

PMSL....  like Gore couldn't afford a boat BEFORE he got involved?

Hey sexy - sometimes it pays to read a bit more as well.
I note the tub runs on Bio-fuel, only needs refueling once a year (house boats hardly ever move) and is decked out with solar panels enough to supply all the electricity it needs...

What a STUPID name though - Bio-Solar-One! B.S.1?! lol...


In saying that thou - it is another example of human waste.
It's not like he NEEDS it...

Al Gore's Own Inconvenient Truth
Posted by Kim Priestap
Published: February 26, 2007 - 8:01 PM
Al Gore's mansion uses more than twice the electricity in one month than the average household does in an entire year. From the Tennessee Center for Policy Research:

Last night, Al Gore's global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore's mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh--more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh--guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore's average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore's energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore's extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore's mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

"As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use," said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

Yikes! Gore is an energy glutton. Now compare this to President Bush's comparatively modest home in Crawford, Texas, which is a model of environmental friendliness:

The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude

Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this "eco-friendly" dwelling use about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize.

A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie area blend the structure into the surrounding ecosystem.

No, this is not the home of some eccentrically wealthy eco-freak trying to shame his fellow citizens into following the pristineness of his self-righteous example. And no, it is not the wilderness retreat of the Sierra Club or the Natural Resources Defense Council, a haven where tree-huggers plot political strategy.

This is President George W. Bush's "Texas White House" outside the small town of Crawford.

http://wizbangblog.com/content/2007/02/26/al-gores-own-inconvenient-trut.php

Not according to Gavin Smidt. Realclimate got it first (and then deleted it), so your claim that it was commissioned by some Oil Baron is on thin ice.


There are more planets (and objects) than Mars or Pluto that are experiencing global warming.

Same thing until recently. I think you'll find NIWA (via Salinger) has been pushing the man-is-bad creed for some time. In fact those leaked emails from East Anglia have correspondence with one Jim Salinger in his NIWA days. Those emails are proving to be more and more useful all the time.

As robman pointed out in another thread, global warming is the new religion. Back in the days when Roman Catholicism ruled (Western) Europe science religion was too complicated for the average person to work out, so they had specialist scientists monks to work it all out. They're findings were then used to establish the order they so desired because they used the creed of driving cars original sin and we're doomed unless we pay Emission Trading Schemes tithes to make global warming Satan go away.

Eventually one scientist monk rebelled and released the data bible into the common language so that ordinary people could understand.

Using fear is an age old tactic.

The Global warming idea its like a big game of poker all the heavy weights have put all their chips into the pot and gone all in.But whats really going on ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5mRYdZCBxY&feature=rec-fresh+div-r-1-HM

Global warming hysteria is new eugenics
Posted: August 11, 2007
1:00 am Eastern

By Henry Lamb
© 2009



The BP oil company ads on television are, or should be, enough to make you never buy another drop of British-Petroleum gasoline. The farmer-type guy who stands there and talks about how wonderful it would be if you could grow a crop, convert it into fuel and put it in your tractor to plant next year's crops is disingenuous, deceptive and disgusting. So is the ad that shows a kid, holding what looks like a sugar beet, talking about making fuel out of the thing he's holding and replanting it year after year. BP airs these ads to suggest that it is working toward converting to this new "natural" fuel.

What a joke. If every acre of productive land in America were converted to growing corn, sugar beets or other so-called renewable fuel, it would not come close to meeting the demand. Moreover, it would essentially destroy the environment, since these crops are heavy feeders of both water and soil nutrients. It would force the importation of food from other countries, and the fuel product would cost more per gallon and deliver less energy than petroleum products.

This is the future BP's ads suggest, but the company is not alone in its deception. Guru-in-chief Al Gore's relentless tent-revival evangelism calls environmental sinners to the global warming altar to confess their carbon dioxide emissions and to seek baptism in ethanol and salvation in a Toyota Prius.
Gore's global warming religion is reminiscent of the eugenics phenomenon in the 20th century. The elite of the scientific community, and well-to-do of the social set, embraced eugenics as the enlightened way to the perfect society. Skeptics were ridiculed, denounced and pointed to as the kind of scum that would be eliminated if eugenics became the official policy of government.

Like the eugenics fiasco, the global warming debate left the scientific arena and has become a matter of belief, or social acceptance. The in-crowd "believes" that people are causing global warming and that the only way to stop it is to have government force people to stop using fossil fuel. The in-crowd is no longer interested in science. Their only interest seems to be to discredit the people they call "deniers" and to pressure government into adopting the policies that will ultimately prevent the use of fossil fuels.

Gore's army of in-crowd zealots are in precisely the same position the pro-eugenics in-crowd occupied when they convinced Hitler's government to implement the policies necessary to advance their point of view.

Should Gore's army prevail, the consequences will take longer than Hitler's violence but the end result will be quite similar: The destruction of a significant portion of society. At U.N. Climate Change meetings, Non-Government Organizations function much like the "local eugenics societies" in a prior century, lobby the policy makers to deny developing countries the use of fossil fuel and promote the use of solar panels and windmills. Consequently, thousands of people die each day, needlessly, because they do not have access to affordable energy to power water pumps, refrigerators, stoves, transportation and factories.

Just as the eugenics advocates had little or no concern for the people who did not measure up to their standards of genetic perfection, global warming advocates seem to have little or no concern for the people who are, or will be, denied the benefits of abundant, affordable energy. Note that the most verbose proponents of restrictive global warming policies are eager to tell everyone else to avoid the use of fossil fuels, and then they get on their private jets and return to their private mansions, powered by fossil fuels.

Al Gore used tons of fossil fuel to jet his entourage to Singapore, where he lambasted the "deniers" who have the audacity to disagree with the in-crowd – even though their disagreement is based on a mountain of scientific evidence.

Gore whines about what he calls the "big oil" industry spending $10 million per year advancing their anti-global warming views. But he fails to mention that government and foundations are spending several billion – billion with a "B" – each year to promote their global warming religion.

Like the eugenics fiasco, in the end the truth will prevail. Science will prevail, and the nonsense preached by guru-Gore will be rejected in the same way eugenics was rejected. Gore's global warming gospel will prove to be just as empty as was the global cooling gospel of the 1970s.

Danger to the current generation lies with the hundreds, if not thousands, of misguided policy makers who have fallen under the spell of Gore's charismatic religion. The folks who hold positions in state legislatures and in Congress can inflict major damage on the economy and the lifestyle of America, all the while thinking they are doing something good.

Hitler – and his eugenics advocates – were absolutely convinced that they were doing something good.

Introduced by scientists, advanced by politicians, popularized by the media, embraced as a moral necessity, resulted in severe consequences, rejected as harmful hogwash
Global warming: the new eugenics

 By Henry Lamb  Sunday, December 28, 2008
Eugenics pioneer, Francis Galton, defined eugenics as: “the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations.”

Global warming can be defined as: “the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the environmental quality of future generations.”

The eugenics movement and the global warming movement are similar in many respects.  Both ideas were introduced by scientists, advanced by politicians, popularized by the media, embraced as a moral necessity, resulted in severe consequences, and eventually rejected as harmful hogwash.

Eugenics, thankfully, has run its course.  Global warming, however, is approaching its zenith, just before imposing severe consequences, and is, perhaps, still a generation away from being rejected as the hogwash it is.

Early in the last century, eugenics was called a science that justified public policies that promoted selective breeding among humans and attempted to force sterilization among the “lower classes” of people who did not fit the vision of popular eugenicists.  In this century, what is called science is used to justify public policies that promote prescribed life styles and attempts to penalize people whose choices do not fit the vision of popular global warming zealots.

 Scientists, politicians, preachers, and ordinary people who doubt the doctrine of global warming are outcasts, ridiculed, and worse.

The eugenics movement, carried to its logical conclusion by Hitler, killed millions of innocent people.  Global warming, when carried to its logical conclusion, will kill far more people than eugenics, and cause incomprehensible agony to people who desperately need affordable energy to survive and prosper.

The goal of the global warming movement is to end the use of fossil fuel.  Proponents of this movement claim that fossil fuel use is “killing God’s green earth,” as one popular TV ad declares.  They claim that the use of alternative energy will save the planet for future generations.
Eugenics proponents claimed that selective breeding would constantly improve society by eliminating the lower classes destined for perpetual poverty.  They were wrong.  Global warming proponents are also wrong in their claims.  The use of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide which certainly does not kill God’s green earth – it enhances it.  Carbon dioxide is to vegetation what oxygen is to people – essential to life.  It is an indisputable fact that vegetation growth and production is enhanced in direct proportion to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The idea that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is “killing God’s green earth,” is as preposterous as the idea that society would be better if it consisted only of blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryans.

Were President-elect Obama taking office a hundred years ago, he would undoubtedly be filling his cabinet with eugenics experts.  This is a reasonable conclusion because he has obviously bought into the popular global warming movement, and is filling his cabinet with people who share his vision.

The more than 31,000 scientists who reject this vision are outcasts, and are ridiculed by the elite politicians who are caught up in the global warming movement.  More than 650 climate scientists, many of whom have been a part of the U.N. global warming studies, have publicly renounced the claims of the global warming movement.

These people too, are outcasts, ridiculed by the Obama global warming elite.

The tragedy is that the consequences of the proposed global warming policies will be as painful as the consequences of eugenics policies.  People will die.  Many more millions will be denied access to energy that could provide affordable life-saving refrigeration, heat, transportation, and energy for industry.

These consequences are unnecessary.  Fossil fuel energy is affordable and available for at least another century.  Laws that arbitrarily deny use of this available resource are as unconscionable as the laws that forced sterilization a hundred years ago.

Society was not made better by the eugenics movement; the planet will not be made better by the global warming movement.

From all the studies produced by billions of dollars of research in the last two decades, the only thing that has been learned for sure is that climate change is a natural function which the human race has not begun to comprehend.

Science has barely scratched the surface.  It is the height of arrogance to think that Congress can enact laws that will be obeyed by nature.  As it always has, the climate will change according to the dictates of the architect of the universe, not according to the dictates of Barack Obama, Al Gore, Carol Browner, the U.S. Congress, or even the U.N.’s International Panel on Climate Change.

The climate change movement is, indeed, quite similar to the eugenics movement.  In a generation or two, people will look back and wonder what on earth was wrong with this generation, to get caught up in such foolishness.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/7188
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLM4wFapUnU
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d93_1207319140

All this blar blar blar and now you've even got GB's of emails which supposedly support your message (I've given up asking for any science...  largely because I know just as well as you that there is none) - could you please AT LEAST supply the emails which point to doctored reports on which any policy is based?!


How exactly?!

 ???

The Reality of 'Climategate'

At a Danish climate summit this week, one subject will certainly be raised: The theft of thousands of private e-mails and files recently hacked from computers at East Anglia university, a leading climate research center. The e-mails, which were made public and appear to show scientific misconduct, have fueled a firestorm among those who believe that global warming is not chiefly driven by human influences.

The case is still unfolding, and East Anglia has launched an investigation "to determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice."

On the surface, it seems that there was in fact misconduct of some sort. In some cases, words and phrases (such as "trick") were used out of their academic context to make them seem duplicitous. Other cases are more serious: Scientist Phil Jones was quoted as stating that he would attempt to keep papers whose conclusions argued against a connection between warming and human activity out of an important climate panel report. Researcher Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University was quoted as discussing a boycott of an academic journal because of its "troublesome editor."

These actions certainly seem improper, and in one case may have been illegal. The question is not whether at least some of the scientists quoted in the private e-mails exhibited poor judgment or even scientific misbehavior. The real question is whether that misconduct is relevant to the larger issue of whether there is solid evidence for global warming.

For all the furor and controversy, what has not been found among the decade's worth of stolen e-mails is revealing.

If the e-mails truly are the "smoking gun" that the critics of global warming claim them to be — revealing the tip of the melting iceberg of scientific fraud regarding climate change data — then it is puzzling that no one has yet identified the numerous faked studies.

For all the innuendo and accusations, the scientists' critics have yet to locate a single instance of fraudulent research exposed in the e-mails. Personal e-mails between climate scientists may be ill-advised and embarrassing, but by themselves do not provide hard evidence of scientific fraud.

The fact is that the evidence for climate change does not hinge upon data from the East Anglia University researchers whose e-mails were exposed. Data supporting the global warming hypothesis has been collected over decades from a wide variety of independent organizations around the world, including NASA, the Met Office Hadley Centre in England, the Meteorological Office in Germany, and many others.

To use an analogy, it would be like if, during a worldwide eclipse of the sun, one observatory was accused of faking the telescopic images it showed visitors during the event. Even if that were true, it wouldn't change the fact that the eclipse happened, nor that dozens of other observatories recorded the same thing. Many of the claims made by the so-called global warming skeptics have been raised and addressed (see, for example, http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php).

None of this excuses the scientist's alleged behavior. They should not suppress nor delete data they disagree with. Scientists, like people in every other profession, sometimes act unprofessionally and maliciously. Fortunately the data they produce stands or falls on its own merits.

If the scientists' data is revealed to have been faked, they will undoubtedly be charged with scientific misconduct, their papers recalled, and their careers ruined. So far, however, the only crime known to have been committed is the original hacking of the university's private e-mails.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/091206-climategate-emails.html

So you are now saying that Gavin 'Smidt' from GISS hacked the East Anglia University?!
Lol... has anyone let him know this?


Name them - and then let me know where you get your data from and what you think is causing it.
 :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd7M4Hqwdbg&feature=player_embedded#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZBP-JYzQKg&feature=related
Shocking UN Document Divulges Climate Cult Brainwashing
Paul Joseph Watson on 01 December, 2009 10:33:55 | 101 times read

Kids coerced into performing global warming song as strategy document reveals plan to greenwash young minds by turning environmentalism into gaia religion -

PrisonPlanet - With the reverberations of climategate still echoing, it has now emerged that children are being greenwashed in public schools by being forced to sing climate cult ditties and hate their parents as part of a United Nations propaganda program aimed at capturing young minds, as the UN itself officially acknowledges the global warming mantra as a new religion.

A shocking new UN strategy document also reveals how elitists are recruiting members of academia from all over the globe in an effort to hide the “end-run” around national sovereignty that their program represents.

“When did global warming turn into a forced religion?,” asks the New York Post’s Andrea Peyser as she tells the story of how her daughter came home from school singing the words ” . . . You can hear the warning — GLOBAL WARMING . . . “.

“All the kids had been coerced into singing this catchy ditty, which we called “The Warming Song,” at a concert for parents. Further song lyrics scolded selfish adults (that would be us) for polluting our planet and causing a warming scourge that would, in no short order, kill all the polar bears and threaten the birds and bees,” writes Peyser.

That’s right, in the spirit of the Club of Rome’s 1991 resolution to make humanity the enemy in creating the contrived threat of environmental armageddon, children have been turned against their own parents in the service of a new gaia religion.

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote in a report entitled “The First Global Revolution”.

“Our children are on the front lines of the warming hysteria, a place where “experts” from Al Gore to the president leave no room for dissent or even the slightest skepticism, despite claims that are no more provable than the Earth is flat.,” says Peyser.

A newly uncovered document sheds some light on the genesis of how such brainwashing found its way into our schools.

A strategy paper for the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the world’s would-be environmental watchdog, reveals how the global elite in charge of the green takeover resolved that, “Environmentalism should be regarded on the same level with religion “as the only compelling, value-based narrative available to humanity,” according to a Fox News report.

This approach follows a similar tack to the new methods adopted by Al Gore, who in his recent presentations has delivered his message as a kind of religious sermon, acknowledging, “Simply laying out the facts won’t work.”

The UN planning paper outlines a program of implementing a global system of governance based around environmental regulations and laws, stressing the agenda for the “evolutionary nature of strengthening international environmental governance.”

Participants included Janos Pasztor, currently head of the team pushing U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s unprecedented Seal the Deal lobbying campaign to pressure U.N. member governments into signing a new environmental agreement at Copenhagen, Dominic Waughray, currently head of environmental initiatives at the World Economic Forum; and Maria Ivanova, and Bulgarian academic Maria Ivanova, director of the Global Economic Governance Project at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy.

A core element of the program includes, “an extensive propagandizing role for UNEP that reaches beyond its member governments and traditional environmental institutions to “children and youth”.

“Civil society, including children and youth, and the private sector will be reached through tailor-made outreach products and campaigns,” states the document.

The document discusses recruiting academia to further the power of UNEP, noteworthy in light of the recent climategate scandal where scientists at major universities were caught hiding evidence of global cooling.

As the Swiss paper puts it, UNEP “should pioneer a new style of work. This requires going beyond a narrow interpretation of UNEP’s stakeholders as comprising its member states — or even the world’s governments — and recruiting a far wider community of support, in civil society, the academic world and the private sector.” At the same time the paper warns that these groups need to be “harnessed to the UNEP mission without appearing to make an end-run around the member governments.”

This passage is fairly damning, as the UN is all but admitting that the program does represent an “end-run around member governments,” and that they have to do their best to hide the fact.

The goals enshrined in the document, a counterpart to the globally binding agreement the UN is seeking to achieve in Copenhagen next month, are “certain to remain a UNEP rallying cry long after the Copenhagen meeting is over — and while the other brainstorming ideas that went into the new four-year strategy, not to mention the strategy itself, go into effect,” writes Fox News’ George Russell.

This document represents yet another smoking gun proving that the climate cult movement is all about expanding the power of a dictatorial, unelected global government, diluting powers of nation states, seizing control of the global economy, eviscerating the middle class with a raft of new regulations and laws, and shutting down industry with impossible CO2 reduction mandates, while erecting environmentalism, which is really a thin veil for global fascism, as the new universal religion.

This has nothing to do with saving the earth and, as the climategate scandal has illustrated, nothing to do with the real science – but everything to do with a relatively small clique of globalists running roughshod over humanity itself in pursuit of their malthusian control freak agenda.
http://www.nationalexpositor.com/News/1989.html

Yawn. That pathetic "counter" is more "Move along, nothing to see here". The reality however is very different. Refusing FOI is a serious crime. Not even Gavin was/is capable of defending that (though he's trying with the other material). Emails discussing deleting that data and of course that raw data has now been "lost" (apparently) with only the adjusted CRU figures remaining (how convenient.) And so on and so forth.

I also never said Gavin hacked the East Anglian propaganda unit. You were the one claiming that some anonymous Oil Baron had commissioned this "thing" and you offered proof that his was the first place the upload happened. Which of course is bovine scatology as frothing at the mouth Gavin's site was earlier (unless he's this Oil Baron you're whining about.)

It doesn't surprise me that you're ignorant of the other objects in this solar system going through global warming.

One last time - where is the science?????

 ???

Five-Year Average Global Temperature Anomalies from 1880 to 2006. By: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization

The story of manmade global warming is over. In reality it never existed except in the minds and hearts of grant-seeking scientists and academics, ratings-obsessed television networks and their misinformed viewers and opportunistic eco-activists.

That said, climate change is real. The earth has been coming out of a 450-year cold era known as the “Little Ice Age” since it bottomed out in the late 1600s. Hundreds of studies have verified the existence of this cold period. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tried to erase the climate history of the last 1,000 years in its 2001 report. They replaced all the peer-reviewed studies of past climate with one that fit their needs. The now-discredited “hockey stick” graph showed virtually no significant change in temperature of the world over the last 1,000 years. Conveniently, the graph then showed a rapid and abrupt increase in global temperature during the last 100 years. This is, of course, due to our sin of burning fossil fuels and stoking the fires of global warming.

The only evidence that human activity is causing global warming comes from computer models. These models take what the people who develop them know about how the earth’s climate system works and attempt to predict the future. Computer models are not evidence. Evidence is something real, something concrete that is not subject to change. Computer models can be changed by their creator. In fact the creator of the model can make it say whatever the creator wants it to say by adjusting parameters. That is not evidence.

In 2007, a study showed the failings of computer model forecasts. The models showed that there exists a global warming “fingerprint” in the air. This fingerprint is a dramatic warming of the atmosphere, not on the ground, but 20,000 to 50,000 feet in the air above the tropics. The 2007 study revealed that real-world temperature observations by weather balloons over a 50-year period showed no global warming fingerprint at all, none. The computer models had grossly overestimated the warming over the tropics. Real world observations trump computer models. Despite this revelation the climate alarmists continued to trumpet the coming doom if we don’t change our sinful ways. To do otherwise would threaten government grants to colleges and universities, research facilities and government agencies. Large corporations are developing eco-friendly technologies to replace fossil fuels and brokerage houses are looking to cash in big time on the evolving carbon trading markets. The United Nations is looking to use climate treaties to wrestle control of carbon emissions from independent nations. This will elevate the United Nations and its leaders to the role of effectively ruling the world’s energy consumption through one world-government authority.

The greenhouse/global warming theory states that as more carbon dioxide is pumped into the air, the atmosphere’s ability to vent excess heat to space will diminish. This is the mantra of global warming alarmism. More carbon dioxide means more heat gets clogged up in the climate system and the earth gets warmer and warmer. From this we have conjured up all the various climate disasters, movies, concerts, fixes, and swindles, with their varied political and economic benefactors and victims.

Enter 2009 and a new study by Dr. Richard Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi from MIT that uses temperature data from satellites. As background we start with the predictions. The climate models say that as the oceans warmed by one degree Celsius from the 1980s into the 1990s, the amount of heat escaping to space would decrease. More heat would be trapped in the atmosphere, ultimately due to the burning of fossil fuels. The warming of the oceans was natural and part of the large multi-decadal temperature changes that have been known for years. Now if only we had a way to measure the amount of heat going out to space, then we could get some answers. We do, it’s called the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment Satellite (ERBE). It was in orbit above the earth measuring outgoing long wave radiation (heat) for 16 years from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s. This is very significant. Now we had a tool, and real world data, that we could compare to the computer model predictions. It is the ultimate climate system umpire.

The results from the Lindzen and Choi study were stunning. The computer models, all 11 of them, predicted that as the oceans and atmosphere warmed, the amount of heat escaping to space should decrease by 3 watts per square meter. If this were true, then the theory of manmade global warming would have a strong footing. But the satellite data used by the Lindzen and Choi inflicted a bone crushing blow to this assumption. As the oceans and atmosphere warmed, the measurements showed that the amount of heat escaping to space increased by 4 watts per square meter from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s. All the computer models were wrong. If the atmosphere is not trapping heat generated by warming oceans then there is no manmade global warming taking place.

The atmosphere compensated for the additional heat by opening the window a little more. The theory of global warming is lying on the canvas bloodied and dying. Alarmists will attempt to revive the carcass with even louder cries of impending doom and calls to repent. But this clamoring will fall on deaf ears. Science will ultimately prove the winner and the world will bury global warming in an icy grave where it belongs.
http://energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2665

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oVDC2IKPpg&feature=player_embedded

Editorial: The Great Global Warming Hoax?

Sorry folks, but we're not exactly buying into the Global Hysteria just yet. We know a great deal about atmospheric physics, (bio) and from the onset, many of the claims were just plain fishy.  The extreme haste with which seemingly the entire world immediately accepted the idea of Anthropogenic ( man-made ) Global Warming made us more than a little bit suspicious that no one had really taken a close look at the science.  We also knew that the catch-all activity today known as "Climate Science" was in its infancy, and that atmospheric modeling did not and still does not exist which can predict changes in the weather or climate more than about a day or two in advance.

So the endless stream of dire predictions of what was going to happen years or decades from now if we did not drastically reduce our CO2 production by virtually shutting down the economies of the world appeared to be more the product of radical political and environmental activism rather than science.  Thus, we embarked on a personal quest for more information, armed with a strong academic background in postgraduate physics and a good understanding of the advanced mathematics necessary in such a pursuit.  This fundamental knowledge of the core principles of matter and its many exceptionally complex interactions allowed us to research and understand the foundations of many other sciences.  In short, we read complex scientific articles in many other scientific disciplines with relative ease and good understanding - like most folks read comic books.

