2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved

From Telegraph.co.uk Dec 27, 2008

2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.
1. all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models

2. 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.

3. panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.

Winter Weather Hits Las Vegas

Winter Weather Hits Las Vegas
From Eyewitness News Las Vegas

These are below average temperatures for this time of year. Typically the temperature during the day and evening is about 15 degrees warmer. The cold snap that has descended on the Las Vegas Valley is expected to last into the weekend and cause temperatures to be at freezing or near freezing for most of the week.

A winter storm warning is in effect for the Las Vegas Valley until Thursday at 6 a.m. Snow is falling all over Southern Nevada including the Las Vegas Strip. The winter storm is expected to dump more than a foot of fresh snow above the 3,500 elevation.

Record CoLd

You must love the confusion of "journalists":

From MyWay Dec 14
Obama left with little time to curb global warming.
"Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming."

That poor "journalist" never bothered to look at the temp data for the last 10 years. Finding the data is no small task as NASA and NOAA continue to revise numbers and change press releases.

Then from the Great Falls Tribune Dec 14,2008
Cold weather sets records in several cities
Several places in the state have already shattered daily record lows, and more are expected to be broken as the sub-zero temperatures continue through Sunday night.

New Record low in Denver
NWS
THE LOW TEMPERATURE AT DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT ON DECEMBER 14TH
DROPPED TO -18 AT 635 PM AND NEVER DROPPED BELOW -18 PRIOR TO MIDNIGHT.
SO THAT ESTABLISHES A NEW RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE FOR DECEMBER 14TH
BREAKING THE OLD RECORD OF -14 DEGREES SET IN 1901.

THEN ON DECEMBER 15TH...THE TEMPERATURE BOTTOMED OUT AT -19 DEGREES
AT 231 AM. THIS IS A NEW RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE FOR DECEMBER 15TH
BREAKING THE OLD RECORD OF -6 SET IN 1951.

650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

US Senate EPW Press Blog Dec 10, 2008

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

Study: Half of warming due to Sun! –Sea Levels Fail to Rise? - Warming Fears in 'Dustbin of History'

Set for release this week, a newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

‘Planet Has Cooled Since Bush Took Office

From US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

‘Planet Has Cooled Since Bush Took Office’ – Scientists Continue Dissenting – Gore Admits 'I've failed badly' - Global Sea Ice GROWS!
Global Warming Theory has ‘failed consistently and dramatically’

Some of the interesting summary and linked items include:
National Climatic Data Center: U.S. on track for coolest year since 1997- November 12, 2008
Global Sea Ice Growing at Fastest Pace on Record -- Returns to Levels from the 1980s – Daily Tech – November 7, 2008
Globally averaged temperatures have dropped -.37° F. since An Inconvenient Truth was released in 2006 – November 13, 2008
Earth has had “no statistically significant warming since 1995” – Based on March 2008 presentation of data from the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office by MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen.
Global Warming Has Stopped – by UN IPCC Reviewer Christopher Monckton
Global Cooling? - 'Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof' - National Post – October 20, 2008

Skeptics

Interesting summary of skeptics atmy-test-blog:

Monday, December 8, 2008
[Global Warming] Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics
Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics

Colder China

China View.cn

Weather forecasters had earlier warned that the average temperature in most parts of the country this month will be 1 ℃ lower than last December.

The worst snowstorms in 50 years hit provinces in southern China in January and February, stranding millions of Lunar New Year travelers on their way home for the holiday.

UK plans to stop coal power

Herald Dec 3, 2008
There were renewed calls last night to stop the building of new coal-fired power stations in the UK as the government's Climate Change Committee called for large emissions cuts by 2020.

but could lead to more people facing fuel poverty as energy bills were pushed up by measures to cut carbon.

Lord Turner acknowledged that the higher electricity and gas prices created by investment in renewables could push a further 1.7 million households into fuel poverty,

Nader proposal on Carbon Tax

Excerpts from Ralph Nader in a WSJ editorial. Note some of the underlying assumptions and requirements for global control.

President Obama can define his legacy in the first 100 days by laying the groundwork for a global tax on carbon dioxide emissions.

In the short-term, consumers would feel the pinch.

China must be part of any climate deal or within 25 years, notes Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, its emissions of CO2 could amount to twice the combined emissions of the world's richest nations, including the United States, Japan and members of the European Union.

According to the world authority on the subject, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it will cost $1.375 trillion per year

the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, contains provisions for retaliatory action to be taken against imports from carbon free-riding nations

A global carbon tax levied on a relatively small number of large sources can be monitored by satellite and checked against the annual surveillance of fiscal and economic polices already carried out by IMF staff.

Vaclav Klaus

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, one of the most prominent climate change doubters, is about to get a new platform: the EU presidency. Others in the bloc worry that he could stall important climate talks next year.

Klaus has called manmade global warming a myth and questioned sanity of Al Gore.

Cap-and-trade is a simply dreadful policy

SOURCE Free Enterprise Education Institute

"Cap-and-trade is a simply dreadful policy option that is being pushed
by Alcoa, BP, Caterpillar, Conoco Phillips, Dow Chemical, Duke Energy,
Dupont, General Electric, PepsiCo and the other big business interests that
belong to the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP)," said the FEEI's Tom
Borelli. "Global warming pork-barrel spending and corporate welfare are
what they're after," Borelli added. "USCAP members hope that, through a
cap-and-trade scheme, Congress will simply give them and other special
interests what amounts to essentially 'free money' -- as much as $1.3
trillion dollars over the next 10 years. "Not only is
cap-and-trade likely to misdirect taxpayer monies and rob hard-working
Americans of income, it's not at all clear that it will produce any
environmental benefits whatsoever," he added.

The price of dissent on global warming

The truth is never well accepted by politicians if it goes against their pitch. However, they are quick to change bandwagons.

The Australian Nov 25, 8008
The price of dissent on global warming
David Bellamy

WHEN I first stuck my head above the parapet to say I didn't believe what we were being told about global warming, I had no idea what the consequences would be. I am a scientist and I have to follow the directions of science, but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my opinions.

According to official data, in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that? The sad fact is that since I said I didn't believe human beings caused global warming, I've not been allowed to make a television program.

My absence has been noticed, because wherever I go I meet people who say: "I grew up with you on the television, where are you now?"

It was in 1996 that I criticised wind farms while appearing on children's program Blue Peter, and I also had an article published in which I described global warming as poppycock. The truth is, I didn't think wind farms were an effective means of alternative energy, so I said so. Back then, at the BBC you had to toe the line, and I wasn't doing that.

At that point, I was still making loads of TV programs and I was enjoying it greatly. Then I suddenly found I was sending in ideas for TV shows and they weren't getting taken up. I've asked around about why I've been ignored, but I found that people didn't get back to me. At the beginning of this year there was a BBC show with four experts saying: "This is going to be the end of all the ice in the Arctic," and hypothesising that it was going to be the hottest summer ever. Was it hell! It was very cold and very wet and now we've seen evidence that the glaciers in Alaska have started growing rapidly, and they have not grown for a long time.

I've seen evidence, which I believe, that says there has not been a rise in global temperature since 1998, despite the increase in carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. This makes me think the global warmers are telling lies: CO2 is not the driver. The idiot fringe has accused me of being like a Holocaust denier, which is ludicrous. Climate change is all about cycles. It's a natural thing and has always happened. When the Romans lived in Britain they were growing very good red grapes and making wine on the borders of Scotland. It was evidently a lot warmer.

If you were sitting next to me 10,000 years ago, we'd be under ice. So thank God for global warming for ending that ice age; we wouldn't be here otherwise.

