sunspot thread

By popular request sunspot has his/her own thread. This is the only thread that sunspot can post to, and all replies to any comment to sunspot should go here.

More like this

Bout time

By Martin Vermeer (not verified) on 11 Dec 2010 #permalink

Let's now hope for a Maunder minimum, or at worst a Dalton minimum...

P. Lewis -

>Let's now hope for a Maunder minimum

Very funny. I laughed out loud.

... and in breaking news, markets were thrown into turmoil today as uptake of hits to tinyurls and crank websites nosedived this week.

Analysts say this may just be a random trough, and that they'll have a better understanding in 30 years time.

Enjoy the thread while you can ... eventually, sunspot will show up!

Sunspot:

"Don't you think there should be an independent peer review of the temp record?"

There is peer review every time a paper is published on the temperature record. This goes for CRU, GISS, NOAA and UAH papers.

The data passes through a series of quality controls, starting with the originating Met offices through to the institutes that produce the temp records.

Different institutes use slightly different data for the surface records, but there is plenty of overlap. Can't be helped. They all use different methodologies and they all come up with extremely similar results - virtually identical long-term trends for example. The biggest outlier is the satellite UAH record, which has a thirty year trend (1979 - present) that is 0.04C/dec different at most from the others. The satellite records use completely different data to the surface records (no overlap), and RSS 30-year global trend is right in the middle of the surface records.

So how many institutes produce global temperature records?

US - Goddard Institute for Space Studies
US - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
US - University of Alabama, Huntsville
UK - University of East Anglia
US - Remote Sensing Systems
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
Japan Meteorological Agency

Russia also does one, but I'm not familiar with it, and other satellite-based temp records have been derived from the MSU data by other groups.

There have also been numerous blog attempts by skeptics and others using a variety of data and methodologies. This is the result from a very skeptical blog. They say -

"First the obvious, a skeptic, denialist, anti-science blog published a greater trend than Phil Climategate Jones. What IS up with that?

... Several skeptics will dislike this post. They are wrong, in my humble opinion. While winning the public âpolicyâ battle outright places pressure for a simple unified message [!], the data is the data and the math is the math. Weâre stuck with it, and this result. In my opinion, it is a better method."

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/thermal-hammer/

They also used raw (unadjusted data). Since late last year, there has been a slew of blog attempts, and they all come out closely matching the official records, whether raw or adjusted data is used. Some bloggers have even used a larger data set than GHCN.

So sunspot, you've got peer review on published papers, analysis by different groups with different data and different methods, comparison with raw and adjusted data, and virtually the same result for long-term trends with all of them, the differences being a few hundredths of a degree C between them.

And no UHI contamination in the satellite records.

How can you hold that understanding of the global temperature record is not robust?

Or that any more validation is necessary?

I would engage sunspot on this thread, but honestly, some of his comments just made my head hurt.

Once a conspiracy theorist, always a conspiracy theorist. It just doesn't matter what the data says at all.

"A lot of people in high places don't believe the temp data"

Hey man, howz it hanging.
Dude, what's up with this weather.
I am too stoned to get up, could you check it out for me?
Dude, oh wow man, it's cold. Like snow is falling.

Calling Mr Sun-Cretin ...

Barry,

Why go to the effort of your post you know Maunder Minimum will just ignore you because he/she is not asking questions but ideological motivated.

But thanks anyway

I have a challenge for Foulspot.

For his first post on his eponymous thread, can he follow up on his statement:

A lot of people in high places don't believe the temp data.

by answering the question that I've put to him [twice](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/rosegate_rose_does_to_data_wha_…) [before](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/rosegate_rose_does_to_data_wha_…) - how were the biosphere and the hydrosphere pursuaded to join the conspiracy?

If he truly believes that the global temperature record is falsely indicating anthropogenic (or otherwise) warming, then he should be able to give a properly referenced (without tinyurls) and logically argued counter to the slew of empirical evidence that reflects the many independent temperature records.

I suggest that he will not be able to do so.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 12 Dec 2010 #permalink

I have a challenge for Foulspot.

For his first post on his eponymous thread, can he follow up on his statement:

A lot of people in high places don't believe the temp data.

by answering the question that I've put to him [twice](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/rosegate_rose_does_to_data_wha_…) [before](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/rosegate_rose_does_to_data_wha_…) - how were the biosphere and the hydrosphere pursuaded to join the conspiracy?

If he truly believes that the global temperature record is falsely indicating anthropogenic (or otherwise) warming, then he should be able to give a properly referenced (without tinyurls) and logically argued counter to the slew of empirical evidence that reflects the many independent temperature records.

I suggest that he will not be able to do so.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 12 Dec 2010 #permalink

Do you guys really believe sunspot will show up here? His whole reason for posting on deltoid was to wreck threads. This hardly does that job, now, does it?

Do you guys really believe sunspot will show up here?

If he doesn't, good riddance, eh?

So if we are talking about issues that appear where sunspots and climate intersect, I suppose we are talking about how galactic cosmic rays modulate low altitude clouds?

I don't follow climate change a great deal, so my apologies if this common knowledge; I've often heard of a possible link between low altitude cloud formation and galactic cosmic rays but rarely see numbers in these claims. What is the density of relevant CCN's? How much is this density changed by GCR's? How sensitive is cloud formation to the density of CCN's? How sensitive is the formation of CCN's to ultra fine ionized molecule clusters?

By Starwatcher (not verified) on 12 Dec 2010 #permalink

I went to a sit-down birthday party yesterday. I told the guy beside me that I had a passion for climate. His first comment back to me was Al Gore ("trying to suppress dissent by calling deniers flat-earthers, etc"). Then to Great Global Warming Swindle ("why aren't they showing that in schools, too?"). The climate has changed before. Then to the climategate emails("how come nobody knows about this?"). Back to Al Gore ("he makes me mad because he's making a fortune off of global warming"). He then talked about predictions of ice age in 1970's. I tried to keep him on topic and just have him focus a little deeper on any of these things. But it carried on. My spouse was mad at me, but I really thought I could learn something if I remained engaged. We ended with a lot of stuff about how bad Obama is (57 states, "corpseman"), censorship of Ann Coulter, and how Mount St Helens demonstrates the Grand Canyon could have been caused by one massive flood. (Note neither he nor I is from the US, and the party wasn't in the US.)

I hadn't really heard about any of that last stuff. He thought it made the point that the MSM doesn't cover things fairly. It would be easy to dismiss him, but on everything besides politics he seemed okay.

What did I learn? I think I learned that conflating issues with political personalities ruins the ability of some people to see clearly. I think I learned that it would be better to have a discussion like this if we had a computer so that he could show his sources (i.e. I could show him that nobody is being censored), and then we could both look into things a bit deeper from there. So, yeah, I guess I didn't learn anything new.

[Sunwatcher protests](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-2999…):

I don't follow climate change a great deal...

which contrasts with the rest of his leading screed:

So if we are talking about issues that appear where sunspots and climate intersect, I suppose we are talking about how galactic cosmic rays modulate low altitude clouds?

and

  1. I've often heard of a possible link between low altitude cloud formation and galactic cosmic rays but rarely see numbers in these claims. What is the density of relevant CCN's [sic]?
  2. How much is this density changed by GCR's [sic]?
  3. How sensitive is cloud formation to the density of CCN's [sic]?
  4. How sensitive is the formation of CCN's [sic] to ultra fine ionized molecule clusters?

For someone who doesn't "follow climate change a great deal" Starspot seems to have some of the Denialati' smore abstruse climatological tropes down pat.

I wonder why?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 12 Dec 2010 #permalink

Steve L:

and how Mount St Helens demonstrates the Grand Canyon could have been caused by one massive flood. (Note neither he nor I is from the US, and the party wasn't in the US.)
I hadn't really heard about any of that last stuff. He thought it made the point that the MSM doesn't cover things fairly.

That's a creationist meme. Did he give any other hint of creationist leaning?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 12 Dec 2010 #permalink

Well Done Sun-Spot. Although, you have a little way yo go yet in order to get banned from this 'open minded' blog-site like me ! :-)

By Billy Bob Hall (not verified) on 12 Dec 2010 #permalink

Thanks Chris. He didn't give me any impression that he was a biblical literalist or young earth creationist. Definitely a Christian, but he seemed to be okay with things being old. In fact, he didn't say that quick formation of the Grand Canyon meant the Earth isn't old; I thought he was trying to make a point about replication in science. You're probably right, though -- he may have been working around to springing Noah on me. I'm not used to people taking that route because I'm a biologist and creationists generally jump straight to evolution. Actually, I think they usually jump straight to Darwin....

None of which explains why it's so darned cold.

(hand jabbing in the air)

SIR...SIR.....THHIRRRRRRR,

yes zootie pootie,

thun thpot has been wyting stuff about data in the Rose does to data thread, and lathst week thir, he posted a link that showed that the ice in Antarctica
is still above average WAH WAH WAH

There There zootie pootie, calm down little fella/girlie, I'll fix that nasty thun thpot for posting stuph that made has made you think !!!

Thanks Barry,

Temperature data from the 71% of Planet Earth covered by oceans is even more sporadic. Today, buoys and satellites cover large expanses that previously were measured only by ships traveling different routes, during favorable times of the year, using a variety of methods to measure seawater and air temperatures. But even today only a small portion of Earthâs oceans are measured regularly or accurately.

Compounding these problems, 55% of the 12,000 surface temperature stations operating in 1990 have been closed down â and many of the now missing stations were in Siberia and other cold regions. This alone has created a significant 20-year âwarmingâ bias, notes former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Tim Ball.

Today, nearly half of the worldâs remaining stations are located in the United States, on 1.9% of the Earthâs surface. The vast majority are in the Lower 48 States. And as meteorologist Anthony Watts has documented, most of those stations are near parking lots, air conditioning exhaust ports, highways, airport tarmac and other artificial heat sources â all of which skew the recorded temperatures upward. His report, âIs the US surface temperature record reliable?â is a real eye-opener.

However, none of this sobering reality deters climate chaos alarmists, who consistently show a penchant for distributing dire news releases on the eve of important global warming votes and conferences.

2000-2010 was âthe hottest decade ever,â and 2010 âis shaping up to be the hottest year on record,â NASA and NOAA breathlessly announced ⦠on July 28, prior to hoped-for Senate votes and the Cancun summit. âWorld temperatures in 2010 may be the warmest on record. 2010 will be one of the two warmest years, going back to 1850,â Britainâs Meteorology Office intoned ⦠in late November.

âThis year will be the third warmest year on record, since 1850,â the World Meteorological Organization declaimed ⦠on December 3. Other organizations issued similar headline-grabbing alarums.

But before you say kaddish or ârequiescat in paceâ for Mother Earth, keep the previous caveats in mind and note a few other realities. One, only a few hundredths of a degree separate the 2010 decade from the similarly very warm 1930s â and NASA and other researchers refuse to release their raw temperature data and analytical methods, so that independent researchers can examine their calculations and claims.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/zfd

burnie, I see your stammering again.

Chris O spiel, thanks for link to the giss temp anomaly cartoon.

but did you know ?

GISS Deletes Arctic And Southern Ocean Sea Surface Temperature Data

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/zfe

"Independent researchers" .... who don't know how to research.

Hilarious.

But that's sunsplat's kinda people.

[tosspot](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3001…), you've C&P'd an article by Paul Driessen of the right wing extremist "Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow":

>missing stations were in Siberia and other cold regions. This alone has created a significant 20-year âwarmingâ bias

[The 1990s station dropout does not have a warming effect](http://clearclimatecode.org/the-1990s-station-dropout-does-not-have-a-w…).

>only a few hundredths of a degree separate the 2010 decade from the similarly very warm 1930s

[The 2010 decade is about 0.5 degrees higher than the 1930s](http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091208b.html).

>NASA and other researchers refuse to release their raw temperature data and analytical methods

The raw temperature data is [publicly available on the internet](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/#Climate_data_raw) and the analytical methods are [published in the scientific literature](http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/1999/Hansen_etal.html).

__Paul Driessen is a liar who relies on idiots like you who do not understand the subject to spread his lies. Please stop doing it.__

Deltoids, do you recall your earliest tyke-hood when you first felt those strange stirrings that would ineluctably lead you to a life of pocket-protectors, rubber nose-pieces, oats, tenure, and, even, a pony tail or two? Yes, Deltoids, I'm referring to that bio-diversity "happy spot" you discovered in your youth when you dropped a lizard, for the first time, into your ant-farm and watched for hours as the results of your "science" experiment unfolded (be honest, Deltoids, you know what I'm talking about)?

Sunspot has come out fighting, I see, and isn't doing half-bad. Especially given that he's beset by a whole ant-colony of group-thinkers, deeply afflicted by the curse of that Brit class "thingie."

> Sunspot has come out fighting, I see, and isn't doing half-bad.

Indeed, he's doing completely bad.

PS isn't it odd that someone who posts up "1000 scientists say not" and "many high level people don't believe" gets defended by a troll who talks of groupthink on deltoid.

@24

Thanks Dave. GCR modulating low altitude cloud cover is starting to remind me of Lindzen's Iris hypothesis; A novel mechanism that has associated with it grandiose claims that are subsequently paired down into more plausible lower impact claims after several iterations of near falsifications.

By Starwatcher (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

Has anyone contacted Kristin Byrnes yet, and asked her to account for how we're virtually in another Maunder Minimum yet warming? By now, she's not a bare adolescent, and it'd be interesting to see if she sticks with her denialism, now that she's presumably not just being manipulated by her elders.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

Wow,

Yr comment #31

Hey guy, you gotta read more carefully. I didn't defend Sunspot, in my comment #30. I'm just enjoying the spectacle. That's all. I mean, I don't even have any problem with Deltoid's lefty group-think (and yes, Deltoids, don't be in denial, you are group-thinkers and BCT syndrome sufferers). That is, I have no problem as long as you Deltoids keep your ant-trails off my picnic basket.

mike,

I think you are projecting. Are you a member of that group that believes (against all evidence to the contrary) in some kind of pure individual thought process discrete and independent of social and cultural context?

What is BCT?

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

LB,

BCT=Brit class "thingie".

mike,

I'm a Californian. How am I suffering from BCT syndrome?

Do you care to answer my other question?

How do you define 'lefty'?

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

SteveL, re your
> "I tried to keep him on topic and just have him focus a little deeper on any of these things. But it carried on."

That's something I've noticed; any effort to dig deeper is met by a change in subject, delivered with equal vehemence to the original assertion.

The way I'm trying to deal with it, is to offer to bet on a single specific point. Another (probably less threatening to the male ego) thing to try would be to abstract the discussion - "if you were faced with someone who puts forth a whole lot of claims you disagree with, how would you check to see whether he was right?" or "what do you think a good scientist would do, when faced with someone who puts forth a claim that doesn't match their understanding?"

(my guess is that there might be an inability to think abstractly like this, & so it'll go nowhere; but if so it'd be interesting to know this, & the only way to find out is to try it.)

By Anna Haynes (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

LB,

The syndrome also afflicts Anglophile wannabes--California lefties are especially susceptible. Definition of "lefty?" I think it best to let you define yourself.

So Jakerman, why do people from all over the world yearn to become Americans? You don't see folks risking life and limb trying to sneak into the Gulag paradises you lefties love (but at a distance, of course)? Maybe those desperate immigrants just aren't smart like you and your group-grokker pals. Or, more likely, they know what the score really is.

I'll fix that nasty thun thpot for posting stuph that made has made you think

Ha ha, don't know about making me think but certainly made me laugh.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

mike,

>The syndrome also afflicts Anglophile wannabes--California lefties are especially susceptible. Definition of "lefty?" I think it best to let you define yourself.

California lefties are Anglophile wannabes? Surely you jest.

You might be enlightened by researching the psychological concept of 'groupthink' rather than using it, from a position of ignorance, as a cudgel to marginalize, in a stereotypical fashion, those with whom you disagree.

I'd define my own understanding of 'lefty' as believing a more egalitarian society is a more just society, but I'm not so simple-minded as to believe that is the only consideration in acquiring a balanced view of political theory.

Your turn.

Anna,

I'm sorry I haven't responded to your questions. The 'use small words' condition threw me. Let's just say the question posed in the title of Knutti's paper is an over generalization and simplification of the particular questions he addresses in the abstract and introduction. What he concludes is that a semi-empirical examination of theoretically large uncertainties in net sulfate particulate forcings might suggest a limit on the upper bounds of those theoretical uncertainties. The opposite of what your correspondent seems to be claiming claiming.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

>So Jakerman, why do people from all over the world yearn to become Americans?

They do? That sounds like some kind of groupthink consensus belief to me.

>You don't see folks risking life and limb trying to sneak into the Gulag paradises you lefties love (but at a distance, of course)?

We love?

>Maybe those desperate immigrants just aren't smart like you and your group-grokker pals. Or, more likely, they know what the score really is.

US immigrants are usually very proud of their ethnic traditions and progressive Americans are quite generous in absorbing elements of non-Anglo indigenous and foreign cultures into the general cultural milieu. You might have heard of jazz/rock & roll/hip-hop, surfing, pizza, bagels, etc. Cinco de Mayo is a big deal here, but then, Hispanic culture predates Anglo culture in Cali by about a hundred years.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

>*So Jakerman, why do people from all over the world yearn to become Americans?*

You mean the Mexican's who had their lands stolen? That would be related to the [FTA wrecking](http://www.helium.com/items/140623-the-devastating-effects-of-free-trad…) their employment opportunity.

Or do you mean the South American's comming through Mexico? That would be related to [American interference](http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/US-Interventions-1823.htm) in their homestates that stole their resources on be half of big corporations and undermined their democracy.

>*You don't see folks risking life and limb trying to sneak into the Gulag paradises you lefties love (but at a distance, of course)?*

Which Gulag's do I love (even at a distance)? Or do just prefer arguing with strawmen?

LB,

Yr comments 44 & 45

Great G-ia, LB! Please, I'm beggin' you, no more pop psychology! That sort of clap-trap drove me screaming from California many years ago.

Seriously, LB, as an emigre Californian and a lapsed lefty, myself, I think I can spot you as one of those types with a good heart and idealistic intentions. If lefties were all like you, I'd probably still be one myself. Even your comments are reasonable and courteous (so what are you doing on this blog?), which is a refreshing contrast to the jerk-off comments that typically appear here. But, honestly, JB, do you really think you will be able to get Al Gore to re-distribute any of his extravagant, high carbon life-style accessories to the "little" people? Or get any other members of the "Big Green" nomenklatura to do likewise, for that matter. Don't fall for the left's "noble language"--it's good language, but pure humbug when employed by the lefties that count. And the left elite does not hesitate to cynically use good people like you (useful fools, they call them).

Jakerman,

Yr comment 46

Great G-ia, Jakerman! Such an anthropogenic, GHG blast of anti-American invective! Nothing like poking a little fun at your guy's BCT syndrome to get you to reveal your true feelings. Works every time.

And despite America's many supposed imperfections, still they come, Jakerman. And not just from Mexico. From everywhere. From all over the world. And in large part, they come because America is a land blessedly free from Gulags and the curse of that Brit class "thingie." Proud to be an American. Ooh Rah!

>* Jakerman! Such an anthropogenic, GHG blast of anti-American invective!

Not anti-American, anti-imperialist, but trust you to fight a strawman.

American's can be as great as anyone. I look up to heros like those in the civil rights movement, and the [Abolitionist movement](http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/brief.htm) and global justice movement.

You don't own the American identity Mike. It is contested. Just like you can't paint me as loving Gulags or favouring a class system.

>*And despite America's many supposed imperfections, still they come*

Yes, and the ugly American side (KKK and [OOh Raa!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0)) beat up on the vulnerable and steal from them, forcing them to look for better options. Fortunately the [Nobel Americans](http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&safe=off&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-a…) shine a light on the injustice and work to aid people around the world from imperialsit oppression at the point of an [Ooh Raa gun](http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html).

mike,

>Great G-ia, LB! Please, I'm beggin' you, no more pop psychology! That sort of clap-trap drove me screaming from California many years ago.

Pardon me, are you saying 'groupthink' is pop-psych clap-trap? Then why did you bring it up?

I think that as one of his offset schemes is providing low interest loans to rural (Asian)Indians to buy small solar electric systems would be about as much redistributive 'accessories' as might be expected from a right of center moderate liberal like Al Gore.

I'd appreciate if you could expand on the term 'Anglophile wannabes'. Are these people who wish to be attracted to British culture, but can't for some reason? What is it, in your sublime wisdom, that is stopping them?

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

why do people from all over the world yearn to become Americans?

People like Faisal Shahzad, Najibullah Zazi,...?

You don't see folks risking life and limb trying to sneak into the Gulag paradises you lefties love

Apart from the (in)famous ones like Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Blake, ...

The list of countries by foreign-born population in 2005 lists a few countries that might be described as of the pink persuasion or redder, compared with the democratic politically central USA. Granted, no. 2 in that list probably contains immigrants from former Soviet republics, but one might think that they might want to escape the clutches of their former political masters, rather than return to them. Seems not.

And from those figures, 80% of the world's migrants as of 2005 had chosen a country other than the USA as their destination.

So what's your point, guys? British troops in Iraq caused birth defects? Tony Blair and his successors are war criminals? Pictures of kids with horrific birth defects can be used for lefty agit-prop purposes, just like photo-shopped pictures of polar bears on ice floes? I know, before British troops invaded Iraq, the country never had a birth defect. But now there are all these Iraqi birth defects, caused by the invading British troops. I guess the lesson-learned is Brits are really bad people. Thanks for providing the photographic proof. A further reason I'm proud to be an American. Ooh-Rah!

The Divided States of America has a class thingie.
Mike is pursuing a long tradition by of ignoring the log in ones own eye.

mike:

So Jakerman, why do people from all over the world yearn to become Americans?

mike lost the first argument so moved the goal-posts. Boring.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

Who'd a thought it? Thread dedicated to notorious thread hijacker sunspot has been hijacked.

Oh the irony.

>*So what's your point, guys? British troops in Iraq caused birth defects? Tony Blair and his successors are war criminals? [...]But now there are all these Iraqi birth defects, caused by the invading British troops. I guess the lesson-learned is Brits are really bad people.*

Mike so in addition to your lost argument tactic of fighting strawmen, you also need a lesson in [recent history](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fallujah).

>*The Second Battle of Fallujah â code-names Operation Al-Fajr (Arabic, "the dawn") and Operation Phantom Fury â was a joint U.S.-Iraqi -British offensive in November and December 2004. It was led by the U.S. Marine Corps against the Iraqi insurgency stronghold in the city of Fallujah and was authorized by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Interim Government. The U.S. military called it "some of the heaviest urban combat U.S. Marines have been involved in since the Battle of Huế City in Vietnam in 1968."[14][15]*

Even [admission of use](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2860759.stm) by the US Military.

>Colonel James Naughton of US Army Materiel Command said Iraqi complaints about depleted uranium (DU) shells had no medical basis.

>>*"They want it to go away because we kicked the crap out of them," he told a Pentagon briefing.*

After denying the US's role in the Falluja, mike proudly anounces Ooh Raa! again.

We'll [again](http://www.woolamaloo.org.uk/nick%20ut%20Kim%20Phuc%20vietnam%20war.jpg) is apt. There is a long history of this [Ooh Raa!](http://www.comayala.es/Articulos/guerrabush/colaterales/Ali%20Ismail%20…)

>*Pictures of kids with horrific birth defects can be used for lefty agit-prop purposes, just like photo-shopped pictures of polar bears on ice floes?*

Are you denying the ligitimacy of all these photo's? Do you claim they are all photoshoped. What is your point?

Now go back to the [scienfic study](http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2828/pdf) which blamed:

>*the use of novel weapons (possibly ncluding depleted uranium) in heavy fighting which occurred in that town between **US led forces** and local elements in 2004.*

[Emphasis added}

Go and calcualte the rate of rise in childhood pathology and calculate how many have not been documented in the photographs I presented? Do you want to censor all these images? Do you want [these images](http://web.tiscali.it/venceremos/iraq/uranio.htm) exculed from debate?

It appears that I've kicked over the Deltoid anti-hill sufficiently so that my picnic basket is safe, at least until you lefties cease milling around and manage to re-group. In the meantime:

O'Neill's idiot comment # 53, is unworthy of my valuable time except to dismiss it out of hand.

P. Lewis' post #50 is, rare for this blog, an intelligent and courteous comment. But for purposes of my point, P. Lewis, I think the more telling statistic would be the number of those immigrants who locate to somewhere other than the U. S., but would choose the U. S. if that option was open to them. One might even consider those who are not immigrants at all but would jump at the chance to come to America if they had the opportunity. Do you have those stats? Regardless, P. Lewis, you don't dispute that America is the favored destination of people all over the world, do you?

LB, let's just agree to disagree.

And, finally, just so there's no question, my remarks about Brits and Brit troops in my comment #52, above, are entirely ironic and in no way represent my true views of the British (except for some low-life lefties) and, most certainly, not of British troops, especially those serving in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Brit troops are everything that a scumbag like Jakerman is not. And that's a good thing. Proud that Brit troops are comrades in arms with America's finest! Ooh Rah!

With that, I'm taking a break, guys, so you can now get on with the repair of your ant-hill.

mike bugs out, claiming victory.

Ooh Rah!(entirely ironic)

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

>*O'Neill's idiot comment # 53, is unworthy of my valuable time except to dismiss it out of hand.*

Said like and elitist and titled Earl.

>*And, finally, just so there's no question, my remarks about Brits and Brit troops in my comment #52, above, are entirely ironic...*

So mike's response to [this issue](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3003…) is an unfunny attempt at humor? Witless fool.

>>*O'Neill's idiot comment # 53, is unworthy of my valuable time except to dismiss it out of hand.*

>Said like and elitist and titled Earl.

I should add that Chris was correct, which is why mike had nothing to say.

I'd suspect Bluster is mike's bread and butter, that is if it were not for that problem that Mike's responses are so dominated by strawman assults.

I can concluded that fallacious argument is mike's bread and butter.

Jakerman,

Yr comment #57.

Jakerman, I'm not a lefty. I don't want to censor anything. That's a lefty trick.

Those are horrific pictures you've posted. Some of the defects may even be due to the effects of the weapons used in the war. But then, we might find pictures of horribly mutilated and dead kids from any war and from any side. Dresden? Hamburg? Sound familiar? Let me ask you, Jakerman, when everyone else in your country wears a red poppy on their lapel, do you go against the grain, and carry a placard picturing dead German children horribly killed by British bombs? Or, for that matter, a placard with pictures of Iraqi kids with birth defects born in the British zone of operation? We can be sure you do not, Jakerman.

Yeah, war is hell. But no war has been fought with greater solicitude for non-combatants and with greater effort to limit non-combatant casualties than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Join up and check it out for yourself, if you don't believe me.

Jakerman, you know all this. But your twisted hatred for America compels you to use any low-life trick to further your nasty left-wing bigotry. The only good thing about you, Jakerman, is your forthrightness. It's not much, but it's the only thing keeping you from being a complete scumbag.

Man, I've wasted much too much of my time and energy on you, Jakerman. You're not worth it. Bye.

Jakerman,

My comment #62 is in reply to your comment #56, not to comment #57.

>*I don't want to censor anything. That's a lefty trick*

Tell that Assange. Or your military boys who are censoring the release of more Abugrabe pictures.

>*Some of the defects may even be due to the effects of the weapons used in the war*

Read the study mike, its about the dramatic rise in infant pathology. Its about all the **extra** lives wrecked on top of regular occurances.

>*But then, we might find pictures of horribly mutilated and dead kids from any war and from any side. Dresden? Hamburg? Sound familiar?*

Yes, Put these sorts pictures up during the debate for war. And change your politics and media olligarchy that lie about the necessity for war.

>*But no war has been fought with greater solicitude for non-combatants and with greater effort to limit non-combatant casualties than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.*

The US forces used DU despite documented risks factors. Killing civilians. [Here is](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3003…) your "effort to limit non-combatant casualties":

>*Colonel James Naughton of US Army Materiel Command said Iraqi complaints about depleted uranium (DU) shells had no medical basis.

>>*"They want it to go away because we kicked the crap out of them,"* he told a Pentagon briefing.

>*Jakerman, you know all this. But your twisted hatred for America compels you to use any low-life trick to further your nasty left-wing bigotry*

Back to [your strawman attacks again](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3003…) mike. That is your white flag of surrending the ground of factual argument.

[Here is](http://book.democracynow.org/) an audio book from another fine American freedom fighter. I recommended it strongly to those who care about how the USA's rulers manage the populous.

Jakerman,

Yr comment #64

Late in the game, you've provided an thought-provoking comment.

The protection of military and diplomatic secrets is a requirement of every nation, I think we both agree. On the other hand, you won't find me defending the use of the classified system to hide wrong-doing by civilian or military authorities (some rare exceptions based only on operational or force protection considerations). And it's not "your military boys" who are censoring anything except to the extent they do so on the basis of the lawful orders and regulations established for the armed forces by the U. S. civilian government. So your complaint is misdirected. Take it up with the Obama administration, if you think there has been unjustified censorship.

The DU business is a complex one. DU is used in armor and rounds because it is unequaled in its protective qualities, as armor, and ability to penetrate enemy armor, when formed into projectiles. Iraq, you will recall had quite an inventory of tanks and other armored vehicles opposing U. S. and other coalition forces. On the other hand, health problems may well be associated with DU (but maybe not--my limited understanding is that such DU risk claims are based on studies showing correlations and, as we all know, correlation does not prove causation). Regardless, the use of DU rounds, or any other type of weapon, involves trade-off considerations. Putting the matter in perspective, the carpet-bombing of German cities, in WW II, was associated with well-defined and understood "risk factors" for the health of the German residents of those cities. But carpet bombing of German cities was nevertheless conducted despite those known risks and with the certain knowledge that thousands of non-combatant lives would be destroyed, both physically and psychologically, with scars that lingered for decades. Of course, those "carpet" bombs were mainly British--Americans favored "precision" bombing.

On the other hand, there are many, many weapons and devices used in war that hurt people, and hurt them badly. DU is just one of them. So targeting DU in isolation for criticism seems strangely unbalanced. Iraqi Jihadists regularly set off car-bombs in market places at mid-day so as to intentionally inflict hundreds of casualties on non-combatant shoppers, consisting in the main of grocery shopping moms accompanied by their babes and toddlers. But car-bombs don't seem to be on your radar, Jakerman. Or pictures of those devastated Iraqi market places. Why not? DU is used by American forces, car bombs are not. Could that have anything to do with your preoccupation with DU, Jakerman, to the exclusion of other weapons, such as car bombs? That is, one lends itself to anti-American propaganda and the other does not. Right?

Finally, Jakerman, I note that the armed forces of most nations, and certainly those of the U. S. and Great Britain, are subject to civilian control. It's hardly the military's fault if an ill-judged war is legally launched by our civilian governments. It is not the place of the U. S. or British military to refuse legal orders--even those which might appear ill-judged to some in the ranks. Juntas are not the tradition of our countries, thankfully. And I might add, it is not much of test of one's convictions and courage to be a pacifist, if that is what you are, Jakerman, when you practice your pacifism in a well-protected country like America or Great Britain.

Although I've offered you a forthcoming discussion of the issues you've raised, Jakerman, I'm under no illusions that the issues you've raised are anything but pretexts for your lefty anti-American propaganda. And I note your care to never criticize the British government or British military personnel, when your critisms of the U. S. would naturally seem to extend to your own country and countrymen, as well (after all, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was a joint effort by America and Great Britain). Your anti-American potshots may score points with your Deltoid soul-mates, Jakerman, but your lefty bias and animus is transparent to the larger audience--that is, to humanity, whose one shining hope is the United States of America, the bane of lefty collectivists and their gulag brave-new-worlds. Proud to be an American. Ooh Rah! (Yes, there have been quite a few "Ooh Rahs" in my comments, but then, that's the sound of freedom.)

An overly long post which may, very well, not survive moderation, I understand. Whatever, it's time for me to hit the rack.

Reply to mike part 1:

>*The protection of military and diplomatic secrets is a requirement of every nation*

Secrets [like this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0)?

>* And it's not "your military boys" who are censoring anything except to the extent they do so on the basis of the lawful orders and regulations established for the armed forces by the U. S. civilian government. *

The US has and undemocratic military industrial congressional complex. You erroneous claimed that its only the left that censor.

>* Jakerman, I'm not a lefty. I don't want to censor anything. That's a lefty trick. *

To make this false claim requires that you ignore that the [Bush Admin suppressed the images](http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/09/200992112214934570.html) and that the lefter than Obama American Civil Liberties Union fought for their release.

>*The court rejected as too speculative an argument by the administration of George Bush, the former US president, that the pictures should be suppressed in order to prevent anti-US sentiment and protect US soldiers from any violence that might be inflamed by their release.*

>*Now, a year later, and despite the court's ruling, - and much to our profound disappointment at the American Civil Liberties Union - Barack Obama, the US president, has vowed to continue to suppress the photos.*

>* my limited understanding is that such DU risk claims are based on studies showing correlations and, as we all know, correlation does not prove causation*

Wrong again, in addition to correlation, we also [know about](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TC0-44JYKFP-…) the âreproductive toxicity, maternal toxicity, embryo/fetal toxicity, and postnatal effects of uraniumâ . And we have [demonstrated that](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TGG-45BCSM7-…) âDU can generate oxidative DNA damage and can also catalyze reactions that induce hydroxyl radicalsâ

>* On the other hand, there are many, many weapons and devices used in war that hurt people, and hurt them badly. DU is just one of them. So targeting DU in isolation for criticism seems strangely unbalanced.*

Your complaint that I have not criticized a broad enough range of weapon and device used in war is an nonsense argument. Iâm as unbalance as this in not corrected every one of a denials errors.

>* Iraqi Jihadists regularly set off car-bombs in market places at mid-day so as to intentionally inflict hundreds of casualties on non-combatant shoppers, consisting in the main of grocery shopping moms accompanied by their babes and toddlers.*

Your war created the Jihadist bombers. Just like US support aided Saddam, and trained the Afghan war lords.

>* It's hardly the military's fault if an ill-judged war is legally launched by our civilian governments.*

You mean the military-industrial-congressional-media-complex. And rather than blame shifting you need to take responsiblity for your own part: Its your fault to cry Ooh Raa! When presented with [these atrocities](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3003…).

Mike. You might like to examine the differences between the UK and Australia before honking so loudly. Sure we were once grovelling colonials, but we can recognise Jingoistic bullshit when it's fed to us. Rupert is one of yours now. You sound like a "Company" Republican: Bay of Pigs to Gitmo, you don't learn much do you? How's your health care? Slainte

>*I'm under no illusions that the issues you've raised are anything but pretexts for your lefty anti-American propaganda.*

Once more mike runs up his white flag and [surrenders the groud of factual debate](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3003…).

Sorry mike you don't represent at monolith called America. My American friends have as much right to their claims on the USA, and they don't surrender the gound of factual argument as readily as you.

Mike,

You lost in when you wrote, "It's hardly the military's fault if an ill-judged war is legally launched by our civilian governments".

