posted April 11, 2006 07:58 PM            

It's interesting to note however both Bush's endorsement of the NAS as well as climate change study.

What do you do when Bush agrees with me, Jwhop? Is that going to cause your head to explode or anything, because I don't need to post it if that's the case... or maybe I will anyway.

quote:

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...In addition, this Administration has sought independent advice, most often through the National Academies, on many issues. Recent National Academies reviews of air pollution policy, fuel economy standards, the use of human tests for pesticide toxicity, and planned or ongoing reviews on dioxin and perchlorate in the environment are examples. The Administration’s climate change program is based on a National Academies report that was requested by the Administration in the spring of 2001, and the National Academies continues to review our programs and strategic research planning in this field. The frequency of such referrals, and the high degree to which their advice has been incorporated into the policies of this Administration, is consistent with a desire to strengthen technical input into decisionmaking.

Climate change has proven to be a contentious science-related issue. President Bush clearly acknowledged the role of human activity in increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases in June 2001, stating “concentration of greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have increased substantially since the beginning of the industrial revolution. And the National Academy of Sciences indicates that the increase is due in large part to human activity.” That speech launched programs to accelerate climate change science and technology to address remaining uncertainties in the science, develop adaptation and mitigation mechanisms, and invest in clean energy technologies to reduce the projected growth in global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2004, the U.S. will spend approximately $4 billion in climate change science and technology research.

The President created the new U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) to refocus a disorganized interagency activity into a cohesive program, oriented at resolving key uncertainties and enhancing decision making capabilities. The Strategy was heartily endorsed by the National Academies in its recent review. Their report, Implementing Climate and Global Change Research – A Review of the Final U.S. Climate Change Science Program Strategic Plan, stated “In fact, the approaches taken by the CCSP to receive and respond to comments from a large and broad group of scientists and stakeholders, including a two-stage independent review of the plan, set a high standard for government research programs … Advancing science on all fronts identified by the program will be of vital importance to the Nation.”

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Seems Bush may be under the influence of Republican scientific skepticism as well. However, he must not be as proud as you for he allows and endorses the study of climate change.

posted April 11, 2006 08:08 PM              

the scientists who signed that petition havnt studied the issue...they read a misleading article forged to look like a peer reviewed study from NAS......

perhaps jwhop should have let his daughter make the argument....she probly wouldve been more convincing....=P

Approaching the Point of No Return

Global Warming Pact Takes Effect

More Lying Environmentalist Wackos

Globaloney & Poppycock

posted April 12, 2006 01:18 AM            

For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.

Does something not strike you as odd here? That industrial carbon dioxide is not the primary cause of earth's recent decadal-scale temperature changes doesn't seem at all odd to many thousands of independent scientists. They have long appreciated - ever since the early 1990s, when the global warming bandwagon first started to roll behind the gravy train of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - that such short-term climate fluctuations are chiefly of natural origin. Yet the public appears to be largely convinced otherwise. How is this possible?

Since the early 1990s, the columns of many leading newspapers and magazines, worldwide, have carried an increasing stream of alarmist letters and articles on hypothetical, human-caused climate change. Each such alarmist article is larded with words such as "if", "might", "could", "probably", "perhaps", "expected", "projected" or "modelled" - and many involve such deep dreaming, or ignorance of scientific facts and principles, that they are akin to nonsense.

The problem here is not that of climate change per se, but rather that of the sophisticated scientific brainwashing that has been inflicted on the public, bureaucrats and politicians alike. Governments generally choose not to receive policy advice on climate from independent scientists. Rather, they seek guidance from their own self-interested science bureaucracies and senior advisers, or from the IPCC itself. No matter how accurate it may be, cautious and politically non-correct science advice is not welcomed in Westminster, and nor is it widely reported.

Marketed under the imprimatur of the IPCC, the bladder-trembling and now infamous hockey-stick diagram that shows accelerating warming during the 20th century - a statistical construct by scientist Michael Mann and co-workers from mostly tree ring records - has been a seminal image of the climate scaremongering campaign. Thanks to the work of a Canadian statistician, Stephen McIntyre, and others, this graph is now known to be deeply flawed.

There are other reasons, too, why the public hears so little in detail from those scientists who approach climate change issues rationally, the so-called climate sceptics. Most are to do with intimidation against speaking out, which operates intensely on several parallel fronts.

First, most government scientists are gagged from making public comment on contentious issues, their employing organisations instead making use of public relations experts to craft carefully tailored, frisbee-science press releases. Second, scientists are under intense pressure to conform with the prevailing paradigm of climate alarmism if they wish to receive funding for their research. Third, members of the Establishment have spoken declamatory words on the issue, and the kingdom's subjects are expected to listen.

