Navy Chemist Trashes NYT for 'Regurgitating fear-mongering, anecdotal clap trap of global warming'

Navy Chemist Trashes New York Times for 'Continuously regurgitating fear-mongering, anecdotal clap trap of global warming propagandists'

'Your coverage of the climate issues is a reflection of either extreme negligence or simply scientific illiteracy'

Guest Essay By Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a retired U.S. Navy meteorologist with a PhD in physical chemistry. Hertzberg is featured on page 174 of the 2009 U.S. Senate Report of More Than 700 Dissenting Scientists on Global Warming.

Dr. Hertzberg's August 19, 2009 Letter To The New York Times is Reprinted Below:

Distortions and misrepresentations of your coverage of global warming/climate change

I am a scientist who has studies the theory of human caused global warming for over 20 years, and it is both saddening and offensive to me as a scientist to see the Times continuously regurgitating the fear-mongering, anecdotal clap trap it is being fed by know-nothing environmentalists and global warming propagandists in the Gore-IPCC-Hansen camp. As an example, consider the latest article in today's Times by Cornelia Dean and her regurgitation from NOAA's Climate Change Center:

"The agency also said that, on average, Arctic sea ice covered 3.4 million square miles in July, 12.7 percent below the 1979-2000 average and the third lowest on record after 2007 and 2006".

That description is a distortion and a complete misrepresentation of the actual data. For your benefit, I have attached the comprehensive, latest data record from Ole Humlum's web site under the heading of "Climate4you June 2009." From the data on page 11 of that site, one obtains the following record for ice coverage for the months of July from 2002 until 2009 (after converting square kilometers to square miles):

July of the year shown below Arctic Ice Coverage - Million square miles: 2002 3.3 2003 3.2 2004 3.5 2005 3.3 2006 3.4 2007 3.3 2008 3.2 2009 3.4

As the above table shows and as the graph from the "Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency" on p11 shows, there is nothing dramatic in the data.

NOAA's statement which claims a July 2009 ice coverage that is "12.7 percent below the 1979-2007 average" is the fraudulent comparison of a summer month ice coverage with a yearly average. All summer ice coverages for every year are markedly below their yearly average. The data show a 4 % decline in the yearly average Arctic ice cover from 2002 to 2007, and a 3 % increase in Arctic ice cover from 2007 to today.

If you look at the data shown for average atmospheric temperature shown earlier in the collection of data, it shows a significant decrease during the last decade or so. Data for sea level rise shown for the last 20 years or so, show a rate of rise that is about the same as it has been for the last 13,000 years, from when the land bridge between Alaska and Siberia began to flood as we transitioned from the last "Ice Age" to the current Interglacial Warming.

Your coverage of the issue of Global Warming / Climate change is a reflection of either extreme negligence or simply scientific illiteracy.

It reminds me of the way your reporters such as Judith Miller simply regurgitated the Bush Administration's fear mongering clap trap about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. You helped enable the Bush Administration in its disastrous invasion of Iraq without bothering to independently investigate the facts. You are now enabling the Gore-IPCC-Hansen fear mongers in the same way. The Waxman-Markey legislation for a "cap and trade" program, based on fraudulent science, has the potential to be as damaging to the Nation's economy as the Iraq war was to both our economy and our international reputation.

Is it too much to ask for the Times to diligently research the facts before simply regurgitating the propaganda it is fed?

The most egregious recent example on this issue is the article you published a few days ago on "Climate Change as a National Security". Not only was it based on the false premise that human activity is causing climate change, but you added insult to injury by publishing only those letters to the editor that commented favorably on that absurdity.

Attached is a series of web sites of "global warming skeptic/realists" like myself. The Oregon Petition has been signed by over 30,000 scientists like myself. Also attached is a talk of mine entitled "The Lynching of Carbon Dioxide" and a recent paper that appeared in Energy and Environment.

The latter can be simply summarized by paraphrasing the former President Clinton: "It's the clouds, stupid!". The so-called "greenhouse effect" was shown to be devoid of physical reality as early as 1909. If you or your science editor, or Friedman, or anyone else on your staff is really interested in the truth, I would be glad to provide you with the appropriate publications and proofs.

You, the House of Representatives, the President's Science Adviser, and his Secretary of Energy have been duped by the "Fraud of the Century"! I can only hope that any proposed legislation on this issue will die its well-deserved death in the Senate. But if it does, it will be for the wrong reason: not because of its phony science but because of its damaging economic impacts. The only sensible thing you have done recently was to publish the article in the Magazine section about Prof. Freeman Dyson's skepticism on the subject. But his skepticism was based on generalizations and his scientific intuition. There are abundant facts and scientific data that conclusively prove that the theory of human caused global warming is completely false. My attachments contain but the "tip of the iceberg" for those proofs.

I can only hope that my effort in composing this e-mail will not have been a complete waste of my time.

Unbelievable. They compare a summer month with twelve month averages THAT INCLUDE THE WINTER MONTHS and find....there is less ice.

Since Cog is busy, I point out that climatedepot is completely wrong. The ice summer ice extent minimum is being compared to the average summer ice extent minimum for those prior years. The ice extent minimum from satellite was about 8 million sq km in 1979 and drops to 5 point something this year, apples to apples.

