posted 01-11-2004 11:09 AM               

“Watch out, Al Gore. The glaciers will get you!” With that appended note, my friend, retired field geologist Jack Sauers, forwarded to me a report that should have been a lead item in every newspaper in the world. It was the news that the best-measured glacier in North America, the Nisqually on Mount Rainier, has been growing since 1931.

The significance of the fact, immediately grasped by any competent climatologist, is that glacial advance is an early warning sign of Northern Hemisphere chilling of the sort that can bring on an Ice Age. The last Little Ice Age continued from about 1400 to 1850. It was followed by a period of slight warming. There are a growing number of signs that we may be descending into another Little Ice Age—all the mountains of “global warming” propaganda aside.

Our current understanding of the long-term climate cycles shows that for the past 800,000 years, periods of approximately 100,000 years’ duration, called Ice Ages, have been interrupted by periods of approximately 10,000 years, known as Interglacials. (We are now about 10,500 years into the present Interglacial.)

What Causes Ice Ages

These cycles are not mere statistical correlations, as some Wall Street prognosticator working at the modern PC version of a ouija board might spin out. They are determined, with great scientific precision, to correlate with long-term, cyclical changes in the Earth’s orbital relationship to the Sun. Three fundamental orbital relationships are involved, each of which contributes to the amount of sunlight received in high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. When these cycles combine to reduce the incoming solar radiation (insolation) during summer months, over a number of years, the ice sheets which permanently cover Greenland, parts of Alaska, northern Canada, Scandinavia, and elsewhere, begin to advance.

At a certain point, the growth process becomes self-feeding, partly because the high reflectivity of ice and snow reduces the local temperature, partly for reasons that are not fully understood. The glaciers thicken and expand until they become continental ice sheets, one to two miles thick, creeping ever southward. Geological evidence shows that in the last Ice Age, the southern boundary of the continental ice sheet, known as a terminal moraine, stretched down the center of Long Island, through New York City, across New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Southern Illinois and Missouri, then up the Plains States through Montana and Washington State. All of this real estate was buried under one to two miles of ice.

Geologically and climatologically speaking, we are due for another such glacial advance. It might not happen in our lifetimes, but radical shifts in the climate of northern regions can take place suddenly, and in some places may already be taking place.

How to Look at ‘Global Warming’

A very important thing to understand in interpreting all the swill that issues daily from the Global Warming mill (really the anti-industry, anti-population lobby, headed and pumped with money by the Royal Consort Prince Philip, and former Nazi Party member Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands), is that the onset of an Ice Age is not marked by global cooling. In fact, the very same astronomical conditions which cause a cooling at high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, produce the opposite effect in the Southern Hemisphere, where there is much more ocean to absorb and retain the incoming solar radiation. Thus the global average temperature does not tell us anything of importance.

The geological requirements for an Ice Age are the presence of a large landmass around the Polar Circle and extending southward. A look at the globe, or world map, shows that those conditions exist in the Northern Hemisphere, but not in the Southern. Therefore, the important thing to look at is the climate conditions in northern and far northern regions. Some of the indicators:

On Nisqually

That brings us to the Nisqually glacier, up on the 14,410-foot Mount Rainier, near Tacoma, Wash. Just 85 feet shy of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states, Mount Rainier has 26 glaciers, and is the largest single peak system in the United States.

In 1931, fearful that the receding glacier would provide insufficient runoff for their newly completed hydroelectric facility, Tacoma City Light began careful measurements of the glacier. Since the mid-1800s, the glacier had receded about 1 kilometer. Annual to semi-annual measurements, continued by the U.S. Geological Survey and private contractors for the National Park Service, provide the longest continuous series of glacier measurements in North America.

The details are described in a report by government specialists, which appeared in the September 2000 issue of Washington Geology:

posted 01-11-2004 11:22 AM               

And the reason for the postponement?  -  Snow, ice and freezing rain.

"Due to inclement weather and massive amounts of ice everywhere, tonight's healthy Environment Forum on Global Warming with Dr. Patz has been postponed", wrote Sarah Doll of the Oregon Environmental Council in an email sent to the press,  "Sorry for any inconvenience and hope you are staying warm."

There's no beating that punch line.

posted 01-11-2004 11:38 AM               

Go there and see how data is mismanaged by weather centers – a report by Tony Bergantino, Assistant State Climatologist, from the The Wyoming State Climatologist Office:

“No wonder Butte is approximately 83% of normal for annual precipitation. How are we as climatologists supposed to do our job when our data is only as good as this?"

posted 01-11-2004 12:21 PM            

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3384067.stm

posted 01-11-2004 12:43 PM               

http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum14/HTML/000084-11.html

HE states, "As these crystals are found only in stratospheric polar clouds, and these clouds are not found elsewhere outside the Antarctic Polar Vortex, their conclusions (and worse yet, their recommendations to politics to ban CFCs!) were an outright lie."

and now, once again, in an attempt to cover his sorry ass, when caught in an absolute falsehood which he attempts to use to bolster his discredited claim that there is no global ozone depletion, he packpeddles and employs revisionist history which is so common with those caught looking like fools:

"Your insistence on my “error” or “false statement” that stratospheric polar clouds do not form outside the Antarctic Polar Vortex, is misleading and in bad milk. I was telling about a critic I did of one paper in Science by S. Solomon, back in 1988, where she stated that SPC were found in the South Pole, and sometimes in the North Pole (she was studying ozone above Thule and Greenland) and I repeated what she said (but we already knew) that back in 1988 SPC were seldom seen in the Arctic, because temperatures were not as low as in Antarctica."

Anyone actually knowledgeable about the atmosphere would understand these fundamental facts about ozone depletion:

- the lower atmosphere, the troposphere, is warming due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases, and as a result of the troposphere capturing irradiate heat from the surface of the planet, ...

- the stratosphere is cooling (also enhanced by stratospheric ozone depletion)

- there is increasing amounts of moisture in the stratosphere, some of which may be coming from the exhausts of aircraft

- there are increasing observations of polar stratospheric clouds in the northern latitudes, both through longer periods of the year and at increasingly lower latitudes

- polar stratospheric clouds are conducive to an ozone depletion chemistry

- and finally, the state of our atmosphere has changed since 1988, 16 years ago.

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

As for the issue of global temperature trends, SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra places great significance on a single weather station from the Bavarian Alps:

Ferreyra states:

"The Hohenpeissenberg weather station is located in the Bavarian Alps, south of Germany, and has kept temperature records - in the obsessive German tradition for accuracy - for an uninterrupted span of 222 years. According to its records, the chart below plots temperatures and the resulting trend of 0.6º C in 222 years, or 0.3º C by century. Hohenpeissenberg is located in a region that has remained virtually unaltered by industrial or urban development, so it is a surface station that does not suffer from "urban warming".

What truly amazes me is how he can place such significance on a surface weather station in the mountains surrounded by ice fields. One the one hand Eduardo Ferreyra is critical of surface weather stations because they are subjected to the influence of "urban heat islands", but on the other hand he has no problem using a single mountain station, buffered from temperature changes by a natural refrigerator effect by its location...and then extrapolating this station to propose a cooling trend for the planet as a whole.

Proposterous!