On the alarmist campaign trail, the UK's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King, is thus reported as saying that global warming is so bad that Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by the end of this century. Warming devotee and former Chairman of Shell, Lord [Ron] Oxburgh, reportedly agrees with another rash statement of King's, that climate change is a bigger threat than terrorism. And goodly Archbishop Rowan Williams, who self-evidently understands little about the science, has warned of "millions, billions" of deaths as a result of global warming and threatened Mr Blair with the wrath of the climate God unless he acts. By betraying the public's trust in their positions of influence, so do the great and good become the small and silly.

Two simple graphs provide needed context, and exemplify the dynamic, fluctuating nature of climate change. The first is a temperature curve for the last six million years, which shows a three-million year period when it was several degrees warmer than today, followed by a three-million year cooling trend which was accompanied by an increase in the magnitude of the pervasive, higher frequency, cold and warm climate cycles. During the last three such warm (interglacial) periods, temperatures at high latitudes were as much as 5 degrees warmer than today's. The second graph shows the average global temperature over the last eight years, which has proved to be a period of stasis.

The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90 per cent of the last two million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is far more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.

The British Government urgently needs to recast the sources from which it draws its climate advice. The shrill alarmism of its public advisers, and the often eco-fundamentalist policy initiatives that bubble up from the depths of the Civil Service, have all long since been detached from science reality. Intern-ationally, the IPCC is a deeply flawed organisation, as acknowledged in a recent House of Lords report, and the Kyoto Protocol has proved a costly flop. Clearly, the wrong horses have been backed.

As mooted recently by Tony Blair, perhaps the time has come for Britain to join instead the new Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6), whose six member countries are committed to the development of new technologies to improve environmental outcomes. There, at least, some real solutions are likely to emerge for improving energy efficiency and reducing pollution.

Informal discussions have already begun about a new AP6 audit body, designed to vet rigorously the science advice that the Partnership receives, including from the IPCC. Can Britain afford not to be there?

posted April 12, 2006 01:31 AM              

Climatologists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City noted that the highest global annual average surface temperature in more than a century was recorded in their analysis for the 2005 calendar year.

Previously, the warmest year of the century was 1998, when a strong El Nino, a warm water event in the eastern Pacific Ocean, added warmth to global temperatures. However, what's significant, regardless of whether 2005 is first or second warmest, is that global warmth has returned to about the level of 1998 without the help of an El Nino.

posted April 12, 2006 11:03 AM            

BY RICHARD LINDZEN
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?

The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.

But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.
If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.

So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.

Sadly, this is only the tip of a non-melting iceberg. In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.

And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are published, standards shift. When I, with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an "Iris Effect," wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2. Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the journal to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this case (and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming errors in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as "discredited." Indeed, there is a strange reluctance to actually find out how climate really behaves. In 2003, when the draft of the U.S. National Climate Plan urged a high priority for improving our knowledge of climate sensitivity, the National Research Council instead urged support to look at the impacts of the warming--not whether it would actually happen.

posted April 12, 2006 11:39 AM            

There's good news, more good news and then, unfortunately, some bad news, on the subject of climate change. What would you like first? Right, the good news it is then.

In all of the arguments about climate change the two questions that have always loomed largest for me are: how much of it is there likely to be? and what are we going to do about it? If it all ends up being 0.1 degrees Celsius in a century then obviously we don't do much about it and if it's going to be 10 degrees Celsius next week then we'd better get a move on.

The Kyoto Protocol was never going to be one of the things I thought we should do as it does not very much at great expense. I'm also on record here as stating that I think technology will save us, for my day job involves some contact with certain parts of the alternative energy research world and things are moving a great deal faster than the wider world seems to recognize.

Having said that (revealing my prejudices as it were) the question of how much change we're likely to see is obviously the most important. We have a number of different estimates, using different methods, and some of them push some very scary numbers indeed. I don't mean just the usual alarmists (those who say we should all be dead already from the pesticides in our baby milk, we've already drowned from the ice caps melting and so on) but even some of the more sober scientific studies say that they can't rule out 6-degree C rises, higher even. Which is why this paper is so cheering. It looks like we can rule out runaway warming purely as a result of CO2 emissions. For an easier to understand explanation try this at the blog of one of the authors.

We have a number of different ways of trying to work out the "climate sensitivity," that is, what sort of temperature change would we expect to see from a doubling of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere? The International Panel on Climate Change (the UN's offshoot looking into all of this on our behalf) has in the past given a range of 1.5-4.5 degrees C. Various other methods have also been used and these are the ones that don't rule out those very large changes that the alarmists tell us about in the newspapers all the time. Which leads to the interesting thing noted in the new paper:

We made the rather elementary observation that these above estimates are based on essentially independent observational evidence, and therefore can (indeed must) be combined by Bayes' Theorem to generate an overall estimate of climate sensitivity.

