posted 12-24-2003 12:49 AM               

Cold kills 'thousands' in a week

"Experts are warning that over 2,500 people in England and Wales are likely to have died in the past week as a direct result of the cold weather. "

Oh, there goes that dumb old Sore Throat, shooting himself in the foot again. See, look right there, in England 2,500 people die in one week because of the COLD !
Ha, see even in these urban heat islands it's so cold that people are literally freezing to death. Can't you see what a total hoax gLoBaL WaRmIng is? And this coming on the heels of a summer where over 20,000 people in Western Europe were reported to have died because of the extreme heat. IDIOT !

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Well, so here's the deal. It's really Eduardo that chooses to use the term GLOBAL WARMING (and quite intentionally to be sure). I prefer to talk about human induced climatic instability...on a global scale. Eduardo likes to simplify things that are really extremely complicated.

But the deaths in England are not at all inconsistent with exactly what is predicted.
The melting of the Greenland ice sheets will pour a tremendous amount of cold melted fresh water into the North Atlantic. This will distrupt extremely important (on a global scale) circulation patterns, not the least of which is the Gulf Stream which is responsible for the temperate climate of the British Isles. Yep, just as predicted.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0926/p14s02-sten.htm

Into the cold?

Slowing ocean circulation could presage dramatic – and chilly – climate change

By Robert C. Cowen |
Special to The Christian Science Monitor

Call it global warming's dirty little secret. Those much-publicized scenarios of how carbon-dioxide (CO2) pollution may gradually heat up the earth don't tell you another key fact: that climate has sometimes changed without warning. It can go from warm to cold – or cold to warm – in less than decade, and stay that way for centuries.

Water-circulation data from the North Atlantic now suggest the climate system may be approaching that kind of threshold. If man-made warming or natural causes push it over the edge, the system will chill down many temperate parts of North America and Europe, even while the planet as a whole continues to warm.

.....more insight by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Director director Robert Gagosian. Read the full article to see someone who is willing to speculate on possible catastrophic consequences of climate change.. but yeah, that's right, Bob and Eduardo are good friends...remember? He would NEVER say ANYTHING disparaging about this "colleague". Gagosian is immune from any of Eduardo's criticism of those talking about environmental catastrophes.

So others should understand that Eduardo, with all of his bravado and black and white simplification, is largely missing the point. Can he provide the example of glacial advance in Norway? Yes, it's an area that's an EXCEPTION to the global trend of retreat... and attempt to discount a far broader reality. Sure he can, and in Norway there are advancing glaciers. But what is going on there is part of a much larger picture that he does not want you to see.

You should ask yourself, "Why is that"?

posted 12-24-2003 01:22 AM               

1880-2002 Temperature Time Series
Latitude Range -90 to 90, Longitude Range -180 to 180
(from the Global Historical Climatology Network dataset)

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1880-2002 Temperature Time Series
Latitude Range -90 to 90, Longitude Range -180 to 180
(from the Jones et al. dataset)

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1979-2002 Temperature Time Series
Latitude Range -90 to 90, Longitude Range -180 to 180
(from the MSU dataset)

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[b/]1958-2002 Temperature Time Series
Latitude Range -90 to 90
(from the Radiosonde dataset)[/b]

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[b] Note that these graphs are plotted from all data from the datasets presented at CO2 Science.

posted 12-24-2003 11:23 AM               

quote:

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"Experts are warning that over 2,500 people in England and Wales are likely to have died in the past week as a direct result of the cold weather."

Oh, there goes that dumb old Sore Throat, shooting himself in the foot again. See, look right there, in England 2,500 people die in one week because of the COLD !
Ha, see even in these urban heat islands it's so cold that people are literally freezing to death. Can't you see what a total hoax gLoBaL WaRmIng is? And this coming on the heels of a summer where over 20,000 people in Western Europe were reported to have died because of the extreme heat. IDIOT !

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You are contradicting yourself once more. You ridicule the deaths from cold, by immediately afterwards you insist on the deaths by extreme heat. As if we didn't know that victims of heat are 90% in the ”senior citizen” part of the population, suffering most from dehydration – and lack of care from their younger parents. The same applies to the cold spells, but, as you stated, the effect is less noticeable in urban heat islands.

quote:

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Well, so here's the deal. It's really Eduardo that chooses to use the term GLOBAL WARMING (and quite intentionally to be sure). I prefer to talk about human induced climatic instability... on a global scale. Eduardo likes to simplify things that are really extremely complicated.

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posted 12-24-2003 11:36 AM               

quote:

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But the deaths in England are not at all inconsistent with exactly what is predicted. The melting of the Greenland ice sheets will pour a tremendous amount of cold melted fresh water into the North Atlantic. This will disrupt extremely important (on a global scale) circulation patterns, not the least of which is the Gulf Stream which is responsible for the temperate climate of the British Isles. Yep, just as predicted.

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The melting of Greenland's glaciers are model artifacts. Ice packs on Greenland are increasing. Scientists claiming the melt, say the melted water go under the ice packs “lubricating” the glacier's advance into the waters. I would like to hear the physical explanation of “liquid” water, (above freezing point”) making its way down hundreds of meters of extremely cold ice – without being frozen in the way.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Greenland cools as world warms
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2840137.stm

Greenland cools as world warms
By Jonathan Amos
BBC News Online science staff

Greenland is significantly cooler now than it was 40 years ago.

While scientists report warming trends in many parts of the globe, it seems this northern polar region has been moving in the other direction. The finding is based on an analysis of historical meteorological data collected by Danish researchers.

It shows that during the period 1958 to 2001 average temperatures in the southern part of the island fell by 1.29 C. Sea-surface temperatures in the Labrador Sea also fell.

Globally, temperatures have risen over this period (+0.53 C) and in Greenland itself scientists have recently reported fairly dramatic thinning of the island's ice sheet.

But Dr Edward Hanna, from the Institute of Marine Studies at the University of Plymouth, UK, said that, as with all climate science, a fuller picture emerges when long-term data are taken into account.

Climate phenomenon

"It really depends on what timescale you are looking at," he told BBC News Online. "Certainly in the late 1990s, there was some warming but that's just over a very short period. There are a lot of natural cycles in regional climate and if you take a longer trend over the last 40 or 50 years then there has been a statistically significant cooling, particularly in south-western coastal Greenland."

Dr Hanna together with Dr John Cappelen, of the Danish Meteorological Institute in Copenhagen, present their Greenland analysis in the journal Geophysical Review Letters.

It looks at data collected at eight stations. The cooling trend, they believe, is associated with an increased phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) that has been observed over the past 35 years.

The NAO is a natural and recurring pressure pattern that has a profound impact on the weather experienced in the North Atlantic region - at the moment bringing milder, wetter winters to Northern Europe. Hanna and Cappelen believe the NAO is likely linked with temperature reductions along the Greenland coast and is responsible for slowing the island's ice melting rate, in contrast to evidence of global warming.

Plane study

"And in fact, I've just been looking at the 2002 data and that appears to show a tailing off of the recent warming," Dr Hanna said. He added: "I think the message from all this is that global warming is not a uniform process and you do get regional disparities."

Greenland covers more than two million square kilometres and 85% of the island is covered by ice, some of which is over three kilometres thick. Concerns about warming in the region during the 1990s first came to the public's attention with a US space agency (Nasa) study which flew aircraft equipped with laser altimeters over the island to measure the profile of the ice.

Nasa found the ice had lost up to five metres in thickness over a five-year period. Other, more recent studies have continued to document a rapid thaw. Greenland is important to climate studies because, having grounded ice, any significant melting would raise sea levels - by 6-7 metres if it were all to go.

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As you see, the closing remarks contradicts completely what they had just reported. Or is that what they reported contradicts and cast a serious shadow of doubt on those "more recent studies".

posted 12-24-2003 12:20 PM               

quote:

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The way to shut down the pump is to dilute the inflow water to the point where it is no longer salty enough to sink deeply and flow southward near the bottom. That seems to be happening now. Last April, Robert Dickson of Britain's Centre for Environment, Fisheries, and Agricultural Science, together with colleagues from Canada, Germany, and Scotland reported in Nature magazine that fresh water has been diluting the North Atlantic for the past four decades. Research by other groups confirms this trend.

---

The problem claimed is “salty waters sinking deeply and flowing southwards near the bottom”. They blame Greenland's and Arctic ice melting for the input of fresh water. They say the solution is “diluting the inflow water to the point where it is no longer salty enough to sink deeply.” Then, the solution seems to be in progress. So, what are they complaining about?

quote:

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Joyce says the evidence "strongly suggests" the North Atlantic pump is "threatened by fresh-water dilution." The cause is unclear. It could be a subtle effect of global warming. Changes in air circulation have altered the freezing and melting patterns of Arctic ice generally. Ice in the Arctic Ocean, in particular, has thinned. Also, the Arctic has warmed to the point where melting permafrost now is a major concern. But there is no clear causal pattern to the North Atlantic fresh-water dilution.