People such as former American vice-president Al Gore say that millions of us will die because of global warming, which I think is a pretty stupid thing to say if you've got no proof. And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that CO2 has anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The science has, quite simply, gone awry.

In fact, it's not even science any more; it's anti-science.

There's no proof, it's just projections, and if you look at the models people such as Gore use, you can see they cherry-pick the ones that support their beliefs. To date, the way the so-called Greens and the BBC, the Royal Society and even political parties have handled this smacks of McCarthyism at its worst.

Global warming is part of a natural cycle and there's nothing we can actually do to stop these cycles. The world is now facing spending a vast amount of money in tax to try to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist.

And how were we convinced that this problem exists, even though all the evidence from measurements goes against the fact? God knows. Yes, the lakes in Africa are drying up. But that's not global warming. They're drying up for the very simple reason that most of them have dams around them.

So the water once used by local people is now used in the production of cut flowers and vegetables for the supermarkets of Europe. One of Gore's biggest clangers was saying that the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was drying up because of global warming.

Well, everyone knows, because it was all over the news 20 years ago, that the Russians were growing cotton there at the time and that for every tonne of cotton you produce you use a vast amount of water. The thing that annoys me most is that there are genuine environmental problems that desperately require attention. I'm still an environmentalist, I'm still a Green and I'm still campaigning to stop the destruction of the biodiversity of the world. But money will be wasted on trying to solve this global warming "problem" that I would much rather was used for looking after the people of the world. Being ignored by the likes of the BBC does not really bother me, not when there are bigger problems at stake.

I might not be on TV any more but I still go around the world campaigning about these important issues. For example, we must stop the destruction of tropical rainforests, something I've been saying for 35 years.

Mother nature will balance things out, but not if we interfere by destroying rainforests and overfishing the seas. That is where the real environmental catastrophe could occur.

David Bellamy is a botanist, author of 35 books, and has presented 400 television programs.

Global Temperature Trends From 2500 B.C. To 2008 A.D.

Excerpts from Harris Mann
Global Temperature Trends From 2500 B.C. To 2008 A.D.

From August of 2007 through February of 2008, the Earth’s mean reading dropped to near the 200-year average temperature of 57 degrees.

Our recent decline in the Earth’s temperature may be a combination of both long-term and short-term climate cycles, decreased solar activity and the development of a strong long-lasting La Nina, the current cooler than normal sea-surface temperature event in the south-central Pacific Ocean. Sunspot activity in the past 18 months has decreased to the lowest levels since ‘The Little Ice Age’ ended in the mid-to late 1800s. This "cool spell," though, may only be a brief interruption to the Earth’s overall warming trend. Only time will tell.

By the end of this 21st Century, a big cool down may occur that could ultimately lead to expanding glaciers worldwide, even in the mid-latitudes. We could possibly see even a new Great Ice Age. Based on long-term climatic data, these major ice ages have recurred about every 11,500 years. Well, you guessed it. The last extensive ice age was approximately 11,500 years ago, so we may be due.

Earthly Climate Has A 'Solar' Thermostat

From Harris-Mann Climatology

Our Earthly Climate Has A 'Solar' Thermostat And A 'Water Vapor' Humiguide

As I’ve said repeatedly in the past few years, our planet’s "CLIMATE BUS" has a huge rotary-type engine powered by the SUN.

This sleek, intelligently-designed vehicle has a smooth WATER VAPOR transmission and a combination MAGNETIC and ELECTRIC rear-end.

The bus has JET STREAM air-conditioning, WIND-POWERED steering and CORIOLIS FORCE front-wheel drive. This climatological ‘hot rod’ also boasts brilliant COSMIC RAY tires.

Just where is the MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING PART on the bus? Well, it’s merely a single LUG NUT on one of the rear wheels that’s continually spinning ‘round and round’ burning up BILLIONS OF OUR TAX DOLLARS.

It’s all "smoke and mirrors," folks, a never-ending YELLOW SCIENCE JOURNEY of DECEIT and GREED in the ‘opposite’ direction of TRUTH.

CLIMATE CHANGE is REAL! But, its recurring cycles of HOT and DRY, COLD and DRY, WARM and WET and COOL and WET are NATURAL, not MAN-MADE. Man only makes things worse, especially in the urban "HEAT ISLANDS" of pollution. Believe it!

I’m for "GREEN in your pocket" and "COMPASSION in your heart..."

By Climatologist Cliff Harris

NBC Fires Weather Channel Environmental Unit

From Washington Post
NBC Fires Weather Channel Environmental Unit
Cullen's future role at the network is not known.

Obama & Climate Change2

On Tuesday at a governors' conference, Mr. Obama reiterated his intent to cap emissions of greenhouse gases and allow companies to trade permits to emit pollutants like carbon dioxide. Those policies foresee $15 billion a year going to alternative energy sources and nuclear power, while pushing the price of coal up substantially, by forcing coal-fired utilities to purchase the right to burn it.

Candidate Obama said that under his policies, "If somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can -- it's just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

Obama & Climate Change

Mr. Obama, in a video for a climate-change summit Tuesday, pledged to pursue energy policies that would reduce greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050.

World wide increase in Methane

Tg Dailey

The two lead authors of a paper published in this week's Geophysical Review Letters, Matthew Rigby and Ronald Prinn, the TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science,

"Boston (MA) - Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas........it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature - and not the direct result of man's contributions."

Obama & Climate Change

Environment News Service

Excerpts include:

Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense said, "This election offers us the greatest opportunity we have ever had to change course on global warming."

"We must do everything we can to pass climate legislation........."

"An Obama administration should end tax incentives and subsidies for high carbon-emitting technologies and projects and enact mandates that 20 percent of the nation�s electricity come from renewable power by 2020 and at least 30 percent by 2030, Lubber said."

"The new administration and Congress must shun the excuse that it is 'too expensive' to act to curb global warming..."

"The Center for Biological Diversity looks forward to working with the Obama administration and the new Congress to take swift action to stem the extinction crisis, reverse the current course toward runaway global warming,...."

Climate cooling since 1998

Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist and World War II Marine who writes for Newsmax.com.

Excerpts include:

"The Earth is not warming. The 28-year period of warming between 1970 and 1998 stopped dead in its tracks, and the climate has been cooling ever since.

Meteorologist and Weather Channel founder John Coleman put it this way: �In the face of a rapidly cooling planet, all the proponents of global warming can do is to lamely suggest that global warming has gone on vacation and is taking a 10-year hiatus on account of the absence of sun spots.

The climate is in a cooling phase: A pronounced global cooling has set in so far this century. This year, most of the northern hemisphere, except for Western Europe, experienced what most scientists say was the harshest winter in decades.

And this year, winter has come early with record-breaking cold and October blizzards.

I have reported previously that 13 top scientists, including one Nobel Prize winner, wrote a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon saying that, while carbon dioxide levels have continued to rise, global temperatures have fallen, dramatically contradicting the claim that high carbon dioxide levels cause global warming."

Obama cap and trade costs

Forbes

"On the other hand, an auction-based cap-and-trade system would require power generators to buy allowances from the government. This would drive up electricity prices for consumers, especially in coal-fired regions like the Midwest and Southeast."

"Obama campaigned on a platform that championed an exclusively auction-based cap-and-trade system.... This particular campaign promise could seem especially less palatable now. If producers had to pay $25 for every metric ton of carbon they emitted, rates would need to rise anywhere from 23% to 43% at coal-fired utilities in the Midwest and 15% to 29% at coal-fired utilities in the Southeast to offset the costs of emissions allowances, according to a recent analysis by Bernstein Research."