As our own knowledge of "climate science" grew, so grew our doubts over the "settled science".  What we found was the science was far from "settled".. in fact it was barely underway.

It was for a while a somewhat lonely quest, what with "all the world's scientists" apparently having no doubt.  Finally, in December 2007 we submitted an article to one of our local newspapers, the Addison Independent, thinking they would be delighted in having at minimum an alternative view of the issue.  Alas, they chose not to publish it, but two weeks after our submission (by the strangest coincidence), published yet another "pro-global-warming" feature written by an individual whom, to the best we could determine, had no advanced training in any science at all, beyond self-taught it would appear.  Still, the individual had published a number of popular books on popular environmental issues, was well-loved by those of similar political bent, and was held in high esteem among his peers.  We had learned a valuable lesson: Popular Journalists trump coupled sets of 2nd-order partial differential equations every time.  Serious science doesn't matter if you have the press in your pocket.

In fairness to the Addison Independent and its editors, our article was somewhat lengthy and technical, and presumably the average reader most likely could not follow or even be interested in an alternative viewpoint, since everyone knew by now that the global warming issue was "settled science".  And we confess that we like the paper, subscribe to it, and know a number of folks who work there personally.  They're all good folks, and they have every right to choose what does or doesn't go in their publication.  They also have a right to spin the news any direction they choose, because that's what freedom of the press is all about.  Seems everyone, both left and right, does it - and it's almost certain we will be accused of doing the same here.  And we just may be, as hard as we may try to avoid it.  We humans aren't all shaped by the same cookie cutter, and that's a blessing that has taken us as a species to the top of the food chain.

But by then we had been sharing our own independent research of the literature with others via email, and receiving a surprising amount of agreement back in return. (We're in contact with a large number of fellow scientists around the country, dating back to our college days in the 17th century when beer was a quarter a bottle).  One local friend, in particular, kept pressing us to publish, and even offered to set up a "debate" with the Popular Journalist who had usurped our original article.  This we politely declined, arguing that "debate" cannot prove or disprove science...science must stand on its own.

But then something unusual happened.  On Dec. 13, 2007, 100 scientists jointly signed an Open Letter to Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, requesting they cease the man-made global warming hysteria and settle down to helping mankind better prepare for natural disasters.  The final signature was from the President of the World Federation of Scientists.

 At last, we were not alone...

   

We decided to publish the results of our counter-exploration on the internet - but in a somewhat uniquely different fashion.  Knowing that most folks aren't geeks, and may have little understanding of science or math, we're going to attempt to teach some of the essential physics and such as we go along.  Readers with little or no mathematical or scientific training may find it challenging, but if you have a general understanding of introductory college or even solid high school level chemistry or physics, you should have no problem in following this amazing tale.  The brighter readers, even without a science background, should be able to follow, as well.  Smart folks learn faster than most.

What follows is a tale gleaned from many sources over what turned out to be an unreasonably long period of time.  We'll be first examining a "worst case" scenario, using very simple math at first, in order to arrive in a ballpark that will tell us if we need to go further and pull out long strings of complicated equations, which we don't want to have to resort to because we're writing for the average layman who is not a rocket scientist.  This is a valid scientific method despite its apparent simplicity, for if one can first determine that a person does not own a motorcycle, then you don't have to spend a lot of time calculating how likely he is to crash while riding it.  Reducing it to the simplest of terms for the average person to understand was a daunting task.  Below is an example of what "real" Climate Scientists have to deal with on a daily basis.  Is it any wonder that the most popular majors in college are liberal arts?


Snipped from an article entitled
Solar-Cycle Warming at the Earth’s Surface and an Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity.
By Ka-Kit Tung and Charles D. Camp
Department of Applied Mathematics
University of Washington, Seattle Washington

Let's take a short glance at the equation at the left, because you're never going to see anything like it again in this editorial.  To most of you, it is gobbly-gook, but to a physicist, it is part of a mathematical proof accompanying a particular study done on the sun's role in Global Warming.  What the authors are explaining is they have found that the total solar irradiance (TSI) has been measured by orbiting satellites since 1978 and it varies on an 11-year cycle by about 0.07%.  So, from solar min to solar max, the TSI reaching the earth’s surface increases at a rate comparable to the radiative heating due to a 1% per year increase in greenhouse gases, and will probably add, during the next five to six years in the advancing phase of Solar Cycle 24, almost 0.2 °K to the globally-averaged temperature, thus doubling the amount of transient global warming expected from greenhouse warming alone.        Whew....
Don't fret - neither Al Gore nor any of the Popular Journalists can understand it either.

We'll try to reference most of the material, but if we miss a credit, or use a photograph someone didn't want to share with the world (OK, we wonder why the photo was on the web if that were the case) we'll quickly remove it with our apologies.  And let's freely admit up front that what we offer here is a dissenting opinion, and surely we have "cherry-picked" the articles of others which are also contrary to the widely held current beliefs.  A bit of this is original on our part, but most of it comes from others around the globe.  We have tried to present work from what we believe to be credible, thoroughly diligent scientists actively engaged in current research.  Let's get started:

We're reminded of an earlier story, which happened back in 1912. This was the amazing discovery of a skull and jawbone in which was quickly named the Piltdown Man and which all the world's archaeologists immediately accepted as a hitherto unknown form of early human. It appears no one bothered to examine it closely, assuming that other scientists had thoroughly investigated and vetted it. The hoax wasn't uncovered until 1953, when it was learned that the skull was that of a modern man and the jaw that of an orangutan. Seems no one had ever bothered to take a really close look at the artifact.

Well, folks, it does appear we have a new, 21st Century Piltdown Man, and this time we know his name.

 He's called "Anthropogenic Global Warming"

It's hard to nail down exactly when the sky started falling, but certainly the work of Michael Mann provided its first global exposure.  Michael Mann, a paleoclimatologist ( one who attempts to interpret the past climate through certain Paleolithic records, such as ice core samples, sea bed sediments, coral heads, and tree ring growth ), submitted a paper to Nature magazine in 1998 which, unfortunately, was not subjected to peer review before publication.  In it, he offered what has now become known as the famous "hockey stick" chart, showing the earth's temperature having been relatively constant for the past thousand years before suddenly skyrocketing upward at the dawn of the 20th century.  His interpretation was that man's production of CO2  in the modern age was obviously responsible for the sudden increase.  It turned out to be one of the biggest scientific blunders of all time.

You wanted some science its here

http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

That's it - I have better things to spend my time on.

What you guys don't realize is that my responses are mostly thought out and researched, I cross check pretty much everything I post and that consumes my time.
We have gone from talking/debating about this to posting absolute rubbish to being deliberately misleading, telling outright lies, right though to the point of defaming large US govt departments.

Take the above for example, Titled: Five-Year Average Global Temperature Anomalies from 1880 to 2006. By: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization


Again - By: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center


A very quick search of NASA's website it becomes VERY clear that NASA has said no such thing - in fact, they are screaming just the apposite.

Five-Year Average Global Temperature Anomalies from 1880 to 2006

Because of a rapid warming trend over the past 30 years, the Earth is now reaching and passing through the warmest levels seen in the last 12,000 years. This color-coded map shows a progression of changing global surface temperatures from 1880 to 2006, the warmest ranked year on record.

And more can be found here (plus the images): http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003300/a003375/


The stench of desperation here is almost overwhelming!

---

So once again and in typical fashion the skeptics among us have shown without a doubt that there is no science what-so-ever in their claims, they have shown that they will deliberately try to mislead the lesser informed and will even scoop as low as to out-rightly lie in an attempt to get their point across. Their motives are self centered, self serving and they pay absolutely no regard at all to either all life on earth today, the younger human generation alive today or the generations following them. In other words: THEY DON'T CARE.

I find it very hard to believe that the masses will pay little heed to those among who only care is themselves when it's the entire planets population which needs saving. 

What's even funnier - what's REALLY cracking me up right now - the skeptics (having realized they actually have no science to stand on) lunched a attack against the global climatology community by hacking and stealing 10 YEARS of emails - they foolishly made a big noise about this but then to their absolute horror realized they hadn't found one signal thing - because there's nothing to be found! PMSL!!

That's a fine candidate for the "Oh Bugger!" thread I reckon.

 ;D


Sure is mildly entertaining...  but like I said, I have better things to do...

That's not science sexy - that's someone opinion.

Hang on a sec and I'll show you science looks like...
 :)

Wellington could be more like Venice by 2100

By EMILY WATT - The Dominion Post | 5:00AM - Saturday, 05 December 2009

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix/Wellington_2100.jpg)

SEA RISE SCENARIO: The computer graphic shows that low-lying parts of central Wellington are at risk of flooding if the sea level rises one metre.

If you want to go to the library, you'll get your feet wet, Wellington police will need boats to get to work, and parts of Customhouse Quay might get a bit soggy.

Wellington City Council has issued a graphic to show how rising sea levels would affect the capital.

"It's important to remember that, for areas such as the CBD, doing nothing is clearly not an option," councillor Ray Ahipene-Mercer said.

"Tools like this help us to assess a range of appropriate response options, and will also help people understand why it is important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." Local authorities should be preparing for a rise of up to one metre in sea levels by 2100, he said.

The council was shown the computer-generated graphic this week. It showed, if nothing was done to protect the city centre, low-lying parts were at risk of flooding. Sea level rise could also increase erosion and the effects of storm surge.

The council's strategy and policy committee considered this week the draft 2010 climate change action plan. It looked at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for a rise in temperature and sea level.

Mr Ahipene-Mercer said Wellington had assets worth billions of dollars which could be affected, including roads, railway lines and the city centre.

The council planned to shift the focus to community emissions rather than just the actions of businesses and organisations.

It has set a target to cut community emissions by 3 per cent by June 2013 and committed $35 million towards plans with a climate change focus in its 2009-19 Long-Term Council Community Plan. Projects include walking and cycling plans, intensifying development in the city centre and retro-fitting homes with better insulation.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/local/3129355/Wellington-could-be-more-like-Venice-by-2100 (http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/local/3129355/Wellington-could-be-more-like-Venice-by-2100)

---

See the following interesting pages on the Wellington City Council website:

• New Technology Helps City Plan for Climate Change (http://www.wellington.govt.nz/news/display-item.php?id=3780)

• Climate Change — Introduction (http://www.wellington.govt.nz/services/environment/climate/climatechange.html)

Region at risk from rising sea levels

By NAOMI ARNOLD - The Nelson Mail | 1:00PM - Monday, 07 December 2009

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix/3134137s-07Dec09.jpg)

BEACH FRONT: Kaye McNabb, general manager for Nelson Airport, and Andy Booth, of Nelson
company SolarCity, with a red ribbon that signifies the predicted rise in sea levels over the
next 100 years and the impact it will have on Nelson Airport which is less than one metre
above the present sea level. — MARTIN DE RUYTER/The Nelson Mail.

Large parts of Motueka, central Nelson, the Wood and Tahunanui may be drowned by rising sea levels in 100 years, putting a billion dollars' worth of assets at risk, a new Cawthron Institute climate change report warns.

The report, commissioned by Nelson solar company SolarCity, also shows that Nelson Airport, the Boulder Bank, Trafalgar Park, Waimea Estuary and large parts of Farewell Spit will be at risk.

Cawthron Institute sustainable business group manager Jim Sinner said the estimates "could be considered a worst-case scenario".

"But it's in the likely range of facts if the world continues to experience rapid economic growth based on fossil fuel," he said.

The report was based on new scientific research from Greenland and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, including that of Victoria University's Tim Naish. It found sea levels were more likely to rise quicker, contrary to earlier projections.

SolarCity chief executive Andrew Booth said there had been little attention on how much climate change was going to cost communities like Nelson. He commissioned the report because he wanted to know what would happen to Nelson if carbon emissions were not drastically cut by 2020.

Mr Booth, whose business is as a provider in the Nelson City Council's solar-city scheme, hoped to encourage community action and business planning over climate change.

"I don't think any community wants to deal with the types of consequences that Cawthron Institute highlights," he said. "I think everyone would much prefer to pull together to try to reduce their own personal emissions now as much as they can to try to stop it happening."

The report said ratepayers would bear the cost of protecting or relocating community assets vulnerable to flooding. Mr Sinner said if there was a billion dollars at risk, "you don't just plan for the most likely scenarios; you also need to consider the plausible range of effects of what could happen".

However, Nelson MP and Environment Minister Nick Smith said putting the community to "huge expense" on the basis of one scientific report would be "unwise", although town planners needed to take long-term projections into account.

Dr Smith said a rise of 1.9m was significantly more than Niwa was advising the Government. Its prediction was between 0.5m and 0.8m. However, although there was uncertainty about the extent of sea levels rising, climate change still needed to be taken seriously.

"Nelson is responsible for only a fraction of global emissions ... but we still need to do our fair share," he said.

The report also showed a 1m sea-level rise would have water lapping the runways of Nelson Airport, while 1.9m would swamp them. Nelson Airport chief executive Kaye McNabb said that although the area had been flagged as an inundation area for a while, it was the first time she had seen such a "graphic" representation and the report was "sobering reading".

Nelson Chamber of Commerce chief executive Dot Kettle said the chamber welcomed the report, not least because it spelled out the consequences of climate change on the Nelson region very simply.

Ms Kettle urged all business to "take heed of emerging science". A business sustainability audit would help reduce energy costs as well as making a contribution on a bigger scale, she said.

Nelson Marlborough Seafood Cluster executive chairman Ron Heath said the report was based on extreme estimates.

Mr Heath, who is a former assistant vice-chancellor of sciences at Otago University, said the report was based on the Antarctic ice shelves melting, and there was conjecture over whether that would actually happen.

"The estimates are only as good as we understand the models themselves but we just don't understand all the processes. There is still a lot of work to be done."

Nelson city councillor Ian Barker said he thought the evidence to support the conclusions was not credible. There had been an effort in recent years to manipulate the record of temperature to show that there had been a rise in temperature when there had been none.

"So a pragmatic person like myself questions whether man-made emissions have had the effect that could lead to predictions like this. I think we should be more worried about how the world is going to be spending billions of dollars to try to fix something that is not a problem."

AT A GLANCE

Nelson in 100 years – impact of a 1.9m rise in sea level and a 2.5-degree rise in temperature:

• More storms of greater intensity.

• More and stronger gales.

• Flooding from the Maitai, which already overflows its banks during the highest tides, will increase.

• More flooding from high tides in other low-lying areas of the city.

• More mosquitoes, blowflies, termites, jellyfish, wasps, which will find it easier to invade in warmer temperatures.

• Estuaries and wetlands drowned.

• More crop diseases such as fungi and botrytis.

• 10 per cent increase in rainfall – but drought, flooding and erosion will worsen.

• Impact on tourism, fishing, aquaculture, forestry and horticulture.

Source: Cawthron Report 1699: Effects of Climate Change on the Nelson-Tasman Region (http://static.stuff.co.nz/files/Cawthronreport.pdf).

http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/3133937/Region-at-risk-from-rising-sea-levels (http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/3133937/Region-at-risk-from-rising-sea-levels)

[Climate data (raw)

• GHCN v.2 (http://ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2) (Global Historical Climate Network: weather station records from around the world, temperature and precipitation)
  
• USHCN US. Historical Climate Network (v.1 (http://ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/) and v.2 (http://ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/))
  
• Antarctic  weather stations (http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER)
  
• European weather stations (ECA (http://eca.knmi.nl/))
  
• Satellite feeds (AMSU (http://amsu.cira.colostate.edu/), SORCE (http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/mirador/presentNavigation.pl?tree=project&project=SORCE) (Solar irradiance), NASA A-train (http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/atdd))
  
• Tide Gauges (Proudman Oceanographic Lab (http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/data.html))
  
• World Glacier Monitoring Service (http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/dataexp.html)
  
• Argo float data (http://www.marine.csiro.au/~ttchen/argo/gmap.htm)
  
•  International Comprehensive Ocean/Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) (http://icoads.noaa.gov/) (Oceanic in situ observations)
  
• AERONET (http://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/) Aerosol information
  

Climate data (processed)[

• Surface temperature anomalies (GISTEMP (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp), HadCRU (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/), NOAA NCDC (http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/index.html), JMA (http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/ann_wld.html))
  
• Satellite temperatures (MSU) (UAH, [url=http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html]RSS (http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/)) 
  
• Sea surface temperatures (Reynolds et al, OI (http://ftp://eclipse.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/OI-daily-v2/))
  
• Stratospheric temperature (http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/)
  
• Sea ice  (Cryosphere Today (http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/), NSIDC (http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/), JAXA (http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm), Bremen (http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html), Arctic-Roos (http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic), DMI (http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php))
  
• Radiosondes (RAOBCORE (http://www.univie.ac.at/theoret-met/research/raobcore/), HadAT (http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadat/),  U. Wyoming (http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html), RATPAC (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ratpac/), IUK (http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/staff/profiles/sherwood/radproj/index.html), Sterin (CDIAC) (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/sterin/sterin.html), Angell (CDIAC) (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/angell/angell.html) )
  
• Cloud and radiation products (ISCCP (http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/products/onlineData.html), CERES-ERBE (http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/project/ceres/table_ceres.html))
  
• Sea level  (U. Colorado (http://sealevel.colorado.edu))
  
• Aerosols  (AEROCOM (http://dataipsl.ipsl.jussieu.fr/AEROCOM/), GACP (http://gacp.giss.nasa.gov/))
  
• Greenhouse Gases (AGGI (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/) at NOAA, CO2 Mauna Loa (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/), World Data Center for Greenhouse Gases (http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/wdcgg/)) 
  
• AHVRR (http://www.usap-data.org/entry/NSF-ANT04-40414/2009-09-12_11-10-10/) data as used in Steig et al (2009)
  
• Snow Cover (http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/index.php) (Rutgers)
  
• GLIMS glacier database (http://glims.colorado.edu/glacierdata/)
  
• Ocean Heat Content (http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/) (NODC)
  
• GCOS Essential Climate Variables Index (http://gosic.org/ios/MATRICES/ECV/ecv-matrix.htm)
  

Paleo-data

• NOAA Paleoclimate (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/data.html) 
  
• Pangaea (http://www.pangaea.de/)
  
• GRIP/NGRIP Ice cores (http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~www-glac/ngrip/index_eng.htm) (Denmark)
  
• GISP2 (http://ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt) (note that the age model has been updated)
  
• National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/ngdcinfo/onlineaccess.html)

Paleo Reconstructions (including code)

• Reconstructions index and data (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/recons.html) (NOAA)
  
• Mann et al (2008) (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann2008/mann2008.html) (also here (http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/supplements/MultiproxyMeans07/), Mann et al (2009) (http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/supplements/MultiproxySpatial09/))
  
• Kaufmann et al (2009) (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/kaufman2009/kaufman2009.html) 
  
• Wahl and Ammann (2006) (http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/codes/) 
  
• Mann et al (1998/1999) (http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/shared/research/MANNETAL98/)
  

Large-scale model (Reanalysis) output

These are weather models which have the real world observations assimilated into the solution to provide a ‘best guess’ of the evolution of weather over time (although pre-satellite era estimates (before 1979) are less accurate).

• ERA40 (http://www.ecmwf.int/research/era/do/get/era-40) (1957-2001, from ECMWF)
  
• ERA-Interim (http://www.ecmwf.int/research/era/do/get/era-interim)  (1989 – present, ECMWF’s latest project)
  
• NCEP (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/reanalysis/reanalysis.shtml) (1948-present, NOAA), NCEP-2 (http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/wesley/reanalysis2/)
  
• MERRA (http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/research/merra/intro.php) NASA GSFC
  
• JRA-25 (http://jra.kishou.go.jp/)  (1979-2004, Japanese Met. Agency)
  
• North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) (http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/mmb/rreanl/)
  

Large-scale model (GCM) output

These is output from the large scale global models used to assess climate change in the past, and make projections for the future. Some of this output is also available via the Data Visualisation tools linked below.

• CMIP3 output (~20 models, as used by IPCC AR4) at PCMDI (http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/about_ipcc.php)
  
• GISS ModelE output (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/) (includes AR4 output as well as more specific experiments)
  
• GFDL Model output (http://data1.gfdl.noaa.gov/)
  

Model codes (GCMs)

Downloadable codes for some of the GCMs.

• GISS ModelE (http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/)  (AR4 version (http://ftp://ftp.giss.nasa.gov/pub/modelE/), current snapshot (http://simplex.giss.nasa.gov/snapshots/))
  
• NCAR CCSM (http://www.ccsm.ucar.edu/)(Version 3.0 (http://www.ccsm.ucar.edu/models/ccsm3.0/), CCM3 (http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cms/ccm3/source.shtml) (older vintage))
  
• EdGCM (http://edgcm.columbia.edu) Windows based version of an older GISS model.
  
• Uni. Hamburg (http://www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/Projekte.209.0.html?&L=3) (SAM (http://www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/SAM.6074.0.html?&L=3" rel=nofollow), PUMA (http://www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/PUMA.215.0.html?&L=3" rel=nofollow) and PLASIM (http://www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/Planet-Simul.216.0.html?&L=3" rel=nofollow))
  
• NEMO Ocean Model (http://www.nemo-ocean.eu/)
  
• GFDL Models (http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/fms)
  
• MIT GCM (http://mitgcm.org/)
  

Model codes (other)

This category include links to analysis tools, simpler models or models focussed on more specific issues.

• Rahmstorf (2007) Sea Level Rise Code (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/317/5846/1866d/DC1) 
  
• ModTran (http://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/Projects/modtran.html) (atmospheric radiation calculations and visualisations)
  
•   Various climate-related online models (http://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/models.html) (David Archer)
  
• Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) (FUND (http://www.fnu.zmaw.de/FUND.5679.0.html), FAIR (http://www.pbl.nl/en/themasites/fair/index.html), DICE (http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/DICE2007.htm), RICE (http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/RICEModelDiscussionasofSeptember30.htm))
  
• CliMT (http://mathsci.ucd.ie/~rca/climt/) a Python-based software component toolkit
  
• Pyclimate (http://www.pyclimate.org/) Python tools for climate analysis
  
• CDAT (http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/software-portal/cdat) Tools for analysing climate data in netcdf format (PCMDI)[/url]
  
• RegEM (http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~tapio/imputation) (Tapio Schneider) 
  
• Time series analysis (MTM-SVD (http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/Mann/tools/MTM-SVD/), SSA-MTM toolkit (http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/tcd/ssa/), Mann and Lees (1996) (http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/Mann/tools/MTM-RED/))
  

Data Visualisation and Analysis

These sites include some of the above data (as well as other sources) in an easier to handle form.

• ClimateExplorer (http://climexp.knmi.nl/start.cgi?someone@somewhere) (KNMI)
  
• Dapper (http://dapper.pmel.noaa.gov/dchart/) (PMEL, NOAA) 
  
• Ingrid (http://ingrid.ldgo.columbia.edu/) (IRI/LDEO Climate data library) 
  
• Giovanni (http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/giovanni/) (GSFC)
  
• Wood for Trees: Interactive graphics (temperatures)  (http://woodfortrees.org/plot/)
• IPCC Data Visualisations (http://www.ipcc-data.org/maps/)
  
• Regional IPCC model output  (http://www.pacificclimate.org/tools/select)
  

Master Repositories of Climate Data

Much bigger indexes of data sources:

• Global Change Master Directory (GSFC) (http://gcmd.nasa.gov/)
• PAGES data portal (http://pages-dataportal.unibe.ch/cgi-bin/WebObjects/dataportal)
• NCDC (National Climate Data Center) (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html)
• IPCC Data (http://www.ipcc-data.org/maps/)
• Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Lab: Atmospheric trace gas concentrations, historical carbon emissions, and more (http://cdiac.ornl.gov)
• CRU Data holdings (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/)
• Hadley Centre Observational holdings (http://www.hadobs.org/)

---

Sorry - I would format it nicer - but then again that would be just wasting even more time.

