Hurricanes: fewer but fiercer?

Tropical Storm Fay is bearing down on Cuba and the Florida Keys as I write this and is on the cusp of hurricane strength winds. A new study from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science just published in Geophysical Research Letters looks again at the contentious issue of whether a warmer globe means more or worse hurricanes. The proposition that global warming mean more and fiercer hurricanes is derived from large computer simulations that have relatively low resolution for local weather events like hurricanes. The computing power needed to get better detail is immense, but if there are variables of particular interest for specific events we can do better than what is usually possible from models that are more general. This kind of trade-off is typical in science. In epidemiology we always want more subjects to study, but when we do that we typically incorporate less detail about each individual. In the new hurricane study, UM researchers David S. Nolan and Eric D. Rappin, working with MIT's Kerry Emanuel, used extra detail about processes important to tropical hurricane formation (sea surface temperatures and the change in wind speed and direction with altitude [wind shear]):

"We designed the computer simulations to show that as the ocean temperature increased, hurricanes would form more rapidly and easily, even in the presence of wind shear," says Nolan, associate professor of Meteorology at the Rosenstiel School. "Instead, we got exactly the opposite result. As the water temperature increased, the effectiveness of the wind shear in suppressing hurricane formation actually became greater."

The simulations show that if they do form, hurricanes become stronger in the warmer environments. Together, these results suggest that in a global warming world, there would be less hurricanes, but those that do form could become stronger. The same prediction has recently been made by other studies using global climate models, and the similarity of the two predictions enhances confidence in the results. (Eurekalert)

Here's an example of one of the computer runs:

i-3a34d9b151a477094032900aa3b8a745-9473_web.jpg

Figure shows an example of a hurricane computer simulation generated by the Rosenstiel School team. The colors indicate water vapor in a vertical column of the atmosphere, where the dark red areas would indicate extremely heavy rainfall. The small size of each pixel, 3 km x 3 km provides remarkably accurate detail in the storm. In comparison, the number of pixels in an image used to represent storms in global climate models are typically 100 km x 100 km, at best. (Credit: UM/RSMAS)

The hurricane bottom line seems to be "fewer but worse." Whether this will turn out to be the case or not and if it does whether it has to do with human activity will no doubt be the subject of vigorous debate. Unfortunately not all parties in the debate are equally well armed. If you don't think global warming will affect hurricanes, then it would seem you would have to say what you think is wrong with the scientific reasoning that went into this work. I'm guessing that the attacks on it won't be about the science but about the meta-science (e.g., "You can't believe computer models," or "You can make a computer model say anything you want it to").

There's no way to stop that kind of response. Meanwhile, this is the best guess we have yet as to what the consequences of our current policies might be.

Categories

More like this

I couldn't say if we will get more or worse storms based on global warming. While I tend to be a bad weather nut, and probably should have become a storm chaser instead of a nurse, all I know is as of 6:00 am today I was going to be a plane to Sarasota for some vacation time at Siesta Key. So much for best laid plans.

Hope Fay is not too bad.

A few years ago Revere the idea of modeling was changed a bit from modeling what WOULD happen to what wont. It makes the outcome more easy to predict. Reverse application. Here is a link to CSU and their pages for Fay. They are only good for a few hours so do check in on them. If you click on one of those early to late cycle frames you can see that this is anything but an exact science.

Stronger hurricanes increase upwelling of colder water and in fact because of that some are indicating that it could cause colder winters. Here is the link to CSU and Fay

http://euler.atmos.colostate.edu/~vigh/guidance/

The question of whether man is affecting it is not a consensus at all. We have all been there via here, but the question of the effects of warmer/cooler pro or con shouldnt be. Gen the models from all fronts as far as I am concerned and be inclusive of ALL data. Never ever discount something that is known to cause changes. This is my rub with the IPCC and what I considered to be an agenda based op by the leftists of the world. I have seen the ice in the Arctic melting, but havent seen the oceans rise more than a cm. I also got pictures in from bug people searching for viruses in ice cores in the Antartic, they tell me that its the coldest winter down there in 50 years -75 to -120F. Go figure. We were supposed to be starting to barbeque ourselves just about now....

And we are still here, all nearly 7 billion of us.

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 18 Aug 2008 #permalink

Ever notice that much of the science we are expected to believe as a matter of faith is hidden behind paid subscriptions required or pay per article. I recognize the reasons for it of course, but it is an obstacle for discussion. For example, how did they validate their model (say with data from the 70's when we were cooler than the last 10 years).

As an engineer, I prefer to work with real data and correlate factors with real data. Models are useful if they can use the data from the past and present and predict the future. They are trusted only when validated, and have shown they can simulate past events and have predictive value for the future. But with climate science, there is very little data past 50 years, not much for climate. What data beyond 50 years there is, is riddled with uncertainty (eg tree ring data, ice core data, etc) and has been adjusted in the same spirit our CPI has been adjusted.

As the famous mathematical physicist von Neumann said "If you allow me four free parameters I can build a mathematical model that describes exactly everything that an elephant can do. If you allow me a fifth free parameter, the model I build will forecast that the elephant will fly."

When we start building temperature measurement stations that are not in parking lots and close to buildings that soak up heat, then maybe I will become a believer. For now, I remain a skeptic, and any science that discourages skepticism is not worthy of calling themselves a science.

Eisteins theories are constantly challenged, some errors have been found. Yet the Climate Science that says mans CO2 is responsible for global warming and will have catastrophic results if emissions are not reduced can not be challenged because there is a consensus.

Consensus is a political term, and does not have any place in science. Science relies on skepticism to disprove theories and hypothesis which can not be proven. The same reasons that prevent the AGW theory or hypothesis from being proven, prevent disproof, and this is lack of good and reliable data. So they try and control the data, and discourage skepticism. Thats BAD science. Thats also what religion does BTW.

So AGW has it's high priests such as Hansen, who tell the faithful believers that man sins against Gaia, and their penance is to reduce consumption to be saved. Those who deny this will burn in the hell that Gaia will become. Man is bad, and there are too many of us for Gaia to sustain. Many pray "take me (them) lord as a sacrifice for Gaia, so that others (me) can live better and longer. Amen.

Hey, maybe they will make our carbon credits look like a Catholic cracker to be handed out at the Church of AGW (the banks). The carbon dollar/credit will be black, and not white, so as to not cause confusion.

,

pft: As an engineer, I prefer to work with real data and correlate factors with real data. . . . . Eisteins theories are constantly challenged, some errors have been found.

Really? Care to cite the errors? I'll settle for one and won't hold you literally to the plural.

You require that all scientific results be based on less than 4 free variables? LOL.

Thank you for not disappointing me.

Yet the Climate Science that says mans CO2 is responsible for global warming and will have catastrophic results if emissions are not reduced can not be challenged because there is a consensus.

Actually, it can be challenged. And it has been, consistently, for the past two decades (or the past century, if you prefer to go back to the arguments advanced in Svante Arrhenius's 1896 paper On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground).

Unfortunately, there are plenty of skeptics out there who simply will not accept that "real debate" has taken place until the theory of AGW has been rejected.

Apropos of which, it's ironic that so many people who fancy themselves smarter, more skeptical, and better informed than the world climatalogical community seem to have absolutely no problem believing in a secret eco-commie plot to overthrow capitalism...one that has managed to recruit everyone from the AGU and the GISS to Walmart and Bjorn Lomborg. Strangely, their interest in evidentiary standards seems to evaporate at that point.

It's also odd that they view the premise that human activities can negatively affect the earth and atmosphere as essentially "religious"; the cornucopian dream of inexhaustible resources and infinite growth seems a hell of a lot more like magical thinking to me. Also, the depiction of AGW as "a theory in crisis," that's being protected from honest scrutiny by a cabal of elitist ideologues, seems awfully reminiscent of the creationists' anti-evolution rhetoric.

What I'd really like to see from one of these "faithful believers" is a model that explains why emissions of 7 Gt of anthropogenic CO2 per year can't negatively affect climate (contrary to what, say, Gilbert N. Plass or Roger Revelle might've believed).