So instead of wondering which of our estimates might be correct we look at all of them and come to the correct answer. This pretty much rules out the extreme outcomes and gives us, as they say, a climate sensitivity of 3 degrees C. There's still a range there but the researchers are quite clear about the fact that they didn't think that the scientific community is ready for such a low number to be announced. All of which is of course extremely good news. Even if everything else said about climate change is true, if every Friends of the Earth pamphlet is spot on in every detail, we're still not going to have runaway global warming as a result of CO2 emissions.

Excellent, the second piece of good news also shows that estimates of how much of a rise in CO2 emissions we are going to see are also too high. Ian Castles and David Henderson made the point (explained here at TCS in 2004) that there was something decidedly odd about the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). This is the series of economic models that tries to look at how the world is going to develop over the next century and then give the tonnages of CO2, methane and so on that will be pumped out into the atmosphere. There were several substantial criticisms (the way the use of regional growth figures would have made North Korea richer than the US in 2100 was a particular delight) but perhaps the most important was the one about the use of exchange rates.

It's well known that if you use market exchange rates to compare relative levels of wealth between rich and poor countries that you'll end up overstating the differences. Things made locally and consumed locally (so called non-traded goods) will be cheaper in the poor countries for, it being a poor place, people get paid less, amongst other factors. So when we try to make such international comparisons we are supposed to use Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) exchange rates (which take account of these differences in prices) so that we measure the true gap in wealth correctly. This shouldn't have made much difference to the SRES except for the fact that most of the models assumed "convergence". That is, that most of the poor countries would end up becoming not just less poor in absolute terms but also less poor in relative terms. Well, if you measure that poverty in the first place using market exchange rates (which the SRES did) then obviously you will overstate the amount of growth that will happen to get to that convergence. That's part of the Castles/Henderson case, that the SRES assumes too much growth in the economy over the next century. This, of course, means that they're overstating the increase in emissions that the scientists then plug into their climate models.

Many were not all that taken with this argument, amongst them the Australian economist John Quiggin, and he's continued to work away at the problem, including making submissions to The Stern Review (the UK Government's look at the economics of climate change). In the course of this he's received a paper (not peer reviewed, this is a working paper) from a colleague, a W. Erwin Diewert, which tells us that there is indeed substance to the Castles/Henderson critique. Not quite as much as was originally claimed (but then they've already dialed back from their very large first claims) but large enough for this to be the conclusion:

What conclusions can we draw from the above algebra? It seems possible to draw the following tentative conclusions:

Castles and Henderson are right to criticize the first part of the SRES modeling strategy, which relies on market exchange rates to calculate per capita real income differences between countries. It would be much better to use ICP PPP's for this first part of the SRES modeling strategy. The differences between PPP's and market exchange rates can be very large so their criticism is not a negligible one.
Quiggin is right to implicitly criticize the entire SRES modeling strategy. It would be simpler to abandon the two stage modeling strategy and make direct comparisons of energy intensities across countries and assume energy convergence rather than real income convergence.
Either way, the SRES model should be reestimated.

Now I'll have to take what these four gentlemen, Castles, Henderson, Diewert and Quiggin tell me is their conclusion slightly on trust. But they do all agree, that the end result of their collective two-year ponder over this question is that the SRES is using the wrong numbers and or methods and that the calculations need to be done again. There are differences about how much they think things will change if these sums are done again but they are (like the good academics they are) telling the IPCC that it needs to do its homework over.

But don't you think that's two pieces of good news? That climate sensitivity is less than previously thought and also that the models everyone's been using for the past five years over-estimate (to a still argued over degree) the likely emissions over the next century?

Want the bad news? The IPCC isn't going to take any notice:

In 2001 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a set of scenarios in the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES). These scenarios have been developed in a four year process with many scientists involved in the writing and the review process. The SRES scenarios played an important role in the Third Assessment Report (TAR) of the IPCC and will be used in the upcoming Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). The 21st IPCC plenary session (November 2003) decided that no new baseline scenario would be prepared for the AR4, in view of the time it takes before new scenarios are taken up by the research community and used in publications.

AR4 is to be published in 2007. AR5, the fifth assessment report is presumably due in 2013 or thereabouts and that's the first time that the SRES models will be looked at again. Now I don't know about you but I don't think that's all that acceptable. We are (depending upon which side of the argument you are on) either facing the greatest threat to the health of the planet or we're about to spend trillions upon trillions of dollars on fixing something that doesn't actually need fixing.

posted April 12, 2006 04:47 PM            

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
Tue Apr 11, 7:17 PM ET

It's becoming harder to find the right snow to build an igloo, and melting permafrost is turning land into mud. With climate change the nature of the Arctic is changing, too, in ways that worry the people who live there.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History opens a pair of exhibits on Saturday: "Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely," and "Atmosphere: Change is in the Air," discussing what is happening to the climate and how it affects people living in the planet's northernmost areas.

"They are truly concerned," anthropologist Igor Krupnik said Tuesday of the Arctic natives.

