climate change and how the left has been misleading public

[Outlaw Yogi]

Pacific Nation To Build Wall Against Rising Tide
http://www.earthweek.com/climatecat.php

El Niño Melting Antarctic Ice
http://www.earthweek.com/climatecat.php

[HIGHERBEAM]

http://www.bobbrinsmead.com/e_18.html
18

SCIENTISTS DEBUNK GLOBAL WARMING SCARE



The dire predictions about global warming are a complete fallacy. This is what 20,000 scientists have recently said, and among them are 2660 climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers and environmental scientists. Here is their statement:



“A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th Century have produced no deleterious effects upon global weather, climate, or temperature. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth rates. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in minor greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are in error and do not conform to current experimental knowledge.” This Petition was sponsored by Dr. Frederisk Seitz, former past president of the National Academy of Sciences. (The full paper debunking the global warming hypothesis is found on http://www.oism.org/pproject ).



The global warming hypothesis rests on the claim that the increasing levels of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel (coal, oil and natural gas) will warm the earth to dangerous levels, causing catastrophic raising of sea levels and destructive weather patterns.



The global warming hysteria took off almost exactly when the Cold War ended. It makes us wonder if human beings are bred or conditioned to need some doomsday event upon which they can focus their fears. The media certainly acts on the assumption that bad news sells



Give or take 0.1 degrees, climatologists estimate that the earth has warmed by 0.5 degree Celsius in the last 100 years. This is well within the range of natural temperature variations, especially when the following factors are considered:



· The earth has been recovering from a “mini ice age” or cooling episode for the last three hundred years.

· Considering earth’s temperature over a three-thousand year time scale (calculated from ice cores) the earth has not quite climbed back to an average temperature after the “little ice age” episode of 300 years ago. It was from 1-2 degrees warmer than it is now during the Middle Ages.

· The temperature charts of the last century show quite clearly that most of the warming occurred before 1940 – that is, before the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide rose to any significant degree.



Just as it has happened with other environmental scares such as acid rain, de-afforestation, resource depletion, the hole in the ozone layer or population explosion, the dire predictions about rising temperatures or rising sea levels have had to be revised downward again and again. The pattern is quite clear: an environmental threat starts out to be as terrifying as a tiger but winds up being something as benign as a pussy cat. The global warming scare is no different.



For instance, in 1990 the Inter-governmental Panel of Climate Control (IPCC) estimated that over the next 100 years, the earth would warm 3.2 degrees Celsius. That was revised down to 2.6 degrees in 1992, then down to 2 degrees in 1995, and eventually down to 1.25 degrees when allowing for other factors that were not originally taken into account.



The predictions of global warming have all been based on computer modelling of climate, a science that is still in its infancy. Climate is incredibly complex with many variables not yet understood. The computer modelling did not factor in the “negative feedback” effect of water vapour, clouds and the rate at which plants would absorb the excess carbon dioxide. The computer projections, therefore, have been at variance with the empirical data. Whereas the IPCC predicted a very significant temperature rise between 1979 and 1998, the earth’s temperature marginally declined over this 20-year period. Who knows, the eco-alarmists may soon be whipping up hysteria about the onset of another ice age just as they were doing in the 1970’s.



One of biggest single factors that has brought all the gloomy predictions about global warming undone is the amazing capacity of both plant and microbic life on the earth and in the ocean to absorb excess carbon dioxide. The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine reports:



“As atmospheric CO2 increases, plant growth rates increase…pine trees have shown a sharp increase in growth rate during the past half-century…the Amazon rain forests are increasing their vegetation by about…two tons of biomass per acre per year…Trees respond to CO2 fertilization…Clearly the green revolution in agriculture has already benefited from CO2 fertilization; and benefits in the future will likely be spectacular…



“Human use of coal, oil, and natural gas has not measurably warmed the atmosphere, and the extrapolation of current trends shows that it will not significantly do so in the foreseeable future. It does however, release CO2, which accelerates the growth rate of plants and permits plants to grow in drier regions. Animal life, which depends upon plants, also flourishes…[The paper cites some experiments showing the amazing effect that spiking the air with CO2 had on seedling trees, wheat and orange trees]



“Mankind is moving the carbon in coal, oil and natural gas from below ground to the atmosphere and surface, where it is available for conversion into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the CO2 increase…This is a wonderful and unexpected gift of the Industrial Revolution.”



