The Feverish Hunt For Evidence Of A Man-Made Global Warming Crisis

Although “climate” is generally associated with periods of at least three decades, less than one and one-half decades following mid-1970s “scientific” predictions that the next Ice Age was  rapidly approaching, the media trumpeted a new and opposite alarm…a man-made global warming crisis. Previously, even the prestigious National Academy of Sciences had issued a warning that there was “a finite possibility that a serious worldwide cooling could befall the earth within the next 100 years.”

Hot climate frenzy was fueled by a convergence of geopolitical circumstances. Theoretical model calculations at that time, including some at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamic Laboratory, began to indicate that substantial global warming could result from increasing CO₂ levels.  Then, during a particularly hot 1988 summer in many U.S. regions, NASA’s James Hansen testified  before Senator Al Gore’s steamy1988 Committee on Science, Technology and Space, that he was 99% certain that temperatures had in fact, increased due to greenhouse warming. Also, the Cold War had just ended, and the Union of Concerned Scientists redirected its attention from nuclear disarmament to a new “global warming threat”. They issued a widely publicized statement in the New York Times condemning human carbon emissions as the villain.

This was also a time when Third World countries, by force of numbers, and European socialist green parties, through powers of aggressiveness, seized control of the United Nations to advance globalization goals, which emerging global warming alarm perfectly served.   Accordingly, the United Nations established the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN-FCCC) to organize conferences, along with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which, prior to any studies, concluded that climate change caused by fossil burning posed a global threat.

Within about half of a legitimate climate period after the earlier global cooling scares, the UN-FCCC had already determined that “climate change” was, by their definition: “a change of climate, which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity, that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”  Key words here are “attributed” to “human activities” which alter the “atmosphere”…greenhouse gases (CO₂ specifically).

Accordingly, when you hear references to “climate change” in the media these days, you can be pretty certain that it’s going to discuss some observed or inevitable catastrophe attributed to “bad” greenhouse warming caused by burning evil fossil fuels. We almost never see commentary reminding us that CO₂ and warm conditions are both really great for agriculture and most Earth critters.

Yes, Climate Change is Real!

Indeed, climate really does change without any help from us, and we can be very grateful that it does. Over the past 800,000 years, much of the Northern Hemisphere has been covered by ice up to miles thick at regular intervals lasting about 100,000 years each. Much shorter interglacial cycles like our current one lasting 10,000 to 15,000 years have offered reprieves from bitter cold.

And yes, from this perspective, current temperatures are abnormally warm. By about 12,000 to 15,000 years ago Earth had warmed enough to halt the advance of glaciers and cause sea levels to rise, and the average temperature has held fairly constant ever since, with brief intermissions.

Although temperatures have been generally mild over the past 500 years, we should remember that significant fluctuations are still normal. The past century has witnessed two distinct periods of warming. The first occurred between 1900 and 1945, and the second, following a slight cool-down, began quite abruptly in 1975. That second period rose at quite a constant rate until 1998, and then stopped and began falling again after reaching a high of 1.16ºF above the average global mean.

But What About Those “Observed” Human Greenhouse Influences?

The IPCC stated in its last 2007 Summary for Policymaker’s Report that “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperature since the mid-20thcentury [which is very small] is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [human-caused] greenhouse gas concentrations.”  And there can be no doubt here that they are referring to CO₂, not water vapor, which constitutes the most important greenhouse gas of all. That’s because the climate models don’t know how to “observe” it, plus there aren’t any good historic records to enable trends to be revealed.

Besides, unlike carbon, there is little incentive to attach much attention to anthropogenic water vapor. After all, no one has yet figured out a way to regulate or tax it.

A key problem in determining changes and influences of water vapor concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere is that they are extremely variable. Differences range by orders of magnitude in various places. Instead, alarmists sweep the problem to one side by simply calling it a CO₂ “feedback” amplification effect, always assuming that the dominant feedback is “positive” (warming) rather than “negative” (cooling). In reality, due to clouds and other factors, those feedbacks could go both ways, and no one knows for sure which direction dominates climate over the long run.

Treating water vapor as a known feedback revolves around an assumption that relative humidity is a constant, which it isn’t. Since it is known to vary nearly as widely as actual water vapor concentrations, no observational evidence exists to support a CO₂ warming amplification conclusion.

But let’s imagine that CO₂ is the big greenhouse culprit rather than a bit-player, and that its influences are predominately warming. Even if CO₂ levels were to double, it would make little difference. While the first CO₂ molecules matter a lot, successive ones have less and less effect.  That’s because the carbon that exists in the atmosphere now has already “soaked up” its favorite wavelengths of light, and is close to a saturation point. Those carbon molecules that follow manage to grab a bit more light from wavelengths close to favorite bands, but can’t do much more…there simply aren’t many left-over photons at the right wavelengths.  For those of you who are mathematically inclined, that diminishing absorption rate follows a logarithmic curve.