BBC SHUNNED ME FOR DENYING CLIMATE CHANGE

BBC SHUNNED ME FOR DENYING CLIMATE CHANGE

Excerpts include:

FOR YEARS David Bellamy was one of the best known faces on TV. A respected botanist and the author of 35 books, he had presented around 400 programmes over the years and was appreciated by audiences for his boundless enthusiasm. Yet for more than 10 years he has been out of the limelight, shunned by bosses at the BBC where he made his name, as well as fellow scientists and environmentalists.

His crime? Bellamy says he doesn’t believe in man-made global warming

According to official data, in every year since 1998 world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that?

It was in 1996 that I criticised wind farms while appearing on Blue Peter and I also had an article published in which I described global warming as poppycock. The truth is, I didn’t think wind farms were an effective means of alternative energy so I said so. Back then, at the BBC you had to toe the line and I wasn’t doing that.

I’ve seen evidence, which I believe, that says there has not been a rise in global temperature since 1998, despite the increase in carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. This makes me think the global warmers are telling lies – carbon dioxide is not the driver.

And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that carbon dioxide is anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The ­science has, quite simply, gone awry. In fact, it’s not even science any more, it’s anti-science.

Global warming is part of a natural cycle and there’s nothing we can actually do to stop these cycles. The world is now facing spending a vast amount of money in tax to try to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist.

The thing that annoys me most is that there are genuine environmental problems that desperately require attention. I’m still an environmentalist, I’m still a Green and I’m still campaigning to stop the destruction of the biodiversity of the world. But money will be wasted on trying to solve this global warming “problem” that I would much rather was used for looking after the people of the world.

2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season Withers on the Vine

2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season Withers on the Vine
A new Climateaudit.org series of posts
Maue, R.N. (2008) Northern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Activity
Abstract: Recent historical Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone inactivity is compared with the strikingly large observed variability during the past three decades. Yearly totals of Northern Hemisphere ACE are highly correlated with boreal spring sea-surface temperatures in the North Pacific Ocean and are representative of an evolving dual-gyre, trans-hemispheric correlation pattern throughout the calendar year. The offsetting nature of EPAC and NATL basin integrated energy and the strong dependence of combined Pacific TC activity upon ENSO suggest a hypothesis that overall Northern Hemisphere TC behavior is largely modulated by global-scale, non-local climate variability.
Fact: There has been one Category 5 Tropical Cyclone in the Northern Hemisphere in 2008 (Jangmi in the WPAC). A total of 8 Category 4+ developed in 2008 (winds > 114 kts+)
Record inactivity continues: Past 24-months of Northern Hemisphere TC activity (ACE) lowest in 30-years

Updated: Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 24 month running sum through October 31, 2008. Note that the year indicated represents the value of ACE through the previous 24-months.

An open letter from The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley to Senator John McCain about Climate Science and Policy

An open letter from The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley to Senator John McCain about Climate Science and Policy
From American Thinker, Oct 18, 2008

Some excerpted highlights include:
Sir, every one of the reasons that you have advanced for alarm and consequent panic action has been demonstrated to be hollow and without any scientific foundation or merit. Yet, if your proposal to close down three-fifths of the economy of the United States is to be justifiable, then not only the false scientific propositions but also the false policy propositions that you have advanced must be shown to be true.

A recent survey (Schulte, 2008) of 539 peer-reviewed scientific papers published since January 2004 and selected at random using the search term "global climate change" reveals that not a single paper provides any evidence whatsoever that "time is short" or that "the dangers are great". The notion of imminent, catastrophic climate change is a fiction that is almost wholly absent in the scientific literature. Indeed, the only papers that predict catastrophe are written by a tiny clique of closely-connected, extravagantly-funded, politically-biased scientists with unhealthily close political and financial connections to certain alarmist politicians in the party that you nominally oppose.

....there is no rational basis for your declared intention that your great nation should inflict upon her own working people and upon the starving masses of the Third World the extravagantly-pointless, climatically-irrelevant, strategically-fatal economic wounds that the arrogant advocates of atmospheric alarmism admit they aim to achieve

In 2001 the UN's climate panel made a maladroit and disfiguring attempt [IPCC, 2001] to heighten the baseless alarm that underlies all of its reports by denying that the Middle Ages were warmer than the present. However, three eminent statisticians working at the instigation of your own House of Representatives produced the definitive report [Wegman et al., 2005], confirming the peer-reviewed research of McIntyre & McKitrick (2003, 2005) establishing that the UN's graph had been doctored so as falsely to deny the reality of the mediaeval warm period, to whose existence hundreds of peer-reviewed papers from all parts of the globe attest.

At both Poles, it was warmer only half a century ago than it is today. For temperatures in the Arctic, see Soon et al. (2004). For the Antarctic, see Doran et al. (2002).

During the Maunder Minimum, a period of more than half a century ending in 1700 when there were no sunspots on the surface of our Sun, a Little Ice Age occurred all over the world (Hathaway, 2004). In 1700 there began a recovery in solar activity that has continued ever since, culminating in the 70-year Solar Grand Maximum that seems recently to have ended. During the Grand Maximum, the Sun was more active, and for longer, than during almost any previous similar period in the past 11,400 years (Solanki et al., 2005; and see Usoskin et al., 2003; and Hathaway, 2004). A symposium of the International Astronomical Union [2004] concluded that it is the Sun that was chiefly responsible for the warming of the late 20th century.

From 1700-1998, temperature rose at a near-uniform rate of about 1 °F per century [Akasofu, 2008]. In 1998, "global warming" stopped, and it has not resumed since: indeed, in the past seven years, temperature has been falling at a rate equivalent to as much as 0.7 °F per decade [Hadley Center for Forecasting, 2008; US National Climatic Data Center, 2008].

The correct question, posed by Akasofu [2008], is this: Since the world has been warming at a uniform rate in parallel with the recovery of solar activity during the 300 years following the Maunder Minimum, and since humankind could not have had any significant influence over global temperature until perhaps 50 years ago, if then, is there any evidence whatsoever that the observed anthropogenic increase in carbon dioxide concentration over the past half-century has had any appreciable influence, at all, on global temperature?

Despite rapidly-rising carbon dioxide concentrations, there has been no new record year for global temperature in the ten years since 1998; and, in the United States, there has been no new record year for national temperature since 1934 - a record set almost three-quarters of a century ago, and well before humankind could have had any significant influence on temperature.

As to your second statement, the "worst" greenhouse gas - the one which, through its sheer quantity in the atmosphere, accounts for two-thirds of the 100 Watts per square meter of greenhouse-gas radiative forcing reported by Kiehl & Trenberth (2007, op. cit.) - is water vapor. Carbon dioxide accounts for little more than a quarter.

Two-thirds of the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is naturally present

Let me summarize the irremediably shaky basis for the UN's alarmist case. It is not based on physical theory. It is not based on real-world observation. It is based on computer modeling, in which - astonishingly - the models are told at the outset the values for the very quantity (temperature response to increased carbon dioxide concentration) that they are expected to find.

.....would be even more absurd than trying to claim 90% confidence for a proposition that depends absolutely for its validity upon parameters that cannot be measured and can only be guessed: and a proposition that is demonstrated to be false with each successive year during which no further "global warming" takes place. It is regrettable that anyone should seek to make policy, as you have done, on such a manifestly unsound basis.

The "central facts" about "rising" sea levels are as follows.
Sea level has been rising since the end of the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago. It is 400 feet higher now than it was then. The rate of increase has averaged 4 feet per century. Yet in the 20th century, when we are told that "global warming" began to have a major impact on global temperature and hence on sea level, sea level rose by just 8 inches.