Phila-Dont need a model to prove it. Its happening now and its via cooler water temps around the world. Not my numbers, its the SST's from NOAA. If you were right then there would be much higher human kills by rising water, crop failures, heating to the nth degree of the atmosphere. Our media induced craze about corn crops didnt materialize and lo and behold, a record crop rather than disaster. Same for milo...so the cows will be making a lot of milk this year.

The real debate was never entered into Phila... They simply excluded anyone with a differing opinion into the 600 seat IPCC meeting...

Cant have a consensus unless you can rig it and I am not talking about grocery store owners either. Lot of people with Emeritus and head of dept. behind their names were categorically excluded and that was after they requested in writing to be included. They also excluded some obvious causes such as volcanics. Couldnt invite them in either even though there is more GW gas rising out of them in a day around the world than we can produce in a month.

Then there is the fact that the US is being blamed as usual for everything... Lets see, the Iron Belt is now the Rust Belt, car manufacturing is now being done by proxy... We assemble the parts here and our population is fairly stable here. So our pollution industries left town and we are now being told we have to cut more and go to this carbon credit shit? If we are generating all of this pollution then why after we cut and cut and cut and get better gas mileage and etc. doesnt it go down? Its the Oh Damn Hypothesis... Oh damn it just doesnt add up now does it. We are just supposed to accept the GW's at their word as to what the causes are.

Why would we be polluting more and more as suggested. Its because it comes from someplace other than here and via monitoring. Hawaii doesnt pass the Clean Air Act and you see all those industries fuming away out there. So it has to come from the places with no regulations. You know the places that took our jobs.

You are very quick Phila to jump on something that is ambiguous such as the suggestion that a model that shows anthropogenic gases CANT affect global warming. The problem is that they cant prove that any of it does now... No one generally sits back and just hammers the opinion, just the people on each side of the argument, both saying the other is wrong. Me, all I require is damning proof and that hasnt happened.

Doesnt matter anyway... They are going to have to drill and fast now. 7 billion hungry mouths to feed and if it were all solar cells it would take only 8 million acres to power our homes in the US. Where you going to put that that the Sierra Club isnt going to go nuts over? Wind farms about three times that and the wind doesnt blow all the time, especially at night. Environmental impacts? Well we know Teddy Kennedys position on wind farms at sea. So they all talk GW and they all sit back and fly in their G-5's and Challengers, and go to Bono concerts. It wont change a thing. They have to drill, they know it and they know there isnt a damned thing else that they can do. There isnt enough lithium on this planet to make batteries for cars, nor is it safe to use NiCads.

But I always give it to the other side of the argument. Prove it else all the banter and angst that comes from these one sided discussions is irrelevant. Come up with an individual power source that doesnt pollute and then you can work on the Chinese factories.

If you are right, then a pot load of us are already dead men walking. If you are wrong then 25 years from now its just going to be mighty crowded here.

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 18 Aug 2008 #permalink

"Come up with an individual power source that doesnt pollute"

Nikola Tesla had it in the bag but the oligarchies squashed him like a fly.

They also excluded some obvious causes such as volcanics. Couldnt invite them in either even though there is more GW gas rising out of them in a day around the world than we can produce in a month.

Sometimes I can stay to argue such silliness out, but today I'll limit myself to this: the volcano thing is a lie. A flat out lie. That you swallow it uncritically - despite the fact that I'm quite sure I've called you on it before - says a lot about your qualifications to deride the findings of most of the world's climate scientists, MRK.

See here (unless you think the USGS is in on the vast conspiracy?): http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html

I'll sum up the gist of it:

"Thus, not only does volcanic CO2 not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value. "

So you're willing to accept that volcanos are an "obvious cause", but not human activity, which produces more than a hundred times that amount?

Interesting. Tell us more about why you're right, Randy, and the overwhelming majority of scientists in the field are wrong. I am all eyes.

...as to the rest of your talking points (the oceans are cooling, artic melts would cause seas to rise, global warming must mean it gets warm everywhere, even in winter, etc) are all easily debunked if you just do a google search. I'm not going to bother...

Here it is Magpie-Prove it all wrong as I always say about GW. If you can. The climate was hugely warmer 1000 years ago. Humans farmed Greenland. Where in Hell were the SUV's and smoke stacks then? Hmm? The ice in Greenland was five hundred plus miles to the north. How could they farm it with all of that ice on it? I have a real problem with people who close their minds in science because its always come back to haunt them. In the 70's it was global cooling, in the 80's we had St. Helens, in the 90' it was Pinautubo and it got so cold that oil in hydraulic lines in flying aircraft congealed. So lets not go popping off that volcanics should be excluded. Especially by the IPCC. We got goat roped into that by Bush1 and Clinton and it has done nothing for the world climate. We could all go out and kill ourselves and save the planet... then the climate would be what? Oh shit, no one around to say that the climate is all off and that we are all going to die from global heating. What the GW's might have trouble accepting is that we might have already done ourselves in and no number of Al Gores and others will change it. Doesnt seem to affect their hypocritical lifestyles now does it? But oh Jesus they are the authorities on. Sharon Stone, Al Gore, Leonardo...Bono. Yup, now there are some scientists for you. But it doesnt matter... they could be right.

You GW types are quick to attack people who ask the obvious questions and call them silly, uninformed and everything else under the sun. Then there is that sun itself and the output that couldn't be measured back then. I never say Revere is wrong about GW...or you for that matter. I only ask that someone step up with something other than the IPCC report and produce something that has had EVERY shot taken at it. There is a lot in the fossil record from even 1000 years ago that they simply cannot explain away. I an others are watching Kilaueau belch a 1800 mile swath of ash and So2 into the air this week and watching the clouds around it get cut into nothing. Therefore please do offer up something better than pontification, and the usual masturbation of the GW crowd that wants to hang its hat on the perturbations of only the last 150 years on a planet that is likely 5 billion years old.

This science that the GW's are using is flawed and it aims at human control and if they get it wrong for the US then it become full world governmental control of our lives. Complete and en toto... or perhaps you would like to argue that little part of it. What are we going to have the eco police? The fact is that this is a planetary control system if we buy into it and carbon credits and all of that crap. Create a problem, then control it. Sounds like ......Iraq?

Perhaps you never knew that Hitler once used the words, "New World Order"? The science of GW is discounted when it went against the agenda and the discussion was muted, shut up in fact and in only 8 short years the IPCC came up with all the answers of what was causing it, that whole .5 of a degree of temp increase.Then when the science of the instrumentation was called into question, then oh hell that cant possibly be the cause. Man made global warming.... caused by improper setting of the instruments because the standards were not even, nor were they enforced. Amazing how you can get global warming if you set up your thermometers in an area that reflects or absorbs heat... Like a limestone gravel bed to keep the grass down around the facility.

Want to end global warming and save the planet then kill a few people and conduct the experiment. If man is the problem, then remove the source rather than suggesting that we throw the baby out with the bath water. All of this high science for years has been disturbing in that it does nothing for the people and to date I havent seen a thing improve. I guess its the little things that we dont notice that we spend a billion or two on. Species elimination? Natural order of things and with 7 billion on the planet Magpie we might be at the end of our rope. Really... its peak people if you are correct about global warming. If we are at a maximum for temp and man is the cause then what do you suggest we do with 7 billion, allow them to have another billion? Oh, shit! You gotta come up with something fast and better than carbon credits because those people get hungry and they are an army of silliness you describe.

They'll take a drill bit and put it square through your ass to get to the oil that will keep them alive... GW as a concept is dead and taxation, carbon credits, and all of the other stuff is going to go out the window along with its propoonents. The world had better come up with something really fast to put into a car or you can expect a 500 million man army coming to take it. But by limiting our own industrial development across the years 40 in fact we have successfully transported the problems of the world to the worst places for it. How about China that belches out so much that well, they produce enough stuff for the entire world and it circles the globe every 12 weeks.