---

And what about this for a strange headline:

Global Warming Freezes Reindeers
(In the printed edition of New Scientist, March 8, 2003, p.24).

As reported in page 24 of the printed edition of "New Scientist", it looks as the reindeers cannot feed because the permafrost has frozen due to prolonged and extremely low temperatures during last winter – but New Scientist blames the freezing of the permafrost to “warming”. It is the same as "Get ice cubes for your whiskey by boiling water.". Isn't this stretching our patience regarding shoddy reporting beyond tolerable limits?

posted 12-24-2003 12:44 PM               

11 December 2003

BETSY MASON

Many of the 10,000 scientists attending this week's annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) study climate change. Collecting them all in San Francisco undoubtedly increases our understanding of global warming, but it releases more than 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, pointed out one of this year's delegates.

"The typical round-trip travel for an AGU attendee last year was almost 8,000 kilometres," said Lawrence Plug, who studies permafrost at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

Using data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Plug and undergraduate Borden Scott estimate that each scientist released 0.16 kilograms of carbon dioxide for each kilometre he or she travelled by plane. In other words, each was responsible for almost 1.3 tonnes of the gas.

This is a tiny fraction of total human carbon dioxide emissions. But each attendee's contribution for just this one meeting is equivalent to one-sixteenth of the average American's yearly emissions, and one-seventh of the average for Britain or Japan. Many researchers attend several such gatherings each year.

"Scientists travelling to meetings are a part of the market that drives the number of flights scheduled," Plug told the meeting. "We should have more awareness than everyone else in the market. Personally, I think it makes me more culpable."

Fellow delegates agreed, but said that they would still attend meetings because face-to-face scientific exchange is invaluable. "Maybe I'm not doing the right thing by weighing my convenience over the greater good," admitted Peter Selkin of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. "I think it's a little better to drive if you have two people in a fuel-efficient car, but I don't always have a whole day to do it," he said.

Plug suggested that scientific organizations do something to offset the consequences of the air travel involved in research, such as preserving a chunk of Brazilian rainforest each year. Other scientists are lobbying for increased virtual conferencing.

Moveable feast

Scott and Plug also worked out what the total emissions would have been if the AGU meeting had taken place in one of 60 other major US cities. Holding the conference in Denver, Colorado, "would give us a 7.7% reduction in emissions", said Plug.

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posted 12-24-2003 03:22 PM               

quote:

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Right now, those climate simulations don't deal with the nasty surprises Gagosian anticipates if the North Atlantic circulation pump shuts down, as it has done in some past climate changes.

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quote:

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In Gagosian's words, it could "freeze rivers and harbors … etc, …” Efforts to curb CO2 emissions to slow global warming would become a secondary issue as people tried to cope with more immediate challenges.

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While in Brazil, I met professor Luiz Carlos Baldicero Molion, from the Dept. of Meteorology at the Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil. He published years ago a paper titled: “Volcanoes Affect Global Climate”. Besides showing the way volcanoes affect global climate (not for very long time, as he and many others know, but long enough), he pointed to me that the analysis for longer trends show a different picture. He took the data coming from the Hohenpeissenberg station in the Bavarian Alps, where reliable data goes back to 1790.

Baldicero Molion stresses it is a region that practically has not suffered modifications during the last two centuries. He showed us that temperatures dropped 1,5º C since 1790 to 1880, and then went up again to the same levels of 1790. Of course, the drop in temperatures were not induced by man, so there is a natural cause for it. The increase since 1880 up to the 1930s, saw also almost no human intervention. So there is a natural cause behind it.

The graph he supplied from his article is the following. There are two plots sumpeimposed. Plot A is about the Hohenpeissenberg station temperatures (in green), and Plot B, temperatures as calculated by Jones et al., in 1998 (in red). The graph indicates that temperatures at Hohenpeissenberg in 1840 were about the same as today, and were higher yet in 1800. So Baldicero says, quite correctly: “If we make a trend graph of temperatures since 1800 or 1840 until now, then there will be not an upward trending, but a steady or decreasing one.”

He kept saying that volcanic activity (or better – the lack of it) as the cause of Global warming must be considered as the time lapse from the 1800s century and the 1880s was one of great volcanic activity, which correlates with de drop in temperatures in that period. Some years after the Krakatoa eruption in java in 1883, volcanic activity was reduced, the stratosphere was clearer and the temperature rose, until the 1960s (with some volcanic activity and the Pinatubo eruption), that temperatures decreased again.

So the deal here is: Earth is warming. OK. But since when? We have some departure points to choose:

Starting from:

1) 1200 AD, we see a cooling trend of about -2º C.
2) 1500, we see an upward trend of +4º C.
3) 1800, we see no trend.
4) 1880, we see an upward of +0.5º C
5) 1979, we see a cooling of -0.1º C

Is this analysis too absurd or unscientific?

Compare then summer temperatures in Europe since 1780 to 1989. This might interest those screaming because heat waves:

The legend says: Summer Temperatures in Europe 1780-1989. In the left side. "Deviations from long term mean temperatures (ºC)"

posted 12-24-2003 04:02 PM               

Climate change and civilisation

Time and chance

Natural climate change may have started civilisation. And the spread of farming may have caused as much global warming as industry is causing now

PEOPLE, like most animals, are naturally lazy. So the ascent of mankind is something of a mystery. Humans who make their livings hunting and gathering in the traditional way do not have to put much effort into it. Farmers who rely on rain to water their crops work significantly harder, and lead shorter and unhealthier lives. But the real back-breaking, health-destroying labour is that carried out by farmers who use irrigation. Yet it was the invention of irrigation, at first sight so detrimental to its practitioners, that actually produced a sufficient surplus to feed the priests, politicians, scholars, artists and so on whose activities are collectively thought of as “civilisation”.

Given all the extra effort involved, why people first bothered to plant crops, and more particularly why they then went on to plant them near rivers running through deserts—with all the attendant canal-digging that required—is a puzzling question. But some light was shed on it at a recent meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in San Francisco. It may all, it seems, be down to climate change.

Necessity and invention
In the past 10,000 years, the world's climate has become temporarily colder and drier on several occasions. The first of these, known as the Younger Dryas, after a tundra-loving plant that thrived during it, occurred at the same time as the beginning of agriculture in northern Mesopotamia, in land now controlled by Turkey, Iraq and Syria. It is widely believed by students of the field that this was not a coincidence. The drying and cooling of the Younger Dryas adversely affected the food supply of hunter-gatherers. That would have created an incentive for agriculture to spread once some bright spark invented it.

Why farmers then moved on to irrigation is, however, far from clear. But Harvey Weiss, of Yale University, thinks he knows, and he outlined his ideas to the meeting.

Dr Weiss observes that the development of irrigation coincides with a second cool, dry period, some 8,200 years ago. His analysis of rainfall patterns in the area suggests that rainfall in agriculture's upper-Mesopotamian heartland would, at this time, have fallen below the level needed to sustain farming reliably. Farmers would thus have been forced out of the area in search of other opportunities.

Once again, an innovative spark was required. But it clearly occurred to some of these displaced farmers that the slow-moving waters of the lower Tigris and Euphrates, near sea level, could be diverted using canals and used to water crops. And the rest, as the cliché has it, is history.

Even irrigated civilisations are not, however, immune from climate change. One of Dr Weiss's former students, Sarah Parcak, of Cambridge University, presented data to the meeting on how a third period of cooling and drying, 4,200 years ago, destroyed the Old Kingdom of Egypt.

Ms Parcak re-analysed a number of satellite photographs to produce a comprehensive survey of “tells” in part of the Nile delta. A tell is a mound that marks the site of an ancient settlement (it is the result of debris from human activity in the settlement building up over the years). Her analysis located 44 previously unidentified tells, which she then dated from shards of pottery she picked up there. Adding her data to that from known and studied tells, she was able to tell, as it were, the story of the Old Kingdom's demise, and its connection with climate change.

Though Egyptian agriculture was (and still is) based on irrigation, the flow of the Nile is controlled ultimately by rainfall patterns at its headwaters. Ms Parcak found a precise correlation between settlement patterns in her study area and climate change. The population shrank drastically as the global climate cooled. Some 27 sites were occupied before this happened. That dropped to four after the change.