The oceans are not getting warmer (except in certain regions, such as the Antarctic Peninsula, where there is evidence of undersea volcanic activity).

Now a definitive study based on readings from 6000 bathythermographs, shows that the oceans have indeed been cooling since at least 2003, in line with the atmospheric cooling noted in the observed temperature record.

The facts about "reduced snowpack"
there has been no reduction in overall snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere in the 30 years since satellites were first able to measure its extent.
Your advisors needed to go no further than the Rutgers University Snow and Ice Lab, which has monitored snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere in the vital winter months for 30 years. During that time, there has been no trend in winter snow cover. There has been no decline at all, either in any individual winter month or at all. Indeed, new records for the extent of Northern-Hemisphere winter snow cover were established in 2001-2 and again in 2007-8, the winter immediately before your speech.

The facts about "receding glaciers"
.....more than 160,000 glaciers in the world [IPCC, 2001].
Professor Bhat reports that most of the glaciers have been receding at a uniform rate since 1880 at the latest. Some of them had begun receding even before this date.
Given that glacial recession began long before humankind could have had any appreciable effect on global temperature, and given that the rate of recession has remained uniform, on what basis can it be said, as you have implied, that it is anthropogenic "global warming" that is causing the glaciers to recede?

In the very cold winter of 2007/8, during which the biggest January-to-January fall in global temperatures since records began in 1880 was recorded, several glaciers in Greenland began to re-advance.

The facts about "melting polar ice sheets"
There are four great polar ice sheets: the East and West Antarctic ice sheets; the Greenland ice sheet; and the Arctic ice-cap.
The East Antarctic ice sheet is on a high plateau at high latitude. Since most of Antarctica has cooled over the past 50 years (Doran et al., 2002), so much so that environmental damage caused by cold has occurred in some of the Antarctic glens, there is no danger of this ice sheet disappearing, and there are no satellite images revealing that it has done so, is doing so, or is about to do so.

Greenland ice sheet increased by 2 inches per year - a total of 1 ft 8 in - during the decade 1993-2003.

Severe storms:
It has long been settled science that a warmer climate would reduce the frequency and intensity of severe storms outside the tropics.
However, it is now known that warmer weather reduces the temperature differential between the Equator and the Poles; and that wind-shear tends to dampen the intensity of the worst hurricanes.
Two prominent dissenters - notably Emanual (2008) - have resiled in recent weeks from their previously-published opinions to the effect that the intensity of hurricanes might be expected to increase with warmer worldwide weather.
thirdly, for the past ten years there has been no "global warming", so that, even if there had been "a higher incidence of extreme-weather events", which there has not, "global warming" (whether natural or anthropogenic) cannot possibly have been the cause.

NASA’s Spencer Tells Congress Global Warming Is Not a Crisis

Written By: Roy Spencer, Ph.D.
Published In: Environment & Climate News > October 2008
Publication date: 10/09/2008
Publisher: The Heartland Institute

Roy Spencer, Ph.D., U.S. Science Team Leader for the National Aeronautic and Space Administration’s collection of satellite temperature data and a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville’s Earth System Science Center, on July 22 told the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee why the scientific data lead him to conclude global warming is not a crisis.

An abbreviated version of Spencer’s testimony is published below. Spencer will expand on this testimony at the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change, scheduled for March 8-10 in New York City.

Regarding the currently popular theory that mankind is responsible for global warming, I am very pleased to deliver good news from the front lines of climate change research. Our latest research results, which I am about to describe, could have an enormous impact on policy decisions regarding greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite decades of persistent uncertainty over how sensitive the climate system is to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, we now have new satellite evidence which strongly suggests that the climate system is much less sensitive than is claimed by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Another way of saying this is that the real climate system appears to be dominated by “negative feedbacks”—instead of the “positive feedbacks” which are displayed by all 20 computerized climate models utilized by the IPCC. (Feedback parameters larger than 3.3 Watts per square meter per degree Kelvin (Wm-2K-1) indicate negative feedback, while feedback parameters smaller than 3.3 indicate positive feedback.)

If true, an insensitive climate system would mean that we have little to worry about in the way of manmade global warming and associated climate change. And, as we will see, it would also mean that the warming we have experienced in the last 100 years is mostly natural. Of course, if climate change is mostly natural then it is largely out of our control, and is likely to end—if it has not ended already, since satellite-measured global temperatures have not warmed for at least seven years now.


Climate Sensitivity Overestimated

The support for my claim of low climate sensitivity (net negative feedback) for our climate system is twofold. First, we have a new research article in-press in the Journal of Climate which uses a simple climate model to show that previous estimates of the sensitivity of the climate system from satellite data were biased toward the high side by the neglect of natural cloud variability. It turns out that the failure to account for natural, chaotic cloud variability generated internal to the climate system will always lead to the illusion of a climate system which appears more sensitive than it really is.

The second line of evidence in support of an insensitive climate system comes from the satellite data themselves. While our work in-press established the existence of an observational bias in estimates of climate sensitivity, it did not address just how large that bias might be.

But in the last several weeks, we have stumbled upon clear and convincing observational evidence of particularly strong negative feedback (low climate sensitivity) from our latest and best satellite instruments. That evidence includes our development of two new methods for extracting the feedback signal from either observational or climate model data, a goal which has been called the “holy grail” of climate research.

Based upon global oceanic climate variations measured by a variety of NASA and NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] satellites during the period 2000 through 2005 we have found a signature of climate sensitivity so low that it would reduce future global warming projections to below 1 deg. C by the year 2100. ... [T]hat estimate from satellite data is much less sensitive (a larger diagnosed feedback) than even the least sensitive of the 20 climate models which the IPCC summarizes in its report. It is also consistent with our previously published analysis of feedbacks associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations.


IPCC Ignored Alternative Explanations

One necessary result of low climate sensitivity is that the radiative forcing from greenhouse gas emissions in the last century is not nearly enough to explain the upward trend of 0.7 deg. C in the last 100 years. This raises the question of whether there are natural processes at work which have caused most of that warming.

On this issue, it can be shown with a simple climate model that small cloud fluctuations assumed to occur with two modes of natural climate variability—the El Niño/La Niña phenomenon (Southern Oscillation), and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation—can explain 70 percent of the warming trend since 1900, as well as the nature of that trend: warming until the 1940s, no warming until the 1970s, and resumed warming since then.

While this is not necessarily being presented as the only explanation for most of the warming in the last century, it does illustrate that there are potential explanations for recent warming other that just manmade greenhouse gas emissions. Significantly, this is an issue on which the IPCC has remained almost entirely silent. There has been virtually no published work on the possible role of internal climate variations in the warming of the last century.


Policy Implications

While it will take some time for the research community to digest this new information, it must be mentioned that new research contradicting the latest IPCC report is entirely consistent with the normal course of scientific progress. I predict that in the coming years, there will be a growing realization among the global warming research community that most of the climate change we have observed is natural, and that mankind’s role is relatively minor.

I hope that the Committee realizes that, if true, these new results mean that humanity will be largely spared the negative consequences of human-induced climate change. This would be good news that should be celebrated—not attacked and maligned.

And given that virtually no research into possible natural explanations for global warming has been performed, it is time for scientific objectivity and integrity to be restored to the field of global warming research. This Committee could, at a minimum, make a statement that encourages that goal.

For more information ...