What is your defintiion of 'legal'? Its clearly been plucked out of thin air. The Germans argued at Nurenmberg that, under German law, the invasions of Poland and Czechoslovakia were 'legal'. So US law means nothing here. And, as for international law, the Iraq invasion trampled all over it.

So of course the war was NOT legal. According to the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Code, as well as the US Constitution, it was ILLEGAL. International law attorney Michael Mandel shreds the legality issue in his book, "How America Gets Away With Murder". Fabulous read.

For the record, Ward Churchill, in his quite outstanding book "On the Justice of Roosting Chickens" chronicles 200 years of US history in what he calls "Senseless butchery and democracy deterred." The ledger is an ugly one. Far from promoting democracy and freedom in its foreign policy, the US has repeatedly attempted to suppress it whenever and wherever it threatened to break out, at least if 'democracy' countered US economic anmd political agendas. This might explain why Edward Herman found that there was a strong correlation between US investment, humans rights violations and torture in developing countries. Its not because the US condones torure; as Herman explains its because countries that routinely torture or murder trade unionists, priests, and those pushing for progressive change just happen to be good countries in terms of business investment.

You also ought to read up on quotes by famous American planners and politicians over the years - the likes of Kennan, Nitze, LeMay, Meachling, Brezinski, Carrothers, Kissinger and more. They pretty much lay bare the myth of a benevolent US foreign policy agenda.

As for Wikileaks, all its done is strip the emperor of his clothes. The major humuliation has been reserved for the corporate-state media apparatus, which rotuinely channels lies and distortions coming from our politicians as 'facts' without challenging them. Basically the WL documents reveal how spot-on commentators like Chomsky, Herman, Johnson, Street, Engelhardt, and many others are in their assessments of our 'democracies'. Little coming out of WL is that shocking, at least for those who know how the political-corporate establishment function. But the revelations are a shock for those who believe in the crap peddled daily by the MSM that masquerades as 'news' or 'informed discussion'. And I believe that I have the right to know if my government is planning to wage another illegal war in Iran that could lead to similar levels of carnage as has been wrought in Iraq and Afganistan. I also have the right to know that these wars are not about 'democracy promotion' but about outright expansionism and control of vital resources elsewhere.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

Deltoids,

I'm back from my beauty sleep, but only for the moment. Jeez, the ant-hill is aboil, I see. A few good points.
Yes, censorship is not only a reflex of the left, but also of the right. Though you won't find me defending censorship from any source except in those cases where safety, privacy, or security concerns are paramount considerations. Also, taking one of the comments at face value, it appears that DU is a verifiable health risk. However, my prior discussion of trade-off considerations in the employment of weapons emerges in tact. For sure, DU was not used with the intention of deliberately targeting civilians.

Sorry, most of the rest was either trivial or typical lefty BS. Not quite at the "Baby Killer!" level yet but getting there. And, of course, always the anti-American theme. Remember, Deltoids, it was a coalition that invaded Iraq. Including Her Majesty's troops. Remember Tony Blair? Some Australians too. Any criticism of those countries and their militaries, Deltoids? Even jihadists deliberately blowing up hundreds of their co-religionists is America's fault. Ah, you lefties. Seen all this before.

Jeff Harvey's comment #71 was rather intriguing. It appears that the Iraq war violated international law according to a gent by the name of Michael Mandel. And, of course, like all the commentary on this blog only the United States was singled out as a violator, including its military. Deltoids, Deltoids, do I have to keep reminding you that Great Britain was also a part of the Iraq war? And Australia. And Tonga, Moldova, Mongolia, and a bunch of other places. Too bad the heads-of-state of all these countries didn't read Mr. Mandel's book before their embarked on their "illegal" war. You'd think those dummies might have had a few lawyers of their own. Can hardly wait to see half of the world's leaders doing a perp walk at the estimable Mr. Mandel's say so.

Now, I've got a real life to attend to. See you later, Deltoids. And you guessed it. Proud to be an American! Ooh Rah!

> Thread dedicated to notorious thread hijacker sunspot has been hijacked.

Unless spots and mike are the same person.

> I didn't defend Sunspot, in my comment #30.

I thin you need to read your OWN posts more carefully.

Yes you were.

> I'm just enjoying the spectacle.

Aye, troll.

> I'm back from my beauty sleep...

> Posted by: mike | December 14, 2010 4:44 AM

Hmm. That would make your morning get up time (8am-ish local) the middle of the atlantic...

Mike,

I never singled out the United States. Britain, Spain, and Italy all deserve to be in the dock. I recommend reading Mark Curtis' 'Web of Deceit' in which he examines the rather horrific foreign policy agenda of the UK over the past 60 years.

Basically, every UK government since WWII has supinely followed (e.g. supported) the foreign policy agenda of the US. This is because the UKs role in world affairs declined sharply after the war, and UK planners realized that the US was now in the front seat. With this in mind, they felt that the best way to maintain some influence in the world was to become a 'junior partner' to the US, and they have done that without exception for 6 decades now.

As for Mandel, you can be snide and dismissive all you want, but international law means nothing when pursued by rogue and powerful states. Its been known for some time that the US violates international law at will, but that's because, when you are the world's sole superpower, you can do what you like. As Noam Chomsky states, 'What we say goes' is the US maxim, and its been that way for a generation, and its well indoctrinated into imperial mentality. Little details like 'international law' don't matter. It was actually quite comical watching US lawyers conjuring up every means possible to justify the invasion. All were farcical, of course, and fell well into the realms of Nazi Germany's similar attempts to justify their aggressions in 1938-9.

Given how little Mike appears to know about the history of his own country both in terms of domestic and foreign policy (hardly surprising, given the vacuity of the US MSM apparatus) I find it amusing for him to even try and suggest that the Iraq war was even remotely legal. According to who? The US Constitution states that all international treaties signed are the "Supreme law of the land", and this would include the UN Charter, which was shat all over by the US/UK War party in their decision to invade Iraq.

Basically, given his hollow arguments, Mike descends into the primordial ooze by claiming that the counter-arguments here are all 'lefty rhetoric' that is 'anti-American'. This is an insult to the views of millions of Americans who love their country but are disgusted at what their country is doing in their name around the world.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 13 Dec 2010 #permalink

>*DU was not used with the intention of deliberately targeting civilians*

And the drunk driver didnât mean to kills those kids. Neither is an appropriate defense.

>*However, my prior discussion of trade-off considerations in the employment of weapons emerges in tact.*

What? You mean this claim:

>*DU is used in armor and rounds because it is unequaled in its protective qualities*

Have you heard of 1984 by George Orwell. Claiming DU shells have âunequalledâ¦protective qualities â reads like something straight out of the Ministry for Joy.

>*always the anti-American theme.*

Not anti-American, rather anti imperialist. But [you already knew that]( http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3004…), you just need to pretend.

I'm going to have to spell this out aren't I. Youâre actually attacking America, if I am. Your error is to conflate attacking imperialism as attacking America. If youâre not lazily abusing straw-men, then youâve been misled ; fine Americans attack imperialism. Itâs a fine American thing to do.

I gained my awareness of the injustice of US military interventions in a large part from great Americans. You are attacking critics of the war and lefties, in doing so you are attacking the noble side of America who speak truth to power.

Perhaps you can't appreciate that many fine American's and I reject imperialism. Perhaps you can't accept that many fine Americans are lefties. Perhaps your definition of American is different to theirs. I don't accept your definition, I accept their definition of who counts in America.

BTW which do you think is more damaging to your politics, the images of deformed children or your response to them? I note you failed to address this:

>*[Mike] you need to take responsiblity for your own part: Its your fault to cry Ooh Raa! When presented with [these atrocities](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3003…).*

Jeff writes:

>*Mike, I never singled out the United States.*

Jeff Its part of Mikes thing. Mike wants to accuse others of a British class thing (especially Anglophile wanna bes and Californian lefties).

But when shown that that class thing was also a blight on his country, Mike needed to change the argument. So mike said people from around the world yern to become American. (Perhaps it was beyond mikes imagination that they want to be like californian lefties?)

When mike was shown the problems caused around the world by US intervention, over throw of democracies etc (and linked that to the pressure to move to a stable countries like the USA, which benefit from the resource of others). Mike responded with "Ooh Raa!"

So I showed him some more of the consequences of his attitude.

Mike has a chip on his shoulder. He makes fallacious arguments, and he is providing a disservice to his country.

So the the roach motel designated for sunspot has instead been occupied by mike.
Tim just needs to rename this thread the mike thread and then seal the exits.

I want to apologize for Mike...and...well all American righties. I don't know what happened, used to you could talk to a righty and at least agree on reality. Nowadays they are so wedded to their ideology that anything, even reality, that may prove their ideology wrong must be ruthlessly destroyed.

Oh and they went bat shit crazy too!

> and he is providing a disservice to his country.

Unless he gets up earlier than 7am and posts on newsgroups, he isn't from the USA.

DU was not used with the intention of deliberately targeting civilians

This is the same argument that runs through the whole defense of starting the war. The war was not started with the intention of deliberately targeting civilians. If they got killed, well, tough. DU highlights the complete indifference to the harm caused by setting the war machine on an opponent. Weapons designers might say to themselves, "do we need to be careful about how we're damaging the enemy? Of course not, this is war and the more damage and harm to the enemy, the better."

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 14 Dec 2010 #permalink

mike is clearly a sunspot proxy. According to the denialists, they're experts at working with proxies, so this should be no problem.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 15 Dec 2010 #permalink

Albeit a weak, scattered, low information proxy of dubious utility :)

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 15 Dec 2010 #permalink

@84: That would be a poxy proxy?

Is "Ooh Raa!" some sort of gay mating call ?

Ihe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change boldly predicted in 2007 that Europe and most other regions were "likely" to "very likely" to have milder winters with fewer and shorter cold spells and cold extremes. (see page 862 table 11.2)

"Fewer cold outbreaks; fewer, shorter, intense cold spells / cold extremes in winterâ are Very Likely (VL) consistent across all model projections for Northern Europe, South Asia, and East Asia and Likely (L) for most other regions:"

(http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter11.pdf)

I can see another snowmaggedongate coming up !!

The IPCC is being proven wrong by the cold "CLIMATE" almost everywhere !!!!

> the cold "CLIMATE"^W "WEATHER" almost everywhere^W^W in some areas !!!!

fixed that for you, kid.

No charge.

akerz, don't you read the world news,
here's some headlines for you. I could find quite a few for the Southern Hemisphere for you if you like.

Monster Storm to Strike U.S.

Germany Brought To Near Standstill By Snow, Cold

UK Big Freeze Could Last Until Mid-February

European Deep Freeze - 2 Dec 10 - Thousands of homes lose electricity and heat.

Will it be even colder than the winter of 1962-3?

Near emergency-level snowfall in Ontario Shatters previous record

Record-setting snowfall brings Paris to a standstill

Scotland braced for three feet of snow

Coldest in central England since 1659

Hundreds Of New Cold And Snow Records In US

Worst storm this century traps 300 motorists in Ontario

Six straight days of record low temps in Cancun - more coming

Freezing temps expected most of South Florida - 13 Dec 10

Record cold tonight for FL, GA, SC and AL -

Snow and storms cause chaos US midwest

Helicopters Used To Warm Florida Crops

Hard freeze in Tampa Bay area forecast for next two nights

The Bitter Bite of Winter, Food Shortages Coming

Cold snap hits Turkey with a vengeance

Cold kills 8 in Poland - 1 Dec 10

delayed flights across Europe, forced thousands of passengers in Germany to spend the night in trains, and left thousands of motorists stranded overnight in freezing temperatures.

In Poland, the cold claimed 10 more lives, bringing the overall death toll to 18, and thousands of homes lost electricity and heat as temperatures hovered around -10C (14F).

Several Romanian villages suffered a similar fate.

In Denmark, the Danish army used tracked armored personnel carriers to help ambulances and other emergency vehicles cut their way through mounds of snow.

In Lillhardal, Sweden, the mercury plunged to -29.6C (-13F).

The Longest & Quietest Solar Magnetic Minimum in Recorded History

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/7on

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/zpq

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/fdq

Sunspot,

Weather, weather, and more weather. You hypocrite. And heavy snowfalls are not correlated whatsoever with temperature. Guess what - heavier snowfalls may actually be a symptom of climate change. And this has been known for some time.

You are an embarrassment.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 16 Dec 2010 #permalink

Do you guys really believe sunspot will show up here?

If he doesn't, good riddance, eh?

Snspt, l' mn: Wlcm bck t th nt-frm, g! Th ntds f th Dltd prssn mssd y t. H, rd yr cmmnt # nd tht dbl-dlx zngr f yrs: "s "h R!" sm srt f g mtng cll?" G-btng, r w, Snspt? G-btng? S, 'm crs, Snspt--jst wht'd yh xpct frm tht "rglr g" qp? Tht Ww wld gv y bg, wrm ccptng hg? Tht Brnrd J wld shr bwl f ts wth y? Tht Jkrmn wld shw y hs blprnts fr, nd rll nt rchtctrl wtrclr rndrngs f hs r-dctn cmps? Myb, jst myb, y wr hpng tht th prfndl mprbbl Mrn Dlgd wld prms t nvr gn jnk-p ths thrd ddctd t y--ddctd t y b nm, Snspt--wth n mr f hs rll dmbsht, m-t cmmnts? Mr? Lss? Hw'd t g. lv ths nt-frm. rll d.

> That Wow would give you a big, warm accepting hug?

Wouldn't that be a bit gay?

Mind you, spots likes Shrub who kisses other men on the lips and walks around hand-in-hand with them...

*I love this ant-farm. I really do*

For someone whose understanding of the world is at the level of a kindergarten level student, Mike, that's quite some remark coming from you.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 16 Dec 2010 #permalink

sunsick:

I can see another snowmaggedongate coming up !!

I can see you're mentally retarded.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 16 Dec 2010 #permalink

Chek,

Yr # 96

Yah got me all wrong, Chek. I was just joshing "Jake"--you know me, right Jakerman? Always just kiddin' around. We're buddies. You know, like you and me, Chek. Jakerman would never have blueprints of re-ed camps. And certainly no lovely watercolors of a bright, shiny, high-tech re-hab facility for denialists, complete with the famous "red button" for the obstinate inmate. I mean, Jakerman, a closet "concern troll", if ever there was one, didn't even think the movie was funny.

Spotty lets not reducing things to using gay people as an attempt to insult people.

Sunspot,

I don't want anything to get out of hand. This thread has been a lively one and a contentious one. In the heat of the tit-for-tat we can all blurt out something we didn't mean. Thankfully, Deltoids don't seem to be on a hair-trigger for "gotcha's" and I appreciate that. Frankly, I was just returning your volley. If anyone is of a mind to pursue this matter further, let me say that "the comment" was directed at me, and I want all further action stopped and the matter dropped.

Please, keep on commenting, Sunspot. You're hanging in there against the odds, surrounded, and out-numbered. Keep on swinging--my compliments.

Mike, you got censored !

sigh,

freedom of speech is limited in here, spoze it's because most in here have such fragile ego's, most of them are shinny arse's and get all sooky when you give em a bit of their own back. So, thanks for the hearty response and give wow a kiss for me will ya.

mike, I often post things that destroy the aGW CO2 hypothesis and timmy just deletes them, so you should think yourself lucky to only get a disembowelment.

Timmy, how about you stop committing censorship by disembowelment in this thread.

Oy pinocchio, how's this for global warming http://www.tinyurl.com.au/zqs

pinocchio blubbered:

'Guess what - heavier snowfalls may actually be a symptom of climate change. And this has been known for some time.'

yes pinocchio, the loons started with that bullshit when All their crappy predictions started failing !

>*I often post things that destroy the aGW CO2 hypothesis*

Smile. Yes spotty sure you do.

You actually post stuff that shows you don't know what you are talking about. If you you had anything that destroyed the aGW hypothesis you would be posting rather then destroying your credibility.

hi akerz, it's good to see you smiling.

here is a little goss for you

An example of rampant misrepresentation of IPCC reports is the frequent assertion that âhundreds of IPCC scientistsâ are known to support the following statement, arguably the most important of the WG I report, namely âGreenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years.â

In total, only 62 scientists reviewed the chapter in which this statement appears, the critical chapter 9, âUnderstanding and Attributing Climate Changeâ. Of the comments received from the 62 reviewers of this critical chapter, almost 60% of them were rejected by IPCC editors. And of the 62 expert reviewers of this chapter, 55 had serious vested interest, leaving only seven expert reviewers who appear impartial.

Two of these seven were contacted by NRSP for the purposes of this article â Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand and Dr. Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph, Canada. Concerning the âGreenhouse gas forcing â¦â statement above, Professor McKitrick explained âA categorical summary statement like this is not supported by the evidence in the IPCC WG I report. Evidence shown in the report suggests that other factors play a major role in climate change, and the specific effects expected from greenhouse gases have not been observed.â

Dr. Gray labeled the WG I statement as âTypical IPCC doubletalkâ asserting âThe text of the IPCC report shows that this is decided by a guess from persons with a conflict of interest, not from a tested model.â

Determining the level of support expressed by reviewersâ comments is subjective but a slightly generous evaluation indicates that just five reviewers endorsed the crucial ninth chapter. Four had vested interests and the other made only a single comment for the entire 11-chapter report. The claim that 2,500 independent scientist reviewers agreed with this, the most important statement of the UN climate reports released this year, or any other statement in the UN climate reports, is nonsense.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/zqu

*You're hanging in there against the odds, surrounded, and out-numbered*

That's a laugh. Foulspot was floored in round one. If this was a boxing match the referee would have stopped it long ago. It is just that he/she is a sucker for punishment, forever confucing weather and climate when it suits his/her narrative and castigating those who use the same strategy as he/she does. For instance, eastern Asia and eastern Arctic Canada are experiencing temperatures that are way above normal. Heck, its been 2-5 C in northern Quebec for about a month now when normal temperatures should be -10 to -20 C. At the beginning of December, only 17% of Hudson's Bay was frozen, when it should be > 50% at that time of the year. But one can bet that spotty will don his/her hypocritical brush and bitterly denounce these localized 'weather' events.

Not only is foulspot outnumbered by the Deltoid contributors, he/she is vastly outnumebred by actual scientists doing climate research. Aside from the usual suspects, no-one here takes a scintilla of what he/she says seriously. Instead, spotty is a running joke.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 16 Dec 2010 #permalink

Vincent Gray and Ross McKitrick arew impartial?!?!?!?!?

HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

McKitrick is affiliated with the Fraser Institute, a far right, corporate funded libertarian think tank in Canada, as well as think tanks in the US that are actively lobbying to eviscerate regulations limiting the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted. The guy shouldn't have even been an 'expert reviewer' for the IPCC given that he's done no climate research in his entire life. Gray has also been a frequent speaker at think tank-sponsored events.

If anyone ever questioned foulspot's utter bias, then this puts this fact beyond doubt.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 16 Dec 2010 #permalink

Spotty why not post something that "*destroy[s] the aGW CO2 hypothesis*" instead of this constant drivel?

Why would you hold back? Or were you telling fibs when you said you "*often post things that destroy the aGW CO2 hypothesis"*?

>*And of the 62 expert reviewers of this chapter, 55 had serious vested interest, leaving only seven expert reviewers who appear impartial.*

Without wanting to wast effort of this load of Gish, what odds would you give me that this is misinterpretation used by Grey and his whackjobs: what is the chance that the 55 were competent climate scientist? The 7 were incompetent ideological denialist like Vincent Grey?

>*A search of 22,000 academic journals shows that Gray has never been published in a peer-reviewed journal on the subject of climate change. Gray has published peer-reviewed scientific work on coal, his most recent article having been published 17 years ago.*

http://www.desmogblog.com/vincent-gray

So much for vested interest from coal boy Vincent.

...and pinocchio snivelled: 'Heck, its been 2-5 C in northern Quebec for about a month now when normal temperatures should be -10 to -20 C.'

hmmm...........

Storm Woes Continue
Western Canada the latest to feel effects of Old Man Winter
Last Updated: Thursday, December 16th, 2010 | 7:46am PST

Torrential rains have not only flooded homes and washed out roads in parts of the Maritimes -- they've also caused flooding throughout the Gaspe in Quebec.
A state of emergency has been declared in the region after it was deluged by more than 230 millimetres of rain over the past three days.
Parts of New Brunswick and Cape Breton in Nova Scotia are also experiencing major problems due to flooding.
On the Prairies, snow has been causing havoc for drivers in Alberta and Manitoba.
Zero visibility shut down several roads in the Edmonton area yesterday -- with as many as 17 vehicles reported abandoned along a stretch of highway west of the Alberta capital.
Environment Canada says the snow will end this morning.
Blowing snow and icy road conditions have also caused dozens of accidents in parts of Manitoba.
http://cfjctv.com/story.php?id=613

so it was a slow start to winter ?

> It is just that he/she is a sucker for punishment,

Or is one of those people who get their jollies telling women how small their wee-wee is and that they need to be denigrated for it.

hey akerz, you know how snow is supposed to be a thing of the past, and by 2010 we will only be able to find snow in a museum......

well, http://www.snowboardclub.co.uk/news-10076.html

I'll bet pinocchio grumbles when when he looks out of his window in holland, all snow and no flooding !!

>*Warming causes more cooling?*

Back to high school science for you spotty. Warming causes heavier precipitation (via higher atmospheric water vapor content).

For those times an places below 0 deg C, that increase in precipitation comes as snow.

Spotty,

Where on Earth do you keep coming up with these infantile, anti-science, abominable contrarian web sites? Is this all you do during the day - sit on your butt and dredge up whatever piece of crap that you can find?

Every time you try and support your wafer thin arguments by linking to such appalling sources, the less that you sound even remotely rational. In case you hadn't noticed, a lot of garbage masquerading as 'science' and 'informed discussion' ends up on the internet because it is deregulated. Pretty well every one of those sources that you link to would be laughed out of academic circles. If you want to show us the error of our ways, may I suggest that you refer primarily to the actual scientific literature, and not some right wing idiots with axes to grind.

Then again, suggesting that Gray and McKitrick are 'impartial' in the AGW debate shows us all here how utterly biased you really are.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 17 Dec 2010 #permalink

Do you mean the politically guided and funded gravy train science ?

The United Nations money grab science ?

The IPCC consensus science ?

The cherry picked stuff ?

The stuff thats full of uncertainties ?

try this garbage masquerading as 'science' 2.9.1 Uncertainties in Radiative Forcing
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/zr4

Sunspot,

You need help. It appears that you are into conspiracies, big time.

Since when does any of my research salary have anything to do with being on a climate change 'gravy train'? This term in itself has been conjured up by right wingnuts to give the impression that scientific research (except that producing the desired results which lead to deregulation) is mostly aimed at self enrichment. Frankly, I dismiss the clowns who have to use this term as a last-ditch effort to bolster their conspiratorial views. And as for cherry-picking, no-one does it better than the denialists. They are masters at the practice. But, given your repeated hypocrisy, Spotty, its no surprise that you'd try and use it in your own defense.

Do you know anythikng remotely about how proposals are prepared and how grants are awarded? Do you have any idea about the very low percentage of grants that are funded? Of course you don't. But since the far right started using this stupid tactic as a last resort, its spread like a disease. Cannot dismiss the scientific basis? No problem. Smear the entire scientific community as grant-driven charlatans. It doesn't matter if one does not know what they are talking about, this is their 'ace in the hole'.
The people who write the kinds of nonsense that you do generally have no idea what is involved in grant preparation, submission and funding. They are the kinds of people you'd see at 'Tea Party' rallies; basically paranoid right wingers who see BIG government under every rock they look. And it gets even more embarrassing for you and your ilk, Spotty, when you have to constantly dredge up the UN as a conspirator. In essence, you drag the entire discussion down to the lowest common denominator.

But heck, you're good at that, given how wretched your scientific skills are.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 17 Dec 2010 #permalink

Sunspot shouldn't be allowed to make another global warming statement until he explains where his free machine is and how it works.

Sunspot,

Yr comment # 101

"...fragile egos, most of them are shiny arse's who get all sooky when you give em a bit of their own back."

You might be right, Sunspot, and it's as simple as that. But I don't think so. My point of departure is the ant-farm's reaction to my gentle joshing of the antoids' all too apparent BCT syndrome. A totally unexpected and extreme reaction followed. I mean, the antoids went bug-feck. Very puzzling at first.

But then I tried to consider the matter from the Deltoids' point of view. And then it struck me: Look, here we have a bunch of guys who can't make it on the really prestigious blogs like Climate, etc. or WUWT. And from the quality of the average antoid's discourse, we can tell that they are, themselves, barely a half-step removed from the peasant class and, in the main, betray their tenuous hold on respectability through their painfully evident and ill-concealed peasant origins.

So what I think really happened was that my collective comments somehow indirectly tapped into the Deltoids' highly-sensitive, sub-conscious BPSAT syndrome. That is, their "Brit-Parvenu-Status-Anxiety-'Thingie'" syndrome.

See, guys, I can do pop psychology too.

I love this ant-farm. I really do.

sunsick:

...and pinocchio snivelled: 'Heck, its been 2-5 C in northern Quebec for about a month now when normal temperatures should be -10 to -20 C.'

So where is the lie?

hmmm...........
Storm Woes Continue Western Canada the latest to feel effects of Old Man Winter Last Updated: Thursday, December 16th, 2010 | 7:46am PST
Torrential rains have not only flooded homes and washed out roads in parts of the Maritimes -- they've also caused flooding throughout the Gaspe in Quebec. A state of emergency has been declared in the region after it was deluged by more than 230 millimetres of rain over the past three days. Parts of New Brunswick and Cape Breton in Nova Scotia are also experiencing major problems due to flooding.

Torrential rain, Quebec, December? That was the whole point of saying it's above zero. Above zero means you get rain instead of snow. Once again your only achievement, sunspot, is to show that you're mentally retarded.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 17 Dec 2010 #permalink

Chris O'Neill said of Sunspot:

Ha ha, don't know about making me think ...

Sunspot made me think (s)he was a person suffering from the delusion that (s)he had something worthwhile to say. Given the compelling conflict between observable reality and reason on the one hand and Sunspot's claims on the other, I began to reflect on the paradoxical nature of cognitive processing and the neorological or cultural factors that drive such dissonance.

It is said in teaching, that one always teaches despite one's intent. One may predispose an audience to learn what one knows, or thinks one knows, and yet they will learn what you have not yet learned.

Sunspot is yet to learn what he is teaching us and we have yet to learn why Sunspot is.

By Fran Barlow (not verified) on 17 Dec 2010 #permalink

Fran, a score from 1 - 10, how do you rate your own observable reality ?

You may learn something from this, 5,881 stations with at least 30 years of data.

Set on Time Scale: Daily. and Parameter: Highest Maximum Temperature, then Parameter:Lowest Minimum Temperature.

U.S. Records
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Climatic Data Center

Records Look-Up · Archived Monthly/All-Time Records

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/zrs

Do you realize that there is an extremely high probability that your Institutionalized thinking maybe blinding you from realities, those realities that are masked by group think and a phobia of being outcast and lonely if you buck the the trend, do you fear to think and look at the alternatives ?

Record Monthly Totals for 2010

Jan max high temp 4, Lowest Minimum Temp 0

Feb max high temp 5,Lowest Minimum Temp 5

Mar max high temp 5,Lowest Minimum Temp 19

Apr max high temp 5,Lowest Minimum Temp 16

May max high temp 5,Lowest Minimum Temp 4

Jun max high temp 11,Lowest Minimum Temp 27

Jul max high temp 17,Lowest Minimum Temp 3

Aug max high temp 9,Lowest Minimum Temp 3

Sept max high temp 21,Lowest Minimum Temp 5

Oct max high temp 8,Lowest Minimum Temp 5

Nov max high temp 4,Lowest Minimum Temp 3

Dec max high temp 0,Lowest Minimum Temp 5

Highs = 94

Lows = 95

Sheeez........Co2 greenhouse warming !!

half wit O'Speal @ 121 only read half the post again !

pinocchio cried: 'Since when does any of my research salary have anything to do with being on a climate change 'gravy train'?'

There you go again, where did I accuse you of that ?

I know that your only a glorified teacher, who would fund you ?

Your pathetic attempts to classify me are woefully off track.

Foulspot.

You're more prone, than just about any troll I've seen, to the hit-and-run method of spurious claiming, with the added weirdness of finding it necessary to camouflage each of your references.

I have a challenge for you. Pick the single most damning challenge to AGW that you believe you have at your disposal, stick with it, and enunciate it to the best of your abilities - with appropriate references. We will then critique it in response, and see to what extent your best AGW-counter actually stands scientific scrutiny.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 17 Dec 2010 #permalink

Spotty even when I filter down the NCDC data to ASOS stations I still get way more stations than you claim with 30 years of data (8,000 to 15,000 depending on the month). I also get different results to you.

Eg. you say you get:
*Jun max high temp 11,Lowest Minimum Temp 27* with 5,881 stations.

But [I get](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/records.php?ts=daily&elem=maxt&month=…):
Jun max high temp 197,Lowest Minimum Temp 43, with 15,408 stations.

If you can reconcile this, then we can move on to discussing the trend line in figure of [this page](http://www.skepticalscience.com/Record-high-temperatures-versus-record-…).

sunsick:

only read half the post again

I'm glad you agree that half your post was all that was needed to show that you're mentally retarded.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 18 Dec 2010 #permalink

Jakerman,
looks like Sunspot forgot to select "ALL" for days and the numbers are for a single day each month, not the whole month.
In fact, checked the first few and it's probably the 17th. Except that March was actually 34 records, not 5, so spotty miscopied that one at least (and only used clear new records, not tied records so down played totals a little there too).

Record Monthly Totals for 2010

Jan max high temp 4, Lowest Minimum Temp 0

Feb max high temp 5,Lowest Minimum Temp 5

Mar max high temp 34,Lowest Minimum Temp 1

Apr max high temp 5,Lowest Minimum Temp 2

May max high temp 5,Lowest Minimum Temp 4

Jun max high temp 11,Lowest Minimum Temp 27

Jul max high temp 17,Lowest Minimum Temp 3

Aug max high temp 9,Lowest Minimum Temp 1

Sept max high temp 21,Lowest Minimum Temp 5

Oct max high temp 8,Lowest Minimum Temp 5

Nov max high temp 4,Lowest Minimum Temp 3

Dec max high temp 1,Lowest Minimum Temp 7

Highs = 124

Lows = 63

Sheeez........Co2 greenhouse warming !!

Numbers corrected to what the NOAA website really shows for Dec 17, 2010

Thanks anon.

I'm at work on a Sunday and really have no desire to be here, so I'll keep my Deltoid inspired procrastination brief.

I've had a quick scroll through this thread, and my immediate, drive-by impression is that the difference between weather and climate seems to have passed Sunspot by.

So Master Spot, please do yourself a favour and stop making a fool of yourself. Have a gander at [this](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html). It's concise and to the point (although very US centric).

I'll also quickly point out that the heaviest snowfalls in Europe and North America are often (but not always) the result of moist, warm air, penetrating north from the tropics, meeting dry cold air moving south from the Arctic. This creates an abundance of, not only precipitable water to fall as rain and snow, but also baroclinic available potential energy for the formation of weather systems to cause said snowy stuff. So no snow != cold (in all circumstances).

And please, for the love of God, stop making the claim that cold temperatures in some places in winter mean Anthropogenic Global Warming is not happening. It really makes you look like an idiot.

Looking like an idiot is Sunwanker's goal in life ChrisC.

From BPW's link above: "Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared".

And in fact the UK is brought to a standstill by snowfall levels that weren't a major problem a generation ago, and the Scandinavians of today would laugh at.

Funny how the denialists unfailingly claim Dr. Viner meant something different to what he actually said in total, or if they'd note the [ever lengthening UK growing season](http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/climate_change/data/da…) when tilting at half-baked strawmen keeps them feeling so self-righteously deceived.

Since overnight minima are a clearer signal of AGW, what happens when we compare Highest Minimum records with Lowest Minimum records? Taking the same 17th-of-the-month snapshot:
Jan Highest min temp 24, Lowest Minimum Temp 0
Feb Highest min temp 12, Lowest Minimum Temp 5
Mar Highest min temp 6, Lowest Minimum Temp 1
Apr Highest min temp 16, Lowest Minimum Temp 2
May Highest min temp 26, Lowest Minimum Temp 4
Jun Highest min temp 22, Lowest Minimum Temp 27
Jul Highest min temp 69, Lowest Minimum Temp 3
Aug Highest min temp 89, Lowest Minimum Temp 1
Sept Highest min temp 23, Lowest Minimum Temp 5
Oct Highest min temp 31, Lowest Minimum Temp 5
Nov Highest min temp 13, Lowest Minimum Temp 3
Dec Highest min temp 11, Lowest Minimum Temp 7

Highs = 342
Lows = 63

Sheeez........Co2 greenhouse warming !!

The fail just keeps on coming...

Oops! Sorry about the formatting fail - noob error.

Still, 342:63...

It must really rankle Foulspot that his attempt at disproving global warming has backfired in his face. I especially like [FrankD's approach to overnight minima](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3025…) as it reflects data I saw a while back from the Australian Bureau of Meterology, and only strengthens the case.

My guess is that Foulspot won't have the nouse to attempt a credible counter to the drubbing that he's received, and that any attempt that he does mount will be cloaked in tinyurls and weighed down with many missings of the point.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 19 Dec 2010 #permalink

confused chekky said: 'And in fact the UK is brought to a standstill by snowfall levels that weren't a major problem a generation ago, and the Scandinavians of today would laugh at.'

no chekky, its friggen cold over there,

Heavy snowfalls -- reaching record levels in some regions across Europe -- are causing travel chaos with airports closed and rail services limited.

Though used to icy conditions, Scandinavia is experiencing transport difficulties, with dozens of flights canceled at Copenhagen airport and train travel severely affected between Denmark and Sweden.

Heavy snowfall, bitter winds and temperatures dropping to -4F (-20C) have made road travel treacherous in Sweden, where meteorologists say the start of winter has been the coldest in more than a century.

burnee,

why is the CO2 in the atmosphere making it snow ? Weren't we told that the world would only get warmer ?

Climate scientists from BOM told our pollies it would only get warmer, drought and more drought ! The pollies didn't listen to the people that have lived on the land and seen drought and flood before, so the pollies in Vic put in a big water pipe to Melbourne, at a huge cost to taxpayers, taking water from our farmers, so city slickers can water their lawns and then buy their tucker from Sth America or China, dumb fuck's are pollies. Qweenzland has shelved their desal plant, (they have woken up to the scam). Victoria's delsal plant is well behind schedule because of the rain, rain that BOM said was going to be a scarce resource, OH so wrong !

So now as the ocean's cool, what do you think will happen to those warmer night time temperatures ?

Maybe you should ask Peirs, he is getting quite a bit of press at the mo, or if you like, I could recommend a few solar scientists that you might pick up a few pointers from as to why the gravey train science is lagging behind in "observable reality".

more on the dodgy temp data here, http://www.tinyurl.com.au/ztl

hmmm..... summer eh
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/ztk

confused chekky said: 'And in fact the UK is brought to a standstill by snowfall levels that weren't a major problem a generation ago, and the Scandinavians of today would laugh at.'

no chekky, its friggen cold over there,

Heavy snowfalls -- reaching record levels in some regions across Europe -- are causing travel chaos with airports closed and rail services limited.