Indeed, the Arctic exhibit title comes from an Inuit word natives have used to describe the changing climate — uggianaqtuq — suggesting unexpected behavior or "a friend acting strangely."

The ocean is eating their land as sea ice melts and storms erode shorelines and wash away fishing communities, changing climate means new plants in some areas and changes in migratory routes of animals people depend on for food, weather is stormier and food sources for polar bears and caribou change.

Since the 1950s, air temperatures have warmed over much of the Arctic, rain and snowfall have increased and sea ice is in decline.

While some government scientists have reported political pressure to limit their comments on climate change, Robert Sullivan, the museum's associate director for public programs, said that did not happen in the development of this exhibit.

"Here's the data," Sullivan said. "This is not a political position, it's just scientific data."

"There have been some suggestions that the data is unclear; well, the data is not unclear," Sullivan added, standing near a map of Greenland illustrating the melting of that island's giant ice cap.

In addition to Smithsonian staff, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and the National Science Foundation took part in developing the exhibit. It will remain at the museum until November and there are plans for it to travel to other museums.

While change is unsettling for many, it isn't necessarily all bad, the exhibit notes. For example, a reduction in sea ice could improve navigation and industrial development, the growing season lengthens and rich northern fisheries may expand.

Adjacent to the Arctic exhibit is Atmospheres, looking at changes in the air around us, notably the rising level of carbon dioxide which scientists say is a major factor in trapping heat from the sun and raising temperatures.

The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md., has been studying the effect of increasing carbon dioxide levels on plants for years, said center director Anson H. Hines.

Plants like carbon dioxide, using it in their growth, and higher levels of the gas spurred them to grow larger, he said. The plants also became more efficient at water use. However, Hines added, even though the plants grew larger they were less nutritious.

"Global climate change is one of the most significant challenges humankind has ever faced," said museum director Cristian Samper. "These landmark exhibitions bring us closer to the science that provides the foundation for understanding how the Earth has changed through time. The exhibitions also convey the human dimension that must be considered in addressing how to respond to the environmental changes that are taking place not just in the Arctic, but all over the globe."

___

On the Net:

Natural History Museum: http://www.mnh.si.edu/

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: http://www.noaa.gov

posted April 12, 2006 07:41 PM            

Senator Lugar Praises Pew Dialogue

In a major address before the UN Security Council on February 6, 2006, Senator Richard G. Lugar (R-Indiana), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for the United States to return to negotiations under the Framework Convention on Climate Change to achieve a comprehensive international approach to global warming. He said a "roadmap to this outcome" is contained in the recent report of the Climate Dialogue at Pocantico convened by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Excerpt from Senator Lugar's address:

"...[Fossil fuel] dependence also presents huge risks to the global environment. With this in mind, I have urged the Bush Administration and my colleagues in Congress to return to a leadership role on the issue of climate change. I have advocated that the United States must be open to multi-lateral forums that attempt to achieve global solutions to the problem of greenhouse gases. Climate change could bring drought, famine, disease, mass migration, and rising sea levels threatening coasts and economies worldwide, all of which could lead to political conflict and instability. This problem cannot be solved without international cooperation.

The time is ripe for bold action by the international community because much has changed since talks first began in 1992 on what became the Kyoto treaty. For one, China and India, who won exemptions from the treaty’s emission-cutting requirements, have enjoyed rapid growth. They are now much greater sources of greenhouse gases than anticipated, but also far stronger economies, more integrated into the global system.

Our scientific understanding of climate change has also advanced significantly. We have better computer models, more measurements and more evidence -- from the shrinking polar caps to expanding tropical disease zones for plants and humans -- that the problem is real and is caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide from fossil fuels.

Most importantly, thanks to new technology, we can control many greenhouse gases with proactive, pro-growth solutions, not just draconian limitations on economic activity. Industry and government alike recognize that progress on climate change can go hand in hand with progress on energy security, air pollution, and technology development.

A roadmap to this outcome is contained in a recent report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a non-partisan organization, which assembled representatives from China, India and other countries and from global industrial companies, as well as from the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff. This diverse group agreed on the need for fresh approaches beyond Kyoto. They said the U.S. must engage all the major economies at once, including India and China, because experience has shown that countries will not move unless they can be sure their counterparts are moving with them.

posted April 14, 2006 09:28 AM            

Richard Lugar is also behind the attempts in the US Senate to turn control of all the oceans of the world over to the United Nations in a disaster...called the Law of the Sea Treaty.

Richard Lugar is a disaster and an empty suit and it doesn't matter that Lugar's is a Republican suit.

What's true about Lugar and all the other junk science twits is they want to focus on possible outcomes of global warming. What they DO NOT want to focus on is getting the science straight to find out if global warming is just another crackpot theory in the first place.