Have fun!

 :)

List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming

I reckon Global warming is natural and not man made.
You may not agree but neither do a lot of scientist on this same subject  ;D

Dazza your trying to blind me with science aye?  ;D

Oh thats right if most scientist can't agree on something that means they are already half blind.

Lucky for us we have those non experts like the stream media and politicians they are happy to come to our aid and save us all from our future doom and destruction.
They are saying us humans are to blame for it all,

Oh yeah they will need to change our whole way of life,maybe we will all need to ride bicycles and pay for climate change with our hard earned cash,
We will also need to give up our freedom to a UN world body that will be responsible for providing us with new laws that will control  every aspect of our life. Does that sound like a World government to you ?

This carbon tax bullshit idea seems like a crock full of shit to me  ;D

In our not too distant future thats when they find out global warming is not a threat, Will they return back to us the human rights,the ones we all gladly gave up to save the planet? and also will they give back all our money?
I don't think so

Ignore it and watch consumers in other countries boycott NZ products, then when our exports collapse and our jobs disappear in vast numbers, you can try to claim you are right as you starve.

Greenpeace Leader Admits Organization Put Out Fake Global Warming Data

Greenpeace leader Gerd Leipold has been forced to admit that his organization issued misleading and exaggerated information when it claimed that Arctic ice would disappear completely by 2030, in a crushing blow for the man-made global warming movement.
In an interview with the BBC’s Stephen Sackur on the “Hardtalk” program, Leipold initially attempted to evade the question but was ultimately forced to admit that Greenpeace had made a “mistake” when it said Arctic ice would disappear completely in 20 years.
The claim stems from a July 15 Greenpeace press release entitled “Urgent Action Needed As Arctic Ice Melts,” in which it is stated that global warming will lead to an ice-free Arctic by 2030.
Sackur accused Leipold and Greenpeace of releasing “misleading information” based on “exaggeration and alarmism,” pointing out that it was “preposterous” to claim that the Greenland ice sheet, a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle that has survived much warmer periods in history, would completely melt when it had stood firm for hundreds of thousands of years.
“There is no way that ice sheet is going to disappear,” said Sackur.
“I don’t think it will be melting by 2030. … That may have been a mistake,” Leipold was eventually forced to admit.
However, Leipold made no apologies for Greenpeace’s tactic of “emotionalizing issues” as a means of trying to get the public to accept its stance on global warming.


He also argued that economic growth in the United States and around the world should be suppressed and that overpopulation and high standards of living should be combated because of the perceived damage they were doing to the environment, eugenicist rhetoric which will be familiar to our readers and anyone who has watched Alex Jones’ Endgame documentary.
As the Watts Up With That blog highlights, “Leipold’s admission that Greenpeace issued misleading information is a major embarrassment to the organization, which often has been accused of alarmism but has always insisted that it applies full scientific rigor in its global-warming pronouncements.”
Similar claims that the north pole will be “ice free” crop up almost every summer yet are routinely disproved.
Indeed, it was discovered that during August 2007 to August 2008, Arctic ice had in fact grown by around 30 per cent, an area equivalent to the size of Germany.
A new peer reviewed study has also discovered, “Total annual precipitation in Greenland ice sheet for 1958-2007 to be up to 24% and surface mass balance up to 63% higher than previously thought.”
As we reported last year, climate scientists allied with the UN IPCC were also caught citing fake data to make the case that global warming is accelerating, in another shocking example of mass public deception.
In November 2008, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, announced that the previous month had been the hottest October on record. It later emerged that the data produced by NASA to make the claim, and in particular temperature records covering large areas of Russia, was merely carried over from the previous month. NASA had used temperature records from the naturally hotter month of September and claimed they represented temperature figures in October.
Watch a clip from the Sackur- Leipold interview below.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC7bE9jopXE&feature=player_embedded

I - for one - am ignoring.

It's a waste of time even talking about this subject with some members in here. When their reasons become personal and they have no scientific support AT ALL to their view in what is solely a scientific arena - then it's just blar blar blar...



The above quote sums it up actually - the skeptics are more concerned about their personal well-being than the well-being of ALL life on planet earth and the human race as a whole.

IMO - that's incredibly selfish.

That's a big downer on you skeptic lot. Major browny point loss...

I'm ashamed I'm a member of the same race as yourself to be honest.
I find it absolutely and utterly inhumane.

(http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/MSN%20emoticons/40emthdown.gif)

Could this thread be on it's way to beating roger?

 ;D

Off to bed Sexy...  if you post something worth while then I might respond tomorrow.... if it's just blar blar blat thou - expect nothing in return.

 ;)

Plants need more CO2, not less
By: H. Leighton Steward
OpEd Contributor
November 4, 2009
Congress and federal regulators are poised to make a misguided and reckless decision that will stifle our economy recovery and spur long-term damage to plant and animal life on earth.
 
In the coming months, the Environmental Protection Agency will hold hearings to justify the movement to brand carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant. Congress will also consider cap-and-trade legislation that, if enacted, could also regulate CO2 as pollution.
 
Why is it such a catastrophic decision? Because there is not a single piece of evidence that CO2 is a pollutant. In fact, lower levels of carbon dioxide actually inhibit plant growth and food production. What we see happening in Washington right now is the replacement of politics for science in conversations about CO2.
 
For plants, CO2 is the greatest, naturally occurring air-borne fertilizer that exists. Even schoolchildren learn in elementary science class that plants need carbon dioxide to grow. During photosynthesis, plants use this CO2 fertilizer as their food and they “breathe out” oxygen into the air so humans can inhale it, and in turn exhale CO2. This mutually beneficial and reinforcing cycle is one of the most basic elements of life on earth.
 
An article appeared recently in the Environment and Energy Daily that claimed a “modeled” nitrogen deficiency will occur as CO2 rises. Well, CO2 has already risen over 37%, 105 parts per million, and where is the real world nitrogen deficiency?
 
Why are Earth’s forests lush if the added growth that has already occurred, due to big bursts of CO2, has depleted the nitrogen supply? The nitrogen supply of pristine ecosystems has been resupplied through natural processes for eons.
 
Computer models, manipulated to produce desired results, can generate catastrophic, front page, forecasts. We encourage our government’s scientists to step back from their models and observe what is and what has happened in the real world, as well as in actual plant experiments. Doesn’t anyone recognize the good news that is staring them in the face?
 
It simply defies imagination, let alone science, that the United Nations has now backed an arbitrary limit on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. The chairman of the politically charged Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said he supports efforts to reduce carbon dioxide to 10% below current levels.
 
In the context of today’s political conversations, this recommendation may sound like an acceptable position to save the environment. But the scientific reality of such a step is quite the opposite. Lowering carbon dioxide in our atmosphere will have catastrophic affects on our food supply.
 
Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide support plant life and helps plants thrive. If our food supply is reduced, the hunger crisis in many parts of the world will worsen. Not only would lowering CO2 levels be wrong, one can make the argument that even higher levels would be desirable. Greenhouse operators routinely increase CO2 to about three times the current level in earth’s atmosphere in order to encourage plant growth.
 
We know CO2 is vital for plants, but what about the argument that it is a dominant contributor to the greenhouse effect? Again, science does not support this argument. CO2 is not even close to being the most important of the greenhouse gases. Most of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor, which is more than 30 times as abundant in the atmosphere as CO2.
 
As further evidence, we find that as the post-war industrial boom began to put significant volumes of CO2 into the atmosphere, global temperatures did not rise. Since 1945, there have been about 40 years of cooling trend and only 20-plus years of warming.
While the warming is significant, it followed an unusually high period of solar activity.
 
Temperature did rise steeply in the 1920’s and in the 1930’s in the U.S. and 1934 was the warmest year of the 20th century. The rate of warming then was also higher than in the 1980’s and 1990’s, even though CO2 levels were lower.
 
Many in the scientific community reject reducing atmospheric CO2 to 350 parts per million, as Dr. Pachauri of the U.N. wishes. Thousands of peer-reviewed experiments have demonstrated CO2’ s ability to “green” the earth dramatically.
 
Nonetheless, Dr. Pachauri and those who prefer to debate science with politics are sticking to their old story and clinging to their inadequate climate models and their headline-grabbing catastrophic forces.
 
Do Americans want to see their government spend trillions of dollars removing CO2 that will not lower the Earth’s temperature but absolutely will risk harming ecologies, economies and mankind itself?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Plants-need-more-CO2-not-less-69158857.html

I wouldn't worry too much about "science" sexy. It's a pity I don't have the time to debate this topic like I used to, but Daz and I have thrashed this out several times over. It usually ends with Daz proclaiming that these scientists have no motivation to fudge the data. Except of course this time round (which is the pity) as we now know that Dr Phil Jones has received ₤13,700,000 for doing his research on this topic. We also now know that they have been adjusting the data to suit their hypothesis, e.g. "Used Mike's [Michael Mann] trick for hiding the decline."  Interestingly enough when Jones defended this recently he said he had to adjust the figures; apparently tree ring data before 1960 was accurate, but magically tree ring data is wrong post 1960.

For those that don't know Michael Mann is the person who fudged the data to get the "hockey stick" graph. A bit of work even other warmist have stepped away from (though there is the "Hockey team" who still support Mann and his special way of analysing data): a fantastic bit of work that dismisses the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in his thousand year myopic view of the past. Other warmists have been unable to repeat Mann's work, which should ring alarm bells.

Obviously Mann's standard of analyses is what the East Anglian CRU team uses to give us our doom and gloom prophecies from the IPCC (Jones is an important contributor to the IPCC message) given the leaked emails and the correspondence with him. It would be interesting to know if our own NIWA used Mann's standard for their own adjustments of the raw data. Especially since NIWA's adjusted figures paint an even greater level of warming of the 20th century than their warmist mates overseas.

Yes, and that would have to be the sole reason to buy into the scam; just like the story of the Emperor's new clothes people are too gutless to state the obvious because it would impinge on their livelihoods. Sad really.

Still, a gullible tax is the reasonable solution. All those that are gullible should pay the air tax, and those that aren't can keep our money.

...you wouldn't worry about the science of your claims in what is solely a scientific matter?!
 ???

PMSL!!!!

That my friends - that one sentence alone sums up the skeptics perfectly.

(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/2funny.gif)

Note the quotes. I know it's hard for you to fathom Daz, but hope springs eternal.

This is the biggest scam since the Y2K bug.

(http://green-agenda.com/images/banner.gif)

“The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these
dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through
changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.
The real enemy then, is humanity itself."
- Club of Rome

The First Global Revolution

The environmental movement has been described as the largest and most influential social phenomenon in modern history. From relative obscurity just a few decades ago it has spawned thousands of organisations and claims millions of committed activists. Reading the newspaper today it is hard to imagine a time when global warming, resource depletion, environmental catastrophes and 'saving the planet' were barely mentioned. They now rank among the top priorities on the social, political and economic global agenda.

Environmental awareness is considered to be the mark of any good honest decent citizen. Multi-national companies compete fiercely to promote their environmental credentials and 'out-green' each other. The threat of impending ecological disasters is uniting the world through a plethora of international treaties and conventions. But where did this phenomenon come from, how did it rise to such prominence, and more importantly, where is it going?

While researching for these articles, and during my academic studies, I have come across many references to the The Club of Rome (CoR), and reports produced by them. Initially I assumed that they were just another high-level environmental think-tank and dismissed the conspiracy theories found on many websites claiming that the CoR is a group of global elitists attempting to impose some kind of one world government.

I am not a conspiratorial person by nature and was faced with a dilemma when I first read their reports. But it's all there - in black and white. The CoR claims that "we are facing an imminent catastrophic ecological collapse" and "our only hope is to transform humanity into a global interdependent sustainable society, based on respect and reverence for the Earth." In the end I came to the conclusion that there are two possibilities – either the CoR wrote all these reports and setup a vast network of supporting organisations just for fun or they actually believe what they have written and are working hard to fulfill their role as the self-appointed saviours of Gaia.

Based on my close observation of their actions, and watching the recommendations made by the CoR many years ago now being adopted as official UN and government policy – well, I have become personally convinced that they are deadly serious. On this website I try to use quotes and excerpts as much as possible and let the reader reach their own conclusions.

So, what exactly is the Club of Rome and who are its members? Founded in 1968, the CoR describes itself as "a group of world citizens, sharing a common concern for the future of humanity." It consists of current and former Heads of State, UN beaureacrats, high-level politicians and government officials, diplomats, scientists, economists, and business leaders from around the globe.

The Club of Rome subsequently founded two sibling organizations, the Club of Budapest and the Club of Madrid. The former is focused on social and cultural aspects of their agenda, while the latter concentrates on the political aspects. All three of these 'Clubs' share many common members and hold joint meetings and conferences. As explained in other articles on this website it is abundantly clear that these are three heads of the same beast. The CoR has also established a network of 33 National Associations. Membership of the 'main Club' is limited to 100 individuals at any one time. Some members, like Al Gore and Maurice Strong, are affiliated through their respective National Associations (e.g. USACOR, CACOR etc).

I would like to start this analysis of the Club of Rome by listing some prominent members of the CoR and its two sub-groups, the Clubs of Budapest and Madrid. Personally it isn’t what the CoR is that I find so astonishing; it is WHO the CoR is! This isn’t some quirky little group of green activists or obscure politicians. They are the most senior officials in the United Nations, current and ex-world leaders, and the founders of some of the most influential environmental organisations. When you read their reports in the context of who they are – its gives an entirely new, and frightening, context to their extreme claims.

Some current members of the Club of Rome or its two siblings:

Al Gore – former VP of the USA, leading climate change campaigner, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Academy Award winner, Emmy winner. Gore lead the US delegations to the Rio Earth Summit and Kyoto Climate Change conference. He chaired a meeting of the full Club of Rome held in Washington DC in 1997.

Javier Solana – Secretary General of the Council of the European Union, High Representative for EU Foreign Policy.

Maurice Strong – former Head of the UN Environment Programme, Chief Policy Advisor to Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the Rio Earth Summit, co-author (with Gorbachev) of the Earth Charter, co-author of the Kyoto Protocol, founder of the Earth Council, devout Baha’i.

Mikhail Gorbachev – CoR executive member, former President of the Soviet Union, founder of Green Cross International and the Gorbachev Foundation, Nobel Peace Prize winner, co-founder (with Hidalgo) of the Club of Madrid, co-author (with Strong) of the Earth Charter.

Diego Hidalgo – CoR executive member, co-founder (with Gorbachev) of the Club of Madrid, founder and President of the European Council on Foreign Relations in association with George Soros.

Ervin Laszlo – founding member of the CoR, founder and President of the Club of Budapest, founder and Chairman of the World Wisdom Council.

Anne Ehrlich – Population Biologist. Married to Paul Ehrlich with whom she has authored many books on human overpopulation. Also a former director of Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club, and a member of the UN's Global Roll of Honor.

Hassan bin Talal – President of the CoR, President of the Arab Thought Forum, founder of the World Future Council, recently named as the United Nations 'Champion of the Earth'.

Sir Crispin Tickell – former British Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Permanent Representative on the Security Council, Chairman of the ‘Gaia Society’, Chairman of the Board of the Climate Institute, leading British climate change campaigner.

Kofi Annan – former Secretary General of the United Nations. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

Javier Perez de Cuellar – former Secretary General of the United Nations.

Gro Harlem Bruntland – United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Change, former President of Norway

Robert Muller – former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, founder and Chancellor of the UN University of Peace.

The Dalai Lama – The 'Spiritual Leader' of Tibet. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

Father Berry Thomas – Catholic Priest who is one of the leading proponents of deep ecology, ecospirituality and global consciousness.

David Rockefeller – CoR executive member, former Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, founder of the Trilateral Commission, executive member of the World Economic Forum, donated land on which the United Nations stands.

Stephen Schneider – Stanford Professor of Biology and Global Change. Professor Schneider was among the earliest and most vocal proponents of man-made global warming and a lead author of many IPCC reports.

Bill Clinton – former President of the United States, founder of the Clinton Global Iniative.

Jimmy Carter – former President of the United States, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

Bill Gates – founder of Microsoft, philanthropist

Garret Hardin – Professor of Human Ecology. Originator of the 'Global Commons' concept. Has authored many controversial papers on human overpopulation and eugenics.

Other current influential members:
(these can be found on the membership lists of the COR (here, here, and here), Club of Budapest, Club of Madrid and/or CoR National Association membership pages)

Ted Turner – media mogul, philanthropist, founder of CNN
George Soros – multibillionare, major donor to the UN
Tony Blair – former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Deepak Chopra – New Age Guru
Desmond Tutu – South African Bishop and activist, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Timothy Wirth – President of the United Nations Foundation
Henry Kissinger – former US Secretary of State
George Matthews – Chairman of the Gorbachev Foundation
Harlan Cleveland – former Assistant US Secretary of State and NATO Ambassador
Barbara Marx Hubbard – President of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution
Betty Williams – Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Marianne Williamson – New Age 'Spiritual Activist'
Robert Thurman – assistant to the Dalai Lama
Jane Goodall – Primatologist and Evolutionary Biologist
Juan Carlos I – King of Spain
Prince Philippe of Belgium
Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands
Dona Sophia – Queen of Spain
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – current Prime Minister of Spain
Karan Singh – Former Prime Minister of India, Chairman of the Temple of Understanding
Daisaku Ikeda – founder of the Soka Gakkai cult
Martin Lees – CoR Secretary General, Rector of the UN University of Peace
Ernesto Zedillo – Director of The Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
Frithjof Finkbeiner – Coordinator of the Global Marshall Plan
Franz Josef Radermacher – Founder of the Global Marshall Plan
Eduard Shevardnadze – former Soviet foreign minister and President of Georgia
Richard von Weizsacker – former President of Germany
Carl Bildt – former President of Sweden
Kim Campbell – former Prime Minister of Canada and Senior Fellow of the Gorbachev Foundation
Vincente Fox – former President of Mexico
Helmut Kohl – former Chancellor of Germany
Romano Prodi – former Prime Minister of Italy and President of the European Commission
Vaclav Havel – former President of the Czech Republic
Hans Kung – Founder of the Global Ethic Foundation
Ruud Lubbers – United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Mary Robinson – United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Jerome Binde – Director of Foresight, UNESCO
Koïchiro Matsuura – Current Director General of UNESCO
Federico Mayor – Former Director General of UNESCO
Tapio Kanninen – Director of Policy and Planning, United Nations
Konrad Osterwalder – Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations
Peter Johnston – Director General of European Commission
Jacques Delors – Former President of the European Commission
Domingo Jimenez-Beltran – Executive Director of the European Environment Agency
Thomas Homer-Dixon – Director of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Toronto
Hazel Henderson – Futurist and 'evoluntionary economist'
Emeka Anyaoku – former Commonwealth Secretary General, current President of the World Wildlife Fund
Wangari Maathai – Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, founder of the Green Belt Movement
and many more….

The concept of 'environmental sustainability' was first brought to widespread public attention in 1972 by the Club of Rome in their book entitled The Limits to Growth. The official summary can be read here. The report basically concluded that the growth of the human population, and an increase in prosperity, would cause an ecological collapse within the next hundred years:

“If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.”

“It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability that is sustainable far into the future. The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his individual human potential.”

“The overwhelming growth in world population caused by the positive birth-rate loop is a recent phenomenon, a result of mankind's very successful reduction of worldwide mortality. The controlling negative feedback loop has been weakened, allowing the positive loop to operate virtually without constraint. There are only two ways to restore the resulting imbalance. Either the birth rate must be brought down to equal the new, lower death rate, or the death rate must rise again.”

“The result of stopping population growth in 1975 and industrial capital growth in 1985 with no other changes is that population and capital reach constant values at a relatively high level of food, industrial output and services per person. Eventually, however, resource shortages reduce industrial output and the temporarily stable state degenerates.”

“Man possesses, for a small moment in his history, the most powerful combination of knowledge, tools, and resources the world has ever known. He has all that is physically necessary to create a totally new form of human society - one that would be built to last for generations. The two missing ingredients are a realistic, long-term goal that can guide mankind to the equilibrium society and the Human Will to achieve that goal.”

“Without such a goal and a commitment to it, short-term concerns will generate the exponential growth that drives the world system toward the limits of the earth and ultimate collapse. With that goal and that commitment, mankind would be ready now to begin a controlled, orderly transition from growth to global equilibrium.”

So as you can see the even back in 1972 the Club considered modern industrial society to be completely unsustainable. They state that even if population was frozen at 1975 levels, and industrial activity at 1985 levels, then the earth’s ecosystems would still ultimately collapse. The CoR has not changed these views in the slightest, in fact, in the last three decades their warnings have become increasingly more urgent and alarmist. They call this imminent collapse the ‘World Problematique’ and their proposed solution the ‘World Resolutique.’

The Limits to Growth is considered to be the most successful environmental publication ever produced and propelled the Club of Rome to its current position of an environmental thought-leader and a major consultant to the United Nations. It has been translated into more than forty languages and sold more than 30 million copies. Throughout the 1970s and 80s the concept that humanity was irreparably damaging the earth gained popularity and facilitated the formation of mainstream and activist environmental groups.

All meetings of the CoR are held ‘behind closed doors’ and no public records are kept. However the Club does produce many ‘discussion reports’ that can be found on its website. The United Nations contracts the Club of Rome to prepare ‘Policy Guidance Documents’ which it uses in formulating its policies and programmes. A quick search for Club of Rome on the UNESCO publications site reveals 250 such documents. There are many other documents there authored by CoR members acting in other capacities. As many high ranking UN officials are actually CoR members, this is like a man asking himself for advice, and then agreeing with that advice. Not very objective! Various UN organisations also hold joint conferences with the CoR.

While checking the Club of Rome website this morning the first item in their ‘current news’ section refers to a briefing delivered by the CoR to G8 officials in preparation for the upcoming G8 meeting. The second item is a summary report from the Club of Romes ’strategy planning retreat’ with 150 senior UNESCO officials. The joint CoR/UNESCO communique states:

“We are at the end of an era – a turning point in history. We are approaching the threshold of runaway climate change. We underline the urgency of radical action to reduce emissions, by both immediate action and longer-term measures; to stress to political leaders the non-linear nature of the processes at work which will generate sudden change; and to assert that the overriding priority must be to avert the impending risk of catastrophic climate change.” - CoR/UNESCO communique

Twenty years after the Limits to Growth the CoR published another major report that became an instant best-seller. In The First Global Revolution the Club of Rome claimed that the time to act had run out. It was now or never. Delay in beginning corrective measures will increase the damage to the world ecological system and ultimately reduce the human population that will eventually be supportable. They also stated that democratic governments are far too short-sighted to deal with the ‘problematique’ and new forms of governance are urgently required.

In order not too violate any copyright protection I will not reproduce the text of the book on this site. However, it is permissible for me to quote a brief excerpt in the context of this wider discussion. The complete text (third ed.) can be read and searched online at Google Books. As you read the following quote (from page 75, first ed.), please remember the names of the leaders listed above. This is not some quirky little cult. This is the stated agenda of the leaders of the environmental movement:

“This is the way we are setting the scene for mankind’s encounter with the planet. The opposition between the two ideologies that have dominated the 20th century has collapsed, forming their own vacuum and leaving nothing but crass materialism.

It is a law of Nature that any vacuum will be filled and therefore eliminated unless this is physically prevented. “Nature,” as the saying goes, “abhors a vacuum.” And people, as children of Nature, can only feel uncomfortable, even though they may not recognize that they are living in a vacuum. How then is the vacuum to be eliminated?