Though used to icy conditions, Scandinavia is experiencing transport difficulties, with dozens of flights canceled at Copenhagen airport and train travel severely affected between Denmark and Sweden.

Heavy snowfall, bitter winds and temperatures dropping to -4F (-20C) have made road travel treacherous in Sweden, where meteorologists say the start of winter has been the coldest in more than a century.

burnee,

why is the CO2 in the atmosphere making it snow ? Weren't we told that the world would only get warmer ?

brrrr....cold, cold in both NH & SH, yes the climate is changing.

Climate scientists from BOM told our pollies it would only get warmer, drought and more drought ! The pollies didn't listen to the people that have lived on the land and seen drought and flood before, so the pollies in Vic put in a big water pipe to Melbourne, at a huge cost to taxpayers, taking water from our farmers, so city slickers can water their lawns and then buy their tucker from Sth America or China, dumb f ck's are pollies. Qweenzland has shelved their desal plant, (they have woken up to the scam). Victoria's delsal plant is well behind schedule because of the rain, rain that BOM said was going to be a scarce resource, OH so wrong !

So now as the ocean's cool, what do you think will happen to those warmer night time temperatures ?

Maybe you should ask Peirs, he is getting quite a bit of press at the mo, or if you like, I could recommend a few solar scientists that you might pick up a few pointers from as to why the gravey train science is lagging behind in "observable reality".

more on the dodgy temp data here, http://www.tinyurl.com.au/ztl

hmmm..... summer eh
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/ztk

here's Mt Hotham in summer today, http://www.tinyurl.com.au/ztm

and now the headlines:

First snow cover for Syria in two years

Cold snap grips Cuba with near freezing temperatures

Cold front moves into Spain

Rare deep freeze prompts chaos across southern China

Oh golly gosh burnee, it must be

!!!!!!!!CLIMATE DISRUPTION!!!!!!!!

*First snow cover for Syria in two years*

Foulspot,

Two years? You have to be kidding. You are losing it fast, buddy.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Dec 2010 #permalink

My guess is that Foulspot won't have the nouse to attempt a credible counter to the drubbing that he's received, and that any attempt that he does mount will be cloaked in tinyurls and weighed down with many missings of the point.

Confirmed.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 19 Dec 2010 #permalink

Larry, Mo & Curly

a quandary, a few years ago I lost about 6000 tree seedlings to drought.

This year I ended up planting about 2000 in forestry tubes and direct seeded (with my digit) 4 -5000 more, it's been fantastic weather for growth and because everything is growing the varmints have mostly left them alone.

this is a real worry !!!

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/ztp

Too much water, next who knows, frost ?

pinocchio, as you can see from the previous link, Australia is going to have the same problem as Canada.

All the biota is going to move north, because of the extreme cold.

> why is the CO2 in the atmosphere making it snow ?

It isn't.

> Weren't we told that the world would only get warmer ?

Only by you spots.

No ! They wouldn't ! Would they ?

âGISS temperatures out of line with the rest of the worldâ, the GISS record has in recent months been diverging wildly from the others. While three have shown global temperatures dropping sharply, by as much as 0.3C, the GISS figures (based, despite the link to Nasa, on surface temperatures) have shot up by 0.2C.

In a second post (âHansenâs 'Hottest Year Everâ is primarily based on fabricated dataâ), Real Science demonstrates that the parts of the world which GISS shows to be heating up the most are so short of weather stations that only 25 per cent of the figures are based on actual temperature readings. The rest are simply conjectured by GISS. This is not the first time Dr Hansenâs temperature record has come under expert fire. Three years ago, GISS was forced to revise many of its figures when it was shown that wholesale âadjustmentsâ had been made, revising older temperatures downwards and post-2000 figures upwards.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/ztr

hahaha, it's getting well known now.

so much for your crappy wood fer pee's akerz

akerz while the hackles are up and the claws are out, why don't ya bang out an e to Booker and straighten him out ?

Tamino's fine work has already corrected the false claims made by Watt's and copied by fools like Booker and you spotty.

Spotty when was the last time you posted anything accurate?

Practically the whole globe is frozen, flooded and below average temperatures and Hansen (the guru of your cult) still has you under his spell.

>*Practically the whole globe is frozen*

Rubbish

>*flooded*

And your point is?

>*and below average temperatures*

Rubbish

>*and Hansen (the guru of your cult) still has you under his spell.*

Nice narrative, pity about being founded on rubbish. Who's spell are you under spotty?

I recall Sunspot believes that the temperature record is a lie and the only true indicator of climate are news reports of cold weather during Winter.

Next Sunspot will be denying the existence of warm weather, and finally, the sun.

> Who's spell are you under spotty?

Bent of course. Since Bent was chucked out, spots has been trying hard to get martyred for his cause since he has nothing to live for any more.

*Practically the whole globe is frozen, flooded and below average temperatures*

Garbage. Spotty is relying on a few articles in the msm and there is no scientific underpinning to this conclusion whatsoever. Where's the data, spotty? Or do you think that cursory views of the www represent a scientific study?

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Dec 2010 #permalink

'and there is no scientific underpinning to NIWA's conclusion whatsoever.'

Climate Science Coalition Vindicated
Monday, 20 December 2010,

âAlmost all of the 34 adjustments made by Dr Jim Salinger to the 7SS have been abandoned, along with his version of the comparative station methodology.

âNIWA is clearly not prepared to defend the adjustments exposed in Are we feeling warmer yet? But it took a court case to force them into a corner.

âNIWA makes the huge admission that New Zealand has experienced hardly any warming during the last half-century. For all their talk about warming, for all their rushed invention of the âEleven-Station Seriesâ to prove warming, this new series shows that no warming has occurred here since about 1960. Almost all the warming took place from 1940-60, when the IPCC says that the effect of CO2 concentrations was trivial. Indeed, global temperatures were falling during that period.

âThe new temperature record shows no evidence of a connection with global warming.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/zv1

Kiwi-gate, the final chapter http://www.tinyurl.com.au/zv2

Spotty, which claims from your above post do you believe are accurate?

What odds will give the story you copy is bunk?

So while on the subject spotty, just how is the Charity Status Cranks' court case coming along, now that the NZ temperature record has been re-confirmed?

reconfirmed akerz ? I don't suppose that you noticed that they had to pull a another temp chart out of thin air because the one that they were was using was distorting the temperature record, none of the seven weather stations (only seven for the whole country, out of hundreds?) showed significant warming in their raw readings.

Now they offer up this new joke http://www.tinyurl.com.au/zv6 without all of the temp data !

This http://www.tinyurl.com.au/zv7 goes back to 1900, NIWA are lying

>*I don't suppose that you noticed that they had to pull a another temp chart out of thin air because the one that they were was using was distorting the temperature record*

No I didn't notice such a thing. What odds will you give that its CSC spin?

>*This series comprises a set of eleven stations spanning New Zealand where there have been no significant site moves for many decades. The data used in this series are raw (unadjusted) â no adjustments are required because the measuring sites have not moved significantly. There is a warming trend over the 77 year period 1931-2008 of close to 1 ºC.*

Oh look, its not pulled out of the air, its just evelen stations that unlike the 7, haven't undergone significant site moves for many decades. I.e its not the adjustment that caused the warming, its the accurate data on the temperature that give the warming.

>*none of the seven weather stations (only seven for the whole country, out of hundreds?) showed significant warming in their raw readings.*

Raw data is wrong data when the staions have been moved, or the instruments changed, or vegitation/topography microclimate changed. What is your point? You want wrong data?

Like the dolts on WTFUWT, and the other contrarian sites constantly plugged here by spotty, rarely is anything said about (1) the fact that the Arctic ice cover has been shrinking rapidly for the past 30 years, and (2) the many thousands of biotic indicators proving that warming is well underway. With respect to the latter, there have been quite dramatic migrations of many species polewards or to higher elevations during the time that the warming has occurred; earlier flowering times in plants, more generations in insects and significant changes in the phenologies of species in food webs.

These data - and there are huge piles of them - are proof positive that the planet's surface has been undergoing quite rapid warming over the past three decades. The warming has not been evenly distributed geographically - some areas have warmed much more than others, and there are seasonal as well as diel irregularities. Sunblot and his acolytes can bluff and bluster all they like, but biotic indicators do not lie. This evidence is indisputable. Given the rate of the forcing, we are left to consider to what extent there is an indelible human fingerprint all over it. And most experts in the field agree that we are primarily responsible. Even if there was only a 20% chance that we are, I would still say that we should try and curb the amount of greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere, because the broader ecological and ultimately societal consequences of this 'experiment' may be quite serious.

With respect to the loss of Arctic ice, there are a number of climate scientists who argued ten years and more ago that the influx of huge amounts of fresh water from the Arctic into the north Atlantic Ocean - as has been happening with increased frequency in recent years - might lead to a breakdown of the Gulf Stream, leading to quite severe winters in western Europe. This scenario might indeed be playing itself out. Joe Romm has a nice post on this on 'Climate Progress'.

The bottom line is that, as humans continue to tinker with the biosphere, all kinds of nasty 'surprises' will be in store that were hard to predict at the outset.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 Dec 2010 #permalink

[Jeff](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3033…).

Your mention of Climate Progress reminded me of [this post](http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/15/year-in-climate-science-climatega…) by Joe.

As Foulspot seems constitutionally incapable of [selecting his own most defensible refutation of the science underpinning anthropogenic global warming](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3020…), I will issue a second challenge, to wit...

Foulspot, can you credibly refute the papers and commentary that Joe Romm lists in the link above? Show all working.

I will repeat my guess from my earlier post - that any attempt that you mount will be "cloaked in tinyurls and weighed down with many missings of the point". I most assuredly expect that you will not be able to scientifically refute a single one of Romm's ten points.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 21 Dec 2010 #permalink

As I have a policy of not following anonymous links, I have no idea what [Foulspot is trying to say](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3045…).

However, as there was, not two minutes ago, a piece on the ABC news about the record cold weather in Britain, I suspect that he is trying to conflate an isolated weather event with climatic trends.

The guy must surely be setting a record for not being able to learn one particular concept.

Happy new year, everyone else. Although, with numpties like Foulspot pissing in the pool of intelligence, that's probably going to be a forlorn hope, climatologically speaking.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 25 Dec 2010 #permalink

>What is your point? You want wrong data?

Of course he does.

head buried in the snow burny spat:

'I suspect that he is trying to conflate an isolated weather event with climatic trends.'

some news for poor muddled up burnie, Deadly La Niña Goes GlobalâPart I

Air travel stalls as blizzard unleashes fury on New York, New England

Atlantaâs First White Christmas Since 1882

Flights out of Logan International Airport have been cancelled, so Christmas weekend travelers are being urged to check with their airlines before heading to the airport.

"The snow will be wet and heavy, the temperatures will be at or below freezing, and winds will be high," said Patrick. "These are conditions that pose a substantial risk of power outages."

Winter weather: December 'set to be coldest since 1910'

Global warming goes gaga

Snowfalls in Hawaii !!!!!!

Tuesday coldest day ever recorded in Ireland - THIS DECEMBER has been the coldest on record, with air temperatures over the first 22 days of the month falling 5 to 7 degrees below the mean average, Met Ãireann has said.

Coldest December in Sweden in 110 years

Snow continues to fall across much of northern and western Japan.

Weather officials said up to 70 centimeters of snow fell in some areas of northern Japan in the 24 hours through noon on Sunday.

In the Aizu region in Fukushima Prefecture, north of Tokyo, at least 300 cars are stranded after a large truck skidded and blocked a road on Saturday night. Many cars slid or could not go up the slope.

State Of Emergency in North Carolina, NJ and Mass. National Guard Called In

Yep, That's Snow Inside The Subway Stations - Think you can escape the blizzard (and thundersnow!) underground? Think again.

Hobart mountain sprinkled with summer snowâ - ABC Online - 1 hour ago

remember this ?

WINTER TO BE MILD PREDICTS MET OFFICE

hahaha, and this ?

WHY WINTER NO LONGER EXISTS

The Abiding Faith Of Warm-ongers, Nothing makes fools of more people than trying to predict the weather. Whether in Los Angeles or London, recent predictions have gone crazily awry. Global warming? How about mini ice age?

The sight of confused and angry travelers stuck in airports across Europe because of an arctic freeze that has settled across the continent isn't funny. Sadly, they've been told for more than a decade now that such a thing was an impossibility â that global warming was inevitable, and couldn't be reversed.

This is a big problem for those who see human-caused global warming as an irreversible result of the Industrial Revolution's reliance on carbon-based fuels. Based on global warming theory â and according to official weather forecasts made earlier in the year â this winter should be warm and dry. It's anything but. Ice and snow cover vast parts of both Europe and North America, in one of the coldest Decembers in history.

A cautionary tale? You bet. Prognosticators who wrote the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, global warming report in 2007 predicted an inevitable, century-long rise in global temperatures of two degrees or more. Only higher temperatures were foreseen. Moderate or even lower temperatures, as we're experiencing now, weren't even listed as a possibility.

hahahahahahaha warming by CO2 !!!!! hahaha

Brrrr.....cold climate everywhere burnie

sunspot,

>"Brrrr.....cold climate weather everywhere in the north Atlantic burnie"

Keep rubbing your hands in misguided glee as you again fail at distinguishing weather from climate. At the same time as the events you quote, northern Australia is suffering warmer and MUCH wetter than average weather, due to a massive La Niña. Our ice runway at Wilkins Aerodrome, near Casey Station, Antarctica, has been unusable, and the Australian Antarctic Program's Airbus A319 flights seriously delayed because the runway is MELTING. As Arctic sea ice production is diminishing, its production of salty bottom water, which drives the oceanic overturning circulation, is more and more compromised. You might not care about this bit of trivia, as it challenges your world view, but when you lose warm currents like the gulf stream, Europe and eastern North America will get colder in winter, and we can expect more extremem weather, both hot and cold.

We could continue this dicussion till the cows come home, but every time you talk about the 'death of AGW' (and face it, you've been doing it for years, and the temperature has continued to increase), you get a little more egg in your face.

m fess, a couple of years ago burnie told us about a couple of his
limp-wristed friends that just got back from Antarctica, they brought him back some ice, how sweet.

They also brought back tales of a massive melt off in Antarctica !

You, burnie and myself know that to be untrue, it was alarmism, a fairytale, propaganda being spread to create fear !

We have a bumper crop of ice on and around Antarctica, it was never even looking like a melt off.

And yep, some of that ice melts in the SH summer.

Didn't you know ? Have a look at the graph's.

[Foulspot](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3048…).

And yep, some of that ice melts in the SH summer.

Didn't you know ? [sic] Have a look at the graph's [sic].

The Antarctic sea ice increase, such as it is, is no mystery, and it is entirely consistent with global warming. That you use it in a very poor (and failing) attempt to discredit the science is simply evidence that you have less grasp of a grasp of climatology that you do of punctuation.

If you require a lesson, [Tamino explains it for you](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/its-the-trend-stupid-2/).

Oh, and to reiterate [MSF's point](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3048…), by your own logic the western Australian heat wave is evidence of global warming. If you dispute this, I challenge you to use scientific reasoning and credible references to indicate why. Of course, once you have done that, you might find that your own blatherings above evaporate in the heat of logical scrutiny...

My guess is that you will refuse to accept this challenge, just as you refused to accept the two [previous](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3020…) [challenges](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3033…).

Idiot.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 26 Dec 2010 #permalink

As is revealed by spotty's sparingly edited copy'n'paste factoid confection above, all Denial Central has to do is wheel out platoons of strawmen, and he'll buy it every time.

And until he and his ilk evolve to learn the difference between confected factoids and real data, he and his herds will remain easy prey to the marketing psychologists selling that product.

sunspot,

Try again at the strawman. I have nowhere mentioned a melt off.

I am merely saying that while you get unseasonally heavy snow in the north Atlantic, we're having unseasonally warm weather at Wilkins Aerodrome, warm enough to melt the runway, which hasn't happened before, now going on for weeks.

Why, o why do you always want to talk about the weather?

"Facts" from the freckle:
Variability = uniformity.
Lapse rate = weather = climate.
Less = more.
Canada is not part of North America.
Ukraine and western Russia are not part of Europe.
We have always been at war with Eurasia.

ah, the consensus

Global Warming Will Dramatically Alter U.S. Northeast

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, October 4, 2006 (ENS) - Global warming will cause major changes to the climate of the U.S. Northeast if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, scientists said today. Warmer annual temperatures, less snow, more frequent droughts and more extreme rainstorms are expected if current warming trends continue, the scientists said in a new study, and time is running out for action to avoid such changes to the climate.

The Northeast's climate is already changing, the report said, as spring is arriving sooner, summers are hotter and winters are warmer and less snowy.

Annual temperatures across the nine states of the Northeast have risen more than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970. Winter temperatures, however, have risen much faster - about 3.8 degrees since 1970.

All these changes could accelerate without action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the report's authors warn.

"The very notion of the Northeast as we know it is at stake," said Dr. Cameron Wake, a research professor at the University of New Hampshire's Climate Change Research Center and co-author of the report. "The near-term emissions choices we make in the Northeast and throughout the world will help determine the climate and quality of life our children and grandchildren experience." http://www.tinyurl.com.au/101n

hahahahaha, wrong again, hahaha

Yes, you truly are wrong again spotty, or - as you so eloquently put it: "hahahahaha, wrong again, hahaha".

A few days of snowfall doesn't much affect the average, despite whatever tosh your favourite disinformers have you swallow.

Why, I look out my window (an infallible scientific technique according to most morons contrarians, and far from being a months long re-run of ther sea-freezing, bitter, brass monkeys winter of 1963, somehow, after 9 days, the snow and ice are completely gone!.
In darkest mid-winter!
What brought about this miraculous heating effect in the midst of all that global cooling you place your faith in?
We need to know!

I don't know why any of you bother responding to Sunspot. He just ignores you and posts another barrage of links showing cold weather. We know this is wrong. He isn't going to change his mind. He's an idiot.

Also, where is this free energy machine he promised?

John asked:

I don't know why any of you bother responding to Sunspot. He just ignores you and posts another barrage of links showing cold weather

I often wonder this myself. There's a great Doonesbury-style cartoon on the "An Onymous Lefty" blog with an unfortunate ignoring entreaties to come to bed with the claim that someone is wrong on the internet!

I fall victim to this often myself, but there surely does come a point doesn't there when it's enough already?
At that point, responding to the troll dignifies it. As the old saying goes: never wrestle with a pig -- you both get dirty and the pig likes it.

By Fran Barlow (not verified) on 27 Dec 2010 #permalink

Fran,

"Dignifies" sunspot? Is such a thing possible?

[John](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3051…):

I don't know why any of you bother responding to Sunspot. He just ignores you and posts another barrage of links showing cold weather.

I usually agree with this sentiment, but recently I've been enjoying the sport of [putting](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3020…) [it](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3033…) [to](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3049…) snotpus.

The fact that he is constitutionally unable to address any of the substantive points put to him is his own indictment, even if he himself is unable to perceive that his cavalier ignorance of substance is a noose around his neck.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 28 Dec 2010 #permalink

But Bernard, you're asking Sunspot to discuss science. Sunspot isn't interested in science. He knows global warming is a con invented by scientists to tax us back to the middle ages. Therefore, the only proof needed against global warming is a media report of cold weather.

Dignifies sunspot? Is such a thing possible?

Dignity is scaleable and relative, so yes, albeit from a very low base and end point. If everyone treated his (and those who follow his 'method') with the respect they deserved (perhaps just a quick link to SkepticalScience or similar), they would scarcely bother posting and their tropes would be left twisting in the wind.

By Fran Barlow (not verified) on 28 Dec 2010 #permalink

I suppose that pinocchio would join the chorus, except that he can't type because of his bad frostbite.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, December 14, 2009 (ENS) - Snow and ice across the planet are melting much faster than anticipated, and the cryosphere - the Earth's ice and snow cover - is very vulnerable to climate change, finds a new report presented today at the United Nations Climate Summit by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

yep....and he's stoopid and fat

hmmm.... the suspect NIWA temp record ?

Contrarian New Zealand Glaciers Grow In The Age Of Global Warming

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/103c

It must be the new phenomenon of "warm makes cold" ?

Has anybody here produced snow from their kettle lately ?

jonny, here's one about the carbon market.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/103d

no wonder akerz is pissed off

There are two options here:

1) Sunspot is a Poe, and engaging him/her is pointless.

2) Sunspot is as clueless as his/her posts, in which case it is also pointless to try and engage him/her. Especially in light of the fact sunspot never addresses anything anybody posts.

Bottom line: Sunspot is a waste of bandwidth and the only sane option is to completely ignore him/her. Since sunspot can only post on this thread, he/she would never get any satisfaction if nobody else posted here too. Let the thread die.

Out, damned spot! out!

By Robert Murphy (not verified) on 29 Dec 2010 #permalink

so merf, you picked up on the NZ glacier's debunking the NIWA temp record eh.

What can you tell me about that ?

It probably would go into the IPCC list of uncertainties !

I agree with Roberty Murphy. Look at Sunspot's posts above. He isn't engaging anything that's being said. He's just a denialist spambot.

I'm not going to post again in this thread and suggest you don't either. I want to see how long it will be until sunspot goes away.

Dare you take the challenge?

What might be as good John is to post in this thread without answering/referring to sunspot, or anything posted that repeats its tropes.

We just use it as a kind of latest climate change related dispatches thread.

By Fran Barlow (not verified) on 29 Dec 2010 #permalink

I'm with John on this.

If none but snotpus posts here, his exposure will plummet and his indignity will be emphasised. Leave credible material for other threads, where snotpus can't smoke-bomb it with his garbage.

I for one will not be visiting this thread again.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 29 Dec 2010 #permalink

bye bye burnie :)

634 snowfall records were set in the USA this past week.

Fran, [you're probably referring to](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/12/sunspot_thread.php#comment-3051…) the incomparable [xkcd comic](http://xkcd.com/386/). The site usually updates two or three times a week if your current site feed doesn't keep up.

I agree the proposed policy is a sound one: my retinas may have been in danger of detaching due to the sheer volume of eye-rolling señor spot's customary non-sequiturs induce.

Dust Study Raises Questions Concerning Warming Models December 29, 2010 6:08 PM

Models overestimate the number of small cooling particles, potentially reducing CO2's role in heating

Some of the Earth's tiniest naturally occurring particles may have just bred a big mess for climatologists. New findings reveal that models scientists have long used to estimate the causes and effects of global warming may be dramatically flawed due to errors in one of their most important inputs.

This revelation is an indirect conclusion of a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Jasper Kok, a climatology researcher with The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

I. Recent Warming - Blame it on the Sun?

The study's key conclusion was to show that the ratio of small soil dust particles (clay), which cool the atmosphere, to large soil dust particles (silt), which yield an indirect heating effect, may be much higher than previous estimated. This is a critical finding because it shows that the Earth's climate may be much more sensitive to solar radiation than previous models have indicated, which in turn casts doubt on anthropogenic warming theory -- the idea that human carbon dioxide emissions bear the primary warming influence on the climate over the last several decades

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/104y

Happy New Year to all.

BRITAINâS winter is the coldest since 1683 and close to being the chilliest in nearly 1,000 years.

Latest figures reveal that the average temperature since December 1 has been a perishing -1C.

That makes it the second coldest since records began in 1659.

The chilliest on record was 1683/84, when the average was -1.17C and the River Thames froze over for two months.

But with January and February to come, experts believe we could suffer the most freezing cold winter in the last 1,000 years.

Yeh, sunspot, and this may be showing that the Gulf Stream is breaking down as rapidly as many climate scientists argued that it would only ten years ago due to rapid warming in the Arctic... Given that Greenland and northeastern Canada are experiencing the warmest winter in recorded history, with temperatures a staggering 5-10 C above the 1951-1980 average, its little surprise that huge amounts of fresh water are pouring into the North Atlantic.

Yep, pretty well every point you paste up here adds more empirical evidence to the fact that humans are forcing climate. Its too bad that you are such a dork and don't realize it.

BTW, its hardly strange that you go on about snowfall records (as if this counters empirical evidence for AGW) and then ignore the record mild spell in the eastern and central United States that has melted most of it. Heck, Chicago is expected to be 14 C today, and they are even expecting thunderstorms in the upper midwest, something almost never experienced in winter. And much of Ontario and Quebec have been exceedingly warm this winter.

This thread should be more appropriately labelled, 'bye, bye foulspot', as you continually shoot yourself in the foot.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 31 Dec 2010 #permalink

Broken glass yields clues to climate change

http://www2.ucar.edu/news/3510/broken-glass-yields-clues-climate-change

"Most of these larger particles swirl in the atmosphere within about 1,000 miles of desert regions, so adjusting their quantity in computer models should generate better projections of future climate in desert regions, such as the southwestern United States and northern Africa.

Additional research will be needed to determine whether future temperatures in those regions will increase more or less than currently indicated by computer models."

Doesn't look to be casting much doubt to me. Just science being science and making its predictions more accurate.

Spothead,

On what appalling anti-environmental site did you dig up that crappy graph?

I am surprised that you haven't yet looked at the 12/31/07 and 12/31/10 comparison in Arctic sea-ice extent on the WTFUWT site. Note the rather remarkable difference in the waters around Hudson Bay and Greenland, where much of the region was still ice-free as of 31st December 2010. Note also that Watts and his crew of jokers say nothing about it or of its potential significance. Note also the resounding silence from the denialati with the area experiencing temperatures 10 C and more above normal since November.

Its now confirmed that 2010 was the second warmest year in the satellite records, and the warmest in terms of land temperatures. I expect people like you to wheel out the usual denialist verbiage in playing it down, even though the El Nino ended quite early in the year and yet the warmth pesisted through most of it. Also, 2010 was characterized by the occurrence of more extreme weather events than in any other year in recorded history. 2011 started off with a spate of tornadoes ripping through the lower US midwest - something almost unheard of this early in the year.

The bottom line with global change is to expect surprises - usually quite nasty ones. And to also expect the usual band of libertarian/right wing idiots to parade their ignorance for all of us to see.

Welcome to 2011, sunblot.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 04 Jan 2011 #permalink

your in denial pinocchio, your myopic CO2 mind has you blinded from the true past, forget the hockey stick, even you should be able to admit it was/is a lie.

(not so)Ancient Tools Revealed by Melting Arctic Ice

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/1093

hahaha....it's the CO2.....baaa

I found this interesting, it's from the era of the LIA.

A 340-year-old bow reconstructed from several fragments found near melted patches of ice in the Mackenzie Mountains in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Credit: Tom Andrews

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/1094

So pinocchio, it was warm in Canada when it was cold elsewhere, could this mean we are on the cusp of another LIA ?

Q....in the 1970's where you a part of the "scientific consensus" that the world was about to slide into an iceage ?

I noticed that no dunce in here wanted to explain why New Zealand's glaciers have not melted, in fact they have steadily been growing !

Yet NIWA says it is hotter there !

Somehow I believe the glaciers

This is an interesting paper.

'This paper departs from such faith in the climate establishment by comparing the picture of climate science presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other global warming scientist advocates with the peer-edited scientific literature on climate change. A review of the peer-edited literature reveals a systematic tendency of the climate establishment to engage in a variety of stylized rhetorical techniques that seem to oversell what is actually known about climate change while concealing fundamental uncertainties and open questions regarding many of the key processes involved in climate change. Fundamental open questions include not only the size but the direction of feedback effects that are responsible for the bulk of the temperature increase predicted to result from atmospheric greenhouse gas increases: while climate models all presume that such feedback effects are on balance strongly positive, more and more peer-edited scientific papers seem to suggest that feedback effects may be small or even negative. The cross-examination conducted in this paper reveals many additional areas where the peer-edited literature seems to conflict with the picture painted by establishment climate science, ranging from the magnitude of 20th century surface temperature increases and their relation to past temperatures; the possibility that inherent variability in the earthâs non-linear climate system, and not increases in CO2, may explain observed late 20th century warming; the ability of climate models to actually explain past temperatures; and, finally, substantial doubt about the methodological validity of models used to make highly publicized predictions of global warming impacts such as species loss.'

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/1096

Sunblot,

There was no 'scientific consensus' that an ice-age was imminent in the 1970s. This is part of your puerile imgination at work. Its a myth that has been debunked so many times by now yet you still dredge it up.

The facts are these: the planet was headed into a natural and gradual cooling cycle in the second half of the 20th century. At the same time, in the 1950s scientists like Keeling, Revelle and others warned that if we maintained (or increased) the pumping of greenhouse gases into the atmsophere at the rate that we were doing, then this would counter any coooling and lead to rapid warming. And they were right.

Moreover, in the 1970s other eminent scientists like Schneider weighed up the effects of aerosols, which as we know by now produce negative feedbacks on warming, with greehouse gases, which had positive feedbacks. Like most good scientists, he changed his mind as new data came in showing that the positive feedbacks were much stronger than the combined effects of natural variation and the negative feedbacks.

This is how science works, spotty. But since you have not one ounce of scientific acumen inside of you, then it goes right over your head.

What I find most remarkable amongst the denialati, who are IMHO primarily motivated by politics and not science, is how people cannot believe that humans can force climate, which contrasts with the huge amount of evidence that humans are affecting biogeochemical processes that similarly operate over similar spatial and temporal scales (Vitousek et al., 1994). Humans are a global force and we are clearly having effects on how ecosystems and biomes function, through a range of anthropogenic inputs. But against these indisputable facts are a relatively small band of clowns who ignore this and focus on climate, arguing that our species is too insignificant to affect large-scale climate patterns.

Moreover, note how selective the denialists are - we know of several contributors on Deltoid who have repeatedly (and erroneously) argued that increasing atmopsheric C02 is a 'remedy to alleviate hunger'(thus implying that plants and entire ecosystems will respond to increasing C02 concentrations which they will - but not necessarily linearly) but then on the other hand deny that increasing C02 will affect climate.

What a miserable lot they are.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 05 Jan 2011 #permalink

lordy, you can't really trust NIWA !
Thanks for thaat link to their Glacier-Snowline-Survey-2009.

Here is their latest,

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/1098

yep, still growing ! you might notice that they are still trying to make up excuses, this study http://www.tinyurl.com.au/103c must have been so embarrassing for them, especially after being caught out with the dodgy temperature record.

Here is their latest

Did you stick a trend line on the graph on that page you linked before you started on the snide response SS?

Oh no, I see you didn't?

Now sunspot is cherry-picking a single year (2010) and getting ever more ludicrous.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 05 Jan 2011 #permalink

*Now sunspot is cherry-picking a single year (2010) and getting ever more ludicrous*

Which says a lot, considering how ludicrous spotty was to begin with...

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 05 Jan 2011 #permalink

Chris,

Excellent post! From this and the earlier work by Keeling et al. it shows how many scientists accurately predicted the effects of increasing atmospheric C02 on climate patterns down the road before and before they had been mainfested. Naomi Oreskes has already highlighted this fact in many of her talks.

Given this fact, its no wonder that the small band of 'sceptics' are really a bunch of laughingstocks. And its also hardly a surprise that there are very few really statured scientists in their ranks.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 05 Jan 2011 #permalink

pinocchio, for a scientist your powers of observation are severely lacking, go back and have a look at those two side by side pictures of sea ice from Cryosphere Today http://www.tinyurl.com.au/109l then ask yourself why dont they show the thick ice concentration in the Sea of Okhotsk ?

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/109k

So GISS extrapolates and Cryosphere Today conceals !

I'll bet you step in a lot of dog shit.

happy new year akerz :)

a growing body of dissent in the scientific blogosphere has cast serious doubts on the findings and called into question the ponderous nature of the classic peer-review system on which science is based.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/109r

Keep dreaming SS.

The Freckle again shows his epic projecting skills in displaying his own astonishing lack of observation.

"why dont they show the thick ice concentration in the Sea of Okhotsk ?"
They do - look at the southwest corner of the sea. If you don't like Cryosphere Today's picture, perhaps a satellite [photo](http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r06c06.201100…)
would be preferred. North is towards the bottom left of the photo. Lines up pretty much exactly with [Cryosphere Today](http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.0…).

Plenty of ice in the southwest corner of the sea, in Sakhalin Gulf. And where are the ships? [Right where the ice is](http://news.ph.msn.com/business/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4559693?)
"10 ships were initially trapped by ice in the Sakhalin Gulf in the south-west of the Sea of Okhotsk, but seven managed to escape. A further two ships later became trapped this week, despite weather warnings. It was these ships, with more than 100 people aboard, that were freed Wednesday."

I love this thread. Just when you think one person can't give us any more fail, he does!

Spothead,

Your arguments have been categorically debunked by FrankD and JAkerman. Chris also destroyed your mythical argument that the main scientific concern of the 1970s was of an 'imminent' ice age.

Your intellectual strategy here - if one can call it that - is 'hit and run'. Other contrarians have done the same thing many, many times. The strategy involves throwing a fallacious argument forward, repeating it, having it categorically debunked, and then moving on to the next fallacious argument. You are a master at this kind of thing.

You must realize by now how much of an idiot your appear to just about everyone here. And yet you persist. One can certainly say that you are a sucker for punishment.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 05 Jan 2011 #permalink

pinoccio grumbled :'Also, 2010 was characterized by the occurrence of more extreme weather events than in any other year in recorded history. 2011 started off with a spate of tornadoes ripping through the lower US midwest - something almost unheard of this early in the year. '

Signals of Anthropogenic Climate Change in Disaster Data.........

Based on the results from our emergence time scale analysis we urge extreme caution in attributing short term trends (i.e., over many decades and longer) in normalized US tropical cyclone losses to anthropogenic climate change. The same conclusion applies to global weather-related natural disaster losses at least in the near future. Not only is short term variability not âclimate changeâ (which the IPCC defines on time scales of 30 to 50 years or longer), but anthropogenic climate change signals are very unlikely to emerge in US tropical cyclone losses at time scales of less than a century under the projections examined here.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10a4

also.........

Weather bureau reports record low number of typhoons in 2010
2010/12/29 http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10a5

and.....you got your wish

'rather remarkable difference in the waters around Hudson Bay and Greenland, where much of the region was still ice-free as of 31st December 2010'

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10a6

do your students read your posts ? surely they would have to wonder about what your teaching ?

and this pindickio

Dr. Ryan Maue, WUWT contributor and the keeper of the Florida State University dataset on Accumlated Cyclone Energy, has this to say:

2010 is in the books: Global Tropical Cyclone Accumulated Cyclone Energy [ACE] remains lowest in at least three decades, and expected to decrease even further⦠For the calendar year 2010, a total of 46 tropical cyclones of tropical storm force developed in the Northern Hemisphere, the fewest since 1977.

For the calendar-year 2010, there were 66-tropical cyclones globally, the fewest in the reliable record (since 1970)!