Of course, rain-fed agriculture is even more vulnerable to climate change than the irrigated variety, as Ms Parcak's Cambridge colleague Lauren Ristvet showed the conference with her study of northern Syria during the same period as the fall of Egypt's Old Kingdom. Like Ms Parcak, she identified sites from satellite photographs and then dated them by visiting them. She then correlated the data from these visits with estimates of local rainfall made by examining the composition of rocks from nearby caves. These suggested that rainfall had fallen by 20-30% in the global cooling 4,200 years ago. That may not sound disastrous, but it would have been enough to make farming in the area unviable.

The evidence on the ground suggests that this is exactly what happened. Agricultural villages disappeared, to be replaced by the temporary camps of pastoralists, whose herds grazed on wild plants which required less rainfall than farmed crops. It is not surprising, then, that this hitherto unobserved demographic change coincides with the collapse of the Akkadian empire, which controlled the area until 4,200 years ago.

Change and decay
So climate change helped to intensify agriculture, and thus start civilisation. But an equally intriguing idea put forward at the meeting is that the spread of agriculture caused climate change.

In this case, the presumed culprit is forest clearance. Most of the land cultivated by early farmers in the Middle East, Europe and southern China would have been forested. When the trees that grew there were cleared, the carbon they contained ended up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Moreover, one form of farming—the cultivation of rice in waterlogged fields—generates methane, another greenhouse gas, in large quantities. William Ruddiman, of the University of Virginia, explained to delegates his theory that, in combination, these two phenomena had warmed the atmosphere prior to the start of the industrial era by as much as all the greenhouse gases emitted since.

Dr Ruddiman's hypothesis is grounded on recent deviations from the regular climatic pattern of the past 400,000 years. This pattern is controlled by what are known as the Milankovitch cycles, which are in turn caused by periodic changes in the Earth's orbit and angle of tilt toward the sun. One effect of the Milankovitch cycles is to cause regular and predictable changes in the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane. These changes can be followed by studying ice cores taken in Antarctica.

According to Dr Ruddiman, the changes seen in the cores are as regular as clockwork until about 8,000 years ago. At that time carbon dioxide levels begin to rise at a point when they ought to start falling. About 5,000 years ago there is another upward deviation, this time in methane levels. The former, he contends, coincides with the beginning of extensive deforestation associated with the spread of agriculture into Europe and China. The latter coincides with the invention of “wet rice” farming. In combination, he calculates, these upward deviations make the atmosphere about 0.8°C warmer than it would otherwise be at this point in the Milankovitch cycles, independently of any greenhouse warming caused by industrialisation. That has been enough to keep parts of Canada that would otherwise be covered in glaciers, ice-free.

Of course, this is a difficult hypothesis to test. But Dr Ruddiman does have a test of sorts. Three times in the past 2,000 years, there have been periods of cooling (most recently, the “little ice age” of the 17th and 18th centuries). These, he notes, followed the three largest known periods of plague, when the human population shrank in various parts of the world. The first period was a series of plagues that racked the Roman empire from the third to the sixth centuries. The second was the Black Death and its aftermath. The third was the epidemic of smallpox and other diseases that reduced the population of the Americas from some 50m to about 5m in the centuries after Europeans arrived, and which coincided with the little ice age. In each case, a lot of previously farmed land turned back into forest, sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and cooling the climate. As environmentalists are wont to observe, mankind is part of nature. These observations show just how intimate the relationship is.

posted 12-24-2003 04:17 PM               

Nothing virtual about global warming

By RICHARD STEINER
PROFESSOR

President Bush recently chided Saddam Hussein for his cowardly attempt to hide, saying that "when the heat got on, you dug yourself a hole and you crawled in it." These same words also describe the attempts by Bush and friends to evade the issue of global warming. It's time for them to crawl out of their hole.

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that global warming is real, it's serious, it's caused mostly by humans and it is to some extent correctable. But due to the intransigence of the Bush administration and comrades, virtually nothing has been done to correct it.

These folks have not only tried to scuttle the Kyoto Protocol but the U.S. Senate recently voted down an even more modest attempt to cap greenhouse gas emissions -- the Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 -- in the United States at the year 2000 levels by year 2010. That would be far less extensive than cuts proposed by Kyoto. The act was broadly supported by mayors, unions and insurers and would have saved the U.S. economy some $48 billion a year in energy savings alone. But the administration and Senate conservatives would have nothing of it.

Worse, Congress is on the verge of passing a disastrous energy bill that only digs our fossil-energy hole deeper. This was the bill that was drawn up behind closed doors by Vice President Cheney's energy task force -- a group of old-guard fossil-fuel tycoons. Such policy is steering us to a train wreck, and it is time all Americans said enough is enough.

On global warming, the science is clear and unequivocal. In Alaska the warming over just the past 40 years has been astonishing. Arctic air temperatures have increased over 5 degrees, sea ice cover is shrinking at a rate of 3 percent per decade and the thickness of the arctic ice cap has decreased from 10 feet to 6 feet. Glaciers are receding and thinning across the arctic and elsewhere, contributing to a measurable sea level rise.

Storm surge is causing "an unprecedented coastal retreat," according to the C; that's up to 150 feet in five years at one location. Thawing permafrost is causing serious ground subsidence, adding huge costs to infrastructure maintenance. Forest fires and insect infestations have increased, and warm water in the Bering Sea has caused seabird die-offs, rare algal blooms and dramatic declines in salmon runs. Scientists now fear that the Arctic Ocean may be ice-free by century's end.

Science is also clear that most of this recent warming is caused by human activities. Globally, burning of fossil fuels has increased almost five-fold in the past 50 years, releasing about 6.5 billion tons of carbon as CO2 into the atmosphere each year. Atmospheric CO2 levels are 31 percent higher today than pre-industrial levels, higher than at any time in the last 400,000 years and perhaps the past 20 million years. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that "most of the observed warming over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities," a conclusion confirmed by the National Academy of Sciences and other scientific bodies.

The American Geophysical Union recently said greenhouse warming is a "virtual certainty" and that it "constitutes a real basis for concern."And the World Meteorological Organization reports that the three hottest years since the beginning of record keeping in 1861 have all been in the past six years, with 2003 the third hottest.

If the present impacts of global warming are of concern, the future looks far worse. But instead of acting on this information, the current administration is issuing calls for more studies and voluntary actions. Administration officials have fabricated "scientific uncertainty" as a reason to do nothing. With an issue so important to the future of humanity, such paralysis-by-analysis is outrageous.

We need to reduce global carbon emissions by about two-thirds, and we know exactly how to do this: more energy efficient cars and power plants, mass transit and alternative energy sources, improved building and appliance standards, efficiency subsidies, and so on. We need an energy bill to do precisely that, and Americans should insist that Congress kill the current energy bill and make a real attempt to solve the energy/warming problem.

Despite the administration's deceits, such precautionary action would not only alleviate global warming but also help relieve our energy crisis, reduce health impacts of air pollution and improve our economy as well.

The only real question left in the global warming debate is how long we will let Bush and his political allies hide in their hole.

posted 12-24-2003 04:36 PM               

Here is the press release for their article, "Enhanced or Impaired? Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World"

http://www.co2science.org/reports/health/healthpr.pdf

Study Touts Health Benefits of CO2-Enriched Warmer World

The idea that CO2-induced global warming will exacerbate a host of human maladies has become entrenched in popular culture. Hardly a heat wave passes, for example, but what climate alarmists are quick to blame global warming for any excess deaths that may have been associated with it, while grim prognostications of the warming-induced spread of tropical diseases conjure up visions of deadly epidemics poised to engulf the world.

A new report from the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change reviews these and other similar claims, finding them to be wholly without merit. In fact, it finds that people would likely be healthier and live considerably longer in a world of higher temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentration.

The report – Enhanced or Impaired? Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World – reviews numerous scientific studies that have looked at the entire range of temperature experienced by earth’s inhabitants. [/b]These studies clearly demonstrate that an across-theboard temperature increase would save the lives of many more people at the cold end of the temperature spectrum than it would kill at the hot end[/b], in both cold and warm climates. In addition, the majority of the studies find that numerous deaths attributed to heat waves typically would have occurred a few days to weeks later, even in the absence of the spikes in air temperature. Deaths due to cold spells, on the other hand, generally do not show this “early harvesting” effect, demonstrating that warming is far to be preferred above cooling or even the status quo.

The provocative report also describes a number of non-climatic effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment that positively impact human health, including the concentration enhancement of various health-promoting constituents of food and medicinal plants. These are phenomena about which the world’s climate alarmists say very little; for they tend to enhance people’s quality of life.