It would seem that humans need a common motivation, namely a common adversary, to organize and act together in the vacuum; such a motivation must be found to bring the divided nations together to face an outside enemy, either a real one or else one invented for the purpose.

New enemies therefore have to be identified.
New strategies imagined, new weapons devised.

The common enemy of humanity is man.

In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.

The old democracies have functioned reasonably well over the last 200 years, but they appear now to be in a phase of complacent stagnation with little evidence of real leadership and innovation

Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time.”

So, long before Global Warming became a well known issue Al Gore and his Club of Rome colleagues stated that they would use the threat of global warming to unite humanity and "set the scene for mankind's encounter with the planet." In the same way that shamans and sooth-sayers in medieval times used their advance knowledge of when eclipses would occur to control and terrify their followers, they would use a natural phenomenon as their 'enemy' to achieve their objectives. But then they state that although Global Warming would be presented as the initial enemy, the real enemy of humanity would be portrayed as man himself. I am already noticing how frequently the terms climate change and overpopulation are being uttered in the same breath.

Having discovered that all these influential environmental leaders were associated with the Club of Rome I set about reading all the reports, lectures and speeches on their website as well as the reports commissioned by the UN. I was amazed to find that they lay out their entire agenda for anyone who has eyes to see. Exactly the same themes, concepts and phrases are repeated continuously throughout their publications. They are full of references to 'imminent collapse', 'dying planet', 'our mother Gaia', 'wrenching transformation', 'united global society', 'global consciousness', 'new forms of governance' etc. They truly intend to bring about the world's First Global Revolution.

The Kosmos Journal provides perhaps the best insight into their worldview. This Journal was founded by the Club of Rome in partnership with with several of its sibling organizations. As described in my article, The Green Web, the CoR has established a network of supporting organizations, each focusing on a different aspect of their agenda. The Kosmos Journal contains many articles written by CoR members. The basic premise of their worldview is:

"Modern industrial civilisation is fast outstripping the Earth's natural regenerative and life-supporting capacity..."

"At current rates of resource depletion and environmental degradation a near complete collapse of ecological integrity will occur within the next 100 years..."

"Gaia, our Mother, who nutured humanity for countless millenia within her womb of evolution, is dying..."

“A small window of opportunity now exists to transform humanity into a sustainable global interdepedant society based on respect and reverence for Earth..."

"A radical change from the current trajectory is required, a complete reordering of global society..."

"Humans only truly unite when faced with a powerful external enemy..."

"At this time a new enemy must be found, one either real or invented for the purpose..."

"Democracy has failed us, a new system of global governance, based on environmental imperatives, must be implemented quickly..."

Now that Obama is firmly ensconced in the White House the Club of Rome and its affiliates are swinging into high gear. The CoR recently unveiled a new 3-year programme entitled A New Path for World Development. The Club of Madrid has launched the Road to Copenhagen, a joint programme with the UN Environment Programme intended to facilitate a binding global climate change treaty in 2009. Perhaps most interesting is the State of Global Emergency declared by the Club of Budapest in October 2008. The declaration states that we only have four or five years to prevent a total collapse of the Earth's ecosystems. To quote from the document:

“If we continue on our present unsustainable path, by mid-century the Earth may become largely uninhabitable for human and most other forms of life. Such a total systems collapse could occur much sooner, however, due to runaway global warming or other ecocatastrophes, and/or by nuclear wars triggered by religious, ethnic or geopolitical conflicts or access to diminishing natural resources. The macro-trends driving these global threats and challenges have been apparent for decades and are now building toward a threshold of irreversibility. The scientific modeling of complex systems shows that when systems reach a state of critical instability, they either break down to their components or break through to a higher order of integral functioning. At these “points of no return” maintaining the status quo, or returning to a previous mode of organization and functioning, are not a feasible option.

The acceleration of critical trends and cross-impacts among them indicates that the ‘window of opportunity’ for pulling out of the present global crisis and breaking through to a more peaceful and sustainable world is likely to be no more than four to five years from the end of 2008. This is close in time to the Mayan 2012 prophecy for the end of the current world. The period around the end of 2012 is likely to be a turbulent one for this and other reasons. Predictions coming from the physical sciences foresee disturbances in the geomagnetic, electromagnetic and related fields that embed the planet causing significant damage to telecommunications and impacting many aspects of human activity and health. For the esoteric traditions the end of 2012 will be the end of the known world, although the more optimistic intepretations speak of a new world taking the place of the old.”

This may seem very strange – a group of prominent world leaders talking about ancient Mayan prophecies, but as I describe in my article, Gaia's Gurus, many leading global warming activists openly advocate earth-reverence and other New Age philosophies. Gaia, Global Warming, and Global Governance are intricately entwined, if one truly believes in Gaia, and that she is being fatally harmed by the current system, then a new system of global governance and control would appear to be the only answer. Global Warming provides the ideal 'enemy' to bring about this objective. It is easy for these global elitists to talk about sacrifice, wrenching transformation, population reduction and eliminating the use of fossil fuels but the implications are truely horrendous.

Even if you think this is all nonsense I would ask you to at least read these quotes and excerpts, and think about the implications of their agenda. Everyday I am amazed at how quickly things are changing. It is coming hard and fast. It's almost like reading a book and then watching the television adaptation, except that this adaptation is not a movie - it's on the evening news. As Al Gore said in the closing sentence of his statement after he won the Nobel Peace Prize ... "This is just the beginning."

http://green-agenda.com/globalrevolution.html

Blar blar blar....


Watch this - and give a shit, just for a moment......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPI04IPiwbg

And for a splash of logic....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg

And I feel - sadly - the hope of the entire human race now lays in one mans hands....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYga2qRnY2w

 :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IaJsplm83c

 :)

Where’s the global warming?
Thatcher adviser: Copenhagen goal is One World Government
SUNDAY, 18 OCTOBER 2009 12:14    NEWS FROM JERUSALEM


(http://www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com/israelnews/images/stories/nwo/global-warming-question.jpg)
A former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher says the real purpose of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on Dec. 7-18 is to use global warming hype as a pretext to lay the foundation for a one-world government.

"At [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Copenhagen this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed," Monkton told a Minnesota Free Market Institute audience on Thursday at Bethel University in St. Paul.

"Your president will sign it. Most of the Third World countries will sign it, because they think they're going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regimes from the European Union will rubber stamp it. Virtually nobody won't sign it," he told the audience of some 700 attendees.

"I read that treaty and what it says is this: that a world government is going to be created. The word 'government' actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity.

"The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to Third World countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, 'climate debt' – because we've been burning CO2 and they haven't. We've been screwing up the climate and they haven't. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government is enforcement."

In an hour and a half lecture illustrated by slides featuring scientific data on a wide range of climate issues, Monkton refuted claims made by former Vice President Al Gore in his movie and book entitled "An Inconvenient Truth," as well as scientific arguments made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Monckton argued that President Obama will sign the Copenhagen treaty at the December meeting, without seeking a two-thirds ratification of the treaty by the Senate, or any other type of Congressional approval.

"So, thank you, America. You were the beacon of freedom to the world. It is a privilege to stand on this soil of freedom while it is still free," he continued. "But, in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy, and your humanity away forever.

"But I think it is here, here in your great nation, which I so love and I so admire – it is here that perhaps, at this eleventh hour, at the fifty-ninth minute and fifty-ninth second, you will rise up and you will stop your president from signing that dreadful treaty, that purposeless treaty. For there is no problem with the climate and, even if there were, an economic treaty does nothing to [help] it."

Moncton is a well-known critic of the theory of anthropogenic causes for global warming who has argued repeatedly that global warming hysteria is an ideological position of the political Left advanced in the interest of imposing global taxes on the United States in the pursuit of international control of the U.S. economy under a one-world government to be administered by the U.N.

Monkton's lecture can be viewed online and his slides also can be accessed on the Internet.
As evidence mounts that the United States is headed toward a cooling cycle that may last decades, global alarmists within the Obama administration remain resolved to push cap-and-trade legislation through Congress on the increasingly dubious theory that man-made carbon emissions are creating global warming.

In what has to be seen as increasingly bad news for global warming alarmists, scientific evidence is mounting that temperatures in the United States have cooled at a rate that would be projected to lower temperatures 7.3 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century.
(http://www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com/israelnews/images/stories/general/climateb.jpg)
Source. U.S. National Climate Data Center and www.c3headlines.com

Maybe Obama’s Science Czar is Right: Is a New Ice Age on the Horizon?

WND has reported White House science czar John Holdren's prediction that one billion people will die in "carbon-dioxide induced famines" in a coming new ice age by 2020.

Even though Holdren's current position is that the U.S. needs to enact cap-and-trade to slow global warming, Holdren predicted in a 1971 textbook co-authored with Paul Ehrlich that global over-population was heading the Earth to a new ice age unless the government mandated urgent measures to control population, including the possibility of involuntary birth control measures such as forced sterilization.

Holdren's prediction that one billion people would die from a global cooling "eco-disaster" was announced by Malthusian population alarmist Ehrlich in his 1986 book entitled, "The Machinery of Nature."

Holdren based his prediction on a bizarre theory that human emissions of carbon dioxide would produce a climate catastrophe in which global warming would cause global cooling with a resultant reduction in agricultural production resulting in widespread disaster.

On pages 273-274 of "The Machinery of Nature," Ehrlich explained Holdren's theory by arguing "some localities will probably become colder as the warmer atmosphere drives the climactic engine faster, causing streams of frigid air to move more rapidly away from the poles." (Emphasis in original text.)

The movement of the frigid air from the poles caused by global warming "could reduce agricultural yields for decades or more – a sure recipe for disaster in an increasingly overpopulated world," Ehrlich wrote.
http://www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com/israelnews/new-world-order-news/60-nwo/1968-thatcher-adviser-copenhagen-goal-is-one-wor

thejerusalemgiftshop.com ?!?!


PMSL!!

(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/2funny.gif)

(http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=national&image=timeseries02&byear=2008&bmonth=11&year=2009&month=10&ext=gif&id=110-00)

 ;)

Dazza do you think a one world government is a good idea ;D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddQvhdCyhe4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_zzqvlslj4&annotation_id=annotation_681710&feature=iv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfl2b3cHP8A&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTOlnVG9wGc&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqIeZXoQaPo&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmLJ2qogW2Q&NR=1

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/co2_report_july_09.pdf

Abso-bloody-lutly!

That would suggest that humans have grown up and finally learnt to live together as one - it would end wars, famine, poor country/rich country... the whole lot!
Christ - the advantages are to numerous to list!


The day we all stand united and as one on this ball of rock will be a major turning point for the human race.

Sure - we will still have our problems and still have our differences - but it would be a major turning point and a giant leap in the maturing of the race.

Bring it on I say!!
(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/afro.gif)



In reality though - do I think we would ever get there?
Sadly no - climate change is going to stress the geopolitical climate so much we are much more likely to be blowing each other to bits in the next 50 odd years... India is already running out of water - 1.2 billion people. China is having the same problems - 1.4 billion. Just where are they all going to go and who's going to feed them - and how?

That's one thing I've always maintained - the real threat here isn't climate change, it's the human reaction to change which holds more potential for disaster.


If only we had the ability to learn from others mistakes...

 :-X

Lol...  I just looked up "Lord Christopher Monckton" in your you tube post above.... bloody funny!

The guy's a complete nut case!

In 1987 he had this to say about AIDS: "there is only one way to stop AIDS. That is to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life. Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month ... all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently."


And people listen to him?!
 ???

Dazza
I too would also like to see an end to wars.I would like to see a sharing of the worlds wealth.

But do I trust a One World Government that would control every aspect of my life= Shit No
If I wanted that kind of life I would move to China

A One World Government would be a totalitarianism regime

A totalitarian regime is a government which controls every aspect of the life of the people. People living under a totalitarian regime generally also support it, sometimes almost cultishly, thanks to extensive propaganda missions which are designed to promote a positive view of the government. Citizens are also usually afraid to criticize the government, so they may be outspoken supporters to avoid closer scrutiny.

Here's  some more science for Dazza  ;D

Richard S. Lindzen (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/MSN%20emoticons/05emsmilep.gif)

Professor Lindzen is a dynamical meteorologist with interests in the broad topics of climate, planetary waves, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres, and hydrodynamic instability.   His research involves studies of the role of the tropics in mid-latitude weather and global heat transport, the moisture budget and its role in global change, the origins of ice ages, seasonal effects in atmospheric transport, stratospheric waves, and the observational determination of climate sensitivity. He has made major contributions to the development of the current theory for the Hadley Circulation, which dominates the atmospheric transport of heat and momentum from the tropics to higher latitudes, and has advanced the understanding of the role of small scale gravity waves in producing the reversal of global temperature gradients at the mesopause, and provided accepted explanations for atmospheric tides and the quasi-biennial oscillation of the tropical stratosphere. He pioneered the study of how ozone photochemistry, radiative transfer and dynamics interact with each other. He is currently studying what determines the pole to equator temperature difference, the nonlinear equilibration of baroclinic instability and the contribution of such instabilities to global heat transport. He has also been developing a new approach to air-sea interaction in the tropics, and is actively involved in parameterizing the role of cumulus convection in heating and drying the atmosphere and in generating upper level cirrus clouds. He has developed models for the Earth's climate with specific concern for the stability of the ice caps, the sensitivity to increases in CO2, the origin of the 100,000 year cycle in glaciation, and the maintenance of regional variations in climate. Prof. Lindzen is a recipient of the AMS's Meisinger, and Charney Awards, the AGU's Macelwane Medal, and the Leo Huss Walin Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society. He is a corresponding member of the NAS Committee on Human Rights, and has been a member of the NRC Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate and the Council of the AMS.   He has also been a consultant to the Global Modeling and Simulation Group at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (Ph.D., '64, S.M., '61, A.B., '60, Harvard University)

Richard Lindzen, Ph.D. Lecture Deconstructs Global Warming Hysteria (High Quality Version)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sHg3ZztDAw&feature=channel

www.youtube.com/        watch?v=-sHg3ZztDAw&feature=channel

Funny it wont play in here. I broke it up a bit you can reconstruct it and paste it in the top bar

Carbon Dioxide irrelevant in climate debate says MIT Scientist
August 18, 7:39 AMPortland Civil Rights ExaminerDianna Cotter

In a study sure to ruffle the feathers of the Global Warming cabal, Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT has published a paper which proves that IPCC models are overstating by 6 times, the relevance of CO2 in Earth’s Atmosphere. Dr. Lindzen has found that heat is radiated out in to space at a far higher rate than any modeling system to date can account for.
Editorial: The science is in. the scare is out. Recent papers and data give a complete picture of why the UN is wrong.
The pdf file located at the link above from the Science and Public Policy Institute has absolutely, convincingly, and irrefutably proven the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming to be completely false.
Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT’s peer reviewed work states “we now know that the effect of CO2 on temperature is small, we know why it is small, and we know that it is having very little effect on the climate.”
The global surface temperature record, which we update and publish
every month, has shown no statistically-significant “global warming”
for almost 15 years. Statistically-significant global cooling has now
persisted for very nearly eight years. Even a strong el Nino – expected
in the coming months – will be unlikely to reverse the cooling trend.
More significantly, the ARGO bathythermographs deployed
throughout the world’s oceans since 2003 show that the top 400
fathoms of the oceans, where it is agreed between all parties that at
least 80% of all heat caused by manmade “global warming” must
accumulate, have been cooling over the past six years. That now prolonged
ocean cooling is fatal to the “official” theory that “global
warming” will happen on anything other than a minute scale.
- SPPI Monthly CO2 Report: July 2009
If for no other reason than this: the IPCC assumes that the concentration of CO2 in 2100 will be 836 ppmv (parts per million volume). However, current graphs based on real data show that CO2 concentrations will only be 570 ppmv in 2100, cutting the IPCC’s estimates in half right there.
Another nail in the coffin of Global Warming is the observed rate of temperature change from 1980, which is observed to be 1.5 degrees  C per century. The IPCC modeling calls for a range of 2.4 to 5.3 degree increase per century, which is far above what is observed in real data collected between 1980 and 2009. The graph below clearly represents a far different reality as opposed to the predictions.
  Graph A
(http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/Global_Temp_Anomalies.jpg)

Not only is the IPCC basing its predictions on data that has been doubled from observed data, it is overstating the role of CO2 in Climate altogether. As the graph seen below shows, when charted for the years between 2002 and 2009, that solid red median line is going down, indicating global cooling.
    Graph B
(http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/Last_7_years.jpg)

As significant as the above results are, it is not the Pièce de résistance. What is - the curious minded what to know? It is the ERBE results. The Earth Radiation Budget Experiment with 15 years worth of data. The ERBE result is absolutely devastating to the entire Global Warming Theory.
The following graph (Graph C) shows the ERBE results in the upper left hand corner, which is real recorded data, not a computer model. The 11 other graphs are the results from the models used by the UN and everyone else which state that more radiation should be held within Earth’s system, thereby causing warming of the climate. More simply put, the UN results illogically predict that as the oceans got warmer, the earth would simply hold more heat. The UN explains that it is CO2 which is holding this extra energy. This theory is not supportable by the simple fact that CO2 cannot hold that much heat, it is a very poor greenhouse gas compared with water. If anything, more clouds -water vapor- would conceivably hold the extra heat, but the corresponding rise in global temperatures this would cause have not been observed. This leaves only one conclusion, the Earth is radiating the extra heat into space, and this is supported by the data.
The ERBE results, which are factual data from real measurements made by satellite, show the exact opposite result from the UN/IPCC Projections (computer models which are not real data). As seas warm on earth, the earth releases more heat into space and the satellite results prove it.
     Graph C
(http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/ERBE_1.jpg)
   
The mismatch between reality and prediction is entirely clear. It is this
astonishing graph that provides the final evidence that the UN has
absurdly exaggerated the effect not only of CO2 but of all greenhouse
gases on global mean surface temperature. - Lindzen & Choi (2009).
For the sake of making the above graphs clear in their meanings, the term ?SST stands for Change in Sea Surface Temperature measured in Kelvin (A unit of temperature like to Celsius and Fahrenheit), and is a measurement of change in sea temperatures. A -1.0 number would indicate cooling, a zero reflects no temperature change, and a +1.0 would indicate an increase in temperature.
?Flux, The Vertical line in these graphs, measures the change in the amount of radiation released by the planet in the infra-red spectrum, heat in other words. From zero to +6 shows more heat radiated out into space. From zero to -6 shows less heat being radiated into space.
0 change in ?SST equals 0 change in ?Flux or no change. Less infra-red heat radiation going out into space should correlate to cooler sea surface temperatures, as there is less heat available to radiate out. More heat radiating out appears when sea surface temperature increases have occurred and more heat is available to radiate. Heat is radiated out into space as seas warm, and  this overall maintains a climate equilibrium, This is proven by the ERBE graph in Graph C above as well as the other graphs presented in this article, which are based on observed data, not computer models.
     Graph D
(http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/Ocean_Temps.jpg)

The 3300 Argo bathythermograph buoys deployed throughout the world’s oceans since late in 2003 have shown a slight cooling of the oceans over the past five years, directly contrary to the official theory that any “global warming” not showing in the atmosphere would definitely show up in the first 400 fathoms of the world’s oceans, where at least 80% of any surplus heat would be stored. Source: ARGO project, June 2009.
All of this data leads to the conclusion that the UN/IPCC models are not only wrong, they are so far off the mark as to be laughable.  The satellite and bathythermograph data clearly do not match the IPCC theory, which means that the theory is incorrect.
What this data does tell us is if CO2 concentration should double, global temperatures will not rise by the devastating 6 degrees F the UN predicts, but by a completely harmless 1 degree F. The ERBE data shows an Earth system that is radiating more heat into space as sea surfaces warm, in other words a system at equilibrium, and is clearly demonstrated by observed data. The UN theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming is dead wrong.
The UN/IPCC have been using models that give a result that allow them to tell Nation States they must reduce and cap Carbon Emissions or the earth’s climate will warm by a devastating 6 degrees F. When in reality, more heat is simply radiated out into space as the ERBE OBSERVED DATA (Not a computer model) PROVES.
The United States House of Representatives has passed a Carbon tax (Cap and Trade) as have other governments in Europe, based on these completely erroneous models.
There are only a couple of conclusions to be made of this. Either the world has been misled by scientists working for the UN and IPCC due to faulty science, or faulty science has been deliberately used in a global scheme to generate tax revenues for the Governments instituting Cap and Trade Taxation policies.
Either way, the world has been the victim of some very bad science. The results of which can be seen in drastically reduced GDP in countries with the Cap and Trade laws in place, as well a a 5 - 10% decrease in standard of living for those citizens living there (Taxing Carbon designed to fail.), all with little or no effect on emissions globally.
Perhaps this will finally end the attempt by the Obama Administration as well as congress to tax a substance that trees need to survive, the very air we exhale thousands of times a day.
Thank you Professor Richard Lindzen, Dr. Ferenc M. Miskolczi, Dr. Miklós Zágoni, Dr. Mike Fox here in Oregon, and a great many other Scientists the world over, who decided to look at facts, instead of playing with models. Science is based on data, facts not theories. They took the facts, and let the theory write itself. The IPCC took theories and tried to cherry pick only the details that fit, and in the end failed to do even that.
Public policies should also be based on facts, not on unproven and in the end disproven theories. The United States and indeed the world is in the debt of these and other scientists, who relied on data and facts to describe our world and its climate! We are in their debt!
For more info: Science and Public Policy Institute, Editorial: The science is in. the scare is out. Recent papers and data give a complete picture of why the UN is wrong. Climate change? Not so fast say Scientists, Have it your way - Global warming is baloney, Einstein-like breakthrough in Climate Science (Part 1), Einstein-like breakthrough in Climate Science (Part 2), Oregon legislature plays Cap-n-Trade shell game, Democrats say Cap and Trade is a big tax, Taxing Carbon designed to fail
Updated to clarify sourcing.  All information in this article is directly from SPPI June Report. as is stated in the beginning of article. 8-18-2009 2:02pm Pacific

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2009m8d18-Carbon-Dioxide-irrelevant-in-climate-debate-says-MIT-Scientist

So long as the drum beat was to a socialist ditty Chicken Little would support it.

Anyway, while this may or may not cause an one world socialist totalitarianism utopia, I do agree with you regarding the issue of freedom. This scaremongering is enabling our politicians to tax the air. Once we allow our politicians to do this they will continue to find ways to tax the air more. Air was once free and soon it will not be.

Once you allow a politician to tax something, it doesn't go away. For example, Napoleon has long since been defeated. Europe has long since cleaned up the aftermath of Napoleon's "freedom" rampage. Yet we still pay income tax. Why?

Closer to home: almost immediately in her power the Clark's regime instituted a new "excise" on petrol (apparently that excise wasn't a tax) to pay for Auckland's motorways. They've finished that part of it. Has the excise been revoked?

In the same way we've allowed the pond scum to tax air, so get used to having yet another choker chain on. When they get all frantic when the cooling cycle continues on longer they're willing to admit (at the moment) don't ever expect the air taxes to be revoked. No, expect them to go up as they spin the story in yet another direction.

But that's all right. So long as we march to the socialist beat played by the Chicken Littles of this world everything will be fine. No doubt they'll come up with a new word for us rather than used the tainted ones of serfs or slaves. The Ministry of Truth will make sure of it.

To a point sexy I have to agree - there's always a risk factor.
However I think the picture you paint is a bit more bleaker than it would be in reality - local govt would likely remain fairly similar to what it is today.