Here is current, published information on planet temperature trends:

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann2003b/mann2003b.html

Global Surface Temperatures over the Past Two Millennia

Geophysical Research Letters
Vol. 30, No. 15, 1820, August 2003

Michael E. Mann (1) and Philip D. Jones (2).

1 Department of Environmental Sciences,
University of Virginia, Charlottesville VA, USA

2 Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

ABSTRACT:

We present reconstructions of Northern and Southern Hemisphere mean surface temperature over the past two millennia based on high-resolution 'proxy' temperature data which retain millennial-scale variability. These reconstructions indicate that late 20th century warmth is unprecedented for at least roughly the past two millennia for the Northern Hemisphere. Conclusions for the Southern Hemisphere and global mean temperature are limited by the sparseness of available proxy data in the Southern Hemisphere at present.

Figure 1. Comparison of proxy-based NH temperature reconstructions [Jones et al., 1998; Mann et al., 1999; Crowley and Lowery, 2000] with model simulations of NH mean temperature changes over the past millennium based on estimated radiative forcing histories [Crowley, 2000; Gerber et al., 2002--results shown for both a 1.5°C/2*CO2 and 2.5°C/2*CO2 sensitivity; Bauer et al., 2003). Also shown are two independent reconstructions of warm-season extratropical continental NH temperatures [Briffa et al., 2001; Esper et al., 2002] and an extension back through the past two thousand years based on eight long reconstructions [Mann and Jones, 2003]. All reconstructions have been scaled to the annual, full Northern Hemisphere mean, over an overlapping period (1856-1980), using the NH instrumental record [Jones et al., 1999] for comparison, and have been smoothed on time scales of >40 years to highlight the long-term variations. The smoothed instrumental record (1856-2000) is also shown. The gray/red shading indicates estimated two-standard error uncertainties in the Mann et al. [1999] and Mann and Jones [2003] reconstructions. Also shown are reconstructions of ground surface temperatures (GST) based on appropriately areally-averaged [Briffa and Osborn, 2002; Mann et al., 2003] continental borehole data [Huang et al., 2000], and hemispheric surface air temperature trends, determined by optimal regression [Mann et al., 2003] from the GST estimates. All series are shown with respect to the 1961-90 base period.

posted 01-11-2004 02:59 PM               

quote:

---

What truly amazes me is how he can place such significance on a surface weather station in the mountains surrounded by ice fields. ...and then extrapolating this station to propose a cooling trend for the planet as a whole.
Proposterous!

---

OK, let's make a deal: I will trade Sore Throat my Hohenpeissenberg station for his Glantz station (that he puts so much faith in, as to “...extrapolating this station to propose a depletion ozone trend for the planet as a whole”. We are even. Then how many more stations does he has for trading (either ozone or temperature) for the about 8 stations I have shown here, not buffered by anything, that show severe cooling? Let's hear your highly scientific comments - and possible connections to the oil industry.

quote:

---

Here is current, published information on planet temperature trends:
Global Surface Temperatures over the Past Two Millennia
Geophysical Research Letters
Vol. 30, No. 15, 1820, August 2003
Michael E. Mann (1) and Philip D. Jones (2).
1 Department of Environmental Sciences,
University of Virginia, Charlottesville VA, USA

---

He was tampering with the data, he simply practiced GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) with his Excel files, to the extent that Nature is presently investigating Mann's past papers to see if he had not “manhandled” them!.

I have repeatedly posted here the links to the paper by McKitrick and McIntyre showing the falsities contained in Mann et al., famous paper used by the IPCC to promote the scientific fraud. I will do it again, and this time, Sore should take a look on what is all about, or he will remain being an Invincible Ignorant.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html = Corrections to the Mann et al (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series

Sore Throat should feel embarrassed – at the least – but he will never acknowledge that he made a terrible mistake by mentioning Mann and his studies as a proof of anything. If anything, Mann's graph and studies are a proof of a blatant scientific fraud!

BTW, here are three more charts of stations showing COOLING – what is buffering temperatures there?

posted 01-11-2004 03:35 PM            

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3384067.stm

Thank you for posting this, ST. This is probably the most insightful, balanced commentary I have seen yet in the mainstream media as regards our current situation. It gives me hope as it is right in line with my own thinking on the matter of our future [and especially our children's future] on this earth.

In fact, I think this article deserves to be re-posted in its entirety:

BBC News - 1/10/04 -- For the doom merchants amongst us, 2004 showed its fearsome teeth in a cracking start before it was even 10 days old.

On 7 January a report in the journal Nature said climate change could speed a million land-based species towards extinction within the next 50 years.

The next day the Worldwatch Institute declared modern lifestyles were bad for us and unsustainable for the planet.

The UK Government's chief scientist now says climate change is a far worse danger than international terrorism.

A triple onslaught like that defies anyone to head into the new year feeling even slightly positive about the human condition.

Yet life goes on, and most of us worry more about paying the Christmas bills than about a world bereft of a quarter of its animals and plants.

Devout sceptics

We believe the scientists: we simply do not connect their findings to our lives, our families, ourselves even.

Some of us just refuse to react, blaming the messengers for their message and accusing the scientists of scaremongering.

But (at the risk of tempting fate) my inbox has been blessedly much freer recently of flat-earthers and foam-flecked contrarians.

Most of us are convinced by the message - yet still we go on as if we had not a care in the world.

But whether because of climate change or not, we are already losing species so fast that biologists talk of the Earth undergoing its sixth great extinction since the Big Bang. We are losing species we do not know exist, which could be vital to our survival.

A few years ago, when the world's gross national product was worth about $18 trillion, the value of Nature's goods and services to us was estimated at $33 trillion.

Similarly, the evidence that human activities are intensifying natural climate change is impressive, and hardening. The world really is changing, almost imperceptibly, but in line with what science says will happen.

Slow to show

I know there are sincere people who regard both the global extinction rate and the changing climate as entirely natural developments which need not concern us.

But I met a man recently who told me how he could see the effects of the warmer climate in his local park in Birkenhead, in the north of England.

I talked to another whose research has convinced him there may be only 20,000 lions left in the whole of Africa.

The trouble with imperceptible change is that for a long time it has virtually no impact, certainly not on the political timescale of four or five years. And politicians respond (often) to what they think matters to voters.

Yet the record preserved in cores drilled out of the Greenland icecap shows climate change can be very rapid indeed, flipping from one stable state to another in a few decades.

It is not fanciful to envisage our children living in a Britain where the Gulf Stream has ceased to flow, and where ***climate change*** means winters as cold as northern Canada's.

Unstoppable force

Perhaps it will take some sudden, savage reversal of Nature to make us sit up and take notice.

But we can change just as unpredictably as Nature can. Who predicted the peaceful end of apartheid South Africa, the melting of the Soviet Union?

posted 01-11-2004 03:47 PM               

I'm simply stating the FACTS of the matter...
Eduardo Ferreyra's citations are repleat with mouthpieces backed by major oil and energy companies...those who have the most to gain from the maintenance of the status quo as far as the continued reliance on fossil fuels go.

So let's see who are the latest...

McKitrick and McIntyre
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html

"Corrections to the Mann et al (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series"

McKitrick is a Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute, a Canadian policy think tank that has taken a stand against Kyoto. McIntyre has worked many years in the mineral exploration industry. McIntyre is a shareholder of a micro-capital energy exploration company, CGX Energy, has acted in the past as a consultant to CGX and sub-leases office space from CGX.

