The Climate Crisis

The EditorsMay 01, 2014

View of glacier lake seen in national park in Peru. (CNS photo/Mariana Bazo, Reuters)

Climate change is an issue of unusual complexity that requires attention, discipline and international cooperation. Unfortunately, these are exactly the virtues that are in short supply among the world’s leaders at this moment in history. In a country suffering from political paralysis, where our leaders cannot see beyond the next election cycle, climate change demands bold, far-reaching initiatives. In an international community riven by parochial disputes, climate change forces us to look beyond our borders in the interests of protecting the earth for all its inhabitants.

Under these circumstances, deciding how to respond in a fruitful way to the latest reports from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a daunting prospect. Yet to ignore it would be disastrous. The report, which was released in two final installments this spring, seeks to refocus international attention on climate change at a time when a sense of urgency seems to be flagging. The Rio+20 conference on sustainable development in 2012 was a disappointment. Legislation to limit carbon emissions is stalled in the United States. The I.P.C.C. report intends to awaken world leaders from a dangerous slumber. It states bluntly that the window for addressing the forces driving climate change is closing quickly.

The report calls attention to the global ramifications of inaction. Not only will sea levels rise and glaciers continue to melt, but climate change threatens to disrupt agricultural production and even destabilize governments. In some quarters, the unrest in Syria has been blamed on a devastating drought that provoked anger among the country’s farmers. In a recent interview, retired Army Brig. Gen. Chris King warned that for the military, climate change “is like getting embroiled in a war that lasts 100 years…there is no exit strategy.” Addressing climate change is also a matter of social and economic justice. The polluting practices of the world’s richest nations have their most pronounced effect on the earth’s poorest inhabitants.

The church has long been concerned about climate change and its effects on the world’s inhabitants. In the first week of May, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of the Social Sciences are sponsoring a conference titled, “Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature: Our Responsibility.” The meeting will look at the intersection of environmental policy and human flourishing. “Our idea is not to catalogue environmental problems,” the conference organizers write. “We propose instead to view Humanity’s interchanges with Nature through a triplet of fundamental, but inter-related Human needs—Food, Health, and Energy—and…invite experts from the natural and the social sciences to speak of the various pathways that both serve those needs and reveal constraints on Nature’s ability to meet them.” This language may seem too theoretical to those who prefer to focus on rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels. But the church knows how to take the long view, and its focus on the human factor may help to broaden discussion of environmental policy beyond think tanks and nongovernmental organizations to religious communities. If world leaders are to undertake the ambitious steps laid out in the I.P.C.C. report, they will need the encouragement and support of people of faith.

Policymakers must now decide what action to take. In the United States, public policy solutions are undermined by public figures who question the legitimacy of climate change science. Yet as the U.S. Catholic bishops wrote in “Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and the Common Good,” “What we already know requires a response; it cannot be easily dismissed.” That pastoral letter was written in 2001. We cannot wait another 10 to 15 years to act upon its wisdom. The common good is a much-invoked concept in the Catholic moral tradition, but it is especially relevant to the discussion of climate change. The condition of our environment affects everyone living on the planet. Catholic schools and churches should continue to teach and preach on this issue, and if they have not done so already, conduct “green audits” and examine how they can improve their own environmental profile.

According to reports, Pope Francis plans to address the state of the environment in his next encyclical. Perhaps his unique ability to challenge people in a disarming way will mobilize more people to act. The pope has spoken eloquently of the “globalization of indifference,” and here is an issue, surely, where indifference is our besetting sin. “The culture of comfort, which makes us think only of ourselves, makes us insensitive to the cries of other people,” the pope said at Lampedusa. How much more difficult it is to imagine the cries of people who will suffer 50 or 100 years from now. To address the challenge of climate change will require an extraordinary feat of empathy, to think not only of ourselves but of all God’s children, in this generation and in generations to come.

The Editors

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Daniel Misleh

9 years 11 months ago

Representing the partners of the Catholic Climate Covenant, I'm in Rome at the PAS/PASS meeting and blogging about it here: http://catholicclimatecovenant.org/dans-blog-from-rome/. Catholic individuals, families, schools, parishes and institutions are working to put their faith into action by signing the St. Francis Pledge to Care for Creation and the Poor. Learn more here: http://catholicclimatecovenant.org/.

Ronald Ruais

9 years 11 months ago

I can't believe that you have fallen for this global climate / warming / change nonsense. I'm losing respect for Jesuits who were held on a pedestal of integrity and intellectual honesty. The measure of a science used to be its success in predicting. If I throw a ball into the air it will fall. If I light a fire under a pan of water it will heat. Has this science made one accurate prediction?

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

The issues of global warming which morphed into climate change confirms Professor Lindzen's " belief in man made global warming is a religion" and no doubt Professor Feynman would have labeled it a cult. Not all scientists have faith in the IPCC as in 1996 Fredrick Seitz, President Emeritus of Rockefeller University and past President of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) described the 1996 consensus IPCC report as "I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events that led to this IPCC report"..."If the IPCC is incapable of following its most basic procedures, it would be best to abandon the entire IPCC process, or at least that part that is concerned with the scientific evidence on climate change, and look for more reliable sources of advice to governments on this important question." ( http://www.sepp.org/glwarm/majordeception.html A Major Deception on Global Warming by Frederick Seitz Wall Street Journal , June 12, 1996" "Mr Seitz also cited NAS' own study which states, inter alia, the earth has been subjected to impressive and abrupt swings in climate during recent periods covering thousands of years and that mankind's role cannot be assessed without adequate .... baseline documentation of natural climate variability".. The 1996 consensus report was prepared by government appointed non-scientists bureaucrats, members of VP Gore's staff among them, who changed and/or ignored the IPCC scientific reports' conclusions after the scientists left. Anyone who has perused the Climatgate emails and files would find that there is a small cabal of US and UK government employees and government funded academics who control whose and which papers are accepted by the IPCC science group and even have the power to control the peer reviewed papers that are published in science publications to the point of having an editor removed for accepting a paper which challenged the consensus view. Nothing has changed in the IPCC's 2014 report as government politicians and bureaucrats still have the final say on what is included and how it is reported. Behind the scenes of the IPCC report, with Stanford scientists Mar 31, 2014 by Rob Jordan http://phys.org/news/2014-03-scenes-ipcc-stanford-scientists.html#jCp Reaching consensus "The journey to the final draft was a delicate exercise in international relations. "It is a tough job," said Root, a review editor for a chapter on terrestrial and inland water systems. "You must be very current with the literature, and due to space constraints there are always 'battles' to include what each author thinks is important. It is wonderful, though, getting the opportunity to work with the best scientists around the world." Root and her fellow chapter editors in Spain and Switzerland would hash out their different perspectives during early-morning conference calls. Their Skype sessions sometimes went for more than four hours. The chapter teams pored over dozens of peer-reviewed studies, some of them from nonscientific journals, discussed and debated findings, and then settled on language they were all comfortable using. "Instead of telling your fellow scientists they were full of it, you just had to say, 'Where's the traceable evidence?' and they would change their tune," Lobell said. Still, "there was nearly always a friendly atmosphere." "The challenge is also to communicate things clearly," he added. "For example, it doesn't help much to say, 'Things are uncertain.' It's better to say something like, 'If we knew A, we would know B, but we don't really know A.'" With consensus on their minds, representatives of IPCC member countries met in Switzerland in late February to review the report's final draft. "If the countries don't agree on particular text, generally the text doesn't get in there," Field said. In some cases, representatives from a small group of countries might decamp to a separate room to work out differences of opinion. "For the exceptionally rare cases where every country but one agrees on something, sometimes text will go into the report saying every country but one agrees on this." Scientific integrity disappears when so-called scientific findings, some from non-scientific sources, are governed by consensus and government politicians and bureaucrats have the final approval.