Last of all, the new study reviews the history of human lifespan and how it has risen dramatically over the past two centuries, during which time the air’s CO2 concentration and temperature both rose substantially and should therefore, according to climate-alarmist thought, have wrought a multitude of ills upon humanity.

Written by the father-and-sons team of Sherwood, Craig and Keith Idso, Enhanced or Impaired? Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World can be viewed or downloaded at the Internet website of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change at www.co2science.org.

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http://www.kwikpower.com/AREAS/GC/gc04.htm

ExxonMobil Emerges as Major Funder of "GREENHOUSE SKEPTICS"

ExxonMobil has become a major funder of the most visible "greenhouse skeptics", most of whom who have traditionally been funded by the coal industry -- including S. Fred Singer, Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling and Sherwood Idso.

ExxonMobil is the world's third largest corporation with annual profits of about $17 billion. The company is using some of those profits to confuse the public discussion of global climate change. ExxonMobil is sabotaging the work of more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries by funding the most visible "greenhouse skeptics" -- one of whom, S. Fred Singer, publicly denied receiving oil industry money as recently as February, 2001.

According to 1998, ExxonMobil documents, the company directly funds:

S. Fred Singer's institute, The Science and Environmental Policy Project as well as another foundation that promotes Singer's activities; and,

Craig Idso, Keith E. Idso and Sherwood Idso's institute: The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.

ExxonMobil grants have indirectly funded Patrick Michaels and Robert Balling.

In its own documents, ExxonMobil is quite clear about why it funds the tiny handful of dissenting "greenhouse skeptics": "ExxonMobil provides support to selected organizations that assess public policy alternatives on issues with direct bearing on the company's business operations and interests."

S. Fred Singer:

On Feb 12, 2001, Singer wrote a letter to The Washington Post in which he denied receiving any oil company money in the previous 20 years when he had consulted for the oil industry.

According to ExxonMobil documents, the company gave a 1998 grant of $10,000 to Singer's institute, the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP). It gave another $65,000 to the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Fairfax, Virginia which promotes Singer's work.

In its web page, "Atlas invites other institutes to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the proximity of SEPP. The organization's founding president, Dr. S. Fred Singer, is a well-known physical scientist who has been an active contributor in the battle against the 'politicization' of science. Singer, along with a handful of other prominent scientists, have dared to challenge claims of environmental apocalypse from global warming…Fortunately for those who believe that public policy should be based on sound science, Dr. Singer offers a wealth of information, credibility, and encouragement."

In his letter to The Washington Post, Singer wrote: "My connection to oil during the past decade is as a Wesson Fellow at the Hoover Institution; the Wesson money derives from salad oil."

In 1998, ExxonMobil gave $135,000 to the Hoover Institution -- the same year Singer published an article in the institution's publication, The Hoover Digest.

Singer's falsehood about industry funding in The Washington Post is the latest in a series of fabrications and untruths.

In 1997, Singer told the press that former IPCC Chairman Dr. Bert Bolin has changed his mind about climate change. According to Singer, Bolin had dismissed the connection between atmospheric warming and extreme weather events – and was distressed that the Clinton Administration was taking measures to reduce emissions.

Bolin subsequently denied making the statements. Bolin said it was "scientifically accurate" to note that extreme weather effects "are consistent with the predicted effects of climate change.

Referring to Singer's attribution of bogus statements to Bolin, the Swedish physicist dismissed them as "inaccurate and misleading."

Singer followed that misrepresentation with an attack on the integrity of the entire IPCC process in an interview last January in The New American, the magazine of the ultra-conservative John Birch Society.

Singer is also on the staff of the ultra-conservative Frontiers of Freedom institute. According to its mission statement, Frontiers of Freedom "is the antithesis to the Sierra Club and Vice President Al Gore's Earth in the Balance. Frontiers works to advance States' rights, protect property rights, privatize Social Security, defend first amendment civil liberties, and among other efforts to reform the federal tax code, the Endangered Species Act, and the Food and Drug Administration."

Frontiers of Freedom is funded by ExxonMobil among others, according to the Wall Street Journal.

While Singer loudly touts himself as an accomplished scientist, he has been unable to publish his work in any peer- reviewed scientific journal for at least 15 years, except for one technical comment.

Patrick Michaels:

ExxonMobil also funds The Cato Institute's Environment and Natural Resources program. In 1998, ExxonMobil gave a grant of $15,000 to the Institute's program. Patrick Michaels is a Senior Fellow in that Cato Program.

Michaels has been one of the most visible of the "greenhouse skeptics." In a critique of Michaels' work, printed in an appendix to The Heat Is On, Dr. Tom M. L. Wigley, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research wrote:

"Michaels' statements on [the subject of computer models] are a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation…Many of the supposedly factual statements made by Michaels are either inaccurate or are seriously misleading." Wigley concluded that no only would Michaels' work not pass the scientific peer-review process, it is so deeply flawed it would not even be accepted for such review.

Michaels has received hundreds of thousands in industry funding from the German Coal Mining Association, the Western Fuels Association and Cyprus Minerals, a leading funder of the virulently anti-environmental "Wise Use Movement" of the early 1990s.

His newsletter, "World Climate Report" , was funded by The Western Fuels Association and sent free of charge to every member of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

Michaels is on the board of the Greening Earth Society, a creation of The Western Fuels Association

Dr. Robert Balling:

Exxon Mobil also funds The Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, which published "The Heated Debate," a 1992 book by Dr. Robert Balling, another prominent "greenhouse skeptic."

In a review of Balling's book, Dr. Michael MacCracken, director, U.S. Office of Global Change Research Programs, wrote: "Balling's book is frustrating. Despite its title, the book is clearly not a documentary of the debate that is taking place…Balling sets up a ‘straw man' catastrophist vision in which it is rather easy to punch holes. It would have been much more of a challenge had he taken on the authoritative report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

Balling, based at Arizona State University, has received more than $300,000 in funding from the Western Fuels Association, the British Coal Corporation, Cyprus Minerals and OPEC. His research was funded in part by the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research.

Balling is on the board of the Greening Earth Society, a creation of the Western Fuels Association.

Craig Idso, Keith E. Idso, Sherwood Idso

ExxonMobil funds the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Tempe, Arizona.

This center, which has been closely affiliated with Western Fuels Association, has Craig Idso as president, Keith E. Idso as vice president and Sherwood Idso as its scientific advisor.

Sherwood Idso created a $250,000 video for Western Fuels in 1991 titled "The Greening of Planet Earth" which touts the virtues of global warming. The highly misleading video – which claims that global warming is good for humanity was paid for by the coal industry and was the subject of Congressional Hearings in the early 1990s.

Keith E. Idso has published the results of the center's work, among other places, in the John Birch Society magazine, "The New American."

While The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide has tried to distance itself from the coal industry and Western Fuels Association, a look at the Western Fuels website indicates otherwise.

Documentation for ExxonMobil's funding of the "greenhouse skeptics" can be found on the ExxonMobil website.

For more information about ExxonMobil and global warming, visit the site of Campaign ExxonMobil.
*********************************************

Please note that a large number of the "scientists" being cited by Eduardo are being funded by ExxonMobil.

posted 12-24-2003 05:29 PM               

quote:

---

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that global warming is real, it's serious, it's caused mostly by humans and it is to some extent correctable.

---

quote:

---

The act was broadly supported by mayors, unions and insurers and would have saved the U.S. economy some $48 billion a year in energy savings alone.

---

quote:

---

On global warming, the science is clear and unequivocal.

---

On the contrary, they purposes are highly anti humanitarian, even criminal, as they are based on the philosophy advanced by the Club of Rome and its followers of enforcing world depopulation by any available means.

I, or any other person with at least three honest neurons working, could analyze and destroy every piece of what this stooge claims. But it is not worthwhile. Just another idiotic, pathetic and laughable show of Green Paranoia. But I left the closing statement for you to think about:

quote:

---

Despite the administration's deceits, such precautionary action would not only alleviate global warming but also help relieve our energy crisis, reduce health impacts of air pollution and improve our economy as well.

---

posted 12-24-2003 05:58 PM               

"No more press releases. Just hard facts, and sound science."

Especially after YOU have just posted a BBC story on Greenland.

Let's at least be consistent.

So to "balance things out", let's look at the following:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-12/osu-mgg120803.php

Major Greenland glacier, once stable, now shrinking dramatically

One of the world's fastest-moving glaciers is speeding up and retreating rapidly, a recent study has revealed.

The finding has surprised scientists, because while the margins of the Jakobshavn (pronounced "yah-cub-SAH-ven") Glacier had been slowly retreating from the southwest coast of Greenland since before 1900, this retreat appeared to have stopped by the early 1990s when the first accurate measurements were made. Now the glacier is accelerating.