Note where these two presented their findings, a conference sponsored by:

The George Marshall Institute

[ http://www.marshall.org ]

This conservative think tank shifted its focus from Star Wars to climate change in the late 1980s. In 1989, the Marshall Institute released a report claiming that "cyclical variations in the intensity of the sun would offset any climate change associated with elevated greenhouse gases." Though refuted by the IPCC, the report was very influential in influencing the Bush Sr. Administration s climate change policy. The Marshall Institute has since published numerous reports downplaying the severity of global climate change.

And as far as the criticism of Michael E. Mann goes...well it just happens that he was named as one of the top 50 researchers in the country by Scientific American in 2002...
http://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/MRG/recent/sa50_reprint.pdf

Please review Mann's response to the McKitrick and McIntyre attack:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/EandEPaperProblem.pdf

And if Mann's 1998 data were as tainted as claimed by Eduardo Ferreyra, McKitrick and McIntyre, don't you find it surprising the these data would be expounded upon in the his 2003 article:

"Global Surface Temperatures over the Past Two Millennia"

Geophysical Research Letters
Vol. 30, No. 15, 1820, August 2003

Maybe they haven't heard the critique presented by SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra ...

or maybe they have, and published anyway.

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

So there you go...greehouse gases have NO EFFECT (of course they fail to mention that we'd be freezing without them) ... it's all cyclic variations of the sun.

Obfuscate, confuse...and by all means don't do anything that prevents us from selling our oil and burning our coal.

And can you imagine how cheap it is to buy off a handfull of individual lobbyists and "scientists" that will promote our self-interest....

absolutely trivial. (There is a word for such mercenaries)

Just check out our on-going annual profits.

And if the public doesn't like it, we'll stick them with another arbitrary 25 cent hike to the gallon of gas.

posted 01-11-2004 06:44 PM            

Well, that's interesting. I have to wonder whether the proponents of this elegant pronouncement can extend it to dismiss the issue of accelerated damage to the stratospheric ozone layer via exacerbation of the photochemical processes [upon the surfaces of polar stratospheric clouds] that allow bromine and chlorine to destroy ozone, especially during periods of heightened solar intensity.

Not to mention the photochemical processes that exacerbate the damaging impact of tropospheric ozone pollution thereby exacerbating the probability of, among other things, increased *respiratory distress* in the human and animal population, especially during the summer and especially during abnormally hot spells in densely-populated regions.

posted 01-11-2004 08:44 PM               

As I have said at the beginning of this post, these locations are the exception, not the rule, and for that reason this thread is no longer called "global warming". Human induced climate changes will NOT be uniform throughout the world.

That being said, the MAJORITY of planet is undergoing a warming trend, and it is quite easy to see on a daily basis examples like the following press release (and try as he might like to ARBITRARILY discredit such reports), Eduardo Ferreyra will have a hard time refuting the reality of this article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3377717.stm

Climate fears after hottest year

Scotland basked in the hottest year on record in 2003, according to Met Office statistics.

The Met Office confirmed that it was the hottest year since its official records began in 1961.

The average temperature over the last 12 months was 8.2C - beating the previous record set in 1997.

Environmental group WWF Scotland went further and claimed it was the hottest year for at least 140 years - and issued a warning over climate change.

Head of policy Dr Richard Dixon expressed concern at the figures.

"In August we also saw the highest ever individual temperature recorded in Scotland at nearly 33C," he said.

"Including 2003, six of the 10 warmest years since 1961 have been in the last decade.

"Climate change is a growing reality, and is the biggest environmental threat facing Scotland. Yet again, Scotland's weather backs up the scientists' predictions."

He urged the Scottish Executive to commit itself to reducing greenhouse gases by 20% by 2010.

However, the executive insisted that it was taking the issue seriously.

It said greenhouse gas emissions had fallen and that the UK was on course to meet international commitments.

WWF Scotland said the Met Office's records had previously identified 1997 as the hottest year since 1861.

An average temperature of 8C was recorded that year.

Monthly records showed that five months last year were classified as "exceptionally warm," measuring at least 2C above average.

Warmest year

A variety of weather data exists for Scotland, but the Met Office's official - and most accurate - records only date back 43 years.

A Met Office spokesman said: "Scotland had its warmest year last year since our records began in 1961.

"Temperatures were quite variable across the UK but in all the Scottish regions - the north, the east and the west - 2003 was the warmest year we have recorded."

It was the sunniest year since 1961 in the north and east of the country, and the third sunniest in the west.

Aboyne on Royal Deesside set the trend last January when it recorded temperatures of 18C.

By July the temperature was hitting 28C somewhere in Scotland every day.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Green Party is calling for tougher action on global warming in the light of a report by an international team of scientists.

The study, published in the journal Nature, warns that climate change could drive a million of the world's species to extinction as soon as 2050.

The scientists say that the Scottish Crossbill, a bird unique to Scotland, would have nowhere to go other than Iceland - and might not be able to make the journey.

Green environment spokesman Mark Ruskell said "urgent action" was needed by everyone in Scotland - and that the executive should take the lead.

*********************************************
http://www.csiro.au/index.asp?type=featureArticle&id=GlobalWarmingAHotTopic

In Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology calculates annual average temperatures using data from about 130 well maintained non-urban observing stations throughout Australia. According to the Bureau, annual average temperatures over Australia at the end of the 20th Century were about 0.8°C higher than they were early in the century.

Compare this data set, collected from all across Australia, from the cherry picked data from Adelaide in Southern Australia that showed a slight decline.

Yet another example of SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra attempting to distort reality and deceive those not aware of the full picture.

This is an ongoing trend throughout his postings.

posted 01-11-2004 10:21 PM               

Detection of a Human Influence on North American Climate

David J. Karoly,1* Karl Braganza,2 Peter A. Stott,3 Julie M. Arblaster,4 Gerald A. Meehl,4 Anthony J. Broccoli,5 Keith W. Dixon5

Karoly, D.J., K. Braganza, P.A. Stott, J.M. Arblaster, G.A. Meehl, A.J. Broccoli, and K.W. Dixon (2003) Detection of a human influence on North American climate. Science, 302, 1200-1203.

Several indices of large-scale patterns of surface temperature variation were used to investigate climate change in North America over the 20th century. The observed variability of these indices was simulated well by a number of climate models. Comparison of index trends in observations and model simulations shows that North American temperature changes from 1950 to 1999 were unlikely to be due to natural climate variation alone. Observed trends over this period are consistent with simulations that include anthropogenic forcing from increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols. However, most of the observed warming from 1900 to 1949 was likely due to natural climate variation.

1 School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA.

2 School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia.

3 Hadley Centre, MetOffice, Bracknell RG12 2SY, UK.

4 National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO 80307, USA.

5 Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Princeton, NJ 08542, USA.

********************************************
http://weather.ou.edu/%7Edkaroly/pdf%20files/karoly_SciencePerspective_2003.pdf

Ozone and Climate Change

Karoly, D.J. (2003) Ozone and climate change. Science, 302, 236-237

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

http://weather.ou.edu/%7Edkaroly/pdf%20files/WWF_2002_Drought.pdf

Karoly, D., J. Risbey, , and A. Reynolds (2003) Global warming contributes to Australia’s worst drought. WWF Australia, 8 pp.