Video of the testimony of NASA’s Dr. Roy Spencer before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on July 22, 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzf6z-oHP8U

Text of the complete testimony of NASA’s Dr. Roy Spencer before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on July 22, 2008: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=e12b56cb-4c7b-4c21-bd4a-7afbc4ee72f3

Push for Sunspots

Interesting NASA and NOAA missed on sunspot prediction and were coming under scrutiny.
Now we see them making qualitative comments:
"This is the third time in as many weeks that a new-cycle sunspot has interrupted the year's remarkable run of blank suns. The accelerating pace of new-cycle sunspot production is an encouraging sign that, while solar activity remains very low, the sunspot cycle is unfolding more or less normally."

Science, "encouraging sign". What is meant by encouraging? Science wants data. Politicians wan "encouraging".

Then to show the political science
"sunspot cycle is unfolding more or less normally."

Yet, they predicted the initial low as early as May 2006. Missing by two years is "normal".

60 years Cooling - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera,

Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico predicted that in about ten years the Earth will enter a “little ice age” which will last from 60 to 80 years and may be caused by the decrease in solar activity.

Velasco Herrera described as erroneous the predictions of the IPCC. The models and forecasts of the IPCC “is incorrect because only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity,” said the specialist also in image processing and signs and prevention of natural disasters.

The phenomenon of climate change, he added, should include other kinds of factors, both internal, such as volcanoes and the very human activity, and external, such as solar activity.

“In this century glaciers are growing”, as seen in the Andes, Perito Moreno, Logan, the highest mountain in Canada, and with Franz-Josef Glacier, New Zealand, said Velasco Herrera.

According to Victor Manuel Velasco, the ice age could arrive as early as two years. In another lecture he gave at the beginning of last December, the same expert had said that the cooling would arrive within 30 or 40 years. And in early July, Velasco Herrera said that satellite data indicate that this period of global cooling could even have already begun, since 2005.

Could the sun have an effect?

MinnPost.com

There's a growing number of scientists who feel the sun is the main driving force behind the Earth's constantly changing climate. But is that really the cause?

Scientist vs Propogandist

Considering the difference between science and "political science"

CO2Sceptics provides letter to USA Today on global warming

Some highlighted excerpts include:
"The difference between a scientist and propagandist is clear. If a scientist has a theory, he searches diligently for data that might contradict it so that he can test it further or refine it. The propagandist carefully selects only the data that agrees with his theory and dutifully ignores any that contradicts it. The global warming alarmists don't even bother with data! All they have are half-baked computer models that are totally out of touch with reality and have already been proven to be false."

"From the El Nino year of 1998 until Jan., 2007, the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere near its surface decreased some 0.25 C.
From Jan., 2007 until the Spring of 2008, it dropped a whopping 0.75 C."

ISO-8000 Data Quality - something climate science could benefit from

From Watts Up with That
ISO-8000 Data Quality - something climate science could benefit from

Gore urges civil disobedience to stop coal plants

Gore urges civil disobedience to stop coal plants
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE48N7AA20080924?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Al Gore as a victim

Many of us have seen how the politicians and corporate politicians snake their way out of blame for cheer leading a misshapen cause. The politician has a sense to find a scientist willingness to forsake their principles of of science for "the practical good". We also know of the politicians sense to be able to also enlist misguided scientists and persons into their cause - "I'm looking for a leader for this department with the good sense and knowledge that man is causing warming". "You agree warming is due to man, don't you"? "We are looking for team players".......... The list is endless for entrapping a person into their web.

This process also gives the politician a clean exit path. If they were wrong in the program, they have the persons to blame for misleading them. The politician always has a way to be the victim when things go wrong or to take full credit when things go right.

In the wreckage behind the politician there is a swath of persons willing to sell out on principle for their gain and well meaning, but misdirected persons. Either way it is a path of dead bodies and the politician lives to find another cause.

I find little sympathy for those scientists who will be left hanging with the blame when AGW blows up. It is insightful to read Atlas Shrugged with a focus on Dr. Robert Stadler - who become a sell-out, one who had great promise but squandered it for social approval, to the detriment of the free. He worked for the State Science Institute and thought he lead the project and direction, only to find he was a figure head being manipulated for the politicians.

When AGW blows up, you already know Al Gore will come out clean with hundreds of millions of dollars to his benefit.

sunspot number 100 1has emerged,

A new sunspot has emerged, number 1001, but it is a small spot and may not last long. Credit: SOHO/MDI
SpaceWeather.com

Old Farmers Almanac: Global cooling underway

USA Today
The Old Farmer's Almanac is going further out on a limb than usual this year forecasting a cooler winter and suggesting we are in for global cooling for decades.
Tuesday saying a study of solar activity and corresponding records on ocean temperatures and climate point to a cooler, not warmer, climate.

"We at the Almanac are among those who believe that sunspot cycles and their effects on oceans correlate with climate changes," writes meteorologist and climatologist Joseph D'Aleo. "Studying these and other factor suggests that cold, not warm, climate may be our future."

Shun meat, says UN climate chief

Other agendas are starting to become more apparent:

People should consider eating less meat as a way of combating global warming, says the UN's top climate scientist.

BBC

Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will make the call at a speech in London on Monday evening. UN figures suggest that meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport. "The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions," he told BBC News.

Transport, by contrast, accounts for just 13% of humankind's greenhouse gas footprint, according to the IPCC.

Dr Pachauri will be speaking at a meeting organised by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), whose main reason for suggesting people lower their consumption of meat is to reduce the number of animals in factory farms.

Dr Pachauri has just been re-appointed for a second six-year term as chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC

CIWF's ambassador Joyce D'Silva states: "I would like governments to set targets for reduction in meat production and consumption," she said. "The NFU is committed to ensuring farming is part of the solution to climate change, rather than being part of the problem". Part of a negotiated climate change treaty, and it would be done fairly, so that people with little meat at the moment such as in sub-Saharan Africa would be able to eat more, and we in the west would eat less."

British Environment Minister Discounts Global Warming as 'Pseudo-Religion'

British Environment Minister Discounts Global Warming as 'Pseudo-Religion'

Britain's environment minister on Friday discounted arguments that global warming is man-made and said instead that the phenomenon is a naturally occurring event.

"Resources should be used to adapt to the consequences of climate change, rather than King Canute-style vainly trying to stop it," Sammy Wilson said in an interview with the New Letter newspaper.

He described green campaigners' views on global warming as "hysterical psuedo-religion," and said he refused to "blindly accept" the need to make significant changes to the economy to stop climate change.

"The tactic used by the 'green gang' is to label anyone who dares disagree with their view of climate change as some kind of nutcase who denies scientific fact,"
Wilson said.

He said he accepts that climate change can occur but argued that its cause is as yet unknown.

"Reasoned debate must replace the scaremongering of the green climate alarmists," he said.

Month without Sunspots

Sun has first spotless calendar month since June 1913

Watts Up with That
August 2008 has made solar history. As of 00 UTC (5PM PST) we just posted the first spotless calendar month since June 1913. Solar time is measured by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) so it is now September 1st in UTC time. I’ve determined this to be the first spotless calendar month according to sunspot data from NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center, which goes back to 1749. In the 95 years since 1913, we’ve had quite an active sun. But that has been changing in the last few years. The sun today is a nearly featureless sphere and has been for many days:

Global cooling gains momentum among scientists

Delta Farm Press
http://deltafarmpress.com/news/robinson-column-0825/
Aug 25, 2008 9:40 AM, By Elton Robinson
Farm Press Editorial Staff

Two weeks ago, after writing about the possibility that the Earth may actually be entering a cooling phase, I braced myself for a torrent of icy missives from the global warming crowd suggesting that the heat must have fried my noggin.

By the way, it is very difficult to discuss global cooling in the midst of a summer when temperatures are hovering around 100 degrees and crops are wilting. As one friend and colleague from the sweltering Southwest noted after reading the column, “Please send some of that cooling this way.”