The glacier, one of the major drainage outlets of Greenland's interior ice sheet, is thinning more than four times faster than it had for most of the 20th Century. Accompanying this thinning is a substantial increase in ice speed.
_____________________________________________

This image of Tassiusaq Fjord on the west coast of Greenland shows a moraine -- a pile of boulders and other debris pushed up by a glacier which has long since retreated inland. Scientists at Ohio State University and their colleagues will use plant material found in moraines to gauge the flow and retreat of glaciers on the island. A new study using data from NASA’s Landsat 7 and Terra satellites has shown that the nearby Jakobshavn Glacier is flowing faster than before, and it is retreating rapidly from the Greenland coastline. Data for this image came from Terra’s Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer instrument. Image created by Catherine Tremper, courtesy of Ohio State University.
A full-size version of this image is available here:
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/greenicepics.htm
_____________________________________________

Among those examining the situation are scientists at Ohio State University, who are processing the satellite data and pinpointing the best sites for a follow-up study.

Bea Csatho, research scientist at Ohio State's Byrd Polar Research Center (BPRC), leads the university's portion of the larger project, which is headed by Waleed Abdalati, a program manager at NASA. Abdalati presented the team's latest results Tuesday, December 9, at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Glaciers such as Jakobshavn are large, flowing masses of ice that contain smaller streams of ice that move independently within them, just as the Gulf Stream moves within the Atlantic Ocean.

Glaciers and ice streams carry ice from the interior of an even larger ice sheet out to sea, where the ice breaks up into icebergs in a region called the calving front. In the critical region upstream from the calving front, scientists measure the thickness of the ice to gauge conditions within the glacier.

Scientists believe that Jakobshavn remained unchanged until 1900, when the ice surface near the calving front began lowering by 2.5 meters (about 8 feet) per year on average. According to the new data collected by NASA's Airborne Topographic Mapper laser system, the glacier was slightly thickening between 1991 and 1999, before it started to thin rapidly. Current thinning rates have reached 12 meters (about 39 feet) per year.

That's probably because the Jakobshavn Glacier, which was flowing at 7 kilometers (about 4.4 miles) per year, is now flowing at 9 kilometers (about 5.6 miles) per year, said Kees van der Veen, visiting associate professor of geological sciences and research scientist at BPRC.

"This ice stream is pretty important, because it drains a large part of the Greenland ice into Baffin Bay," he said. "What we want to know is how significant is this increase in activity, and exactly how long has it been going on?"

Key to the study is the processing of satellite data, in this case from NASA's Landsat 7 and Terra satellites. In the study reported at the meeting by Abdalati, scientists used Landsat 7 images to determine the velocity of the glacier by tracking distinct features on the imagery.

These images also carry information about the past conditions of the glacier and its environment. Sensors aboard Landsat 7 and Terra record images of the earth at many different wavelengths, from near-infrared and thermal radiation to different colors of visible light.

"These are images one can never see with the human eye," explained Csatho. "By combining images from different wavelengths, we can learn a lot about a region."

Vegetation, for instance, appears dark in visible light, but bright in infrared. By tracking the extent of vegetation and lichens on areas of Greenland once covered by ice, Csatho and her colleagues measure the retreat of the Jakobshavn Glacier.

The Ohio State scientists removed the atmospheric and topographic distortions from the satellite data and assembled a picture of the land cover, ice flow and glacial geomorphology in the region.

Then in July 2003, before they'd finished processing all the satellite data, they traveled to Greenland to take their own measurements of surface properties of the land next to the ice for comparison.

From the moment they arrived, it was clear to them that conditions in the area were changing rapidly.

They had planned the location of their campsite along the coastline in order to be near the glacier's edge. But when they arrived, the ice wasn't there -- it had retreated about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) inland since the satellite images were taken in 2001.

Mapping of glacial landscape features showed that the glacier had been retreating intermittently since 1900. Evidence in the form of freshly deposited sediments confirmed that glacier retreat has increased in recent years.

The initial thinning of the Jakobshavn Glacier was probably a delayed response to warming that occurred after the Little Ice Age, a 500-year cold period that ended around 1800, van der Veen said.

But that doesn't explain the rapid thinning that began after 1993.

As to whether global climate change is to blame for the acceleration, van der Veen is not convinced. "I wouldn't jump to that conclusion at this point," he said. "But we definitely want to go back to do a long-term study of the area."

To glaciologists like van der Veen and Csatho, "long term" doesn't just mean far into the future, but far into the past also. Just as astronomers can look back in time with telescopes that probe the furthest points of the universe, geologists can look back in time with satellites that turn an eye to the earth.

The ice scrapes the ground as it moves, and the Ohio State scientists are trained to read the scars they see on satellite images. Where a glacier's edge once marked the ground, they see the rock it carved and the boulders it pushed ahead of it during its advance.

The left-behind piles of debris are called moraines, and their evidence can be seen even in the hills and valleys of highly populated and industrialized areas like the state of Ohio, where drainage from North American glaciers during the last ice age created the Ohio River.

In Greenland, many of the moraines zigzag over remote mountaintops, so the Ohio State scientists are using the satellite images from Terra to pick important sites to explore in the future. They will dig up long-frozen plants from the most promising moraines, and use carbon dating to gauge when the glaciers were last there.

Those measurements will paint a clearer picture of the area's history, and put current conditions into better perspective, scientists believe.

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

Let's remember that this data was presented at Tuesday, December 9, 2003 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Current enough for you?

posted 12-24-2003 06:13 PM               

Mountain Glacier Fluctuations:
Changes in terminus location and mass balance
http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html

Over long periods of time, a clear picture of how glaciers respond to climate change may be seen. These photos show the retreat of the South Cascade Glacier in the Washington Cascade Mountains, photographed in 1928 and 2000.

posted 12-24-2003 06:33 PM               

I simply asked you to comment the NO WARMING TREND SINCE 1800 that throw all your press releases to the garbage can. there are not rules here, besides the accepted ones in any "scientific discussion". Rule 1: Hard facts.

If you want to avoid the issue, it is your prerrogative, but it will show your arguments and your press releases "suggesting", "may be", "possibly", "is likely", "probably", etc, have not enough scientific weight. It is up to you.

Now I have been called to join my family at our Christmas tree and have a nice family dinner. See you in the future.

posted 12-24-2003 06:33 PM               

Antarctic Glaciers Speed Up

Area map of the glaciers surrounding the Larsen B Ice Shelf. (MODIS image courtesy of NASA, supplied by Ted Scambos, NSIDC.)

Scientists at NSIDC have found that glaciers around the area of the Larsen B Ice Shelf accelerated immediately after it collapsed early in 2002, and are still speeding up.

The findings, presented at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco this week, support earlier hypotheses that the ice shelf acted as a barrier, slowing the glaciers as they pushed up against the ice shelf, and that removing the barrier would cause the glaciers to speed up. This finding is significant, because it provides a smaller scale preview of what could occur if larger ice shelves –such as the Ross Ice Shelf– were to collapse.

Satellite images spanning the period before, during and after the break-up of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in March 2002 show this acceleration in several glaciers feeding into the now-disintegrated area of the shelf. According to velocity data from Landsat images from January of 2000 through February of 2003, Crane Glacier and the Hektoria-Green-Evans glacier system have all sped up. The speeds on the Crane Glacier increased from 1.7 meters/day to 3.1 meters/day in April through December of 2002, and then to 4.1 meters/day between December 2002 and February of 2003. This represents nearly a 250% increase in speed.

The results imply that ice shelf removal has a significant, rapid effect on feeder glacier flow, that the removal of the ice shelf directly affects glacier force balance, and, most importantly, that climate-related shelf removal for other large shelves fed by major ice streams are likely to result in a rapid speed-up of those glaciers and a change in the mass balance of the adjacent ice sheet, with a consequent impact on global sea level.

*********************************************
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16339

Largest Ice Shelf in the Arctic Breaks Apart

The Arctic’s largest ice shelf is breaking up. The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is a remnant of the compacted snow and ancient sea ice that extended along the northern shores of Ellesmere Island in Northern Canada until the early twentieth century. Rising temperatures have reduced the original shelf into a number of smaller shelves, the largest of which was the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf on the northwest fringe of the island.

The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf encompasses Ward Hunt Island and covers the mouth of the Disraeli Fiord. Until recently, fresh melt water formed a 43-meter deep lake on top of almost 400 meters of seawater in the fiord. Called an epishelf lake, the relatively fresh water dammed by the 3000-year-old ice shelf became the basis of a rare ecosystem. Disraeli Fiord was the largest remaining epishelf lake in the Northern Hemisphere.

