Posted on 02/29/2008 7:11:02 AM PST by Clive
So cold it's getting hot
It may be cold, but CBC reassures us that calamity still looms
Ah, the weather. It's cold as hell out there. How cold is it? It's so cold the CBC had to rush to assure all of us that global warming is still a big, big problem. With record snow falls, record cold snaps, the return of sea ice to the north, snow in the Middle East and a deep freeze in China, any sensible person might begin to wonder and even have doubts about global-warming theory and climate change. A little skepticism might begin to creep into the public sphere and threaten to undermine public belief in global warming.
Fear not, says the CBC. We have nothing to worry about: climate calamity still looms. The good news is that the polar caps are still going to melt, hurricane risks are still mounting, drought conditions are more likely, forest fires are set to rage, and it's going to get hot, hot, hot.
In response to the current global cool-down -- provocatively labelled a possible New Ice Age by National Post columnist Lorne Gunter -- the CBC has presented a full range of explanations and reassuring reports to calm a troubled population. At least three explanations exist:
This cold is normal According to Environment Canada's David Phillips, the warm winters of recent years have been unusual, and what we have now across the country is just a return to the kinds of winters we used to get.
La Nina According to CBC Radio's The Current, the cold is a function of La Nina, which is the cold sister of El Nino, the periodic weather system that makes things warmer than normal. Today's cold is a La Nina effect.
But not so fast.
Climate change could be the problem. Under climate theory, as we know, all weather can be explained as part of the global-warming scare. Extreme weather events, such as frost on the Nile or wherever, are exactly the kind of weather developments we should expect from global warming. If it gets really cold suddenly, that's because of global warming.
This explanation was offered up by a World Meteorological Organization official on CBC Radio. How cold is it? It's so cold it's getting hotter.
Above all, however, under no circumstances are we ever to begin to think that evidence of a cooler climate or colder weather (different things) are a sign that the great climate change theories of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore might be weak or even wrong.
As reassurance on this, on Wednesday night CBC Television's The National brought in Andrew Weaver, of the University of Victoria and a lead author on IPCC reports, for the following exchange with reporter Kelly Crowe, introduced by host Peter Mansbridge:
Mansbridge So with all this talk of brutal cold and all those bulky snow banks, you might be wondering how an old-fashioned Canadian winter can still exist in these days of global warming. It's a question scientists studying climate change get all the time. The CBC's Kelly Crowe now with their answer.
Crowe It's been such a wintery winter, Canadians can't resist asking: Whatever happened to global warming?
Weaver Oh, it's ... it drives you nuts.
Crowe It's a question Andrew Weaver hears all the time as a climatologist and a lead author on the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Weaver It's always fascinating when we have a cold snap or a cold-weather event that everybody suddenly believes that global warming has somehow gone away.
So there's Mr. Weaver decrying the ignorance of people who might suspect that when it gets cold outside it might mean something more than the mere fact that it's getting cold. But then, a few minutes later, Mr. Weaver makes the same assumption in the other direction:
Crowe Even as we shiver through this winter, there is mounting evidence of climate change.
Weaver Whether it be through temperature, sea ice melting much more rapidly than we thought before, precipitation extremes, increased likelihood of drought, you know, pine-beetle infestation, forest fires and on and on and on and go.
So when it gets hot or when pine beetles infest forests, that's a sign of man-made climate change. But if it gets cold or the ice caps return, that's not a sign of anything. Whatever the facts are, Mr. Weaver and climate activists cannot have it both ways.
In the meantime, in New York this weekend, the largest ever meeting of global-warming skeptics and critics begins. Organized by the the Heartland Institute, the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change expects 500 people to attend to hear papers and ideas from scores of people, including Canadian Ross Mc-Kitrick of Guelph University and Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic. It's not a science meeting, but it is a rare assemblage of some of the people -- including scientists -- who might be inclined to echo General Motors chairman Bob Lutz, who recently said that he personally thought global warming was a "total crock of shit."