However, one response opened my eyes to the growing community of global warming skeptics out there, most of them merited scientists. I thought it might be worth presenting their thoughts — a little equal time if you will. Marc Marona, a global warming skeptic who works for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works, sent me these excerpts from a U.S. Senate report.

Russian solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev are so convinced that global temperatures will cool within the next decade they have placed a $10,000 wager with a United Kingdom scientist to prove their certainty. The criteria for the $10,000 bet will be to compare global temperatures between 1998 and 2003 with those between 2012 and 2017. The loser will pay up in 2018, according to an April 16, 2007, article in Live Science.

Australian engineer Peter Harris says that the Earth is nearing the end of the typical interglacial cycle and is due for a sudden cooling climate change. “Based on this analysis we can say that there is a 94 percent probability of imminent global cooling and the beginning of the coming ice age.

“Climate is becoming unstable,” Harris went on to say. “Most of these major natural processes that we are witnessing now are interdependent and occur at the end of each interglacial period, ultimately causing sudden long-term cooling.”

Oleg Sorokhtin, merited scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and staff researcher of the Oceanology Institute, says to “stock up on fur coats and felt boots! Earth is now at the peak of one of its passing warm spells. It started in the 17th century when there was no industrial influence on the climate to speak of and no such thing as the hothouse effect.

“Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change, Sorokhtin said. “Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind. Man’s influence on nature is a drop in the ocean.”

Canadian climatologist Timothy Ball said, “If we are facing (a crisis) at all, I think it is that we are preparing for warming when it is looking like we are cooling. We are preparing for the wrong thing.”

On the impact of carbon dioxide on global temperature, United Kingdom astrophysicist Piers Corbyn said, “There is no evidence that carbon dioxide has ever driven or will ever drive world temperatures and climate change. Worrying about carbon dioxide is irrelevant.”

So there you have it folks — solid evidence from the other side of the global warming fence and critical thinking I’m sure you won’t hear much about outside this space.

To be honest, I’m not sure which global weather consequence is more daunting — to be ice fishing in Florida or planting cotton in Maine. But politicians and the popular press should speak out for the resumption of genuine, open debate on climate change. Global warming is not necessarily a foregone conclusion.

Sunspots may vanish by 2015.

AstroEngine
http://www.astroengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/livingston-penn_sunspots2.pdf

"A linear extrapolation of these trends suggests that few sunspots will be visible after 2015."

"The number of sunspots visible on the Sun normally shows an 11-year periodicity, and the current sunspot cycle (cycle 23) had a maximum in 2001, and is entering a minimum phase with few sunspots currently visible. Our data show that there are additional changes occurring in sunspots, independent of the sunspot cycle, and these trends suggest that sunspots will disappear completely."

NASA and NOAA History on Cycle 24 Sunspots

It is interesting to look back at the solar model predictions for cycle 24 sunspots and the rewriting of history at each new update.

Just looking at some recent PR releases:
NASA May 20, 2003
Hathaway predicts cycle 24 to begin Dec 2006

NASA March 10, 2006
March 10, 2006: It's official: Solar minimum has arrived.
"This week researchers announced that a storm is coming--the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one," she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958."
"Like most experts in the field, Hathaway has confidence in the conveyor belt model and agrees with Dikpati that the next solar maximum should be a doozy. But he disagrees with one point. Dikpati's forecast puts Solar Max at 2012. Hathaway believes it will arrive sooner, in 2010 or 2011."
"he says. "I expect to see the first sunspots of the next cycle appear in late 2006 or 2007—and Solar Max to be underway by 2010 or 2011.""

NASA Dec 21, 2006
"Dec. 21, 2006: Evidence is mounting: the next solar cycle is going to be a big one."
"Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 "looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He and colleague Robert Wilson presented this conclusion last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco."

"According to their analysis, the next Solar Maximum should peak around 2010 with a sunspot number of 160 plus or minus 25. This would make it one of the strongest solar cycles of the past fifty years—which is to say, one of the strongest in recorded history."


NOAA April 25, 2007
"The next 11-year cycle of solar storms will most likely start next March and peak in late 2011 or mid-2012 – up to a year later than expected – according to a forecast issued today by NOAA’s Space Environment Center in coordination with an international panel of solar experts"

Oops, maybe let's try again. We don't know what's happening. Our models don't work. But our throwing darts now reveals that we don't have a clue:
NOAA April 27, 2007
NEXT SOLAR STORM CYCLE WILL START LATE
"Expected to start last fall, the delayed onset of Solar Cycle 24 stymied the panel and left them evenly split on whether a weak or strong period of solar storms lies ahead, but neither group predicts a record-breaker."
“The Space Environment Center’s space weather alerts, warnings, and forecasts are a critical component of NOAA’s seamless stewardship of the Earth’s total environment, from the Sun to the sea,” said retired Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator."

Now the scientific data analysis
"The late decline of Cycle 23 has helped shift the panel away from its earlier leaning toward a strong Cycle 24."

Explaining they have no clue
“By giving a long-term outlook, we’re advancing a new field—space climate—that’s still in its infancy,” said retired Air Force Brig. Gen. David L. Johnson, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service. “Issuing a cycle prediction of the onset this far in advance lies on the very edge of what we know about the Sun.”

"Another clue will be whether Cycle 24 sunspots appear by mid 2008. If not, the strong-cycle group might change their forecast."

Jan 2008
With the appearance of Sunspot 981 -- a high-latitude, reversed polarity sunspot -- on Friday, January 4, experts at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that Cycle 24 is now here. "This sunspot is like the first robin of spring," said solar physicist Douglas Biesecker of the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), part of NOAA. "In this case, it's an early omen of solar storms that will gradually increase over the next few years."

"on Friday, January 4, experts at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that Cycle 24 is now here. "This sunspot is like the first robin of spring," said solar physicist Douglas Biesecker of the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), part of NOAA. "In this case, it's an early omen of solar storms that will gradually increase over the next few years."
"NASA's Hathaway, along with colleague Robert Wilson at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco last month, said that Solar Cycle 24 "looks like it's going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago."

A summary of other predictions was provided Sept 2007 by janssens
"Averaging all results, solar cycle 24 is expected to start late 2007 and reach a maximum monthly Wolfnumber of 106,9 +/- 21,8 late 2011"

NOAA May 2008


NOAA & NASA June 27, 2008
"The panel expects solar minimum to occur in March, 2008. The panel expects the solar cycle to reach a peak sunspot number of 140 in October, 2011 or a peak of 90 in August, 2012."

NASA July 11, 2008
"The sun is behaving normally. So says NASA solar physicist David Hathaway."
"There have been some reports lately that Solar Minimum is lasting longer than it should. That's not true. The ongoing lull in sunspot number is well within historic norms for the solar cycle."
"some observers are questioning the length of the ongoing minimum, now slogging through its 3rd year."

"It does seem like it's taking a long time," allows Hathaway, "but I think we're just forgetting how long a solar minimum can last."

No we were following your forecasts and those of the other "experts".

Data as of Aug 15
Our Sun is still not producing any sunspots
Sunspot numbers for August 7-13 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 and 0 with a mean of 0.

Hadley Climate Center HadAT2 Data shows global cooling in the last year

Hadley Climate Center HadAT2 Data shows global cooling in the last year

Two sources:
Watts up with that
Climate Change Fraud
The HadAT2 dataset from the Hadley Climate Center takes in balloon radiosonde measurements taken twice daily from hundreds of points around the globe and compiles it.

climate sensitive to solar variability

climate sensitive to solar variability
http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/opinion0308.pdf

Excerpts include:
"We contend that the changes in Earth’s average surface temperature are directly linked to two distinctly different aspects of the Sun’s dynamics: the short-term statistical fluctuations in the Sun’s irradiance and the longer-term solar cycles."