But then again, you still have to produce something better than what I have seen so far on GW and .5 of a degree. I dont think I mentioned anything about Co2 from volcanic activity Magpie. So2 is far more dangerous and again its one of those things that all the IPCC discounted. You could see the mindset in reading it. "While volcanic activity cannot be excluded" and then the next two sentences categorically excluded it. All of this in the light that even though it has clearly gotten brighter due to the lack of clouds. Those clouds disappeared because the air is cleaner? Hardly...

Careful now, dont discount the sun in GLOWBALL warming. If you really think that man is the cause then you really should just do the right thing, leave the planet. Method and procedures are left up to you

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 19 Aug 2008 #permalink

MRK, this comprises an astonishing amount of pig-ignorant bullshit even for you.

Though I really don't like arguing with self-styled Experts on Everything, I'll run through a few basic points...none of which, unfortunately, will shake your lunatic confidence that you know more about climate science than the IPCC.

The climate was hugely warmer 1000 years ago. Humans farmed Greenland. Where in Hell were the SUV's and smoke stacks then?

First, the fact that the climate has changed naturally in the past doesn't rule out anthropogenic change, any more than the fact that people sometimes fall off buildings means that a specific person wasn't pushed. What's at issue in AGW is the rate of change, which is unprecedented so far as we know.

Second, the Medieval Warming period is both ill-defined and an oversimplification (see here for details). To the extent that it occurred, it's generally thought to have been mild, and regional rather than global. As those commies at the NOAA say, "it appears that the late 20th and early 21st centuries are likely the warmest period the Earth has seen in at least 1200 years."

As for Greenland, see here.

In the 70's it was global cooling,

It's true that the theory was advanced in the seventies, mostly via the popular press, but it never gained any scientific support worth speaking of...certainly nothing comparable to being accepted by pretty much every relevant scientific body on earth. You can read just about everything that was ever written on the subject here. It won't take long.

So lets not go popping off that volcanics should be excluded.

No one - least of all the IPCC - has "excluded" volcanoes. They've simply recognized that their contribution to global CO2 readings is minor when compared to that of human activity. Quoth those dirty hippies at the USGS: "Human activities release more than 130 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of more than 8,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 3.3 million tonnes/year)."

Sharon Stone, Al Gore, Leonardo...Bono. Yup, now there are some scientists for you.

Typical strawman. Denialists like to bring these people up 'cause they're easy to ridicule. But none of 'em is responsible for the theory of AGW, or the science behind it. The complaint is also illogical, in that it seems to imply that if AGW were really a problem, celebrities wouldn't be talking about it. They may be hypocrites, or they may not - most people are, in one way or another - but again, that has nothing to do with the science.

You GW types are quick to attack people who ask the obvious questions and call them silly, uninformed and everything else under the sun.

Could this possibly be because most of these "obvious" questions are equally obvious to climatologists, and have been addressed and debunked many, many times? If you don't want to be called "silly" or "uninformed," maybe you should stop imagining that thousands of climatologists, all over the world, have completely overlooked questions that are "obvious" to an amateur like yourself. If you want respect, in other words, you should earn it by educating yourself enough to avoid saying things that are demonstrably ignorant.

This science that the GW's are using is flawed and it aims at human control and if they get it wrong for the US then it become full world governmental control of our lives.

Who cares? After all, "we might already have done ourselves in."

As for the science being "flawed," who are you to judge that, when you consistently get basic climate facts wrong?

Perhaps you never knew that Hitler once used the words, "New World Order"?

Yeah, I did, actually. He talked about the Homeland a lot too, and "existential threats." And communism. And opera. And the joys of peasant life. And how much he liked Goethe. What's any of this got to do with anything?

The science of GW is discounted when it went against the agenda and the discussion was muted, shut up in fact and in only 8 short years the IPCC came up with all the answers of what was causing it, that whole .5 of a degree of temp increase.Then when the science of the instrumentation was called into question, then oh hell that cant possibly be the cause.

I don't even know where to start with this. You have no idea what you're talking about. Every aspect of AGW has been called into question, at one point or another. What's at issue is whether relevant objections have been answered to the satisfaction of most experts. If you think that they haven't, then please explain what you think the world's preeminent experts in climatology have overlooked.

Amazing how you can get global warming if you set up your thermometers in an area that reflects or absorbs heat... Like a limestone gravel bed to keep the grass down around the facility.

Yep. No climatologists ever thought of that. It took MRK, supergenius, to ask the "obvious" question! Never mind that the GISS says that "spatial distribution [of warming]...shows largest values at locations remote from any local human influence, with a global pattern consistent with that expected for response to global climate forcings." Climatologists simply overlooked the Urban Heat Island effect, 'cause they're a bunch of dullards and leftists! What the IPCC needs is more right-leaning Internet Tough Guys with "common sense"!

Species elimination? Natural order of things

Cancer's part of the natural order of things too. I guess I'll go and bathe in a vat of chromium VI. And refuse treatment if I get sick.

So2 is far more dangerous and again its one of those things that all the IPCC discounted.

This would be more interesting if you explained why their reasons for "discounting" SO2 are wrong. Don't forget to show your work!

Careful now, dont discount the sun in GLOWBALL warming.

Why shouldn't I, when there's been no detectible increase in solar irradiance since 1950 or thereabouts?

Honestly, do you have even the faintest conception of how arrogant it is to imagine that you know things about solar forcing that astrophysicists and climatologists don't? Do you really think that they never would've realized that the sun is hot unless you came along with your gaggle of MRK-approved authorities? Maybe you should submit your revolutionary findings to Nature...or are they working towards the New World Order too?

For Christ's sake, either develop the humility and do the basic work it takes to educate yourself, or stick to your natural metier of gloating over our species' prospects for mass death and killing and leave climate science to the climatologists and geophysicists.

Wishful thinking, I know.

Let us suppose for a moment that AGW is a fact. Why should it be opposed out of hand? Could some of us welcome it and still be "good people?"

Any significant change benefits some and harms others. The ones who benefit from it have every right to advocate for it (or in this case, argue there is no need to change any contributing behavior).

Suppose we invent a thermostat that can control global temperature - it could absolutely stop global warming, and even reverse it. What temperature would you set it for? How much cooler would be best? Would any setting bring benefits to all, and harm to none? If you can't demonstrate that a particular lower setting would be harmless to all, you would have no more right to set it lower than I would to set it higher.

What was actually much more disturbing to me about MRKs comment was his solution; work on ways to kill people and take what you want from them, rather than trying to reduce the environmental impact of what ever problems there are.

The problem isnt the number of people, it is the number of people times the per capita global warming forcing per person.

It is unfortunate that many see the world as a zero-sum game. That for anyone to gain someone else has to lose. That is the mindset epitomized by MRKs stance. That is the mindset epitomized by the present Bush administration. With that mindset, the only thing one should work on is weapons. Once you have the best and the most weapons, you can get anything else you want by taking it from someone else. Ultimately that means taking it from the people who spent their resources working on solving the problem and not on weapons to take the solution from others.

If everyone follows that heuristic, the world ends up back where it started, people fighting with ever more primitive weapons because those willing to use the weapons have taken them after killing those able to make them.

You all crack me up.
Clean out your own closest before you go attacking MRK.

Big huge DITTO!

Lea, victoria: I disagree strongly. I am fond of Randy but he puts himself out there and he does and should expect to get it back. As far as I can see the criticisms are substantive and make strong points. I don't know what closet you are referring to but Phila and daedalus have engaged Randy in a solid way. I don't understand your beef with them. Randy can't be criticized? On the contrary, some of us think much of what he says can't be defended. But Lea, if you have a bone to pick with what they said, then please do so. I don't know what it is, yet. You, and he and they are still welcome here and I want that to be clear.

"I don't know what it is, yet. You, and he and they are still welcome here and I want that to be clear".

Good, thank you revere. Yes, MRK puts himself out there however, more often than not his long discourses, in my opinion have a great deal to offer. The ridiculous name calling is what gets my goat.

Though I really don't like arguing with self-styled Experts on Everything ...

