Rossputin.com Rational Thinking About Our World

For those of you who haven't drunk the Algore kool aid, here is a list of some recent stories regarding the topic of "man-made global warming", something I believe is being shown increasingly as junk science or an intentional hoax.

Before I get into the many links I want to share with you, I'd like to note a couple of stories from just the past week that are representative of the desperation of climate alarmists:

First, just as so many laws are "for the children", we regularly get global warming hysteria which is "for the fuzzy animals." And here's a perfect example:
"Global Warming Threatens Australia's Iconic Kangaroos"

The article is full of fascinating sentences about kangaroos, almost all of which begin with things like "could have", "has the capacity to", "might affect", "may result", etc.

And of course they don't mention that almost all the weather news from Australia in the past year or two has been about cold:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/news/10072008news.shtml
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/cold-weather-here-to-stay/9718
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/26/1962453.htm
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22097632-5005961,00.html

Not surprisingly, the web site panicking for the kangaroos has headlines on it like "Global Warming Equals Stronger Hurricanes" even though most recent science says that's simply not true. Here's an interesting letter from Chris Landsea regarding his resignation from participating in the UN's IPCC 4th Assessment Report. In particular, he objected to the participation of the Assessment's chief author for the hurricane section in a press conference blaming global warming for future likely increased hurricane activity and intensity:

Given Dr. Trenberth’s role as the IPCC’s Lead Author responsible for preparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to concern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed objectively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity. My view is that when people identify themselves as being associated with the IPCC and then make pronouncements far outside current scientific understandings that this will harm the credibility of climate change science and will in the longer term diminish our role in public policy.

The other story I found interesting was the release by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), which like NASA has realized there's more grant money in saying the sky is falling than in saying it isn't, of their "Arctic Report Card" this month. The report spawned a few news articles such as THIS ONE in the Miami Herald with a headline warning ominously that "Arctic temperatures hit record high". Similar articles were put out by the AP and in foreign newspapers.

The problem is that the "report card" has almost no 2008 data in it, and the record temperatures which NOAA seems so alarmed about were in 2007! They also show an Arctic sea ice extent graph which stops in September, 2008 and, while it shows 2008 already better than 2007, it's not nearly as much better as data which was available when they posted the "report card". (There is more on the Arctic sea ice extent below in this note, but if you want to get a head start, take a look at the red line, representing 2008, in THIS CHART.)

Even where there is good news, they report it in a way to make it sound as bad as possible. For example, they report "Near record minimum summer sea ice extent". Sounds like the end of the world, doesn't it? They could have mentioned that the last year was the record, that this year's low was fully 9% more sea ice than last year. Still a low number compared to other years this decade, but by far the biggest year-over-year increase during that time. (Another government organization has the cajones to say "only 9% greater".) Current Arctic sea ice extent is now about halfway back from the 2007 levels to the 1979-2000 average.

So, a taxpayer-funded institution (or more than one) is putting out misleading information, with a report that says "2008" prominently on it but ignores the fact that 2008 has shown a substantial reversal of trends that they are trying to use to scare us...whether it's to get more funding or because they're liberals, I don't know. But I do know it's reprehensible behavior.

Now, on to other information: Although isolated data points are not a trend, when you get enough of them you'd think that even the climate alarmists might ask if there's something going on:

"Alaska glaciers grew this year, thanks to colder weather"

"A record cold snap in Mendocino County (California)..."

"Weekend cold set new record lows" (Oregon)

"Boise gets earliest snow on record"

"Scientists and forecasters say the Eastern United States will face one of the coldest winters in several years."

How about the Arctic Sea ice that alarmists are always alarming about?

Arctic sea ice extent far above last year, and now about 2006 as well.

And what about surface and atmospheric temperatures?

"No significant global warming since 1995"

And this important article by Björn Lomborg:

"Let the data speak for itself
Despite the message favoured by environmental campaigners, temperatures in this decade have not been worse than expected."

Much or most of warming predicted by models is due to the assumption of positive feedback from atmospheric carbon dioxide. This new paper by climate scientists David Douglas and John Christy says that:

1) The earth has not warmed since 1998,
2) El Niño and La Niña explain the 1998 temperature maximum,
3) Climate variations have occurred primarily in the "northern extratropics", not globally as you would find if atmospheric CO2 were a major driver of climate change,
4) There is a small underlying positive trend of less than one tenth of one degree Celsius per decade "consistent with CO2 climate forcing with no-feedback", and
5) These conclusions are contrary to the IPCC [2007] statement: "[M]ost of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."

How should scientists approach these questions going forward?

And how should the public think about what they're told? (This article by the Economist argues that "There seems to be a bias toward publishing positive results" (e.g. saying there is man-made global warming) and offers the following important suggestion:

The researchers are not suggesting fraud, just that the way scientific publishing works makes it more likely that incorrect findings end up in print. They suggest that, as the marginal cost of publishing a lot more material is minimal on the internet, all research that meets a certain quality threshold should be published online. Preference might even be given to studies that show negative results or those with the highest quality of study methods and interpretation, regardless of the results.

And for good measure, one more devastating report about the so-called "consensus" around "global warming:
Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?, by Richard Lindzen, 9/27/08

My prediction is that Algore will be made to look like the "science" equivalent of Jimmy Carter as "peacemaker". Man-made global warming is a hoax, or at most an insignificant factor in comparison to the other things which influence climate. The only good news to come from the recent financial turmoil is that it all but eliminates the chance of anti-climate-change legislation anytime soon.

I hope these links offer you some intellectual ammunition in the battle against junk science and the anti-capitalists who use it against the rest of us.