Between 2000 and 2002, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf began to crack and eventually broke in two, allowing the lake behind it to drain rapidly into the Arctic Ocean. Derek Mueller and Warwick Vincent, of the Centre d’études nordiques at Université Laval in Quebec, Canada and Martin Jeffries of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks described the event in a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters on October 18, 2003.

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

Let's see, that was published in a peer reviewed journal, Geophysical Research Letters, two months ago. I assume this would satisfy your requirement for "hard data" wouldn't it?

Perhaps you haven't had time to review it yet Eduardo....what with the summer tanning season and all.

And yes, by all means, have a very happy holiday season with your friends and family.

Since it is not summer here, but rather winter, and we on the West Coast have been getting a significant amount of rain, I'm heading to Lake Tahoe for some skiing after Christmas. I'm sure that it doesn't match your mountains in Argentina, but I'll make the best of it.

posted 12-24-2003 08:46 PM               

GLIMS: Global Land Ice Measurements from Space

Using the World's Glaciers to Monitor Climate Change

GLIMS (Global Land Ice Measurements from Space) is a project designed to monitor the world's glaciers primarily using data from the ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and reflection Radiometer) instrument aboard the EOS Terra spacecraft, launched in December, 1999.

"Glim" is an archaic Scottish term that means "a passing look; a glimpse; as much as is seen at a glance." In a future historical perspective, we may well look back on GLIMS and other early-21st Century remote-sensing of Earth's glaciers as a glim of a passing or changing phenomenon.

We are continuing to acquire an annual image (clouds permitting) of all the world's glaciers and to build the infrastructure for GLIMS:

a set of software tools that we can apply to the tracking of glaciers'
areal extent
location of snow line at the end of the melt season
velocity field
location of terminus
a network of centers around the world that will monitor the glaciers in their regions
the database infrastructure capable of storing and manipulating approximately 80 gigabytes of additional data per year
a global glacier database of derived glaciological parameters

Press Releases & News

Melting glaciers threaten Peru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3172572.stm

10/9/2003 - Thousands of people in the Andes mountains of Peru are having their lives affected in both a practical and cultural way by climate change, which is causing the region's glaciers to melt. In the last three decades, Peruvian glaciers have lost almost a quarter of their area.
_____________________________________________

Arctic ice shelf breaks apart
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3132074.stm

9/23/2003 - Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, the largest ice shelf in the Arctic, has broken up. Located on the north coast of Ellesmere Island, the ice shelf broke into two main parts. The immediate consequence of the rupture has been the loss of almost all of the freshwater from an epishelf lake (a body of mostly freshwater trapped behind an ice shelf).
_____________________________________________

NASA Funds U. of Colorado Study of Changes in Earth's Glacier Systems
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2003/2003081115331.html

Researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder will receive $1.8 million from NASA to compile an online database of the world's glaciers that combines historical records with measurements from the latest technologies in satellite remote sensing.

"Glaciers are key indicators in monitoring and detecting climate change," said Richard Armstrong, a senior research associate and principal investigator on the project. "Accelerated melting over the last two decades has contributed to rising sea levels and impacted water resources and hydropower potential in many mountain regions of the world."

_____________________________________________

Second-Largest Glacial Flood Worldwide in Historic Times Occurs as Russell Lake Glacier Dam Ruptures
http://www.usgs.gov/public/press/public_affairs/press_releases/pr1638m.html

8/16/2002 - The trapped water in the 70-square-mile Russel Lake broke free to the ocean on Aug. 14 in a spectacular roiling and chaotic 36 hours, making the torrential channel into the sea an extremely fast-moving and dangerous river full of large chunks of ice and debris. For the last two and a half months, Hubbard Glacier and its terminal moraine have blocked the entrance to Russell Fiord near Yakutat, Alaska, turning the fiord into a lake, and dramatically altering the local hydrology, as well as posing a threat to nearby communities, national lands, fisheries and other marine life.
_____________________________________________

Decline of World's Glaciers Expected to Have Global Impacts Over This Century
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2002/200205299370.html

5/29/2002 - The great majority of the world's glaciers appear to be declining at rates equal to or greater than long-established trends, according to early results from a joint NASA and United States Geological Survey (USGS) project designed to provide a global assessment of glaciers. At the same time, a small minority of glaciers are advancing.
_____________________________________________

Melting glaciers signal global warming
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2001/200105294783.html

5/29/2001 - ASU geologist Rick Wessels is part of an international team of scientists studying the climate of the entire earth over several years with the Global Land Ice Measurement from Space (GLIMS) project. The team, led by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), is monitoring climate change by tracking the melting of glaciers across the earth. The global scale combined with a long study period will give the scientists the broad perspective needed to determine whether worldwide changes in climate are actually taking place. But in only seven months of monitoring, Wessels has already seen melting in glaciers all over Earth, which provides some solid evidence -- or liquid evidence -- for global warming.

At the Spring Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Boston, May 29 to June 2, Wessels and co-author Jeff Kargel, a USGS geologist, will present the first round of results from this project in a talk titled "GLIMS: Documenting the Demise of the Earth's Glaciers using ASTER." Wessels will present evidence that thousands of glaciers are melting, corroborating similar arguments made by many other researchers over the last few years. Like shrinking ice cubes in an increasingly steamy atmospheric brew, glaciers around the world appear to be getting thinner or even disappearing entirely, says Wessels. The flooding caused by runoff from these melting glaciers could have disastrous consequences for people living nearby.

Using images of the earth taken from space, Wessels, along with over 50 other GLIMS researchers from 23 countries, is tracking changes in nearly all of the 160,000 glaciers around the world, only about 1,000 of which have been previously studied. Wessels's newest data come from NASA-operated ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer), which takes detailed color and infrared images of the entire earth.

Data collection using ASTER is still in the early stages, but by comparing the newest data with older records, Wessels and his colleagues have already noted some major changes in the sizes of many glaciers around the world. "The majority of these glaciers are receding," says Wessels.

Some growing and shrinking is normal for glaciers, and debris-rimmed lakes within some glaciers may come and go. Despite these fluctuations, glaciers usually maintain their size over the long term. But Wessels has seen a shift in the balance of this cycle. "At first glance, there's more shrinkage than growing," he says, "and there's now a trend for the lakes to stay and grow," rather than drying up or freezing over.

The newest images show that, in the Alps, where many years of records track the mountains' ice formations, several glaciers have disappeared in as little as 40 years. In Argentina, glaciers in the Patagonian ice fields have receded by an average of 1.5 kilometers over 13 years. And in the Himalayan mountains, glaciers are losing bulk as continued melting feeds lakes that sometimes run off to flood surrounding areas. Recently, a lake atop one Himalayan glacier threatened to overflow its natural dam within days, forcing local Nepalese engineers to quickly perform a controlled drain.

Because the melting and retreat is occurring at such a rapid pace, Wessels and his colleagues think global warming is the most likely explanation for the loss of glacial ice. "There is definitely a global climate change," Wessels asserts. Whether the climate warming is a natural cycle or caused by human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, is still being debated.

posted 12-24-2003 09:05 PM            

.....On the contrary, they [global warmers'] purposes are highly anti humanitarian, even criminal, as they are based on the philosophy advanced by the Club of Rome and its followers of enforcing world depopulation by any available means.....

Ah.

OK.

At least now I know where you're coming from.

posted 12-24-2003 09:33 PM               

Eduardo demands, in bold red: "I simply asked you to comment the NO WARMING TREND SINCE 1800 that throw all your press releases to the garbage can. there are not rules here, besides the accepted ones in any "scientific discussion". Rule 1: Hard facts."

This is what the National Academy of Sciences has published:

http://www.nap.edu/books/0309068916/html/

"Surface Temperature Observations
Summary of Trends

Globally averaged surface temperatures have been rising over the last century, but at an uneven rate. Temperatures increased from 1900 to the 1940s, and then leveled off or even decreased until the mid- to late- 1970s. Since that time, globally averaged surface temperatures have increased again. Sea surface temperatures (SST) and land surface air temperatures both show these same features, although the magnitude of the century-scale changes and year-to-year variability of the land air temperatures are greater than those of SST (see Figure 6.1). The fact that a centennial-scale warming trend with similar decadal-scale features exists in both independently collected data sets serves as a useful check on the reality of the surface temperature trend. Long-term warming, as well as warming over the past two decades, has occurred in both hemispheres and in all seasons (Jones et al., 1999). Although not all regions have warmed, the warming trend since 1976 has been very widespread, as indicated in Figure 6.2. Another widespread feature of the global surface temperature signal is that, at least over the last half century—the period for which we have the most data—the mean daily minimum land, air temperature has been increasing at approximately twice the rate of the mean daily maximum temperature (see Figure 9.4) (Karl et al, 1993; Easterling et al., 1997)."