They certainly have sufficient motive to cook, fry, jigger and falsify computer models and so called research reports. For the junk science twits it's money, lots and lots and lots of money to be thrown at the issue AND prestige. For the loony Algore and other politicians supporting the junk science of global warming, it's political. Elect me and I'll save you all and the planet from catastrophe. For the UN, it's political, financial and for the ultimate control over nations.

Now who could pass up all those incentives...even if the trigger to bring it all about rests on the discredited, specious and falsified junk science of global warming.

Just as soon as it's clear what they predicted didn't and will not happen, you'll see these same junkers switch gears and start screaming about the world wide disaster approaching called, GLOBAL COOLING. Damn, we missed it by that..much but we got it right this time and we all agree, there is a consensus of "leading scientists".

Which reminds me Petron and acoustic. Where the hell is your list of thousands, of millions, of jillions of "leading scientists" supporting the crackpot theory of global warming?

Surely, I've asked you often for "the list" and just as surely, you've had plenty of time to find "the list".

So, where the hell is "the list"?

posted April 14, 2006 08:00 PM              

Britain's top scientist sees dangerous rise in global warming
Apr 14 8:12 AM US/Eastern
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In a grim warning on climate change, the British government's chief scientist said the world must immediately put into place measures to address global warming, even if they take decades to produce results.

Sir David King said that, even by the most optimistic forecasts, carbon dioxide levels are set to rise to double what they were at the time of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.

That will lead to a three-degree centigrade rise in temperature, King said, adding that if nothing is done to manage such change, few eco-systems on Earth will be able to adapt.

Even worse, said King in an interview on BBC radio, up to 400 million people around the world would find themselves at risk of hunger, because 20 million to 400 million tonnes of cereal production will be lost.

In Britain, the main threat will be flooding and "coastal attack" as a result of rising sea levels.

"If you ask me where do we feel the temperature is likely to end up if move to a level of carbon dioxide of 500 parts per million -- which is roughly twice the pre-industrial (revolution) level and the level at which we would be optimistically hoping we could settle -- the temperature rise could well be in excess of three degrees centigrade," he said.

"Yet we are saying 500 parts per million in the atmosphere is probably the best we can achieve through global agreement."

King, who has the ear of Prime Minister Tony Blair and other key policy makers, said it was essential that the world act now to be able to cope with such climate change.

"We don't have to succumb to a state of despondency where we say that there is nothing we can do, so let's just carry on living as per usual," he said. "It is very important to understand that we can manage the risks."

"What we are talking about here is something that will play through over decades. We are talking 100 years or so. We need to begin that process of investment. It is going to be a major challenge for the developing countries."

Blair wants to see a global consensus on global warming that goes beyond the disputed Kyoto protocol and puts China and India -- both economically booming -- at the heart of the issue.

But the United States in particular is opposed to slashing carbon dioxide emissions, while the European Union -- including Britain -- proposed in 2002 limiting a rise in the average global temperature to two degrees centigrade.

King said the situation would be even worse if the average global temperature broke through the three degrees centigrade level.

"If we go beyond 500 parts per million, we reach levels of temperature increase and sea level rise in terms of the coming century which would be extremely difficult for world populations to manage," he said.

He lashed out at politicians who feel the answer lies in new technologies which produce cleaner fuels, saying they ought to start listening to scientists instead.

"There is a difference between optimism and (putting one's) head in the sand," he said.

"Quite clearly what we have to do as we move forward with these discussions is see that this consensus position of the scientific community is brought right into the table where the discussions are taking place."

Last month Blair's government unveiled plans to fight global warming by cutting greenhouse gases in every sector of the nation's economy, including imposing stricter emission caps on industry.

It claimed that Britain was on course to well exceed the 12.5 percent reduction target by 2012 under the Kyoto protocol -- but would fall short of its own goal of 20 percent by 2010.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/14/060414121218.uuewlcue.html

posted April 15, 2006 05:14 PM            

By DAN JOLING
Associated Press writer

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The internal time clock for Alaska's boreal forest calls for a good, healthy forest fire every 150 years or so.

The trouble is, fires in the forest that covers Alaska from below the Brooks Range to above the Panhandle have been coming fast and frequently. Climate warming has accelerated conditions ideal for conflagration, contributing to record fire seasons in America's largest state and starting a trend that forest managers fear has changed the forest into the next century.

"It's sculpting or shaping our forest to be something that we haven't seen," said Glenn Juday, professor of forest ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Warmer summers are just part of the story. Unprecedented spring snow melt has added as much as month more to the firefighting season, allowing grass and other understory to dry sooner and spread flames as never before.

Drought at the end of the summer has extended fire season, sometimes until the snow flies in September.

The National Climatic Data Center reported 8.5 million forest acres burned in America in 2005. Alaska accounted for more than half, 4.4 million acres, the third-largest season in state history. The No. 1 season was 2004, when 6.6 million acres burned.

Alaska is 11 square miles short of the combined territory of Texas, California, Montana and South Dakota, and million-acre fire seasons are routine. Fighting them varies little from techniques in other Western states other than scale, said Lynn Wilcock, chief of fire and aviation for the state Division of Forestry.