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10a8

try again

Dr. Ryan Maue, WUWT contributor and the keeper of the Florida State University dataset on Accumlated Cyclone Energy, has this to say:

2010 is in the books: Global Tropical Cyclone Accumulated Cyclone Energy [ACE] remains lowest in at least three decades, and expected to decrease even further⦠For the calendar year 2010, a total of 46 tropical cyclones of tropical storm force developed in the Northern Hemisphere, the fewest since 1977.

For the calendar-year 2010, there were 66-tropical cyclones globally, the fewest in the reliable record (since 1970)!

Sunblot,

Look at the WTFUWT graph again. And again. Until it sinks into your thick head. Hudson's Bay is normally freezing over in its entirety by late November. As of January 5th, at least a third of it on the eastern side is not frozen. This is remarkable. I grew up in Canada and the region around James Bay and Hudson's Bay are normally ice-boxes by mid to late November. The fact is, blotto, that the weather around the eastern ring of Hudson's Bay and towards Greenland has been exceedingly warm over the past couple of months. More from Joe Romm at climate progress:

http://climateprogress.org/2011/01/05/nsidc-lowest-december-arctic-sea-…

*As for this: "Dr. Ryan Maue, WUWT contributor"...*

Enough said. Anyone contributing to that appalling site is to be ignored by default.

As for extreme events, we had record setting floods in Pakistan and Australia and a heat wave that was off the charts in western Asia and eastern Europe for starters...

Finally, given that your arguments have been hammered time, and time, and time again, and mysteriously you drop them afterwards and move on to another theme (see my last posting) it takes a lot of hubris from you to comment on anything related to science.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 05 Jan 2011 #permalink

The Freckle now shows he has mastered another field of fail - tropical cyclones.

Anyone who knows anything about tropical storms knows that the each basin shows its own cyclical behaviour. Activity at the peak can be five or six times that at the trough, and that cycle swamps any long term signal over the short term. The clearest cycle is in the Atlantic and the eastern Pacific, which are linked, with Atlantic peaks (early 1950's, early 2000's) corresponding to eastern Pacific lows, and vice versa (late 70's). This is tightly coupled to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

The northwestern Pacific has its own cycle, dominated by the PDO, but with other cyclical processes adding their own "beat". This peaked in the mid 1950s and mid 1990s, and is now approaching its low point. The other thing to note is that the NW Pacific has much more activity than any other basin - it contributes as much to ACE totals as all other basins combined. When the NW Pacific is low, the global total is low, when it is high, global levels are high.

So, why is activity at its lowest for 30 years? Because the NW Pacfic is. And that is because it is reaching the bottom of its cycle. Indeed, it will probably continue to fall for a few more years. Then it will start trending up again for the following 20-odd years (while the smaller Atlantic total continues to trend down from its 00's peak) and overall, global results would go up.

It will take several cycles to show a trend, and Maue, for reasons best known to himself decided to start his data set in 1971, when there is good data from the mid-50's and incomplete-but-usable data going back to the 19th century. If I recall correctly, Maue also uses his own unique non-standard definition of ACE, which casts some doubt over the accuracy of his data.

But the point is this: Maue's data does not even cover one full cycle for the major basins, so talking about "Lowest in 30 years" is simply a cherry pick. Effectively his statements reflect conditions in one basin over an incomplete cycle. Not very indicative of anything, really.

Which won't stop the mill using it as the raw material for its production line of BS.

Cuccinelli ?

hmmm....who's side is he really on ?

01/05/11 In response to a previous FOIA request, U.Va. denied these records existed. However, during Cuccinelli's pre-investigation under the Virginia Fr*ud Against Taxpayers Act ("FATA"), a 2007 law passed unanimously by Virginia's legislature, which clearly covers the work of taxpayer-funded academics, U.Va. stunningly dropped this stance. For this reversal, the taxpayers of Virginia owe Cuccinelli a debt of gratitude.

Still, the school has spent upward of half a million dollars to date fighting Cuccinelli's pursuit, now before the Virginia Supreme Court. However, Virginia's transparency statute FOIA gives the school one week to produce the documents, and offers no exemption for claims U.Va. is using to block Cuccinelli's inquiry.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10b9

thanks for that frank,

pindickio, NSIDC isn't as alarmed as you are.

As in November, ice extent in December 2010 was unusually low in both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Arctic, but particularly in Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait (between southern Baffin Island and Labrador), and in Davis Strait (between Baffin Island and Greenland). Normally, these areas are completely frozen over by late November. In the middle of December, ice extent stopped increasing for about a week, an unusual "BUT NOT UNIQUE EVENT".

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Alarmists, the 65 percenters !

Milgram once wrote that we are "puppets controlled by the strings of society". Yet what is also true is that not all puppets jump when their strings are pulled.

Sunblot,

As usual you cherry pick. Notable is what you left out:

Most notably, this: *December 2010 compared to past years:
December 2010 had the lowest ice extent for the month since the beginning of satellite records. The linear rate of decline for the month is â3.5% per decade*.

And also this: *Conditions in context: The low ice conditions in December occurred in conjunction with above-average air temperatures in regions where ice would normally expand at this time of year. Air temperatures over eastern Siberia were 6 to 10 degrees Celsius (11 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal in December. Over the eastern Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Baffin Bay/Davis Strait and Hudson Bay, temperatures were at least 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than average. Southern Baffin Island had the largest anomalies, with temperatures over 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than normal. By sharp contrast, temperatures were lower than average (4 to 7 degrees Celsius, 7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit) over the Alaska-Yukon border, north-central Eurasia, and Scandinavia*.

The warm temperatures in December came from two sources: unfrozen areas of the ocean continued to release heat to the atmosphere, and an unusual circulation pattern brought warm air into the Arctic from the south. Although the air temperatures were still below freezing on average, the additional ocean and atmospheric heat slowed ice growth.

That IS the bottm line, you nitwit.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 06 Jan 2011 #permalink

In the abstract, Trenberth et al write, âHowever, most of the delayed warming outside of the tropical Pacific comes from persistent changes in atmospheric circulation forced from the tropical Pacific. A major part of the ocean heat loss to the atmosphere is through evaporation and thus is realized in the atmosphere as latent heating in precipitation, which drives teleconnections. Reduced precipitation and increased solar radiation in Australia, Southeast Asia, parts of Africa, and northern South America contribute to surface warming that peaks several months after the El Nino event.

Teleconnections contribute to the extensive warming over Alaska and western Canada through a deeper Aleutian low and stronger southerly flow into these regions 0â12 months later.â

In other words, there are El Nino-induced processes other than heat transfer that cause warming outside of the tropical Pacific.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10bh

Ahhhh.....the sky is falling !!!!

local weather pindickio, its been warm in Canada the past, just like Australia and Pakistan have had drought and floods before.

Read this again, blotto:

*December 2010 compared to past years: December 2010 had the lowest ice extent for the month since the beginning of satellite records. The linear rate of decline for the month is â3.5% per decade*.

Hardly trivial.

This dispenses with you nonsense, just like all of the other garbage you peddle on here is dispenses with. It also explains why you are restricted to this single thread. Your gibberish would pollute up the others.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 07 Jan 2011 #permalink

Sunny, I don't know how anyone has the patience anymore but nevertheless, one day .... maybe one day (or more likely never) you'll twig that the climate change issue is about the ever increasing average global temperature as distinct from local temperatures, however 'record' they may be at any one time.

The difference really isn't that difficult to understand.

And the stupid crowing "comebacks" only serve to make you look even more stupid.

twas pinocchio confusing weather and climate again checky, you seen this paper ?

Recent Energy Balance of Earth

Recently Lyman et al. [1] have estimated a robust global warming trend of 0.63 ± 0.28 W/m2 for Earth during 1993-2008, calculated from ocean heat content anomaly (OHC) data. This value is not representative of the recent (2003-2008) warming/cooling rate because of a âflatten-ingâ that occurred around 2001-2002. Using only 2003- 2008 data, we find cooling, not warming. This result does not support the existence of a large frequently-cited positive computed radiative imbalance (see, for example, Trenberth and Fasullo [2]).

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10bj

International Journal of Geosciences, 2010, 1, 99-101
doi:10.4236/ijg.2010.13013 Published Online November 2010

Chek,

Agreed. The report I referred to said this:

*December 2010 compared to past years: December 2010 had the lowest ice extent for the month since the beginning of satellite records. The linear rate of decline for the month is â3.5% per decade*.

As I said, this is hardly a trivial finding. It shows a temporal trend that, given the scales at which the process occurs and is generated, is highly significant and worrying.

Sunblot ignored this and makes pedantic comments over and over again. He has been so comprehensively demolished here and on other threads previously and yet he always replies with retorts that are mind-numbingly stupid and irrelevant.
If this was a boxing match he would have been pummelled into submission before round two. Yet he keeps getting up...

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 07 Jan 2011 #permalink

Note how sunblot cites a journal that does not even appear on the ISI web of Science. If the authors were so critical of the Nature article, why publish a rebuttal in what IMHO is a mickey-mouse source?

Did they try with Nature and have their arguments so comprehensively rebutted that they were forced to go to the bottom of the barrel? Or go for any number of top journals in the field to express their disagreement? The source of the article should tell you a lot about its strength.

I have seen this trick repeated by the denialati time and again. They cite the most obscure sources and journals for articles that fall well outside the academic mainstream, and which have few if any citations. The most recent example was over the debate on atmospheric C02 on plant growth and quality. Some of the articles picked by a contrarian I debated here were in exceedingly obscure journals and had been cited less than 5 times in almost 30 years. Yet they were cited by him as 'proof' of his arguments.

As scientists like myself well know, the quality of a journal is based on the number of times that articles are cited in it by our peers. Because of this the majority of articles in the best journals are rejected after (or even before) peer-review, whereas the weaker journals generally have much less rigid requirements for acceptance. Of course I wouldn't expect a ninny like sunblot to understand any of this, given the content (or lack thereof) in his posts. He just assumes that everything he reads as a denialist that supports his views, no matter what its source, is good, sound science, whereas the articles published in the most esteemed and rigidly peer-reviewed journals that do not support his views are junk.

And what does his last post have to do with the fact of rapidly shrinking Arctic ice? Why oh why do I waste my breath on this person? Sigh.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 07 Jan 2011 #permalink

They go on to state..........

In our opinion, the missing energy problem is probably caused by a serious overestimate by TF of FTOA, which, they state, is most accurately determined by mod-eling.
In summary, we find that estimates of the recent (2003-2008) OHC rates of change are preponderantly negative. This does not support the existence of either a large positive radiative imbalance or a âmissing en-ergy.â

can you demolish this paper pindickio ?

This would confirm that you are confusing weather and climate, the CO2 hypothesis is in the dustbin !

> can you demolish this paper pindickio ?

Easily. You even give the problem with this "paper" yourself:

> In our opinion ...

"This would confirm that you are confusing weather and climate, the CO2 hypothesis is in the dustbin!"

Says our resident scientific illiterate, basing his arguments on a paper published in an obscure source that will be ignored. Why did the authors choose a journal where only those like spotty will find it?

And the same dupe curiously ignores the other gaffes he repeatedly makes e.g. the exten of Arctic sea ice loss, measured at 3.5% per decade since records were kept.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 07 Jan 2011 #permalink

is baffin and hudson bay's anywhere near here ?

Greenland warming of 1920-1930 and 1995-2005

Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L11707, 13 June 2006,

An important question is to what extent can the current (1995-2005) temperature increase in Greenland coastal regions be interpreted as evidence of man-induced global warming? Although there has been a considerable temperature increase during the last decade (1995 to 2005) a similar increase and at a faster rate occurred during the early part of the 20th century (1920 to 1930) when carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases could not be a cause. The Greenland warming of 1920 to 1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for period of warming to arise. The observed 1995-2005 temperature increase seems to be within a natural variability of Greenland climate. A general increase in solar activity [Scafetta and West, 2006] since 1990s can be a contributing factor as well as the sea surface temperature changes of tropical ocean [Hoerling et al., 2001].

[21] The glacier acceleration observed during the 1996-2005 period [Rignot and Kanagaratnam, 2006] has probably occurred previously. There should have been the same or more extensive acceleration during the 1920-1930 warming as well as during the Medieval Warm period in Greenland [Dahl-Jensen et al., 1998; DeMenocal et al., 2000] when Greenland temperatures were generally higher than today. The total Greenland mass seems to be stable or slightly growing [Zwally et al., 2005].

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10ch

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10ci

CO2 eh, unprecedented warmth eh ! idiots !

Sunblot,

Mr. cherry-pick. Again, previous warming episodes have nix to do with what is happening today and especially the rate at which it is. You give the impression that only a few scientists have linked C02 with warming. As has been discussed widely, this is not the case. It has been known for many decades and the vast majority of scientists doing the actual research broadly agree on this issue, even if a few mostly pseudos don not.

The bottom line is that you are an idiot. You have no scientific acumen whatsoever, and crave attention. Note how most of the posters here have abandoned this thread long ago, since your gibberish has been repeatedly dismissed.

Science has moved on sunblot. And so will I. Enjoy your lonely vigil on your own thread where you can rant and rave and blather on at will. But do not expect anyone to reply.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 08 Jan 2011 #permalink

âThere are three types of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.â -Mark Twain.

bye bye pinocchio :) you lost, you could only supply insults, nothing of substance, only speculation.

Do these Met Office experts ever look beyond those computer models which tell them that 2010 was the second hottest year in history? Only a few days after she made this remark, the east coast of the USA suffered one of the worst snowstorms ever recorded. There have been similar freezing disasters in south China, Japan, central Russia and right round the northern hemisphere.
(also cold SH summer and plummeting ocean temperatures).

The only evidence the Met Office and its warmist allies can adduce to support their belief in the warmth of 2010 is that in certain parts of the world, such as Greenland, Baffin Island and the southern half of Hudson Bay, it was warmer than average. Yet even there temperatures are currently plummeting: Hudson Bay and Baffin Island are rapidly freezing, at well below zero.

The desperate attempt to establish 2010 as an outstandingly warm year also relies on increasingly questionable official data records, such as that run by Dr James Hansen, partly based on large areas of the world which have no weather stations (more than 60 per cent of these have been lost since 1990). The gaps are filled in by the guesswork of computer models, designed by people who have an interest in showing that the Earth is continuing to warm.

It is this kind of increasingly suspect modelling that the Met Office depends on for its forecasts and the IPCC for its projections of climate a century ahead.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10d2

I was going to do a bit on Hansen's failed predictions, the problem is that there are so many !

Also I realized that you all know that he is a psychopathic liar, you all just don't want to recognize the fact that your guru is a rubber room candidate.

Wild Sea Level Predictions By Stefan Rahmstorf, The IPCC's Hysterical Sea Level Expert, Found To Be Wrong

Read here and here. German climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf has made a name for himself by predicting incredible sea level rises due to global warming. These "predictions" of course are based on computer models, which history tells us are completely worthless when predicting the chaotic climate of Earth.

Regardless, this hasn't stopped Stefan from avidly seeking the media limelight by announcing scary sea level increases generated by the dubious models.

Unfortunately for Stefan, the actual facts are always the proof that determines if model predictions have real-world value. The latest data, from the premier sea-level measuring program in the Pacific managed by the Aussies, totally shatters the Rahmstorf prediction that global warming is causing accelerated sea level rise trend. As the chart below indicates, there is no trend of sea level rise acceleration across the Pacific.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10d4

and.......

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10d5

the lie is unraveling for all to see

the lie is unraveling for all to see

That lie being that Watts, Codling and Booker have the slightest clue worth consideration about science.

You're right about that Spotty, but you love them anyway.

chekie.

I was over at skepticalscience reading their theories on CO2 lag, comments were interesting.

Anyways, hypothetically of coarse, if you were going to wager your entire fortune on which way the near future global temperature will go, based upon on this http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10d6

which way would you bet ?

Congratulations Bernard J http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10ft

Your the first sicko that I've seen to use the suffering, deaths and personal loss to try and blame the Qld floods on CO2 !

That BOM graph that you linked to show's the gradual rise of ocean temperature from the Little Ice Age you fool !

burnie said: 'they'll be much more common in the future as the sea surface temperatures continue to warm and to give rise to La Niña events as strong as the current one, or stronger.'

have you seen this burnie ?
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10d6 please note that your friends over at scallywagscience neglected to draw the blue line (CO2) out the top of your monitor, it's surely is a telling graphic !

The average global Sea Surface Temperatures are currently the second lowest in the satellite record, in fact the global average temperatures are falling like a like 10 pins, this is completely out step with the greenhouse hypothesis.

The massive snowfalls in the NH, the summer snow and floods in the SH seem to fit far more closely with Svensmark's Theory.

I don't suppose that you noticed, the weather forecast's have been accurately predicted by those who don't believe your silly little theory, the consensus can't even get short term prediction's anywhere even close to right !

Note how spothead, like a deluded idiot, is ranting on and on and on here on his own thread. But few of us are listening. He's ranting into thin air.

What a quack.

Its too bad for spotty that his 'science' is in the minority. And to claim I 'lost' to his delusions; it gets even more bizarre.

Note that most of spotty's heavy NH snow has long melted; its gone from the eastern US and its gone from much of western Europe. A few weeks ago spotty was going on about the coming winter breaking cold records in Europe; for the coming weeks the temperatures here are expected to be considerably above normal. And also note how he is confusing weather with climate - AGAIN - by claiming that the cool-down in northern Quebec and the region somehow disproves warming.

Given how often spothead ridicules James Hansen and other climate scientists, you'd think he himself was some sort of esteemed scientist. But, as we all know, spotty is a crank with no scientific expertise whatsoever. None. Nix. Nil. Zero.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 10 Jan 2011 #permalink

the troll is back ! sheeezzzzzzzzz

a recap:

'Science has moved on sunblot.

"And so will I."

"Enjoy your lonely vigil"

on your own thread where you can rant and rave and blather on at will.

"But do not expect anyone to reply.'"

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | January 8, 2011 12:09 PM
244

You need to keep up with the science pinhead, admit it, you only parrot what others (warmers)say about the propaganda climate science, you haven't really a clue yourself. Have a look at all your post's, totally devoid of any proof of concept or logical argument, no links to anything !

your a fake and a pinocchio nose

so much for pinocchios' wevver report

Winter storm in Southeast heads up East Coast; travel still hampered
By the CNN Wire Staff
January 11, 2011 -- Updated 0847 GMT (1647 HKT)

More snow headed our way
Published 01/11/2011 12:00 AM
Updated 01/11/2011 05:27 AM
Before the weekend's snowfall could begin to melt, another winter storm is headed our way.

Snow, icy rain to continue in south China
English.news.cn 2011-01-09 15:06:46

Eh ! burnie

DID BOM GET THIS WRONG !!!!!!

They didn't think that warmer SST's were gunna make torrential downpours !

Blind leading the blind in the other thread

National Seasonal Rainfall Outlook: probabilities for January to March 2011, issued 17th December 2010
Wetter conditions favoured for eastern and western Australia

The national outlook for the January to March period favours wetter conditions in the eastern half of NSW, southeastern Queensland and western WA.

The pattern of seasonal rainfall odds across Australia is a result of cool conditions in the central equatorial Pacific Ocean associated with the current La Niña.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10fv

Spotty: the troll is back? Sez you? Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! You couldn't stand in a room with me, spothead, and discuss science, unless you want to lower the discussion to kindergarten level. I'd like to know how many scientific articles you've published in your 'elite' career.

A: NONE. And that ain't gonna change anytime soon, or ever. Dork. Put your money where your mouth is. If you think you knwo so much, then write an article and send it to a relevant scientific journal. See how far it gets. Until then you ought to keep your big mouth closed.

Again, as always, you seem to think that one-week's weather proves AGW is not heppening. Do you realize what a laughingstock you are, here, spotty? You have not got a clue about scales and about stochastic versus deterministic processes. Like many people, you stick your finger to the wind and think you've nailed the truth. Using you innane logic, I might as well say that the current extended mild spell over most of central and western Europe 'proves' there is warming. But of course it doesn't. The proof is in the temperature record over the past 120 years, as well as in thousands of biotic indicators that are described in the empirical literature: species distributions, migratory patterns, phenologies, life-cyles (voltinism), flowering times, and other parameters.

Nature doesn't lie, you nitwit. Only you seem to be good at it. From natural systems it is CLEAR that it has warmed significantly over much of the NH in recent years. There is NO doubt about that. But since you've hardly picked up an ecological journal in your life, then its easy to see why you know nix about it.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 11 Jan 2011 #permalink

It's been warming since the LIA pinhead,
didn't you know ?

Maybe your addled neurons forgot, the subject at hand is the difference of opinion as to what caused the little spike in the gradual warming that we are already having.

CO2 or Solar, I'm in the solar brigade and your in the CO2 (mugs) camp

you will be seeing a few of these around
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10fw

um......by the way, how many papers have you written on climate science ?

zero !

Spotty, you are actually wrong:

I have co-authored on Nature article (2008) on the biotic effects of plant invasions in a warming climate. And my article in Biological Conservation last year discussed the threat posed by invasive plants, some of which were expanding their ranges due to recent warming in Europe.

As for your LIA argument, bollocks. The changes in species distributions and other biotic traits is a very recent development. But since you've read none of the empirical literature, and wouldn't understand it anyway, you ignore it.

And since its you who are going against the opinions of most of the scientific community, why don't you get off your fat butt and write an article on why you think AGW is not happening?

A: You and everyone else who reads this thread knows why. Because you know nothing about the field and your article would be jettisonned. Instead, like many of the denialati you snipe away from the sidelines. You should be happy that real scientists like me even bother to reply to your bilge. I guess I don't even know why I do it, given the basal level of your 'arguments'. A sucker for punishment, I guess.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 11 Jan 2011 #permalink

> Spotty, you are actually wrong:

Surely some redundancy there, Jeff. Just addressing Spots' comment inherently implies he's wrong.

Guys - like all spots if you keep picking at it, it'll never go away.

More proof that burnie is delirious with CO2 !

burnie cried: This ongoing summer rain is mostly derived from the oceans warmed during the current La Niña event. To the extent "that the oceans are warmer than in the past," the resulting additional consistency of rain events, driven by La Niña, will have exacerbated the flooding beyond what it might otherwise have been. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10gz

burnie, I hate to spoil your dream proof of aGw ! It's all happened before ! Before Co2 was theoretically (to some) to be a threat. This means the solar cycles roll on dumbo !

Here are BOM's KNOWN FLOODS IN THE BRISBANE & BREMER RIVER BASIN
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF BRISBANE AND IPSWICH http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10gy

The year 1973 was one of the wettest known over much of Australia, and in keeping with the strong La Niña event that prevailed, the 1973/74 northern wet season started early. By the end of 1973 large areas of the country were saturated. Then came January 1974, which featured probably the biggest continent-wide drenching since European settlement, inundating vast areas of the country.

New Year celebrations had barely finished when torrential rains on 4 January soaked northeast Victoria and parts of the Riverina, and flooded Albury. Meanwhile, far away in north Queensland, big floods on the 5th marooned cars and coaches across a broad area

Further heavy rain fell in NSW during the second week of January , and many rivers in the north of that State were flooded. On 11 January, creeks in Brisbane burst their banks, flooding roads and streets. Northern Victoria experienced a second burst of heavy rain on the 13th; this time, floodwaters swirled through the streets of Nhill and Dimboola. Rains also extended to the normally arid north of South Australia on the 17th, flooding opal mines at Coober Pedy.

The first houses were washed away along Enoggera Creek early on the 26th. As rivers continued to rise, many more were lost. The Bremer river peaked at Ipswich on the Sunday, and the Brisbane River peaked early on Tuesday; both at their highest levels since the disastrous floods of 1893. Fourteen people were drowned, some trapped in offices by the rising waters.
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10gx

DREAM ON burnie, and stop spreading LIE'S !

This weather pattern is a repeat of what has happened before.

pinocchio,

the qwestyon was:

by the way, how many papers have you written on climate science ?

zero !

And......... it's still ZERO

you were worried (Dec 31) 'Heck, Chicago is "expected" to be 14 C today,

The REALITY : the headlines -

O'Hare snow tally tops 5 inches---biggest in 11 months; injection of lake moisture pushes heaviest totals close to 7 inches

2010-11 snow season now among the 16 per cent snowiest here since 1884

Big lake snows target Indiana snowbelt

One of the largest Lower 48 snowpacks of the past 7 years in place

Recent snow hardly the last in coming two weeks; multiple snow systems being tracked

Tuesday's snow the start of a snowier pattern the next 2 weeks
January 11, 2011 10:51 PM

http://blog.chicagoweathercenter.com/

your as dumb as burnie !

Spotty,

The region around Chicago, including northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin averages about 60-70 inches of snow a year. So when you write, "[5.2 inches] generating the city's biggest single snow tally in the 11 months since February, 2010" you must be really off of your rocker. %.2 inches?! Biggest in 11 months?! Are you serious? Even by your usually appalling standards, this is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Zoot is correct: you are really like an itch I can't scratch.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 11 Jan 2011 #permalink

I don't know why I bother trying to educate you !

Don't you know how to click on a link and read what pop's up ? shheeeezzz

I'll put it here to make it easy for you.

READ HERE ......With Tuesday's snow now a part of the record, Chicago's seasonal tally has grown to 22.2 inches---more than 8 inches above the long term (126 year) average of 14 inches. It's a total which makes the 2010-11 season among the 16 percent snowiest on the books.

Spotty,

Its clear you never lived in the United States.

The average annual snowfall for the city of Chicago is 38.5 inches. In areas outside the city that would be clearly more.

http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/snowfall.html

Cities in Indiana get anywhere between 14 and 70 inches on average (depending on their proximity to Lake Michigan).

When I was a post-doc at University of Madison in 1999, a snowstorm dumped 52 cm (over 20 inches) on Chicago over a 36 h period. So 12 cm (5.2 inches) is nothing! And, of course, as we have all said here for months, this is a short-term WEATHER event.

Sheesh, you never learn (where have I heard that before?)

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 Jan 2011 #permalink

One last point: I just checked with the University of Madison-Wisconsin weather stats and both Milwaukee and Madison have had grand totals of about 4 inches of snow this month. In other words, almost nothing. And the snow depths on the ground are 3 inches in Milwaukee and 4 inches in Madison. Again, very little; certainly not above normal by any means.

Spotty, you are gonna just have to try harder.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 Jan 2011 #permalink

news for that loon alarmist burnie

Overnight the Bureau of Meteorology overnight revising down the expected peak three times, from the original estimate of 5.5m. It was revised to 5.2m, then less than 5m, before the latest estimate of 4.6m at 4am.

It was expected to remain at 4.6m for four to five hours, before falling slightly and then rising again in the afternoon, but not exceeding 4.6m.

Levels will remain high throughout Thursday before beginning to recede on Friday.

This is below the 1974 flood peak of 5.45m as releases at Wivenhoe Dam were reduced quickly during Tuesday night, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

In comparison, the 1841 flood reached a peak of 8.43m and the 1893 flood 8.35m. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10i4

That's right, it was only half a flood !

Consider this,

The government allowed, and indeed encouraged residential and industrial development in area's 1 MTR below the 1974 flood level's.

Also, greenie Peter Garret shelved the plan's for building another dam in 2003 to reduce flood impact on communities downstream.

Also...'instead of easing water restrictions as promised, the queensland premier used the fact the combined dam capacity had only reached 59.02% to go back on her promise.

in march 2010, the Premier decided restrictions might not be eased even if the dams reached a combined level of 100%. this was absolutely ridiculous and caused outrage as wivenhoe should never have gone above 40% according to some, or 60% according to others, as it was built precisely for flood mitigation.' H/T Pat http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10i6

In other word's the problems in Queensland are a natural event, less extreme than past flood's, BUT made worse because the stupid Pollie's have been suckered into believing that

FLOOD'S ARE A THING OF THE PAST !!!!!!!!

When the science is finally settled there will be a few heads on the chopping block !

Yes, the Pollies swallowed the Concensus
Computer Generated Future Climate Scenario's. ( Climate Horoscope's )

When they are held to task for their stoopid political decision making, they (the pollies) will, correctly, lay the blame at the Climatologist's feet !!

So the adoption of the particular cost:benefit analysis methodology that was used to calculate the capacity of the Wivenhoe [which "was built precisely for flood mitigation."], and through which it was calculated that it was adequate to maintain the overall dam capacity at a level that would be insufficient to reduce the *residual* risk of a repeat of a flood in the discharge range <1974-1841 to *zero*, is the fault of the...climatologists?

Yeah, right!

You have to realise that spotty is just a mouthpiece for the anti-AGW propaganda du jour, and can't actually reason his way through your objection to his nonsense, or any of the others in this (and previous) threads.

here is a 2 minute google hasis, do you want me to keep going ? I'm sure I could pull up a lot of dirt !

Senator IAN MACDONALDâI think Dr Hunter is clever enough and brave enough to tell
me if I am quoting him incorrectly; thank you, Senator Cameron. Again, for us mere mortals, are
you able to somehow quantify what âsignificantâ means? I do not think we are having fewer
cyclones. We are going back to the number of cyclones that we used to have 20 years agoâthat
is my observation, although I am not a scientistâbut will we have fewer floods and fewer
droughts, if Australia completely cuts out its 1.4 per cent of the worldâs emissions?
Dr HunterâI mean âsignificantâ in the scientific sense. We can tell from the physics of the
problem that, if you change an input to the system, there will be a change in the output of the
system. I do not mean by âsignificantâ that it will be large or important, but it will be a
difference. In other words, the only way that you can predict what is going to happen in the
future is basically to run things like computer models. If you change the inputs to the models, if
you decrease the emissions to a certain extent by any amount, you will probably get some kind
of decrease in the output of that model. That is what I mean by âsignificantâ.

and......

As to other consequences more locally, at a regional level we expect an intensification and
perhaps a poleward extension of the subtropical ridge. What is that? That is just the high
pressure system that dominates the areas immediately outside the tropical belt. The Australian
continent, for example, sits underneath the subtropical ridge. All the worldâs major desert
regions, looking around the globe, sit underneath the subtropical ridge, so that is why we have
deserts in our interior, and we are looking at an intensification of that, with consequences for our
rainfall systems.
I stress at this point that the major uncertainties related to these different issues that I have
spoken of relate more to their timing and rates, not to the actual consequences. These kinds of
consequences will eventually occur; it is just a matter of when, not if, should we push the system
too hard. Although there are uncertainties, the things that I am talking about here do not depend
on results of particular climate models, they come from an understanding of the physics of the
system and looking at the past earth history.

www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/s11986.pdf

Premier Peter Beattie and Deputy Premier Anna Bligh said deterioration in the south-eastâs water outlook and compelling advice from the Queensland Water Commission had convinced them to cancel the March 17 plebiscite.

Mr Beattie said the effects of climate change on our region meant we could no longer rely on past rainfall patterns to help us plan for the future.

âThe data the Deputy Premier has presented to me upon my return indicates that it appears inevitable that we will have to rely on purified recycled water â it is no longer an option, we have no choice. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10i8

Over the past 50 years southern Australia has lost about 20 per cent of its rainfall, and one cause is almost certainly global warming. Similar losses have been experienced in eastern Australia, and although the science is less certain it is probable that global warming is behind these losses too. But by far the most dangerous trend is the decline in the flow of Australian rivers: it has fallen by around 70 per cent in recent decades, so dams no longer fill even when it does rain. Growing evidence suggests that hotter soils, caused directly by global warming, have increased evaporation and transpiration and that the change is permanent. I believe the first thing Australians need to do is to stop worrying about "the drought" - which is transient - and start talking about the new climate. Tim Flannery

http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/105ns_001.htm

so...yes, pollies do base their decisions on what the so called "climatologist" crystal ball gazers are misleading then into.

It's simple, we all, pollies included, have been repeatedly told that Australia is going to get less precipitation in the future, policies have been based on this.

The whole warmers daisy chain, has been trying to push policy makers into the warming, drought, snowless, armageddon scenario's that have, so far, been proven wrong !

The only floods that were meant to happen were from rising sea levels !

No acceleration there either.

Yes, I do see and understand your perspective. However, from your quote [my emphasis]:

I stress at this point that the major uncertainties related to these different issues that I have spoken of relate more to their timing and rates, not to the actual consequences. These kinds of consequences will eventually occur; it is just a matter of when, not if, should we push the system too hard.

I am unsure as to whether you fully understand my implied point as regards the difficulty of balancing the need to plan for contemporary *residual* risks [in regard to natural variabilities experienced in the current climate], concurrently with planning for those that will exist in 30-90 years? Something has to give and I would suggest that this could be regarded as one example of policy made on the basis of a long-term view being found wanting in the face of short-term hazard variability.

PS. Throughout the world it has been realised that policy based on purely structural measures will inevitably be sensitive to the occurrence of extreme events [i.e. somebody will always have to decide the C:B ratio of investment]. That is why there are ongoing attempts to include non-structural approaches into flood-risk management strategies (e.g. the UK 'Making Space for Water' strategy). Unfortunately, this is not a popular approach for those who think that this is evidence that we are failing to live up to our billing as 'masters of nature'. However, as Gilbert White pointed out back in 1945, we just keep on being shown that 'nature' will *always* have the upper hand and we need to plan for that!

PPS. I was deeply moved this morning to hear media coverage of the community movement that has built up in response to this flood, as complete strangers "are turning up in their dozens, armed with mops and buckets and disinfectant" to help those who have been more directly affected. Well done Oz!

Hasis,

You seem like a reasonable guy. Problem is, Sunspot isn't. I've been reading Deltoid for years and I have never seen one grain of sense in anything he has ever posted. For goodness sake, in his latest, he denies that bursts of more intense rainfall leading to flooding is a predicted consequence of climate change.

So you know, if you feel like wasting your time, go ahead (I did, above). Just so long as you realise you are wasting your time. Personally, juggling fish in a revolving door is more productive, but each to their own. The only purpose of this thread is to document the musings of the most abjectly illogical troll in the history of the intertubes. If you want to contribute to that, go nuts!

In the meantime NASA figures rate 2010 as the warmest year in their 130 years of records. So the Freckle can keep posting his illogical twaddle, but meanwhile "E pur si calde".

Thanks Frank, sunny just dipped into my 'area' and I thought I'd take the opportunity to invoke a *residual* educational effect (i.e. over the head of the thread's main contributor).

Best wishes

fwankD said: 'he denies that bursts of more intense rainfall leading to flooding is a predicted consequence of climate change.'

fwank, can you show me evidence that the Queensland floods were caused by CO2 in the atmosphere ?

Hasis, you might be interested in this PDF, it's short and sweet, I think it demonstrates that the last thing on the NSW Governments agenda was floods, they also thought that floods were a thing of the past.

49th Annual Floodplain Management Authorities (NSW) Annual Conference

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10if

SS: taken from the minutes attached to your link [my emphasis but original quotation marks]:

Your executive has worked tirelessly to extend the influence of the [Flood Management Authorities], to bring a cohesive approach to Floodplain Management across Australia and to battle the ingrained belief in the media and some government departments that "flooding is a thing of the past"

Don't see climatologists' projections being singled out there.

