Posted on 08/03/2011 6:56:08 PM PDT by Coleus
A study of NASA data by scientists at the University of Alabama shows much more heat is being released into space than was thought:
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (July 26, 2011) — Data from NASA’s Terra satellite shows that when the climate warms, Earth’s atmosphere is apparently more efficient at releasing energy to space than models used to forecast climate change have been programmed to “believe.”
The result is climate forecasts that are warming substantially faster than the atmosphere, says Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. The previously unexplained differences between model-based forecasts of rapid global warming and meteorological data showing a slower rate of warming have been the source of often contentious debate and controversy for more than two decades.
As I've noted before, there are two debates here:
1: The scientific debate, which is fascinating and will take years to resolve because of the complexity of the question, and
2: The political debate, in which politicians offer up simplistic and poorly thought out approaches, such as cap-and-trade, which is rejected by most economists.
By the way, the funny thing about cap-and-trade is that you can turn the alarmists' arguments back on them. The alarmists love to state that there is a consensus among scientists on anthropogenic global warming. Well, there's a consensus among economists that cap-and-trade is the wrong way to go about regulating carbon emissions.
The economists agree that, assuming the goal is to reduce carbon emissions for whatever reason, a carbon tax would be a far more efficient means of achieving the same end. And they also agree that if that tax were offset by cuts in the income tax, the effect on the economy would be positive.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.nj.com ...
Schools used to teach the ‘butterfly effect’ with regards to how impossibly complicated the atmosphere is to model. Science has gone so far beyond that now it’s amazing. The scientists attack people who question them. Makes for better funding.
Modeling is over-rated.
Trust me.
America can’t even balance its budget much less Mother Nature.
I wouldn’t trust this country with diagnosing or fixing a damn thing, to be perfectly honest.
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