What Cog won't point out is that the comparing any further back can be apples to oranges, or in the case of the chart he posted, fresh apples to simulated plastic decorative apples. The estimates showing complete flat ice before 1953 are derived from a temperature data set that is also curiously flat.

I’ve tried to make a number of points clear to you over the past several years about why caution is the better course of action for now and debate ought be encouraged, not shut out; but here, in one brief essay written for post tomorrow from Australia sums the whole thing up to where we find ourselves today.

It’s worth the few minutes it takes to read:

http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/09/why-i-am-an-anthropogenic-global-warming-sceptic-michael-hammer/#more-6422

I’ve tried to make a number of points clear to you over the past several years about why caution is the better course of action for now and debate ought be encouraged, not shut out;

One of the reasons that I have tried to mostly withdraw from the global warming conversation here on FR is that when presented with an article such as the one you have offered, I realize that I cannot possibly devote sufficient time to correcting the repetitive misconceptions contained therein.

This article says nothing new. This article repeats a large number of points that have been raised by skeptics, miscontrued and twisted by skeptics, and then acquired by someone such as this apparently well-meaning guy, who then processes them, aligns them with his belief structure, and then does not question them a whit after that.

I blanch when I read something like this:

"In those terms, human emissions amount to about 2.7 PPM equivalents. Now NASA have published a diagram showing annual CO2 transfers for the planet. This shows terrestrial plants absorbing about 61 PPM equivalents. We know that both rising CO2 and rising temperature favour faster plant growth. That’s why horticulturalists artificially raise CO2 levels in glass houses to about 1000 PPM. It is also why plants grow faster in the tropics than in cooler locations on earth. More to the point, a recent study showed average plant growth has accelerated by about 6% over the last 30 years. A 6% increase in plant growth means a 6% increase in absorbed CO2, from 61PPM equivalents to 64.7 PPM equivalents. This means that human emissions have increased by 2.7 PPM equivalents but plants have increased their absorption by an extra 3.7 PPM equivalents over the same period. The increased plant growth is consuming more than 100% of human emissions. Is there another (natural) factor contributing to CO2 increases?"

Can you not SEE how wrong this is?

Is it not obvious why he's so wrong?

I find it more than passing strange that there seems to be no updated carbon cycle diagram such as the one you have posted ad infinitum from 12 years ago; but, on a lighter note I’ve been reading Tom Fuller’s website for a couple of months and keep running across this guy in the ‘comments’ section:

[CBDunkerson says:
Logic tells me that the scale of conspiracy required to fake all the evidence that AGW is a serious problem, almost certain to exceed the ‘just 2 degrees’ scope you envision, cannot possibly exist.

Obama is NOT veering away from mainstream science. He’s just more up to date on what mainstream science is saying than you are;

www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2009/2009-09-25-02.asp
September 26, 4:14 AM]

Are you CBD or merely an alter ego?

I find it more than passing strange that there seems to be no updated carbon cycle diagram such as the one you have posted ad infinitum from 12 years ago;

Do a Google image search with the phrase "carbon cycle" and you'll see plenty; I just happen to like that one. One of the things that is a basic in the discussion is that these fluxes don't change much. If people don't understand the basic exchanges between reservoirs, they are going to have trouble with the subtleties.

Are you CBD or merely an alter ego?

I never heard of CBD or Tom Fuller, but the statement has been echoed many times. To believe in global concerted fakery of the scientific evidence for global warming requires such an acceptance of a stunning collusional ability of the scientific community that it threatens basic comprehension of reality itself.

C.1 Observed Changes in Globally Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gas Concentrations and Radiative Forcing

Sorry this is 2001; couldn't find the fourth assessment yet. Note footnote "c" under the table.

So what is the source of the 100-year residence time? Here's the deal; the IPCC only synthesizes research papers; they do not do any research themselves. So this choice (I found a different version of the graph that called it a choice) must come from a reference(s). Show me those citations, and maybe we can dialogue. Otherwise, I will say that the range of CO2 residence times is 5-200 years, and I've referenced why.

Why I am an anthropogenic global warming sceptic, part 3

Read Englebeen's comments. Perusing some of the comments, and thinking about it myself, my interpretation of the overlying graph is that someone confused two different concepts. More evidence is necessary to determine if my interpretation is valid.

Next, on the underlying graph: Cool spells in a warming world

Now, how any decade that ends up with 9 of the 10 warmest years in history could be called "cooling" flummoxes me (I'm anticipating this year ending up between 4 and 7), but anybody that starts their journey on the highest mountain in the range has nowhere to go but downhill, do they?

Well you could start by noticing that all of the warmest conclusions are based on NOAA adjusted data and that most of the warmest readings come from the same parts of the world that have the fewest thermometers.

Still, the bellringer year remains 1998 and I am expecting NOAA to release something in Dec. stating 2009 matches or exceeds that year, thereby reversing any argued 10 year trend and rescuing the red-faced Copenhagen delegates from their imminent failure to recreate the Kyoto enthusiasm.

If it’s in the cards as you say, then going bankrupt now is going to leave us all ill-prepared to move to higher ground later.

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