The federal government owns 60 percent of Alaska, the state owns 25 percent and Alaska Native corporations and Native individuals own about 14 percent, with less than 1 percent owned by other private interests. But for wildfire suppression, the state is split in half, with the Yukon River as the rough boundary. The federal Bureau of Land Management oversees the northern half of the state. The state Division of Forestry fights fires in the south half. The U.S. Forest Service manages fires in the Chugach and Tongass national forests.

For more than two decades, the agencies have had a plan that predetermines suppression levels, ranging from no response other than surveillance to full attack to save lives or buildings. When fire breaks out, firefighters can look at a map and tell whether it's likely to need suppression or monitoring.

Forests with little commercial value, and without structures or inhabitants, often are allowed to burn thousands of acres or more.

"Our area where we allow fires to burn is much broader that in the lower 48," Wilcock said.

It's good for the forest and often good for the wildlife, bringing an abundance of moose in following years.

Fire helps the predominant tree -- black spruce -- spread its seed and prepares the ground for those seeds to put down roots. The trees, rich in essential oils and resistant to moisture, are genetically predisposed to flaming.

Fifty-five percent of the boreal forest is black spruce, a short, slender conifer that can thrive in soil just 20 inches deep and withstand winter temperatures that routinely drop to minus-50 degrees. Another 20 percent of the forest is white spruce.

Black spruce, Wilcock said, will burn even if surrounded by standing water. The trees are "semi-serotinous," meaning some are sealed with pitch. When a fire moves through a stand of black spruce, the heat causes the cones to open. Cones not burned are made ready to spread seeds.

Black spruce has evolved to have waxy needles, preventing them from getting "wetted up" by rain, Juday said. The needles hold essential oils, volatile organic compounds that are highly flammable. Branches extend down to surface mosses and the trees act as ladders to lift flames on the ground to their tops, where fire can spread quickly from crown to crown.

Their proclivity for burning may be an adaptation to rid the forest floor of duff, thick organic matter that accumulates, Juday said. Spruce seeds don't do well on duff, Juday said. Such an insulating layer, protecting permafrost, also keeps soil cold and a fire allows warmth to penetrate for a time.

But summer warming has upset a balance in the forest death-and-regrowth cycle, Juday said. Eighty-five percent to 90 percent of the acreage is burned in fires started by lightning. Over history, for big fires to start, conditions just right for lightning without heavy rain had to find areas on the ground with extremely low moisture content, perhaps where winter snowpack was low.

With climate warming in Alaska, much more of the landscape experiences more days of extreme fire danger.

"You're getting more fires, bigger fires, more severe fires," Juday said. "When they burn, they burn hotter and more severely, and the interval between fires is getting shorter."

The northeast part of the state has been hit especially hard.

"In two years time, fires have burned one-fourth to one-third of all forest land," he said of the area. "It's really gone to a new set point in the whole system."

Warm weather in spring has extended the fire season.

A dangerous time for fires is the window between snow melt and "green up," when plants in the forest start sending up new shoots. Historically, grass from the previous year has not been much of a factor in spring forest fires because new growth appeared quickly. That's changed recently.

Snow in Alaska has been disappearing earlier but the soil has not warmed sufficiently to speed green up.

"Once the snow leaves, what you have in the understory is the dead grass from the previous year," Wilcock said. "All you need is two or three days of hot weather, and it can turn to tinder."

Fires broke out last year on the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage in late April, before all firefighting aircraft had arrived and more than a week before veteran crews were scheduled for refresher training.

Drought has extended Alaska's fire season in late summer.

Forest fires used to stop with a season-ending heavy rain in August. Alaska firefighting crews historically could be released to Western states, where the fire season starts and ends later.

The last two summers, 3 million acres have burned in August in Alaska, Wilcock said.

Two years ago, some forest fires didn't stop until snow fell in September. Some burned all winter, lodged deep in duff, itself more susceptible to burning because of drought.

Sharon Alden, meteorologist for the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center, forecasts above-normal fire potential on the Kenai Peninsula this year because of dry grasses and beetle-killed spruce. It's the same forecast for southwest Alaska because of low snowpack and warmer than normal predicted temperatures.

However, two years of El Nino and accompanying above-normal temperatures are expected to be replaced by a weak La Nina, which may mean more moisture in late summer.

posted April 15, 2006 05:33 PM            

Edits & Columns


TODAY 'S COLUMNIST

No ducking on the issue of climate change

Governments can no longer afford to dither over new post-Kyoto targets for GHG emissions

Vikram S Mehta

Climate change has been on the policy agenda for over a decade. The UN Framework convention on climate change in Rio in June 1992 stated as its objective the “stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system...and that such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.” This was followed by the Kyoto Protocol, which set a target for the 36 signatory developed countries to reduce emissions by at least 5% below 1990 levels in the period 2008-2012.