Flood-risk management has a little to do with the science and a great deal to do with the politics. That's it from me.

[IPCC Projections of future changes](http://ipccinfo.com/extreme.php)
"It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent." (In IPCC terminology, "very likely" means a probability greater than 90 percent.)

Then, more locally, there's [this:](http://www.amos.org.au/news/id/105)

"Climate scientists usually examine sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific (the so-called NINO indices) to determine when we are in an El Niño or La Niña episode. Temperatures in this region are usually lower than normal during a La Niña episode. But these temperatures have several failings, if we want to use them to rank La Niña episodes. Firstly, they are not readily available back more than about 60 years, so it is difficult to use them, for instance, to compare 2010 with events early in the 20th century. Secondly, the general ocean warming we have seen over the past 50 or so years, due to anthropogenic enhancement of atmospheric greenhouse gases, confounds the use of these temperatures to compare a recent episode of cool temperatures with cool temperatures earlier in the record â the global warming may have offset some cooling associated with the strong, recent La Niña. This would bias any comparison between the 2010 event and earlier events, prior to the strong global warming of the second half of the 20th century.

But we can use the Southern Oscillation Index, or SOI to compare the strength of La Niña episodes across time. The SOI is the standardised difference in surface atmospheric pressure between Tahiti and Darwin. Monthly SOI values are available at www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/soihtm1.shtml. Positive values of the SOI (low pressures at Darwin and high pressures at Tahiti) indicate a La Niña event. There is no a priori reason to expect that global warming has necessarily led to long-term SOI changes that would confound our results if we use the SOI to compare historical and recent La Niña events. And values of the SOI are available from the end of the 19th century.

The SOI values confirm that we are in the middle of either the strongest La Niña event on record, or the second strongest. The SOI values for October 2010 and December 2010 were each the largest positive values on record for those months, as was the three-month average October-December 2010. If we take a longer perspective (July-December) then 1917 was stronger than 2010, but 2010 was still the second strongest in the historical record. Using either the October-December or the longer July-December periods, the strong La Niña events on 1973 and 1975 were both ranked as weaker than the 2010 event.

So, it is not surprising that we are seeing a great deal of rain and floods across much of Australia. It is worth pointing out that the Bureau of Meteorology seasonal forecast issued on 23 September indicated a strong chance of wet conditions for the period October-December across northeast Australia. These forecasts are based, partly, on the current state of the El Niño â Southern Oscillation, and it was clear months ago that we were in a La Niña. So an increased likelihood of wet conditions was certainly on the cards".

*You seem like a reasonable guy. Problem is, Sunspot isn't. I've been reading Deltoid for years and I have never seen one grain of sense in anything he has ever posted*

Exactly. This explains why he is down to wittering on about a 5.2 inch snowfall in Chicago - which receives an average of almost 40 inches each winter - like it was some 'extreme' event that downplays warming. It explains why he denies the clear link between climate change and extreme weather events, like the current floods in Australia, Pakistan and Brazil, as well as thost occurring in western Europe, and the absoutely unprecedented heatwave that scorched western Russia last summer. It explains why he has been reduced to cutting and pasting articles showing it to be cold somehwere for a few days, as if this in any way disproves the evidence for AGW. He continually ignores - or does not understand - the complex feedbacks and processes that drive the climate system over variable spatial and temporal scales, and he ignores a vast amount of biotic literature showing how nature is responding to the warming which is unprecedentated in rate over at least the past several thousand years. He constantly reiterates or rehashes marginal, non-peer-reviewed sources (mostly anti-environmental weblogs) for his 'evidence', or else, like his denialist brethren, selectively distorts the findings of sound studies by generating cherry-picked conclusions that were not shared by the authors.

Let's face it: the guy is a joke: a laughingstock. At least he would be the latter if he didn't actually believe the crap he writes up here.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 13 Jan 2011 #permalink

chekie, they need a better crystal ball,
you know, one that knows about solar/weather/climate conection.

coz they only really guessed it by the nino 3 temps and SOI.

If they knew about low, actually extremely low sunspot count's, SOI and cosmic rays, then they mighta really nailed it !

forecast issued on 23 September

The chance of exceeding median rainfall for October to December are over 60% over most of Queensland, the Northern Territory, NSW and South Australia, as well as the Kimberley and western inland parts of WA (see map). Odds increase to over 70% for northern parts of both the NT and Queensland. Such odds suggest that for every ten years with similar ocean conditions to those currently observed, about seven years would be expected to be wetter than average over these parts of the NT and Queensland, while about three years would be expected to be drier during the December quarter.

For the remainder of Australia, namely most of Victoria and Tasmania as well as the remainder of WA, the outlook is neutral with odds between 40 and 60%. This means that the chance of a wetter than average December quarter are about as likely as the chance of below average conditions in these areas. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10ih

How right did they get it ?

you forgot the floods in Sri Lanka & the Philippines

and....

According to national news sources, it is snowing in 49 states across the USA including Hawaii where snow has fallen atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island.

Florida is the only state without fresh snow.

Spotty, if you haven't by now you almost certainly never will realise that all the junk you gullibly buy about solar weather and cosmic rays is essentially a bunch of mumbo-jumbo hand waving by interests desperate to claim that anything but CO2 is at the root of the current record global temperatures despite the solar minimum. You know, where we currently have ice melting at night in the northern hemisphere from Europe to Baffin Bay.

But you crack on believing in Corbyn and Icke and all the other cranks and headbangers that you give a free pass to with their unverifiable "methods" and failed "predictions" and whatever else gives comfort to your religious faith.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the IPCC's predictions are holding up pretty well, unfortunately for us all.
I wonder what upcoming shedload of unprecedented surprises lie in store for us when the next solar cycle gets into its stride?

Another blame it on CO2 story.

Late last year Israelâs worst ever forest fire was blazing out of control, destroying homes and releasing untold quantities of Co2 into the atmosphere. Over 5,000 hectares of forest were utterly destroyed, and experts say it will be half a century before the forest gets back to anything like its former state.

Greenpeace lost no time, of course, in pointing the finger squarely at global warming, and issued a press release, demanding Israel abandon construction of a new coal power station, and calling for all comrades to join the âinternational struggleâ:

"Greenpeace wishes to emphasize that this fire is a direct expression of the effects of climate change and global warming which threaten us all. Climate change is already here and it is taking a heavy human toll!"

"Israel must take this warning sign seriously and take immediate measures in order to eradicate the effects of climate change. Israel must cancel its plans to construct another coal plant, reduce use of fossil fuels, and realize that we are dealing with an international struggle."

Itâs what known as the sign of the burning bush â Greenpeace style.

However, it didnât have much to say following an investigation by Israelâs fire service which discovered that the fire was started by a global warming activist at a Rainbow Camp. As the Jerusalem Post reported:

"The cause of this particular fire was, sadly enough, the good intentions of a participant in the Rainbow Festival that was being held at the site. For ecological reasons, she burned toilet paper she had used so as not to leave it in nature, and in normal circumstances, that would have been the thing to do. However, due to the strong winds and the unseasonable hot air, the dry grasses caught on fire immediately, and the fire spread in four different directions simultaneously."

was it you akerz ?

The pressure has been mounting. The public doubt about global warming has been increasing in recent years given Climategate, and how promises of warm snowless winters failed. After cold and snowy winters in 2007/08 and 2008/09, the winter of 2009/10 was the coldest ever in parts of the southeast, and in parts of Siberia and the coldest since 1977/78 or 1962/63 in many parts of the United States, Europe and Asia. This past December was the second coldest in the entire Central England Temperature record extending back to 1659. It was the coldest ever December in diverse locations like Ireland, Sweden, and Florida. Reluctantly, alarmists changed their tune and the promise of warm and snowless winters as recent as 4 years ago morphed into global warming means cold and snowy winters.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10q1

Spotty, funny that you haven't mentioned January 2011, which has thus far been way above normal over much of central and western Europe and close to the warmest ever in Holland. Its reached 15 C in parts of the country over the past week, and we have not had a frost in over 2 weeks. Moreover, 2009-10 was the warmest winter ever in Canada, there was an unprecedented heatwave last summer in Russia etc.

But then again, its only the weather... and you are (as always) cherry picking.

Troll.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Jan 2011 #permalink

So Troll, you have also noticed that Global Warming is not global !

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/cau

also.....

Two Democratic state senators are proposing to change state law to thwart Attorney General Ken Cuccinelliâs efforts to investigate a former University of Virginia professorâs research on global warming. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10q3

They are desperately trying to protect the big lie !

The house of cards is falling like the mercury.

Sunspot said : "They are desperately trying to protect the big lie ! The house of cards is falling like the mercury".

Indeed it is, as the rabbit-frozen-in-the-headlights progress of the game-changing investigation into Wegman's mendacity shows. With a little luck and the right press, Coochie will be remembered with all the fondness and warmth afforded Joe McCarthy.

Spothead, I never said it was. But overall the planet's surface temperature is increasing. You give examples of cold weather; I will more than counter it with examples of warm weather.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Jan 2011 #permalink

Yes, how DARE congressmen protect citizens against an abuse of government power exercised unconstitutionally!

ATI Environmental Law Center Seeks NASA Records on Dr. James Hansen

Today the American Tradition Instituteâs Environmental Law Center filed a federal Freedom of Information Act request with NASA, seeking records detailing whether and how âglobal warmingâ activist Dr. James Hansen of NASAâs Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has complied with applicable federal ethics and financial disclosure laws and regulations, and NASA Rules of Behavior.

See ATIâs Freedom of Information Act request to NASA seeking James Hansenâs records relating to compliance with ethics and financial disclosure laws.

( http://www.atinstitute.org/uploads/File/ATI_NASA_Hansen_Ethics_FOIA.pdf )

oh dear...........

look what happened to the only warm spot left in the world !!!!

OTTOWA, Ontario, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Ottawa's cold spell smashed a weather record Monday when the thermometer plunged to a bone-chilling minus 19.5 F, Canada's weather office said.

Environment Canada said the mark reached at 5 a.m. broke the previous record of minus 18 F set in 1970 and became the coldest Jan. 24 since records have been maintained, the Ottawa Citizen reported.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/10xg

pinocchio will be so upset !

It used to be at least somewhat amusing when spots hurled factoids of weather at people but it's just getting desperate and rather sad.

1970 15094 Weather Stations

1990 9475 Weather Stations

2000 5265 Weather Stations

Where did all the stations in China, India, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Russia, Antarctica, and Australia go?????

AND WHY??????

Whole continents âjust disappearedâ and most of the landmass of Earth is now NOT COVERED.
And how do you compare the âaverageâ Global temperature when they dropped 9829 stations between 1970 and 2000??????

9829 stations that where part of the âaverageâ global temperature????

This is the âscienceâ behind the Global warming Hysteria.

Do you guys really believe sunspot will show up here?

If he doesn't, good riddance, eh?

Interesting that they used Jeff Harvey as a poster boy.

Sources confirm that a federal inspector has questioned Eugene Wahl and Wahl has confirmed that Mann asked him to delete emails. Wahl has also informed the inspector that he did delete emails as the result of this request.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/15j3

and....

A federal government inspector general has revealed prima facie proof that the so-called independent inquiries widely if implausibly described as clearing the ClimateGate principals of wrongdoing were, in fact, whitewashes. This has been confirmed to Senate offices. It will not be released to the public for some time because the investigation is ongoing.

The document, an interview transcript, will put an end to the foolish talk of anything resembling a ClimateGate âinquiryâ having taken place. It will also invite a real inquiry into the affair. Expect fireworks, as the one such effort, by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, is being fought hysterically by Big Science and Big Academia.

Critically, it also begs questions of Penn State University, which conducted one of the three supposed inquiries into ClimateGate.

The key point is that the Penn State investigators never interviewed a principal who was able to confirm or deny a key charge against âHockey Stickâ lead author of âHide the Declineâ infamy Michael Mann. This individual has now been interviewed, and what he told federal investigators has indicted Mann and Penn State.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/15j5

burnie (Bernard J hand waver) no doubt will be blaming Japans earthquake on CO2, as he foolishly did with
the Queensland floods.

http://tinyurl.com/4cfg28j

[Bernard J] no doubt will be blaming Japans earthquake on CO2, as he foolishly did with the Queensland floods.

Sunspot has joined the usual suspects in trying to breathe life into this rubbish.

As far as I can tell the meme pretty much originates with a handful of tweets and this rather poorly timed article.

As for Tim Blair's article, the young woman responsible for his first twitter quote puts it down to "idiocy" ... a "blonde moment" and says: "Today I received over 20 hate comments on Twitter and one super creepy message on Facebook." A young uninformed person tweets before they think - and this is news?

Blair's "warmist idiot" Christopher Mims refers to this 2009 article discussing the potential geological implications of climate change, and explicitly says "Itâs important to note that this response has nothing to do with Fridayâs tsunami, which is a âsubduction zone earthquake,â...". The timing of his article is insensitive, yes, but it's hardly an attempt to attribute a causal link between the Japan quake and CO2.

Which is patently ridiculous.

It's well known this, a CO2 tax won't cool the sun !

Bolt: Everyone understands that that is the argument But weâre just trying to get basic facts, without worrying about the consequences - about what those facts may lead people to think. On our own, by cutting our emissions, because itâs a heavy price to pay, by 5 per cent by 2020, what will the worldâs temperatures fall by as a consequence?

Flannery: Look, it will be a very, very small increment.

Bolt: Have you got a number? I mean, there must be some numbers.

Flannery: I just need to clarfy in terms of the climate context for you. If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years.

LOOK'S LIKE GOOOOOOD NEWS :)

The pro carbon tax labor government of NSW is about to be thrown on the scrap heap by the disgruntled voters.

FANTASTIC !!!!!!!

bye bye NSW CO2 Labor party :)

more and more of the public are waking up !

....here's something for those of you that are still so obviously fooled by the (hahaha) consensus.

Dr. Vincent Courtillot is a professor of geophysics at the University Paris-Diderot and Chair of paleomagnetism and geodynamics of the Institut Universitaire de France. In the recent lecture below he explains how solar cycles control the climate by influence on cloud formation (the cosmic ray theory of Svensmark et al) and via influence on ocean oscillations and length of day. Dr. Courtillot notes that IPCC climate computer models do not correlate with observations and that temperature trends vary substantially between North America and Europe (which is contrary to IPCC computer model predictions). He also notes that while the total solar irradiance (TSI) only varies by about .1% over a solar cycle, the solar UV varies by about 10% and that secondary effects on cloud formation may vary up to 30% over solar cycles. The IPCC computer models dismiss the role of the sun by only considering the small variations of the TSI and ignore the large changes in the most energetic and influential part of the solar spectrum - the ultraviolet.

http://tinyurl.com/4pdtw7e

On the carbon tax, Mr O'Farrell revealed that he felt the mood of the election campaign switched on the day Ms Gillard announced the carbon tax, undercutting NSW leader Kristina Keneally's argument that Labor would be better able to manage cost of living pressures.

Ms Gillard's "amazing announcement" was "certainly an issue" in the stunning election result, Mr O'Farrell said.

Mr O'Farrell led the Liberal/Nationals coalition to its first election victory in NSW in 16 years, with a swing of 17 per cent.

The coalition has secured 65 seats in the 93-seat parliament and may also hold a majority in the upper house.

...here are a few picture's of just a few of the massive snowfalls in the NH this year.

http://tinyurl.com/4l9cabp

Mr O'Farrell revealed that he felt the mood of the election campaign switched on the day Ms Gillard announced the carbon tax...

...as opposed to the opinion polls which showed no effect on state polling after the carbon tax was announced.

Don't get disillusionment with inept government confused with approval of the kind of pseudo-scientific nonsense you peddle here, Sunspot.

Sunspot @ 297

By fluke, Bolt has got the the heart of AGW problem. As Flannery correctly explains, the C02 that we have already added to the atmosphere guarantees continued warming even if we stopped emitting tomorrow. If reducing C02 emissions resulted in an immediate (say within 5-10 years) drop in temperature, we would still have a big problem but one that we could deal with.

Here is a question for you. If you were the captain of the Titanic and you saw a iceberg straight ahead, would you

(a) speed up
(b) slow down
(c) phone Andrew Bolt

Bombshell conclusion â new peer reviewed analysis: âworldwide-temperature increase has not produced acceleration of global sea level over the past 100 yearsâ

http://tinyurl.com/4vclnje

spoze it must be something to do with all that snow and ice that has been occurring because of all the "missing heat"

The global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly for March 2011 fell to -0.10 deg. C, with cooling in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheric extratropics, while the tropics stayed about the same as last month.

Yep, thats a nose dive !

UN Embarrassed by Forecast on Climate Refugees

Six years ago, the United Nations issued a dramatic warning that the world would have to cope with 50 million climate refugees by 2010. But now that those migration flows have failed to materialize, the UN has distanced itself from the forecasts. On the contrary, populations are growing in the regions that had been identified as environmental danger zones.

It was a dramatic prediction that was widely picked up by the world's media. In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations University declared that 50 million people could become environmental refugees by 2010, fleeing the effects of climate change.

But now the UN is distancing itself from the forecast: "It is not a UNEP prediction," a UNEP spokesman told SPIEGEL ONLINE. The forecast has since been removed from UNEP's website.

Official statistics show that the population in areas threatened by global warming is actually rising. The expected environmental disasters have yet to materialize.

In October 2005, UNU said: "Amid predictions that by 2010 the world will need to cope with as many as 50 million people escaping the effects of creeping environmental deterioration, United Nations University experts say the international community urgently needs to define, recognize and extend support to this new category of 'refugee.'"................................................................................... (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,757713,00.html)

Coldest March On Record In Australia : Government Calls For New Taxes To Reduce The Heat

Maximum temperatures nationally were the coldest on record with a national anomaly of -2.19°C. Most of Australia recorded below average mean maxima with parts of the north and south of the country recording their coldest March on record. This was partly due to increased cloudiness across most of the country associated with the above average rainfall recorded throughout the month. March 2011 included some contrasts between the majority of Australia and the west and east coasts, which were the only areas that experienced above average daytime temperatures. Temperatures were coolest in the central part of Australia where rainfall was most abnormal, with maximum temperatures more than 3°C below average Similarly, drier conditions matched up with areas of above-normal maxima in western WA.

http://www.bom.gov.au/

Maximum temperatures nationally were the coldest on record

...yet the minimum temperatures were above average and the diurnal temperature range the lowest recorded for March.

Not surprising given the record March rainfall nationwide.

What's your point, spots? You somehow don't think this fits with the scientific consensus?

"...yet the minimum temperatures were above average"

yeah gaz.....the minimum temperature was a whopping .02C above average. WOW !!

but....Maximum Temperature â2.19C

= Lowest on record.

(http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtml)

China Post - 28 Mar 2011
This March has been the coldest March in 40 years (http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2011/03/29/29…)

WJON News - Jim Maurice - 1 Apr 2011
It was our coldest March since 2002. We also had 12.3 inches of snow last month â that's nearly four-inches above normal, and ranks as the 19th snowiest ...
(http://wjon.com/march-was-wet-white-and-cold/)

....actually there are cold temps right across the planet, trenberfff's missing heat statement stands correct.

gaz, CO2 output has accelerated, the temperature has decelerated, I suppose that el neno wasn't the cause of warming, so then la nina isn't the cause of the global cooling we are seeing now.

More CO2, Lower Global Temperature.

Judging by the polls it appears that there are more ex-warmers than there are ex-skeptic's.

I thought spothead had disappeared into the black hole of his own profound ignorance. Yet, like effluent, he floats back to the surface.

Mistaking weather and climate. Again, And again, And again. And again. For the millionth time. And then, we someone else does it, he screams that the short-term variation is due to La Nina or some other event.

We all know what sunspot is. A pure and utter hypocrite.

I might just as well add that much of western Europe is experiencing its warmest April on record, with temperatures right now 10 C above normal. That we are a full 2-3 weeks ahead of the normal spring growing season. That biotic indicators are in some instances 3-4 weeks ahead of schedule.

But heck, its weather. The fact is that the planets surface, is warming if we take into account longer term spatial and temporal scales. No ifs or buts.

I can see why spotty is consigned to his own thread. His ignorance is confined here, thankfully.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Apr 2011 #permalink

G/day pinocchio, I hope the frostbite on your ever lengthening nose is abating.

In spring wheat areas of the US and Canada, "some regions still have over 100mm of snow cover and, with below-average temperatures forecast for the next month, the spring wheat crops in these regions could be planted two-to-four weeks behind schedule", Australia & New Zealand Bank said.
(http://www.agrimoney.com/marketreport/morning-markets-leadilocks-keeps-…)

14 April 2011
Fresh snow in Europe

Resorts in Europe have experienced a late season burst which is good news for anyone heading to the mountains this month (14 April)

All the resorts that we report on in Austria which have not closed for the season have reported fresh snow in the last 48 hours â as much as 35cm in Lech on Wednesday 13 and 30cm in Kaprun on Thursday 14. Kaprun, Schladming, Solden, Hintertux and Ischgl are all currently reporting powder conditions on piste and there are fresh conditions to be found elsewhere....(http://www.skiclub.co.uk/skiclub/news/story.aspx?storyID=8126)

Snow report.....LOWER temperatures have returned across Europe, along with snowfall. Austria fared well and most resorts reported fresh snow.

Switzerland also had good snowfall, though in France it was not so widespread. It is colder in Italy, too, and snow is forecast.

The riding at Cairngorm, Scotland, is better, with lower temperatures preventing the snow from becoming wet and heavy.

Utah is still the place to be in America, where all resorts have had good snowfall.

Fernie, Kicking Horse and Revelstoke, in Canada, are all preparing for reopening.
(http://www.mirror.co.uk/advice/travel/news/2011/04/16/snow-report-11587…)

yep...cooling is beating warming, pinocchio is still searching in vain for a CO2 signature, hahaha
(http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/35681.html)

The problem with the above map: data quality and data manipulation.

The following sections provide some spot checks on the areas of the world exhibiting the most warming according to NOAA. The gridded historical data graphs shown in these sections are from the Hadley CRUTEM3 database for January â June. (CRUTEM3 uses a 1961-1990 base period whereas the NOAA data above is for a 1971-2000 base period. This simply shifts the anomalies on the vertical scale, but does not affect the relative trends.)

It is clear from the following sections that NOAA performs manipulations to create false impressions from the data, including assigning temperature increases were there is zero data.

(http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/NOAA_JanJun2010.htm)

so much for your noaa propaganda chekie.

Remote Sensing Systems has released their satellite measured temperature data for the month of March 2011.

March 2011 ended up as the coolest March globally since March of 1994. The actual global temperature anomaly for the lower troposphere last month was negative 0.026 C.

This is also the first month since June of 2008 that the global temperature anomaly was in the negative.

Spotty's deceptions are getting ever more desperate. He is relying on the usual hacks to spread his gospel of garbage.

Check out the 'weather' over pretty well all of central Europe, sunblot. Temperatures have been at late July means and are expected to remain so for at least the next week. April will turn out to be one of, if not the warmest since records have been kept over much of the continent. Couple that with the record lack of rainfall. I heard my first singing willow warbler here on April 3 - a full 3-4 weeks earlier than normal. Some of my experimental plants, which usually flower from mid-April or later, first flowered in late March. Its too bad that the biotic indicators around the world are showing up the denialists for the liars and deceivers that they are. Spotty can rant on all day about data manipulation, but nature doesn't lie. It just *responds*. Temporally and spatially. And we know beyond any doubt that flowering times, egg laying dates, activity patterns, distributions, and life-cycles of plants and animals have changed rapidly in much of the temperate biomes as a result of warming since the 1980s.

Blotty's reduced to writing puerile nonsense like this: *The problem with the above map: data quality and data manipulation*.

Yawn. This is the standard refrain of those in denial. When all of the empirical evidence vanquishes them, then they are left with no recourse but to cry out, "It ain't true! Lies! All lies!". When the next record high year temperatures are recorded, probably next year or in 2013, they will dig into their brainless little bag of tricks with the latest garbage.

Spotty begone!

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Apr 2011 #permalink

Spotty, the correct answer to the suggestion to use reliable data sources rather than blogshite "science" from the likes of O'Sullivan is not to counter with yet more authorless blogshite "science" from the likes of "applied information systems", however grand their name may sound to you.

If you go away and have a good, long little think about it, you may one day work out why that may be.

Trolls feed on attention. If they are ignored, they shrivel up and go away. Just sayin'.

By Robert Murphy (not verified) on 20 Apr 2011 #permalink

pinocchio said, "but nature doesn't lie. It just responds. Temporally and spatially"

hmmm........

27 Aug 10 - During the Southern Hemisphere's recent winter, unusually low temperatures in part of Bolivia's tropical region killed an estimated 6 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles and river dolphins, says this article in Nature magazine.

Scientists say it's "the biggest ecological disaster Bolivia has known," says author Anna Petherick. As an example of a sudden climatic change wreaking havoc on wildlife, "it is unprecedented in recorded history."

global warming just aint' global !

murf, you are one of the troll's in here

This influx of arctic air appears to have brought a few more arctic birds south. An influx of Snowy Owls (I received a report of at least half a dozen different birds) and Redpolls in the Duluth area, and maybe a Great Gray Owl or two. I have yet to hear any reports of any Boreal Owls in that area. Farther west in South Dakota, a large falcon was spotted by one birder but flew by too fast to determine whether it was a Gyrfalcon or just a Peregrine. Also in South Dakota, a Dipper appears to be spending the winter in Rapid City at Rushmore Lions Nature Park.

Apparently the big news on the east coast this week is the amazing numbers of Alcids. Four birders in Northern New Jersey on Sunday morning counted numerous flocks of Razorbills and came up with an astounding total of nearly 3000 birds including the flocks too far out to properly count. Long-time Jersey birder Bill Boyle commented that heâs never seen anything like it before. Interestingly enough, a pelagic trip the same day off Cape Hatteras, NC set a state high count record for Dovekie. An amazing 871 birds during the day-long trip. They also noticed many Razorbill with over 300 seen.

Next up on the list is a rather interesting find in Boyle County, Kentucky. This dates back into January a little bit, but was only posted just this week. Coming to a feeder for a few days was a yellow Northern Cardinal. Apparently this is due to a rare genetic mutation. Photos can be found here: http://www.biology.eku.edu/kos/yellow_NOCA.htm

In Illinois, birders were still getting superb views of the Snowy Owl in Ogle County as of Wednesday morning (2/9). A male Barrowâs Goldeneye was reported on Feb 5th by an Iowa birder on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River just north of the I-80 bridge on Pool 14 near the Quad Cities. A Black-legged Kittiwake that has been hanging around Montrose Harbor in Chicago was last reported on Feb 8th. Chicago bird and NAB Blogger Amar Ayash has posted an excellent summary of Kittiwake Sightings around the Lake this winter: http://anythinglarus.blogspot.com/

In Pennsylvania, the Annaâs Hummingbird from last week was last reported on Tues, Feb 8th. Quite the hardy little bird there, attempting to outlast the New England winter...............

(http://www.nabirding.com/2011/02/10/rarity-watch-week-of-feb-3rd-10th/)

Its too bad that the biotic indicators around the world are showing up the arm waving warmers for the liars and deceivers that they are.

Get real jeff hardhead, you have not produced one single proof that CO2 is affecting the climate ! Both the IPCC & their peer review process look like swiss cheese.

As for your biotic indicators, you are cherry picking ! Rotten cherries i might add.

I hate to keep feeding the nincompoop troll here, but...

Read the hundreds of peer-reviewed articles showing the biotic effects of warming, spotty... instead of relying on contrarian garbage and a few press releases. That ain't science; its cherry picking. I am talking about long term trends and not one-off events here and there. And there are plenty of studies showing biotic responses to warming, not single events where a short-term cold snap killed some plants and animals.

The problem spotty is that you do not read the primary empirical literature, at least not in ecology and environmental science. That it is warming over much of the biosphere is beyond doubt, as demostrated by an array of biotic indicators. Case closed. Evidence that C02 is the primary culprit behind the recent warming is large and growing.

Every time you write some of your comic-level book material here, spots, you just exhibit more of your wilful ignorance. Science has moved on, even as you sit in your shrinking little corner and continue to bluster. Your views have long been dispensed with here; go somewhere else where for some innane reason you are taken seriously. I would like anyone who takes spotty's views seriously to respond here now.

I expect a blank slate.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 Apr 2011 #permalink

Ah yes pinocchio, but what you singularly fail to grasp is that everyone on this board is a troll.
Except me, obviously.

Surely you can see that the shittyblogs and shitURLs of corporate sponsored drivel I frequently link in loco <-(N.B. fancy latin) having an actual argument are an actual barometer of understanding amongst the advertising category D - F classes and those barely able to type using the deliberately confusing QVERTY keyboard layout, that are mainly targetted by the previously mentioned new media corporate apparatchik nobodies.

And as you would know, if you paid attentiuon to details, barometric measurements collected over time contribute to the understanding of climate ... something

By sunspotty (not verified) on 21 Apr 2011 #permalink

The puppet master's are still pulling your string's pinocchio.

It really is about time that you learn the difference between climate and weather.

Surely one of your students could get into your dense wooden head, the fact that climate change's, and has done even before the Mesozoic era,(think Fred Flinstone).

Because of this,(climate change), the little critters have to move north or south to get into their comfy and tucker zone's, humans have heaters and grocery stores now, so they don't need to move anymore.

Get them to show you a temp chart of the last 3 thousand years, hot cold hot cold hot cold.........

(http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2011/04/past-alarm-worlds-coral-40-gon…)

(http://asiancorrespondent.com/52189/what-happened-to-the-climate-refuge…)

Cut the strings pinocchio, you are helping the real threats to the environment to be hidden behind the CO2 facade !

maybe you should give your PhD badge back to Kellogg's.

Our resident hypocritical troll, spotty, says (apparently with a straight face),

"It really is about time that you learn the difference between climate and weather".

This is the same troll who continually pastes links to short term cold snaps in various parts of the Earth in his feeble attempt to downplay the overwhelming scientific consensus on large-scale warming. Spotty appears to think its OK for him to continually mistake weather and climate, but when others play the same game he screams foul.

As I have said repeatedly, there is overwhelming evidence from biota covering an enormous phylogenetic spectrum that species are moving polewards or to higher elevations in response to recent anthropogenic warming. Unlike previous warming episodes, most of which were much more gradual than the current event, and against the background of other human-mediated alterations across the biosphere, the current warming will certainly exacerbate the current extinction spasm.

Given that spotty's English and grammar are so poor that I can barely understand many of his musings (see post 324), many here may wonder why I respond to his infantile rants at all. I fully realize that spotty exists in an intellectual abyss that falls well below the usual discourse on this weblog, so those questioning my decision to respond may well have a point. One thing is clear: the fact that he has been banned from all except his own thread should tell him how much of an imbecile he really is.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 22 Apr 2011 #permalink

pinocchio still believes giss, what a dud.

As I have shown you many times pinocchio, the temperature that you are told by giss is a lie ! All you have to do is look at the news from the area that they are lying about, and bingo.

You keep telling me how it is so hot in Canada ? yeah ! sometimes it is !

But not this winter.......

VANCOUVER, April 21 (Reuters) - Harsh winter weather that helped knock down Canadian Pacific Railway's (CP.TO) (CP.N) first-quarter profit by 67 percent will not set back long-term efforts to improve efficiency, the company said on Thursday.

This winter, avalanches buried its mainline in British Columbia and heavy snow snarled switch yards in the Canadian Prairies and U.S. Midwest, driving up costs in a quarter when revenues were nearly flat from a year ago.

The carrier had warned in March that quarterly profit would be down sharply. It said operations and revenue are recovering, although spring flooding has caused problems in recent weeks and remains a threat. [ID:nN20170778]

The railway, which operates across Canada and in the northern United States, said the culmination of weather events in January and February was an "anomaly" that did not reflect a weakness in its operating model.

"I've railroaded a long time, and in all 40-plus of my years of railroading I have never been through a winter like the one we've just gone through," chief operating officer Ed Harris told analysts. [http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/canadianpacific-idUSL3E7FL2GQ…]

Answer me this pinocchio.

When the global temperatures were rising towards the peak of the Medieval Warm Period, far warmer than today, were you there to catalog the movements of the biota ? Have you any accurate records of this ?
Was the MWP more detrimental to the biota than the LIA ?

How did the biota survive these two events ?

Do you realize that your brain is static, unlike the biota ?

> the peak of the Medieval Warm Period, far warmer than today

The only people that say the MWP was "far warmer than today" are liars like Easterbrook who knowingly conflate "a century ago" with "today", and idiots like you who believe them.

There are quite a few other studies dave,
scallywagscience won't tell you about these !

Medieval Warm Period Project

Project Overview

Study Description and Results
Africa
Antarctica
Asia
Australia/New Zealand
Europe
North America
Northern Hemisphere
Oceans
South America

MWP-CWP Quantitative Temperature Differentials

MWP-CWP Qualitative Temperature Differentials

Interactive Map and Time Domain Plot
To view this feature, your computer must be configured to run applets that use Java technology. To download and install free Java software, we recommend Sun Microsystems' Java Runtime Environment, which is available at www.java.com. Instructions on how to operate the map's features are located under the map. Scroll down after clicking on the link above to view them.

List of Scientists Whose Work We Cite

List of Research Institutions Associated With the Work We Cite.

(http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php)

Sunspot, you might show us you are actually capable of understanding science if you select seven of the studies cited at CO2Science, one for each continent, and show us that it showed the MWP was warmer than today. With "today" I mean the last decade (2001-2010), and not the "BP", where "present" generally is 1950.

Are you capable of performing such a simple excercise?

Sorry Marco, it's getting so cold that I'm too busy cutting firewood, so you will have to wait until the IDSO's have finished.

Project Overview
What is it?
Our Medieval Warm Period Project is an ongoing effort to document the magnitude and spatial and temporal distributions of a significant period of warmth that occurred approximately one thousand years ago. Its purpose is to ultimately determine if the Medieval Warm Period (1) was or was not global in extent, (2) was less warm than, equally as warm as, or even warmer than the Current Warm Period, and (3) was longer or shorter than the Current Warm Period has been to date.

(http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/description.php)

and Marco, if you think you know something that they might of missed.....

How can you help?
You can help by alerting us to new (and old) research papers documenting the Medieval Warm Period that have not yet been posted on our website. When doing so, please send us a copy of the paper either by email (preferably in pdf format) or by post. Our contact information can be found here.

When do you think the Idso's will finish? I'm guessing "never".

Of course you already know the results of my challenge will not be to your liking (if you actually are capable of doing anything constructive at all; I'm not holding my breath on that one!).

These I assume are the same Idso's who have links with Western Fuels Association through their web site? A coal industry lobbying body?

And I am supposed to believe that their views on C02 and climate change are based solely on the 'science'? Come on spotty, even someone with your shallow understanding of science can do better than that. They should rename their little study, "Project Profit for the Coal Industry" (PPCI). That would be IMHO be far more appropriate. And again, only a few contrarian shills, as well as dupes like spotty, actually believe the MWP was warmer than today.