Then why in hell was the effort made? To make Phila the same thing he/she is complaining about?

________________________________________________________

While ice loss is generally regarded as compelling evidence of global warming, most Americans aren't losing any sleep over it. An April Gallup Poll found that "while 61% of Americans say the effects of global warming have already begun," only 37 percent are worried about it, roughly the same percentage that were concerned when Gallup first began asking the same question, nineteen years ago.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0419-24.htm

Gallup poll provides some insight. First, it notes that whether or not you are concerned about global warming depends upon your Party affiliation. The pollsters found that 77 percent of Democrats worried about global warming versus 45 percent of Republicans. In an increasingly polarized society, Democrats and Republicans see things quite differently. This is true on most issues: Iraq, where 72 percent of Republicans think the US "will win" versus 29 percent of Dems, and the economy, where 60 percent of Republicans think economic conditions are "good or excellent" versus 20 percent of Dems. The mood of GOP adherents is remarkably different from that of those who support the minority Party. Sixty percent of Republicans are satisfied with the direction of the country versus just nine percent of Democrats.

______________________________________________________

We are all so ridiculously divided it makes me gag.

I posted up again and it apparently tossed it. Fact is that neither Revere, Phila, me or anyone else is able to prove any of this shit. There isnt going to be anything but drilling and thats the fact of it.

GW? Quite frankly it bores me right up until the time they start to pump the handle on what we should do about something that might just be a natural cycle. That doing something has had little or no effect on the environment because as the population grows we are going to have 7 billion in four years. They will offset just about anything you can do. Phila has the air gotten any cleaner? Nope. Has everyone cut over the last 40 years? Yep, at least here we have. Our manufacturing left the country so where is the great coke smelting going on? Not here. We use electric furnaces for the better part for whats left. We are at 50% of the manufacturing we had just 10 years ago in the US. Where is all of the polluting crap coming from?. Simple answer and that is not here. But there are those who keep on beating their drum that its the US, always the US. So their rants fall on deaf ears. And now we have just about exceeded the capabilities to cover the energy needs of this planet. Dems wont let us drill and now they are changing their minds because well only an idiot would stand in front of drilling now. The vaunted Dems who have blocked every drilling, every refinery, everything because they are the ones who think they have all the answers. Okay, so now we have people starving to death because of gas prices, cant pay their taxes, cant pay anything other than their transportation costs. They were warned for 20 years that alternatives were not viable. They still arent and even by the best projections, they likely wont be. They arent renewable because the population keeps growing and outstripping it. That leaves drilling.

They keep talking about SUV's but we didnt have them when the ice completely melted on the poles... But I couldnt prove that it did, only that was indeed warmer. Phila pontificates way too much and the name calling is like dealing with a kid. I dont normally feel compelled to start off a conversation by calling someone a fucking nitwit. Around most places that kind of taints the info. The idea being that you are too stupid to understand what someone who is an expert in their field is saying. Generally that expert is basing his information on hypothesis and not fact. Even Revere by this post has furthered it by the "fiercer" hypothesis.

If fiercer means in dollars because some real fuckwits parked their homes, families and cars next to a beach where hurricanes happen then yup, fiercer. If we werent there to record it, would it be fiercer? Hence the number of people thing proximity to danger.

Those hypothesis things. Everyone has one. When they start talking about carbon credits and world control this is where I start questioning everything they say simply because of the one big thing. The one big thing is that if man is the cause you had better get rid of more men because of peak oil or peak anything. Without man there is no demand. The outcome isnt in question if it is man causing all the problems. We will live in little cubes, drive little boxes if we can afford them and they'll all be electric powered and they wont work in the cold. Some shit head will have control of your life rather than you. Suddenly you get a shift. If they are wrong then nothing happens and we keep on pressing along under their control.

But.....

Suddenly if they are right and we ARE the cause, the temps will plummet because they were right. GW becomes GC and the heat that we had retained by GHG's actually kept us warm but the flipside wasnt known, a bunch of people will die and we will still be under the thumb of the government. Then we have to drill, nuke and forget wind and solar... Solar for sure goes and wind farms do terrible in the winter if it snows or gets cold. Little know thing.

Higher population by nature requires higher control by the higher ups. Failing to control the population means that the higher ups are deposed, they dont get to stand in the middle of a carbon credit program and take the money as it passes back and forth, thus ensuring their standard of living and dropping ours. They cant get control unless we give it to them and this, this is the one that would do it. We will just tax carbon that you cant live without. You are made of it. Everything you take in is based in it. So we will just world tax it. But, the only people that will pay it will be the US and a few others. So we get the bills for the rest of the world.

And, we will still be under their thumb.

Al Gore infinitum... Followed by Chelsea.

Gag indeed.

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 20 Aug 2008 #permalink

Phila: Thanks; that was one of the cleanest, most convincing jobs of deconstructing and refuting total horse shit that I think I've ever witnessed, here. Very, very nice job.

I think that you can rest assured that the thoughtful members of the audience, at least, appreciated it. Can't speak for the australopithecenes among us, though, of course.

But us australotypes are still asking those very important questions Dylan your opinion notwithstanding.... What caused the climate to be warm enough to farm Greenland 1000 years ago? Why does the ice record show a tremendous pull back from about 700 to 1000 AD? Please do explain all of it and explain how man interacted with the environment to cause such a disaster that it would warm so.

So until you GW's can reconcile the obvious, then your arguments hold not one bit of water... Unless you can include every aspect into the next IPCC report and that means everyone this time, it cant be called consensus or unequivocal unless you do.The IPCC was rigged from the start and mostly designed at taking the US apart.

If you cant include everthing and everyone then its conspiracy theory at its finest and a very likely agenda based program.

Feel free to prove what caused that warming. On the way prove what the causes of all the other warm ups were. If it wasnt man then it had to be something a lot more natural and that would leave?

Its very interesting.... because we werent around except as australopithecenes. See even you have evolved. An amazing feat even in light of your destructive environment.

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 22 Aug 2008 #permalink

Not to pick on Randy, but I think his approach and the approach of most of the other right wing GW denialists to GW is related to the saying "if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" and also the related saying, "if your every problem is a nail, you try to use every tool as a hammer".

First, if the only goal you can imagine to be worthwhile is power, and to obtain ever more military, economic and political power, then every issue that is raised you see as someone else's attempt to use that issue as a weapon to take military, economic and political power away from you (because power like that is always zero-sum, any power that someone else has is power that you don't have). I think this is why MRK always brings up the UN and carbon taxes and a host of issues that have nothing to do with the science of GW as if these are the reasons why scientists around the world are raising the issue of GW.

Second, if your only goal is to obtain ever more military, economic and political power, you use every issue as a mechanism for doing so. This is what Bush has done. In the guise of "protecting" us from terrorists and Iraq, he has tried to amass ever more power. Energy prices are simply a vehicle to rationalize more drilling, more subsidies for the oil industry, subsidies for the alcohol from food industry, more roll backs of environmental protections, the gutting of the endangered species act, all to increase the profits of his cronies.

If you look at everything the Bush administration has done, it is consistent with his goal being solely to acquire more power for himself and his cronies. That is why the Justice Department has become an agency run by political hacks where political considerations and maintaining Bush administration political power trump everything else. Prosecutors who put following the law above persecuting the GOP's enemies are fired. Such people won't do anything about GW (or any other issue) unless and until they obtain more power as a consequence. That is why the "planning" for a pandemic is mostly about how to impose martial law and how to ensure that any needed supplies are controlled and doled out by the "leaders" to further the "leaders" agenda of getting and keeping every more power. The "aid" in Katrina was doled out the same way, as were all the no-bid contracts for Iraq. The issue isn't about getting the right aid to those who need it, the issue is always about who controls the aid, who profits from it, even if the aid is useless (anthrax vaccine for example).

The goal isn't to prevent a crisis, the goal is to engineer a crisis so the "solution" to that crisis can be used to get more power. It is difficult for people who don't think this way to appreciate that that is what is being done. Just as it is difficult for people who do think this way to imagine people not thinking this way.