Richard Savage

9 years 11 months ago

I cannot understand why the editors of America continue to harangue us about the urgency of “climate change”. I would hope that anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty would at least define the terms of his argument. So, what do the Editors mean by “climate change”? Does it mean warming – or cooling – of the Earth's temperature? It's measured on the ground and in the atmosphere hundreds of thousands of times every day, at weather stations, by radiosonde balloons, and by satellites. Earth's temperature has not changed for 17 years, according to all these measurements. NOAA, NASA, the UK Met Service, and even the IPCC admit this. That's why “global warming” has been replaced by “climate change.” So what change do the Editors recognize as a symptom, a warning, of the dreaded “climate change”? Has the weather – storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, flooding – become more severe? No; the IPCC issued a report (SREX) in 2012, admitting there is no evidence of any of those things. That report has been substantiated by testimony to the US Senate by Dr. John Christy (University of Alabama at Huntsville) and Dr. Roger A. Pielke, Jr. (University of Colorado, Boulder). These gentlemen, recognized as experts in the field, swore before a US Senate committee on the Environment that there has been no measurable change in weather extremes. Pielke had a similar article in Saturday's (25 April) Wall St Journal, pointing out the decline in tornado damage since the 1950's. Tornado occurrence in 2014 is off to a record start – a record LOW. And, just as a matter of simple meteorological physics (from a meteorologist), atmospheric circulation is driven by the temperature contrast between equator and poles. If the poles warm – which is the “climate change” doctrine – storms will become less severe – not more. Consistency, please?? Are the ice caps melting? Antarctic ice extent is at record levels. Arctic ice is within one standard deviation of long term average extent, and multiyear ice is increasing. You may remember the “Ship of Fools” who got themselves stuck in Antarctic ice last November-December, on an expedition to document the disappearance of Antarctic ice. Hope none of America's editors were on board. Is sea level rising? Yes – at a lesser rate than the long term (8000 years) average of 8 inches per century. Recent estimates are half that rate. Climate change models have been uniformly wrong – a hundred of them – in predicting temperature increase over the last 17 years. Nothing good can be said for a computer model that consistently produces wrong forecasts. It's the classic example of a failed hypothesis. That's science; doesn't matter how many degrees you have, or how smart you are: if your hypothesis fails to predict the experimental outcome correctly, you're wrong. Apparently some Catholic theologians misunderstood the lesson from Galileo. Go thou and read. Incidentally, the atmosphere is a chaotic system; it's impossible to forecast the weather beyond a few days. A meteorologist who could forecast the weather a year in advance, or even a month, would be rich. So why don't the "climate scientists" who predict the climate of 2100 give us a forecast for next, say, December? I'd be the first to offer a wager. Please, Editors, offer just one single example of “climate change” that demonstrates why I or anyone else should care about this idiotic hypothesis? Or let me write you a guest editorial, explaining the “greenhouse effect” and why it has no harmful result? My doctoral dissertation was on radiative transfer, with a graduate minor in Electrical Engineering; that includes the greenhouse effect. It's like the insulation in your attic; it slows the escape of heat, but it won't warm the house by itself, and it certainly won't set the house on fire. Or, if neither alternative appeals to you, please stop making fools of yourselves over this nonissue. Richard C. Savage Ph.D., Meteorology (Wisconsin-Madison, 1976)

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

Richard Savage writes: "Earth's temperature has not changed for 17 years, according to all these measurements. NOAA, NASA, the UK Met Service, and even the IPCC admit this. That's why “global warming” has been replaced by “climate change.” So what change do the Editors recognize as a symptom, a warning, of the dreaded “climate change”?" This oft-repeated claim is not in fact true. "Climate change" is the effect of "global warming." Because the earth is warming, climate is changing. I'm guessing you've fallen for the claim that "there's been no global warming since 1998"? In reality, 13 of the hottest 14 years on record occurred in the 21st century (yes, 1998 was an outlier,) while every decade has been warmer than the previous one since 1950 (http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/13-14-hottest-years-record-occurred-21st-century-wmo-20140324). With respect to the "no warming since 1998" claim, I suggest you read: http://grist.org/climate-energy/global-warming-stopped-in-1998/