"The nonequilibrium thermodynamic models we used suggest that the Sun is influencing climate significantly more than the IPCC report claims."

DOHERTY: NEW SCIENTIFIC DATA JUSTIFIES REPEALING GLOBAL WARMING RESPONSE ACT

URGES STATE TO HOLD OFF ON DAMAGING NEW REGULATIONS AS CLIMATE CHANGE THEORIES CLASH

http://www.politickernj.com/bguhl/22291/doherty-new-scientific-data-justifies-repealing-global-warming-response-act

Responding to various new scientific reports questioning the concept of global warming, Assemblyman Michael Doherty today called on Governor Corzine to hold off on proposing any new regulations associated with the state’s Global Warming Response Act and urged the Legislature to repeal that act when it returns to legislative business after Labor Day.

Sun Spots

Montana State University June 9, 2008

The International solar conference was held June 1-6 at Montana State University. Approximately 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America gathered to talk about "Solar Variability, Earth's Climate and the Space Environment."

The scientists said periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual. Today's sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren't sure why.

In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period coincided with a little ice age on Earth that lasted from 1650 to 1700.

See also Science Daily June 9, 2008

Maunder Minimum - NASA

From the Goddard Flight Center
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17460

This article has some issues, but look at the core point of admitting that the Maunder Minimum dropped temperatures.

From 1650 to 1710, temperatures across much of the Northern Hemisphere plunged when the Sun entered a quiet phase now called the Maunder Minimum. During this period, very few sunspots appeared on the surface of the Sun, and the overall brightness of the Sun decreased slightly.

NAO was more negative on average during the Maunder Minimum, and Europe remained unusually cold. These results matched the paleoclimate record.

Stopping Climate Tax Bill

June 6, 2008 Senator Inhofe

“Already facing skyrocketing prices at the gas pump, in our homes, and at the grocery store, Oklahomans are rightfully asking why the U.S. Senate spent the past week debating legislation that would push costs even higher,” Senator Inhofe said. “Unfortunately, many Washington, D.C. politicians believe that the best way to approach any issue is to raise taxes, regulate more, and increase the size of the federal bureaucracy.

This legislation would have been the largest tax increase in history, the largest expansion of government in over 70 years and the largest pork bill. Yet, as the Environmental Protection Agency analysis shows, the so-called “solution” would result in substantial economic harm for no climate gain.

2008 Cooler than 2007

UAH Satellite data: 2008 significantly cooler than last year

Watts up with That

Skeptics Global Warming

Sun spots - cooling

Planet Daily 6.1.08

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.

Solar Winds

The solar wind is a stream of charged particles (plasma) ejected from the upper atmosphere of the sun. It consists mostly of electrons and protons. The solar wind streams off of the Sun in all directions at speeds of about 400 km/s (about 1 million miles per hour). The source of the solar wind is the Sun's hot corona.

These particles are able to escape the sun's gravity because of the high temperature of the corona and high kinetic energy

The solar wind is divided into two components; 1.the slow solar wind and 2.the fast solar wind. The slow solar wind has a velocity of about 400 km/s, a temperature of 1.4–1.6×10⁶ K and a composition that is a close match to the corona. The fast solar wind has a typical velocity of 750 km/s, a temperature of 8×10⁵ K and it nearly matches the composition of the Sun's photosphere. The slow solar wind is twice as dense and more variable in intensity than the fast solar wind.

The solar wind is not uniform. Although it is always directed away from the Sun, it changes speed and carries with it magnetic clouds, interacting regions where high speed wind catches up with slow speed wind, and composition variations. The solar wind speed is high (800 km/s) over coronal holes and low (300 km/s) over streamers. These high and low speed streams interact with each other and alternately pass by the Earth as the Sun rotates. These wind speed variations buffet the Earth's magnetic field and can produce storms in the Earth's magnetosphere.

References include NASA
Cosmicopia

coronal mass ejection (CME)

From a variety of general sources: coronal mass ejection (CME)
A typical CME has a three part structure consisting of a cavity of low electron density, a dense core (the prominence, which appears as a bright region on coronagraph images) embedded in this cavity, and a bright leading edge.

CMEs generally originate from groupings of sunspots associated with frequent flares. These regions have closed magnetic field lines, where the magnetic field strength is large enough to allow the containment of the plasma. The CME must open these field lines to escape from the sun. CMEs can also be initiated in quiet sun regions. During solar minimum, CMEs form primarily in the coronal streamer belt near the solar magnetic equator. During solar maximum, CMEs originate from active regions whose latitudinal distribution is more homogeneous.

Coronal Mass Ejections range in speed from about 20 km/s to 2,700 km/s with an average speed (based on SOHO/LASCO measurements between 1996 and 2003) of 489 km/s. The average mass based on coronagraph images is 1.6 x 10¹⁵ g. Due to the two-dimensional nature of the coronagraph measurements, these values are lower limits. The frequency of ejections depends on the phase of the solar cycle: from about one every other day near solar minimum to 5-6 per day near solar maximum.

Global Cooling 2007-2008

Now Public, May 9, 2008
Last year, a dramatic cooling of the planet was measured by all four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California). It is now estimated that the Earth cooled by about 0.7C in 2007 which is the fastest temperature change on record.

The unfortunate truth is that if the planet continues to cool in the years ahead there will be less total global agriculture and much higher food prices than in these forecasts. A lack of proper planning for global cooling will result in millions of people starving due to a lack of food or from cold-related diseases because the world will not be prepared for the colder climate solution.

Therefore, agricultural and climate planning should include all possible future climate scenarios, both warm and cold.

eWorld VU
In 2008, nearly every day of each of the first four months of the year has recorded an observation of sunspot activity that is equal to zero. In fact, there have been only two days in the last four months when there has been any sunspot activity at all and each small event disappeared very quickly.

Sunspots can be historically correlated with temperature change on Earth. Weak sunspot activity correlates to colder temperatures on earth. In fact, low sunspot activity in the past has led to decades of extremely cold worldwide temperatures.

William Gray - Ocean Cooling

Prominent hurricane forecaster Dr. William M. Gray, a professor at Colorado State University, told the audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 4 in New York that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures related to the salinity (the amount of salt) in ocean water was responsible for some global warming that has taken place. However, he said that same cycle means a period of cooling would begin within 10 years.

Gray criticized NASA scientist and global warming alarmist James Hansen, calling him “the most egregious abuser” of data. According to Gray, Hansen’s alarmism is exaggerated because the models he uses to predict the increase in global warming count on too much water vapor in the atmosphere.

“[S]o he puts that much vapor in his model and of course he gets this,” Gray said. “He must get upper troposphere where the temperature is seven degrees warmer for a doubl[ing of] CO2. Well, the reason he got that was – why this upper-level warming was there – was he put too much water vapor in the model.”

Save the Bears - Pandering to Pandas

Summary from Heartland
The U.S. Department of the Interior decided today to list polar bears as a "threatened" species under the Endangered Species Act. The decision was based on predictions that future global warming will negatively affect polar bear populations.

Experts contacted by The Heartland Institute note global temperatures have not risen in the past 10 years, and scientists with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict temperatures will cool for at least the next 10 years. Moreover, polar bear populations have been increasing during recent decades.

Some excerpts include:
"Only by completely ignoring real-world scientific evidence and jumping head-first into the world of special-interest group propaganda can one justify listing polar bears as a threatened species."