Don’t let this good news scare you!

[Outlaw Yogi]

I'd like to believe it, but if the planet was just following a cycle, as some claim, then we should be headed back into another 125,000 years of ice age, but the planet keeps warming.

The character who owns this puter won't let the PDF readers in, I agreed not to, so can only read the HTML version.
I'll go through this, in time ... http://www.oism.org/pproject/Slides/Presentation.html
If there's any particular key evidence in the PDFs, that's not in the HTML, please quote in thread.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Well I checked it out HB, and was a bit disapointed with the poor quality of this already debunked material submitted by coal & oil paid opinion falsifying their credentials to support bogus data, in this case with pretty graphs with no references to institutes of origin. This hydrocarbon fuel industry sponsored PR stunt was found to be fraudulent within a couple of months of its submission.


Are US floods, fires linked to climate change?
http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0428-hanc ... er_us.html

According to renowned meteorologist Jeff Master's blog flooding of the Mississippi River and the Ohio River in the Midwest is being 'enhanced' by near-record sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, which is pushing warm, humid air into the Midwest. Sea surface temperatures in the Gulf are nearly 1 degree Celsius above average. Temperatures have only hit such highs in April twice in over a hundred years, both times in the past two decades: 2002 and 1991.
... ...
"It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability. Nowadays, there’s always an element of both," Trenberth told the New York Times last year in a front-page story on the connections between extreme weather and climate change. According to Trenberth, warmer global temperatures have put around 4% additional water vapor into weather systems over the past 30 years, producing heavier precipitation dumps.
... ...
Researchers have recently published landmark studies that found climate change made the deadly 2003 heatwave in Europe twice as likely to occur, and increased the likelihood of a 2000 flood in the UK by two to three times. The opposite has also been found. A recent study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concluded that the crippling drought and fires in Russia last year were not linked to climate change. However, that study has since been criticized by Trenberth in Yale360 for not taking into account unusually high sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean.
... ...
Uncommon weather is becoming more common. Last year alone the world—from Russia to Pakistan to the US to Australia to the Amazon—was rocked by record-setting droughts and floods, destroying crops, creating refugees, and taking lives.

"The climate is changing. Extreme events are occurring with greater frequency, and in many cases with greater intensity," Jay Lawrimore, chief of climate analysis at the National Climatic Data Center told the New York Times.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Slightly dated, but still relevant ..
November 5, 2010
El Niño Melting Antarctic Ice
http://www.earthweek.com/2010/ew101105/ew101105a.html

A change in precipitation patterns caused by the El Niño ocean-warming in the tropical Pacific appears to be the driving force behind the disappearance of ice in parts of Antarctica, according to a new study.

Researchers from the German Research Center for Geosciences said satellite observations show that year-by-year changes in the ice mass on the frozen continent correspond to El Niño episodes.

They found that the ice thickness in some glaciers is decreasing rapidly and ice streams are retreating back into the interior.

The findings from the GRACE gravity field satellite mission reveal that the significant changes unfolding in ice covering Antarctica are critical factors in global climate change.

The German scientists also found that La Niña, the opposite ocean-cooling phenomenon from El Niño, favors heavier precipitation and briefly causes an increase in ice thickness.

[Jovial Monk]

Then there is ocean acidification.

[HIGHERBEAM]

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-acid.html

While Andrew Bolt continues his character assassination, let's get back to the facts. There are several misconceptions about ocean acidification that require correction, both here and elsewhere.