One fact we must all accept thou is that as the world population continues to grow unchecked there will come moments were we all lose more and more freedoms, we can see this happening today. It stands to reason and is perfectly logical. I think that's one of the things I don't like about Auckland (or any city) to be honest - the freedoms are limited up here, and they are limited only because of the larger population. Everyone demands their human rights - yet what's a 'right' to some is a 'restriction' to others - and every 'right' has it's backside as we'll, much like in physics were every action has a reaction.

The only way to fight this 'freedom loss' is to stop having kids and apply population control.
Hardly something which could be blamed on any govt - the people just wont accept that. Yet.
They will in the future - they will have no choice, but just not yet. Maybe in 30-40 years time.

 :)

Here you go guys - here's the "mother load" of lists you've being seeking...

List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming

 ;D

When I talk about sharing the worlds wealth i am meaning to take back some of the estimated 400 trillion net worth of the Rothschild's banking dynasty and also take some of the wealth back from their filthy rich friends ,Its those kind of people they have taken the whole world ransom,destroyed nations for greed and power.
by charging huge interest on loans to governments around the world,they have done this unabated for over 250 years.
These sort of people have no interest in feeding the worlds starving,and have no cares for people who lack clean drinking water,These people believe the masses of the great unwashed should be culled like pests

The people who need water and food
All that would be needed for the thirsty nations water supply problems is huge engineered salt water distillation plants,with huge irrigation pipelines this would need big money.Also they would need to replant tree's in the earths Barron regions,and sustainable farming projects,These 3 things alone would be good for the planet and the people.

Dazza I still believe the GW carbon tax is propaganda and alarmist bullshit.    

I would like you to watch these 2 videos then tell me if what they say is right or wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sHg3ZztDAw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs6ofn46xUY&feature=player_embedded

I agree with some of the above - especially that around the mega rich and water management/sustainability...
If just 1/4 of the money spent killing up Iraqis was spent on projects like you mention above then things would be much better for many billions of people right around the world.

Carbon Tax is about the only fair way to force emissions down across the board - make things like fuel more expensive, then people will consider more wisely how they use it. I don't like it either - hell I wish it was free - but that's not reality. It will drive new advances in energy technologies, spur change in an industry which hasn't changed in principle since it's creation. That's a good thing in my books.

You show some concern about the people who need water/food now - their situation is now dire, it's those very same areas who are most suspectable.
Yet - they are also mostly the very same people who have contributed the least to creating the problem...



Will try to watch the above now...  if it's just dribble thou (and most are these days, paying no respect to observed changes or the science behind them), then I cant promise to sit though all of it. I will try though. But if they are science based and present new ideas, discoveries or theory's then they will certainly hold my attention.

 :)

The lower one is rubbish - will watch the top one when I get a moment (it's almost an hour long...)

 :)

The top one is about the science.

I was thinking about some of those poor country's
Wouldn't mind betting lot of those dry places around the world were more than likely once covered in lush forests that were devastated and used up by past and long gone civilizations,maybe some was burnt to make room for farming,and some used for building and construction and heating,some exported to other country's and some used for weapons for war maybe thats why a lot of the rain forests are gone.History often has a bad habit of repeating itself.
     

Giant 19km iceberg B17B heading for Western Australia

A GIANT iceberg bigger than Sydney harbour is drifting north from Antarctica towards Western Australia, scientists have revealed.

The iceberg, which is 19km long by 8km wide and known as B17B, was spotted by Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young using satellite images taken by NASA and the European Space Agency.

Dr Young told The Courier-Mail the iceberg was about 1700km south-south-west of the West Australian coast and moving north with the ocean current and prevailing wind.

“B17B is a very significant one in that it has drifted so far north while still largely intact.

"It’s one of the biggest sighted at those latitudes, now 48.8º S and 107.5º E.

Dr Young said the iceberg was slowly breaking up, resulting in hundreds more smaller icebergs in the area.

B17B calved from the eastern end of the Ross Ice Shelf nearly 10 years ago.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/giant-19km-iceberg-b17b-heading-for-western-australia/story-e6frfku0-1225808551351

Thats one big mother of an iceberg. why can't we cover it with a big thermal blanket.hook it up to a couple of big tug boats tow it and sell it ti the Arabs.

Any pictures
Does it have any polar bears on it  ;D

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2007

The trouble with science
Science has revolutionized life since at least the age of exploration, through the industrial revolution, and to an unprecedented degree in the 20th century. Science generally, and physics in particular, got a vast boost in credibility and in government funding following the ability of physicists to develop weapons of unprecedented power in the Manhattan Project. Scientists and their engineering brethren also developed modern electronics, sent men and machines into the cosmos, and much else that would have seemed like miracles and prophecy in prior centuries. Sciences such as psychology and evolutionary theories of behavior have at least potentially revolutionaized our understanding of ourselves. Now we have a large number of self-styled "social sciences" that attempt to understand social behavior and societies through scientific methods. Instead of priests prophecying and invoking miraculous thunderbolts through mumbo-jumbo, our modern scientific priesthood helps create real technology and tells us what to think about social systems and political options by what seems to most people (and even to most scientists outside the particular specialty in question) equally mystical mumbo-jumbo.

This scientific elite is supposed to be all quite different from the priesthoods of old because it is supposed to adhere to scientific methods rather than superstition and dogma. The scientific method developed from several sources, but one that is particularly interesting is the law of evidence in medieval and Renaissance Continental Europe. In English law, issues of fact were (and are) determined by a jury and the law of evidence is all about the general biases of juries and thus what lawyers are and are not allowed to present as evidence to them -- the basic rule to overcome juror bias being that the relevance and integrity of the information must outweigh its potential to prejudice the jurors. But in the neo-Roman law that dominated the Continent from the Late Middle Ages to this day, juries were rare and judges determined issues of fact as well as law. Thus there developed in Continental law elaborate doctrines about how judges were supposed to weigh factual evidence.

Many Renaissance and Baroque era scientists, such as Galileo, Liebniz, and Pascal, had legal training and this Continental law of evidence was reflected in their methods. Most other early scientists had been exposed to law-derived doctrines simply by attending universities many of whose doctrines derived from the original universities which were essentially law schools. Soon, however, the scientific community was independently evolving its own cultural norms from this starting point. The ideal was to seek the truth. Experiment became the sine quo non of scientific credibility, along with mathmetical rigor and important applications in navigation, engineering, and medicine. Scientific funding came from a variety of sources; when governments funded scientists they were expected to solve important problems such as those raised by navigation of the seas, not merely to theorize. After the Englightenment governments started to separate themselves from the social dogmas of their day -- religions -- by making secularizing government and allowing freedom of religion.

Today a wide variety of important political issues are dominated by ideas from scienitific communities (or at least communities that style themselves as scientific): economists, climate scientists, and many others. But there is no separation of science from government. Like the state-sponsored religions of yore, most modern scientists derive both their education and their ongoing livelihood from government funding of the theories with which they are taught and on which they work.

The old state-sponsored religions, and the resulting ideas about politics and society, were funded by governments. Not surprisingly, as such governments took over religion it became sacreligious to criticize the importance of government generally and often specific governmental institutions in particular. Under the nationalizers of dogma such as Henry VIII, who nationalized the lands and priests of the Catholic Church in England, "render under Caeasar" became more important than "render under God." Despite the advantages of better funding these state-sponsored sects have been in decline ever since governments stopped otherwise suppressing their competitors. The state sponsored churches mostly taught uncritical worship of authority whereas their private competitors added much more spiritual value to their adherent's lives.

The simplest science is physics. In some sense all other sciences are just a variety of complex models of what happens when various kinds of complex physical systems interact. Physics itself is the simple core of science. Thus physics has been hailed as the "hardest" of the "hard sciences" -- sciences where evidence trumps bias and the truth always outs sooner or later, usually sooner, despite the biases of the individuals or institutions involved. Hard scientists will often admit that the use of the scientific method in "soft sciences" such as economics and other intersubjective areas can be problematic and subject to great bias. If any science can rise above self-serving biases and efficiently search for the truth, it should be physics.

But the recent history of physics casts some rather disturbing shadows on the integrity of even this hardest of sciences. Lee Smolin in The Trouble with Physics lays out a picture of an unprecedented group of geniuses, the string theorists, who have wasted the last twenty years, largely at taxpayer's expense, basically producing nothing except a vast number of highly obscure but, in certain senses, quite elegant theories. The number of possible string theories is so vast that string theory can, like "intelligent design," explain anything -- it is unfalsifiable. It is "not even wrong," to take Wolfgang Pauli's phrase about an earlier unfalsifiable theory of his era. String theory's main rivals over the last two decades are not much better. Theoretical physics for the last twenty years has mostly not been science at all, but rather has been a large group of geniuses working on their own cabalistic variety of sudoku puzzles at taxpayer expense in the name of science.

If this is the state of physics -- if even the hardest of sciences can be taken over by a thousand-strong cabal of geniuses who produce nothing of value except wonderful-sounding untestable theories whose main success has been in garnering their community more of our tax dollars -- what hope do we have that government-funded climate scientists, economists, and others purporting to do science in areas far more complex or subjective than physics are actually producing relatively unbiased truths? If we took a poll of theoretical physicists, they might well have (up until quite recently) reached a remarkable degree of "consensus" on the truth of string theory -- just as global warming scientists have reached a "consensus" on global warming and (it is implied) on the various bits of the speculative nonsense surrounding global warming. Does such consensus mean us lay people should automatically believe this consensus of experts? Or should we demand more? Shouldn't we rather, when deciding on which theories or predictions of climate science or economics to believe, act like a Continental judge or a common-law jury and demand to actually see the evidence and weigh it for ourselves? Shouldn't we demand to hear from the defense as well as from the prosecution? Experiment, multiple points of view, and critical analysis are, after all, the real scientific method -- as opposed to the ancient religious method of uncritically trusting a single hierarchy of experts.

Today's ideas about politics and society -- "scientific theories" if you agree with them, "dogmas" if you don't -- are funded by the very governmental entities that stand to benefit from increased government power. Just as it was taboo under Henry VIII to "deny" the authority of either Christ or the King, it has now become taboo in many of these modern intellectual communities to "deny" a variety of scientific theories that are now supposed to be "beyond debate," not just things like the basic idea of global warming caused at least in part by anthropogenic carbon dioxide(which this author finds sound and quite probable, but nevertheless believes should remain like all true scientific theories open to further inquiry and debate) but also the variety of extreme speculations that have grown up around it (regarding the severity of storms, projections of droughts, floods, etc., most of which are pseudoscientific nonsense).

I'm hardly the only person who recognizes this problem with science. Indeed, the opinion expressed above is quite mild compared to an increasing number of conservatives who are coming to reject big chunks of good science along with the bad -- not just the many florid speculations surrounding global warming, but global warming itself, evolution, and other products of the expert priesthood that threaten long-established (and often, ironically, highly evolved) beliefs. Conservatives, and more than a few libertarians, feel that modern science is becoming increasingly dominated by government funding and thus becoming dominated by the interests of government in gaining more dominance over our lives. With opposing ideas increasingly unable to access to this research and education funding themselves, the easiest way for those opposed to increasing state power to effectuate their beliefs is to reject the theories of the scientific communities that promote this power.

This, and not sheer cave-man irrationality, is why many conservatives are increasingly throwing out the baby with the bathwater and rejecting science generally. Both trends -- the increased government dominance over science and the increasing rejection of science generally by those who oppose increased government controls which scientists increasingly promote -- are disturbing and dangerous. Science, once a method of weighing evidence that called for the opinions of both prosecution and defense, is increangly being dominated by the prosecution.

We need a return to science with a diversity of funding and thus a diversity of biases. This is much more important to the health of science than the absolute level of funding of science. Reducing government funding of science would thus increase the quality of science -- by making the biases of scientific communities more balanced and thus more likely to cancel each other out, just as the biases of the defense generally cancel out the biases of the prosecution. Where government does fund science, it should demand strict compliance to the basic evidentiary principles of science, such as falsifiability. All government-funded theorists should be required to design experiments that can be conducted relatively inexpensively and in the near future, that would strongly tend to verify or falsify their proposed theories. More speculative theories -- such as those that rely on unobserved or worse, unobservable entities -- simply should not be funded by governments. There are a wide variety of private entities that are happy to fund such speculations; this variety of funding sources is more important to reducing bias the further one gets away from strictly controlled experiment. Any time government funds science we should ask, does the utility of the potential discoveries and the integrity of the scientific methods being used -- their ability to find the truth even in the face of high institutional bias -- outweigh the potential for the funding by one dominant source to prejudice the opinions of the fund recipients?

Science has benefited our lives in incalculable ways for many centuries. Increasingly we inform our political decisions with the discoveries and theories of science. As sciences ranging from climatology to economics play an increasing role modern politics, this task of building a wall of separation between government and science -- or at least not allowing states to sponsor particular scientific theories at the expense of others with comparable weights of evidence, and not allowing states to fund some biased speculations at the expense of others -- is one of our most important and urgent tasks. If we are to remain living in democracies we voters must learn once again to weigh some of the evidence for ourselves, even if this means we gain our understanding through the lossy communications of popularizers. It does not work to trust a theory, no matter how scientific it may sound, based on a "consensus" or "lack of debate" among experts who mostly derive their funding from a single biased source. We democratic jurors must demand to hear from the defense -- really from a variety of parties whose biases largely cancel each other out -- rather than from just the prosection. We must redesign our scientific institutions to minimize the biases that come from a single dominant source of funding if we are to achieve good solutions to our important problems -- solutions that are not dominated by the biases of that dominant entity.

http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2007/03/trouble-with-science.html

Aussies swelter through hottest six months on record

AUSTRALIA has recorded its hottest six months ever and is well on track to have the second hottest year since records began, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

The World Meteorological Organisation's annual climate statement released at Copenhagen found temperatures in 2009 reached 0.44C above the 1961-1990 annual average.

"The decade 2000-2009 is very likely to be the warmest on record," WMO secretary general Michel Jarraud told reporters at the Copenhagen climate summit late yesterday, Australian time.

Australia was singled out for its wild weather in 2009.

"Australia had the third-warmest year on record with three exceptional heatwaves," Mr Jarraud said.

The WMO report said the heatwaves happened in January/February, when the hot weather contributed to the disastrous Victorian bushfires, in August and again in November.

The presence of El Nino conditions underway in the Pacific saw near-record rises in sea surface temperatures and most parts of Australia experienced an exceptionally mild winter.

Maximum temperatures were also well above the national average, with 3.2C above normal, the largest ever recorded in any month.

Dr David Jones, head of climate analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology's national climate centre, said one of the biggest impacts in the last year had been the absence of cold, with a massive decline in sea ice in the Arctic.

"The last six months have been the warmest six months on record for Australia," Dr Jones said.

"We expect 2009 will be either the second warmest year on record for Australia or the third warmest."

He said the results were not surprising.

"Every decade's been getting warmer for the last 70 years.

"Clearly climate change hasn't stopped, global warming hasn't stopped."

The outlook for the summer is consistent, Dr Jones said, with warm daytime conditions in northeast Australia forecast to continue.

http://www.news.com.au/national/aussies-swelter-through-hottest-six-months-on-record/story-e6frfkvr-1225808646463

Fourteen days to seal history’s judgment on this generation

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.

Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.

Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.

But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June’s UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: “We can go into extra time but we can’t afford a replay.”

At the deal’s heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.

Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.

Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world’s biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.

Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of “exported emissions” so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than “old Europe”, must not suffer more than their richer partners.

The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.

Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.

But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.

Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.

Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature”.

It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.

The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.

http://www.realclimate.org/

HULLLOOOOOO - are you ignorant or just plain stupid?  In light of the FIASCO thats surfaced re East Anglia (and others), IT'S THE "SCIENCE" THATS BLOODY WELL BEING QUESTIONED!!!  Its all very well posting this and that but dont lose sight of the fact that the spotlight is on bogus and illegal!


And Sexy - you are right that humans have been affected by climate and earth changes over history - port cities have become relegated where the sea has retreated a mile or more (Brugge is a good example of this), ancient cave art in areas that are now inhospitable parts of the planet are more evidence... I dont think humans will die out - more likely is a scenario where areas of the planet will not be able to support human life in increasing numbers.  People rave about droughts and water shortages in Australia when Australia is and has been a semi arid place for millions of years - and has had to support tens of millions of people only in VERY recent history. 

The contradiction I find in your posts that suggest an agenda of world population reduction is that end is unlikely to occur as quickly under a rich nation wealth redistribution program (under the guise of climate taxes or whatever) - or perhaps the wealth redistribution program is only intended to benefit a few while many will die off through lack of access to water, food etc?  The distribution of power in places like Asia and Africa has to be closely looked into - no way do I want any funding to go to despotic miscreants to load up on arms and munition to crush the citizens, to set up Swiss bank accounts and the like either to serve themselves or a select few in the West!  Thats what dazza needs to realize too.

Jezz - not you as well Benny...

You've been sucked into a ploy - the fact is (and it's easy to see if you bother looking) - they found nothing in any of the 10 years worth of private correspondence so they resorted to pulling words right out of context - hardly any sort of proof of some conspiracy is it? 

 ::)

I don't Aussie has being mentioned once in this whole thread - until now...

 ::)

 ::)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sHg3ZztDAw&feature=player_embedded

Post #135 - "Aussies swelter through hottest six months on record" - YOU POSTED IT.  ;D

Climate Change: The Role of Flawed Science
An analysis by Peter Laut – November 2009

“My findings do not by any means rule out the existence of important links between solar activity and
terrestrial climate. Such links have over the years been demonstrated by many authors. The sole
objective of the present analysis is to draw attention to the fact that some of the widely publicized,
apparent correlations do not properly reflect the underlying physical data.” - From my article in Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 2003 (see link given below)

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 the nations of the world will discuss possible ways to slow down global climate change. The main goal will be to organize a coordinated reduction of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. With all nations contributing according to their ability.
But: Is global warming perhaps caused by the sun?

An important question concerns the physical cause of global warming. Is it primarily caused by changes in solar activity or by man-made greenhouse gasses? The answer has enormous consequences for the way mankind should react. If the dominant cause for global warming is solar activity, then there is no reason for mankind to waste resources in trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And no reason to have the climate conference in Copenhagen. If, however, the dominant cause is man-made greenhouse gasses, then a reduction of emissions may be absolutely necessary in order to prevent a global climate catastrophe.

The overwhelming majority of scientists, represented by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has for many years collected and analyzed observational data and carried out model simulations in order to resolve this question and has arrived at the conclusion that the results overwhelmingly point at the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as the cause. There are practically no observations which render it probable that solar influences play more than a minor role.
Now, in spite of the almost unanimous message from the world’s scientific community, there is a small group of scientists who try to promote the solar theory. They are supported by a massive network of journalists, film makers, TV producers, authors, politicians and grass roots. This group is centered around two Copenhagen climatologists, Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen.

Flawed science
I have followed the scientific work of these two researchers over many years. In the 1990’s I was scientific advisor to the Danish Energy Agency. It was my task to scrutinize the steady flux of climate related scientific literature and keep the Agency informed about developments which should be taken into account in shaping Danish energy and climate policies.

In 1991 Eigil Friis-Christensen together with Knud Lassen, another Danish researcher, published an article in the scientific journal Science which attracted worldwide attention. It seemed to document a close agreement between data representing solar activity (solar cycle lengths), and terrestrial temperatures. The agreement was displayed on a graph which showed a solar and a terrestrial curve closely intertwined. What made the graph a sensation, was the fact, that the steep rise in temperature from about 1970, the ‘global warming’, was closely matched by a corresponding steep rise of the solar curve. This was seen by many as proof that global warming was caused by the sun. The graph has been reproduced extensively all over the word, both in the mass media and in scientific literature, and has helped to create a large community of believers, who claim that the sun is causing the global warming.

Regrettably, it took some years before a careful analysis of the article revealed that the conspicuous steep rise of the solar curve actually had nothing to do with the behavior of the sun, but had been created (accidentally?) by a change of the mathematical procedure used to calculate the points creating the steep rise. I published this finding in 2003 in The Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, but had already presented my critique in the year 2000 at a conference on “The Solar Cycle and Terrestrial Climate”, arranged by the European Space Agency.
In the late 1990’s a series of articles seemed to provide additional credibility to the ‘solar theory’. In 1996 Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen presented observations which apparently lent support to the solar theory. At a conference in Birmingham they showed that some solar related data (this time the intensity of galactic cosmic rays) correlated strongly with some terrestrial data (total cloud cover). The agreement was striking for the years 1984-90, which was the period for which data were available. However, as every scientist knows, an agreement only extending over a short time span, here seven years, can be misleading. So, to test a possible causal relationship, the authors in their later publications, two articles published in 1997 and 1998 respectively, added some more recent data, which they claimed demonstrated that the close agreement extended beyond the seven years. However, close inspection of their work revealed two fatal flaws: 1) Most of the added data were totally irrelevant in the context of the article, but created the false impression that the close agreement with the solar curve did extend beyond the original seven years (see my paper for details). Actually, the authors’ procedure is like adding bananas to a statistic on apples and then claiming the statistic to be on apples alone. 2) However, the authors had also added relevant data. These were all displayed in the 1997-article, but some of them were removed again in the 1998-article. Strangely enough, the removed data were precisely those data which indicated a beginning disagreement with the solar theory, a disagreement that would become dramatic when more observational data became available in the following years (See my 2003-article for details).

Svensmark has never tried to defend himself properly, i.e., by a peer reviewed reply article, against these serious charges. Friis-Christensen once tried to defend himself against the criticism of the 1991-Science article. However, the apparent rebuttal in his reply-article was only achieved by introducing two simple arithmetic errors, which were well hidden in the article and quite difficult to spot. The two arithmetic errors artificially created an agreement of the new observational data with the values of the 1991-article. Applying correct arithmetic the support of the solar theory totally vanishes (See my 2003-article for details).

The strong human appeal of solar theory
The solar theory apparently has a strong emotional appeal to an important segment of the public. And, opposition to it can lead to political reprisal with severe consequences for the funding of individual researchers and research institutes.

Several books and many TV ‘documentaries’ have appeared, promoting the solar theory. To mention a few: The TV documentary ‘The Great Global Swindle’ by Martin Durkin was shown on UK’s Channel 4 in March 2007. And a whole series of films by Lars Mortensen: “The Climate Conflict” from 2001, broadcast in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Portugal . “Doomsday Called off” from 2004, broadcast in Denmark, Belgium, Finland, Canada, Norway, Middle East and Asia. And “The Cloud Mystery” from 2008, broadcast in Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, France, Belgium, Australia, Poland, Greece, Italy, Israel and France. Some readers may find this list long and boring. Others may find it scary. It can be seen as a threat to the authority of sound science, originating from a mixture of popular wishful thinking, populist deception and industrial interests. Many of these films are created with great artistic talent, and have – apparently – convinced millions of ordinary people and many political decision makers all over the world that global warming is caused by solar activity and not by human made greenhouse gasses. How can the world’s politicians make responsible decisions, when their voters are seduced to believe in fairytales?

The myth – describing a small group of ingenious scientists, who have arrived at the ultimate truth about climate, who have identified the sun as the mighty culprit, and who are shunned by a stubborn, envious establishment of old, narrow-minded professors – has a strong appeal to many. It is good stuff for an artistic film maker. It can be molded into a moving story – mixing images of lonely heroes, brave, fighting underdogs, with beautiful pictures of the sun and clouds. And it turns out that neither the filmmaker nor the audience can be influenced by being told that the solemnly presented graphs on the screen are rigged.

Who is to blame?
Who is to blame for the development of this irrational cult of a postulated solar influence upon the Earth’s climate?
The IPCC is not without responsibility for providing the free ride for solar crusaders. Because the IPCC has never made it clear, that the problem with the widely circulated, infamous figures of 1991 and 1998 -which probably have been the most important persuaders -is not a question of scientific uncertainty and differing opinion, but a case of manipulated data that have nothing to do with reality. Instead of merely describing Svensmark’s contributions as ‘controversial’, some stronger words from the IPCC would have been appropriate. In a language that could be understood by ordinary citizens.