Figure 6.1.
Time series of seasonally averaged temperature anomalies (1880–1999).
The upper figure shows globally averaged sea surface temperature. The lower figure shows globally averaged surface air temperature over land. The anomalies are computed as differences from the 1880–1998 mean.
The first season is December 1879–February 1880, and the last season is June–August 1999. The data are based on the Quayle et al. 1999) data set.

Figure 6.2.
Global surface temperature trends (°C/decade) for the 20-year period 1979– 98
computed using the method of ordinary least squares. The data have been interpolated
to a 5°x5° grid by Jones et al. (1999). The gridded data have been subjected to a slight
additional smoothing to simplify the pattern.

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

Goddard Institute for Space Studies

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/observe/surftemp/

Global Temperature Trends: 2002 Summation

The 2002 meteorological year is the second warmest year in the period of accurate instrumental data (since the late 1800s). The global surface temperature for 12 months from December 2001 through November 2002 is 0.51°C above the climatological mean (1951-1980 average) in the GISS analysis, which uses meteorological station measurements over land and satellite measurements of sea surface temperature over the ocean.

Figure 1 shows that the warmest temperature occurred in 1998, while the third warmest year was 2001. As this figure shows, there has been a strong warming trend over the past 30 years, a trend that has been shown to be due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. El Niños, in which warm water spreads over the tropical Pacific Ocean, are one major cause of fluctuations about the long-term trend. There was a very strong El Niño in 1998, while a weak El Niño has existed for the last several months of 2002. The fact that 2002 is almost as warm as the unusual warmth of 1998 is confirmation that the underlying global warming trend is continuing.

The map of surface temperature anomalies in 2002 (Figure 2) shows that the largest warm anomalies occurred in Siberia and in the Arctic. Averaged over the 12 months, most places in the world were warmer than normal, although the western half of the United States was near normal.

The temperature anomalies for November 2002 (Figure 3) show that the monthly fluctuations of temperature in any given region are generally larger than the magnitude of global warming. Thus November was much cooler than normal in the eastern two-thirds of the United States, in northern Europe, and in China and Japan. These short-term fluctuations are natural variations of climate.

Global map of temperature anomalies for the 2002 meteorological year (Dec. 2001-Nov. 2002) relative to the 1951-1980 baseline.

*********************************************
National Climatic Data Center

Global temperatures in 2003 will likely be 0.55°C (1.00°F)* above the long-term (1880-2002) average**, which will make 2003 the third warmest year on record. The warmest and second warmest years on record are 1998 and 2002, respectively. Land temperatures are on track to be 0.81°C (1.46°F)* above average, ranking third in the period of record while ocean temperatures will likely rank as second warmest with 0.44°C (0.79°F)* above the 1880-2002 mean.

The map of temperature anomalies (above right) contains data from an in-situ and satellite blended data set of land and ocean temperatures. The period of record for this data set is 1988-2002, a relatively warm period compared to the base period used in the creation of the land only map of temperature anomalies below. Some minor differences in the land surface anomalies between these two maps result from the differences in base periods and data that are used to construct the two maps.

The Northern Hemisphere temperature averaged near record levels in 2003 at 0.63°C (1.13°F)* above the long-term average. The Southern Hemisphere temperature also reflected the globally warmer conditions, with a positive anomaly near 0.45°C (0.81°F)*.

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

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

*********************************************
Current, hard data versus a rather blustering, undocumented, assertion.

Take your pick.

By the way, you've just got to love all those "urban heat islands" responsible for the warming anomolies in Northern Canada and Siberia.

posted 12-25-2003 01:24 AM               

quote:

---

Ah.
OK.
At least now I know where you're coming from.
Fascinating.

---

posted 12-25-2003 01:32 AM               

quote:

---

Hard data versus a rather blustering, undocumented, assertion.
Take your pick.

Figure 6.1.
Time series of seasonally averaged temperature anomalies (1880–1999).
The upper figure shows globally averaged sea surface temperature. The lower figure shows globally averaged surface air temperature over land. The anomalies are computed as differences from the 1880–1998 mean.
The first season is December 1879–February 1880, and the last season is June–August 1999. The data are based on the Quayle et al. 1999) data set.

---

posted 12-25-2003 01:58 AM               

Who made the measurements...using what calibrated instrumentation?

What was the extent of their sampling range...number of stations, replicate samples?

One pathetic site in Europe...what a laugh !

If there's anyone who is unable (or unwilling) to see the forest through the trees, it is you Eduardo.

And perhaps you didn't read it, but the Goddard study presented a Global map of temperature anomalies for the 2002 meteorological year (Dec. 2001-Nov. 2002) relative to the 1951-1980 baseline.

Excuse me for saying this Eduardo, but you've run out of gas and are blowing nothing but hot air.

I do note however, that the number of institutions in your discredited bin continues to grow substantially.

Pretty soon it will just be you and your Exxon/Mobil funded cronies that we'll be able to trust.

Fat chance !

You've asked for data...I've provided it...plenty of it. Where's yours ? ! ? !

You're no one to talk about ignoring data.

And your constant refrain that everyone else is lying is growing rather tiresome.

Temperature Trends

During the past century, global surface temperatures have increased at a rate near 0.6°C/century (1.1°F/century) but this trend has increased to a rate approaching 2°C/century (3.6°F/century) during the past 25 to 30 years. There have been two sustained periods of warming, one beginning around 1910 and ending around 1945, and the most recent beginning about 1976.

Temperatures during the latter period of warming have increased at a rate comparable to the rates of warming projected to occur during the next century with continued increases of anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
Data collected by NOAA's polar orbiting satellites and analyzed for NOAA by the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and Remote Sensing Systems (RSS, Santa Rosa, California) indicate that temperatures in the lower troposphere from the surface to an altitude of five miles are on track to make 2003 the third warmest year for the globe. The average middle troposphere temperature for 2003 (the layer which is centered in the mid-troposphere at an altitude of 2 to 6 miles, but which includes the lower stratosphere) is also on track as the third warmest year on record.

Regional Temperatures

posted 12-25-2003 01:36 PM               

quote:

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Suppose you provide the actual 1800 data that you arbitrarily claim sets the 'appropriate" baseline (not just a plot).
What arrogance to think that a single data set (that you somehow intuitively certify as 'reliable') is now a gold standard against which ALL futute GLOBAL measurements must be compared.
Who made the measurements...using what calibrated instrumentation?
What was the extent of their sampling range...number of stations, replicate samples?
One pathetic site in Europe...what a laugh !

---

Source: HOHENPEISSENBERG W.GERMANY data derived from http://www.worldclimate.com/sources.htm#1202 GHCN 2 Beta. 2292 months between 1781 and 1981

I tried this link, but I repeatedly got a 404 Error. I hope they have not taken the data from their database (perhaps they are following this discussion, and want to give you a hand). LOL!

So HOHENPEISSENBERG weather station, prominently displayed in http://www.worldclimate.com/ is a “pathetic site in Europe” that makes you laugh. How can you make an idiot of yourself in so few words!!!

quote:

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And perhaps you didn't read, but the Goddard study presented a Global map of temperature anomalies for the 2002 meteorological year (Dec. 2001-Nov. 2002) relative to the 1951-1980 baseline.

---

quote:

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Excuse me for saying this Eduardo, but you've run out of gas and are blowing hot air.

---

quote:

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I do note however, that the number of institutions in your discredited bin continues to grow substantially. Pretty soon it will just be you and your Exxon/Mobil funded cronies that we'll be able to trust.

---

So it seems the battle among Oil companies dominates the global warming scenario.

quote:

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You've asked for data...I've provided it...plenty of it. Where's yours ? ! ? !
You're no one to talk about ignoring data.

---

quote:

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And your constant refrain that everyone else is lying is growing rather tiresome.

---

posted 12-25-2003 10:07 PM            

.....You should have been more specific. By "pollution-driven climatic instability" do you mean CO2? Do you consider CO2 a pollutant?.....

Is that a trick question?

.....Then, is there "climatic instability" or "Climatic Warming" Be careful. "Instability" sounds more like an apology when "warming" is too difficult to prove. Is an elegant way of saying, "Oops, I goofed".....

Oh. I didn't know that. Thank you for enlightening me.

I just find it interesting that you and those who share your political position on the matter of climate change continue to use the outdated characterization "global warming" in reference to a situation that is much more complex than can be covered by that definition. There will never be a consensus on the characterization "global warming" - and it is my strong opinion that this is intended.