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

A few comments on David J. Karoly:

·Awards

1993 - Meisinger Award from the American Meteorological Society, with citation "for contributions to the understanding of the role of Rossby wave propagation in atmospheric teleconnections and to greenhouse climate change research".

1998 - Norbert Gerbier-Mumm International Award from the World Meteorological Organization for a joint research paper with ten international collaborators.

posted 01-11-2004 10:23 PM               

Dry Days, Warm Nights

By John Fleck
Journal Staff Writer

To understand New Mexico's remarkably warm 2003 and its place in the big picture of global warming, think about a rose bush.

Out in the garden, the rose is a barometer of change, responding to the elements. If it is the right kind of rose, chances are good it bloomed well into the fall this year, far later than normal.

"They did last a lot longer," observed Fran Hardy, president of the Albuquerque Rose Society and a passionate gardener.

Meteorologists and climate scientists are as bad as baseball fans when it comes to their enthusiasm for a dizzying array of numbers, and this year offered a bonanza.

But as in baseball— where all the numbers can finally be boiled down to who won the World Series— the question of global warming can be boiled down to the miniature roses Hardy was still cutting from her garden at Thanksgiving.

First, some numbers:

With a handful of days left in the year, 2003 looks to be the third-warmest in more than a century of record-keeping in Albuquerque. The number attached to 2003's average temperature— 59.3 degrees— doesn't mean much by itself. But it is nearly 2 degrees above the long-term average.

Statewide, the first 11 months of the year were the warmest ever recorded in New Mexico.

Seven of the 10 warmest years in Albuquerque history have come in the last decade.

Overnight temperatures in Albuquerque in 2003 were by far the warmest the city has ever seen, a remarkable 4 degrees Fahrenheit above the long-term average.

The eight years with the warmest overnight temperatures in Albuquerque history have all come since 1994.

'Not inconsistent'

Those last two points, about overnight temperatures, might seem like the climatological equivalent of an obsessive baseball fan trying to find statistical significance in the batting averages of rookie left-fielders whose last names end in "e".

But in trying to understand global warming, the overnight temperature is critical. And it is those warm nights that made all the difference to Fran Hardy's roses.

The trick for climate scientists is to tell the difference between the natural ups and downs of the climate cycle and the long-term upward trend caused by the "greenhouse effect."

That theory says our planet is slowly warming because of an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide and other gases emitted by power plants, automobiles and other places we burn fossil fuels.

The theory has its skeptics among climate researchers, but they are few. Most climate scientists think global warming is real.

While warming in the upper atmosphere is uneven, at the surface where we live the upward trend seems unquestionable. While natural warming could be responsible for part of the warming, human influence now seems clearly implicated, most climate scientists believe.

The most recent example of the consensus is a position taken earlier this month by the American Geophysical Union, one of the world's major Earth science organizations.

"Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century," the AGU statement said.

Scientists are a notoriously cautious bunch about the significance of numbers. Pick a single year and a single spot on the globe that matches greenhouse expectations, and the best you are likely to get is the observation that the numbers "are not inconsistent" with the global warming prediction.

That is what we have this year in Albuquerque. But the same pattern is being seen all over.

Tracking the trend

"How many 'not inconsistent withs' does somebody need to be convinced?" asked Kelly Redmond, a climate researcher at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, Nev.

Charlie Liles, head of the National Weather Service's Albuquerque office, is our weather equivalent of that uber-statistics-obsessed baseball fan.

Ask him a question about New Mexico's weather history, and he will invariably emerge from computer data and old Weather Service paper log books with an answer more detailed and nuanced than you expected.

For each date through the year, the Weather Service tracks records— the warmest and coldest days, and the warmest and coldest nights.

Asked about the trend in overnight temperatures, Liles pored over those records and came up with this:

The last time an Albuquerque record was set for the coldest overnight temperature was Oct. 27, 1997. Since then, there have been 37 records set for the warmest overnight temperature.

Those are the records. What about the routine, day-to-day temperatures?

Crunching the numbers several different ways, Liles came up with the same result— a long-term trend between 1961 and 2000 in which daytime temperatures are rising a little (0.3 degree) and overnight temperatures are rising more (1 degree).

There is an important caution here, frequently pointed out by global warming skeptics, called the "urban heat island effect." It is the idea that thermometers in cities tend to read high because of the buildings around them.

In Albuquerque's case, it is impossible to rule out the urban effect. But with the National Weather Service's thermometer located on the southern edge of town, next to the airport, Liles thinks the effect would be minimal.

A hot fingerprint

The most detailed national study yet done of the issue, published this year in the Journal of Climate, concluded that the urban heat island effect was a statistical myth.

The extra nighttime warming is exactly the pattern University of Oklahoma climate scientist David Karoly and his colleagues found in a massive study of temperatures all across North America— a little bit of an increase in daytime temperatures, and a bigger increase at night.

The physical explanation is simple, Karoly explained in an interview. Greenhouse gases— carbon dioxide and the like— trap heat radiated by the planet's surface as it cools overnight.

The day-night difference gives climate researchers a sort of "fingerprint" to look for, a way to distinguish greenhouse warming from natural variability.

Combining the day-night warming pattern with other similar greenhouse fingerprinting techniques, Karoly and his colleague were able to distinguish natural warming, which dominated the first half of the 20th century, from the greenhouse warming seen from 1950 to the present.

And that brings us back to Hardy's roses.

A difference of a degree or two in the overnight low temperature can mean the difference between whether things do or don't freeze. And as long as they don't freeze, roses can keep doing their thing.

Two years ago, Liles calculated that the average growing season in Albuquerque— the time between the last freeze of spring and first freeze of fall— has gotten two weeks longer.

If that were all that happened, it might be reasonable for an Albuquerque gardener to look on global warming as a good thing. But for a state mired in drought and worried about its future water supplies, the picture is not so rosy.

posted 01-11-2004 10:29 PM               

quote:

---

Well, that's interesting. I have to wonder whether the proponents of this elegant pronouncement can extend it to dismiss the issue of accelerated damage to the stratospheric ozone layer via exacerbation of the photochemical processes [upon the surfaces of polar stratospheric clouds] that allow bromine and chlorine to destroy ozone, especially during periods of heightened solar intensity.

---

But before teching you something about armospheric chemistry, you should read news from different scientific sources. For a change, learn something from my own country. Our ozone measuring station in Buenos Aires has one of the FOUR and unique spectrometers for reading UV values and ozone levels, provided by the National Academy of Sciences and the NASA. As I have stated many times here, the director of that center, Lic. Victoria Tafuri, has been measuring ozone levels over Argentina for the last 30 years, and she has stated to the press since 1988 – repeatedly – that ozone levels over Argentina, in average, have not been reduced for the last 30 years since she has been keeping the records. That's why the media does not like Ms. Tafuri - she's always giving them good news, and good news do not sell newspapers or promote ratings!. If any interested journalist wants to get in touch with her, she can be contacted at the Observatorio Nacional de Villa Ortúzar, Buenos Aires, Argentina, that belongs to the Servicio Meteorologico Nacional (Argentine National Meteorological Service).