Who Hid the Carbon Prosecuting Evidence?

Since water vapor and clouds are so complex and difficult to model, their influences are neglected in IPCC reports. What about other evidence to support an IPCC claim that “most” mid-century warming can “very likely” be attributed to human greenhouse emissions? Well, if it’s there, it must me very well hidden, since direct measurements seem not to know where it is.

For example, virtually all climate models have predicted that if greenhouse gases caused warming, there is supposed to be a telltale “hot spot” in the atmosphere about 10 km above the tropics. Weather balloons (radiosondes) and satellites have scanned these regions for years, and there is no such pattern. It wasn’t even there during the recent warming spell between 1979 (when satellites were first available) and 1999.

SOURCE:http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/03/19/the-feverish-hunt-for-evidence-of-a-man-made-global-warming-crisis/

The Feverish Hunt For Evidence Of A Man-Made Global Warming Crisis

Although “climate” is generally associated with periods of at least three decades, less than one and one-half decades following mid-1970s “scientific” predictions that the next Ice Age was  rapidly approaching, the media trumpeted a new and opposite alarm…a man-made global warming crisis. Previously, even the prestigious National Academy of Sciences had issued a warning that there was “a finite possibility that a serious worldwide cooling could befall the earth within the next 100 years.”

Hot climate frenzy was fueled by a convergence of geopolitical circumstances. Theoretical model calculations at that time, including some at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamic Laboratory, began to indicate that substantial global warming could result from increasing CO₂ levels.  Then, during a particularly hot 1988 summer in many U.S. regions, NASA’s James Hansen testified  before Senator Al Gore’s steamy1988 Committee on Science, Technology and Space, that he was 99% certain that temperatures had in fact, increased due to greenhouse warming. Also, the Cold War had just ended, and the Union of Concerned Scientists redirected its attention from nuclear disarmament to a new “global warming threat”. They issued a widely publicized statement in the New York Times condemning human carbon emissions as the villain.

This was also a time when Third World countries, by force of numbers, and European socialist green parties, through powers of aggressiveness, seized control of the United Nations to advance globalization goals, which emerging global warming alarm perfectly served.   Accordingly, the United Nations established the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN-FCCC) to organize conferences, along with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which, prior to any studies, concluded that climate change caused by fossil burning posed a global threat.

Within about half of a legitimate climate period after the earlier global cooling scares, the UN-FCCC had already determined that “climate change” was, by their definition: “a change of climate, which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity, that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”  Key words here are “attributed” to “human activities” which alter the “atmosphere”…greenhouse gases (CO₂ specifically).

Accordingly, when you hear references to “climate change” in the media these days, you can be pretty certain that it’s going to discuss some observed or inevitable catastrophe attributed to “bad” greenhouse warming caused by burning evil fossil fuels. We almost never see commentary reminding us that CO₂ and warm conditions are both really great for agriculture and most Earth critters.

Yes, Climate Change is Real!

Indeed, climate really does change without any help from us, and we can be very grateful that it does. Over the past 800,000 years, much of the Northern Hemisphere has been covered by ice up to miles thick at regular intervals lasting about 100,000 years each. Much shorter interglacial cycles like our current one lasting 10,000 to 15,000 years have offered reprieves from bitter cold.

And yes, from this perspective, current temperatures are abnormally warm. By about 12,000 to 15,000 years ago Earth had warmed enough to halt the advance of glaciers and cause sea levels to rise, and the average temperature has held fairly constant ever since, with brief intermissions.

Although temperatures have been generally mild over the past 500 years, we should remember that significant fluctuations are still normal. The past century has witnessed two distinct periods of warming. The first occurred between 1900 and 1945, and the second, following a slight cool-down, began quite abruptly in 1975. That second period rose at quite a constant rate until 1998, and then stopped and began falling again after reaching a high of 1.16ºF above the average global mean.

But What About Those “Observed” Human Greenhouse Influences?

The IPCC stated in its last 2007 Summary for Policymaker’s Report that “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperature since the mid-20thcentury [which is very small] is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [human-caused] greenhouse gas concentrations.”  And there can be no doubt here that they are referring to CO₂, not water vapor, which constitutes the most important greenhouse gas of all. That’s because the climate models don’t know how to “observe” it, plus there aren’t any good historic records to enable trends to be revealed.

Besides, unlike carbon, there is little incentive to attach much attention to anthropogenic water vapor. After all, no one has yet figured out a way to regulate or tax it.