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

"Yet as the U.S. Catholic bishops wrote in “Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and the Common Good,” “What we already know requires a response; it cannot be easily dismissed.” That pastoral letter was written in 2001." In the "climate change" world the conditions of 2001 are hardly relevant as there has been no measurable warming in 17 years. After McIntyre pointed out that NASA/NOAA had reported incorrect temperature for the 2000-2006 years, in 2007 NASA published revised temperature data which showed the following: * Only 4 of the top 10 warmest years occurred in the past 10 years (1998, 1999, 2006). * Out of the top 10 warmest years half occurred before 1940, 1934 was the warmest. * The years 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2004 were cooler than the year 1900. * 1996 was actually cooler than average. * 1921 was the third warmest year in recorded history (behind 1934 and 1998) Today after major NASA adjustments none of the 1930s are in the top ten warmest years.. Global warming is man-made, behind closed doors by tax-payer funded government employees. Another NASA/Hansen adjustment, this time the whole country of Iceland was secretly warmed up. http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=5070 Icelandic officials rejected the "adjusted" warmer temperatures out of hand. There is much more if the editors and Catholic Bishops spend the time and effort to search out the falsification of science intended to provide governments with the justification to control and tax all forms of ENERGY and to redistribute the wealth of developed nations based on some unverifiable claim that development has caused "climate change" and harmed undeveloped countries.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

The NCDC NOAA data analyses of global temperature are backed by others (CRU, etc.). Your article is written by a journalist -- not a scientist -- for an Australian grassroots political movement. His information is wrong. News Weekly is a publication for his political movement -- not a scientific journal. It contains mostly op-eds. Politically slanted news sources say a lot of things. I don't know about you, but I'd rather get my information from more reliable sources. Try some of the scientific journals I listed above.

JOSEPH D'ANNA

9 years 11 months ago

There is clear evidence that the earth is warming - especially the oceans, which continue to rise and which are becoming increasingly acidic. Anyone who understands data or who will take the time to look at long-term climate data, will observe short-term fluctuations (years) within the long-term trends (decades/centuries). I would ignore the first couple of comments and recommend that you go look at the IPCC report, itself, or go to web sites for the US National Academy of Sciences or the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Each scientific organization has their own fairly short, understandable comments about climate change - which support the IPCC report. I prefer "no regret" policies which take prudent steps to avoid catastrophe. Carbon dioxide levels have not been so high for thousands of year, and those periods of high carbon dioxide did not end well for life on earth which suffered mass extinctions. We cannot turn back the clock on climate change, we can only hope to moderate its long term effects. I hope that climate change is a mistaken conclusion, but the prevailing analysis says that the odds are 19 to 1 that it is real and driven by human activities. The longer we wait to act, the more serious our problems may be. As it says in Ecclesiastes, "time and chance happen to them all". If the first couple of writers demand absolute certainty about everything in life, then they should stop buckling their car seat belts, because most people have only one accident in about 5500 auto trips. People have a right to gamble with their life, but they should be more prudent with the lives of their grandchildren and future generations - it is the Catholic, Christian way of living.

Richard Savage

9 years 11 months ago

It's nice to be able to agree with America's editors and Mr. D'Anna about the effect of “global warming” or “climate change” we wish to forestall. Let's pick one. How about child mortality? I presume all of us agree it's good that a newborn child have a healthy childhood? It's pretty hard to enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” if one dies before the age of five. Yet one of the terrible statistics of poverty is childhood mortality. According to the World Health Organization, more than 4 million (4,000,000) children under age five die each year from pulmonary disease – caused by smoke from fires of wood and dung used to cook and heat the home. A majority of these childhood deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa, where the Obama administration and the World Bank continue to deny funding for electricity generation – on the premise of “saving” them from climate change. BUT there is some good news. The good news is that childhood mortality is being reduced, rapidly, by the growth of electricity generation in the Third World. You can see the numbers, graphs, and maps from the Instute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IMHE) at the University of Washington at: http://www.vox.com/2014/5/3/5675970/fewer-babies-are-dying-around-the-world-than-ever-before Their data comes from the respected British medical journal, The Lancet. Apparently I can't post a graph, so here are the numbers: Global number of deaths for children under 5 1970 17.6 million 1980 14.0 million 1990 12.1 million 2000 9.6 million 2013 6.3 million As the report emphasizes, these are TOTAL numbers in a growing world population, not normalized per capita. An accompanying map shows where infant mortality is highest. In Nigeria, for example, it's 20 times the US rate (20 X 6.6 = 126). But Obama and the World Bank are saving them from “global warming.” Elsewhere, as in India, China, Brazil, and Thailand, “The polluting practices of the world’s richest nations have their most pronounced effect on the earth’s poorest inhabitants." America magazine apparently means by “polluting practices” the emission of carbon dioxide...or carbon....the editors don't seem to know the difference. I wonder how many children's lives compensate for 1 degree of warming (which hasn't happened for 17 years)?BTW, Mr. D'Anna, the oceans are BASIC (pH = 8.2), not acidic, not “increasingly acidic.” The oceans are buffered by tons of calcium carbonate (limestone), which, incidentally, took much of Earth's early CO2 out of the atmosphere. One of many things you seem not to know - or don't wish to? Richard C. Savage Ph.D., Meteorology

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

"We cannot turn back the clock on climate change", No doubt there were "experts" during the Medieval Warm period or the Middle Ages Little Ice Age or the decade long Dust Bowl years who were making the same unsupported claim. Some scientists and politician were probably wondering if the Mid and South West would be the next Sahara during the decade long drought, 1931-1939, known as the Dust Bowl years and when the Okies began the migration to California. Hard to believe but only a few year before the drought began, 1927, the same area suffered a period of torrential rain storms that resulted in one of the greatest Mississippi River floods in history. Mother Nature was very active before politicians and the government employed and funded “scientists” discovered that CO2 was the culprit causing “climate change, nee global warming” that could be used to gain control of all ENERGY sources.By the way all those islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans that AGW alarmists predicted would disappear under the waters are still there "If the first couple of writers demand absolute certainty about everything in life..," is a gross misinterpretation of my previous comments which pointed out that climate change is completely UNCERTAIN, always has been and always will be. There were civilizations during the following periods of major climate changes but probably little human generated CO2 from hydrocarbon fuels.. If one actually looks at long term variability which means using common sense and historical records there is overwhelming evidence that major significant climate changes occurred in the past without human input or human driven warming or cooling have occurred. The end of the Last Great Ice Age,The Medieval Warm period, the Little Ice Age of the Middle Ages are examples and another example is in the Smithsonian magazine regarding climate change in what is now the Sahara Desert. This is a history of long term variability in which humans and CO2 played no part. Uncovering Secrets of the Sphinx “The Sahara has not always been a wilderness of sand dunes. German climatologists Rudolph Kuper and Stefan Kröpelin, analyzing the radiocarbon dates of archaeological sites, recently concluded that the region’s prevailing climate pattern changed around 8,500 B.C., with the monsoon rains that covered the tropics moving north. The desert sands sprouted rolling grasslands punctuated by verdant valleys, prompting people to begin settling the region in 7,000 B.C. Kuper and Kröpelin say this green Sahara came to an end between 3,500 B.C. and 1,500 B.C., when the monsoon belt returned to the tropics and the desert reemerged. That date range is 500 years later than prevailing theories had suggested. Further studies led by Kröpelin revealed that the return to a desert climate was a gradual process spanning centuries. This transitional period was characterized by cycles of ever-decreasing rains and extended dry spells. Support for this theory can be found in recent research conducted by Judith Bunbury, a geologist at the University of Cambridge. After studying sediment samples in the Nile Valley, she concluded that climate change in the Giza region began early in the Old Kingdom, with desert sands arriving in force late in the era.” There was no evidence of oil or coal fired power station, gasoline or diesel powered vehicles or any other man made CO2 producing activity. Only supporters and worshipers in the 'church of global warming' claim certainty that human activity causes Climate Change based on a flawed theory that "CO2 causes global warming " disproved by the 10s of thousands years of major climate changes before the industrial era.