Go to this link, from the Antarctic Ozone Surveillance Service of the National Meteorological Service, and see the final report for the Ozone Hole of 2002:
http://www.meteonet.com.ar/prensa/gace02/gace1102-7.htm

It is in Spanish course, but those of you with average college education can read and speak more than one language (I guess). But for those of you that don't understand the Don Quixote language, I will translate some excerpts for you. The report has some technical charts, and I took one that you probably have never seen, as it measures the ozone levels not from above (as satellites do) but from the ground, at Comodoro Marambio Scientific Base (Argentinean Air Force) at the Antarctic Peninsula. The golden and red highlights are mine, of course.

You should read the annual reports the Servicio Nacional Meteorológico makes (they are online, on the link provided above) and you will see the words chlorine, bromine, methane, or CFC are never mentioned. According to their views, the ozone hole is a natural phenomenon affected by different factors, UV radiation and some photochemistry, and lots of dynamic causes, winds, air pressure, etc. Something to think about. Perhaps they are on Repsol, or Exxon payroll. Of course, how fool I am!

posted 01-11-2004 10:38 PM               

One of the most important things to note about the so-called Antarctic ozone hole is that some of the most complex and least-understood atmospheric chemical reactions occur during the four-to-six-week duration of the ozone hole. The Polar Vorex seals the Antarctic atmosphere during this period, creating what is essentially an extraordinary chemical reaction vessel. As we can see in the next figure, very dramatic changes occur in the chemical composition of the stratosphere as one flies from outside the vortex to the vessel inside. The concentrations of many chemicals drop dramatically, including water vapor, nitrogen oxides, and ozone. At the same time, the concentrations of other chemicals, like chlorine monoxide, increase dramatically.

The boundaries for these extraordinary changes in chemical concentrations is the wall of the Polar Vortex. Think of it as a sealed chemical reactor vessel inside which there is a water vapor hole, a nitrogen oxide hole, and an ozone hole - all occurring simultaneously. This chemical conditions exists nowhere else on Earth, except perhaps the short-lived Arctic polar vortex. The graph above was common at scientific meetings, but seldom at public forums or in the news media. Why don't those who fret about the ozone hole also worry about the nitrogen oxide hole, and so on?

Explaining this complex chemistry has been a major problem for the proponents of the ozone depletion theory. From their standpoint, the "discovery" of the hole in 1985 was both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because it revived their sagging fortunes; a curse because F. Sherwood Rowland's theory could not possibly account for the depletion.The latest version of Rowland and Molina theory predicted a 5 percent depletion of ozone over 100 years. In Antarctica, scientists were observing depletions of 50 percent in a few weeks!. Then, a few weeks later, the ozone level was back to "normal" again.

It took two years for the ozone depletion propagandists to come up with an explanation for this anomalous situation. The "depletion gang" were not disturbed by their own contradictory pronouncements. An article by Martyn Chipperfield in Nature, Jan. 24, 1991, for example, triumphally proclaimed: "It is now beyond doubt that stratospheric ozone is being destroyed by chlorine derived from man-made CFCs". In the next paragraph, however, Chipperfield warns that "... many quantitative details of the Antarctic ozone depletion remain unexplained..."

Mario Molina devised and unbelievably complex chemical theory called "heterogeneous" or "dimer" chemistry (Molina and Molina, 1987). the theory requires very cold temperatures, below -78ºC, which occur in the Antarctic atmosphere only a few weeks of the year. It also requires the formation of polar stratospheric clouds, which are made up of nitric acid, instead of the water that makes up normal clouds. Finally, Molina's new theory requires sunlight at just the right time.

These conditions can occur in Antarctica only after three to four months of complete darkness enable the stratosphere to cool own to -78ºC. Then, at the very moment that spring returns and sunlight strikes Antarctica, at that moment, all conditions being right, the stratosphere being primed, the sunlgiht supposedely sets off a series of very complex reactions that break apart the molecules in which chlorine is bound, freeing individual chlorine atoms to wander about and destroy the ozone layer.

Molina's chemical formulas are as follows:

(M) is a "collisional chaperone" (a hard surface) for N₂ and O₂, as put by Molina.

The net result of this series of complex chemical reactions is two ozone molecules (O₃) will be turned into three oxygen molecules (O₂). This is the heart of the explanation that CFCs are depleting ozone in Antarctica. The so-called "chloro-catalytic process" that has scared the hell out the common people.

Please note that CFCs are not involved at all in Molina's chemical reactions. The chlorine comes instead from two "reservoirs" ClONO₂ and HCl, natural atmospheric compounds.

Second, ice (a hard surface) is needed to begin the reaction, which is why the polar stratospheric clouds are required. The ice is found only when temperatures are colder than –78ºC and an altitude of between 12 and 20 km.

Third, without sunlight (hv stands for a photon of UV radiation) this reaction could not occur.
Let us concentrate on reaction (5). This crucial equation says that when a molecule Cl₂O₂ (chlorine peroxide) is struck by UV radiation, it will break up into a Cl atom, which goes on to destroy ozone molecules, and ClOO.

The ClOO (sometimes known as OClO) is then presumed to undergo a molecular collision against an ice crystal to give up molecular oxygen and a free chlorine atom. The crucial thing is: Given that the theoretical mechanism has never been definitely established in the laboratory, does the chemistry work like this in the stratosphere?

"NO", says Igor J. Eberstein of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. In a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters in May 1990, Eberstein demonstrates that the most likely path of chlorine peroxide photodissociation is into two ClO radicals; that is, back to the monomer. A secondary path of dissociation is Cl₂ and atomic oxgen. If this is getting too technical, please forgive me, but there is no layman explanation for these complex reactions. On the other hand, if someone does not undestand this chemical reactions, he/she shouldn't be into ozone layer discussions defending something he/she does not fully understand.

The ozone depletion theorists conveniently ignore these least-energy pathways, a fundamental law of thermodynamics, with no exceptions whatsoever. They claim that the chemical reactions goes this way:

According to Eberstein, "There is no proven chemical mechanism to account for the creation of the ozone hole. This is a very serious failure. If you have a theory, you should be able to provide a definitive mechanism. Otherwise is pure speculation. This Antarctic ozone depletion issue has to be put on a more solid scientific basis."

But Eberstein is not alone in criticizing the chemical hocus pocus. Writing in the Journal of Geophysical Research, on Oct. 20, 1990, G.W. Lawrence and his associates demolish a popular version of Molina's Equation (6) and the presumed gas-phase photodissociation of chlorine oxide to free up chorine. After a sreies of very complex experiments in the laboratory, Lawrence, Clemitshaw, and Apkarian (1990) conclude:

Again, reality intrudes. The National and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) anounced on September 1990 that its polar satellites were detecting the development of the ozone hole a full month before the appearance of sunlight. In other words, the hole is well developed before sunlight strikes Antactica, exactly the opposite of what Molina heterogeneous chemistry theory claims. If chemical reactions are creating the hole, these reactions are occirring in the darkness, which invalidates the theory.

Not surpisingly, the news media ignored the importance of the NOAA discovery in refutig Molina's dimer chemistry. Instead, the press played the news to another scare story, reporting that the NOAA satellites data showed Antarctica ozone depletion to be more serious than originally thought, because the hole was - unexpectedly - appearing early.