Uh... there they go again... I am a denialist. No matter how many times I say it I get painted with that brush... Even though I am one of the first to say warming is happening... On certain parts of the planet. Cause-unknown. Prognosis-death to some. Adaptation to first warming and then sudden cold.

As for the UN... Its about world control and they have to have one or more issues at hand that "affect" us all to induce any sort of program... Carbon credits? Some schmo in SE Asia isnt going to be paying any carbon taxes...We will. Why? Because they are going to push for that developing nation status to give them a break.

That idiot Clinton almost did our economy by starting to sign the Kyoto Accords... We would have been out of business in this country in under two years. That was a UN deal too as was the IPCC.When the USChambers went to him and explained it he backed away. Even he didnt understand what it meant.

I keep on hearing the same stuff but nothing new comes out. Gotta stop Global Warming Deadie? Well, maybe but its all based upon the science of the day and that says for sure we will have 7 billion people plus or minus a hundred million or two. What will you do if you are wrong in the future and that futures science of the day. Indeed what will we do it you are right?

Always the suggestion is that we can cut here but it makes no difference if that is true. That true that GW is underway. We killed ourselves already if the GW's are right. There is no way to turn back that clock. Zero population growth might have but you know the religious implications of that. My point is this... we are now at arguably .25 to .5 and a little for temp change. Big deal to some, not to others. It will equate to dead people....given as hurricanes, typhoons and drought kill a bunch of people.

But if those people are as I indicate saved by the IPCC and all of the bullshit they can come up with along with My Pal AL, then it will equate to what? Here it is... MORE people and then second, total control of that group because to pollute, to establish yourself in this pecking order, you will cause...GW. This new group of humans will completely offset anything that could possibly be done. Socialism/Communism will simply become the order of the day and you will end up with revolt as a result.

Its people/carbon overload by them just being there if the GW's are right and then nature will certainly take its course. Might even eliminate us as a species and thats something that I have to believe is a possibility. The GW's only look at the one thing...We have to stop. Fact is, the US cant cut anymore and remain a world power. The country and its eco regulations are off the scale. The most populated countries in the world where most of the polluting is done? About zero. So why not get off of our backs and onto theirs... Oh shit cant do that, it might cause a diplomatic stink. .
----------
All the contracts were doled out ....Hmmm. You havent seen Pelosi's record on taking care of the people for her political friends in Guam and Hawaii have you. No way they were getting a rise in minimum wage. I also guess you havent looked at Kosovo and the contracting there, or anything that Hillary and Bill did in that respect. So thats the spoils system...been around ever since there was a new regime installed every four years ....or continued.

If you look at everything he and his cronies have done..? Well gee, if they had done that then it wouldnt have been such a mucked up deal then would it? It would have been open and shut case and it was consistent with the law. Dont complain and act if someone is doing something or immoral that is legal. Cant make that statement....

That last one is like saying the oil companies make too much money. Is that currently a crime? Windfall profits taxes...Thats legalized theft. Think not? I didnt see them go after Bill Gates and Microsoft when they were raking in 20 times what the oil companies did. We got shitty computers and software and he tried to monopolize it so you would be forced to to buy even more shit. Nope, didnt even think to go after him for that... How about that Pentium chip thing. That cost us 400 million to fix the Hubble and then about 750 billion in the US to replace crap computers. Nope, not illegal to make money for the time being. I guess that it goes with the concept that the money in your pocket, that you earned, belongs to someone else.

Consistent with his goals? Please, you give him far too much credit as President. I dont think he has done a terrible job, I think he has done a bad job at some things. Just like Clinton. Clinton did some things that I totally agreed with. He did a lot more that were clearly to the detriment of the security of this country.

I think your last para Deadie is right on.... I also could say the same about GW and AL Gore. Start reading the back channel stuff on how he will insert himself and his buddies into the money stream. No bid contract of course. Why would he be jetting around like he does unless he knows that he will still be in the drivers seat.

GW? I say for the better part let it happen and it will clean off the table a bit, a clean up of humanity. If GW is caused by man then so be it. Nature or God will take care oft the perpetrator. If we intervene and you are right, then absolutely and positively natural or unnatural events will take place to correct the imbalance that both would create.

As for GW... I still say that its overblown, and causes only slightly understood. Next thing we are going to have on the control menu? Food police... You cant eat that shit... its bad for you.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=468

By M. Randolp[h Kruger (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

Randy: Ummm. Your outpourings are so voluminous it's hard to keep track. Clarity? I guess it's in the eyes of the beholder. But one question I'm curious about. Exactly who is it in the UN -- do you have some names? -- that is out for world domination?

Thought you rarely read MRK's stuff revere.
And clarity, blue eyes in this beholder honey.

Lea:Thought you rarely read MRK's stuff revere.

I rarely do and this is another example. I didn't bother with most of it. Sometimes I'll skim. Just that one sentence caught my eye. My curiosity got the best of me.

As for clarity, there are so many straw men in that post I'm not surprised we are having trouble feeding the world. You get clarity with concision. Maybe you like Randy's writing style but it's a style that doesn't sport clarity. Perhaps you just meant, "I agree with him." That's not what clarity means, though. Since it's clear, maybe you can state in a sentence or two what he was saying. Clearly.

You just need to read what he writes revere, don't look to me for clear explanations.
I don't always agree with MRK, or have you forgotten that?
-----------------------------------------
Mar 05, 2008 - The Manhattan Declaration - from the 2008 International Climate Conference

"Global warming" is not a global crisis

We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change

Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;

Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

Recognizing that the causes and extent of recently observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed "consensus" among climate experts are false;

Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing, human suffering;

Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:

Hereby declare:

That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity's real and serious problems.

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.

That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.

That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

Now, therefore, we recommend

That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as "An Inconvenient Truth."

That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.

Agreed at New York, 4 March 2008.

Its hard Revere to be single point clarifying when you are one of the few less than libs here who are on their own wagons. I do agree with you on that. Have to hit them all on their points on the one big one.

I am constantly amazed by the people who gulp down their carbon every morning that they arent out in the streets screaming we are all gonna die. If GW is real and it is man made, there is nothing we can do will do anything but mitigate part of it. If we mitigate it, it translates to more baby making humans that make more AGW babies.

Again, its warmer but I disagree with the causes. I'll bet I go to my grave with it actually colder. You know the GW's disturb me. The glass is half full. I actually heard one on TV the other day that submitted nearly a whole hours worth to AGW. Then in one blip just before the commercial at ten til the hour, he said one sentence "This is of course based on modeling, and it could be wrong. But...."

One sentence, and then he goes right back to asserting the position. Its okay to assert positions, I just dont want the US to assume one. Why? Because its absolutely to every other country in the worlds best interest to ensure that we are hamstrung and frankly I think that Billy, Hilly, My Pal AL and the IPCC were compromised by the Chinese...IMO. Why would Al Gore be running about and saying that the USA is at fault when the next four largest producers of GHG's who combined produce about 1/2 of the gases are on the other side of this planet . WE are singled out.... Why?

Then there is the Kyoto. Why would they even think about signing something that gave an unfair advantage, and that advantage to other countries at literally OUR expense. AS IN.... WE were going to have to pay for them to clean up. The Bush Administration went to the last meeting and said that okay if its such a problem then lets comply sooner than later, we arent going to pay for it, and you have to comply just like we do....NOW! All of a sudden its gotten quiet about that.

Those same captured by the eco-people Democrats who were proponents only six months ago have now jumped ship and said lets drill. They cant obfuscate any longer. We are literally outta gas. We are starting to make the transition to something else with all of its own eco problems and now they want to drill. They are bought and paid for just like everyone else in DC. Its just in varying degrees.

Wait a minute.... I thought we were the problem. Oh Crap! That cat is out of the bag now.

I wonder if all of a sudden all or nearly all of the government funding of science and the wonderful stuff we have gotten used to that government does right suddenly disappeared, what the effects would be. We sign anything that gives those other countries a super right and we are going to lose big here. We WILL be a third rate nation inside of three years and unemployment will be off the scale. The US is in a pickle and if any idiot is dumb enough to sign on for this then they should be impeached. Its not in our interests, its in their interests. I wonder how much money Big AL would rake in from using his position to put himself into position?

