Posted on 07/13/2004 8:18:23 AM PDT by presidio9
WASHINGTON, July 12 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A new report from the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) exposes serious problems with the historical climate trends reconstruction published by the United Nations (news - web sites)' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- the primary evidence used by policy makers and activists who espouse the theory that human activity is causing catastrophic global warming.
"The IPCC claims that human activities are responsible for nearly all the earth's recorded warming during the past two centuries," said NCPA Adjunct Scholar David Legates, the report's author and director of the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Delaware. "Yet the primary assessment they use as support appears to be more junk science than solid evidence."
At issue is what is commonly referred to as the "hockey stick" -- a widely circulated image that depicts a 700-year period where temperatures remained relatively constant followed by the last 100-plus years where temperatures have shot upwards. The "hockey stick," created by researchers Michael Mann of the University of Virginia and Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia, is used by the IPCC and environmental activists as proof of human-induced global warming.
The NCPA report cites findings from five independent research groups that have uncovered serious problems with Mann and Jones' methodology and calculations, which call into question any of its conclusions. For example:
-- Several researchers found Mann and Jones made errors in the collection and use of varying data from multiple sources, used obsolete data, made incorrect calculations, associated data sets with incorrect geographical locations, inappropriately eliminated specific proxy records that they felt were inaccurate and employed statistical methods that removed long time period trends, such as the widely recognized Medieval Warm Period (about A.D. 800 to 1400) and the Little Ice Age (A.D. 1600 to 1850).
-- Mann published a retraction in the June 2004 issue of Geophysical Research, in which he admits underestimating the temperature variations indicated by the proxy data by more than one-third since 1400, which accounts for why he missed the Little Ice Age. Strangely, Mann still argues this considerable error doesn't impact his conclusions.
-- Further, Legates found the "blade" (or sudden rise in temperature) of Mann's hockey stick could not be reproduced using common statistical techniques, or even employing the same techniques as Mann and Jones.
"Mann's claims that human's have caused tremendous warming over the last 100 years and that the 1990s were the warmest decade are untenable," said Legates. "Looking at the data, the global warming scare appears to be merely 'Mann made' junk science."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Once we admit that volcano activity, sun activity, the magnetic field, and space weather all play a role...the bubble is burst. It is difficult to play the global warming game unless you come up with a pausiable reason for the little freeze in the 1400s, which none of the Crackpots have yet to define. Most want to utilze volcano activity...but you can't explain almost 200 years of extremely cold weather in that fashion. Everytime NPR puts these guys on...I start laughing when they state their background. None are historians or weather experts...they call themselves envirnomental climate experts...which doesn't say anything much.
mark
Oh, well . . .
You are mostly correct. However, the magnetic north pole does drift just a bit over time. You can get correction factors for compass readings on highly detailed maps, and you will see that those factors vary just a bit over time. But certainly not "radically" or "suddenly"
To even think that humans can have any lasting impact on the earth is the height of vanity. The earth was here before us, and the earth will be here after us. Humans are only a blip on the screen. Human capability for abstract thought does not change the fact that humans are weak, soft, temporary skin bags of protoplasm that will die and decay.
By the way, I want a brand new tent. Mine is getting pretty battered and weather beaten.
One plausible theory links this period of cooler global temperatures to reduced solar activity. There were three notable periods when sunspots were at a minimum between 1400 and 1850 -- the third minimum is called the "Maunder minimum", but I can't remember the names of the previous ones, which were not as long. Also, in the 1450s, the island of Kuwae in the Pacific had an extremly large eruption (Crater Lake - Mazama scale) that likely led to cooling for at least a decade and perhaps a bit longer.
Mann renames them "Bush's faults"...
Don't forget that heat makes things expand - that's why the days are longer in the summer.
P.S. Broken hockey stick? Duck tape can fix that.
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba478/
NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS
Breaking the “Hockey Stick”
Brief Analysis
No. 478
Monday, July 12, 2004
by David R. Legates
The "experts" are often wrong. In the late 1950's, the Geology profession thought that those who believed in Continental Drift were tinfoil idiots and nutcases.
Droughts go with Ice Age temperatures -- the water vapor in the air is reduced by being locked up as ice.
Impressive.....the NCPA isn't some low-grade organization.
The earth is primarily a water planet. The vast majority of energetic input occurs from infrared light emitted by the sun that ends up being absorbed by the earths oceans and earths atmosphere. What happens on land or in man made vehicles has at best a minor affect on this planetary system. There are also probably time lags in cause and effect. So you cannot look at what is happening in nature now and assume that current energetic input has created the present day situation. For example, we just past the longest day of the summer up here around 32 degress north. The two hottest months of the year here occur after the days start getting shorter.
Your link doesn't say the magnetic pole has moved from the vicinity of the geographic pole. Do you understand latitiude and longitude?
"I have a National Geographic map of the world from 1981 (showing the Soviet Union, for instance) which indicates the magnetic north pole at 100.5 W long, 76.5 N lat. A more recent 2000 map from the same source shows the magnetic north pole at 105 W, 79.5 N---a shift of about 250 miles in 20 years."
The original 1981 posistion he mentions, 76.5 N, is over 800 nautical miles south of the geographic pole. Yes, the magnetic pole moves, no, since it's its discovery, it has never been close to the geographic pole. Please look up the definition of the word "variation" as it applies to magnetic compasses.
Tell that to the mammoths. Our ancestors killed off many of the pleistocene megafauna species 11,000 years ago. Of course, this doesn't say anything about climate change.
If memory serves, the total greenhouse effect (which is normal) is about 100 degrees, and most of that is due to water vapor. So the Earth would be much colder without the greenhouse effect. Now CO2 is responsible only for about 1 or 2 percent of this. So if the CO2 increases by 50%, it would be reasonable to conclude that a degree or 2 of warming is possible. These numbers are rough, my memory is porous, but I think this is the basic idea.
That's actually a positive about nuclear energy. Humans have destroyed so many species on Earth, but now we will be creating new species through genetic mutation to replace them. Or at least, that's what Fox Mulder mused at the end of an old X-Files episode.
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