Posted on 03/23/2008 12:20:39 PM PDT by Delacon
The Australian reports a few inconvenient truths regarding global climate change that have yet to receive much attention from a media sold on global warming. Not only has the Earth cooled since its peak year in 1998, not only are oceans cooler than predicted, but new NASA data shows that the computer models that predicted runaway global warming were based on a fundamental error. Rather than having clouds and water vapor amplifying the warming effect of carbon in the atmosphere, it turns out that they compensate for it (via Memeorandum):
Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.
Duffy asked Marohasy: “Is the Earth stillwarming?”
She replied: “No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you’d expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years.”
Duffy: “Is this a matter of any controversy?”
Marohasy: “Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued … This is not what you’d expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you’d expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up … So (it’s) very unexpected, not something that’s being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it’s very significant.” …
Duffy: “Can you tell us about NASA’s Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we’re now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?”
Marohasy: “That’s right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you’ve got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you’re going to get a positive feedback. That’s what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite … (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they’re actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you’re getting a negative rather than a positive feedback.”
Duffy: “The climate is actually, in one way anyway, more robust than was assumed in the climate models?”
Marohasy: “That’s right … These findings actually aren’t being disputed by the meteorological community. They’re having trouble digesting the findings, they’re acknowledging the findings, they’re acknowledging that the data from NASA’s Aqua satellite is not how the models predict, and I think they’re about to recognise that the models really do need to be overhauled and that when they are overhauled they will probably show greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide.”
Hmm. How many have actually heard that the NASA Aqua satellite returned this kind of data? I searched the New York Times and found nothing since 2006 on Aqua — and that was just an announcement that NASA would launch more satellites to study weather. The Washington Post reported on ice loss in the Arctic just this week, but noted that Aqua shows an ice increase in the Acrtic this winter, but never reported on the other data that throws cold water on global warming.
So far, no one asserts that we have produced less carbon in the atmosphere. Global-warming activists continue to make Chicken Little predictions of catastrophe based on increases in carbon releases, especially from China and India as they modernize and industrialize. If carbon releases resulted in global warming, then the rate of increase should be constant; there definitely should be no decrease, especially given the theoretical amplification of water vapor.
Apparently, though, both assumptions have either proven incorrect or far too simplified to explain the actual impact of carbon on global temperatures. That’s not surprising, especially given the previous global-cooling scare of the 1970s and how baseless that theory turned out to be. What’s surprising is the utter lack of coverage that the new data has received. Why haven’t the same media outlets that relentlessly cover global-warming advocacy reported on the appearance of contradictory data?
Perhaps because global warming is more advocacy than science.
>>“Sadly, there is a 100 year upward trend in global temperatures. Even during the plateau from 1945 to 1976 the seas continued rising and the glaciers continued retreating.”
I thought the tone sounded like they were overstating the importance of a newspaper’s conclusion.
Clearly there are other factors besides CO2 and I don’t think its been proven that CO2 is the largest current cause.
But historically, it does appear that once something starts the temperature upward, the CO2 tends to increase and add to the temperature rise.
>>Rising sea levels are not a new idea.<<
Nope.
But they are rising and that’s a measure of average global temperature independent of other measures.
Ok, the sun is hotter - what shall we do about it? Send money to al gore?
>>You say “to overturn all that” like “all that” was some kind of proof supporting this global warming hooey. In the 1970’s the “consensus” was that we were headed for a new ice age. It was the same brand of so-called scientists predicting doom then as it is now. People better wake up and recognize what this is really all about — the destruction of what are left of free markets and capitalism.<<
Here’s the thing. There are plenty of people who oppose capitalism. Many of them would happily use global warming as an excuse to get what they wanted anyway - the end of the American way.
But our job is to be rational and evaluate the temperature and causes independent of those ass holes want. We should neither buy into or deny global based them.
For that we should look to places like the National Snow and Ice Data Center established under the Reagan administration to study glaciers. They do a report called the state of the cryosphere that studies how much water is freezing versus how much melts. This gives a temperature change measure for the earth separate from the others.
And, like all other measures, it says we have been in a warming trend. and it is continuing.
Anyway, this is an interesting site.
http://nsidc.org/sotc/
>>Why is warming always believed to be bad or, in your words, a “sad” thing?<<
Because the scientific analysis so far have been pretty uniformly negative.
>>And we’re all still here, eh?<<
Thank God. And the Constitution.
No real scientist (or engineer) would believe that a system could have been stable for a long period of time, if it were controlled by positive feedback.
Well, it's common to attack the messenger, in fact many of us are accused of exactly that when we challenge the Gore's conclusions.
The clear difference here is that the "Australians, not a definitive science source" are simply reporting the data findings of the new NASA Aqua Satellite; Al gore simply spouts opinions about facts he's incapable of understanding, unless he's acquired a climatologist or physics degree while we weren't looking.
Do you have any constructive comments about the new data?
No?
Thought so.
>>The clear difference here is that the “Australians, not a definitive science source” are simply reporting the data findings of the new NASA Aqua Satellite; Al gore simply spouts opinions about facts he’s incapable of understanding, unless he’s acquired a climatologist or physics degree while we weren’t looking.
Do you have any constructive comments about the new data?
No?
Thought so.<<
No, they are reaching an unsubstantiated conclusion about the data and thus attacking the messenger is appropriate.
Even more sadly, the rocord of how that data was acquired is spotty or outright incompetent. In fact, that the primitive satellite data is massaged and used to make those assertions when better and more reliable data is available, makes me think of outright fraud, rather than mere incompetence.
No, the "100 year trend in global temperatures" is not scientific fact, but acivism searching for and massaging "facts" to fit their predetermined conclusions. Science, that is not.
Very stupid statement here.
First, warmer is better than colder. Would you rather live in an ice age or a tropical age?
Aside from the foolish value judgement, however, the "factual" part of the statement isn't even correct. The average temperature of the Earth dropped by about .6 degrees Celsius (1.1 degrees Fahrenheit), in 2007. This is about the same amount as the total temperature increase for the previous 100 years. It's hard to establish a long term, rising trend, when you end up where you started.
There are independent measures of temperature. For example the seas are rising and continued rising even during the plateau of 1945-1976.
You should probably try to understand something about the subject, before you try to argue about it. Here is a good, lay summary, of what is known about Global Warming. It is greatly simplified, but the people who put this together are not liars, like the ones trying to panic humanity into appointing a select few to be our lords and masters forever.
I am sorry to see you falling into the trap that the losers set for us: arguing short term-trends and calling it "climate".
First you make the correct assertion that that is sophistry of the first order, then you go on to "argue" about a 31-year (0MG!) trend...
>>You should probably try to understand something about the subject, before you try to argue about it. Here is a good, lay summary, of what is known about Global Warming. It is greatly simplified, but the people who put this together are not liars, like the ones trying to panic humanity into appointing a select few to be our lords and masters forever.<<
Yeah I probably should have paid more attention to that global warming conference week before last at MIT...
Seriously, if you disagree, you can do it better without personal attacks.
We’ve got people that want to use global warming to end the American way of life. That can’t be permitted.
But to protect our country we need to deal with reality.
And the truth is that the surface temperature of the earth is rising and that historically this has been associated with rising CO2. the order that happened in is variable and within the error bars.
Its also true that making fun of me doesn’t change anything.
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
No problem. You’ll go on the list there is no point in talking to about this.
I hope you are not under the illusion that help America or conservatism this way.
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