A key problem in determining changes and influences of water vapor concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere is that they are extremely variable. Differences range by orders of magnitude in various places. Instead, alarmists sweep the problem to one side by simply calling it a CO₂ “feedback” amplification effect, always assuming that the dominant feedback is “positive” (warming) rather than “negative” (cooling). In reality, due to clouds and other factors, those feedbacks could go both ways, and no one knows for sure which direction dominates climate over the long run.

Treating water vapor as a known feedback revolves around an assumption that relative humidity is a constant, which it isn’t. Since it is known to vary nearly as widely as actual water vapor concentrations, no observational evidence exists to support a CO₂ warming amplification conclusion.

But let’s imagine that CO₂ is the big greenhouse culprit rather than a bit-player, and that its influences are predominately warming. Even if CO₂ levels were to double, it would make little difference. While the first CO₂ molecules matter a lot, successive ones have less and less effect.  That’s because the carbon that exists in the atmosphere now has already “soaked up” its favorite wavelengths of light, and is close to a saturation point. Those carbon molecules that follow manage to grab a bit more light from wavelengths close to favorite bands, but can’t do much more…there simply aren’t many left-over photons at the right wavelengths.  For those of you who are mathematically inclined, that diminishing absorption rate follows a logarithmic curve.

Who Hid the Carbon Prosecuting Evidence?

Since water vapor and clouds are so complex and difficult to model, their influences are neglected in IPCC reports. What about other evidence to support an IPCC claim that “most” mid-century warming can “very likely” be attributed to human greenhouse emissions? Well, if it’s there, it must me very well hidden, since direct measurements seem not to know where it is.

For example, virtually all climate models have predicted that if greenhouse gases caused warming, there is supposed to be a telltale “hot spot” in the atmosphere about 10 km above the tropics. Weather balloons (radiosondes) and satellites have scanned these regions for years, and there is no such pattern. It wasn’t even there during the recent warming spell between 1979 (when satellites were first available) and 1999.

SOURCE:http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/03/19/the-feverish-hunt-for-evidence-of-a-man-made-global-warming-crisis/

Could global warming change tornado season, too?

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)—With the planet heating up, many scientists seem fairly certain some weather elements like hurricanes and droughts will worsen. But tornadoes have them stumped.

These unpredictable, sometimes deadly storms plague the United States more than any other country. Here in tornado alley, Oklahoma City has been hit with at least 147 tornadoes since 1890.

But as the traditional tornado season nears, scientists have been pondering a simple question: Will there be more or fewer twisters as global warming increases?

There is no easy answer. Lately, tornado activity in America has been Jekyll-and-Hyde weird, and scientists are unsure if climate change has played a role in recent erratic patterns.

In 2011, the United States saw its second-deadliest tornado season in history: Nearly 1,700 tornadoes killed 553 people. The Joplin, Mo., twister was the single deadliest in American history, killing 158 people and causing $2.8 billion in damage.

The following year, 2012, started even earlier and even busier. Through April there were twice as many tornadoes as normal. Then the twisters suddenly disappeared. Tornado activity from May to August of that year was the lowest in 60 years of record-keeping, said Harold Brooks, a top researcher at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla.

Meanwhile, Canada saw an unusual number of tornadoes in 2012; Saskatchewan had three times the normal number.

That year, the jet stream moved north and "essentially shut down" tornadoes in the American Midwest said Greg Carbin, warning meteorologist at the federal storm center. A tremendous drought meant far fewer storms, which not only shut off the spigot on rain but on storm cells that spawned tornadoes.

For much of America, tornadoes are seasonal. Typically, there are more during spring, and the numbers dwindle in the worst heat of the summer. Last year "essentially was an extended period of summertime conditions over the U.S.," Carbin said. "The real question is: What is spring now? Is it February?"

"Summer may be happening earlier and may be muscling out what we consider a transition between summer and winter," he said.

The last two seasons aren't alone in illustrating extremes in tornado activity.

Tornado record-keepers tally things like the most and least tornadoes in a month. Records for that category have been set 24 times over the past 60 years. Ten of those records have been set in the past decade—six for the fewest tornadoes and four for the most, Brooks said. Also, the three earliest starts of tornado season and the four latest have all occurred since 1997, he said.

What does that mean?

"We've had a dramatic increase in the variability of tornado occurrence," Brooks said.

The jet stream, a major player in tornado formation, has been in a state of flux, varying wildly in recent years, said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann.

"It's hard to predict future tornado seasons when we don't understand current tornado seasons," Brooks said between sessions at the National Tornado Summit here earlier this week. "We're not sure what's going to happen with the tornado numbers."

A new study in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society looks at all sorts of extreme weather, how it is changing because of global warming and how things are predicted to change in the future. The study says tornadoes and the severe thunderstorms that spawn them are the hardest to predict.

Public opinion polls show Americans blame global warming for bad tornado outbreaks, but climate scientists say that's not quite right.