Furthermore, note how the denialists only latched onto the MWP nonsense AFTER the first Mann et al. study was published in 1998. What were they doing before this? Denying that there was any warming at all! Since that argument has been quashed (e.g. the current warming has been proven), their next tactic has been to argue that the current warming is not exceptional by recent historical standards. In my view these people are cretins who will cling onto any meme so long as nothing is done about climate change.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 25 Apr 2011 #permalink

so pinocchio, your saying that all those peer reviewed papers, about the MWP, are now null and void because you don't like the people showing them !

You sure are a crank.

There is a filthy gang of people that are pushing to proliferate the planet with many more Fukushima's.

(http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch4s4-3-2.html)

You have swallowed the CO2 bullshit from the U.N. and you only think you know about Geo Politics, dupe.

How did deltoid go ?
http://2011.bloggi.es/#science

Willis Eschenbach said:

OK, so I was right. The Boyce paper was nonsense, the claimed trend was spurious, plankton biomass is holding somewhere near steady or even increasing, and a number of independent records show that the Boyce et al. paper is garbage built on bad assumptions.

I bring this up for three reasons. The first is to show the continuing shabby quality of peer-review at scientific magazines when the subject is even peripherally related to climate. Nature magazine blew it again, and unfortunately, these days thatâs no news at all. Itâs just more shonky science from the AGW crowd ⦠and people claim the reason the public doesnât trust climate scientists is a âcommunications problemâ? Itâs not. Itâs a garbage science problem, and all the communications theory in the world wonât fix garbage science.

(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/25/the-ocean-wins-again/)

Spotty,

I notice that in your latest dumb ripostes you do nothing to defend the Idso's, their links with WFA and the blatant double standards that this illustrates. And I note that you also ignore the fact that the MWP only became the latest denial mantra when the Mann et al. paper was published in 1998 and when the evidence that it was warming and warming rapidly became insurmountable. The very fact that you ignore these salient facts should tell everyone reading here how utterly disingenuous you are. The denialists have been switching tactics for years as the evidence for AGW has grown. To be honest, if it was not so sad, it would be quite amusing to see how they clutch at any straws that pass their way in an effort to downplay warming.

Trust you and the shills to dishonestly switch tactics. And your rant about "all those peer reviewed papers about the MWP" is further nonsense. Most of these papers do not deny that the current warming is primarily based on human forcing, and most do not question the fact that the WWP was either (1) localized, or (2) less pronounced than the current warming. Most importantly, the MWP has nix to do with what is happening now, where the evidence of a human fingerprint on the warming is immense and growing.

Given your penchant for mangling the facts, no wonder most on Deltoid ignore this thread and why they think that you are a complete and utter troll. You can call me waht you like, spotty, but it does not hide the fact that your views carry absolutely no weight in science. You should therefore be flattered that actual, bonafide scientists - like me - respond to your bilge. The only reason that I do it is to ensure that laypeople who might be reading this realize how deceptive and hollow your arguments are. Otherwise I would not give your vacuous points the time of day.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 26 Apr 2011 #permalink

Jeff,

It's also worth noting that CO2"science" takes any regional increase in temperatures in those papers between about 600 and 1500 and say "See! MWP!" In the papers I've looked at there, there is little evidence for a simulataneous global period of warming.

Naturally over a 900 year period, local fluctuations occur, and confirmation bias leads the rejectionists to conflate the many different peaks into a single MWP when in fact some regions are warming while others are cooling.

The project site defines Medieval to refer to the period 800 - 1300 (which is still leaves a lot of wiggle room), but they still cherry pick peaks outside this range: their one quantitative study from Australia / New Zealand shows a peak in temperatures in ~1400, after cooler conditions during the actual medieval period. The fact that the peak falls outside their own broad definition does not stop them putting a big red "MWP" next to the peak.

Given equal ineptness and wiggle room, you could conflate the troughs from all those studies to show a "medieval" cool period.

And in a faux-science moment Don Easterbrook would appprove of, they suggest that a dataset that ends in 1950 is representative of "today". But if you factor in the warming for the last 60 years that isn't on that graph and we are now warmer than this not-quite-Medieval Warm Period anyway.

That's just one example, but errors of interpretation abound.

Like Marco, I think they will never finish - it's like the giggleworthy Surface Stations project. The more they dig, the more they'll reveal the robustness of the science they quibble with.

As with all of Melanoma's "science" links, there are several levels of fail.

pinheadio @ 337 blathered

"The only reason that I do it is to ensure that laypeople who might be reading this realize how deceptive and hollow your arguments are."

Notice how he shoot's the messenger, the truth hurt's his busted ego.

The continuing exposé of the CO2 scam

If you do a search at (http://www.ipcc.ch/) for "medieval warm period",
you won't find it !

WHY ? BECAUSE IT EXPOSE'S THEIR DATA FABRICATION'S !

Fraudulent hockey sticks and hidden data

Itâs clear that the world was warmer during medieval times. Marked on the map are study after study (all peer-reviewed) from all around the world with results of temperatures from the medieval time compared to today. These use ice cores, stalagmites, sediments, and isotopes. They agree with 6,144 boreholes around the world which found that temperatures were about 0.5°C warmer world wide.

What follows is a sordid tale of a graph that overthrew decades of work, conveniently fitted the climate models, and was lauded triumphantly in glossy publication after publication. But then it was crushed when an unpaid analyst stripped it bare. It had been published in the highest most prestigious journal, Nature, but no one had checked it before or after it was spread far and wide. Not Nature, not the IPCC, not any other climate researcher.

In 1995 everyone agreed the world was warmer in medieval times, but CO2 was low then and that didnât fit with climate models. In 1998, suddenly Michael Mann ignored the other studies and produced a graph that scared the world â tree rings show the â1990s was the hottest decade for a thousand yearsâ. Now temperatures exactly âfitâ the rise in carbon! The IPCC used the graph all over their 2001 report. Government departments copied it. The media told everyone.

But Steven McIntyre was suspicious. He wanted to verify it, yet Mann repeatedly refused to provide his data or methods â normally a basic requirement of any scientific paper. It took legal action to get the information that should have been freely available. Within days McIntyre showed that the statistics were so flawed that you could feed in random data, like stock prices, and still make the same hockey stick shape nine times out of ten. Mann had left out some tree rings he said heâd included. If someone did a graph like this in a stock prospectus, they would be jailed.

In 2009 McIntyre did it again with Briffaâs Hockey Stick. After asking and waiting three years for the data, it took just three days to expose it too as baseless. For nine years Briffa had concealed that he only had 12 trees in the sample from 1990 onwards, and that one freakish tree virtually transformed the graph. When McIntyre graphed another 34 trees from the same region of Russia, there was no Hockey Stick.

The sharp upward swing of the graph was due to one single tree in Yamal. Epic cherry-picking!

Skeptical scientists have literally hundreds of samples. Unskeptical scientists have one tree in Yamal, and a few flawed bristleconesâ¦

It was an audacious fraud.

(http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/fraudulent-hockey-sticks-and-hidden-da…)

pinheadio @ 337 blathered

"The only reason that I do it is to ensure that laypeople who might be reading this realize how deceptive and hollow your arguments are."

Notice how he shoot's the messenger, the truth hurt's his busted ego.

The continuing exposé of the CO2 scam

If you do a search at (http://www.ipcc.ch/) for "medieval warm period",
you won't find it ! They don't move the goalpost, they delete it !

WHY ? BECAUSE IT EXPOSE'S THEIR DATA FABRICATION'S !

Fraudulent hockey sticks and hidden data

Itâs clear that the world was warmer during medieval times. Marked on the map are study after study (all peer-reviewed) from all around the world with results of temperatures from the medieval time compared to today. These use ice cores, stalagmites, sediments, and isotopes. They agree with 6,144 boreholes around the world which found that temperatures were about 0.5°C warmer world wide.

What follows is a sordid tale of a graph that overthrew decades of work, conveniently fitted the climate models, and was lauded triumphantly in glossy publication after publication. But then it was crushed when an unpaid analyst stripped it bare. It had been published in the highest most prestigious journal, Nature, but no one had checked it before or after it was spread far and wide. Not Nature, not the IPCC, not any other climate researcher.

In 1995 everyone agreed the world was warmer in medieval times, but CO2 was low then and that didnât fit with climate models. In 1998, suddenly Michael Mann ignored the other studies and produced a graph that scared the world â tree rings show the â1990s was the hottest decade for a thousand yearsâ. Now temperatures exactly âfitâ the rise in carbon! The IPCC used the graph all over their 2001 report. Government departments copied it. The media told everyone.

But Steven McIntyre was suspicious. He wanted to verify it, yet Mann repeatedly refused to provide his data or methods â normally a basic requirement of any scientific paper. It took legal action to get the information that should have been freely available. Within days McIntyre showed that the statistics were so flawed that you could feed in random data, like stock prices, and still make the same hockey stick shape nine times out of ten. Mann had left out some tree rings he said heâd included. If someone did a graph like this in a stock prospectus, they would be jailed.

In 2009 McIntyre did it again with Briffaâs Hockey Stick. After asking and waiting three years for the data, it took just three days to expose it too as baseless. For nine years Briffa had concealed that he only had 12 trees in the sample from 1990 onwards, and that one freakish tree virtually transformed the graph. When McIntyre graphed another 34 trees from the same region of Russia, there was no Hockey Stick.

The sharp upward swing of the graph was due to one single tree in Yamal. Epic cherry-picking!

Skeptical scientists have literally hundreds of samples. Unskeptical scientists have one tree in Yamal, and a few flawed bristleconesâ¦

It was an audacious frawd.

(http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/fraudulent-hockey-sticks-and-hidden-da…)

If the laypeople do their own research they will find that the "CO2 trolls" that haunt my thread are nothing but idolater's of a dying cult.

Good God, I haven't checked this thread for ages and sunspot is still posting MWP conspiracy theories!

Sunspot, you're still exhibiting credulous idiocy on this topic.

> Notice how he shoot's the messenger,...

...says sunspot, of Jeff Harvey's rebuttals to arguments. Saying it does not make it so, nor does it buttress the flawed arguments you quote, nor rebut the ones Jeff Harvey made.

> If you do a search at (http://www.ipcc.ch/) for "medieval warm period", you won't find it !

What do we find if we [bother](http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-6.html#6-6-1) to look for ourselves rather than gullibly swallow any claim that suits our position?

> The sharp upward swing of the graph was due to one single tree in Yamal.

Er, dude, there are now dozens of hockey sticks from different combinations of data sets. They've even published some comparisons specifically excluding and including data that McIntyre and his incompetent cronies complained about - and the shape of the graphs with and without are very similar. McIntyre's criticisms are unsubstantiated in the face of a mass of other evidence. The fact that you don't point this out means you're either incompetent or uninformed - or both.

> ...showed that the statistics were so flawed that you could feed in random data, like stock prices, and still make the same hockey stick shape nine times out of ten.

If, by "the same" you mean "much much smaller and equally likely to be upside down as right side up".

Never mind that McIntyre made a much worse error in his "correction" than Mann did in his original reconstruction.

And never mind that newer reconstructions don't use the method McIntyre complained about any more. You're repeating criticism of something that is no longer done in the hope that you can successfully ignore the new data and methods which provide results you'd prefer didn't exist. That alone suggests you are incompetent to make the kinds of claims you are making.

And these facts don't go away because you or someone else lies by omission. All of which makes your proclamation that:

> ...they will find that the "CO2 trolls" that haunt my thread are nothing but idolater's of a dying cult.

rather grimly and ironically amusing. Google Psychological Projection (and Dunning & Kruger) sometime.

Oh, and if laypersons - such as myself - do my own research, they tend to find that the kinds of sources that you quote are the ones propagating scientifically unsupported claims, even after they have been pointed to the source of their own errors.

> WHY ? BECAUSE IT EXPOSE'S THEIR DATA FABRICATION'S !

Speaking of Messrs Dunning and Kruger: dude...if the MWP was warmer than scientists currently think, then climate sensitivity is implied to be higher than they think which means warming is a bigger problem than they currently think. Whether or not it was slightly warmer or cooler in "the MWP" is not what drives concern about climate change - it's a brightly coloured flashing bauble hung out by certain parties to distract those who are gullible enough to be distracted from the real science. The climate sensitivity is what matters.

You're arguing that they fabricated evidence that undermined their claims. Seriously? That's the kind of conspiracy you hang your hat on?! Or are you merely confused about the implications of your argument? I hope so because I've got this great bridge I need to sell, but you have to get in quick as there are these other guys who are seriously interested...

I predict you'll slander and misrepresent my comments in your usual attention-seeking fashion, but that won't make your arguments any better. I don't monitor your thread, and I'm confident that anyone who's even mildly logical and methodical can make up their own minds about the kind of claims you make.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 26 Apr 2011 #permalink

Stephen MacIntyre? Suspicious?

I'd say suspicious. That's the run 10000 datasets, order them in 'hockey stick shape', choose the top 100 hockey stick shapes Stephen MacIntyre, isn't it?

Or is there another Stephen MacIntyre I've not heard of?

Lotahrsson,

Fantasitc post. Demolishes all of spotty's puerile nonsense in one fell swoop.

To reiterate: first, as Lotharsson says, pretty well every proxy published thus far supports the original from Mann et al.

Second, whatever the temperatures were in the MWP, this has nix to do with the current warming, which virtually every Academy of Science on Earth attributes primarily to huamn actions. This, along with >95% of the scientific community.

Third, most of the dissenters spotty relies on in support of his wafer-thin views appear to have very strong vested interests in denial. No need for me to shoot the messenger: with the sordid company they keep (along with the generous financial support they provide) most of spotty's 'messengers' have turned the metaphorical gun on themselves. This is why most are laughingstocks amongst the scientific community. Only right wing politicians on the corporate payroll, as well as hacks and pundits appear to suggest that these sources are 'indepenent'. Nobody else does.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 27 Apr 2011 #permalink

Aw bless, Spotty has lapped up every last drop of McIntyre's self-aggrandising, self-audited blogsploodge.

Why of course a mining finance exec. with some facility for numberwork and a first stage degree trumps actual scientists who've earned doctorates and worked a career in the field - he fits right on in with the existing network of pseudo-scientists spotty invariably trusts. Blog "scientists" after all are free to make up stories of conspiracy and conflict and associated tabloid-style tales that appeal to those of spotty's persuasion.

That spotty damns the paleo-dendro science community because of McIntyre's red noise red herring (without having the faintest clue what red noise is) and without realising that whole tale is based around an astonishingly brazen cherry-picked sample size of ~0.001% indicates all too well how easy it is to push spotty's buttons. And so Stevie gives spotty and his ilk soap opera kindling which is a post modern web entertainment form of a kind, I guess.

In the end I don't believe anybody, anywhere takes the second-hand opinions of spotty and those like him seriously for a nanosecond. But it does emphasise the need for Wegman's disgrace, when it becomes public knowledge, to be irredeemably tied to McIntyre's part in the fr@wd.

Repeato, If the laypeople do their own research they will find that the "CO2 trolls" that haunt my thread are nothing but idolater's of a dying cult.

A chart that destroys the CO2 lie.
http://tinyurl.com/42szr47

Most glaciers around the world (alpine and Greenland ice-sheet glaciers) have been melting as part of the long-term warming trend since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1700s (although some are actually increasing). The recession of glaciers started long before anthropogenic CO2 levels rose. Since the IPCC says that anthropogenic CO2-based warming has only had an effect since the 1970s, the recession of glaciers cannot be due to anthropogenic CO2-based global warming. In fact many non-alps glaciers have either been increasing, or have had a decrease in the rate of retreat in recent decades.

A book published in 1926 (C.E.P.Brooks: âClimate Through the Agesâ) stated: âthe period from 1600 to 1850 has been termed the "Little Ice-Age." There were minor maxima of glaciation about 1820 and 1850; since then the glaciers and ice-sheets have been in rapid retreat in all parts of the world.â [http://www.archive.org/details/climatethrouchth033039mbp]

When examining claims made about glaciers, it is important to have historical data back to at least the early 1900s â otherwise the information is out of context for a climatic assessment. Statements about changes over the last few decades are meaningless without a longer term context.

(http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_4CE_Glaciers.htm)

I need not mention the IPCC Himalayas joke

Spotty's alleged "C02 trolls" represent more than 95% of the scientific community. And many of those in the other 5% are either paid-for corporate shills or disgruntled far right libertarians.

As I have said, spotty, take your vapid stupidity elsewhere.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 02 May 2011 #permalink

Dltds! Gt lttl bzz n nd thght 'd r-vst m l' Dltd pls. Dltds, pls d m fvr. Gggl: "Jcksn VC lncstr fck wlf tlgrph". Pls d. knw mm's rl prd f hr lttl Dltd--bt Sgt Jcksns y gys r nt. S wht th hck hppnd t y Brts? mn, wht frkn' hppnd t y gys? P. S. B th w, cld y Dltds pls cln ff th mrrr ftr yr mtnl, hgh-prssr, zt-shft vctn dvtnls t G? mn, ll tht zt-crd bld-p s nt nl dsgstng, bt t's hrbrg fr FLSH TNG BCTR!

Are you still touchy about those wars you Yanks turned-up to 3 years late, Mike?

By Vince whirlwind (not verified) on 02 May 2011 #permalink

Jz Vnc, nt tch t ll. Lt's s nw--rn't ths wrs y'r rfrrng t th ns y gys strtd nd thn whn thngs "wrn't gng s wll" y skd s pc-lvng Ynks t bl y t? Bt ths wrs wr fght b th Brt gnrtn f Sgt Jcksn nd hs mmdt frbrs. S gvng gys lk tht hlpng hnd s n hnr. nd, f crs, thr r stll Brts tht r wrth f Sgt Jcksn's lgc. Nt s mn Dltds n ths rnks thgh. Rght? nd b th w, Vnc, whn mrcns r th ns t wr r y th srt f Brt tht Ynk cn cnt n fr spprt nd sldrt. r s tht srt f thng nl n w ffr fr y. Lt m rll pss y ff. Thr r Dltds tht hv sd sch trms s "dhmnzd kllrs" t dscrb mrcn srvc mn nd wmn. Prtt lw-lf cmmnt dn't y gr? r nt.

No Mike, those wars were wars started by Germans (bankrolled by the likes of the American Bush dynasty) that we Australians immediately joined, *on the right side*, and did our best to help put an end to.

In the first one of these wars you yanks were 3 years late to, the ANZACS were instrumental in destroying the Ottoman empire, as well as being key players in the successful battles in North-Eastern France.

In the second one of these wars, the ANZACS were once again the pivotal force that won the war in the middle-east, as well as being the first Allied army to inflict defeat on the Japanese army. The Yanks were swanning around Brisbane at the time, being characteristically careful to ensure they turned up after the tide had been turned. A wise move, considering the chronic lack of competence and professionalism available in any of the Yank armed forces, then as today. At DDay, despite being given the easy beaches furthest from German armoured counterattack, the Yanks were barely able to take the beaches let alone offer any significant support for the battles by British forces against the technically superior Germans South and East of Caen.

By Vince whirlwind (not verified) on 02 May 2011 #permalink

Vince,

You may have noticed you have me at a disadvantage. My remarks are disemvowelled while yours are not.

But I'll take another chance. The charge that the Germans started the First World War, I believe is a little bold. That war was a long time in the making with various powers spoiling for a fight--include the British Empire. The precipitating event was a series of mobilizations, which, in turn, set in motion military operations, on the use it or loose it principal.

In World War II Great Britain declared war on Germany not the other way around. I carry no brief for Hitler and think it a good thing that Great Britain (and France) went to war against him. However, technically, the Brits started that one. And the casus belli presented by Germany's invasion of Poland is not compelling since the Soviet Union also invaded Poland and war was not declared on the Soviets. But I acknowledge the Brits have bragging rights in first standing up to Hitler, however belatedly.

As far as Bush et. al funding Hitler. Well, a whole lot of folks, including Brit bankers, had a hand in that deal and some senior members of the British establishment were more than a little sympathetic to Hitler during his rise.
I'll let you investigate that angle further--some surprises await you, Vince.

The decisive event that won WW I for the allies was America's entry into the war. Not to take anything from the ANZACs but their contribution pales in comparison to America's. And it certainly wasn't America's fault that thousands of ANZACS perished at Gallipoli through incompetent British generalship.

ANZACS inflicted first defeat on the Japanese Army? Not sure what you've got in mind here. Milne Bay perhaps? Kokoda trail? Seems you're not counting the defeat of the first Japanese assault of Wake (unless you're making the trivial objection that the Japanese forces were SNLF not IJA forces (same for Milne bay, for that matter).

-Milne bay was a decisive defeat of the Japanese, though it was not an exclusively Australian victory, though the bulk of the fighting was performed by the Australians (the Australians were sent reeling by the initial Japanese assault). But it was two American units--an engineer unit and an anti-aircraft unit, as I recall--whose heavy machines guns cut down the majority of the Japanese in the decisive phase of the battle. And their weapons were not firing from Brisbane as you have apparently been encouraged to think by the lefty, anti-American bigots that have brain-washed you.

The Kokoda trail does not count, for sure, as the first defeat of the Japanese Army. Again, not to take anything away from the heroic fighting by the Australians--especially the awesome 39th Battalion. But defeat may not be the right word for the ultimate conclusion of the Kokoda trail fight. Unlike the 39th Battalion, the Australian 7th division units were roughly handled by the Japanese (as in Malaya, the Japanese showed they could turn a flank in jungle terrain) and the South Seas Detachment was only brought to a stop when the Japanese lost the Battle of Bloody Ridge to U. S. Marines, not in Brisbane, but at Guadalcanal. Sound familiar? That Guadalcanal defeat of the Japanese (which followed a previous Japanese defeat--a battle of annihilation known (mistakenly) as the Battle of the Tenaru River) caused the Japanese high command to abandon the attack on Port Moresby via the Kokoda trail in order to concentrate ija forces on the Guadalcanal fight.

And of course, it was predominantly American air and naval forces that preserved Australia from invasion (every hear of the Battle of the Coral Sea?--Port Moresby was a stepping stone). But again, your anti-American bigotry prevents you from acknowledging, or possibly even knowing, such things.

Unlike you, Vince, I don't harbor bigotries towards those English-speaking nations that were comrades-in-arms during WWII. In that regard, I hold in the highest respect the brilliant and tough fighting performed by Australian troops at Buna and Gona and in the largely Australian take-down of the Huon peninsula and the critical Markham-Ramu valley system. And the above fighting was performed in co-ordination with American actions in the Solomons/Bismarks and side-by-side with Americans in much of the fighting in New Guinea (Salamaua, Nazdab, Saidor, and Buna/Gona, and the air campaign against Japanese forces at Rabaul and seaborne units there and transiting the Huon Gulf (especially the so-called Battle of the Bismark Sea). Not to mention the great carrier battles in the Solomons that were sufficient to keep the main units of the Japanese fleet at a distance through mid-1944.

Until anti-American bigots like you Vince, showed up, starting in the 70's, Americans and Australians felt a special bond, and still do for the most part. I can see you're doing your best to discredit that special comradely feeling. Your youth masters would be proud of you.

You live in a tough neighborhood, Vince. Some folks in the neighborhood might even seen Australians as an offensive relic of a discredited colonial era--a European population best sent packing back to its countries of origin. And, unless things have changed recently, Australia has only a single Division to defend its vast territory. So you might want to appreciate a proven friend--even an anti-American bigot like you might someday like having a loyal friend covering your back.

Of course, Vince, you remain a minority among Australians. You're a shabby anti-American bigot while your countrymen are, for the most part, not. This blog attracts such marginal types and you, Vince, and the other Deltoids are not to be taken seriously.

Incidentally, the military history above is off the top of my head. I'm sure it's pretty accurate though.

*Until anti-American bigots*

Oh no. Here we go again. Anyone who dares criticize appalling and abhorrant US foreign policy agendas instantly becomes an 'anti-American bigot'. Forget the volumes of evidence showing that US planners and corporate elites have hidden behind a facade of 'democracy promotion' and 'human rights' in hiding their real agendas for decades. Once Mike resorted to this *ad hom* smear, he lost all credibility. And to top it off, claiming the moral high ground, he then has a go at most of the other posters on Tim's thread. No wonder his gibberish was scrambled.

Besides, what the hell has this got to do with spotty's thread?

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 02 May 2011 #permalink

Jeff,

Like you say, here we go again. Good faith and accurate criticisms of the U. S. are not anti-American bigotry. Criticisms featuring your typical lefty anti-American double standards are bigotry, however. But regardless, this discussion between Vince and me was on the subject of the "good war." So your comment is little OT, Jeff ol'boy. Pick a neutral blog and I'll be glad to re-engage our last discussion, but this blog is not where I want to discuss the matter of your lefty anti-Americanism, thank you (I get disemvowelled a little too often for my taste).

Vince,

I didn't get to the Normandy critique in your comment. I don't seem to have Wilmot's study of that campaign, at hand, but as I recall, Wilmot noted the Brit commanders were critical of the American landing sites precisely because they were so formidable. Otherwise, the actions at Caen were a stalemate--though the Brits had a good shot at a quick victory in their sector but rather ignominiously blew it (Google Michael Wittman for a German counterpart to Sgt Jackson). The breakout was in the Western, American sector, of the beachhead, and following that breakout American armor raced to Paris and then on to the border of Germany. The Germans fled, as best they could, through the gauntlet of the Falaise Gap. While German heavy tanks had an impressive advantage in the hedge rows of Normandy, in open terrain, American medium tanks left those gas-guzzling, maintenance-intensive German behemoths behind and decisively won the 1944 battle of France.

As far as the competence of American generalship, I'm of mixed feelings on that score. Both the Brits and Americans (and Soviets) had problems with their generals until the war sorted out the winners from the losers. Australians not so much and, of course, tactically, the best were the German generals, on average. On the other hand, I like to think the Marines did pretty well. Compare the fiasco of Gallipoli with the successful Marine Corps amphibious operations in the Pacific, for example. And I think the Marine Corps has done pretty well since then, too.

But, of course, Vince, no one takes your little arm-chair and toy-soldier military "expertise" at all seriously. I mean like you are a competent judge of military leadership? You lefties are an improbable bunch.

*I want to discuss the matter of your lefty anti-Americanism*

Grow up Mike. You write like a ten year old having a tantrum. If you have one iota of intelligence - and that is debatable, given your writing 'style' - you'd refrain from making such childish smears and engage in a much more intellectual discourse. I certainly don't need to debate with a wannabe who claims anyone who criticizes US foreign polcy agendas - and their is a helluva lot to criticize - is a 'lefty-anti American'. As long as you write such bilge you can expect others here to ridicule you. And rightly so.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 03 May 2011 #permalink

Jeff--a master of invective you are not. Bite me zip-popper!

Septic Mike: touchy little bastard aren't you? Compensating for something, perhaps...and you wonder why we think all you Teabaggers are pathetic military fantasists.

Bragging about war by little girls, who here has been hunted by men with guns ?

Most people that proudly and boastfully speak of war are usually, or always, never to be seen on the battlefield.

I personally think that any person that glorifies war should put their hand up. If they return, they usually discover that their mates have been blown to bits because of lies, greed and propaganda.

Bankers, yes follow the money, they enjoy to immerse the pawns into the sea of stupidity.

These military men have my respect, they researched and became aware.

(http://www.militaryofficersfor911truth.org/)

It will be interesting to see what this does over the NH summer.

(http://www.climate4you.com/images/AllCompared%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1…)

What's the deal rhwombat? You and Jeff some sort of tag team? Me have something to compensate for? Well let me see. I didn't have any trouble getting dates, in my youth. So that couldn't be it. The other kids didn't call me a booger-eater, geek-ball in school. Again, nothing there. I'm not a vegan so I don't have vegetable-matter derived zits and gas. So not that either. I'm not some wimpy lefty dork-lick. So I couldn't be compensating for anything there. And I'm not a useless-eater tenured parasite with a cushy spot on the public tit. So once again nothing to compensate for there.

No rhwombat, my problem is not one of compensation. My "problem" is that I admire, am grateful for, and find instructive the incredible bravery and sacrifice of the young men who fought the toughest war of them all--WWII and especially the War in the SW Pacific. Of course, my "problem" tags me a "military fantasist" (I love the term "military fantasist"--it has such an ear-cathing, retro, micro-waved comintern-cant ring to it)in certain circles. But you know rhwombat, I'd rather have my problem than yours.

Hey zitoids! I know you have an inexhaustible supply of idiot comments. But my real life calls. So for this thread, I'll just end with a general purpose "Yo mama!"

Sordid Mike must have a serious problem. Why does he suddenly pop up on this thread? What the hell has WWII got to do with climate change and what is being mulled over here?

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 03 May 2011 #permalink

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - A record number of big-game animals perished this winter in parts of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming from a harsh season of unusually heavy snows and sustained cold in the Northern Rockies, state wildlife managers say.

"Elk, deer and moose -- those animals are having a pretty tough time," said Wyoming Game and Fish biologist Doug Brimeyer.

Snow and frigid temperatures in pockets of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming arrived earlier and lingered longer than usual, extending the time that wildlife were forced to forage on low reserves for scarce food, leading more of them to starve.

Based on aerial surveys of big-game herds and signals from radio-collared animals, experts are documenting high mortality among offspring of mule deer, white-tailed deer and pronghorn antelope.

This comes as big-game animals enter the last stretch of a period from mid-March through early May that is considered critical for survival.

Wildlife managers estimate die-offs in the tens of thousands across thousands of square miles that span prairie in northeastern Montana, the upper Snake River basin in Idaho near Yellowstone National Park and the high country of northwestern Wyoming near the exclusive resort of Jackson.

Brimeyer said the estimated death rate doubled among deer fawns in the Jackson area this year, rising to 60 percent or more from 30 percent.

He said many thousands more elk have crowded the feeding grounds of the National Elk Refuge near Jackson, yet another sign of the toll winter is exacting.....................

(http://www.fox59.com/news/nationworld/sns-rt-usreport-us-wildliftre7402…)

I know you have an inexhaustible supply of idiot comments.

How thoughtful of you to post yours on this particular thread.

I'd like to apologise to SupSnot for derailing his thread with my crude, off-topic irrelevancies.

And thanks to Mike for offering such good sport. Not quite Marlin, though, more like Sailfish.

By Vince whirlwind (not verified) on 03 May 2011 #permalink

New Paper: Greenland ice sheet didn't melt despite temperatures much hotter in the past
A new paper from the 2011 Antarctic Science Symposium presents new ice core data from Greenland and finds that not even the southern portion of Greenland was ice-free during the Eemian period, despite temperatures much higher than the present (5°C or 9°F) lasting for 16,000 years (from 130,000 to 114,000 years ago). Meanwhile, alarmists such as Richard Alley (buddy of Michael Mann at Penn State) and James Hansen claim "The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2°C." Note global temperatures have recovered by a mere 0.7°C since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850 and have been flat to declining since 1998.

(http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/05/paper-greenland-ice-sheet-did…)

Yawn.

Sunpsot. You aren't convincing anyone with your reliance on denialist web sites. You don't write like a scientist, you don't think like a scientist, and you don't publish like a scientist.

Hockeyschtick blogspot? Where on Earth do you get the time to dig up this crap? My advice is for you to keep hanging out with the Flat Earthers, and go away from here. You are metaphorically 'farting into the wind'.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 04 May 2011 #permalink

A note to any layperson that might floating through here, Jeff doesn't know how to use the links that are provided in articles on websites, certainly the sites that don't conform to his deluded world views. He likes to shoot the messenger and ignore any science papers that are contrary to his narrow field of vision.

So......to make it easy for Jeff, we'll go straight to the source.....

The role of the Greenland Ice Sheet in future sea levels - Based on palaeorecords from ice cores and present observations

A new Greenland ice core has been drilled. The first results from the NEEM ice core are presented and then combined with results from other deep ice cores from the Greenland Ice Sheet.

All of the ice cores drilled through the Greenland Ice Sheets have been analyzed, and the results show that all contain ice from the previous warm Eemian period near the base. Is it thus clear that the Greenland Ice Sheet has existed for over 120,000 years, going back to the previous warm period, when it was 5 deg C warmer over Greenland?

The difference between Eemian and Holocene stable oxygen isotope values has been combined with an ice sheet flow model constrained by the ice core results and internal radio echo sounding layers, to estimate the volume of the Greenland Ice Sheet 120,000 years ago.

The results show that South Greenland has not been ice-free during the Eemian period, and that the sea level contribution from the Greenland Ice Sheet has been 1 to 2 meters.

(also try clicking on some links Jeff, they are the blue ones, you need the practice).

(https://events.icecube.wisc.edu/indico/contributionDisplay.py?contribId…)

hmmm..... this one say's "that the period was 5 K warmer", If Jeff knew how to use the internet then he could have had a go at me about that ! He like's blame me for other peoples mistakes.

"It can be concluded that the there was an significant ice sheet covering Greenland during the warm Eemian period and that the reduction of the Greenland ice sheet at most contributed with a sea level rise of 1-2 m of the observed 5 m."

(http://cires.colorado.edu/events/lectures/dahljensen/)

So... was it 5C or 5K ?

You know, SupSnot, I haven't said this for years, but reading what you've posted, not once, not twice, but three times, I am still left with my initial impression: "so what?".

What thesis are you making, precisely?

By Vince whirlwind (not verified) on 04 May 2011 #permalink

Your a bit slow twirlybird,

"According to the IPCC, a global temperature increase of more than about 2°C would see Greenlandâs ice-sheet eventually melt completely. And its projections show this degree of temperature change is now very likely by the end of the century."

and....

Toniazzo et al. (2004) further show that in UKMO-HadCM3, the complete melting of the Greenland Ice sheet is an irreversible process even if pre-industrial levels of atmospheric CO2 are re-established after it melts. (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-3-3.html)

and......

Figure 10.38. Evolution of Greenland surface elevation and ice sheet volume versus time in the experiment of Ridley et al. (2005) with the UKMO-HadCM3 AOGCM coupled to the Greenland Ice Sheet model of Huybrechts and De Wolde (1999) under a climate of constant quadrupled pre-industrial atmospheric CO2. (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-10-38.html)

I'll spell it out for you twirlybird,

IT'S BEEN HOTTER BEFORE AND GREENLAND DIDN'T MELT

I spoze that Hansen will be letting the air out of his rubber duckie now.

dunno why i bother putting links in my posts, the feeble minded CO2 trolls in here look at them and say, ummm....der...

> What thesis are you making, precisely?

I believe the thesis is "LOOK AT ME!!!!".

Where does the IPCC publish the first bit you are "quoting"?

I've got 10.3.3.3 where they mention the Ridley modelling.
10.7.4.3 where they mention Huybrechts, Gregory and others as well as this:
"climate of Greenland would be much warmer without the ice sheet, because of lower surface altitude and albedo, so it is possible that Greenland deglaciation and the resulting sea level rise would be irreversible. Toniazzo et al. (2004) find that snow does not accumulate anywhere on an ice-free Greenland with pre-industrial atmospheric CO2, whereas Lunt et al. (2004) obtain a substantial regenerated ice sheet in east and central Greenland using a higher-resolution model. "

I think you're just exposeing a flaw common to all deniers: you don't know what the IPCC is or what it does.