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

The crocodile tears for the poor and underprivileged who allegedly have been damaged and demeaned by man-made climate change,nee global warming, is exposed in the following article as the developed world uses the anti-hydrocarbon fuel mantra to deny these countries cheap reliable energy. I sincerely hope Pope Francis and America's editors wake up to the reality of "Climate Change" as a natural state of the earth's existence and not an unproven theory based on man made assumptions, algorithms, computer simulations, forcing CO2 models and adjustments to past and present temperature records. Sacrificing Africa for Climate Change Western policies seem more interested in carbon-dioxide levels than in life expectancy By Caleb S. Rossiter http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303380004579521791400395288?mod=djemMER_h&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303380004579521791400395288.html%3Fmod%3DdjemMER_h&fpid=2,7,121,122,201,401,641,1009

Mary Sweeney

9 years 11 months ago

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/219038.pdf Suggest you watch the movie "Chasing Ice".

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/219038.pdf This document issued under John Kerry's signature, a non-scientist, is a rehash of the recent IPCC report which I commented on below.The lack of warming for the past 17 years, the inability of the computer models to predict this plateau or reconstitute past climate changes and the significant, extreme climate changes the earth endured over 10s of thousands, if not millions, of years without human influences should make any thinking person seriously reconsider spending hundreds of billions of dollars to stop or affect Mother Nature. "Chasing Ice" was filmed in 2005 and the 2013-2014 Arctic Ice expanse has recovered within 2-3% of the norm. The 1970s Arctic sea ice condition is the "NORM" Obviously long term decline means starting in 1979 with the first satellite observation. The following letter was sent to 'National Geographic pointing out the fallacy in using the 1970s as the 'Norm." "With regard to your article "Arctic Ice to Last Decades Longer Than Thought?" for National Geographic News September 21, 2009, a little more research rather than depending on "some models" that have been notoriously wrong when it comes to climate forecasting would have revealed that Arctic ice conditions have been waxing and waning based on mother nature's whims and fancies without any help from man. One example of what real scientific research revealed about Arctic sea ice is an excerpt from my letter to the NY Times Dot Earth blog: "There was another study featured on PBS but ignored by alarmists who hold the 1970s as the baseline for Arctic 'normal' sea ice conditions either, deliberately or a through ignorance. In fact it was a unique maximum event, a once in 125 year occurrence as documented in the PBS documentary "NOVA Arctic Passage: Prisoners of the Ice" http://www.pbs.org... The following is a partial transcript on ice core studies that confirmed the sea ice conditions which cased the loss of Captain Franklin and his crew in 1845 were not duplicated for 125+ years, the 1970s. "NARRATOR: Koerner found that within the 1840s ice core there was simply no sign of the transparent ice layers that form when snow melts. Koerner had once before seen another ice core like this, dated from the early 1970s. In that case he had actual weather reports to compare it to and he learned that the ice from the '70s had formed during a very cold period of almost permanent winter. ROY KOERNER: The point to make on this core is the absolute near absence of any signs of melting whatsoever, none of those clear layers at all. Just bubbly ice that is formed from compression of snow that doesn't melt in the summer. NARRATOR: The finding convinced him that Franklin faced similar conditions when much of the sea ice had not melted at all. For an expedition hoping to sail the passage with 19th century technology, the conditions would have been deadly. NARRATOR: Koerner's evidence confirmed that Franklin and his men had encountered freak weather conditions more severe than previous explorers had ever reported. Worse than that, Koerner's ice core showed that this period of extreme cold likely lasted for five long years." The factual finding is that the Arctic icing condition in the estimated five year time period of 1845-1850 was a "freak weather condition" not duplicated until the 1970s, another "freakish icing condition". In between this 125 year hiatus from "freakish icing conditions" the Arctic ice went through significant periods of melting so vessels were able to transit the Northwest passage from both directions at times and freezing but not to the extent of 1845-50 and 1970s. The Arctic ice pack made a significant recovery this past winter despite dire predictions of an ice free Arctic. No real scientists or engineer would select a freakish, outlying data point as the norm to be used to establish costly corrections of what is only a manifestation of the earth's cyclical climate changes. So what is the absolute ideal area and thickness of the Arctic ice pack, who will and how will this decision be made and how and who would enforce it as the earth's distance from the sun, it's precession it's tilt and wobble plus the sun's activity have significant if not a controlling effect on the earth's ever changing climate?" Has he New York Times or any science magazine ever made known to the public that the 1970s Arctic ice condition was a freakish, once in 125 year event and should not be used as the normal base line?