Notwithstanding these public declarations, governments, business and indeed the scientific community were initially divided over the impact of greenhouse gases on the climate. The US government did not sign the protocol; business questioned the scientific evidence and developing countries argued that the burden of the adjustment process was being unfairly and disproportionately thrust on them. The underlying tenor was a general reluctance to accept that current models of economic development had fundamentally altered the ecological balance. Change to existing practices was resisted.

The divisions have narrowed. There is now a consensus that climate change warrants a worldwide and coordinated response. And many of the early sceptics have publicly affirmed their concerns. President Bush has discovered a newfound interest in renewables. His ‘State of the Union’ address called for the development of alternatives to fossil fuels and the US is now working to rival Brazil as the largest producer of ethanol.

The problem is that despite this convergence of views and clarity of intent to contain GCH across the widest range of stakeholders, the results of action so far are falling well short of targets. Tony Blair’s government has had to admit the UK won’t meet its target of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (the most important of the greenhouse gases) by 20% by 2010.

I recently heard one of the world’s most eminent meteorological scientists, Sir John Houghton, talk about climate change and his message was optimistic but also numbingly anxious. First, he felt the world had accepted the seriousness of the problem. Early concerns that the rise in sea levels might, for instance, swamp Bangladesh and other low lying areas or that the doubling of CO2 could increase the frequency of extreme events like floods in winter over Northern Europe by a factor of five, or that the intensity of heat waves could devastate cropping patterns, were no longer being disregarded as the exaggerated clarion calls of a minority group of scientists.

Second, he felt the worst effects of global warming could still be arrested if appropriate actions were taken. The answers to what needed to be done were known and the technological solutions existed, or where they did not, tangible progress was being made to create these.

• Despite convergence on the need to contain emissions, action was limited
• Though it’s time to set targets beyond Kyoto, there are political hurdles
• India must proactively tap clean-technology skills of many of its companies

Sir John’s forewarning was also clear. He cited specifics to highlight the potentially devastating consequences of doing too little, too late.

The challenge ahead is clear. It is not to secure acknowledgement of the problem, nor to create a sense of urgency or, more specifically, to secure the commitment of the scientific and business community. These have been overcome. The challenge is to create the global institutional framework required to tackle a global problem. It is to persuade individuals, corporations and some governments that the problem is not so large that they cannot make a difference. Sir John ended his talk with a quote from Edmund Burke “No one made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do so little.”

The issue of climate change cannot be ducked. Nor can governments afford to dither over what should be the new targets, post-Kyoto in 2012. Or, in other words, on who should do what and what financial and other incentives should be provided to ensure continued research on cleaner energy. The imperative, particularly for the bigger producers of greenhouse gases like US, India and China, must be to spell out explicitly the reduction targets they wish to achieve after 2012. But, one can’t wish away the political hurdles. After all, it took governments five years to negotiate the Kyoto protocol. There is, therefore, an equal imperative to focus on sector-specific measures. India should consider the following:

Energy companies should accept a renewable obligation; business should tighten its building regulations and government should create a ‘carbon trust’ to support investment in energy efficiency particularly for SMEs; car manufacturers should accept an obligation to reduce CO2 emissions from new cars; builders must be incentivised to improve energy efficiency in buildings and the agricultural sector needs a clearer strategy for non-food crops.

Today India is the sixth largest emitter of CO2 in the world. This is because we do not impose stringent enough emission norms. But at the same time, we have a large number of companies working on clean technologies and there is a growing carbon credit market in the country. Our objective should be to harness these technological skills to government policy to create sustainable solutions for industry and economic development—irrespective of what others do.

posted April 15, 2006 06:45 PM            

However anyone so claiming would have to be immediately dismissed as an airhead who gets their opinions from Cracker Jacks boxes and these are just of few of the research institutions where those who signed the petitions actually do work.

So acoustic, do you want to be considered an airhead or do you want to admit these are some of the foremost applied research institutions in the world? Your choice.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
National Climatic Data Center
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
American Meteorological Society
Los Alamos National Laboratory
University of Virginia
Arizona State University
Colorado State University
U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory
National Meteorological Center
Forecast Systems Laboratory, NOAAH.
University of Illinois
Meteorological Standards Institute
Institute of Atmospheric Sciences
Sigma Research Corporation
Forest Meteorology, Yale University
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma
Wave Propagation Laboratory, NOM
National Center for Atmospheric Research

The reason you don't have and cannot find a list of "leading scientists" is because that list would be very short compared to the anti-global warming list of scientists. Futher, those nuts don't want to put their names on something which will blow up in their faces when the crackpot theory of global warming goes south.