But the bottom line is that people are fed up to the gills with the lefty program line. There werent many states in the last election that went left. Just the most populated ones in the NE. They are not the rest of the country and I would think that the job losses alone would shift their thinking.. But that too might correct itself soon.

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

Oh and Revere... Just a quikie about modeling and UMiami. They arent really out there too hard with their stuff. FSU's super-ensemble and about 40 others generate the "big picture" for every storm with each adding or taking away certain variables. They rarely get the track right, and never the intensity. Here are a couple of good examples of all of the whiz wheel models at work. Courtesty Colorado State. This is TS FAY

http://euler.atmos.colostate.edu/~vigh/guidance/northatlantic/track_ear…

http://euler.atmos.colostate.edu/~vigh/guidance/northatlantic/track_lat…

http://euler.atmos.colostate.edu/~vigh/guidance/northatlantic/track_gfs…

Until they come up with an accurate model of the atmosphere that gets it right everytime all of this modeling is crap. The intensities even if a model gets the track right, doesnt quantify itself more than 10%. But its science. I always say keep working at it. And do remember that Dr. Gray himself said that GW inclusion in hurricane modeling isnt a factor. But he would be one of the guys that had an opinion and who is a Phd. that didnt get included into the IPCC. report.

No brag, just fact.

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

Revere, I think that Randy's ideas of zero-sum competition and world domination are such ingrained ideas of what motivates people that he has a hard time understanding any other type of motivation. I think he would have a difficult time articulating what your motivation is in writing this blog unless somewhere in it there is a plan for world domination, or a swipe at pathological "lib" values.

To Conservatives like Randy, the idea of a win-win solution is an oxymoron. It is a liberal boon-doggle where all the children in the kid soccer league get trophies just for showing up. For anyone to really win, someone else has to lose. If everyone wins, then no one wins, and everyone who plays that game with no winners is a loser.

That is the mindset of the Conservatives and zero-sum competition. If anyone else "wins", they feel like they have lost. It doesn't matter how much they have, it is never "enough" if someone else does have "enough".

That is why Bush can't negotiate. He can't come to the kind of win-win solutions that negotiations require because then he feels like he has lost.

Deadie-That pretty much describes it. There is no such thing as win-win in the real world. To lose or win this deal is ingrained in what happens in the US for the next century easily, not just me. If GW's are right then we are done simply because it will take the country down piece by piece. What could be left are little regional republics. If they are wrong, then having placed all of the regulations on the US, forced us to pay to ship yet more jobs overseas, we become a paper tiger from the lack of real money. We get to pay to put them ahead of us. Thats it in a nutshell. The EU too. And all they are going to do is create a population bomb that will start ticking. Most people cant see it. The ones that do give a big oooh shit.

All of the technological jobs are leaving now too. Greener pastures where GW is something that the US has to comply with. Even the EU is figuring it out now. Every issue of Forbes contains something now about jobs, breakthroughs, and above all pursuit of the good green euro. We are perceived now as has beens. That may be a fair assessment. Its not Iraq either. We were on our way down at the end of Bush1 and its only taken 20 years more to get us to a position that truly is a crossroads. Get this one wrong and it wont matter whether you have conservative or lib eyes and you'll see wars and big ones at that.

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

Randy, is your relationship with your children win-lose? Do you lose when your children win? How about your wife? Does one of you have to lose for the other one to win?

Wars over what? The wind mills in the Netherlands that make their electricity? The tiny electric cars they will be driving in the EU while giant US SUVs sit rusting? The 900 square foot apartments that are warm and well lit in the EU while 4,000 square foot McMansions in the US are cold and dark? The free, well stocked, efficient health clinics in the EU while US emergency rooms are crowded, overworked, understaffed, and either migrate to where the uninsured cant get to, or go out of business from unreimbursed care.

Everyone knows that oil is a finite resource. Everyone knows that eventually it will run out. Everyone knows that eventually it will be too expensive to use for the lowest value uses.

Do we pretend everything is ok until it does run out? Pretend everything is ok until everything fails catastrophically? Lie to the masses and keep them hooked on cheap oil until it runs out and then sucker punch them when they cant afford food?

That is the plan of the Cheneys of the world. They are going to need a lot of soldiers to fight all those wars. Need to keep the people poor so they dont have an alternative except to enlist so that their children dont starve. Need to have those wars to burn up the money so alternatives to oil are never developed. Need to have those wars to funnel profits to the war profiteers (the Cheneys of the world). Need to have those profits to fund the propaganda that keeps the US in a perpetual war on terror.

Randy: For someone who wants "proof" of AGW, do you have proof for you much stronger, and on the face of it demonstrably false, zero sum assumption?

How about going back to basics and start there? Most of the stuff that I have seen is easily refuted and in some cases modified to fit their modelings. Anyone who can sit back with this stuff and go with it is a little beyond me as to why. They cant even get the present conditions right about 60% of the time.

Then there is the simple fact that this same group who is into the "long term" forecast Revere for GW are basing the future of our country and this planet on terribly flawed science.

Think not? Tell me what the exact conditions at an exact hour a week from now will be. Will it be based on an imperfect model? Will it be based on knowledge? Or will it be based on a guess?

Until you can accurately predict that particular thing along with the effect of even a single cloud moving over the ocean you cannot begin to make the statements that you do. Al Gore says the polar ice caps will be gone in 5 years. Okay, lets wait and see and hold him to it.

To boot this is global warming right? Based upon tree rings, ice, mud, and a few other things. Where is the data for the S. Hemisphere please? If its global I really would like to see that come popping in here to be included into the IPCC report. I actually see stuff now thats being used to prop up the theory. Besides its not a win-win zero sum assumption. Its much farther than that and its about world control. The second I hear anything about UN control of this then its going to be time to get the gun oil out and start greasing. It will get down to that as the US will slip into obscurity shortly after.

"We will destroy you from within", Nikita Kruschev

Me, I personally like science but its always based on assumptions and hypothesis. Its like the weather. Just like when you think its going to do something, it does something else. Everyone thats jumped on this wagon is going to be sorely disappointed in the near future I believe.

Here is something else Revere, I recommend that you all like me remind yourselves that this is weather data only. How its manipulated and thats a very descriptive term is up to the user. Your guys at UMiami are good little modelers and they arent assuming zero sum in their models. Nor is firing scientists from any bent on any side of the argument... Something we both revile in the face of science.

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=21207

But I wont sit around and let a bunch of well intentioned and misinformed people make the wrong decisions just because my former Senator who couldnt get elected in HIS OWN STATE pump bullshit out. Save the planet? We arent saving anything. Gore and his friends are getting ready to stand in the gravy train and feed off of us and give control of our country to the goddamn UN. Sorry, but the GW's are operating on skewed data and modeling it to accommodate a theory rather than bringing everyone into the shed to produce what really might be happening.

I am also still waiting for that water to rise too... Anyone out there drowning? Is London under water? How about Pisa? Come on now he started this crap almost 8 years ago and we should see SOMETHING by now to support it.

No? Okay, wake me when its over or when the water rises or the planet starts to kill people. Sometimes the best approach to a problem it to wait and see if it IS a problem. Oh and pass the research grant money for the AGW... which wont be there if we go with it two years into a carbon credit program.

If all the ice melts then please someone tell me why its the coldest winter in almost 25 years in Antartica... Must be AGW....!

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

If GW is real and it is man made, there is nothing we can do will do anything but mitigate part of it. If we mitigate it, it translates to more baby making humans that make more AGW babies.

This is false on its face. Go outside and you will be drenched in energy - from the sun. All we have to do is capture it. Wind and solar are the two fastest growing energy sources. They don't produce significant amounts of carbon. There are already hundreds of crops for all sorts of environments that do not produce significant net carbon. I could go on and on, but every carbon-emitting activity that we engage in can be replaced with a non-carbon emitting equivalent with off the shelf technologies. It's possible to change the way we live, so that the next generation will not be emitting huge amounts of carbon.