Douglas Fang

9 years 11 months ago

How can you argue with the “Flat Earth Society”? For every obscure/bogus argument to deny man-made climate change, there are an overwhelming number of articles that support it. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/03/01/174580/science-v-snake-oil/ http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/01/us-navy-chief-oceanographer-i-was-formerly-a-climate-skeptic/ http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/01/climate-skeptic-pat-michaels-funding-40-comes-from-oil-industry/ http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/04/innumerate-claim-of-the-day-nasa-scientists-dispute-climate-change/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/climate-change-a-consensus-among-scientists/ http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/24/climate-change-and-financial-instability-seen-as-top-global-threats/ (American is an outlier here… thanks to money from Koch Brothers) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5979/689.full.pdf (classical example - they attack the integrity of scientists when they fail to give a credible argument) http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jul/29/climate-change-sceptics-change-mind (one of my favorites - Climate change study sponsored by Koch Brothers forces sceptical scientists to change minds) Too many to put here…

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

The Center for American Progress founded by John Podesta,funded by George Soros ThinkProgress is its blog , that "provide[s] a forum that advances progressive ideas and policies."[16] It is an outlet of the Center for American Progress. The Center for American Progress is classified as a 501(c)(3) organization under U.S. Internal Revenue Code. The institute receives approximately $25 million per year in funding from a variety of sources, including individuals, foundations, and corporations, but it declines to release any information on the sources of its funding. No funders are listed on its website or in its Annual Report. From 2003 to 2007, the Center received about $15 million in grants from 58 foundations. Major individual donors include George Soros, Peter Lewis, Steve Bing, and Herb and Marion Sandler. None of these are noted scientists so where is the science? You should check out: http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/05/07/600-page-litany-of-doom-weather-channel-co-founder-john-coleman-slams-obama-climate-report-a-total-distortion-of-the-data-and-agenda-driven-destructive-episode-of-bad-science-gone-berserk/ http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/07/Five-Things-You-Can-Do-About-Climate-Change

Bill Parks

9 years 11 months ago

I just uploaded 5 videos of a panel of experts on climate change. Please watch at: www.youtube.com/beyondthebulb They contain irrefutable scientific evidence that the climate is changing due to the dramatic increase of carbon dioxide from burning carbon fuels.

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

"irrefutable scientific evidence" hardly 'irrefutable" since there has been no warming for 17 years as CO2 had a slight increase, the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps are recovering and/or growing, all of the islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans doomed 20 years ago to disappear are still thriving and the doom and gloom end time is a moving target. Politicians and government funded bureaucrats had the final approval on the latest and all previous IPCC reports. So where is the science? Please provide the names of the scientists on the panels you taped so their scientific background, employment and government funding can be checked out.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

Patrick, I see you've heard the "no warming for 17 years" canard:-) This little article nicely refutes that fabrication: http://grist.org/climate-energy/global-warming-stopped-in-1998/

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

The head of the IPCC confirms that there has been no global warming for the last 17 years as CO2 had a slight increase. http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/02/24/yes-we-should-defund-the-u-n-s-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change/ "Trenberth perhaps best known for writing the Climategate email which went "The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t." So Trenberth admitted, as did the head of the IPCC, that there was and still is a lack of global warming. Mr Phil Jones head of the infamous Climategate British CRU also made the same statement and added that he had no explanation for the pause. He later modified his stand apparently under pressure from fellow alarmists.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

E. Patrick Mosman writes, "The head of the IPCC confirms that there has been no global warming for the last 17 years as CO2 had a slight increase." Patrick, sorry but the idea that Rajenda Pachauri confirmed that global warming has ended was actually an April Fool's Day joke: http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Bright-Green/2009/0401/scientists-worldwide-admit-global-warming-is-a-hoax The hoax includes: "After revoking the 2007 prize from Gore and the IPCC, the Nobel committee retroactively awarded it to the more than 31,000 people who signed the Oregon Petition – an appeal challenging the notion that there exists a scientific consensus regarding global warming – 'for their efforts to pursue pure, objective science that is free from the influence of any special interest group.'" :-)

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

April Fool's Day must have come early last year as this appeared on Feb. 22, 2013, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/22/ipcc-railroad-engineer-pachauri-acknowledges-no-warming-for-17-years/ By the way your website referral was from 2009.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

Patrick, a lot of climate sources pull the same April Fool's Day joke every year. Your link contains a guest post by none other than "potty peer," Christopher Monckton, whose qualifications I addressed above. He is aided and abetted by none other than David Rose, a tabloid journalist who also lacks scientific credentials and who provides a graphic without scientific citation, but which appears to have been produced by none other than ... Christopher Monckton. Nobody in the business takes either of these two clowns seriously. In his post, Monckton misunderstands the term "global warming pause." This term refers to slowed -- not halted -- warming since 1998. The reasons for this are understood and include, for example, aerosol pollution (which reflects sunlight back into space), an 11-year solar minimum, and unusual trade wind patterns in the Pacific. In spite of these mitigating (and temporary) factors, the past decade was the warmest on record.

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

Typical liberal warmest alarmist technique, ignore the message, attack the messenger So who is your expert:, Al Gore, Al Gore a nonscientists, a C university student, a divinity school dropout, a lawyer with no science studies, a majority owner/investor in a company selling 'Carbon Credits' with a vested interest in limiting CO2 for profiteering and the producer of a movie that the British Courts found to have 9 or 11 inaccuracies and could not be shown in British schools without identifying and an explanation of the inaccuracies. Michael Mann Michael Mann used statistical legerdemain to eliminate the Mediaeval Warm Period and the Middle Ages Little Ice to give a straight handle on his Hockey Stick graph. The ClimateGate Cabal Anyone who has perused the Climatgate emails and files would find that there is a small cabal of US and UK government employees and government funded academics who control whose and which papers are accepted by the IPCC science groups and even have the power to control the peer reviewed papers that are published in science publications to the point of having an editor removed for accepting a paper which challenged the consensus view. There were discussions on deleting emails and other correspondence to avoid providing them to a FOIArequest. The only real debate on AGW took place at the Oxford Union in 2010 and global warming supporters lost. Lord Monckton and his team won. Oxford students are more observant of factual presentations than propaganda. wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/24.. Since then any mention of a debate sends Al Gore into hiding and the so-called AGW scientists scurrying back to their ivory towers or tax payer funded government offices.crying the debate is over to prepare another “peer reviewed”(by colleagues, friends or even relatives) Chicken Little “The sky is falling” doom and gloom scenario for world disaster.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

I am not being alarmist but factual. I am not launching personal attacks but examining the credentials of people whose word you take for granted. You can ignore Al Gore entirely and look at the credential of climatologists who have PhDs and have published extensively in peer-reviewed journals. It's not about "winning or losing." It's about studying science. If you want to overturn the consensus, you need to point out what you know that these people, with their expertise and experience, have overlooked. I would be delighted if anyone could do that, but Monckton or David Rose just aren't doing it for me.