There are many other examples of the failure of the scientific community to prevent misinformation.
On the website of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), you can still find the original proposal for the so-called CLOUD project from 2000, an experiment designed to investigate a possible link between cosmic rays and clouds. An excellent scientific project. The front page of this proposal displays the names of 56 scientists -many of them well-known and well-regarded -from 9 countries. However, in the chapter describing the scientific motivation – which should contain the scientific essence of the proposal -the false conclusions of the manipulated articles from 1991 and 1998 are described in detail, illustrated by the misleading graphs. Without any cautioning of the unsuspicious reader! Did any of these scientists actually read the chapter on the scientific motivation for this multimillion Euro project? But, no matter what the scientists knew or did not know when this proposal was posted, for the ordinary visitor in year 2009 this inclusion must appear as a guarantee that the articles represent good science.

Another example of a certain irresponsibility of the scientific community: The Danish Meteorological Institute for many years proudly displayed the misleading 1991-graph on its website, as an example of its pioneering achievements in climate research. The motivation for this misinformation may have been a belief that the solar credentials would generate political goodwill and attract funding.

A question of trust
So, it must be recognized that not all research institutions have accepted proper responsibility to maintain the trust which the general public traditionally places in them. In the modern world, many scientific results are extremely difficult to verify independently. They may be produced by a group of several researchers working for months or even years with vast amounts of data, which have to be calibrated employing especially tailored computer programs. Often it is practically impossible for an outsider to verify the conclusions. That applies also to the referees, who have to decide on the publication of the work. So, trust is in the short run often all we have to judge the authenticity of claimed new developments. Trust in fellow scientists and trust in research institutions. And, at the Copenhagen conference on global climate the decision makers of the world, must be able to trust the scientific basis which is presented to them. They must be able to rely on it when building a strategy to fend off catastrophic climate developments. So, the scientific community should be careful not to squander this trust.
A few weeks ago, in Swedish Public Television, two of the world’s leading climatologists were asked about Svensmark and his solar theory. Now, scientific dispute has a long tradition for expressing disagreement in polite and neutral terms. Only in rare cases blunt words surface, as when Jon Egill Kristjánsson, professor at The University of Oslo concluded : “It should not be taken seriously – to put it plain and simple.” And Mike Lockwood of The Royal Society of London, who to begin with – years ago -supported the theory, said “.. the change in the magnetic field since 1985 – it’s moved in the wrong direction”, which means that according to Svensmark’s ideas we should have experienced a global cooling since then. And he added: “I would love it to be right! I would absolutely love it to be right! Unfortunately, wanting something doesn’t change the scientific reality. One can’t use spin or rhetoric or anything to change the scientific reality.”

My 2003-article can be downloaded from the link: http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Laut2003.pdf

Peter Laut Professor (emeritus) of physics at The Technical University of Denmark Former scientific advisor on climate change for The Danish Energy Agency Storskovvej 10, 8721 Daugaard, Denmark. Phone: +45 7589 6750. E-mail: peter@laut.dk

Peer-Reviewed Study: Global Warming is Natural, Shows No Human Influence  

December 10, 2007

Climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia report that observed patterns of temperature changes (�fingerprints�) over the last thirty years are not in accord with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability. Therefore, climate change is �unstoppable� and More.. cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.

These results are in conflict with the conclusions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also with some recent research publications based on essentially the same data. However, they are supported by the results of the US-sponsored Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).

The report is published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society [DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651].  The authors are Prof. David H. Douglass (Univ. of Rochester), Prof. John R. Christy (Univ. of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson (graduate student), and Prof. S. Fred Singer (Univ. of Virginia).

The fundamental question is whether the observed warming is natural or anthropogenic (human-caused). Lead author David Douglass said: �The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.�

Co-author John Christy said: �Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.�

Co-author S. Fred Singer said: �The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals.  The mechanism for producing such cyclical climate changes is still under discussion; but they are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on the earth�s atmosphere. In turn, such cosmic rays are believed to influence cloudiness and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth�s surface and thus the climate.� Our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change.

We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless. � but very costly.

Link?

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a8c_1197385712

The report is published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society [DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651].

Thats for my previous post.



Any links to your oil baron computer hacker come to hand?

Cheers.
:-)

Re the oil dude - nar - I couldn't be assed hunting for it. I cant even remember which thread it was in.

 :)

Why is everything related to that 'story' on that site related to other stories about Tax?
And what's up with all the hard core porn videos?

You don't seriously buy into sources like that do you?

Got it...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/





 ;D

I think that "The report is published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society [DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651]" is credible enough.

Yer - but the first hurdle was the 2007 bit - and then there's the small problem of the Author working with/for the Heartland Institute (which is funded by Exxon - as are most skeptics).

 :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPNiBVU2QIA&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts6D4bhgLCQ&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccEmGdhyWG8&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lhs7VR52Bg&feature=related
Antarctic Temperatures of the Past Two Centuries
 
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V9/N40/EDIT.jsp
 
In order to assess the uniqueness of the current temperature regime in any part of the world, it is important - nay, necessary - to know its past temperature history; and to determine if a region's current temperature regime may validly be attributed to CO2-induced global warming, it is important that its temperature history stretch as far back in time as possible. Consequently, and as "the temporal variability of Antarctic climate is not well known, as continuous meteorological observations in the Antarctic began only in the late 1950s," according to Schneider et al. (2006), this group of seven researchers decided to utilize 200 years of sub-annually-resolved δ18O and δD records from precisely-dated ice cores obtained from Law Dome, Siple Station, Dronning Maud Land and two West Antarctic sites of the United States component of the International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition to create "a 200-year-long Antarctic temperature reconstruction (representing the main part of the continent) methodologically similar to temperature reconstructions covering other geographic regions."
The results of this significant undertaking, following application of a multi-decadal low-pass filter to the yearly data, are presented in the figure below, along with the similarly-treated data of the Southern Hemisphere instrumental temperature record, where the zero line represents the 1961-1990 climatological means of the two records. We present the figure for the purpose of discussing what Schneider et al. have to say about it, much of which we consider to be rather disingenuous.

(http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/20061013/20061013_02_files/image002.jpg)

Figure 1. Mean temperature histories of Antarctica (dark line) and the Southern Hemisphere (lighter line), adapted from the paper of Schneider et al. (2006).
In reference to the figure, its creators say "it is notable that the reconstructed Antarctic temperature record is in phase with the Southern Hemisphere mean instrumental record." This statement roughly describes the relationship between the two histories, but only until 1990, after which the Antarctic temperature history takes a "nosedive" and dramatically diverges from the Southern Hemisphere record.

The seven scientists also say the Antarctic temperature reconstruction "provides evidence for long-term Antarctic warming," and if all the data we had were those that stretch from 1840 to 1990, one might be inclined to believe them. However, when their "before and after" data are included, this statement is readily seen to be false. In fact, the entire record suggests the existence of a multi-decadal or centennial-scale cycling of climate, where Antarctic temperatures in the early 1800s were equally as warm as they were in the late-1930s/early-1940s, as well as in the late-1980s/early-1990s.

We additionally note that a number of other analyses of Antarctic instrumental surface and air temperature data also indicate the continent has recently experienced a net cooling, which likely began as early as the mid-1960s (Comiso, 2000; Doran et al., 2002; Thompson and Solomon, 2002). Furthermore, it is obvious from the figure we adapted from Schneider et al. that there has been a net cooling over the entire course of their Antarctic temperature reconstruction of nearly 0.3°C.

So what do Schneider et al.'s data really suggest? First of all, their data suggest there was nothing unusual, unnatural or unprecedented about any Antarctic temperatures of any part of the 20th century. Second, their data demonstrate it was significantly colder in Antarctica near the end of the 20th century than it was in the early decades of the 19th century (when the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was about 100 ppm less than it is currently), while the data of others indicate it may be even colder there today. Finally, Schneider et al.'s data indicate there is something drastically wrong with the theory of anthropogenic-induced global warming, when a 100-ppm increase in the air's CO2 concentration leads to a large decrease in air temperature in a part of the world (one of earth's two polar regions) where CO2-induced greenhouse warming is predicted to be most dramatic and most readily detected.

Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso

References
Comiso, J.C. 2000. Variability and trends in Antarctic surface temperatures from in situ and satellite infrared measurements. Journal of Climate 13: 1674-1696.

Doran, P.T., Priscu, J.C., Lyons, W.B., Walsh, J.E., Fountain, A.G., McKnight, D.M., Moorhead, D.L., Virginia, R.A., Wall, D.H., Clow, G.D., Fritsen, C.H., McKay, C.P. and Parsons, A.N. 2002. Antarctic climate cooling and terrestrial ecosystem response. Nature advance online publication, 13 January 2002 (DOI 10.1038/nature710).

Schneider, D.P., Steig, E.J., van Ommen, T.D., Dixon, D.A., Mayewski, P.A., Jones, J.M. and Bitz, C.M. 2006. Antarctic temperatures over the past two centuries from ice cores. Geophysical Research Letters 33: 10.1029/2006GL027057.

http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/20061013/20061013_02.html

Mysterious warm periods found in Antarctic history

20 November 2009, by Tamera Jones

Temperatures in Antarctica during the warm periods between ice ages, called interglacials, may have been higher than previously thought. The findings, reported in Nature today, could help researchers better understand more about how the climate can quickly change on the continent.


Antarctica
Until now, scientists thought maximum temperatures during interglacials were a little warmer than today's temperatures. But they now think they may have been up to 6ºC warmer.

'Our results suggest that Antarctica warmed rapidly in the past, but at the moment we don't know why,' says lead author, Dr Louise Sime from the British Antarctic Survey. 'It might be that at higher CO2 levels Antarctic temperatures are more sensitive to small variations, due to regional warming feedbacks.'

Climate has flipped
Scientists have known that the climate has flipped between ice ages and interglacials over the last few million years for some time. Fossils of animals that lived during warm or cool climates in deep-sea sediments and rocks reflect changing temperatures.

'Our results suggest that Antarctica warmed rapidly in the past, but at the moment we don't know why.'
Dr Louise Sime, British Antarctic Survey
Ice cores tell a similar story. Changes in the proportion of different types of atoms of the same chemical element, or isotope, in ancient ice give researchers detailed information about how temperatures varied.

When it's cold, water made with the heavy version, or isotope, of hydrogen - deuterium - falls out of the sky as snow sooner than water made with normal hydrogen, because it's heavier than normal water. Ice cores containing ancient ice record this, so they tell scientists what the temperature was thousands of years ago.

'Isotopes in ice cores are a very neat temperature proxy, because you're using fairly simple physics,' says Sime.

To figure out average changes in temperature each year, scientists have assumed that the way snowfall records annual temperatures each year hardly varies over East Antarctica.

But when Sime and scientists from the Open University and the University of Bristol analysed ice cores from three regions of East Antarctica containing 340,000-year-old ice, they found differences in the way snowfall records annual temperature.

Sime says, 'It's unlikely that all of the differences in ice cores depend on temperature. Instead there are also likely to be some changes in snowfall.'

'Further data on interglacial climates from Greenland would be invaluable to help understand what's going on,' she adds.

The world has seen cycles of glaciation with ice sheets advancing and retreating on 100,000-year time scales. These periods are called glacials and interglacials respectively. We're currently in an interglacial, which started around 11,000 years ago.

http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=602

(http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0608/sunprom_soho.jpg)
An erupting solar prominence photographed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)

Scientists Predict Big Solar Cycle

12.21.2006

Dec. 21, 2006: Evidence is mounting: the next solar cycle is going to be a big one.

 Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 "looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He and colleague Robert Wilson presented this conclusion last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
 .

Their forecast is based on historical records of geomagnetic storms.

Hathaway explains: "When a gust of solar wind hits Earth's magnetic field, the impact causes the magnetic field to shake. If it shakes hard enough, we call it a geomagnetic storm." In the extreme, these storms cause power outages and make compass needles swing in the wrong direction. Auroras are a beautiful side-effect.

Hathaway and Wilson looked at records of geomagnetic activity stretching back almost 150 years and noticed something useful:. "The amount of geomagnetic activity now tells us what the solar cycle is going to be like 6 to 8 years in the future," says Hathaway. A picture is worth a thousand words:
(http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/images/cycle24/hathaway1_strip2.jpg)

Above: Peaks in geomagnetic activity (red) foretell solar maxima (black) more than six years in advance. [More]

In the plot, above, black curves are solar cycles; the amplitude is the sunspot number. Red curves are geomagnetic indices, specifically the Inter-hour Variability Index or IHV. "These indices are derived from magnetometer data recorded at two points on opposite sides of Earth: one in England and another in Australia. IHV data have been taken every day since 1868," says Hathaway.

Cross correlating sunspot number vs. IHV, they found that the IHV predicts the amplitude of the solar cycle 6-plus years in advance with a 94% correlation coefficient.

"We don't know why this works," says Hathaway. The underlying physics is a mystery. "But it does work."
(http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/images/cycle24/hathaway2_med.gif)According to their analysis, the next Solar Maximum should peak around 2010 with a sunspot number of 160 plus or minus 25. This would make it one of the strongest solar cycles of the past fifty years—which is to say, one of the strongest in recorded history.

Left: Hathaway and Wilson's prediction for the amplitude of Solar Cycle 24. [More]

Astronomers have been counting sunspots since the days of Galileo, watching solar activity rise and fall every 11 years. Curiously, four of the five biggest cycles on record have come in the past 50 years. "Cycle 24 should fit right into that pattern," says Hathaway.

These results are just the latest signs pointing to a big Cycle 24. Most compelling of all, believes Hathaway, is the work of Mausumi Dikpati and colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. "They have combined observations of the sun’s 'Great Conveyor Belt' with a sophisticated computer model of the sun’s inner dynamo to produce a physics-based prediction of the next solar cycle." In short, it's going to be intense. Details may be found in the Science@NASA story Solar Storm Warning.

"It all hangs together," says Hathaway. Stay tuned for solar activity.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/21dec_cycle24.htm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202010/1029_700pxWhileClimateChangeDeniers.jpg)

(http://www.gwinnettforum.com/images/05images/05.0708.cartoon_large.gif).

(http://jeremysarber.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/stop-global-warming-cartoon.gif).
(http://minnesotansforglobalwarming.com/m4gw/2009/07/06/InconvenientTruth.jpg)


Proponents of Man-Made Climate Fears Enjoy Monumental Funding Advantage over Skeptics
source: ICECAP

(http://ihatealgore.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Global-cooling-Al-Gore-300x266.jpg)



Often when I or any other skeptic are quoted in a newspaper, do a TV interview that is carried on the station’s or network’s web site or get mentioned in an alarmist blog, the first knee jerk reactions of some commenters is to accuse us of being part of some far right wing conspiracy to preserve the status quo (many of us are independent or even left of center politically – it is not about politics but about science) and continue our polluting ways (CO2 is not a pollutant but a plant fertiilzer), or most commonly of being a shill for big oil, or dirty from coal, or bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry. That is clearly not the case.

Compared to the proponents riding the big grant money gravy train we are the person on the corner with a tin cup. Marc Morano did a comparison of the funding received by the proponents in comparison to the smaller funding for objective scientists who take a more skeptical or open minded position (the way science used to be before the lure of money corrupted it). Marc did not include the funding the alarmists blogs get from folks like George Soros, Fenton Communications, convicted Canadian felons, environmental groups and activists which runs in the many millions of dollars. Here is Marc’s summary. You may have other examples. If so please email me (jdaleo@icecap.us).


Paleoclimate scientist Bob Carter, who has testified before the Senate Environment & Public Works committee, explained how much money has been spent researching and promoting climate fears and so-called solutions. “In one of the more expensive ironies of history, the expenditure of more than $US50 billion on research into global warming since 1990 has failed to demonstrate any human-caused climate trend, let alone a dangerous one,” Carter wrote on June 18, 2007.  (LINK)

The U.S. alone has spent $30 billion on federal programs directly or indirectly related to global warming in just the last six years, according to one estimate. (LINK) ($5.79 billion in 2006 alone).  Adding to this total is funding from the UN, foundations, universities, foreign governments, etc. Huge sums of money continue to flow toward addressing climate fears.

Even if you factor in former Vice President Al Gore’s unsubstantiated August 7, 2007 assertion that $10 million dollars a year from the fossil fuel industry flows into skeptical organizations, any funding comparison between skeptics and warming proponents utterly fails. Gore launched a $100 million a year multimedia global warming fear campaign. Gore alone will now be spending $90 million more per year than he alleges the entire fossil fuel industry spends, according to an August 26, 2007 article in Advertising Age. (LINK)

Meteorologist Dr. Roy W. Spencer, formerly a senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and currently principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, “Of course, the vast majority of mainstream climate researchers receive between $100,000 to $200,000 from the federal government [to conduct research in] support of manmade global warming,” Spencer wrote in an August 15, 2007 blog post. (LINK)

James Spann, a meteorologist certified by the American Meteorological Society, suggests scientific objectively is being compromised by the massive money flow to proponents of man-made climate fears. “Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up. This is big money, make no mistake about it. Always follow the money trail and it tells a story,” Spann wrote on January 18, 2007. (LINK) “Nothing wrong with making money at all, but when money becomes the motivation for a scientific conclusion, then we have a problem. For many, global warming is a big cash grab,” Spann added.

The well-heeled environmental lobbying groups have massive operating budgets compared to groups that express global warming skepticism. The Sierra Club Foundation 2004 budget was $91 million and the Natural Resources Defense Council had a $57 million budget for the same year. Compare that to the often media derided Competitive Enterprise Institute’s small $3.6 million annual budget.

In addition, if a climate skeptic receives any money from industry, the media immediately labels them and attempts to discredit their work. The same media completely ignore the money flow from the environmental lobby to climate alarmists like James Hansen and Michael Oppenheimer. (ie. Hansen received $250,000 from the Heinz Foundation and $500,000 from the David Foundation and Oppenheimer is a paid partisan of Environmental Defense Fund)

The most repeated accusation is that organizations skeptical of man-made climate fears have received $19 Million from an oil corporation (ExxonMobil) over the past two decades. To put this $19 Million over two decades into perspective, consider: One 2007 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant of $20 million to study how “farm odors” contribute to global warming exceeded all of the money that skeptics reportedly received from an oil giant in the past two decades.  To repeat: One USDA grant to study the role of “farm odors” in global warming exceeded ALL the money skeptics have been accused of receiving from an oil giant over the past two decades. (Excerpt from article: “The United States Department of Agriculture has released reports stating that when you smell cow manure, you’re also smelling greenhouse gas emissions.”

http://images.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://ihatealgore.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Global-cooling-Al-Gore-300x266.jpg&imgrefurl=http://ihatealgore.com/%3Fp%3D1062&usg=__ye0vByPVovw8l0C6rGL5KNHeijo=&h=266&w=300&sz=28&hl=en&start=38&um=1&tbnid=hR4UTu5RlfHr8M:&tbnh=103&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dglobal%2Bcooling%2Bcartoons%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20%26um%3D1

(http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/al-gore-speech.gif).
(http://www.basinpipes.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/gore-cartoon.jpg)
(http://www.moonbattery.com/al-gore_snake-oil-salesman.jpg)

Hang on a sec - sure you're not confusing the Author"s" (there's more than one) workplace when its their findings from academic work presumably carried out at their various institutions?  The fact that Heartland finds the research convenient for their view is of no surprise (if it was contradictory then we'd assume they wouldnt be published by Heartland) but I dont think you can say these people are working with/for Heartland... and the same could be said of govt funded programs used to peddle IPCC/human induced global warming/climate change agendas... and we've seen the failed hockey sticks, we've seen evidence of data manipulation, we're seeing too many scientists speaking out against the assumptions and basis of human caused global warming/climate change for the debate to be over despite the attempts to hurry things along while trying to drown out opposing views.

(http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/gore_robot.jpg).

(http://www.moonbattery.com/panic_button.gif)

“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.”

Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=af3_1228946683
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/simpson_bio.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/27/now-this-is-interesting-pielke-on-dr-joanne-simpson/

Hmmm.  A new fly-on-the-wall TV series "When scientists go bad" perhaps???


....Michael Mann – creator of the incredible Hockey Stick curve and one of the scientists most heavily implicated in the Climategate scandal – is about to get a very nasty shock. When he turns up to work on Monday, he’ll find that all 27 of his colleagues at the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University have received a rather tempting email inviting them to blow the whistle on anyone they know who may have been fraudulently misusing federal grant funds for climate research.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100021135/climategate-michael-manns-very-unhappy-new-year/


More on Michael Mann:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=2&oq=michael+mann+hock&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4DKUK_enGB324GB324&q=michael+mann+hockey+stick+hoax

“Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” –

Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.



"Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp … Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” 

Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.



“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.”

Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh


http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/36010144.html

The full report here:

More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
Scientists Continue to Debunk “Consensus” in 2008 & 2009

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9&CFID=29582132&CFTOKEN=14381516

Airport chaos as icy weather grips northern Europe

The icy weather gripping northern Europe has disrupted flights at airports in the UK, France, the Irish Republic and the Netherlands.
Many flights were delayed or cancelled at Orly airport in Paris, Dublin airport and Amsterdam-Schiphol, as well as major UK airports.
In Germany, at least nine homeless men aged from 42 to 62 froze to death.
A Eurostar train was stuck for about two hours in the Channel Tunnel on Thursday. It later reached the UK.
Four other Eurostar trains were cancelled, a company spokesman said.
Last month the Eurostar service was suspended for three days after several trains broke down in the tunnel. Powdery snow getting into the engines was identified as the cause.
Widespread delays
Many parts of Germany saw temperatures fall below -10C on Thursday, the Deutsche Welle news website reports.
Grit supplies for clearing snow are running very low in many parts of Germany.

Traffic jams around Schiphol airport made road gritting difficult
In the North Rhine-Westphalia region two derailments in as many days have caused havoc with the rail timetable, triggering cancellations and delays.
In the Irish Republic, Dublin airport is open but Knock airport has suspended flights.
All roads into Dublin are extremely icy and hundreds of Irish schools have closed, the Irish Times reports.
Heavy snow caused big traffic jams around Amsterdam and Haarlem on Wednesday evening, Radio Netherlands reports. Few buses were running in the affected areas.
Icy roads have disrupted road freight deliveries to France's Channel ports. Snow is blanketing a large swathe of France, reaching as far south as Bordeaux.
In Hemavan, in the far north of Sweden, a new winter low of -40.8C (-41.4F) was recorded overnight, Radio Sweden reports.
The Arctic freeze has also seen temperatures in central Sweden plummet to between -30 and -40C - the coldest weather since the mid-1980s.
The winter death toll in Poland has reached 122 - most of the victims reportedly homeless people.
In Burzyska nad Bugiem, in the east of the country, the army has installed makeshift bridges after flooding and ice split the village in two.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8445613.stm

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/dhtml_slides/10/cold_weather/img/weather_maps_1.gif)

The current big chill is a result of high pressure over the polar region, which has pushed cold air out of the Arctic towards much of northern Europe, parts of Asia and the US. Winds from the north and north east, rather than the south and south west, have brought freezing temperatures to the UK.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/dhtml_slides/10/cold_weather/img/weather_maps_2.gif)
Provisional Met Office figures for December show temperatures for much of the UK were 1.5C and 2.5C below the mean temperatures for the last 30 years. Scotland saw temperatures dip still lower - from 2.5C to 3.5C. On Tuesday, temperatures in Scotland plunged to -15C in places.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/dhtml_slides/10/cold_weather/img/weather_maps_3.gif)
Winds from the north also brought cold weather to parts of Asia, with Beijing receiving its heaviest snowfall for nearly 60 years. At the weekend, up to 30cm (12in) of snow fell in China's capital and its neighbouring port city of Tianjin. Dozens of people have also died in a cold snap in northern India.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/dhtml_slides/10/cold_weather/img/weather_maps_4.gif)
However, while parts of the world suffer freezing temperatures, the seesaw patterns mean other areas are warmer than usual, including Alaska, northern Canada and the Mediterranean. Met Office figures for the end of 2009 show some places dropped 10C below the average, while others were 10C above.