1. “Ocean acidification is not a problem because organisms show a variety of responses (both positive and negative).”

The fact that not all organisms or physiological processes respond in the same way to ocean acidification is well known (Hendriks et al. 2009). This does not, however, logically lead to the conclusion that ocean acidification is not a problem. Organisms like reef building corals, for example, show a consistent 15-54% reduction in calcification with a doubling of atmospheric CO2. This is a problem irrespective of whether some other groups ( e.g. some bivalves) don't show this type of response. Given that corals build and maintain coral reefs, the impacts on this group of organisms alone are likely to be large and negative.

2. “Ocean pH varies greatly in time and space. This variability is much greater than any potential effect of carbon dioxide.”

It is true that ocean pH and carbonate ion concentrations do vary over time and space. The issue, however, here is whether or not average pH is changing over time. This is essentially the same distracting argument that some people have about the weather (i.e. day-to-day variability in temperature - "it was cold today, therefore climate change is happening.") and climate change (i.e. long-term trends in average temperature).

3. “Organisms like corals have been around for hundreds of millions of years, over which time atmospheric carbon dioxide has varied greatly. Therefore, we don't need to be concerned about ocean acidification.”

The fact that corals have survived as a group over long evolutionary time periods is irrelevant to whether or not current changes in ocean pH will impact their ability to build coral reefs. Having a long evolutionary history, gives little information about whether or not marine calcifiers like corals were rare or not at any particular time. Extinction has never been the issue here. The issue is as follows: If corals become rarer (and/or calcify less) due to ocean warming and acidification (e.g. (Bruno and Selig 2007; De'ath et al. 2009) then their ability to build and maintain coral reefs will be diminished. This in turn will decrease the ability of coral reefs to provide ecological services and support to over 500 million people worldwide.

4. “Carbon dioxide has been high in the past year coral reefs have continued to lay down calcium carbonate”.

This is not supported by the bulk of scientific studies. Most of the evidence, reveals that marine calcifiers like corals did not form carbonate reef systems during periods of high CO2 in the past (Veron 2008 etc.). There are big gaps in the depositions of carbonate during these periods.

5. “We don't understand how the ocean works hence we do not have good evidence that ocean acidification is occurring.”

Modelling studies based on what are essentially simple geochemical processes have matched the observed decline in ocean pH. Essentially, while we are there is still much to learn about how the ocean works, there are many empirical studies that show that ocean pH is changing rapidly. An excellent description of this work can be found in Doney et al. (2009). Ocean acidification is occurring at rates which dwarf anything seen over the recent past.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Quite a good argument HB. The site's not bad too.

The fact people believe a word Bolt writes and says doesn't give much faith in human intelligence.

For example, back in PA's days when DT and NDC constantly beickered, Bolt published a graph contradicting all evidence concerning AGW, claiming the planet had been getting colder since 1998, and was produced/released by NASA.
[Think original source was Lord Monkton]
DT posted Bolt's graph in PA thread on GW/CC, despite it already being shown to be phoney by ABC's media watch (& maybe others too). DT made a point of noting 'NASA says'.
So I went through the NASA site, retrieved the 7 publicly available links with any relevance to GW/CC and/or satelite data, posted in said thread, and challenged DT to show where NASA had claimed anything remotely like Bolt had portrayed.
Naturally he (DT) couldn't and to my surprise admitted defeat on the claim. Whether he learnt basing arguments on the unreliability of Bolt's incredibilty on the matter is foolish or not I don't know, but Bolt's still an OP writer which Mugsly and Dingbat apparently think is worth reading/listening to.

Anyway the GW/CC deniers come skeptics have just tried and failed again ....

Koch-Funded Climate Skeptic's Own Data Confirms Warming
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/ar ... s_warming/

In other words, Muller's Koch-funded project, which skeptics had hoped would call into question the validity of the data backing the projections of climate models, instead provided even further evidence yet that they are correct.