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

First,according to a recent survey of its members conducted by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) only 52 % responded that human activity was responsible for Climate change,nee global warming. The results are here. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/20/the-97-consensus-myth-busted-by-a-real-survey/ Consensus is not science, count me in the 48%. Second, Professor Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize in Physics, had some thoughts on scientists who fail to present and consider all information in their decisions.He called it "Cargo Cult" science. "Unless one is “leaning over backwards” (Feynman) to ensure maximum rigor and unbiased scrutiny of data and methods, it is easy to lapse toward “cargo cult science”. This is what too many "scientists" risk doing, whether or not their results are ultimately sound. “But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science…. It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty–a kind of leaning over backwards…." “In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to. help others to judge the value of your contribution." "Supposing a senator asked you for advice about whether drilling a hole should be done in his state; and you decide it would be better in some other state. If you don't publish such a result, it seems to me you're not giving scientific advice. You're being used. If your answer happens to come out in the direction the government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don't publish at all. That's not giving scientific advice." [Richard Feynman, 1974 CalTech Commencement Address, "Cargo Cult Science"]. The Climategate cabal of "scientists" failed Professor Feynman's test for scientific integrity as their emails and files showed. The following was posted on the Wall Street Journal's website in response to an article written by Bjorn Lomborg author of "the skeptical environmentalist" and lists a number of scientists that should be consulted. "Mr. Lomborg totally ignores the real science of the earth's time immemorial cyclical climate changes with his various environmentally based proposals. If Mr. Lomborg and the other perpetrators of climate change (covers warming, cooling and everything in between), nee global warming, scare had been around at the beginning of the end of the last Ice Age or the advent of the Medieval Warm period or the Middle Ages Little Ice Age or the roughly 5,000 year period when North Africa went from a lush tropical paradise to the Sahara desert who are what would they be blaming, no doubt some evil spirit or angry god since mankind was not emitting much CO2 Since he did not name any of the scientists that support this premise that CO2 causes warming, a local phone call to Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT or to the climate professors at Harvard and University of Delaware who authored "Restructuring Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past1000 Years: A Reappraisal" would have uncovered hundreds if not thousands of real scientists who have refuted the charge that CO2 causes global warming. For a few dollars more he might have started contacting the 650 scientists who issued a strong dissent to the man made global warming theory in a letter to the recent UN Climate change conference held in Poland or any one of the following: -Khabibullo Abdusamatov and his colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences astronomical observatory -Astrophysicist Nir Shariv,Hebrew University, Israel, -Dr. Edward Wegman professor at the Center for Computational Statistics at George Mason University -Dr Richard Tol Michael Otto, Professor of Sustainability and Global Change at Hamburg University, and Adjunct Professor Carnegie Mellon University. -Dr Christopher Landsea, research meteorologist at the Atlantic Oceanic and Meteorological Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, -Duncan Wingham, appointed to a chair in the Department of Space and Climate Physics in 1996, and to head of the Department of Earth Sciences in October, 2005. -Henrik Svensmark director of the Centre for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish Space Research Institute (DSRI). -Nigel Weiss, professor emeritus of mathematical astrophysics in the University of Cambridge, -Henk Tennekes, Chairman of the august Scientific Advisory Committee of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. -Dr Paal Brekke,the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (Soho).- -Dr. Robert Balling, director of the office of climatology, Arizona State University. -Dr Tim Ball-environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. -Professor Fred Singer Professor Emeritus of environmental Science University of Virginia" Even a cursory, honest review of the recent climate history shows global temperature peaked in 1998 according to recent observations and now despite computer projections failing to forecast a cooling phase, some experts, including NASA, provide an additional 10 to 20 year window for continued cooling bring the total to a 20 to 30 year of cooling in a predicted warming world even as their computer programs continue to predicate global warming as the CO2 increases from its present level of approximately 0.0375 percent of the atmosphere. So who are the scientists that have scientific proof, not computer projections, that the earth's climate that has been cycling between Ice ages, little ice ages, warm periods and extreme hot periods for hundreds of millions of years without human input, is now under the influence of mankind? The best and the brightest scientists, computer programers, meteorologists, climate specialists, cannot replicate the hundreds of millions of years of cyclical climate history of the earth, cannot predicate with any degree of certainty the present, near term and certainly not the long range future climate cycles and this same group fueled by hubris and aided by scientifically challenged politicians are pushing to have billions of dollars, euros, yen or whatever given to them to try to develop ways and means to control the earth’s climate. As for re-engineering the earth's climate, what is or was the ideal climate for the earth? Who will make that decision? How will the unintended consequences (what is good for the Northern hemisphere may be disastrous for the Southern hemisphere) be determined and evaluated? For just the last 1000 years there was the Medieval warm period, the Little Ice Age of the Middle Ages, the Dust Bowl of 1930s’ warm period, the cold period of the 1940,-70s and what were the myriad of variables and their individual and cumulative effects that resulted in these cyclical changes? The earth’s climate is effected by its atmospheric H2O content, cloud cover, distance, tilt and wobble as it orbits the sun, the sun’s solar activity period and perhaps variables unknown at this time also. How are these natural occurring variables going to treated since man like King Canute does not control them. The only difference is that King Canute was a wise man and knew he did not control the tides, for that he was exiled.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