By Vince whirlwind (not verified) on 05 May 2011 #permalink

Vince,

As if the Freckle would quote the IPCC!?! That quote comes from a website called climatechangecorp.com, a climate change website for business. The article he quotes talks at some length about how the rapidity of change seen in the real world constantly surprises those cautious and conservative scientists, and the specific sentence he quotes is followed by: "But while there is no doubt about the final outcome [ie that the IPCC projection is correct], the uncertainty for the IPCC is over how fast Greenlandâs ice-sheet will melt. The rates of all the melting processes are still very uncertain..."

The tenor is "There is uncertainty about the timing, but not about the outcome."

No F Wank, it came from here,

(http://www.lightblueline.org/nasas-james-hansen-ipcc-forecast-climate-c…)

and it followed on to say......

"But while there is no doubt about the final outcome, the uncertainty for the IPCC is over how fast Greenlandâs ice-sheet will melt. The rates of all the melting processes are still very uncertain, nor are they properly represented by conventional models for predicting melting rates (see Extras: the science below).

" With the scientific community divided, such an uncertain forecast will leave policy makers struggling to plan ahead."

Given this uncertainty, the IPCC in its report declined to make any quantitative estimates of sea level rises that might result, even within wide error bounds. What it did give was estimates of the smaller but much better understood effects of thermal expansion as the oceans warm, ranging from 0.2 to 0.6m by 2100."

"Uncertainty", this means that they haven't got a clue !

Anyway, as you can see from post 367

IT'S BEEN HOTTER BEFORE AND GREENLAND DIDN'T MELT,

in other words, there are many doubt's, the science is not settled, nor is there a consensus.

Spotty said: "IT'S BEEN HOTTER BEFORE AND GREENLAND DIDN'T MELT"

Even Hammett might be stumped to exactly count the number of lies, misleading assumptions and misdirections that could be found in those eight words.

Your weekend homework spotty is to find at what depth the eemian samples were found, look up what a Milankovitch cycle is and get your head around the fact that the [Greenland ice sheet is losing mass](http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2009JB006847.shtml)
that has accumulated during the holocene.

FrankD, say it ain't so! You mean sunspot's own reference refutes his claims about it? The sunspot curse strikes again?!!!!

Speaking of uncertainty about timing, there's also [this news article](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/new-climate-report-confirms-arctic-…) about recent work on Greenland (and other ice cover). It reports (amongst other things) that Greenland's melting faster than the AR4 predicted, in part because the AR4 noted that the science of various types of melt dynamics at the time was too uncertain too include so they left them out of predictions - and noted the fact. Now the research has advanced, and the melt is clearly accelerating, and the forecasts are being updated accordingly.

I'll leave sunspot to find some dubious source to tell him what his misconceptions of this research should be.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 May 2011 #permalink

slothy, it looks like a typical arm waving funding drive to me, would that melting, if true, be weather or climate ?

Just around the corner from Greenland, there is currently a huge problem with all the critters dying from the long and very cold winter, is that weather or climate ?

I know, Loth, it's uncanny! The spotster is such a card, he doesn't even read the first line on his own link, which confirms it's a reprint of the article I cited.

This thread has been a revelation on troll psychology - at first I thought spotty was just another annoying idiot, but I've gradually came to appreciate the latent humour, which I now assume is deliberate. He's like watching Christopher Monckton in whiteface and big floppy shoes. I look foward to every new post he makes, just for the lulz...

But mostly I'm looking forward to his next weather update from the Old Dart. He hasn't given one for a while. [I can't imagine why](http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-05-04/europe-grains-wilt-as-engla…)...

*Just around the corner from Greenland, there is currently a huge problem with all the critters dying from the long and very cold winter*

Speaking as an ecologist, this is utter drivel. In northern Quebec, December was one of the warmest recorded, meaning that the winter was certainly not a 'long' one. Certainly boreal and tundra species are well adapted to short-term cold weather events. Longer term warming, however, poses a real threat to their persistence and survival. Just as longer term warming is disrupting phenological interactions amongst oak trees, winter moths and pied flycatchers in Europe. This year, in keeping with a long-term trend, we have had one of the earliest and warmest springs on record in The Netherlands. Along with that has been a crippling drought, meaning that early growth and flowering has been offset by a lack of rain. If this year was a one-off event, it would not be so serious, but there has been a significant onset of (1) earlier springs, and (2) milder night temperatures since the 1970s. The rate of change has apparently exceeded the ability of many species to 'track' the warming either behaviorially or physiologically. Add to that that many of these species-related traits are based on interactions with other species, and the extent of the predicament becomes clearer. As I have said before, and in contrast with the nitwits who post gibberish up on non-peer reviewed weblogs that spotty cites, there is plenty of biotic evidence for warming. This alone vanquishes their stupid refrains of 'it stopped warming in 1998' and other such childish crap.

And yes, spotty, you are, as you always do, mixing up weather and climate. Whenever I play your game you chastise me for confusing the two. Then you past a few scraps from articles reporting a cold snap is occurring somewhere. The truth is that there have been more than twice as many high temperature records set since the 1990s than low temperature records. The trend towards more record high temperatures has been increasing decade by decade since the 1950s. This is statistically significant, and therein lies one of the truths underlying the current warming. It IS warming, at different rates at different places, and at different time scales. You can huff and puff and pout all you like, but the science is IN. The question left is to what extent this will affect natural and managed ecosystems.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 06 May 2011 #permalink

> ...I've gradually came to appreciate the latent humour, which I now assume is deliberate...

I had assumed that sunspot was determinedly aiming to snag a worldwide Poe championship...but after he was banished here and still continued to post the same type of incohesive and largely incoherent "argument" to an apparently tiny and inconstant audience, I have come to believe that the humour is unintentional and sunspot is sincere in his determined incomprehension of the science. I leave the thread alone for months at a time and then drop in and it seems the same as it ever was...so whatever's driving him seems to be internally generated rather than external validation.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 May 2011 #permalink

I don't suppose that the CO2 freak's in here have heard of THE NORTH ATLANTIC OSCILLATION !

"The cause for the dry spell now was a high pressure ridge over western and central Europe, deflecting Atlantic wet weather, say experts who forecast wetter conditions in late May."

"Longer term forecasts beyond seven days were not an exact science, cautioned a spokesman for the German weather service, declining to predict that far ahead."

Did you read that fella's ? "not an exact science", he should've added "especially where tax grabbing governments are involved".

(http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/european-drought-forecast-to-end-lat…)

Has anybody in here noticed the faltering rising sea levels ?

(http://sealevel.colorado.edu/files/current/sl_ib_global.jpg)

Arrrrrrrrr........ALL THE ICE IS MELTING !!

but the sea levels are going down,

AMAZINK !

The unintentional humour continues :-) I'm fairly confident sunspot doesn't even know what's funny - let alone how many different things are - about his post.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 07 May 2011 #permalink

Most widely used climate computer model exaggerates global warming by 67%

A paper published today in the Journal of Climate announces a new version of the computer climate model most widely used by climate scientists and the IPCC, called the Community Climate System Model (CCSM) version 4. The creators claim their program is

"a fully-coupled, global climate model that provides state-of-the-art computer simulations of the Earthâs past, present, and future climate states."

The abstract, however, contains a remarkable admission that the model exaggerates the global warming from 1850 to 2005 by 0.4°C more than observations. The observed global warming from 1850 to 2005 was only 0.6°C, thus the computer model predicted ~ 67% more global warming than actually occurred. This exaggeration alone could account for all of the claimed "heat trapping" from the increase in man-made carbon dioxide over that same 155 year period. IPCC projections for future global warming based upon this model may be similarly greatly exaggerated. (http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/05/most-widely-used-climate-comp…)

For those that don't know how to use the internet, here is the abstract.

(http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI4083.1)

"Scientists from Stanford and Columbia Universities said Canadian and U.S. temperatures since 1980 have changed, but are still within the range of "natural variability" in weather. So in North America, the effects of climate change are practically invisible"

(http://www.vancouversun.com/mobile/iphone/story.html?id=4736609)

It's obvious that they haven't studied the rest of the planet, only IPCC rubbish. No doubt similar studies will start popping up from other countries.

Again, Lotharsson, I have to disagree, the humour must be intentional. Surely, having provided a link for "those that don't know how to use the internet". the spotty one must have actually read the abstract, no?

But once again, the next sentence of the abstract shows what bilge the hockeyschtick's write up is: "The CCSM4 ensemble mean increase in globally-averaged surface temperature between 1850 and 2005 is larger than the observed increase by about 0.4°C. This is consistent with the fact that CCSM4 does not include a representation of the indirect effects of aerosols, although other factors may come into play."

That 0.4 discrepancy is easily accounted for by aerosols, the absence of which from the CCSM4 might come as a revelation to "those that don't know how to use the internet" (a clade in which rejectionists are overrepresented), but is well known to those with an interest in climate.

One more denialist who is either ignorant or a liar. That Krusty Spotty quotes without reading the source is classic pie-in-the-face, seltzer-bottle clowntrolling.

> That Krusty Spotty quotes without reading the source is classic pie-in-the-face, seltzer-bottle clowntrolling.

I've got to admit I can't rule out your hypothesis with any confidence - self-refuting reference after self-refuting reference is certainly consistent with deliberate clowntrolling. If that's true then sunspot hasn't twigged that too much slapstick loses its humour value and becomes just sad.

But if you are right, then sunspot should be able to list the ways in which his "you guys haven't heard of the NORTH ATLANTIC OSCILLATION" post was intended to be humorous - but I guess a performer doesn't want to call attention to his tradecraft ;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 08 May 2011 #permalink

Is spotty's comment at #383 about a cold snap in Greenland supposed to somehow detract from or counter the GRACE data, or major visible events only a few short months ago like [100 sq. miles breaking off from the Petermann Glacier?](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/08/08/view-cracking-11587…)

As the link shows, even the lowliest tabloids relayed that piece of news, so it's not like it was buried in some obscure NASA journal.

In coulrotaxonomy (the classification of clowns), the classic dynamic exists between the whiteface, thrower of creampies ["all-knowing (even if not particularly smart), bossy and cocky. He is the ultimate authority figure" (sound familiar?)], and the auguste, the victim of the whiteface's bullying. However, when there are more than two clowns, it is common to involve a subtype of the auguste, the "contra-auguste", a designation that fits the typical clowntroll.

"The contra-auguste plays the role of the mediator between the whiteface character and the auguste character. He has a lower status than the whiteface but a higher status than the auguste. He aspires to be more like the whiteface and often mimics everything the whiteface does to try to gain approval."

In practice, the contra-auguste is a kind of Wile E. Coyote figure, constantly hoist on his own petard. Between sucking up to the whiteface he aspires to be and trying, but usually failing, to victimise the "everyman" auguste, the contra-auguste is both ineffectual and self-parodying, face-pie-ing or seltzer-spraying himself, derided by the whiteface and only serving to reinforce the audiences liking for the plucky auguste.

While the arrogant and untouchable whiteface is typically the subject of children's nightmares, and the source of coulrophobia, it is the contre-auguste who is the truly sad clown, the one that adults find unsettling due to his pathetic and fruitless surrender of any self-respect. The whiteface laughs on the outside while crying on the inside, and the auguste the reverse, but the contra-auguste ends crying on the outside and the inside, leaving the stage with a pathetic "parp" of his bicycle horn and whipped cream dripping from his face...

Quotes from Wikipedia for convenience.

Chek - that chunk of ice (now split into two large pieces) will become news again in a couple of months. After a rapid transit down the coast of Baffin Island, the two massive bergs will become a major shipping hazard in the area where the Titanic went down when they clear the Labrador coast. I'd guess that will be in about six weeks or so if they don't run aground in the interim.

chekie, that must have been an exciting find for you, after all, the planet hasn't been showing any signs of warming recently.

and fwank, if the titanic hadn't hit one those ice blocks 100 yrs ago you might of been able to wave yer arms and point to CO2 for the ice block that snapped of greenland.

go on....... wave em anyway, not much else has been happening

"... after all, the planet hasn't been showing any signs of warming recently.

Another day, another massive, size 32 clownshoe fail - you really should give up those stupider-than-thou denier blogs and acquaint yourself with the real world out there, spotty.

[April was by far the warmest April on record in England; the average central England temperature (CET) was the highest in 353 years of records](http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/may/09/weather-april-sunshine-rainfall)

[âWe can already say now that this yearâs April is one of the warmest we have ever experienced in Norway,â John Smits of the state meteorological institute told news bureau NTB.](http://www.newsinenglish.no/2011/04/25/warm-temperatures-set-spring-rec…)

[Ireland Records Its Warmest April On Record](http://www.irishweatheronline.com/news/climate-news/ireland-records-its…)

[March 2011 was the second lowest sea ice extent on record](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/extremes/201103.gif)

I'm confident that many more will appear when the NOAA April 2011 temp anomaly map is published, but for now consider yourself debunked, yet again.

hmmm.......

Relocations of recent events and trends in glacial-earthquake locations in Greenland
Veitch, S. A.; Nettles, M.
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #C43A-0523

Glacial earthquakes in Greenland have been associated with calving events at marine-terminating outlet glaciers along the Greenland Coast (e.g., Ekström et al., 2003; Nettles et al., 2008; Joughin et al., 2008). Previous studies (Ekström et al., 2006) noted an increase in occurrence of these events between 1993 and 2005. Newly available data for years 2006-2009 (Nettles & Ekström, 2010) show a peak in glacial-earthquake occurrence in 2005; however, occurrence rates since 2006 remain approximately double those prior to 2000. We model waveforms for recent events (2006-2009) to obtain improved locations and associate earthquakes with individual glaciers. Analysis of previously published solutions (Tsai & Ekström, 2007) as well as our new results indicates "GROWTH" in the number of glaciers at which glacial earthquakes occur, as well as spatial changes in the locations of glacial earthquakes over time, most notably in Northwest Greenland, where the northern limit of detected glacial earthquakes has progressed northward. Glaciers quiescent prior to 2000 now contribute significantly to the glacial-earthquake catalog, accounting for more than 25% of recorded events since 2001, and more than 40% of recorded events in 2008. This may indicate a rapid retreat of the calving front and significantly increased flow speeds at previously stable tidewater glaciers.

(http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFM.C43A0523V)

thats great news chekie, australian wheat prices will soar :)

we can thank the NAO for that

Sorry chek,but that is all just 'wether',not climate.Just like last december in England was the second coldest in its history.Meaningless noise.

By Tim Wells (not verified) on 09 May 2011 #permalink

TW, I'm certain that every regular poster on this blog knows the difference between weather and climate.

But it's a game spotty likes to play when he thinks it suits his case. And of course, his more egregious claims such as at #388 can be easily shown to be falsehoods.

And Canada had the warmest winter recorded.

PS on the whole "Just like last december in England was the second coldest in its history": England had the second warmest WINTER in recorded history and the warmest APRIL in recorded history.

Just goes to show you can't take ONE event and extrapolate.

No matter how much adding more data ruins your argument.

Canada, long winter...

"Planting season has been delayed many weeks, local observers point out, so producers have been slow to hire. The long winter and moist spring have also slowed construction of underground utilities and new homes."
(http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/front-page-news/weather-takes-its-toll-…)

and

Net sales in North America were down by 1% compared to last year, impacted by year-end timing of some shipments as well as long winter in northern states of USA and Canada, which delayed the beginning of 2011 season.(http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/idUS60711+03-May-2011+HUG2011…)

yawn, and....

This yearâs launch continues a tradition that dates back 126 years and came about three and half weeks later than usual due to a particularly long winter season.
(http://tonawanda-news.com/local/x2023603697/Launching-amid-troubled-wat…)

there's more.............

Jeff, He's has abandoned any pretence of even giving us weather reports now.

@Freckles the Clowntroll: "Net sales in North America were down by 1% compared to last year"

Net sales of what, I wondered...

It turns out the quote comes from a business report on Rapala VMC, makes of the worlds favourite...wait for it...fishing lure...

Fishing gear as a proxy for temperatures! A 1% decline in regional sales shows us AGW is a fr*ud!

But wait, a few sentences on, it mentions they had 15% sales growth in the rest of the world, so that must mean...yup, our resident contra-auguste has poured the bucket of paint over his own head, again!

Cue the sad trombone arpeggio: Wah-wah-wah-waaaaaaahhh...

Oooh, Doctor Whiteface will be mad with him this time! And don't the kids love it!

The "launching" referred to above is of the Maid of the Mist, which clown afficionados will recall is where Jim Carrey delivers his classic meltdown rant in "Bruce Almighty":

"Bruce Nolan here, aboard the Maid of the Mist, in the fabulous Niagara Falls, New York ... Oh, look, thereâs the owner of the Maid of the Mist! Letâs have a talk with him, shall we?? Come here, Bill. Youâve been running the Maid of the Mist for years. Tell me, why do you think I didnât get the anchor job? Is it my hair, Bill? Are my teeth not white enough? Or like the great Falls, is it the bedrock of my life, eroding beneath me? Eroding! EEEROODING! Iâm Bruce Nolan, for Eyewitness News. Back to you, f&#%$rs."

Not too highbrow, but classic contra-auguste clowning. My kids laugh till they pee themselves every time that scene comes on. And an apt description of the quality of the "arguments" here:

Eroding!

EEEROODING!

Hey, what a good game! I see your fishing lures and raise you a royal wedding: "The hottest April on record got people out buying summer clothing, said one analyst."

For what it's worth (hint: not much), it also seems to have been the windiest April on record in Galveston County, Texas, the driest March-April on record in Texas and the wettest April on record in the Ohio Valley. Not to mention the sunniest April on record in Ireland, and the cloudiest April on record in Chicago.

It was probably cold somewhere too.

NSW experienced in March2011 its 9th consecutive month with above average rainfall, something that has been recorded only once before, in 1916-17.

Broken Hill experienced its coldest March on record.
Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island broke all sorts of temperature records in March as a result of the unusually warmer ocean temperatures.

By Vince whirlwind (not verified) on 09 May 2011 #permalink

Just a note to the passers-by, f wank has been de-fanged, yes he's just clowning around and the worst he could do would be to gum you to death.

f wank, I'm glad you got kick out out of those climate proxies.

i got kick out of this

http://tinyurl.com/3oohgrb

New paper: Increased solar activity caused far more global warming than assumed by the IPCC
A recent peer-reviewed paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics finds that solar activity has increased since the Little Ice Age by far more than previously assumed by the IPCC. The paper finds that the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has increased since the end of the Little Ice Age (around 1850) by up to 6 times more than assumed by the IPCC. Thus, much of the global warming observed since 1850 may instead be attributable to the Sun (called "solar forcing"), rather than man-made CO2 as assumed by the IPCC.

f wank will tell you all where that came from.

Spotty says: "Thus, much of the global warming observed since 1850 may instead be attributable to the Sun (called "solar forcing"), rather than man-made CO2 as assumed by the IPCC.

Except of course that doesn't match our observations of stratospheric cooling, which this mysterious, previously unknown external energy would also have to warm on its way through in order to overheat the troposphere, and neither does it explain the decreasing diurnal temperature gradient.

Funnily enough, GHG warming does explain these observations well, but clearly not to cranks and their hobbyhorses who prefer to ignore obvious basic tests in favour of their denialist crank theories.

> The paper finds that the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has increased since the end of the Little Ice Age (around 1850) by up to 6 times more than assumed by the IPCC.

Which makes the warming from that what?

I notice you haven't quoted that.

> Thus, much of the global warming observed since 1850 may instead be attributable to the Sun (called "solar forcing"), rather than man-made CO2 as assumed by the IPCC.

Sorry, the sun can't explain why it's warmer at night, where there is an entire planet in the way of the sun.

And no, it can't explain much of the warming seen. Partly because the sun has been at a low for a long time whilst temperatures still rise. The sun can't explain that.

> Partly because the sun has been at a low for a long time whilst temperatures still rise.

Didn't Sting or The Police have the answer to that?

"There must be an invisible sun / that gives its warmth to everyone"

Hey, it's just about as plausible as anything else sunspot writes ;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 10 May 2011 #permalink

Here is the paper, read it and weep

A new approach to long-term reconstruction of the solar irradiance
leads to large historical solar forcing

(http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1102/1102.4763v1.pdf)

The CO2 trolls in here remind me of Galileo's problems with the IPCC back in the 1600's

You don't actually read anything you quote as your "evidence", do you spotty?

The intro of the paper alone confirms it is not saying what you think it does.

So the question is which bottom-feeding, junk-spewing denialist orifice did you gullibly take on trust when it told you that paper refuted AGW?

> A new approach to long-term reconstruction of the solar irradiance leads to large historical solar forcing

So they've managed time travel? Or is it that the paper thinks it has a different method to reconstruct TSI in the past?

It is still unable to answer why the past 50 years has seen the sun activity diverge from the temperature records.

If the paper is correct, then that divergence is greater proof that the current warming period is due to a non-natural effect and is of even greater effect than previously expected.

More damning evidence, the CO2 scam is melting much quicker than the ice.

Recent observations and studies of breaking of ice shelves and ice sheet mass losses must be carefully assessed in the context of Arctic climatology which is now identified as being linked to low frequency atmosphere/ocean oscillation with a period of 60-80 years. An excellent temperature dataset for the entire Arctic basin has been prepared by Dr Igor Polyakov (University of Alaska) for the period 1860-2005.

This dataset shows clearly that the Arctic was at its warmest in 1935 and 1936 and the present temperature in the Arctic is about the same as it was in the mid-1930s. Further, the Arctic witnessed significant icecap and glacier melting during the 1920s and 1930s as evidenced by the following commentary âThe Arctic sea is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer, great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared (US Weather Bureau 1922)â.

Also, the temperature history of Greenland shows that the 1920s and 1930s were the two warmest decades over Greenland, in a long dataset from 1880 to 2007. These observations and the US weather Bureau report strongly suggest that the Arctic witnessed significant ice melt and icecap mass loss during the 1920s and 1930s, however, no detailed quantitative calculations (of icecap mass loss) were possible then due to lack of adequate remote sensing technology.

An estimate of sea level rise can be made by observing that from 1940 to 2010, global sea level has risen by about 13-14 cm. Of this rise, the steric (thermal) component of SLR can be estimated at about 6 cm while the eustatic (melt part) contribution is about 8 cm. If these estimates are used to extrapolate SLR to 2100, we obtain a maximum of 12 cm of SLR due to the eustatic (melting) contribution, while another 8 cm or so due to steric (thermal expansion) contribution.

In summary, the estimate of over 1m and higher rise in sea level by 2100 (in next 90 years) seems unrealistic, when analyzed in the context of present sea level rise which is just about 1.5mm to 2.0 mm per year with almost NO component of acceleration. (http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/guest-weblog-post-comm…)

Why Greenhouse Gases Won't Heat the Oceans
Climate scientist Roger Pielke, Sr has noted that land surface temperature records (which comprise the vast majority of temperature records prior to the satellite era (1979-)) are unreliable due to land use changes and urban heat island effects, and that we should therefore look to ocean heat content changes as the most reliable metric for assessing global heating and cooling. The oceans cover 71% of the global surface area and hold at least 1000 times more heat than the atmosphere. Many have claimed that the 'missing heat' from 'anthropogenic global warming' has gone into the oceans, even though the heat seems to be 'missing' from the oceans as well. Recent data from the ARGO network of ~3200 floating robot sensors has shown that since full deployment of the system in ~2003, the ocean heat content has declined despite steadily rising 'greenhouse' CO2 levels: How could this be? Here are the physical reasons why increasing concentrations of 'greenhouse gases' would not be expected to increase ocean heat content:

1. Infrared radiation from 'greenhouse gases' causes evaporative cooling of the oceans rather than heating CO2 and other 'greenhouse gases' re-emit radiation to the Earth and space in the long-wave infrared (LWIR) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. While ultraviolet and visible radiation from the Sun does penetrate the surface of the oceans to cause heating, the energy output of the Sun is relatively stable and obviously not linked to man. However, since the LWIR re-radiation from increasing 'greenhouse gases' is only capable of penetrating a minuscule few microns (millionths of a meter) past the surface and no further, it could therefore only cause evaporation (and thus cooling) of the surface 'skin' of the oceans. Stephen Wilde, LLB (Hons.), Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society explains this in detail, excerpted below: ..................

(http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-greenhouse-gases-wont-hea…)

I should get a Nobel Prize for my efforts of gathering information to educate the mentally impaired :)

You haven't "gathered" anything - you're just regurgitating crap you've swallowed from denialist blogsites.

"An excellent temperature dataset for the entire Arctic basin has been prepared by Dr Igor Polyakov (University of Alaska) for the period 1860-2005."

I believe is a mistake - he had collated Arctic temperature data 1860-2000, and published it in 2002.
There is no reference in your regurgitation, and on Pielke's site there is no reference to this "-2005" dataset.

If you make claims, you reference them. I believe you should get an anti-nobel prize for your shoddy scholarship.

By Vince whirlwind (not verified) on 11 May 2011 #permalink

In fact, here's what Polyakov has to say, himself (not the words delusional idiots put in his mouth):

"temperature of the intermediate-depth (150â900 m) Atlantic water (AW) of the Arctic Ocean has increased in recent decades."

"AW warming helped precondition the polar ice cap for the extreme ice loss observed in recent years."

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010JPO4339.1

By Vince whirlwind (not verified) on 11 May 2011 #permalink

@clowntroll: "Just a note to the passers-by, f wank has been de-fanged, yes he's just clowning around and the worst he could do would be to gum you to death."

Saying it doesn't make it so - as we have seen, when the contra-auguste holds the pie, chances are he'll be the one covered in cream shortly...

First our clowntroll gives us the hilarious scene of the 8 year old flailing wildly as the adult [holds them at arms length](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AtArmsLength): "This is, of course, more common in comedic situations, or other situations in which a humorous "haha look at this guy, he's pathetic" act is preferred to a merciless beatdown." Timeless contra-auguste clowning...

So he moves on to another, giving us his take on the classic one where dozens of clowns emerge one after another from the tiny car...Our clowntroll opens the door for Doctor Whiteface himself, who emerges first (of course) to the gasps of the crowd. He shows the expected arrogance dispensing economic "wisdom", but works in irony as he fails (as ever) to appreciate that the origin of the word "economy" connotes the conservation of ones resources. Doctor Whiteface is followed by Pielke, and then in a genuinely original moment of buffe, Pielke is followed by ... Pielke again!

Who will be next out? Watts? McIntyre? Maybe the jokers from CO2 "Science"! The kiddies are rivetted, and can barely contain their excitement! The adults, of course, have mostly seen it before, but laugh along with the littlies, appreciating that in amoungst the tired old gags, there are a few moments of clowning genius.

Personally, I'm just waiting for the wierdos in makeup to get out of the ring so the trapeze act can start...

Channel Ten confirms new Sunday morning show hosted by Andrew Bolt

That will put the fox in the pen with the chicken little's.

hmmmm.......I wonder what topic's he will cover ?

Probably the great issues of the age that he's familiar with - expounding ignorance in the press, the rise of ignorance in modern society, the encouragement of ignorance by a corrupt and decadent political class, giving the ignorant and ill-informed an equal voice, the relentless drive to dumb-down society for corporate gain, finding the lowest common denominator, and of course promoting stupid phuckwittery for profit.

Yeah, being a major disinformer, Watts really is shovelling up as much junk as possible to bury the oh-so personally embarrassing results of his pet, multi-year surface stations project.

Guess what - the temperature record is sound and the world is warming, just like the professional scientists say.

Expect many more such * nothing * posts until his clack of goldfish-memoried followers cannot recall so much as what a surface station ever was.

Sorry chekie, I shouldn't tease you by posting links to that shill for the nuclear industry.

Here is the source,

Scientists at Aarhus University (AU) and the National Space Institute (DTU Space) show that particles from space create cloud cover

16.05.11

New input to the United Nations climate model: Ulrik Ingerslev Uggerhøj, Physics and Astronomy, AU, along with others including Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen and Martin Bødker Enghoff, DTU Space, have directly demonstrated in a new experiment that cosmic radiation can create small floating particles â so-called aerosols â in the atmosphere. By doing so, they substantiate the connection between the Sunâs magnetic activity and the Earthâs climate.

( http://science.au.dk/en/news-and-events/news-article/artikel/forskere-f… )

CO2 - ha

This should relieve the symptoms of CO2 psychotic syndrome

Cern will also be publishing their Cloud experiment soon.

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 38, L09805, 4 PP., 2011
doi:10.1029/2011GL047036

Aerosol nucleation induced by a high energy particle beam
Key Points

Cosmic rays incrase nucleation rate
A particle beam is not needed for experiments
Ions are important for atmospheric nucleation rate

Martin B. Enghoff

National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen

National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

Ulrik I. Uggerhøj

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark

Sean M. Paling

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

Henrik Svensmark

National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

We have studied sulfuric acid aerosol nucleation in an atmospheric pressure reaction chamber using a 580 MeV electron beam to ionize the volume of the reaction chamber. We find a clear contribution from ion-induced nucleation and consider this to be the first unambiguous observation of the ion-effect on aerosol nucleation using a particle beam under conditions that resemble the Earth's atmosphere. By comparison with ionization using a gamma source we further show that the nature of the ionizing particles is not important for the ion-induced component of the nucleation. This implies that inexpensive ionization sources - as opposed to expensive accelerator beams - can be used for investigations of ion-induced nucleation.

Received 8 February 2011; accepted 31 March 2011; published 12 May 2011.

Citation: Enghoff, M. B., J. O. P. Pedersen, U. I. Uggerhøj, S. M. Paling, and H. Svensmark (2011), Aerosol nucleation induced by a high energy particle beam, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L09805, doi:10.1029/2011GL047036.

( http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL047036.shtml )

"Cosmic rays incrase nucleation rate"

Compared to what? No cosmic rays at all?

You see, condensation needs water vapour to happen. If there isn't enough, the droplet dries quicker than it forms and is starved of more moisture by its creation.

And if there were more clouds, we'd be seeing them.

Oddly enough, it seems you denialists are relying on invisible clouds.

"have directly demonstrated in a new experiment that cosmic radiation can create small floating particles â so-called aerosols â in the atmosphere."

Known about for ages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_chamber

But you need water vapour. And to have more cloud you need more water vapour. But cosmic rays don't cause water vapour.

Do you guys really believe sunspot will show up here?

If he doesn't, good riddance, eh?

While I have been skeptical of Svensmarkâs cosmic ray theory up until now, it looks like the evidence is becoming too strong for me to ignore. The following results will surely be controversial, and the reader should remember that what follows is not peer reviewed, and is only a preliminary estimate.

Iâve made calculations based upon satellite observations of how the global radiative energy balance has varied over the last 10 years (between Solar Max and Solar Min) as a result of variations in cosmic ray activity. The results suggest that the total (direct + indirect) solar forcing is at least 3.5 times stronger than that due to changing solar irradiance alone.

If this is anywhere close to being correct, it supports the claim that the sun has a much larger potential role (and therefore humans a smaller role) in climate change than what the âscientific consensusâ states...................

( http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/05/indirect-solar-forcing-of-climate-b… )

> While I have been skeptical of Svensmarkâs cosmic ray theory up until now

Que?

You've been trumpeting that this was proof of the death of AGW for years.

Or were you thinking only of "up until now in this message", since it starts with the statement you've been skeptical but then go all unskeptic from then on?

From the actual report conclusion:

"During the 4-week run, around 50 nucleation bursts were produced and recorded"

Wow. 4 weeks, 50 nucleation bursts. But no matter that a TRACE GAS like CO2 cannot possibly affect the climate, such a tiny effect MUST, yes?

woW, you make a 3 year old retarded wombat look intelligent

Sunspot, a complete scientific novice, cracks me up with his latest pontification:

*While I have been skeptical of Svensmarkâs cosmic ray theory up until now, it looks like the evidence is becoming too strong for me to ignore*

EGADS!!! The sage of wisdom has spoken! Climate scientists everywhere drop what you are doing and write in here immediately, as the world's most esteemed climate science expert has spoken! Forget the fact that he isn't a scientist, has published diddly squat in a peer-reviewed journals, and does not attend conferences and workshops where these issues are discussed and debated! Scientists don't need any of these qualifications to be considered THE world's most respected people in the field of climatology!

Back to planet Earth. The scientific community does not care a rat's ass what sunspot thinks. And that is precisely because of the fact that he has no pedigree in the field. Zilch. Zippo. Nix. And for the scientific community on the whole, Svensmark's latest offerings will be very easy to ignore.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 May 2011 #permalink

Cosmic ray control, free energy/over unity/perpetual motion/whatever-this-weeks-creationist/intelligent-design-renaming-is - is there anything spotty won't slavishly repeat from blogposts?

Note to spotty: blogposts aren't science.
They may be comments on science but that's it.

Will Spencer submit a paper?
No need!
The fossil-fuelled denialati will treat his blogpost as fully peer-reviewed and spun from purest alchemical gold.

Guys, the spotted one didn't do anything but cut and paste Spencer's blog. It's Spencer who says he was skeptical of the CR claims until now. Do you really think spotty "made calculations based upon satellite observations of how the global radiative energy balance has varied over the last 10 years"?

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: It's far better to ignore spotty's ranting and cut-and-paste jobs and let him rot here by himself.

By Robert Murphy (not verified) on 20 May 2011 #permalink

> ...the reader should remember that what follows is not peer reviewed, and is only a preliminary estimate...

That's sunspot ineptly trying to quote Spencer and failing the "quoting" part. You know, like kids learn to do in school.

Spencer's readers should also remember that Spencer has made other non-peer-reviewed claims/preliminary estimates before that fit his ideology that human influences just can't be very significant - as have Watts and any number of other "skeptics".

Guess how many of those have survived post-publication peer review?

I guess sunspot is hoping that if he touts someone with such a poor record, eventually he'll have to get lucky. Unfortunately reality doesn't feel any particular need to work that way - and it makes sunspot look deeply desperate. But that's not a new observation, is it?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 May 2011 #permalink

> Guys, the spotted one didn't do anything but cut and paste Spencer's blog.

So copyright infringement and plagiarism?

JUST LIKE WEGMAN! Wotta buncha crims.

Seems like the denialerati have an emerging M.O.

spots, you are looking at life upside-down.

This is why you get everything wrong.

Just like you get it wrong in 425.

I take it, since you didn't have anything to say, that you didn't read the paper either and that the revelation of the conclusion came as a shock to one who believed that CLOUD was going to (finally) prove AGW wrong.

Poor spots. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

Lotharsson,

You're right. Spotty didn't even phrase it, but cut-and-pasted it here as if was he was one who had made the statement. But it was Spencer after all. Its just that I rarely check out spotty's links, as they are usually so gumbified. As you say, its denial as science, blog style.

And yes, I must admit that I am completely wasting my time responding to his guff. Your point is well taken: its time to leave spotty in exile here.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 May 2011 #permalink

I post peer reviewed science, and you mugs just deny it, or attack me, or the author. Everybody knows that peer review is corrupted, one sided science.

Harvey can't even follow links ?