Molina got the Noble Prize in chemistry in 1995, along with his teacher, F. Sherwood Rowland and Paul Crutzen, not for their scientific work by itself, but for the "political implications that saved mankind from an impeding catastrophe", breaking away from Nobel's basic conditions for awarding the Prize: "For outstanding achievements on sciences, that lead to industrial progress and the benefit of mankind".

posted 01-11-2004 10:38 PM               

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/jds/ozone/history.html

There is an oft quoted statement that the Antarctic ozone hole was discovered in 1956 and therefore it can't be caused by CFCs. This remark originates from a paper by Professor G M B Dobson, the scientist who designed the ozone spectrophotometer which has been the standard for ozone measurements since the 1930s. The big advantage in standardising on one make of instrument is that we can be certain that changes in ozone amount that are measured, are changes in the atmosphere rather than changes due to observational technique. The following is taken from Dobson's paper in Applied Optics, March 1968, Vol 7, No3.

'One of the more interesting results on atmospheric ozone which came out of the IGY (International Geophysical Year) was the discovery of the peculiar annual variation of ozone at Halley Bay (76 south, 26 west). The annual variation of ozone at Spitzbergen was fairly well known at that time, so, assuming a six months difference, we knew what to expect. However, when the monthly telegrams from Halley Bay began to arrive and were plotted alongside the Spitzbergen curve, the values for September and October 1956 were about 150 units lower than was expected. We naturally thought that Evans has made some large mistake or that, in spite of checking just before leaving England, the instrument had developed some fault. In November the ozone values suddenly jumped up to those expected from the Spitzbergen results. It was not until a year later, when the same type of annual variation was repeated, that we realized that the early results were indeed correct and that Halley Bay showed a most interesting difference from other parts of the world. It was clear that the winter vortex over the South Pole was maintained late into the spring and that this kept the ozone values low. When it suddenly broke up in November both the ozone values and the stratosphere temperatures suddenly rose.'

This table shows the difference between what Dobson expected from Spitzbergen, the normal values observed at Halley between 1956 and 1975 and the values presently observed. Mean October ozone values have fallen by around 3% per year since 1976, while the amount of chlorine has risen by 3% per year.

Spitz Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct
1956 440 470 450 400 350 320 300 280 280

Halley Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr
1956 300 300 300 330 350 320 300 280 280
1996 172 155 149 181 260 278 265 245 242

The Antarctic ozone hole is the depletion in the spring over and above that caused by the different atmospheric circulations in the two hemispheres. Signs can be seen in data from 1976 when you know what to look for, but suspicion didn't really arise until the end of the decade and the paper announcing the discovery of ozone loss in the Antarctic was not published until 1985. When American satellite data was reanalysed it became apparent that it was a phenomena that covered the whole of the Antarctic and it was given the name ozone hole. The latest data also show ozone depletion during the summer and autumn months, in addition to the spring- time 'hole'.

There are suggestions that observations made in 1958 at the French Antarctic station of Dumont d'Urville show significant ozone depletion. These measurements were made using a photographic spectrometer and are subject to large errors, in the region of 20 - 50%. The observations disagree with measurements made by Dobson spectrophotometer at the same time. There was also no correlation between the photographic measurements and stratospheric conditions and all they show is random scatter.

*********************************************
Eduardo Ferreyra once again uses dated data, completely overlooking the size and intensity of the Antarctic Ozone Hole for the 2003 season. Why do you think he does that? Objective? ....hardly!

Ferreyra states:

"Go to this link, from the Antarctic Ozone Surveillance Service of the National Meteorological Service, and see the final report for the Ozone Hole of 2002"
http://www.meteonet.com.ar/prensa/gace02/gace1102-7.htm

"For the month of September, this year ozone hole was one of the smallest, with an average area smaller than any other since 1993. Comparing with other averages for October, this year's ozone hole extension was the smallest since 1988."

Here's what he doesn't want you to see, the Antarctic Ozone Hole data for 2003 ! !

Does it really look like things are getting better, as he would imply?

posted 01-11-2004 11:08 PM               

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s2089.htm

NOAA STUDY OFFERS NEW TAKE ON URBAN HEAT ISLAND EFFECT

Sept. 22, 2003 — A new NOAA study of temperatures in America’s rural and city areas has prompted some scientists to reassess their understanding of the “Urban Island Heat” effect. The analysis, conducted by the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., indicates the temperatures of urban areas when compared to nearby rural locations are about the same. The analysis was published in the latest issue of The Journal Of Climate.

The term Urban Heat Island refers to the well-documented fact that cities—with more buildings and roads and less grass and trees—are warmer than nearby rural areas.

Thomas C. Peterson, a climate expert at NCDC, conducted the study based on information from 289 rural and urban weather stations throughout the nation. He said the major difference in his analysis from previous urban heat studies is that he considered other factors that could influence the temperature observations.

Once NCDC adjusted the data to account for all other factors that cause differences in temperature readings, from the time of day the temperatures were recorded to the elevation of the station, differences between the rural and urban temperatures NOAA examined were very small.

“This is not to say that Urban Heat Islands do not exist. Major highway intersections and industrial centers of cities may well be significantly warmer than rural areas,” said Peterson. But weather stations are more likely to be located in parks than industrial areas and other research has indicated that urban parks can be significantly cooler than the industrial parts of towns.”

Peterson also noted, “Rural sites are not necessarily pristine. Land use changes around rural sites—whether it is the growth of trees or the paving of driveways—can also impact temperature observations.”

NOAA Satellites and Information Service is the nation’s primary source of space-based meteorological and climate data. It operates the nation’s environmental satellites, which are used for weather and ocean observation and forecasting, climate monitoring and other environmental applications, including sea-surface temperature, fire detection and ozone monitoring. NOAA’s commercial licensing program draws on NOAA’s heritage in satellite operations and remote sensing applications.

NOAA Satellites and Information Service also operates three data centers, which house global databases in climatology, oceanography, solid Earth geophysics, marine geology and geophysics, solar-terrestrial physics and paleoclimatology.

NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation’s coastal and marine resources. NOAA is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

posted 01-11-2004 11:45 PM               

Union of Concerned Scientists

Fact vs. Fiction on Climate Change

We've just had the coldest day in June -- so much for global warming!

Readers of this thread will note how frequently SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra employs this and other following ploys:

Fiction: Just look at X: it's the coldest day/month/year on record ... or: Region X has cooled by Y°F over the past two years! There is no global warming!

Fact: Statements like the one above are deliberate attempts by climate contrarians to confuse and mislead the public. It's an attempt to disprove the reality of global warming with a cold weather anomaly. This is not only scientific bogus, comparing apples and oranges, but outright dishonesty. Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a given time and place, defined by variables such as temperature, moisture, wind, and barometric pressure. It is highly variable from day to day. By contrast, climate describes long-term weather patterns, with average temperatures and precipitation totals as well as typical occurrences of climatic extremes (such as normal dry periods or tropical storms) being used to characterize the climate for a particular region. This distinction is very important. Averages are always made up of numbers differing from the mean. Global warming is about the average going up. Over time this will make extreme colds become less likely.

Oh, what's a few degrees?

Fiction: A few degrees temperature increase won't matter much, and besides, warmer is better -- fewer cold-related deaths, longer growing seasons, lower heating bills. How many people actually notice the difference between 86 and 88.5°F?