Patrick, I'm very glad you posted that link making a false claim about the American Meteorological Society (AMS) survey (suggesting only 52% of meteorologists believe human activity is responsible for climate change) as it allows me to point out just how egregiously dishonest the fossil-fuel-funded Heartland Institute really is in its efforts to create doubt about climate change. This one was so bad that the Executive Director of the American Meteorological Society, Keith L. Seitter, a co-author of the paper alluded to in your link, issued a public statement addressing the situation. He explained that the Heartland Institute (NOT the AMS) sent out an email using the AMS name and featuring the AMD logo (without permission) in an effort to make it appear the email came from the AMS. He also said the Heartland Institute misrepresented the results of the study. A number of climate denier blogs have picked up on this dishonest and false hoax and are disseminating false information. Keith L. Seitter tried to set the record straight as follows": "Earlier this week, the Heartland Institute appears to have sent an extensive e-mail blast with what is more or less a press release for a paper that will appear in an upcoming issue of BAMS entitled “Meteorologists’ Views about Global Warming: A Survey of American Meteorological Society Professional Members” (in full disclosure, I am a coauthor on this paper). A disturbing aspect of this e-mail is that it seems some effort was placed in making it appear to have been sent by AMS. It was sent from an e-mail account with AMS in the name (though not from the “ametsoc.org” domain) and featured the AMS logo prominently (used without permission from AMS). Only in the fine print at the bottom was it clear that this apparently came from the Heartland Institute. The text of the e-mail reports results from the study far differently than I would, leaving an impression that is at odds with how I would characterize those results." In other words, the Heartland Institute not only lied about the survey but dishonestly pretended their analysis came directly from the American Meteorological Society itself. More information on this fraud here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/12/10/heartland_institute_sowing_global_warming_doubt.html

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

Apparently you have not bothered to study the AMS survey or you would not have to resort to smearing or attacking the messenger and completely ignoring the message. Check out the truth at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/02/mail-wars-heartland-vs-the-ams/ Then check out how the 97% myth was constructed by the AGW supporters and do your own research. By the way Al Gore was touting the 97% again this past week as he spun his doom and gloom scenario in public.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

I don't know about you, but I would rather accept the co-author of the actual article's interpretation over any other.

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

"They aren't alone. Keith Seitter, the executive director of the AMS and paper co-author, felt so strongly that the email misrepresented the actual paper results that he issued a statement calling it “disturbing” and says, “The text of the e-mail reports results from the study far differently than I would, leaving an impression that is at odds with how I would characterize those results.” So how would Mr Seitter characterize the results? What is he at odds with? What is so disturbing? What is his interpretation? Is he inferring that the published results had been modified? Probably Mr.Seitter is disturbed that the survey results were made public.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

"Probably Mr.Seitter is disturbed that the survey results were made public." No -- Seiter and his co-authors have published their results for all to see. ALL of the authors of the paper issued a statement explaining that James Taylor's (a lawyer from the Heartland Institute with no formal scientific training) interpretation of their results was incorrect. The scientists' statement starts out: "James Taylor’s interpretation of our study is wrong. We found high levels of expert consensus on human-caused climate change." You can read the text of their statement at http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2013/11/28/taylor-distorts-poll-of-meteorologists-on-climate-change/ In reality, Seiter et al's study showed that over 90% of climate science experts that publish regularly, whether they publish specifically on climate change or publish mostly about other topics, believe humans have contributed to global warming. You can read their statement for yourself at the above website. It nicely answers all your questions.

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

Have you by any chance studied the "survey", asking member opinions(all members or only some members?), which is certainly not a scientific study? Check out: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/20/the-97-consensus-myth-busted-by-a-real-survey/t A survey of published papers brings the Climategate emails to the fore as they revealed that a few so-called scientists controlled who and what is published to the point that they were able to have an editor removed who published a peer reviewed paper that challenged the consensus. by the way you my have missed this comment on the article you cited: Mike Smith says: November 30, 2013 at 10:55 am I am a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and a Certified Consulting Meteorologist. To the best of my memory I never had a chance to respond to this poll of the AMS membership. That said, the fact that 70% of scientists say that humans affect the climate is utterly unsurprising. That has been known scientifically since Changnon's METROMEX study in the early 70's. The fact that 9 out of ten that publish on the subject of climate believe humans affect the climate is also utterly unsurprising. For me, the money question was #6, "How worried are you about global warming?" Only 30% answered "very worried." This would make 70% of the respondents "deniers" since that perjorative term seems to be applied to anyone who does not accept the "IPCC consensus" of catastrophic global warming. A statistically similar number (28%) is not worried or "not very worried" about global warming. So, you can spin the results any way you want but this survey of a small number of AMS members doesn't reveal any great concern about global warming.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

"Have you by any chance studied the "survey", asking member opinions(all members or only some members?), which is certainly not a scientific study?" If you think this is "certainly not a scientific study," why would you quote it in the first place as "proof" of lack of consensus? Why would your sources quote it?

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

Your reading or understanding comprehension is sub-par. The authors of the survey claim "Our paper was written as a scientific paper, with the aim of inquiry and discovery". That answers your "why" question.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

Well, the survey seems to go up or down in your estimation depending on whether it proves your point or not, but never mind:-O

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

Your reading or understanding comprehension is still sub-par.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

When people resort to insults after being provided with more complete information, I can only assume their interest in climate science is more ideological than scientific.

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

What information? I deal in facts not suppositions or projections which have failed the test of reality. Since when is questioning one's reading or comprehension an insult when one raises inane questions? Have you studied the Climategate emails and files? Have you studied the works of the scientists that I provided? Have you verified Mann's 'Hockey Stick" graph yourself or know anyone who has? I will no longer enter into a discussion with those who make false accusations or attack the messenger while hiding behind a pseudonym.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

I have shown the errancy of your sources, and I believe it is futile to engage with someone who resorts to insults rather than discussing the science. However, if anyone else is still reading this, I will address the reference to the hockey stick graph. This is not a creation of Michael Mann. Rather, proxy temperature graphs of the last 1,000 years, whether constructed from ice core, dendrite, tree ring, coral, or other analyses, all look much the same, including those which did not involve Michael Mann. In other words, several reconstructions by several different groups all show the same hockey stick pattern. There is further information here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/ljungqvist-broke-the-hockey-stick.htm http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/myths-vs-fact-regarding-the-hockey-stick/ The third of these, under the section "Myth #4, addresses two commonly held falsehoods. For convenience, I will cut and paste the explanations below: "This statement embraces at least two distinct falsehoods. The first falsehood holds that the “Hockey Stick” is the result of one analysis or the analysis of one group of researchers (i.e., that of Mann et al, 1998 and Mann et al, 1999). However, as discussed in the response to Myth #1 above, the basic conclusions of Mann et al (1998,1999) are affirmed in multiple independent studies. Thus, even if there were errors in the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction, numerous other studies independently support the conclusion of anomalous late 20th century hemispheric-scale warmth. The second falsehood holds that there are errors in the Mann et al (1998, 1999) analyses, and that these putative errors compromise the “hockey stick” shape of hemispheric surface temperature reconstructions. Such claims seem to be based in part on the misunderstanding or misrepresentation by some individuals of a corrigendum that was published by Mann and colleagues in Nature. This corrigendum simply corrected the descriptions of supplementary information that accompanied the Mann et al article detailing precisely what data were used. As clearly stated in the corrigendum, these corrections have no influence at all on the actual analysis or any of the results shown in Mann et al (1998). Claims that the corrigendum reflects any errors at all in the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction are entirely false." As we have seen with some of the other claims posted in this thread, climate myths often come from journalistic articles that misrepresent what true scientists are actually saying. -