Here is another scientist for all you one eyed gravy train mugs to attack.

by William Happer, he is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University.

"The object of the Author in the following pages has been to collect the most remarkable instances of those moral epidemics which have been excited, sometimes by one cause and sometimes by another, and to show how easily the masses have been led astray, and how imitative and gregarious men are, even in their infatuations and crimes,â wrote Charles Mackay in the preface to the first edition of his Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I want to discuss a contemporary moral epidemic: the notion that increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, will have disastrous consequences for mankind and for the planet. The âclimate crusadeâ is one characterized by true believers, opportunists, cynics, money-hungry governments, manipulators of various typesâeven childrenâs crusadesâall based on contested science and dubious claims."

and......

"The existence of the little ice age and the medieval warm period were an embarrassment to the global-warming establishment, because they showed that the current warming is almost indistinguishable from previous warmings and coolings that had nothing to do with burning fossil fuel. The organization charged with producing scientific support for the climate change crusade, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), finally found a solution. They rewrote the climate history of the past 1000 years with the celebrated âhockey stickâ temperature record.

The first IPCC report, issued in 1990, showed both the medieval warm period and the little ice age very clearly. In the IPCCâs 2001 report was a graph that purported to show the earthâs mean temperature since the year 1000. A yet more extreme version of the hockey stick graph made the cover of the Fiftieth Anniversary Report of the United Nationâs World Meteorological Organization. To the surprise of everyone who knew about the strong evidence for the little ice age and the medieval climate optimum, the graph showed a nearly constant temperature from the year 1000 until about 150 years ago, when the temperature began to rise abruptly like the blade of a hockey stick. The inference was that this was due to the anthropogenic âpollutantâ CO2.

This damnatia memoriae of inconvenient facts was simply expunged from the 2001 IPCC report, much as Trotsky and Yezhov were removed from Stalinâs photographs by dark-room specialists in the later years of the dictatorâs reign. There was no explanation of why both the medieval warm period and the little ice age, very clearly shown in the 1990 report, had simply disappeared eleven years later."

full text here...

( http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-truth-about-greenhouse-g… )

"Everybody knows Cranks need to believe that peer review is corrupted, one sided science".

Fixed that for you spotty.

And now you're gullibly lapping up disinformation from Happer about the MWP in the FAR?

Do you really think Happer doesn't understand that the graph used was based on [Central England Temperature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_England_Temperature)and wasn't a global reconstruction, because one hadn't been constructed at the time?

Why, yes you are and yes you do.
That's why yours and Happer's and the rest of your zoo's malinformed opinions are irrelevant.

Chekie & other CO2 trolls, here's a little more on what Harper said about peer review.

If there were any "competent scientists" in here, they also would be extremely saddened by this corrupt peer review process, but there's not !

"A traditional way to maintain integrity in science is through peer review, the anonymous examination of a scientific paper by qualified, competing scientists before publication. In a responsible peer review, the authors may be required to make substantial revisions to correct any flaws in the science or methodology before their paper is published. But peer review has largely failed in climate science. Global warming alarmists have something like Gadaffiâs initial air superiority over rag-tag opponents in Libya.

Consider this comment from one of the most respected IPCC leaders, as revealed in the CRU e-mails: âI canât see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehowâeven if we have to define what the peer-review literature is.â And consider the CRU e-mail comment on a journal that committed the mortal sin of publishing one of the heretical papers: âI think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.â Peer review in climate science means that the âteamâ recommends publication of each otherâs work, and tries to keep any off-message paper from being accepted for publication."

funding..............

"There are many honest, hardworking climate scientists who are trying to understand the effects of CO2 on climate, but their work has fallen under suspicion because of the hockey-stick scandal and many other exaggerations about the dangers of increasing CO2. What has transformed climate science from a normal intellectual discipline to a matter of so much controversy?

A major problem has been the co-opting of climate science by politics, ambition, greed, and what seems to be a hereditary human need for a righteous cause. What better cause than saving the planet? Especially if one can get ample, secure funding at the same time? Huge amounts of money are available from governments and wealthy foundations for climate institutes and for climate-related research.

Funding for climate studies is second only to funding for biological sciences. Large academic empires, prizes, elections to honorary societies, fellowships, and other perquisites go to those researchers whose results may help âsave the planet.â Every day we read about some real or contrived environmental or ecological effect âprovenâ to arise from global warming. The total of such claimed effects now runs in the hundreds, all the alleged result of an unexceptional century-long warming of less than 1 degree Celsius. Government subsidies, loan guarantees, and captive customers go to green companies. Carbon-tax revenues flow to governments. As the great Russian poet Pushkin said in his novella Dubrovsky, âIf there happens to be a trough, there will be pigs.â Any doubt about apocalyptic climate scenarios could remove many troughs.

What about those who doubt the scientific basis of these claims, or who simply donât like what is being done to the scientific method they were taught to apply and uphold? Publications of contrary research results in mainstream journals are rare. The occasional heretical article is the result of an inevitable, protracted battle with those who support the dogma and who have their hands on the scales of peer review. As mentioned above, we know from the Climategate emails that the team conspired to prevent contrary publications from seeing the light of day and even discussed getting rid of an editor who seemed to be inclined to admit such contentious material."

( http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-truth-about-greenhouse-g… )

tch...tch...tch....tch.....these CO2 climate scientist's are a loathsome lot, hahaha, just look at the way that they have all of you gullible fools in here bewitched. hahaha

5/18/2011 A snowplow faces 23 feet of snow on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado on May 13.

SALT LAKE CITY â Late winter storms are packing a punch to the Rockies, piling snowpack on top of already record levels across the West where officials are concerned about historic flooding, avalanches and mudslides.

( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43083815/ns/weather/ )

and tell me, is this (below), weather or climate ?

Greenland,here are some interesting temp charts

When you activate the link, place your cursor over "current week." Then, from the drop-down menu that appears, select "All" and you will see how temps have been, on average, declining significantly there.

( http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Greenland+TEMPERATURE )

( http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=LAKE+TAHOE+TEMPERATURE )

how odd.....Greenland is getting cooler !!!

For the second time, why are you all here responding to him? You know he's going to spam something else in lieu of having anything intelligent to say.

He's yet another smug conspiracy nutter and it isn't worth your time to reply to him.

Just let him talk to himself in here and ignore him.

I've been saying the same thing, John. Spotty never answers posts, posts the most ridiculous claims (like the one above where Greenland is supposed to have cooled about 30C in the last 30 years- wtf??), and is insufferably immune to rational thought.

By Robert Murphy (not verified) on 22 May 2011 #permalink

Ah but while what you say is absoluely true, Robert and John, you're ignoring the democratisation that apostolic denialism bestows.

Here we have Happer, a Princeton professor and PhD (albeit 40 years past his sell-by date) and Sunspot, an anonymous internet herbert, both earnestly regurgitating the same stupid, debunked-a-thousand-times-over memes, as if they meant something.

I believe Orwell foresaw it best - and I paraphrase:
"The readers looked from Happer to Sunspot, and from Sunspot to Happer, and from Happer to Sunspot again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

"and an unusually cold and wet spring, more than 90 measuring sites from Montana to New Mexico and California to Colorado have record snowpack totals on the ground for late May, according to a federal report released last week. "

( http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/us/22snow.html )

quote -

âWe have 18 months to stop climate (AGW)change disaster.â ~ Prince Charles, May 2008

so much for the catastrophic warming

198 Posted by: Jeff Harvey

"Yeh, sunspot, and this may be showing that the Gulf Stream is breaking down as rapidly as many climate scientists argued that it would only ten years ago due to rapid warming in the Arctic..."

here yer go pinocchio..........

30 Mar 2010.. Gulf Stream is not slowing down, scientists claim

The Gulf Stream is not being slowed down by climate change, a study indicates.
( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7536760/Gulf-Stream-is-… )

haven't you been raptured yet, spotty?

So much for catastrophic spots getting a clue...

I found this for you woW,

Polar Ice Rapture Misses Its Deadline

While Harold Camping spends this week trying to wipe egg off his face after real-world events spectacularly falsified his prediction that the Christian rapture would occur on May 21, global warming alarmists are similarly trying to wipe egg off their faces after real-world events spectacularly falsified their predictions of an imminent polar ice rapture.

This week, a 1979 Palm Beach Post article resurfaced in which Steven Schneider, who for the past 30 years was one of the most prominent global warming alarmists, claimed the west Antarctic ice sheet could melt before the year 2000 and inundate American coastlines with up to 25 feet of sea level rise. Obviously, the west Antarctic ice sheet was not raptured away last century, and New Yorkers can still drive rather than swim to work.

If Steven Schneider was the only alarmist making spectacular â and spectacularly wrong â predictions about global warming and polar ice melt, then perhaps we could simply write it off as a single person who walked a little too far off the deep end. But spectacularly wrong global warming predictions, about polar ice and many other global warming-related issues, is par for the course for global warming alarmists.

Mark Serreze, a researcher with the federally funded National Snow and Ice Data Center, frightened the masses in June 2008 by claiming there was a 50-50 chance the North Pole would be ice-free in the upcoming summer. The media reported Serrezeâs prediction with a frenzy rarely equaled even among media-created global warming scares. Adding fuel to the fire, global warming alarmists lined up in droves to add their John Hancock to Serrezeâs claim. Many prominent alarmists even claimed Serreze was too conservative with his prediction.

For example, Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at Englandâs Cambridge University, told the June 27, 2008, London Independent, âPeople are expecting this [Arctic ice melt] to continue this year and it is likely to extend over the North Pole. It is quite likely that the North Pole will be exposed this summer â itâs not happened before.â

As it turned out, the North Pole never came close to melting, with the Arctic Ocean containing 1.65 million square miles of sea ice at its 2008 minimum.

Much like Camping is now claiming his May 21 Christian rapture prediction was essentially accurate, but that he was merely a few months off regarding the timetable (news alert: beware October 21, 2011!), the alarmists are now claiming their failed North Pole predictions were essentially accurate, but merely a few years off regarding the timetable. They now claim the Arctic Ocean will be essentially ice free by the year 2020 or 2030. Donât bet on it.

Speaking of bets, I have contacted some of the people making such claims about an imminent polar ice rapture, asking them if they would like to place a wager with me regarding their prediction. Itâs funny how they all seem to have misplaced their wallets.

The alarmists, moreover, have not confined their rapture predictions to polar ice.

The Star Chamber of global warming cartels, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), claimed in its most recent report that global warming is likely to rapture away the Himalayan glaciers by 2035. When investigators discovered there was no scientific evidence to support the claim, and a good deal of scientific evidence countering the claim, the rapture prediction was canceled.

The media spent much of the past decade parroting alarmist claims that global warming was shutting down the Gulf Stream and the Atlantic Ocean Conveyor Belt. That rapture alarm has been canceled, too..........

more here..........

http://blogs.forbes.com/jamestaylor/2011/05/25/polar-ice-rapture-misses…

Ahhh, classic clowntrolling again. Here's a tip - read the article your denialist source is quoting before jumping on the bandwagon, it helps prevent facepalming - even Steven Goddard got this one right. But what am I thinking, Freckles wants to wear the pie in the face, its his role in life.

The clowntroll says: "This week, a 1979 Palm Beach Post article resurfaced in which Steven Schneider...claimed the west Antarctic ice sheet could melt before the year 2000 and inundate American coastlines with up to 25 feet of sea level rise. "

The article actually says: '"It is surely the most dramatic of the possible carbon dioxide-induced effects and its initiation cannot be ruled out as a possibility before the end of this century," Schneider said in a report to a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.' (my emphasis)

Guess what - 30 years of data tells us the initiation of the process became clear in the mid to late 90's. Knock me down with a feather, the climatologist was right, and the rejectionists are wrong. AGAIN!

Freckles flop-flop-flops his giant clown shoes offstage to wipe the cream off his face, and no doubt getting ready for another round of clowntrolling...after all he's the Oleg Popov of cliamte denial.

Ahh, clarity fail (lost in edit) - the "it" Schneider refers to is the loss of polar ice caps generally, not specifically the melting of the WAIS. The loss of these caps will be seen first with the Arctic Icecap, of course.

WIAS will follow, but more slowly.

Spring NH snow extent:

Oops!

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 28 May 2011 #permalink

âThe hypothesis of the day that the public is being encouraged to be alarmed about is that human-caused carbon dioxide emissions cause dangerous global warming.

âThatâs a testable idea. And the test is: you look at a period of the temperature record and you look at a period of the carbon dioxide emissions. So, step back 10 years to 2001. Since then thereâs been a five per cent increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and thatâs 25 per cent, almost a quarter of all the carbon dioxide weâve put in the atmosphere since 1751. And whatâs happened to global temperature? Itâs gone down slightly by a bit less than 0.05 deg. C. As a scientific hypothesis, thatâs the test; and the hypothesis fails the test.â

( http://australianconservative.com/2011/05/the-central-hypothesis-of-glo… )

> And the test is: you look at a period of the temperature record and you look at a period of the carbon dioxide emissions.

Wow, Bob Carter is either deeply disingenuous or completely incompetent at defining and interpreting basic scientific tests! Who knew?! Thanks for confirming that for us, sunspot!

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 30 May 2011 #permalink

The Weather Makers Re-examined:

Tim Flanneryâs best seller under the spotlight of climate change realism

D Weston Allen

* 400 pages *100 plus illustrations *300 plus peer-reviewed references * well indexed

The Weather Makers Re-examined is the first comprehensive review and critique of
The Weather Makers â the 2005 best seller that propelled Tim Flannery to become the Australian of the Year (2007) and now the Climate Change Commissioner for the Gillard Government.

Leading IPCC reviewer, Vincent Gay PhD., calls Dr. Allenâs Re-examined âthe most knowledgeable and comprehensive indictment of the global warming bandwagon.â The former Director of the US Department of Energy and the Environment, William Happer PhD., tells the author, âThe people of the world should collectively thank you, and maybe they will some day.â

Dr. Allen puts every chapter of Timâ Flanneryâs thesis on global warming alarmism under the spotlight of the most up-to-date scientific realism - in climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide, the reliability of the temperature records, sea levels, glaciers, the true state of the Arctic, Antarctic, Greenland, the Great Barrier Reef, extreme weather events, acidification of the oceans, oscillating Atlantic and Pacific currents and much more.

The Weather Makers is shown to contain 23 misinterpretations, 28 contradictory statements, 31 untraceable or suspect sources, 45 failures to reflect uncertainty, 66 over-simplications or factual errors, 78 exaggerations and over a hundred unsupported dogmatic statements, many of them quite outlandish.

Always a scholar and a gentleman, Wes Allen never uses ad hominem arguments, but treats Tim Flannery with courtesy and respect. His predilection for cautious understatement, however, makes for some humorous one-liners. For example, he says that after Flannery has diagnosed his beloved Gaia as suffering from a raging fever, he has nothing more to offer her than some feeble âhomeopathic remedies.â

With CC Commissioner Flannery now leading the charge for a government carbon tax to mitigate Gaiaâs raging fever, the timing for the publication of The Weather Makers Re-examined could not be better..............

more here...

( http://www.irenicpublications.com.au/html/excerptsWMR.html )

"A peer-reviewed paper published in The Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics finds that natural changes in global cloud cover over the 21 year period 1983-2004 are responsible for at least 3 times as much global warming as has been attributed to greenhouse gases over the 104 year period of 1900-2004. The paper finds the decrease in reflectance from clouds (albedo) over only the past 21 years has accounted for a change in solar energy delivered to the Earth surface of ~ 7W/m2, whereas all greenhouse gases are claimed to only account for (assuming you believe the IPCC) a ~ 2.4 W/m2 change over a much longer 104 year period. The paper also finds that climate models do not account for these cloud changes, that cloud changes are much more variable than previously thought, and that the cloud changes are not man-made or related to greenhouse gases. The author of the paper has provided a pdf presentation of these findings, excerpted below:"

( http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/05/study-finds-global-warming-fr… )

Top Scientist Says New Solar Wobble to Prolong Global Cooling

May 31, 2011

As a new solar minimum takes our planet towards global cooling an increasing number of scientists give credence to a new theory blaming our Sun's wobble.

It started in 2007 when scientists saw that gravitational forces in our solar system may have a huge impact on Earth's climate. Professor Ivanka Charvátová, CSc. from the Geophysical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, explains why there is suddenly so much interest in her theory in an exclusive interview with klimatskeptik.cz.

Professor Charvátová calls it Solar Inertial Motion (SIM) and she claims it will have serious impacts on our climate. She says a predictable "wobble" of our Sun called barycenter shift alters Earth's weather patterns. Few climatologists have yet studied this phenomenon. But the evidence supporting Professor Charvátová's SIM theory is becoming ever more compelling.
Our Wobbling Sun

Increased international interest in the SIM 'wobble effect' began after Australian scientist Dr. Richard Mackey published a paper addressing the effects of the barycenter shift in The Journal of Coastal Research in 2007. Mackey drew inspiration from the work of the late Rhodes Fairbridge.................

more here...........

( http://www.suite101.com/content/top-scientist-says-new-solar-wobble-to-… )

From Their Own Mouths: AGW is a LIE.

"We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." - Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports

"Unless we announce disasters no one will listen." - Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC

"It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true." - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace

"We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy." - Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world." - Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment

"The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe." - emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

Um, Sunspot, you may have only recently emerged from a long period in stasis, because it is well-known that the schneider "quote" is in fact a manufactured mis-quote, whereas the Houghton "quote" is a complete fabrication.

You are either purveying nonsense or lies.

Which is it?

In either case, though, this makes you an entirely non-credible and useless source for facts or educated opinion.

By Vince whirlwind (not verified) on 02 Jun 2011 #permalink

> You are either purveying nonsense or lies.

> Which is it?

Both. Nonsense and lies. It's a lie is obvious. That it's an obvious lie means the lie itself is nonsensical. At least if it were plausible or hard to refute, the lie would at least have *some* sense in its creation.

As it is, there was no point in the lie.

So malevolent distortion and ouright fabrication are spotty's latest gifts to the Deltoid community.

I'd humbly suggest to Tim that until spotty can provide unabridged primary sources for each of those 'quotes' then any further posts from him/her should be indefinitely queued.

That spotty has not (and in at least one case cannot because it's a complete fabrication by that kitchen table'n'laptop outfit calling themselves the SPPI) of course once again shows his non-existent and totally fake 'sceptisism' in its true light. Again.

As you can see below Schnieder's words were not "taken out of context", he said what exactly what he would say to another alarmist warmer !

In other words he spoke out of school.

He failed to use self censorship and then tried, unsuccessfully, to weasel and worm his way out of it !

He was saying to do what you all in here do !

"During the TV debate,
months before Simonâs APS News
article appeared, I pointed out that he
was taking only part of the full quote
and that part was seriously out of context
â this is the same source he
âquotedâ in APS News. The full quote
follows, where I have italicized what
portions of it Simon quoted and bracketed
what I did not say but he attributed
to me in the APS News article:
âOn the one hand, as scientists we are
ethically bound to the scientific
method, in effect promising to tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
â which means that we must include
all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are
not just scientists but human beings as
well. And like most people weâd like
to see the world a better place, which
in this context translates into our working
to reduce the risk of potentially
disastrous climatic change. To do that
we need [Scientists should consider
stretching the truth] to get some
broadbased support, to capture the
publicâs imagination. That, of course,
entails getting loads of media coverage.
So we have to offer up scary scenarios,
make simplified, dramatic statements,
and make little mention of any doubts
we might have. This âdouble ethical
bindâ we frequently find ourselves in
cannot be solved by any formula. Each
of us has to decide what the right balance
is between being effective and being
honest. I hope that means being
both.â

( http://www.americanphysicalsociety.com/publications/apsnews/199608/uplo… )

he goes on......

"Vested interests have repeatedly
claimed I advocate exaggerating
threats. Their âevidenceâ comes from
partially quoting my Discover"........

Looking from the other side of the debate, any logical person would conclude the, "Vested Interest's", are the mongrels that want to burden the population with a CO2 tax based on faulty science and lies !

whirlybird,

You are correct, "the Houghton "quote" is a complete fabrication."

Sheez, I got tricked by that one !

it was a much smaller fabrication than the CO2 fabrication, I didn't get tricked by that one.

Shorter sunspot : Yes, any logical person would conclude my beliefs are based on faulty science and lies. But it's all I've got.

(PhysOrg.com) -- During the last ice age, the Rhone Glacier was the dominant glacier in the Alps, covering a significant part of Switzerland. Over the next 11,500 years or so, the glacier, which forms the headwaters of the Rhone River, has been shrinking and growing again in response to shifts in climate.

Until now, scientists have had no accurate way of knowing the long-term history of the glacier. Local records of the ice date back to 1602, and it is clear that the Rhone, like other glaciers in the Alps, has retreated dramatically in the past 150 years. This melting has exposed intriguing clues â remnants of trees from once-forested land, and artifacts of human settlements dating back thousands of years, to times when even more of the land was uncovered and green............................

( http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-swiss-glacier-finely-tuned-climate… )

Shorter sunspot: "I've already shown I don't understand the difference between 'climate' and 'weather', now here I am again demonstrating I don't know the difference between 'regional' and global'. I guess this explains why I'm such an easy-peasy mark for disinformers and this whole IPCC thing is just way over my head".

Do you guys really believe sunspot will show up here?

If he doesn't, good riddance, eh?

hmmm......

SPECIAL CLIMATE STATEMENT 33

Coldest autumn for Australia since at least 1950.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs33.pdf

yep, so we have higher CO2 and lower temperatures, the climate must be scared of the new tax.

i reckon there is a few in here wondering where and why the climate models failed, even the most diehard alarmist warmer trolls in here would be starting to doubt their own sanity.

thoughts of of a diehard warmer

"the IPCC has fooled us, and the real problems have gone unheeded"

suggestion, never trust the UN or a government funded climate scientist !

'weather'. anything weathery going on in the US at the moment that you know of?

no wonder you're confined here.

yes billie boy, i've seen the us weather, warming sure isn't global.

As this image of the Uinta Mountains in northeast Utah (USA) shows, winterâs snow is lingering into summer. On June 26, the snowpack on the southern face of the range was 849 percent above average. The northern face had 892 percent more snow than average.
( http://www.irishweatheronline.com/news/climate-news/july-snow-for-u-s-s… )

this might interest you bill ?

"Compared to the near 20% of the country in serious drought, the 1950s when up to 60% was affected and especially the 1930s when 80% of the United States felt the effect of drought and heat."

( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/23/the-texas-centered-drought-versus… )

Congratulations Sunspot, by cherry-picking local weather and ignoring global climate you have changed my mind and I now see global warming for the scam it is.

"The analysis, by NSW principal coastal specialist Phil Watson, calls into question one of the key criteria for large-scale inundation around the Australian coast by 2100 -- the assumption of an accelerating rise in sea levels because of climate change."

hmm....and

"Mr Watson's findings, published in the Journal of Coastal Research this year and now attracting broader attention, supports a similar analysis of long-term tide gauges in the US earlier this year. Both raise questions about the CSIRO's sea-level predictions."

hmm...and

"Dr Brady said the divergence between the sea-level trends from models and sea-level trends from the tide gauge records was now so great "it is clear there is a serious problem with the models".

"In a nutshell, this factual information means the high sea-level rises used as precautionary guidelines by the CSIRO in recent years are in essence ridiculous," he said. During the 20th century, there was a measurable global average rise in mean sea level of about 17cm (plus or minus 5cm)."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/sea-level-rises-are-sl…

now lets see.......

Australia......

12 Jul - Australia's Snow Best For 21 Years

New Zealand....

The worst snow in at least 16 years brought parts of the country to a standstill today.

Heavy snow, sleet and high winds made conditions treacherous throughout the country and motorists were urged to avoid all but urgent travel.

The South Island was hardest hit with many roads closed, flights cancelled and people told to stay home.

A number of state highways around the country were closed, however

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/wintry-blast-brings-worst-snow-in-decad…

South America.....

Rare snowfall on Earth's driest desert in Chile

Heavy snow brings Bolivia to a halt

Chilean Towns Trapped Under Eight Feet of Snow

yep...thats what twenbarff defines as "the missing heat".

anybody seen ian fry lately ?

New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hold In Global Warming Alarmism

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earthâs atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed..................

http://blogs.forbes.com/jamestaylor/2011/07/27/new-nasa-data-blow-gapin…

âLord Monckton wins Press Club debate and persuaded 9% more Australians
to his view that âConcerns about Global Warming are exaggeratedââ

Roy Morgan Research

Two points:

The journal 'Remote Sensing' does not even appear on the Web of Science. A number of journals in the field of remote sensing do with quite high impact factors; why not this one? And why would the authors of the article not go for a top journal? The answer should be obvious.

Strike one on sunspot.

Lord Monckton wins a lousy debate? Who made up the audience? Laypeople who understand nix about climate science like sunspot? This means nothing at all. All it shows is that people will 'vote' in useless debates like this according to their short-term selfish interests and idealogical biases. We've seen over the past year or so how Monckton's 'facts' have been destroyed time and time again.

Strike two.

See above; Sunpsot citing a few examples of recent weather events as 'proof' that AGW isn not happening. This dishonest and frankly stupid behavior has been comprehensively debunked dozens of times on this thread alone, and yet spotty keeps coming back with it. This isn't science, its rank ignorance. Data taken over the past 50 years shows that more and more warm records are being set and fewer and fewer cold records, right across the globe. Spotty cherry picks cold weather events and ignores the vastly greater number of warm weather events. Check ice extent in the Arctic this summer; also temperature records over most of the higher latitudes. It shows unprecedented warmth.

Strike three. Spotty is out.

My advice: close this thread and get rid of spotty from Deltoid for good.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 02 Aug 2011 #permalink

pinhead,

i suppose that you have noticed that now your mob of alarmist's are trying to tell the world that the reason for the "missing heat" is sulfur from chinese coal emissions, or now aerosols are having a greater cooling influence.

More CO2 = Less heat ????

The climate models are well and truly busted, and morons like you are still sucked in, or desperately trying to protect your funding and carbon investments.

As for the weather reports, if you look at the weather reports and then cross reference those with the GISS Temperature Anomaly Chart for that period, you will see that GISS indicates warm, when the fact is the local reporting states it's cold.

Tip #1 don't be sucked in by GISS

Tip #2 don't be sucked in by Jeff(pinocchio)Harvey

ps, pinocchio has been shown evidence that arctic ice has been less in the past, greenland has been warmer and the antarctic hasn't melted indeed it is still gaining ice

give your science badge back keloggs pinocchio, your a farce !

Spotty,

Note how just about everybody who writes into Deltoid thinks that you are a complete idiot. The only one who apparently doesn't agree with that asseement appears to be yourself.

Given that you are a legend in your own mind, I wonder constantly why your wisdom never translates to publications in journals, books, interviews in the media etc. Instead you harp away on this web site where nobody takes your rants and musings at all seriously. Heck, you've been banned to your 'own' pithy lttle thread. Every wonder why?

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 03 Aug 2011 #permalink

> More CO2 = Less heat ????

Given you stated:

> the reason for the "missing heat" is sulfur from chinese coal emissions,

You apparently think that the chemical symbol for sulfur is CO2.

Is this the case?

"Norman Cohn wrote this about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but it's a general point about conspirazoid political movements: There exists a subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for the benefit of the ignorant and superstitious."

Which is as good a definition of spotty and his fellow victim travellers as I've encountered anywhere. (h/t to onthefence at the UK Guardian).

here's an interesting quote chekie.

"It may well be that life thrives in a warmer world but that doesn't mean a warmer world in the near future will be a happy place for a lot of humans. An ocean 10 metres higher and hotter summers in places with dry summers will make a lot of people very unhappy."

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | June 4, 2005 5:53 PM http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2005/04/gwsbingo.php#comment-1343005

hahahaha, 10 metres hahaha

chris, was that gunna be by 2010 ?

this is a more recent quote chekie,

"He said he had an âinvoluntary gag reflexâ whenever someone said the âscience was settledâ.

âAnyone who thinks the science of this complex thing is settled is in Fantasia.â The climate models used by global warmists suggest we should have twice the warming weâve actually seen recently."

Professor Murry Salby, chair of climate at Macquarie University

http://www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au/podcast/global-emission-of-carbon-…

he shoots the shit outta the CO2 crapola

Spotty,

Are you talking about this guy?

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=365852

Only 20 publications since 1989 and 246 citations? What IYO makes him a sage of wisdom? Seems like you would cite your dentist's opinions if he said what you wanted to hear.

And your arguments are a joke, as usual. Since when does citing a few cold weather events 'prove' that the GISS monthly figures are incorrect? I could cite many more extreme warm events and you'd scream out that I was confusing weather with climate, as you have done before. So its OK for you to cherry pick a few cold weather events but when someone counters with much more geographically widespread high temperature events (e.g. Canadian winter, 2009-2010; last summer over central and western Asia) you bitterly denounce this. You know what you are? A bloody hypocrite.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 04 Aug 2011 #permalink

"chris, was that gunna be by 2010 ?"

Given spots things sulfur's chemical notation is CO2, it's hardly surprising that he also sees "2010" in a post that doesn't contain that figure.

He's blasted on gange.

he did better than you pindickio

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/SearchProfs.jsp?letter=Jeff+Harvey

i see that you still don't understand that we have been through a few warm year's, does this ring a bell ?

El Nino ?

North Atlantic Oscillation ?

Tell me pindickio, do you still think that Gulf Stream is breaking down ?

198 Posted by: Jeff Harvey

"Yeh, sunspot, and this may be showing that the Gulf Stream is breaking down as rapidly as many climate scientists argued that it would only ten years ago due to rapid warming in the Arctic..."

Or can you admit you were being an alarmist arm waving sucker ?

,,,,

wow (ian fry), i see that your still pathetic.

Sunspot, you clown, 'Rate My Professor' is an American web cite... and besides, I work in a Research Institute and not a University. Your ignorance as to the way academia works, however, doesn't surprise me one little bit.

Your hero also hasn't been published or cited as much as me or my colleagues here... he's not even close in either category. And he's trounced by the likes of Mann, Hansen, et al... Again, trust you to search under every rock to find someone - anyone - in denial.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 04 Aug 2011 #permalink

If sunspot had looked a bit harder it would have found a Jeff Harvey and two Jeffrey Harveys, none of them being the one who posts here.

By Holly Stick (not verified) on 04 Aug 2011 #permalink

Sunspot, you are an illiterate ignoramus with delusions of intellectual capability. Everything you write is laughable.

Why can't you grasp the simple fact that the world is full of people who are way smarter than you?

By Vince whirlwind (not verified) on 04 Aug 2011 #permalink

read this cute little quote again numbo's.

âAnyone who thinks the science of this complex thing is settled is in Fantasia.â Professor Murry Salby

hahaha, this thing is going viral, the CLOUD experiments will be interesting also

Carbon cycle questions by Judith Curry

"I just finished listening to Murry Salbyâs podcast on Climate Change and Carbon. Wow."

"Professor Murry Salby holds the Climate Chair at Macquarie University and has had a lengthy career as a world-recognised researcher and academic in the field of Atmospheric Physics. He has held positions at leading research institutions, including the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, Princeton University, and the University of Colorado, with invited professorships at universities in Europe and Asia. At Macquarie University, Professor Salby uses satellite data and supercomputing to explore issues surrounding changes of global climate and climate variability over Australia. Professor Salby is the author of Fundamentals of Atmospheric Physics, and Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate due out in 2011. Professor Salbyâs latest research makes a timely and highly-relevant contribution to the current discourse on climate."

@ 472 pinocchio spat, "Check ice extent in the Arctic this summer;"

new paper soon to be published

Large variations in Arctic sea ice

"For the last 10,000 years, summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has been far from constant. For several thousand years, there was much less sea ice in The Arctic Ocean â probably less than half of current amounts. This is indicated by new findings by the Danish National Research Foundation for Geogenetics at the University of Copenhagen. The results of the study will be published in the journal Science"

the other side of the coin.....

Antarctica sea ice shows accelerating increase over past 30 years

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/docs/Shu_etal_2011.pdf

and this for twirlybird

69% Say Itâs Likely Scientists Have Falsified Global Warming Research

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/…

yeah I know twirlybird, they were only morons, only brainiac's like you are smart enough to believe the climatescopes.

Spot (= dick) head,

I will note how you left this out of the press release for the article:

*Our studies show that there are great natural variations in the amount of Arctic sea ice. *The bad news is that there is a clear connection between temperature and the amount of sea ice. And there is no doubt that continued global warming will lead to a reduction in the amount of summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean*. The good news is that even with a reduction to less than 50% of the current amount of sea ice the ice will not reach a point of no return: a level where the ice no longer can regenerate itself even if the climate was to return to cooler temperatures*

So nowhere do the authors dispute AGW; instead they are in agreement with the broad scientific consensus on it. Moreover, they do not elucidate the time scales over which the ice declined; we are currently seeing declines in ice sea cover that are probably tens or hundreds of times faster than in the historical record. Like most denialists, you have no idea whatsoever of the concept of scale - space and time. That's because you clearly have no training in a relevant scientific field (and, boy, does it show). Instead, people like you think that, in a geological time scale, 10 years is quite a long time and 80 years - a typical human life time - is eternity. A guy in the comments section Real Climate claimed that 'it hasn't warmed in the 21st Century' a statement typical of halfwits like you and many on your 'side'.

As for your poll, what else can one expect with the corporate MSM and its coverage of climate science? Many of the media owners and advertisers have a vested interest in denial, and every time any chink in the climate science armor, no matter how insignificant, occurs, they will be there to hype it to the max. And certainly they write little, if anything, about the ways in which climate change should be tackled, because this contradicts the basic ethos underlying our capitalist/corporate/profit-driven lifestyles: maintaining endless, vacuous, consumption. Find me an article in the MSM that addresses this. Just try. And of course, the media had a heyday over the climategate affair. Controversy sells; consensus doesn't.

But I waste my breath on minions like you. Why I respond to your baited drivel is beyond me. I guess I am a sucker for punishment.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 05 Aug 2011 #permalink

"So nowhere do the authors dispute AGW"

where did they say the warming was anthropogenic ?

There was no "agreement with the broad scientific consensus on it" !!!

quite the opposite ya dill.

your trying to twist truth again pinocchio !!

you might learn something from here

Arctic Cycles â Related to AMO/PDO, Not CO2

http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/ArcticCycles.htm

Talk about dorks, you take the cake Mr. layman, Spotty.

The reason they don't mention AGW is because, like most scientists, they take the cause pretty much for granted. Besides, why don't you just ask them? John Abraham did the same thing when he wrote to several of the scientists cited by Monckton in his talks downplaying AGW. Turns out just about all the scientists Monckton cited were in agreement over the human fingerprint over the current warming.

And stop linking crappy denialist web sites here or press releases - get off your ass and read the primary literature for once in your lfe.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 05 Aug 2011 #permalink

Oddly enough, they don't talk about a heliocentric solar system, so I guess that's "proof" for spots that the geocentric model is right!

They also don't talk about male and female dimorphism in humanity, so I guess we're all aesexual according to spots' evidence!