While I'm waiting, I think I'll just go ahead and put AH beside your name acoustic, considering some of the other crackpot theories you've stated here.

posted April 15, 2006 07:15 PM              

yet jwhop throws up the los alamos labroratory as a source......a nuclear weapons factory....

posted April 15, 2006 07:23 PM              

********

Source: Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Posted: January 6, 2006

Global Warming Can Trigger Extreme Ocean, Climate Changes, Scripps-led Study Reveals

New research produced by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, helps illustrate how global warming caused by greenhouse gases can quickly disrupt ocean processes and lead to drastic climatological, biological and other important changes around the world.

posted April 15, 2006 07:26 PM              

Waves breaking against the shore (AP)
Warming oceans should contribute to sea-level rise
Scientists say they have "compelling" evidence that ocean warming over the past 40 years can be linked to the industrial release of carbon dioxide.

US researchers compared the rise in ocean temperatures with predictions from climate models and found human activity was the most likely cause.

"This is perhaps the most compelling evidence yet that global warming is happening right now and it shows that we can successfully simulate its past and likely future evolution," said lead author Tim Barnett, of the climate research division at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California.

"If you take this data and combine it with a decade of earlier results, the debate about whether or not there is a global warming signal here and now is over at least for rational people."

posted April 15, 2006 07:32 PM            

Professor Sir David King - Biography
David King ScD, FRS, FRSC, FinstP was appointed as the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Office of Science and Technology in October 2000.
Born in South Africa in 1939, and after an early career at the University of Witwatersrand, Imperial College and the University of East Anglia, he became the Brunner Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Liverpool in 1974.

In 1988, he was appointed 1920 Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and subsequently became Master of Downing College (1995-2000), and Head of the University Chemistry Department (1993-2000). He retains his position at Cambridge as 1920 Professor of Chemistry, where he is still active in research.

I see no academic or professional credentials held by King which would make his opinion on global warming meaningful in any way.

posted April 15, 2006 07:36 PM              

tell me jwhop, how many of the people who signed your fake petition are dentists???

hahahahahahahhahaha

************

posted April 15, 2006 08:00 PM            

The also isn't consensus on the subject at Scripps.

David P. Rogers, Ph.D., Assoc. Professor of Research Oceanography, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

There's a lot you don't know Petron...let's start with Los Alamos which carries out research in many fields and is more than a nuclear weapons factory or laboratory.

William M. Porch, Ph.D., Atmospheric Physicist, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Sigma is an applied research company, chemistry, nanotech etc.

Steven R. Hanna, Ph.D., Sigma Research Corporation

posted April 15, 2006 08:23 PM              

*******

In 1985, Dr Hanna was a cofounder of Sigma Research Corporation, which carried out basic and applied research on meteorology and air quality issues for a variety of clients. The company grew successfully and was purchased by Earth Tech in 1992.
http://www.envirocomp.com/Resumes/dr_shanna.htm

Sigma-Aldrich Co.

posted April 15, 2006 08:59 PM              

Earth Tech was originally founded as a regionally based geotechnical firm, serving clients, such as the U.S. Department of Defense, energy companies, and public and private utility companies.

Earth Tech is a vital member of the Tyco International family of companies. We offer two distinct lines of business:

* Consulting, engineering and construction, serving the water / wastewater, transportation, environmental, and facilities markets
* Water Infrastructure Development, providing design, build, finance and operate services
http://www.earthtech.com/

Founded in 1970, Earth Tech is a global water, environmental, and construction company serving government, commercial, and industrial clients. The firm also provides financing for design/build/operate projects for municipal public works and private industry. Additional services include remediation, transportation, waste management, and architecture. With headquarters in Long Beach, CA, Earth Tech has over 8,500 personnel in more than 130 offices worldwide.

posted April 15, 2006 09:46 PM            

Still digging that hole, eh Jwhop?

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI)

quote:

---

Q. Is the planet warming?
A. Yes.

Q Have humans contributed to the warming?
A. Yes, but there is debate over how much.
http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/abruptclimate_15misconceptions.html#ocean_1

---

National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)

Directed by Thomas R. Karl who testified before the Senate about climate change:

quote:

---

* Some greenhouse gases are increasing in the atmosphere because of human activities and increasingly trapping more heat.
http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/071801_karl.htm

---

(He's still director, and his site still links to that when you search for info on climate change.)

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

quote:

---

“What we’re now seeing with the rising tropopause and warming troposphere is that many different aspects of the climate system are telling us a consistent story—human activities are altering the Earth’s climate. All of these changes are consistent with our scientific should be responding to anthropogenic forcings. They are not consistent with the changes we would expect to occur from natural forcings alone.”
http://www.llnl.gov/str/March04/Santer.html

---

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

quote:

---

For more than a decade, Howard J. Herzog and his colleagues at MIT's Laboratory for Energy and the Environment (LFEE) have been studying one approach to climate-change mitigation. In carbon-dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS), the CO2 emissions from large sources that contribute to global warming are captured and injected into geologic formations for long-term storage.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/climate-0316.html

---