Global Brrrrrrrrrr wwww Warming Is blown Away By The Cold Wind  ;D

Global Cooling? Saudi Arabia covered with snow in coldest winter for 20 years

RIA Novosti
Friday January 11, 2008

Northern parts of Saudi Arabia are covered with snow with schools, mosques and administrative bodies paralyzed, local media reported Friday.

The oil-rich kingdom is being hit with subzero temperatures and snow storms with freezing winds of up to 50 km/h (30mp/h). Some regions have been experiencing problems with water supplies as pipes have frozen, and livestock has died from the cold.

The Saudi Gazette reported late in December that the winter was expected to last 89 days, with temperatures reaching below zero. National media said the winter is the coldest in the country for 20 years.
Morning and afternoon prayers are being combined in many mosques because of the morning cold and some schools will reopen later than scheduled.

The bad weather is fun for children and teenagers, however, who have been making snowballs and building snowmen with enthusiasm.

http://infowars.net/articles/january2008/110108Cooling.htm

Some pretty pictures of Europe and US under the snow.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/image.cfm?c_id=2&gal_objectid=10619048&gallery_id=108765

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/image.cfm?c_id=2&gal_objectid=10619048&gallery_id=108765

The net effect of the recent snow storms in Europe will be more global warming because the sun will melt the snow and it will get warmer.

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.
Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in
summer by 2013.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html

 
 --- I've  advanced to two layers of thermals, plus one acrylic and one woollen over the last week --- was thinking it might be the draught from them iceburgers that are on their way to Aussie

now we gotta phart more and cut down all the trees we planted




the link ain't working   (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/MSN%20emoticons/11emcry.gif)

"Oh Bother!" said Pooh as he chambered another round..........

Should be OK now - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html

tnx, that one didn't misfire. I think this fits here now  http://xtranewscommunity2.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,211.0/msg,65994.html 

(http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/al-gore-speech.gif).

http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/3251967/Apology-for-errors-in-key-climate-change-report
Apology for errors in key climate change report
AP
Last updated 00:00 22/01/2010
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Five glaring errors were discovered in one paragraph of the world's most authoritative report on global warming, forcing the Nobel Prize-winning panel of climate scientists who wrote it to apologise and promise to be more careful.

The errors are in a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN-affiliated body. All the mistakes appear in a subsection that suggests glaciers in the Himalayas could melt away by the year 2035 - hundreds of years earlier than the data actually indicates. The year 2350 apparently was transposed as 2035.

The climate panel and even the scientist who publicised the errors said they are not significant in comparison to the entire report, nor were they intentional. And they do not negate the fact that worldwide, glaciers are melting faster than ever.

But the mistakes open the door for more attacks from climate change skeptics.

"The credibility of the IPCC depends on the thoroughness with which its procedures are adhered to," Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told The Associated Press in an e-mail. "The procedures have been violated in this case. That must not be allowed to happen again because the credibility of climate change policy can only be based on credible science."

The incident follows a furor late last year over the release of stolen e-mails in which climate scientists talked about suppressing data and freezing out skeptics of global warming. And on top of that, an intense cold spell has some people questioning whether global warming exists.

In a statement, the climate change panel expressed regret over what it called "poorly substantiated estimates" about the Himalayan glaciers.

"The IPCC has established a reputation as a real gold standard in assessment; this is an unfortunate black mark," said Chris Field, a Stanford University professor who in 2008 took over as head of this part of the IPCC research. "None of the experts picked up on the fact that these were poorly substantiated numbers. From my perspective, that's an area where we have an opportunity to do much better."

Patrick Michaels, a global warming skeptic and scholar at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, called on the head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, to resign, adding: "I'd like to know how such an absurd statement made it through the review process. It is obviously wrong."

However, a number of scientists, including some critics of the IPCC, said the mistakes do not invalidate the main conclusion that global warming is without a doubt man-made and a threat.

The mistakes were found not by skeptics like Michaels, but by a few of the scientists themselves, including one who is an IPCC co-author.

The report in question is the second of four issued by the IPCC in 2007 on global warming. This 838-page document had chapters on each continent. The errors were in a half-page section of the Asia chapter. The section got it wrong as to how fast the thousands of glaciers in the Himalayas are melting, scientists said.

"It is a very shoddily written section," said Graham Cogley, a professor of geography and glaciers at Trent University in Peterborough, Canada, who brought the error to everyone's attention. "It wasn't copy-edited properly."

Cogley, who wrote a letter about the problems to Science magazine that was published online Wednesday, cited these mistakes:

- The paragraph starts, "Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world." Cogley and Michael Zemp of the World Glacier Monitoring System said Himalayan glaciers are melting at about the same rate as other glaciers.

- It says that if the Earth continues to warm, the "likelihood of them disappearing by the 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high." Nowhere in peer-reviewed science literature is 2035 mentioned. However, there is a study from Russia that says glaciers could come close to disappearing by 2350. Probably the numbers in the date were transposed, Cogley said.

- The paragraph says: "Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometres by the year 2035." Cogley said there are only 33,000 square kilometres of glaciers in the Himalayas.

- The entire paragraph is attributed to the World Wildlife Fund, when only one sentence came from the WWF, Cogley said. And further, the IPCC likes to brag that it is based on peer-reviewed science, not advocacy group reports. Cogley said the WWF cited the popular science press as its source.

- A table says that between 1845 and 1965, the Pindari Glacier shrank by 2840 metres. Then comes a mathematics mistake: It says that's a rate of 135.2 metres a year, when it really is only 23.5 metres a year.

Still, Cogley said: "I'm convinced that the great bulk of the work reported in the IPCC volumes was trustworthy and is trustworthy now as it was before the detection of this mistake." He credited Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon with telling him about the errors.

However, Colorado University environmental science and policy professor Roger Pielke Jr said the errors point to a "systematic breakdown in IPCC procedures," and that means there could be more mistakes.

A number of scientists pointed out that at the end of the day, no one is disputing the Himalayan glaciers are shrinking.

"What is happening now is comparable with the Titanic sinking more slowly than expected," de Boer said in his e-mail. "But that does not alter the inevitable consequences, unless rigorous action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is taken."

(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/2funny.gif)

Oh!!! did they think the door was shut at some time? (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/undecided.gif)

Apparently the 'science' was settled...

They must be global cooling skeptics

 Socialists always use bogus scams to take more control of peoples lives

Climate change and extreme weather link cannot be ignored

By KIRAN CHUG - The Dominion Post | 3:05PM - Thursday, 14 July 2011

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix%202011/5285448s_14Jul11.jpg)
EXTREME WEATHER: Scientists say more events like the tornado
that caused this destruction in Waikanae will occur as a result
of climate change. — ANDREW GORRIE/The Dominion Post.

HUMAN-INDUCED climate change will see more disastrous storms, heatwaves and floods afflict the globe.

Scientists have drawn the strongest link yet between climate change and extreme weather events, and say the connection can no longer be ignored.

  • Related story: Seven biggest storms to hit Wellington (http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/4649819/Seven-biggest-storms-to-hit-Wellington)

New Zealander Kevin Trenberth,  scientist who is the head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, based in Colorado, said events of the past year and a half had been extraordinary.

"It's as clear a warning as we're going to get about prospects for the future."

Dr Trenberth said the world could expect more droughts, floods, intense storms, hurricanes and tornadoes.

More heat waves would bring consequences such as wild fires in their wake.

Although the scientific community had not reached a consensus yet on whether climate change was to blame, he said more work was being done in the area and it took scientists time to get to such a point.

Since the 1970s, water vapour in the atmosphere had increased by about four per cent, and he said the world was now noticing that "when it rains, it pours."

Professor Martin Manning of Victoria University's Climate Change Research Institute said countries were now looking at ways to prepare for the risks they faced, and the insurance industry in particular was taking notice.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5285118/Climate-change-and-extreme-weather-link-cannot-be-ignored (http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5285118/Climate-change-and-extreme-weather-link-cannot-be-ignored)

---

• While the “anti-warmalists” and “climate-change deniers” fiddle, Rome burns! (http://xtranewscommunity2.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,6068.0.html)

From the Los Angeles Times....

California sea levels to rise 5-plus feet this century, study says

As climate change expands the oceans, sea levels will rise more than average along
the California coast because much of the state is sinking, according to a new report.

By TONY BARBOZA | 10:30PM - Sunday, June 24, 2012

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix/latimes_70670563_24may12.jpg)
The destructive power of rising sea levels will be felt first when storms hit vulnerable places such
as Newport Beach, said Gary Griggs, director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz.
Above, the Wedge at Newport Beach. — Photo: Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times/September 01, 2011.

SEA LEVELS Sea levels along the California coast are expected to rise up to 1 foot in 20 years, 2 feet by 2050 and as much as 5½ feet by the end of the century, climbing slightly more than the global average and increasing the risk of flooding and storm damage, a new study says.

That's because much of California is sinking, extending the reach of a sea that is warming and expanding because of climate change, according to a report by a committee of scientists released Friday by the National Research Council.

In Washington and Oregon, where geological processes are flexing the land upward, researchers predict a less dramatic sea level rise that will register below the global average.

The report (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13389), commissioned by California, Oregon, Washington and several federal agencies, is the closest look yet at how global warming — which causes ocean water to expand and ice to melt — will raise sea levels along the West Coast.

Tide gauges show that the world's oceans have risen about 7 inches in the last century, and that rate is accelerating, the report notes.

"Sea level rise isn't a political question, it's a scientific reality," said Gary Griggs (http://www.latimes.com/topic/sports/gary-griggs-PESPT002809.topic), director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz and a member of the committee that produced the report.

Globally, the study predicts up to 9 inches of sea level rise by 2030, 1½ feet by 2050 and 4½ feet by 2100.

The projections are largely in line with other recent scientific estimates but substantially higher than the 2007 figures by the United Nations (http://www.latimes.com/topic/crime-law-justice/international-law/united-nations-ORCUL000009.topic)' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change because they factor in a greater contribution from melting ice.

The study was drafted by a committee of scientists formed as a result of a 2008 executive order by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, which directed state agencies to plan for the effects of sea level rise. The government agencies sponsored the study will use it to prepare for coastal erosion and flooding that is expected to threaten homes, businesses, roads, airports and other structures located within a few feet of the high-tide line.

The California Natural Resources Agency said in a statement that the report "confirms the need to take action to address the impacts of rising sea level."

The study shows how unevenly the sea will rise from place to place because of regional factors such as the movement of tectonic plates, climate patterns such as El Niño and the effects of melting glaciers and ice sheets in Alaska, Greenland and Antarctica.

For instance, although tide gauges in California show sea levels rising over the last century, levels have been falling north of Cape Mendocino as geological activity pushes up the land. A major earthquake in the Pacific Northwest, such as a magnitude 8, could upend that trend, causing parts of the coast to sink and suddenly raising sea levels by 3 feet or more, the report says.

The report is the latest to warn that the rising sea will place coastal communities at increasing risk, with most of the damage caused by a combination of big waves, storm surges and high tides. The warm ocean conditions of a strong El Niño can magnify those effects, the report says, expanding sea water and raising sea levels by about a foot for several months.

Coastal California could see serious damage from storms within a few decades, especially in low-lying areas of Southern California and the Bay Area. San Francisco International Airport, for instance, could flood if the sea rises a little more than a foot, a mark expected to be reached in the next few decades. Erosion could cause coastal cliffs to retreat more than 100 feet by 2100, according to the report.

For an idea of what's in store, the report says, look at what happened in the winter of 1983. That's when a series of potent El Niño-driven storms hit California's coast, causing more than $200 million in damage from flooding, high waves and erosion. More than 3,000 homes and businesses were damaged and 33 oceanfront homes destroyed.

Although the rise in sea levels will happen gradually, Griggs said, its destructive power will be felt first when storms hit vulnerable places such as Newport Beach and the San Francisco Bay.

"In the short term it's these severe storms in low-lying areas that are most problematic," Griggs said. "So we have to plan for that."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-adv-sea-level-20120625,0,7840116.story (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-adv-sea-level-20120625,0,7840116.story)

---

From the Los Angeles Times....

Hey, California, hot enough for ya? Just wait!

By PAUL WHITEFIELD | 1:58PM - Monday, June 25, 2012

WITH APOLOGIES to Bob Dylan, do we need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows?

Certainly it seems they don’t in North Carolina. There, lawmakers are considering a bill (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-sea-level-20120624,0,3935676.story) that would essentially deny global warming and accompanying predictions of rising sea levels. All so developers can continue to make a buck off people who assume that if you build it, it must be safe — even if it isn’t.

In California, we’re also facing the threat of rising sea levels.

As The Times reported Friday (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/06/california-to-see-more-serious-sea-level-rise-report-says.html):

Sea levels along the California coast are expected to rise as much as 1 foot in 20 years, 2 feet by 2050 and as much as 5½ feet by the end of the century, climbing slightly faster than the global average and increasing the risk of flooding and storm damage, a new study says.

And it’s not just melting ice that’s working against us. Turns out the old saw about California sliding into the ocean is more accurate than you might’ve thought:

Much of California is slowly sinking, extending the reach of a sea that is getting hotter and expanding due to global warming, according to a report by a committee of scientists released Friday by the National Research Council.

But wait, there's more! It seems that the Golden State is going to get goldener (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/21/local/la-me-heat-20120621), as in burnt-toast gold:

“By the middle of the century, the number of days with temperatures above 95 degrees each year will triple in downtown Los Angeles, quadruple in portions of the San Fernando Valley and even jump five-fold in a portion of the High Desert in L.A. County,” according to a new UCLA climate change study.

Of course, I like to find silver linings in bad news. So here it is:  We’ll be hot, but if we want to go to the beach to cool off, the ocean won’t be as far away.

Still, it’s interesting to contrast the political reaction in L.A. to the climate news with that of the folks in North Carolina:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/antonio-villaraigosa-PEPLT007500.topic) said the forecasts provide the groundwork for local governments, utilities, hospitals and other institutions to prepare for the hot spells to come. Villaraigosa said the region may have to strengthen building codes to reduce risk to residents. "That could mean replacing incentives with building codes requiring 'green' and 'cool' roofs, cool pavements, tree canopies and parks," he said.

Which, I suspect, is going to be much more expensive than following North Carolina’s example and simply ordering the Earth to stand still. Silly liberals!

Of course, the folks in North Carolina may yet have to deal with reality. The state's proposed law wants only past data to be used in assessing the future threat of rising seas. But on Monday, a report (http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-sea-level-atlantic-20120625,0,5813153.story) was released that has sobering data, from the past, about the East Coast's future, North Carolina's in particular:

Sea levels in a 620-mile "hot spot" along the Atlantic coast are rising three to four times faster than the global average, according to a new study by theU.S. Geological Survey.

The sharp rise in sea levels from North Carolina to Massachusetts could mean serious flooding and storm damage for major cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Boston (http://www.latimes.com/topic/us/massachusetts/suffolk-county-%28massachusetts%29/boston-PLGEO100100501131244.topic), as well as threats to wetlands habitats, the study said.

Since 1990, sea levels have risen 2 millimeters to 3.7 millimeters a year from Cape Hatteras (http://www.latimes.com/topic/us/north-carolina/dare-county/avon-%28dare-north-carolina%29/hatteras-PLGEO100100904010400.topic), North Carolina, on the Outer Banks (http://www.latimes.com/topic/travel/tourism-leisure/outer-banks-PLREC000005.topic), to Boston, said the study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The global average for the same two-decade period was 0.6 millimeters to 1 millimeters per year.

Seems fairly conclusive to me. But I don't expect that this report will change the minds of ardent climate change deniers.

So for them, I propose a simple test:

Fill a glass of water nearly to the top.  Put some ice cubes in it. Let the ice cubes melt.

Observe what happens.

And then, perhaps, think again about whether it’s really a good idea to continue to build at the ocean’s edge. Even in North Carolina.

Oh, and if you live in California, keep that ice water handy.  You're going to need it.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-climate-change-california-north-carolina-bad-news-20120625,0,7779214.story (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-climate-change-california-north-carolina-bad-news-20120625,0,7779214.story)

I get a sense of deja vu here.  Sea levels were supposed to rise astronomically in the 1980's.  They didn't, but were confidently predicted to rise in the 1990's - they didn't, but were inevitably going to rise in the 2000's - surprise, they didn't.  

Its about time the warmalists took their agenda and fucked off, somewhere far away.

But Yak, if you don't believe in it you're a neanderthal. On the other hand, if you believe in the sky daddy (another unsupported theory) then you are a religious fuckwit.

No, in North Carolina they've based a bill based on not using whacky models, but on actual observation.

California has not experienced any special sea level rise, but they're basing their stupidity on computer models that have been shown to be extremely flawed. For example they've realised that twenty years of models (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/25/antarctic_ice_not_melting/) have been completely wrong in Antarctica and doesn't reflect the reality down there at all.

Let's not forget James Hansen's scenarios from 1988, where we've followed scenario A in GHG usage, but under scenario C in temperature increases; scenario C was if we gave up everything and lived in the Garden of Eden Green Utopia.

(Computer models work fine when the parameters are known, otherwise they're a case of garbage in, garbage out)

From the Los Angeles Times....

USGS: Sea level in Atlantic ‘hot spot’ rising faster than world's

By DAVID ZUCCHINO | 11:25AM - Monday, June 25, 2012

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix/latimes_20120625a_25may12.jpg)
A flooded road on Hatteras Island, North Carolina, after Hurricane Irene swept through the area.
 — Photo: Jim R. Bounds/Associated Press/August 28, 2011.

SEA LEVELS in a 620-mile “hot spot” along the Atlantic coast are rising three to four times faster than the global average, according to a new study by theU.S. Geological Survey.

The sharp rise in sea levels from North Carolina to Massachusetts could mean serious flooding and storm damage for major cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Boston, as well as threats to wetlands habitats, the study said.

Since 1990, sea levels have risen 2 millimeters to 3.7 millimeters a year from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, on the Outer Banks, to Boston, said the study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The global average for the same two-decade period was 0.6 millimeters to 1 millimeters per year.

Experts at the Geological Survey, along with other scientists, say that climate change and other factors will likely produce an average global sea level rise of two to three feet by 2100, said Asbury Sallenger, a USGS oceanographer who led the study, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. The study predicts that sea levels will rise an additional 8 inches to 11 inches in the Atlantic coast “hot spot”, he said.

The main cause of recent sea level increases along the coast is the slowing of Atlantic currents caused by the arrival of fresh water from the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the study said.

“Cities in the hot spot, like Norfolk, New York and Boston, already experience damaging floods during relatively low-intensity storms,” Sallenger said.  Accelerated sea level rise in the hot spot will raise the risk of flooding and the height of storm surges, he said.

The USGS report follows a study by the National Research Council predicting that sea levels along the California coast will rise as much as one foot in just 20 years, two feet by 2050 and five-and-a-half feet by 2100.  The report, released Friday, says the increases are caused by climate change and by the sinking of land masses in much of California.

The study predicts that global sea levels will rise 9 inches by 2030, 18 inches by 2050, and four-and-a-half feet by 2100.

Sea level rise is a sensitive subject for some political conservatives, who say that global warming is a hoax and that sea levels are not in danger of rising precipitously. The USGS study is significant because it provides data showing that sea levels have risen over the past two decades along the Atlantic Coast, regardless of the cause.

This spring, Republicans in the North Carolina legislature introduced a bill that would require sea level rise forecasts to be based on past patterns and would all but outlaw projections based on climate change data.

Using climate change and other data, a science panel with the state Coastal Resources Commission said that sea levels along the North Carolina coast could rise an average of 39 inches by 2100.  Coastal business and development interests complained to the Republican-controlled legislature, saying the projections could trigger regulations costing businesses and homeowners millions of dollars.

Sallenger called the North Carolina science panel’s 39-inch prediction “totally sensible”.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-sea-level-atlantic-20120625,0,5813153.story (http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-sea-level-atlantic-20120625,0,5813153.story)

From the Los Angeles Times....

Mass evacuations ordered as wildfires rage in Colorado

32,000 people flee homes in the Colorado Springs area, including
parts of the Air Force Academy, and Boulder is under threat.

By JENNY DEAM and JOHN M. GLIONNA | 6:41PM - Wednesday, June 27, 2012

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix/latimes_coloradosprings_26jun12.jpg)
The Waldo Canyon fire roars through a neighboord in the foothills near Colorado Springs, Colorado.
 — Photo: Helen H. Richardson/Denver Post/June 26, 2012.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — Marking the worst fire season in Colorado history, three major blazes are burning uncontrolled in the Rocky Mountain state, destroying hundreds of homes, prompting mass evacuations in Colorado Springs and threatening the city of Boulder 100 miles away.

For weeks, Colorado has been in a state of siege as the mammoth High Park fire raged unhindered in mountain wilderness west of Fort Collins, destroying 257 rural homesteads and cabins, while residents of cities and suburbs to the east held their collective breath and prayed that the flames would not reach them.

Experts are warning already fire-weary Coloradans that this could be the new routine for their state — that the blazes could rage all summer until the arrival of the autumn rains.

On Wednesday, the Waldo Canyon fire, named for a popular hiking area west of the state's second-largest city, Colorado Springs, continued to burn unchecked. It prompted the evacuation of 32,000 people in the metropolitan area of 600,000, including portions of the U.S. Air Force Academy.

The fire, which ignited Saturday, exploded late Tuesday, doubling in size in just hours. Propelled by winds blowing 60 mph, the blaze jumped barriers to scourge neighborhoods, destroying dozens of homes as well as such landmarks as the historic Flying W Ranch, a popular tourist attraction that drew as many as 1,000 people a night for music and western-style dining.

Susan Joy Paul had stood her ground inside the Colorado Springs home where she raised her now-grown children, until she heard the panic in a friend's voice on the phone. With the main highways clogged with 20,000 evacuees, she fled along back roads, finally reaching a vantage point where she could survey her Shadow Valley neighborhood.

"It looked like big red torches going up," she said. "That's when it hit me: Those are houses."

Tom Tidwell, chief of the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, said this year was the culmination of nearly a decade of record fire seasons. "Definitely we're having a changing climate," he said, adding that less snowfall in Colorado last winter brought the fire season to the state more than a month early.

"This significantly exceeds what we saw 10, 20, 30 years ago," said Tidwell, a former firefighter. He said the Colorado fires were especially dangerous because they were so erratic, adding that large fires could create their own weather patterns, rendering traditional weather forecasts unreliable.

Mammoth fires raged around the West in 2002, threatening giant sequoia groves in California, charring a million acres of southern Oregon forest land and forcing mass evacuations in New Mexico's high country. The amount of land burned nationally in wildfires declined later in the decade but then ballooned again last year, when parts of drought-stricken Texas were hit by waves of flames.

Dry weather and high temperatures are again producing incendiary conditions, with forecasters predicting higher-than-normal wildfire potential in much of the West, including the Sierra Nevada and portions of the Southwest and the Rockies.

In the Boulder area, residents have learned to keep a wary eye on the sky, watching not only the plume of smoke rising from the outskirts of town but also the slurry bombers roaring overhead to dump their loads.

By Wednesday, the fire was just a mile and a half from town, and authorities had evacuated 28 households and warned another 2,500 to be ready to flee.