Save the planet? We arent saving anything. Gore and his friends are getting ready to stand in the gravy train and feed off of us and give control of our country to the goddamn UN.

Are their black helicopters harassing you again, MRK?

Lew....Its your opinion and I respect that. Its not false on its face. Solar energy still isnt viable and its not ecologically friendly at all. Directed magnification might be via space, but you could end up with a space based weapon too as a result. But if your argument is carbon then its not going to work. Same crowd was spouting about acid rain a few years ago and it has been cut dramatically... Still pools in the NE that get it from the coal fired plants. Let me break it down a bit better... It aint going to happen in your lifetime and by then it will either manifest itself as the GW's do, or it wont.

Its the modelers that are pushing it. And there are plenty of models to go around. Seems that several have been skewed to fit the theory too. But, thats if you go a little deeper than the guys doing the modeling. As for those crops... like I said.. food police. You cant eat that... its bad for you.. and it produces too much carbon.

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

I am also still waiting for that water to rise too... Anyone out there drowning? Is London under water? How about Pisa? Come on now he started this crap almost 8 years ago and we should see SOMETHING by now to support it.

Present sea level rise rates are only a few mm a year. Likely sea level rise rates for the next century are on the order 5 to 10 mm a year. It would be amazing if anything had happened in just 8 years. In any case, London at least is very well protected (although they are already planning on upgrading the Thames barriers over the next 30 years or so).
However, salt-water incursion due to sea level rise is already ruining agriculture on Tuvalu. (but as far as I know, nobody drowned. They're just risking starvation.)

But if your argument is carbon then its not going to work. Same crowd was spouting about acid rain a few years ago and it has been cut dramatically...

Acid rain has been dramatically reduced in North America and Europe, where a market based regulatory program called cap and trade has been implemented. That regulatory program was introduced precisely because that 'crowd was spouting about acid rain' . The fact that cap and trade worked so well for acid rain has encouraged many to suggest it for CO2 pollution as well.
Note that in almost all of Asia, where no equivalent cap and trade regulatory program exist, acid rain continues to increase.

http://www.nu.nl/news/1713656/21/Sneeuw_in_de_zomer_in_Oostenrijk.html

If you want the translation, its snowing in Austria. Might that be that the satellite based temperature monitors have noted an almost a .4 C drop in world temps... And they did indeed include the S. Hemisphere. And guess what, unless something dramatically changes its going to indicate a lot colder yet for 08.

Have a nice day.

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

The notion that the earth has cooled 0.4 C is a noise artifact.
In fact the earth continues to warm.
Finally, the snow in Austria is weather, not climate, and does not constitute evidence of cooling. (Just as Katrina did not constitute evidence of global warming.)

Actually I very much liked the post by Chris | August 20, 2008 2:30 PM. What temperature would any of you GW pushers set it at?

Do a google for GW hoax and you'll find over a million references. Take the time to read some of them also instead of relying on the normal mundane flow of those who chose to promote it.

So what's really causing the endless cycles of warming and cooling, if it isn't a constantly changing "Greenhouse Effect" - with man to blame? Man wasn't producing much CO2 in the past million years, so he hasn't simply been turning the greenhouse up and down at will. Just look up - one of the most likely culprits is our old friend, the Sun.

The current warming Solar Cycle is just about over.
The global temperatures have been nominally flat for the past 8 years.
If the Solar Scientists are correct, we about to head into a cooling cycle... which is not good news.

http://planetdaily.ws/index.php/more/77/

It's Time to Worry about Global COOLING - Kevin Roeten

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest solar cycle of the past two centuries. They say this will likely lead to unusually cool conditions on Earth. It is also predicted that this cool period will go much longer than the normal 11 year cycle, as the Little Ice Age did. The climate threat is actually cooling, especially to countries like Canada. On the northern limit to agriculture in the world, very little cooling would likely destroy much of its food crops.

-----------------------
And, CO2 is not a significant greenhouse gas; 95% of the contribution is due to Water Vapor.

"Climate Science" has become the new gold mine for research funding. Any funding grant application today had better have the words "Global Warming" in it somewhere if you want to rise to the top of the pile when the money is handed out. Spending on "climate research" has skyrocketed from $175 million to $5 billion annually, and you'd better make sure your "results" support AGW, or the Leprechaun will get away and your pot of gold will vanish.

Actually I very much liked the post by Chris | August 20, 2008 2:30 PM. What temperature would any of you GW pushers set it at?

And that question was:

Suppose we invent a thermostat that can control global temperature - it could absolutely stop global warming, and even reverse it. What temperature would you set it for?

For 10,000 years global climate varied little (compared to the temperatures we're headed for now). During that 10,000 years, all of modern civilization developed. Today, hundreds of millions of people live in coastal areas that were settled on the assumption that the sea would not rise. Billions of people dependend on crops which grow in the environments which have existed for the last 10000 years. That's the known safe 'global temperature' .

Would any setting bring benefits to all, and harm to none? If you can't demonstrate that a particular lower setting would be harmless to all, you would have no more right to set it lower than I would to set it higher.

Every year, particulate pollution from coal power plants kills 60,000 Americans. Clearly, coal power is not 'harmless to all' and all coal power plants should be shut down immediately. That's precisely what Chris's logic implies. But in a sane world people seek to place reasonable pollution controls on coal power plants (which, despite the tech having been cheap and available for decades, are still fought by most coal plant owners), and work to replace coal power plants with other kinds of power plants, This avoids the extreme all-or-nothing thinking in Chris's words, and enables us to save lives of people who would otherwise have died due to particulate pollution, while at the same time avoiding the deaths that would result from an immediate shut down.
Chris's words assume a few people freezing to death is equivalent to tens of millions dead due to famine (since global warming is making the earth's primary agriculture regions dryer) and hundreds of millions displaced by rising oceans. I think Chris's words are both ill-considered and insane.

Do a google for GW hoax and you'll find over a million references.

More than half of which are rebuttals to the baseless lies used to rob and manipulate people like you.

Take the time to read some of them also instead of relying on the normal mundane flow of those who chose to promote it.

I've read about 9 books (that's printed on paper) that purport to debunk global warming. I followed sites like co2science and climate audit daily for months. These people constantly re-use the same bankrupt arguments long after they've been debunked. They have no evidence against the facts outlined in books such as Spencer Weart's The Discovery Of Global Warming , Joe Romm's Hell and High Water , Mark Lynas' High Tide , Six Degrees, or at websites such as realclimate.org , scienceblogs.com/illconsidered , tamino's open mind blog, Eli Rabett's blog . The work of the people who insist global warming is unreal, not caused by humans, or good for us (and it's interesting that most of them insist all 3 things at the same time) is best exemplified by Mike Crichton's book State Of Fear . They imagine some all-powerful conspiracy - stopping just short of black helicopters and government collusion with aliens - and insist millions of hard-working climate scientists are in on it, forging data and writing fake computer programs. Ask yourself what is more likely.

Lew-And you are right thats a snapshot of the weather and thats what the IPCC is basing their findings on and unfortunately skewed data. You will of course disagree and thats your opinion. But you cant discount anything in what may come or anyones science in it... The stakes are just flat too high.

The IPCC and the GW's want us to drop what we are doing and go do something else because of what THEY believe might happen... What if it doesnt? I am all for getting off of gas if for no other reason than it makes us strategically insecure and that is in reference to the 5 strategic hits previously mentioned. Those hits are known by the military of at least 15 countries and if even one was taken out the move towards war would be fast. Two would more than likely do it.

The GW's, libs and Democrats have goat roped us pretty badly. We cant economically drill for oil in the US due to environmental concerns and they arent unfounded. Used to be they would drill and just dump the slurry out onto the ground. Even the mud for the boreholes was toxic and took years in the sun to break down. But it changes not one thing and that is that either we drill now or a lot more people are going to die. Some here from the cold, many there because of the reallocation of resources that result in food being unattainable at any price. There is where you find it but when the Saudis have problems buying grain because its not available with their cash, then there is a big problem.