Limbaugh ought to get a Nobel for spending the last 8 years blasting Al Gore’s global warming theory.
The Sun So Hot I Froze To Death.
Suzzana doncha cry.
Al Gore cannot play the banjo so don’t you cry!
I think he invented the banjo didn’t he?
Just call me Mister Skeptical, but if we were in the midst of a huge increase in global temperatures, I don’t think we’d be setting records for snow and cold. And furthermore none of the GW fanatics have yet explained why CO2 increases tend to lag behind temperature increases according to a number of climate experts.
The cold weather the world is currently experiencing is just another validation of the solar cycle being the major reason for temperature change on the planets in our solar system. The scientists that reject this simple explanation are trolling for dollars and helping the political elites annex our economy to chase after the unsolvable problem of controlling the Earth’s climate. Never fear, as the green cheerleaders will continue to explain why freezing our butts off is a sure indicator of our impending doom from irresponsible SUV drivers.
Actually, they explain that very neatly and consistently. Warmer temperature causes CO2 to come out of solution in the ocean (like warming a bottle of Coke), the additional CO2 making it hotter still.
CO2 added by humans can't do all that warming by by itself so they have to posit positive feedback (and completely ignore any possible negative feedback mechanisms) to achieve their results.
-18F in my favorite Cnadaian hotspot of Iqaluit, Canada. @9 days in Feb, exactly 2 have been above normal high of -8, and 27 have been below normal. Av high temp for the month of feb 2008 has been -15F or about 7 degrees below normal.
But that is not the explanation Gore feeds his gullible followers. He and his fellow GW seducers have tried to claim that temp increases follow CO2 increases. That's what most of the GW fanatics believe. I'd like to see the GW preachers tell their believers that CO2 increases lag behind temp increases using your explanation. I think you'd see a lot of believers leaving the Church of GW.
Oh, burrrrrrr.
I want spring! Now!
Not exactly. No even semi respectable scientist can claim that anthrogenic CO2 alone is sufficient to cause the kind of effects that IPCC claims, so they *need* positive feedback in their models (and need to completely ignore negative feedback).
The narrative is that when ever he Earth warmed naturally, resulting increases in CO2 added positive feedback (likewise cooling). There is some justification for this. The “gain” is still a lot less than one. One anthrogenic molecule of CO2 induces the release of a lot less than one molecule of CO2 dissolved in the ocean. Say, for instance it took two anthrogenic molecules to release one from the ocean, than the effect of anthrogenic CO2 would be doubled (!) because every two molecules released by the ocean would releast one more, ect. The total gain would be: 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 .... = 2. G = 1/( 1 - 1/2). If the gain were greater than one, the oceans wouldn’t have any CO2, the first free molecule of CO2 would have emptied it.
They’ve got all kinds of tricks like this in the {completely unvalidated) models. Since the models seem to do a very poor job of “predicting” (accounting for, modeling) past observations, why should anyone take them seriously in predicting the future?
I’m not scientist, and I’ll bow to your knowledge on the math of the subject. All I’m saying is the image I’ve seen of GW that is presented to the masses is that most people believe CO2 increases preceded temp increases. The GW proponents may not have actually stated that, but that is what most GW believers are led to believe. When I’ve talked to a few of the believers, they never bring up the explanation you provide. They simply believe that man increased the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, and now it’s a lot warmer.
Positive feedback doesn’t have a “gain”, although both sides use oversimplified analysis to talk about gain or sensitivity. What happens is that a slight warming from CO2 is modeled to cause a water vapor increase which causes much more warming (relatively speaking). It is a false dichotomy (driftless2) to say that CO2 follows or leads warming, it does both. The geological timescales that it happens on (maybe 800 years lag) are irrelevant to the modern day analysis. The only relevant question today is will water vapor feedback cause catastrophic warming? A: not likely
I should have added that part of the current increase in CO2 is natural, caused by warming and other natural releases. Part of it is manmade caused by fossil fuel burning. Isotope signature analysis is not quantitative enough to show how much of each is present.
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