Meanwhile, officials worry about the fatigue of thousands of firefighters on the line. In northern Colorado, where the 136-square-mile High Park fire has already destroyed hundreds of homes and killed one woman, fire managers offered to shift to Boulder and Colorado Springs to join the fights there.

President Obama planned to visit the state's fire zones Friday to thank firefighters.

Colorado's climate and vegetation have the capacity to create enormous fires. In summer 2002, the state's largest-ever blaze thwarted efforts to control it and marched ominously toward Denver with a fire front 20 miles long and 14 miles wide.

Meteorologists said the 15,000-foot smoke plume from the Hayman fire spawned nightly thunderstorms in neighboring states and triggered two tornadoes that spun through Kansas. Ultimately the Hayman fire destroyed 133 homes, forced the evacuation of more than 5,300 people and cost $40 million.

The newest blazes have sent Coloradans into a frenzied pitch of fire fear and loathing. Even outside the burn areas, days of record triple-digit heat and strong winds have created a dry-as-dust landscape.

In a state where exercise is a way of life for residents, the unpredictable nature of the fires has hot-wired nerves. People watch as the flames destroy groups of houses but leave one untouched. Children call their parents — and vice versa — each time the fire changes direction or someone spots a lightning strike.

Through tweets and dramatic fire pictures posted on social media sites, uneasy residents have reached out to friends and family — and anyone else who will listen to their stories of being in the path of unpredictable fires. Others talk about the panic they feel every time they see a firetruck hurry down the road.

"Any time I see or hear a firetruck race by our house, my chest and stomach get tight, especially if there has been recent lightning," said Roxanne Hawn, who lives just outside Denver, miles from the blaze. "It's like being afraid of heights — the clenching inside feels the same."

Felice Vigil, a mother of three, awoke Tuesday in the residential section of the Air Force Academy unable to breathe. Even though the fire was nearby, she had felt reassured that she and her family were safe because they were on a military installation.

But when she looked outside, she said, the smoke swirling through her yard was so thick it looked like a solid object, waist-high. "It was like something out of a Freddy Krueger movie," she said Wednesday.

By late afternoon, a sudden burst of wind had upended her patio furniture. The fire was racing toward the academy as military police rolled through the streets telling everyone to get out.

"I tried to be calm for my kids," she said, standing outside a YMCA evacuation shelter, "but inside I was terrified, completely panicked." With no idea whether her house survived, she is now staying with family. She took her children to the shelter so they could swim and get their minds off what they had seen.

There is little doubt this fire will stay with them, though. Gabe Vigil, 8, proudly held up a chalk drawing of a perfect house. "This is what I hope our house still looks like," he said.

Susan Joy Paul symbolizes Colorado's angst of just not knowing. She had kept her eye on the Waldo Canyon fire since it started Saturday.

On Tuesday, a friend told her the fire had jumped a nearby ridge, that the massive cloud of billowing smoke was heading her way. Already, daytime had turned to night as smoke blocked the sun. Giant flakes of ash — some as wide as her hand — swirled in her frontyard.

She heard an explosion, maybe a generator, and then the lights and TV went out. "This is not right. We shouldn't be here," she told her roommate. "I feel like we're in hell."

Two police cars drove down the street, bullhorns blaring for everyone to evacuate. "We had no time," she said.

She threw her laptop, her notes for the book she is writing, some food, pictures of her children and a backpack into her compact car and started driving. "It was so confusing. Black ash was flying around like bats. At every corner there were cops yelling at me, waving me in different directions," she said.

On Wednesday, Paul said she could almost forget about the nightmare that unfolded the night before. Almost, but not quite. "I need to cry," she said, her voice teetering on despair. "I need to but can't. Not yet. Not until I know."

Paul was camped at a local library, trying to get some work done, fearing the worst, praying that life as she knew it wasn't over.

"I want to see it, but I don't," she said of her home. "I want to see it like it was, but I know that's not going to happen."

• Deam, a special correspondent, reported from Colorado Springs and Glionna from Las Vegas.

• Times staff writers Julie Cart and Bettina Boxall in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-colorado-fires-20120628,0,5014184,full.story (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-colorado-fires-20120628,0,5014184,full.story)

There are a number of tree species in the US that only seed or at least their seeds won't germinate unless they have a wild fire...

From the Los Angeles Times....

Heat wave: 13 dead, 3 million lose power in Mid-Atlantic storms

By MELANIE MASON and LAURA J. NELSON | 4:21PM - Saturday, June 30, 2012

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20News%20Pix/latimes_20120630a_30jun12.jpg)
An uprooted tree lies across a street near American University after a violent storm passed Friday
through Washington, D.C. — Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/GettyImages/June 30, 2012.

WASHINGTON — The violent storms that ripped through the eastern United States left at least 13 people dead and millions without power on a day when temperatures hovered in the triple digits.

The Mid-Atlantic region had already been baking in 100-plus-degree heat when lightning storms and winds of up to 80 mph tore through the area Friday night. On Saturday, crews worked to fix broken traffic signals, repair utility poles and restore power — and air conditioning — to more than 3 million people.

The high-speed winds are called a derecho, from the Spanish word for "straight ahead" — a long, bow-shaped band of storms that can hurtle across more than 240 miles in a matter of hours.

The violent weather was blamed for 13 deaths, including six in Virginia; two in New Jersey; two in Maryland and one each in Kentucky, Ohio and Washington, according to the Associated Press. The dead included a 90-year-old Virginia woman who was sleeping when a tree fell on her house, and young cousins who were camping when their tent was crushed by a tree.

At least 20 people were injured, according to the National Weather Service.

The governors of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Ohio, as well as local officials in Washington, declared states of emergency. Such declarations clear the way for officials to seek financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other relief organizations.

Officials said it could take utility companies days to restore power to the nine states affected, as far west as Indiana.

In northwest Washington, where an outdoor thermostat read 103 degrees Farenheit in late afternoon, the streets were littered with tree branches and debris.

In front of the Montenegro Embassy, yellow police tape cordoned off a patch of road and sidewalk where a sizable limb had snapped off a large tree and landed on a gray Infiniti sedan parked below, smashing the trunk.

“There was literally downed trees in one of our major roads,” said Nicholas Legambi, who had driven in from Baltimore. “My power is still out. A lot of people are still without power today in the suburbs.”

The Potomac Electric Power Company, which serves Washington and surrounding counties, estimated it would take several days, and perhaps up to a week, before power is fully restored.

“As soon as the storm passed, we had crews starting to assess the damage,” Thomas H. Graham, Pepco’s president, said in a statement. “We'll continue conducting a comprehensive assessment, which we'll use to strategically deploy crews. We'll work full force and around the clock until every customer is restored.”

Washingtonians found life turned upside down by inconveniences including spoiled food and delayed trains. Thousands of commuters were stranded after Amtrak suspended service between Washington and Philadelphia on Friday night. Trains were still not running Saturday afternoon.

One in 3 Americans was in extreme heat Saturday in an area of nearly 600,000 square miles experiencing unusually warm weather.

Washington and its suburbs were the hardest hit as temperatures soared above 104 degrees Friday, breaking the record for all-time highs. Officials encouraged residents to visit cooling centers, including libraries and public pools. They cautioned that the elderly, the sick and the very young are especially vulnerable to extreme temperatures.

“I urge all district residents to look out after their neighbors,” said Chris Geldart, who directs the city's homeland security and emergency management agency, in a statement. “If you know of anyone in your neighborhood that might need assistance, please look in on them. This is especially important if you have elderly or disabled neighbors.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-dc-storms-13-dead-20120630,0,3915922.story (http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-dc-storms-13-dead-20120630,0,3915922.story)

Ancient Antarctic warmer and wetter

Home » News » Dunedin
By John Gibb on Sun, 1 Jul 2012
University of Otago | News: Dunedin

American research showing the ancient Antarctic was warmer and wetter than previously suspected highlights the value of the international Andrill scientific drilling project, University of Otago Prof Gary Wilson says.
The research shows the ancient Antarctic supported stunted trees and vegetation along its edges.

By examining the remnants of plant leaf wax found in sediment cores taken below the Ross Ice Shelf, scientists from the University of Southern California (USC), Louisiana State University and Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory determined summer temperatures along the Antarctic coast 15-20 million years ago were 11degC warmer than today.

Temperatures reached up to about 7degC, with several times more rain.

This occurred during a period of global warming in the middle Miocene epoch that coincided with increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Prof Wilson, who heads the University of Otago marine science department, said the outcomes showed the value of "the time and effort that it takes to get some of these answers".

Prof Wilson has been a member of the Andrill project's international scientific committee and has been closely involved in the project's work in the Antarctic.

"This is not about doing the easy work. It's about doing the important work," he said.

He was interested in studying previous global warming to better understand how the world's climate was likely to operate later this century.

At two sites in the Antarctic, in 2006 and 2007, Andrill, the Antarctic Drilling Project, gathered information about past periods of global warming and cooling.

International scientists, including from New Zealand and the United States, drilled through ice, sea water, sediment and rock to a depth exceeding 1200m, recovering a core record nearly 20 million years old.

Sarah Feakins, an assistant professor of earth sciences at USC, was the lead author of a paper on the research just published in Nature Geoscience.

 Scientists began to suspect that high-latitude temperatures during the middle Miocene were warmer than previously believed when Sophie Warny, co-author of the Nature Geoscience paper, and an assistant professor at Louisiana State University, discovered large quantities of pollen and algae in sediment cores taken in the Antarctic.

Plant fossils in the Antarctic are hard to find because massive ice sheets covering the landmass grind away the evidence.

Deep sea cores were ideal to look for "clues of past vegetation" because the fossils deposited were protected from ice sheets but were difficult to acquire and required international collaboration, Prof Warny said.

Leaf wax found in the sediment cores acts as a record of climate change by documenting details about the hydrogen isotope ratios of water the plant drank while it was alive.

- john.gibb@odt.co.nz

http://www.odt.co.nz/campus/university-otago/215076/ancient-antarctic-warmer-and-wetter

Same applies for many Australian tree species as well.

OK, we've reduced too many greenhouse gas emissions

• The 100-year global warming period has finished
• we're back to beginning a new ICE AGE

Bring back the Orion Coal range and the open fires  (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/tickedoff.gif)

Warning as waterways freeze
Newstalk ZB
July 8, 2012, 8:19 am

As the cold snap continues, Queenstown's harbour master is warning people not to venture out onto frozen waterways.

Marty Black says ice has affected some areas of the region's lakes and there are also a number of frozen over ponds around the district.

He says parents need to remain vigilant around waterways .

"Supervised by adults may be ok, but youngsters on their own - definitely a no-no."

Marty Black says while ice could look thick enough to hold a lot of weight, that might not be the case in reality.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/14161165/warning-as-waterways-freeze/

You know, its strange, but there were wildfires that spanned whole American counties in the 1800's.  Zane Grey wrote stories about them.
I guess they're inconvenient memories now.....  As is the fact that the population until recently, was a fraction of what it is now and people have expanded into danger areas - and also expanded their 'heat-sink' cities.

I often wonder if the story about the Spanish galleon found in the Texan desert several miles inland from the gulf is true. No record of the storm that carried it there of course so it didn't happen.

lol

Carbon tax cost added to family's funeral bill
Simon Benson The Daily Telegraph July 09, 2012 12:00AM

A GRIEVING family claims that a cemetery slapped them with a $55 carbon tax bill for burying a relative - saying "even the dead don't escape the carbon tax" - just days after the tax was introduced.

The outraged family complained to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, describing it as a "tax on the dying".

Erica Maliki said the Melbourne cemetery told her and two other relatives that a $55 charge would be applied to her father-in-law's burial due to the carbon tax.

The director of the Springvale Cemetery did not return calls despite several attempts to contact management since last Friday.

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said it would be "reprehensible" if any cemetery took advantage of grieving families by misleading them over funeral expenses.

It comes as three companies were reprimanded by the consumer watchdog for cashing in on the carbon tax.

The ACCC said that it was investigating solar panel suppliers

Polaris Solar and ACT Renewable Energy for providing false information on the cost impacts of the tax, while bakery chain Brumby's was caught advising outlets to raise prices and blame the carbon tax.

While cemeteries are not liable entities under the carbon tax, the funeral industry has previously warned of indirect price rises for both burials as well as cremations through higher energy prices and councils passing on their carbon tax costs.

But it said the impacts should not be immediate nor any greater than any other business.

Ms Maliki, a mother and community worker, said her father-in-law died on June 30 - a day before the carbon tax came into operation - but was buried early last week.

She said when her grieving family was discussing with the cemetery management the cost of a $600 retaining wall for the plot, which she claimed was never installed, they were informed that the price per plot had risen by $55 due to the tax.

"I thought to myself what carbon could possibly be used by putting a man in a grave," Ms Maliki said.

"All they did was put the dirt back in. How can they charge us a carbon tax for burying someone?

"It is a tax for dying."

Son Zaid Maliki said he was shocked when the receptionist at the cemetery informed the family that the cost of his father's burial had gone up because of the tax.

He said the receptionist told his sister-in-law, " ... even the dead don't escape the carbon tax". "We are pretty upset ... that comment was a kick in the guts," he said.

The ACCC said it would be willing to investigate the Malikis' claims. The issue has also been brought to the attention of several Labor MPs.

The ACCC warned businesses generally that while they had a right to set their own prices, any claims made in relation to carbon tax must be "truthful and have a reasonable basis".

An ACCC spokesman confirmed that any questionable claims about carbon tax increases did not necessarily have to be made in writing or included on a bill and even verbal claims would be investigated.

NSW Funeral Directors Association spokesman John Kaus said: "We don't really see there will be a real impact on the funeral industry. We don't envisage an impact greater than any other business entity."

Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt called for an immediate exemption for funerals.

"The carbon tax is not just a farce but an insult. It is a tax that now follows you to the grave," Mr Hunt said yesterday.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/carbon-tax-cost-added-to-familys-funeral-bill/story-e6freuy9-1226420545281

so when the body starts rotting decomposing in the ground along with the casket made out of wood chip and lots of glue plus the fabric lining the coffin and lets not for get the flowers and all the other stuff placed in the coffin start decomposing what happens to all those gases ?

dont they ooze out into the soil and rise up the 6 feet to the surface and enter the atmosphere ... ?

isnt that what causes the greenhouse effect ..... ?

seems to me that $55 is cheap as chips really compared to all the rest of the charges undertakers charge ....

thank god for cremations less harm done to the atmosphere and the ashes dont take up much room in ther ground  ;D

I know I have commented on horticulturists pumping CO₂ into greenhouses to increase plant growth before.

I just can't figure out which threat - I have searched.

...anyway this is a little more comformation the plants have a role in all this that will surprise some.



Carbon dioxide intake soars


PALOMA MIGONE

Last updated 06:42 12/07/2012



 Scientists have discovered that plants, trees and soil have abruptly increased their atmospheric carbon dioxide intake in the last 20 years.

The land biosphere was taking in about one billion tonnes of carbon per year since 1988, equal to about 10 per cent of the global fossil fuel emissions for 2010.

However, the sudden shift didn't mean people shouldn't worry about climate change in the future, Niwa atmospheric scientist Dr Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher said.

Without nature's new uptake regime, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere would probably have increased even more rapidly over the last two decades.

And if the change was temporary, reducing C02 levels in the future might get harder.

''At the end of the day there may have been this natural sink which has tremendously been to our advantage, but that has not stopped CO2 from increasing in the atmosphere,'' Dr Mikaloff-Fletcher said.

''It's not enough. CO2 is still increasing in the atmosphere at an alarming rate.''

The discovery was reported in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, written by an international team of scientists including Dr Mikaloff-Fletcher.

She said while the study showed there was a natural shift, scientists didn't know how it would change in the future.

''We don't yet know whether or not the natural process is going to cause a permanent shift towards this increase uptake or if that's something that could be reversed or something that can be enhanced.

''That's going to be the subject of the next series of studies on this topic.''

Scientists explored whether the increase could be explained by the EL Nino Southern Oscillation (Enso) - and it couldn't.

''We also tried volcanic activity. A little bit after the shift happened, in 1991, there was a big eruption, but the problem was that the shift happened too early,'' Dr Mikaloff-Fletcher said.

Kevin Tate, research associate at Landcare Research, said he was ''intrigued'' by the findings.

''One thought struck me and that is that perhaps to this point we have underestimated the size of the terrestrial sink, and this work may be correcting that.''

He believed a number of factors could have contributed to the increase, such as CO2 fertilisation, and afforestation and reforestation.

Some sources like deforestation and permafrost melting may have been overestimated previously as well.

''While this result is intriguing, it must be remembered that terrestrial sinks are finite, and there is a strong likelihood that the terrestrial sink will become increasingly saturated in coming decades.''

Researchers already knew that over half of the emissions of C02 from human activities were absorbed by the land biosphere and the oceans. But Dr Mikaloff-Fletcher said the ''natural sinks'' were difficult to quantify directly.

Using data from 1958 and mathematical techniques that haven't been widely used in the field, scientists took the amount of emissions and subtracted what was retained in the atmosphere and what the oceans took up, leaving the land component for the study.

They noticed the abrupt shift in 1988, when the intake of 0.3 billion tonnes of carbon per year surged to one billion tonnes.

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was calculated from a global network of stations, including Niwa's sites in New Zealand and Antarctica.
 http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7265266/Carbon-dioxide-intake-soars (http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7265266/Carbon-dioxide-intake-soars)

In other words, their computer models were wrong - Again!

You only have to read the harry_readme.txt file (from the Climategate files) to realise just how crappy the algorithms can be for the "human induced climate change" computer models.

The harry_readme.txt file also demonstrates just how doctored the algorithm is to produce the desired results, at least for the University of East Anglia's climate research unit and the hockey team in general. In fact it is far more condemning that the emails from either Climategate I or II. It's a huge indictment on the hockey team; the file just doesn't have the snappy dialogue of corruption that the emails have (like using "Mike's Nature trick to hide the decline" and being advocates for "the cause" or condemning those that don't commit to "the cause".)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2171973/Tree-ring-study-proves-climate-WARMER-Roman-Medieval-times-modern-industrial-age.html

Those bastard Romans and their climate changing chariots!

Wellington sea level rising fastest in NZ

By MATT STEWART - The Dominion Post | 7:10AM - Friday, 13 July 2012

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FUTURE SHOCK: A storm tide flood under the worst-case scenario of a sea level rise of 1.5 metres by 2115.

PARTS OF coastal Wellington could be drowned if doomsday climate change predictions from a new study pan out over the next 100 years.

Two reports issued yesterday by Greater Wellington regional council show Wellington's sea level is the fastest rising in New Zealand — made worse by seismic rumblings causing the city to sink 1.7mm a year since 2000.

Worst-case scenarios coupling massive sea level rise with intense storm floods show low-lying coastal parts of the Eastbourne bays, Petone, Pauatahanui, as well as the river mouths at Otaki, Hutt, Whakataki (near Castlepoint), and Waikanae and the lower Wairarapa valley, could be forever swamped if sea levels rose 1.5m by 2115.

Paekakariki, Raumati South and Te Kopi would also be jeopardised by severe erosion.

"We're starting to see potentially severe impacts in those areas," Greater Wellington senior hazards analyst Iain Dawe said.

Downtown Wellington would be spared permanent inundation because the city's seawall would protect it from erosion, and its stormwater system would gradually drain the flood.

The harbour also protects the city because wave run-up — where swells slop over the foreshore in a storm — was not as pronounced in the CBD as in places such as the south coast.

The reports urge immediate action and aim to help urban planners make building, road and infrastructure development decisions in low-lying coastal areas.

"We need integrated coastal management in the region with authorities working together to plan for natural disasters in the future," Dr Dawe said.

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

The reports highlighted areas vulnerable to coastal flooding over the next 100 years.

Wellington Harbour had an average sea level rise of about 2mm a year over the past century. This was mainly due to climate change but was magnified by subsidence in the city over the past decade, caused by slow slips triggered by deep tectonic plate movements.

The region has "a more complicated spatial and temporal pattern of long- term relative sea level rise than other stable parts of New Zealand," the reports say.

Like land, the sea is not flat and has its own topography, which explains why Wellington could record a bigger rise than ports at Auckland, Dunedin and Christchurch. If the Wellington Fault ruptured, forecasts show Lower Hutt and Petone could subside by up to 1m.

Projections for century's end suggest the sea level in the Wellington region could rise by 0.8m by the 2090s or as high as 1.5m by 2115.

Storms could also get longer and stronger, increasing the likelihood of coastal flooding and erosion.

• Sea-level variability and trends: Wellington Region (http://www.gw.govt.nz/assets/About-GW-the-region/News-and-media-releases/2012-images/SeaLevelVariabilityandTrendsintheWellingtonRegion2012REPORT.pdf) (5.29MB PDF document)

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington-central/7268184/Wellington-sea-level-rising-fastest-in-NZ (http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington-central/7268184/Wellington-sea-level-rising-fastest-in-NZ)

That would be modelled with one of NIWAs computers, right?  ::)

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.

Wernt these the guys that moved their Karori weather station to a new location, thus giving global warming figures a boost?

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

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix%202012/UD_PetermannGlacier_16Jul12.jpg)
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 (http://udapps.nss.udel.edu/experts/326598426-Andreas_K_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 (http://icyseas.org). Muenchow credits Trudy Wohleben of the Canadian Ice Service for first noticing the fracture.

The discovery was confirmed by reprocessing data taken by MODIS (http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/about), 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 (http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2011/aug/greenland080610.html), 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.

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix%202012/UD_PetermanFjiord_16Jul12.jpg)
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 (http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2013/jul/glacier-071612.html)

Cracking up: Greenland’s glacier loss ‘disturbing’

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

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix%202012/dh_707199982a_18jul12.jpg)
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.

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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’ (http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20120719/NEWS06/707199982/Cracking-up:-Greenland’s-glacier-loss-‘disturbing’)

Wellington's climate shows warming trend

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

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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 (http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/7287585/Climate-change-readings-inaccurate) 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 (http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/7311522/Wellingtons-climate-shows-warming-trend)

Sorry - I switched off when I saw Jim Salingers name.

Ditto..

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 (http://boy-on-a-bike.blogspot.ca/2011/12/untangling-ownership-of-earthhour.html#!/2011/12/untangling-ownership-of-earthhour.html)

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.

• Richard Muller's volte face on climate change is good for science (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/31/richard-muller-climate-change-good-science)

          (The Guardian — July 31, 2012)



• Richard Muller: ‘Humans Are Almost Entirely The Cause’ Of Climate Change (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/29/richard-muller-climate-change-humans-koch_n_1715887.html)

          (The Huffington Post — July 29, 2012)

From the Los Angeles Times....

Conversion of climate change skeptic not likely to sway GOP

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

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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 (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/david-koch-PEBSL00422.topic), 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 (http://www.latimes.com/topic/education/colleges-universities/university-of-california-berkeley-OREDU00000197.topic) 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 (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/americans-for-prosperity-ORCIG0000042.topic), the Kochs have dumped a mountain of money into Republican campaigns. They were the sugar daddies behind Herman Cain (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/herman-cain-PEPLT00008439.topic)’s curious run for president and now are doing their best to elect Mitt Romney (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/mitt-romney-PEPLT007376.topic). 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 (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-climate-change-skeptic-20120802,0,5819816.story)

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.

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.

Muller's conversion to warmism is identical to the Pope converting to Catholicism.

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?

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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One small word, one giant setback for denial

Brian Rudman on National Issues

The New Zealand Herald (http://www.nzherald.co.nz) | 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 (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10833373)

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 (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10834470)

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

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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/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-curious-blindness-of-climate-deniers-20120917,0,811243.story)

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-humans-climate-change-20121004,0,2962982.story (http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-humans-climate-change-20121004,0,2962982.story)