Fact: Considering that in some regions people experience large daily temperature ranges (20-30°F), climate skeptics try to convince the public that global warming by a few degrees is nothing to worry about. This is another version of deliberately confusing weather and climate (see above). A small increase in the average temperature, however, obscures extremes and patterns of warming that are quite troubling: nighttime temperatures increase more than daily averages; there are already and will be more extreme heat but less extreme cold events; poleward latitudes warm more than other areas, etc. While the benefits of warming pointed out in the skeptics argument are certainly among the potential impacts of climate change, the potential negative impacts -- such as heat-related illnesses and deaths, increased heat stress for crops, greater energy needs for cooling etc. -- are strategically omitted. Moreover, it bears emphasis that the difference in global average temperature between the last ice age and the present day is about 9°F! This puts the IPCC's projected range of climate change-related global average temperature increases of 2.5-10.4°F in an entirely different light.

Human CO2 emissions are small compared to natural CO2 exchange.

Fiction: The 4.5% of the world's greenhouse gases that humans generate is insignificant when compared to the 95.5% generated by nature.

Fact: It is indeed true that human emissions of CO2 are a small percentage of the total carbon cycled through the different components of the Earth system: plants, soils, rocks, the oceans, and the air. But these human emissions are by no means insignificant. For the last 420,000 years, until the beginning of the industrial revolution (~1750), this cycle of carbon exchange was in a quasi-stable equilibrium, i.e., the continual release and uptake of carbon kept CO2 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere fluctuating between 180 ppm (parts per million) and 280 ppm. Since 1750, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 31%, to a present level of 367 ppm. This increase in the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere is mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels and large-scale deforestation and land-use change. These human activities have forced the carbon cycle out of the state of equilibrium and out of the known range of variation.

Satellite temperature records don't show any global warming.

Fiction: Satellite temperature records do not show a warming trend over the past 20 years, and ground-level data are incorrect and exaggerate the warming.

Fact: It is true that temperature records derived from satellites show either less warming than surface temperature data or even a cooling trend. Recent studies (most notably a study by the National Academy of Sciences published in 2000) found, however, that satellite data needed to be adjusted for some measurement and calibration problems. These adjustments bring surface and satellite records into better agreement, both showing a warming trend. It is important to note that many surface temperature records date back to 1860, while satellite records only date back to 1979. With such a short data record, observed trends can be strongly affected by extreme conditions -- such as the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo which decreased atmospheric temperatures for several years. In addition, satellite and surface data differ in what they record: surface thermometers measure the air temperature at the Earth's surface, while satellite data take temperatures of different slices of the atmosphere. Including records for the upper atmosphere -- where the depletion of the ozone layer has had a cooling effect -- will lower the overall temperature trends observed from satellites.

The observed warming is all due to solar variation, not human activities.

Fiction: An increase in solar irradiance is the main cause of the Earth's current warming trend. Therefore, reducing fossil fuel emissions would not impact the Earth's temperature.

Fact: Current scientific understanding leaves little doubt that the sun's radiant output impacts the Earth's climate on both decadal and centennial time scales. However, it is only one of many components affecting terrestrial climate. According to the findings of the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change, the warming effect due to increases of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is estimated to be more than 8 times greater than the effect of solar irradiance.

What about the 19,000 scientists who claim we should not worry about global warming?

Fiction: There is no scientific consensus on climate change. Just look at the 19,000 scientists who signed on to the Global Warming Petition Project.

Fact: In the spring of 1998, mailboxes of US scientists flooded with packet from the "Global Warming Petition Project," including a reprint of a Wall Street Journal op-ed "Science has spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth," a copy of a faux scientific article claiming that "increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have no deleterious effects upon global climate," a short letter signed by past-president National Academy of Sciences, Frederick Seitz, and a short petition calling for the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on the grounds that a reduction in carbon dioxide "would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind."

The sponsor, little-known Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, tried to beguile unsuspecting scientists into believing that this packet had originated from the National Academy of the Sciences, both by referencing Seitz's past involvement with the NAS and with an article formatted to look as if it was a published article in the Academy's Proceedings, which it was not. The NAS quickly distanced itself from the petition project, issuing a statement saying, "the petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy."

The petition project was a deliberate attempt to mislead scientists and to rally them in an attempt to undermine support for the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was not based on a review of the science of global climate change, nor were its signers experts in the field of climate science. In fact, the only criterion for signing the petition was a bachelor's degree in science. The petition resurfaced in early 2001 in an renewed attempt to undermine international climate treaty negotiations.

posted 01-12-2004 09:20 PM               

quote:

---

Fact vs. Fiction on Climate Change
We've just had the coldest day in June -- so much for global warming!
Readers of this thread will note how frequently SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra employs this and other following ploys:

---

Fiction: Just look at X: it's the (coldest)warmest day/month/year on record ... or: Region X has (cooled) warmed by Y°F over the past two years! There is (no) global warming!

Fact: Statements like the one above are deliberate attempts by climate proponents to confuse and mislead the public. It's an attempt to prove the reality of global warming with a warm weather anomaly. This is not only scientific bogus, comparing apples and oranges, but outright dishonesty.

This following part has not been altered: it is just what Sore Throat wrote.

quote:

---

Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a given time and place, defined by variables such as temperature, moisture, wind, and barometric pressure. It is highly variable from day to day. By contrast, climate describes long-term weather patterns, with average temperatures and precipitation totals as well as typical occurrences of climatic extremes (such as normal dry periods or tropical storms) being used to characterize the climate for a particular region. This distinction is very important. Averages are always made up of numbers differing from the mean. Global warming is about the average going up. Over time this will make extreme colds become less likely.

---

quote:

---

Fact: Considering that in some regions people experience large daily temperature ranges (20-30°F), climate skeptics try to convince the public that global warming by a few degrees is nothing to worry about. This is another version of deliberately confusing weather and climate (see above). A small increase in the average temperature, however, obscures extremes and patterns of warming that are quite troubling: nighttime temperatures increase more than daily averages; there are already and will be more extreme heat but less extreme cold events; poleward latitudes warm more than other areas, etc.

---

Poleward latitudes warm more than other areas? Like the Antarctica Peninsula, of course, 2% of the entire Antarctic continent that has warmed 0,2ºC in the last 25 years. But what about the remaining 98% that has cooled by -1.5ºC? Wouldn't the 98% of a continent set a trend_ Or the trend is set by the 2% of an area? See the trends at Amundsen base, Scott, Hadley, Sowa, etc, and check for yourself.

That brings us to the point of terrestrial areas measured by ground stations. Temperatures taken from urban stations cover barely 5% of the emerging part of the Earth. That is, 5% of 25% of the entire planet, equating to 1,25% of planet Earth. So GLOBAL trends are extrapolated from the 1,25% of the entire Earth surface? That's what Sore Throat want us to believe? Are we stupid or what, Sore?

But Sore Throat will insist in his autistic attitude of posting biased press released and flawed studies to prove his point. As an example, he goes to the extent of gullibly accept the Union of Concerned Scientists unbelievable lie claiming that the French never saw or recorded an ozone hole back in 1957-58, at Dumont D'Urville station. Sore has a terrible memory, because I already gave the exact data that proved the French really recorded extreme low ozone levels, at the same time Gordon Dobson did the same, on the other side of the Antarctica. I also showed Dobson's chart with ozone values for the whole year of 1958. Here is it again:

But the UCS goes to the extent of claiming they have conducted a research and found no records for the French studies. Of course, they looked in the UCS archives only, because had they looked at the archives in the Annales Geophysicae , November 1990 issue, they would have found quite a different story. So as this has been posted by me in November 2003, I will post it again, as it seems Sore Throat memory is failing.