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

Since you refuse to answer direct questions and send websites here are a few you missed: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/the_inventor_of_the_global_warmin... http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/24/steve-mcintyre-uncovers-another-tr... http://climateaudit.org/2011/03/23/13321/ http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/03/the-hockey-stick-broken-ag...

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

Patrick writes, "Even a cursory, honest review of the recent climate history shows global temperature peaked in 1998 according to recent observations " Patrick, we've been around the block with this one a couple of times. 1998 was the third warmest year on record. According to the National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2010 was the warmest year on record. 2005 was second, 1998 third. 2013 and 2003 tied for the fourth-warmest on record. Then followed 2002, 2006, 2009, 2007, 2004, and 2012. This can be seen from the graph at: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/13 Thirteen of the 14 warmest years on record occurred in the 21st century.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

Apparently my first comment on this article has been removed. It had the folowing information: All temperature data provided by NASA/NOAA/GISS has been adjusted since McIntyre pointed out that NASA/NOAA had reported incorrect temperature for the 2000-2006 years, in 2007 NASA published revised temperature data which showed the following: * Only 4 of the top 10 warmest years occurred in the past 10 years (1998, 1999, 2006). * Out of the top 10 warmest years half occurred before 1940, 1934 was the warmest. * The years 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2004 were cooler than the year 1900. * 1996 was actually cooler than average. * 1921 was the third warmest year in recorded history (behind 1934 and 1998) Today after major NASA adjustments none of the 1930s are in the top ten warmest years.. Global warming is man-made, behind closed doors by tax-payer funded government employees. Another NASA/Hansen adjustment, this time the whole country of Iceland was secretly warmed up. http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=5070 Icelandic officials rejected the "adjusted" warmer temperatures out of hand.

JR Cosgrove

9 years 11 months ago

I believe your comment is still here. Look near bottom with date 5/3. Thanks for all the information. My problem with the AGW people is that they are not serious. Otherwise they would be acting very differently and recommending much different approaches. So if indeed there is global warming the wrong debate is taking place and I lay the cause for this at the AGW advocates door step. They saw $ signs and went for it immediately.

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

Thanks , For some unknown reason my computer gremlin maybe, only half or so of the comments appeared this morning. All is ok now.

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

Some of the following is a repeat of previous posts that I doubt you have read or understood and raises doubt on the NCDC/NOAA/NASA temperature data after recent adjustments, corrections and massaging of previous temperature data. I am not your research assistant but I would suggest you should read a few of the following: In the year 2000 Dr. Hansen and Tom Karl had a global warming epiphany, and took it upon themselves to rewrite all of US history and produce a warming trend – which no one else had ever seen.”…. “It turned out that the millions of temperature records collected over the previous two hundred years by thousands of individuals, either had to be ignored or adjusted to show warming. Hansen and Karl determined that they could see the past, and that they were smarter and wiser than everyone else in US history. (The fact that they were also global warming activists seeking funding did not in any way bias their corruption of the data set.)” The charts showing the calculated warming can be viewed at the article. http://www.real-science.com/james-hansens-global-warming-epiphany However, in 2007 NASA/GISS temperature data showed the following: * Only 4 of the top 10 warmest years occurred in the past 10 years (1998, 1999, 2006) * Out of the top 10 warmest years half occurred before 1940 * The years 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2004 were cooler than the year 1900 * 1996, just two years before what Al Gore called the hottest year in the history of the planet, was actually cooler than average. * 1921 was the third warmest year in recorded history (behind 1934 and 1998). And then there is the more recent tampering with temperature data. http://notrickszone.com/2012/03/01/data-tamperin-giss-caught-red-handed-manipulaing-data-to-produce-arctic-climate-history-revision/ Another Hansen adjustment, this time the whole country of Iceland was secretly warmed up. http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=5070 Icelandic officials rejected the "adjusted" warmer temperatures out of hand. There is much more if you spend the time and effort to search it out..

Joe Kash

9 years 11 months ago

For very intelligent discussions concerning climate research check out Judith Curry's blog: http://judithcurry.com/ Also there is a great interview of Judith Curry by Russ Roberts at Econtalk.org: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/12/judith_curry_on.html In real science sceptism is encourage. That is why popular climate "science" is not real science. Sceptism is not allowed. Check out the Steyn vs Mann lawsuit to see how vile this issue has become. http://judithcurry.com/2014/02/22/steyn-et-al-versus-mann/

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

Bill, I would also encourage others to read this quick "cheat sheet" of responses to common arguments made against global warming: http://grist.org/series/skeptics/ It rebuts all the "usual suspects," such as "CO2 leads not lags," "there's been no global warming since 1998," etc.

E.Patrick Mosman

9 years 11 months ago

"there's been no global warming since 1998," Check the graph at: http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/05/07/600-page-litany-of-doom-weather-c...

Francesca G

9 years 11 months ago

Climate Depot? Ah, yes. Marc "the Moron" Morano's little prank. Marc Morano has no training whatsoever in climatology; in fact, his credentials are a B.A. in Political Science. He is purely ideological, scientifically illiterate, and doesn't appear to have any scruples about posting absolute nonsense. He tends to go along with the views of the "potty peers" -- British aristocrats Nigel Lawson and Lord Monckton, neither of whom is a scientist. The information in that link contradicts empirical evidence and is thoroughly unreliable. I would suggest getting information from more credible sources, particularly scientific journals. Geographical Research Letters is good, as is the International Journal of Climatology. Online, realclimate.org presents good information from qualified climatologists. NASA and NOAA websites are also good sources of accurate information.

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