Also:

"This decision represents a conflict between politics and science. Polar bear populations have been increasing in recent decades, so there is no current problem. The concern is based on forecasts. However, the government forecasts used to support the decision violate basic scientific principles, and thus provide no scientific support for the listing.

"There are no scientific forecasts that would suggest a reduction in polar bear populations. It would be improper, then, to designate polar bears as endangered. Application of proper forecasting methods suggests a small short-term rise in polar bear populations followed by a leveling off. We provide full disclosure to support these statements at publicpolicyforecasting.com and at theclimatebet.com. In the long term, science will prevail."

Scott Armstrong
Professor
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Ocean Temp Down

From IBD

Understanding the ocean's effect on climate took a quantum leap forward in 2003 when the first of 3,000 new automated ocean buoys were deployed, a significant improvement over earlier buoys that took their measurements mostly at the ocean's surface.

The new buoys, known as Argos, drift along the world's oceans at a depth of about 6,000 feet constantly monitoring the temperature, salinity, and speed of ocean currents. Every 10 days or so a bladder inflates, bringing them to the surface as they take their readings at various depths.

Once on the surface, they transmit their readings to satellites that retransmit them to land-based computers.

The Argos buoys have disappointed global warming alarmists in that they have failed to detect any signs of imminent climate change. As Dr. Josh Willis noted in an interview with National Public Radio, "there has been a very slight cooling" over the buoy's five years of observation.

Actual observations trump computer models and as we learn more about the Earth we start to realize how puny and irrelevant man's contribution to climate change really is.

While irresponsible environmentalists panic over warming, the Earth cools and goes with the ocean flow.

Continued Cooling

NOAA
The average temperature in April 2008 was 51.0 F. This was -1.0 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 29th coolest April in 114 years.

Also, some theories would hold warmer weather leads to more evaporation and thus more rain. Cooler temperatures, less evaporation and less rain.

NOAA reports:
2.39 inches of precipitation fell in April. This was -0.04 inches less than the 1901-2000 average, the 54th driest such month on record.

And, the cycle 24 sunspots have still yet to develop.

Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)

For the past century, global temperatures have tended to mirror 20-to 30-year warming and cooling of the north-central Pacific Ocean, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).
The earth warmed from about 1915 to1940, while the PDO was also warming (1925 to 46).
The earth cooled from 1940 to 1975, while the PDO was cooling (1946 to 1977).
The strong global warming from 1976 to 1998 was accompanied by a strong and almost-constant warming of the north-central Pacific.

The new Jason oceanographic satellite shows that 2007 was a “cool” La Nina year.

1934 Warmest Year, Not 1998

I found a very odd foot note in an article. Why has this not been discussed in the media?
This is an "odd" oversight by Hansen et al. Or did McIntyr find yet more of the conveniently massaged data?

In August 2007 blogger Stephen McIntyr noticed that many U.S. temperature records from the Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) displayed a discontinuity around the year 2000. NASA corrected the mistaken data and reported that "data for 2000 and later years were inadvertently appended to USHCN data for prior years without including the adjustments at these stations that had been defined by the NOAA National Climate Data Center." The correction resulted in a slight (0.15 degree C) decrease in U.S. average temperatures post-2000, and 1934 replaced 1998 as the warmest year in the U.S. Note that the years have changed rankings before: in a 2001 paper 1934 was marginally warmer than 1998.

NASA
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/updates/200708.html
Recently it was realized that the monthly more-or-less-automatic updates of our global temperature analysis had a flaw in the U.S. data. We wish to thank Stephen McIntyre for bringing to our attention that this flaw might be present.

And NASA states:
Also our prior analysis had 1934 as the warmest year in the U.S. (see the 2001 paper above), and it continues to be the warmest year, both before and after the correction to post 2000 temperatures.

Temperature Data

Temperature data. There is confusing temperature data out there. The best summary showing the 0.6C temp
Comparison of 4 sources
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/
HadCrut Data
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/another-global-temp-index-dives-in-jan08-this-time-hadcrut/

Recent History of Sunspots

In an atmospheric science class at CSU in the late 70's the professor provided a fairly convincing discussion that sun spots control human activity and the earths climate. Sunspots are historically correlated with temperature on earth. During the Dalton Minimum, beginning in 1790, the number of sunspots was low, as the earth's climate turned cold for a few decades. I had not heard nor read much on sun spots until recently.

Background
Sunspots are areas of strong magnetic activity, where material wells up from below. The sun goes through a number of cycles, one including 11 year cycles on sunspots. The dark spots are like tops on a soda bottle, and sometimes they erupt and send bubbles of superheated gas called plasma, into space.Solar storms spew charged particles into space, and when they interact with Earth's protective magnetic field, electrical charges can dip into the lower atmosphere and even to the ground. These can disrupt radio transmissions and sometimes even power transmission.

Solar Cycle 23 peaked in 2001
Solar Cycle 24 is predicted to start about now

Current situation
You can see the current sunspot activity at SpaceWeather.com
As of today, April 25 - NO SUNSPOTS?

Implications of low activity?
Geophysicist Phil Chapman was the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut and served as mission specialist on the Apollo 14 lunar mission. Chapman has written that the previous time a cycle was delayed like this was during what was called the Dalton Minimum, a particularly cold period that lasted several decades starting in 1790. "Northern winters became ferocious," he says

So far this year, SOHO has detected just three sunspots, including number 992, which appeared on April 23. One was found in January and lasted only two days. Another appeared earlier this month but vanished within 24 hours. There should be more, many more.

Recent Prior Predictions/Observations
Looking back at recent predictions regarding sunspot activity:
Sun.com May 26, 2008
Adding to the tangle of understanding, the new sunspots have a magnetic polarity consistent with Solar Cycle 23 rather than the new cycle, proving yet again that much remains to be learned about the temperature of the sun. One of the new sunspots, No. 989, kicked up a moderate solar flare Tuesday. NOAA forecasters put the odds at 50-50 for additional moderate flares today.
Sun.com Dec 2007
"New solar cycles always begin with a high-latitude, reversed polarity sunspot," Hathaway explained in a NASA statement. "Reversed polarity" means a sunspot with opposite magnetic polarity compared to sunspots from the previous solar cycle. "High-latitude" refers to the sun's grid of latitude and longitude. Old cycle spots congregate near the sun's equator. New cycle spots appear higher, around 25 or 30 degrees latitude. The shift is not certain, however. If it's really the start of a new cycle, there ought to be a sunspot associated with the magnetic knot, but there is none. In fact, Hathaway announced a possible beginning to Solar Cycle 24 back in August, 2006.

Sun.com July 2006
Astronomers say the sun has begun its next cycle of activity, part of an 11-year ebb and flow in sunspots and solar flares. Solar activity is near the low point in the cycle now. Few sunspots appear and solar flares are rare. But on July 31, a tiny sunspot appeared and then vanished after a few hours. It was a normal event, except that it was magnetically backward. "We've been waiting for this," said David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight in Huntsville, Alabama. "A backward sunspot is a sign that the next solar cycle is beginning."

The sophisticated models at UCAR in Boulder predicted increase sunspots for cycle 24, beginning in 2007. "The scientists have confidence in the forecast because, in a series of test runs, the newly developed model simulated the strength of the past eight solar cycles with more than 98% accuracy."
UCAR Boulder CO March 6, 2006
The next sunspot cycle will be 30-50% stronger than the last one and begin as much as a year late, according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model of solar dynamics developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The NCAR team's computer model, known as the Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model, draws on research by NCAR scientists. he scientists expect the cycle to begin in late 2007 or early 2008, which is about 6 to 12 months later than a cycle would normally start. Cycle 24 is likely to reach its peak about 2012.