But this is about the weather and climate change. Climate change IMO is something that rarely comes on like a freight train and if it does, like I said we cant do anything about it. We can continue green at all costs which will result in the US suddenly finding itselt up a stream with an outboard and no gas to power it. I have seen projected green costs that run into the trillions of dollars if we implement it over 20 years. And we should start to eliminate the things that cause dirty air. But its going to be a cottage industry and My Pal Al and others are positioning themselves to reap the benefits. They are betting that their GW hype right or wrong is going to pay off. Thats my second rub with this...

And then finally its the facts of warming. It had been warming as indicated by the IPCC for several years, now its trending downward... Hard in fact. Its indicated by a lot of those scientists who were on the wagon. A .4 C temp change is something thats undeniable and as a result its starting to be seen. Alaska which had been so hot is having the coolest summer in almost 40 years. Barely making the mid 60's when five years ago it was in the 80's. It has snowed on the N. Slope more days this summer than it has in the last 40 years also. Not unusual to see snow but it is unusual to have it stick around. Its going to frost in Minnesota and Wisconsin tonight and our friends in Canada are having shots of cool, followed by moderate warmups. Not especially warm there this year.

So we need to go back to square one and analyze the original data and models. Was it right to begin with? I dunno but one of the models used as an example by the IPCC was de-engineered by a real whiz wheel math person. He changed the variables for the program and found that no matter what he changed, the outcome was the same....GW. Not necessarily AGW, just GW. That to me automatically says its either a huge math blunder or an intentional one to further an agenda. Academics once published are reluctant to say they were wrong. I dont blame them... its hard to get grant money. A guy named Hawkings did and then backed up again...twice. But turns out that the back ups were very likely correct. Now theres my kind of scientist. .

Data and papers. Its all based upon acceptance. I am not arguing that we are seeing a few changes here and there but nothing on this apocalyptic scale that the GW's say it is, or that it will be. They cannot accurately forecast more than a day or two out and thats relative to whether it rained or was cloudy, not the temp. The temps are the key unfortunately that cant monitor the oceans plus or minus even 3 degrees C. NASA specifies this in their operational data sheet for their space buggy's. That by the way is within the parameters of the great warming indication.

I am not going to say hoax because a lot of people with Phd's have their names behind it. It would be disrespectful to do so. But what are the real causes? Co2, So2. Is man generating them to the point that it presents a problem. Water vapor? I dont sit back and let someone TELL me that I am wrong. But they automatically call you a denier and that is very disrespectful because the proof that is offered up is just absolutely weak at best. Give me some water rises, give me a desert in the middle of America or the Black Forest in Germany and I might be more receptive. But dont tell me I am wrong. The water flowed in the Sahara if the data is right 3000 years ago... but that would be climate change and not AGW and there werent enough of us around to change that. Natural or unnatural... only Al Gore knows for sure right?

As for the scientists who offer it up, if you have ever gotten into a discussion with one of them they start with the argument of GW and the AGW issue you would know its far from exact science. You ask what proof they have of it and its sketchy at best. I went to a lecture here in Memphis and when the speaker who has multiple degrees said that he believed that AGW is bull, but maybe not GW he was shouted down from the audience. A protest is what I would have called it. Posters came out, "Save the planet", "Go Green" and these people were foaming at the mouth kind of protesting. The good doctor refused to let security remove them. Attaboy... all voices heard.

The Phd. continued with the reasons that GW had likely occurred,it had peaked as the Russians and many others have said and off they went again. AGW against GW? Protesting the protest? Now we have AGW's going up against GW's and those that question the whole thing. Go figure. So to me the debate was never allowed, we were goat roped into the idea by certain individuals. Charlatans? Lew I honestly dont know, they could be right but they could be most expensively wrong too.

It does go back to my original position though. IF man is to blame then there isnt anything we can possibly do to create a change that would be effective short of sterilizations. Two kids, ZPG and then let the baby boomers die off. I am one of those. If we are teetering as they say then the only logical change that we could do is to drop the population by natural or unnatural causes. I am not talking about going out and using a bio weapon or nuke, but its not about reducing our carbon footprints. Its about reducing the number of carbon footprints. If 6.5 billion reduced it by a tenth, that would mean you would be able to support a tenth more people? Sorry but that wont work if we are teetering. That pushes it over in a generation into calamity. That tenth would want to have children too.

I also assert that certain individuals stand to make billions off of this and it wont change the air quality. The inner workings of Al Gore and others lead me to believe that we should review the data and get a total consensus and not a general one of whats happening. Then watch the people and their actions that stand to gain.

Lew-Get off of oil? Shit yeah... Come up with something thats viable other than just going green and a lot of rhetoric before putting the cart before the horse. I'll sign up for that any day.

And Lew... I have read most of those books because I do want to know... I dont accept some of it. Some of it I do. But this is the issue. If ANY of their data is wrong then they are either completely or partially off in left field with their modeling and this is what its all based upon.. Projections. If anything skews their data, then they are wrong.. plain and simple. A lot of the stuff at publication was in their opinions correct... even the graphs. But now those graphs and the papers/research conducted are called into question and then when overlain with the next guys papers/research it presents actually a global cooling. You will of course disagree. But, I for one will not say that you, Phila or Revere and others are wrong if for no other reason than I know you are concerned. It is valid to want to head out of this world leaving it better than when we got it. But a four-six degree rise would eliminate us anyway. AGW might be right. GW might be right. And a complete opposite might also occur. I prefer to wait for a bit and see if it continues to crank on up rather than spending a bunch of money on things that would have no effect. Get off oil? Where do I sign up?

And for the record Lew talking about conspiracies, aliens, black helicopters is to me in the same context as being called a denier. There are hugely powerful corporations that stand to gain, lose and lose big if any changes are made at all. They would snuff you or me out in a heartbeat for a billion dollars and not think twice about it. Changing a program is one thing, but not if you change the all the variables that would automatically put it to the other side of the spectrum. That calls the program into question. Question asked, never answered. Same with the data being used. Is it accurate? Question asked, answered by statements like, "It was within the norm for the time period." E.g. monitoring in the 1950's was in its infancy compared to todays standards. In some cases clearly wrong.

What is more likely? A mistake and maybe just a good honest one. Its physics on a computer nothing more, nothing less. Are all the variables entered properly.

IS THE DATA BEING INPUT CORRECT?

Now theres the big question.

Sorry for the length Revere.

..

By M. Randolph Kruger (not verified) on 25 Aug 2008 #permalink

Richard S. Lindzen, in his paper at the 2005 Yale Center for Globalization conference clearly points to one particular pro-hoax web site calling itself "Real Climate" which tells us that it's all about "climate science from climate scientists", featuring among others, the now universally discredited work of Michael Mann and others who were too quick to become his overnight followers.
The site isn't actually run by "scientists", it's actually run by Environmental Media Services, which specializes in spreading environmental junk science on behalf of numerous clients who stand to financially benefit from scare tactics through environmental fear mongering. Lindzen says, "This website appears to constitute a support center for global warming believers, . . . "

Lea; This is absolutely false. Real Climate is not run by EMS. I know all the folks at EMS and all they did was set up the site. It is run and controlled by the atmospheric scientists that write the site. This is the kind of crapola that is typical of the far right climate deniers (you may be a climate change denier of a different political stripe, I don't know, but these kind of lies are stock in trade of the right wing). Real Climate has substantive, authoritative scientific debunking of climate deniers' pseudoscience arguments. They are smart, committed scientists that don't make any money off what they do.

BTW, you have no evidence that EMS spreads junk science. It is science you don't like, maybe, but I don't know what your arguments are other than that. If you have them, make them. The scientists associated with EMS are highly credentialed, highly experienced and highly principled who don't make money off their positions. I have known them personally for many years. If you have some specific thing EMS has promoted you think is junk science please argue it. Otherwise you are just calling names.

You've been suckered.