.....Or you perhaps meant SOx as the pollutants, more abundant in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern. If you mean sulphurous compunds, and soot, and other pollutants found in the atmosphere, I would remind you that those have been shown as "coolers" of the atmosphere, as James Hansen acknowledged back in 2001 - but now, under general cristicism by his fellow warmers partners has retreated from his assertions and now says otherwise. Nice scientist.....

I cannot seem to locate a single reference to James Hansen's ever acknowledging that soot is a "cooler" of the atmosphere. If you have such a reference perhaps you wouldn't mind posting the link here.

I am aware that sulfur dioxide has a net cooling effect on the atmosphere. I also find it curious that the Bush administration is currently trying its best to undermine regulation of pollutants emitted from coal-fired power plants in the U.S. given that they are responsible for 67 percent of the SO2 pollution produced in the United States, according to EPA data from 2002. Perhaps sulfur dioxide is considered a potentially friendly atmospheric constituent in this part of the world.

.....We are discussing Global warming here, and regional effects are just that: regional, lots of urban heat islands, affecting urban stations whose readings are used to give a distorted view of temperaure conditions in the world, and then claiming "global" effects.....

Ah. I can see why you are so disgusted with the climate research community. That really is sleazy of them to take readings only from stations located in, or directly contingent to, urban areas. Geez, you'd think they would know better.

.....Of course there will never be the same warming or cooling in both hemispheres, as the Southern hemisphere is almost 90% oceans, while the Northern hemisphere is about 50-50. And we all know oceans have a huge, quite inmensurable thermal inertia that will keep the southern hemisphere warmer or cooler than its brother in the north. The correct term for the ocean's action is "buffering". This effect is written down in geological records all over the Southern H.....

I'm happy for you. You are surely living in the right place at the right time it would seem.

.....I just showed you that "global warming" is not global, and climate "instability" is also regional and not global.....

You sure did. And of course the regional effects of pollution-driven climatic instability will never, ever have an impact on global, or even hemispheric, weather and climate patterns because, as we all know, every region has an invisible fence around it which prevents this.

.....If my analysis of trends in the south and north hemispheres made you feel an idiot, it is not my fault.....

Is that what I said? Holy Kow - I can't seem to find where I said that but you say I said it so it must be true.

.....I didn't use the word idiot (by the way, I told here before that the word idiot comes from ancient Greek and used to mean: "those who vote". If I thought people in this board were idiots, I would't be discussing here.

But sometimes you think I am an idiot, when you send a red herring like that, instead of focusing on the technical side of the cooling trend found in the southern hemisphere, that counteracts the warming trend shown by the northern hemisphere.

This is a serious answer.....

OK. Let's be serious then. Back to CO2 - no, I wouldn't consider it a pollutant per se. It's one of several constituents of the atmosphere that, in proper proportion to other constituents, makes it possible for life as we know it to exist on this planet.

I just read last week that some attention is now being directed to the potential goal of not allowing atmospheric CO2 to exceed 450 parts per million on average. In view of that, what do you think of the following data, collected over 2003 from a monitoring site near Durham, New Hampshire, USA - hardly a major urban area:

Office of Science: U.S. Department of Energy

cdiac2.ornl.gov/

.....In the past 60 years, the amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted to the atmosphere, primarily because of expanding use of fossil fuels for energy, has risen from pre-industrial levels of 280 parts per million to present levels of over 365 ppm.....

-------------------------=>

2003 Final Data from: AIRMAP

airmap.unh.edu

Monitoring Site: Thompson Farms near Durham, NH

Random excerpts: Atmospheric CO2: measurement in parts per million

Format:

Date / Time / CO2 in ppmv

01/01/2003 / 00:00 / 407.2
01/01/2003 / 00:15 / 408.9
01/01/2003 / 00:30 / 412
01/01/2003 / 00:45 / 414.7
01/01/2003 / 01:00 / 416.1
01/01/2003 / 01:15 / 416.1
01/01/2003 / 01:30 / 416.5
01/01/2003 / 01:45 / 417.6
01/01/2003 / 02:00 / 416.2
01/01/2003 / 02:15 / 415.2

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***
01/03/2003 / 00:00 / 386.3
01/03/2003 / 00:15 / 384.9
01/03/2003 / 00:30 / 384.2
01/03/2003 / 00:45 / 383.8
01/03/2003 / 01:00 / 383.7
01/03/2003 / 01:15 / 383.5
01/03/2003 / 01:30 / 383.8
01/03/2003 / 01:45 / 383.8
01/03/2003 / 02:00 / 384.1
01/03/2003 / 02:15 / 385.2

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***
01/19/2003 / 00:00 / 417.1
01/19/2003 / 00:15 / 410.4
01/19/2003 / 00:30 / 411.3
01/19/2003 / 00:45 / 416.2
01/19/2003 / 01:00 / 419.1

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***
02/01/2003 / 00:00 / 392.3
02/01/2003 / 00:14 / 392.1
02/01/2003 / 00:30 / 392.2
02/01/2003 / 00:45 / 391.9
02/01/2003 / 01:00 / 390.9

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***
02/23/2003 / 00:00 / 394.5
02/23/2003 / 00:15 / 394.9
02/23/2003 / 00:30 / 394.9
02/23/2003 / 00:45 / 394.5
02/23/2003 / 01:00 / 394.2

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***
06/16/2003 / 00:01 / 390.7
06/16/2003 / 00:15 / 392.4
06/16/2003 / 00:30 / 393.2
06/16/2003 / 00:45 / 394.8
06/16/2003 / 01:00 / 393.8

posted 12-26-2003 01:30 AM               

quote:

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.....You should have been more specific. By "pollution-driven climatic instability" do you mean CO2? Do you consider CO2 a pollutant?.....
Is that a trick question?

---

quote:

---

I just find it interesting that you and those who share your political position on the matter of climate change continue to use the outdated characterization "global warming" in reference to a situation that is much more complex than can be covered by that definition. There will never be a consensus on the characterization "global warming" - and it is my strong opinion that this is intended.

---

quote:

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I cannot seem to locate a single reference to James Hansen's ever acknowledging that soot is a "cooler" of the atmosphere. If you have such a reference perhaps you wouldn't mind posting the link here.

---

quote:

---

Ah. I can see why you are so disgusted with the climate research community. That really is sleazy of them to take readings only from stations located in, or directly contingent to, urban areas. Geez, you'd think they would know better.

---

Would you like me to post thousands of temperature records from all over the world (1900 onwards) showing there is not a warming trend and most of them show a cooling trend? Or perhaps would be better if I gave you the link to such webpage?

quote:

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You sure did. And of course the regional effects of pollution-driven climatic instability will never, ever have an impact on global, or even hemispheric, weather and climate patterns because, as we all know, every region has an invisible fence around it which prevents this.

---

quote:

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..If my analysis of trends in the south and north hemispheres made you feel an idiot, it is not my fault...
Is that what I said? Holy Kow - I can't seem to find where I said that but you say I said it so it must be true.

---

quote:

---

I just read last week that some attention is now being directed to the potential goal of not allowing atmospheric CO2 to exceed 450 parts per million on average. In view of that, what do you think of the following data, collected over 2003 from a monitoring site near Durham, New Hampshire, USA - hardly a major urban area:

Monitoring Site: Thompson Farms near Durham, NH

---

Although CO2 concentrations are fairly average on the world (there is the same CO2 concentrations in the Sahara, the Everest, Antarctica, the Pampas, Africa’s sabanas, Canada’s and Russia’s tundra, Near, Middle and Far East, the Balkans, Norway, Japan, Australia, Mexico, the Arctic, etc, some localized areas show increased levels due to special conditions, as decomposing organic matter, or some industrial activities.

May I take you into a short journey in reasoning, routinely preformed at elementary and high schools?

1) The Sahara desert is located in a similar latitude as the Amazon Jungle .

2) In Hobart, Sahara, the temperature amplitude goes from -5º C to +50º C.

3) In Manaus, Brazil, the amplitude ranges from 24º C to 32º C (in rainy season).

4) In Hobart the heat was radiated back into space during the night.

5) In Manaus the heat was retained during the night.

6) CO2 levels in Hobart and Manaus are about the same: 365-370 ppm.

7) Hobart has a relative humidity (water vapor) of 5%

8) Manaus has a relative humidity (water vapor) of 90% (in rainy season)

Given the clues above: Who was responsible for “retaining the heat” at night?

Pick one answer: a) CO2 - - - b) Water vapor

Draw your own conclusions on the “heat retention capacity” of each atmospheric constituent.

Try to quantify the potential of heat retention of each component.

Good bye, CO2! (as heat trapping agent)
Welcome, CO2! (as improver of agricultural yields)