One reason scientists can't figure out how global warming might affect tornadoes is that twisters are usually small weather events that aren't easily simulated in large computer models. And records of tornadoes may not have been accurate over the years as twisters twirled unnoticed around unpopulated areas.

So Brooks and others are looking at the ingredients that cause tornadoes. But even that isn't simple. They look at two main factors: moist energy in the atmosphere and wind shear. Wind shear is the difference between wind at high altitudes and wind near the surface. The more moist energy and greater the wind shear, the better the chances for tornadoes.

The atmosphere can hold more moisture as it warms, and it will likely be more unstable so that means more moist energy, several experts said. But wind shear is another matter. Brooks and Stanford University scientist Noah Diffenbaugh think there will be less of that.

That would suggest fewer tornadoes. But if there's more moist energy, that could lead to more tornadoes. One ingredient has to win out, and Brooks says it's hard to tell which one will. Diffenbaugh says recent computer simulations show the moist energy may overcome the reduced shear and produce at least more severe thunderstorms, if not tornadoes.

Given what's happening lately, Brooks believes there will be fewer days of tornadoes but more twisters on the days when they occur.

SOURCE:http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/03/could-global-warming-change-tornado-season-too

‘Volcanoes capping effects of global warming’

WASHINGTON, MAR 4:  

Sulphur dioxide emissions from moderate volcanoes around the world can mask some of the effects of global warming by 25 per cent, a new study has found.

A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder looking for clues about why Earth did not warm as much as scientists expected between 2000 and 2010 now thinks the culprits are hiding in plain sight.

The study results essentially exonerate India and China, two countries that are estimated to have increased their industrial sulphur dioxide emissions by about 60 per cent from 2000 to 2010 through coal burning, said lead study author Ryan Neely.

Small amounts of sulphur dioxide emissions from Earth’s surface eventually rise 12 to 20 miles into the stratospheric aerosol layer of the atmosphere, where chemical reactions create sulphuric acid and water particles that reflect sunlight back to space, cooling the planet, researchers said.

Neely said previous observations suggest that increases in stratospheric aerosols since 2000 have counter balanced as much as 25 per cent of the warming scientists blame on human greenhouse gas emissions.

“This new study indicates it is emissions from small to moderate volcanoes that have been slowing the warming of the planet,” said Neely in the study published in journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The new project was undertaken in part to resolve conflicting results of two recent studies on the origins of the sulphur dioxide in the stratosphere, including a 2009 study led by the late David Hoffman of NOAA indicating aerosol increases in the stratosphere may have come from rising emissions of sulphur dioxide from India and China.

In contrast, a 2011 study led by Vernier – who also provided essential observation data for the new GRL study – showed moderate volcanic eruptions play a role in increasing particulates in the stratosphere, Neely said in a statement.

“The biggest implication here is that scientists need to pay more attention to small and moderate volcanic eruptions when trying to understand changes in Earth’s climate,” said Professors Brian Toon from CU-Boulder’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

“But overall these eruptions are not going to counter the greenhouse effect. Emissions of volcanic gases go up and down, helping to cool or heat the planet, while greenhouse gas emissions from human activity just continue to go up,” Toon said.

“While small and moderate volcanoes mask some of the human-caused warming of the planet, larger volcanoes can have a much bigger effect”, said Toon.

However, the scientists said 10-year climate data sets like the one gathered for the new study are not long enough to determine climate change trends.

SOURCE:http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/science/volcanoes-capping-effects-of-global-warming/article4475137.ece

Faith in Global Warming Hits 20 Year Low

Perhaps it’s because we’re in the middle of a cold snowy winter. Perhaps it’s because when people are freezing because green energy is too expensive and unreliable  to use to heat your home, they stop listening to Al Gore. Or perhaps it’s just the usual malaise of religion in the West.

Green Atheism. It’s a serious threat to the Church of Global Warming

.Public concern about environmental issues including climate change has slumped to a 20-year low since the financial crisis, a global study reveals.Fewer people now consider issues such as CO2 emissions, air and water pollution, animal species loss, and water shortages to be “very serious” than at any time in the last two decades, according to the poll of 22,812 people in 22 countries including Britain and the US.Despite years of studies showing the impact of global warming on the planet, only 49 per cent of people now consider climate change a very serious issue – far fewer than at the beginning of the worldwide financial crisis in 2009.

So what is responsible for the rise of this Green Atheism? Reasonable self-interest.The GlobeScan survey found that water pollution is viewed as the most serious environment problem worldwide with 58 per cent of people polled saying it represents a very serious concern.

So people care about the types of pollution that make them sick. Not any of the Carbon pollution that comes from millions of people yawning in unison at more planet melting hysteria.

SOURCE:http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/faith-in-global-warming-hits-20-year-low/