Quote from my previous post:

That's what happened in 1956, when the polar vortex was away from Halley bay, but on the other side of Antarctica, just over the French scientific station of Dumont D'Urville, where the French scientists measured 110 DU. It is written down on scientific documents, it is pure History, it cannot be denied.

Two French scientists, P. Rigaud and B. Leroy, published in the Annales Geophysicae , November 1990 issue, reports of from the French Antarctic station Dumont D'Urville located on the opposite side of the South Pole, a few hundred miles from Halley Bay. These measurements show that the ozone hole was deeper in 1958 than at any other time in the 1980s!

Rigaud and Leroy wrote in the Annales Geophysicae “…reexamination of the data shows that a strong minimum of the total ozone content has been observed that year in the austral springtime. This suggests a natural phenomenon to explain Antarctic 'ozone hole' “ (p 791). According to the scientists, the “ozone hole” appears in September and the beginning of October 1958, but then there is a “spectacular recovery of the ozone concentration between October 8 and 2. The polar vortex breakdown in 1958 occurred between October 5 and 20”, (p. 793).

Please see a facsimil of the 4 pages of the paper sent by Rigaud and Leroy to Annales Geophysicae journal:

What could explain this dramatic drop to 110 DU recorded at the Dumont D'Urville station, while at Halley Bay the readings were around 250 DU? Leroy and Rigaud said:

The morale is: Never trust any UCS statements on anything!

[Edited 1 times, lastly by Edufer on 01-12-2004]

posted 01-12-2004 10:40 PM               

Would you please inform the kind readers of this thread just what type of instrument was used for the ozone readings at the French Antarctic station of Dumont d'Urville in 1958.

You know...the scientific instrument that they used to make these readings.

Were they the same instrumentation that Donson used?

And oh yes, just what was the accuracy and reliability of these instruments in 1958?

Certainly very reasonable questions that any scientist would consider, given the importance of such data...since they do stand in such isolation.

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

Readers will also note that Eduardo chooses to compare his weather events with the climate trends that I have posted.

All of the last three (Scotland, Australia,and New Mexico) covered considerable territory over an extended period of time. Also note, that unlike the single Adelaide urban location that Eduardo produced, the temperature data I provided for Australia was based on "130 well maintained non-urban observing stations throughout Australia."

How sophomoric not to notice the difference.

Please review Eduardo, the difference between weather events and climate change.

I will add the Union of Concerned Scientists to the ever growing list of organizations and agengies that you comdemn as being corrupt and dishonest.

Pretty soon the only person we'll be able to trust will be you...

or is it you that will be in isolation?

posted 01-12-2004 10:46 PM            

.....Yeha! Extreme colds like the ones experienced in the December 2002 - March 2003 winter, and the present 2003-2004 winter? In Montreal they broke on January 10th, 2004, cold records with 24ºC below Zero, and Boston broke a 129 year-long record with 20ºC below Zero. Less likely? This is the way in which Mother Nature and Father Reality contradicts Sore Throat every time he opens his mouth.....

I'm going to re-post the following from another thread:

Show-Me Truth wrote:

.....I think a real problem is that the general public is still confused as to if global warming is even real and if so to what extent.....

Yes. This is a major problem and will continue to be a major problem until the public understands that what is actually occuring is a destabilization of climate processes.

Greenhouse gases [CO2, nitrous oxide, the CFC's, sulfur hexafluoride, etc.] have a net warming effect on global atmosphere and can be expected to cause an increase in the ***average temperature*** of the global atmosphere at the current rate of combined emissions. Greenhouse gases have, in general, a global impact.

Aerosols on the other hand [both natural and human-created] have a net cooling effect on global atmosphere but - and this is very important - their impact tends to be regional because it is nearest the source-points of aerosol emissions that the largest impact takes place.

Also, aerosols [defined as "minute particles suspended in the atmosphere"] have, in general, a shorter atmospheric lifetime than do the greenhouse gases. So the effects of aerosols are more complicated to measure.

Bottom line - there are two situations which have to be quantified as best as is possible - greenhouse gas warming of the global atmosphere on a global "average temperature" continuum - and aerosol cooling on a more regional basis.

The characterization "global warming" is not useful - or even accurate - for an understanding of the current situation. The characterization "global warming" leaves out the DESTABILIZING impact on climate systems of the combination of greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions. It is the destabilization of climate and weather systems that is causing the extremes in temperature, precipitation, wind behavior, etc. that are being increasingly experienced in many parts of the world.

So yes, "global warming" is a very confusing term. Those in the research community and the media who continue to use it are doing the public a great disservice. END Re-post.

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

Also, I cannot seem to identify where I "made a mistake" in my understanding of the very specific dynamic involved in the destruction of stratospheric ozone which I tried to explain yesterday. The following are only two of the hundreds of references now available which pertain to the relationship between polar stratospheric clouds and stratospheric ozone destruction:

.....Observations and modeling over the last decade have shown that conditions for severe ozone loss are directly related to the severity and persistence of the Arctic winter. The persistence of cold temperatures leads to the formation of extensive polar stratospheric clouds which in turn activate chlorine and lead to large ozone losses.

Since high levels of chlorine compounds will be common over the next 50-70 years, the prediction of ozone levels is dependent on the detailed physics of the formation of these polar stratospheric clouds and on the prediction of future temperatures in the stratosphere.

Current projections suggest that climate change may lead to large cooling of the stratosphere, leading to more extensive PSC formation and greater ozone loss. Thus, ozone layer recovery may not track the slow decline of industrial halogen compounds in the atmosphere.....

From:

What's Happening To Stratospheric
Ozone Over The Arctic, And Why?
USGRCP Seminar, 14 July 2000
http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/seminars/000714FO.html

.....After entering the lower stratosphere, CFCs and other compounds can either be mixed to higher latitudes (i.e. closer to the poles) or slowly carried into the upper stratosphere where they are broken down by the sun's UV (ultraviolet) radiation. Once chlorine, for example, is released from a CFC, it can catalytically destroy ozone.

A catalyst is a substance that facilitates a chemical reaction, but itself remains unchanged or is reformed by the end of the reaction, so that it can take part in a similar reaction again. In this catalytic process, the ozone molecule is lost while the catalyst (chlorine, nitrogen, bromine or hydrogen) is reformed and can potentially destroy another ozone molecule.

Over its lifetime in the stratosphere, an individual chlorine atom can destroy about 100,000 ozone molecules.

The effect that these reactions have on the ozone layer is altered by meteorology. The reactions that convert the halocarbons to active chlorine and bromine take place on the surface of polar stratospheric clouds (PSC).

Ozone is not destroyed unless the temperatures in the stratosphere are cold enough to form polar stratospheric clouds and a polar vortex is formed that isolates the air so that the cold temperatures persist.

Ozone loss then occurs when sunlight returns to the air inside the polar vortex and initiates catalytic ozone destruction. This cycle means that ozone depletion is greatest in the spring when the sun returns and lowest if stratospheric temperatures are higher over the winter.

From:

How does ozone depletion occur?
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/yourenv/eff/pollution/544857/544921/?version=1&lang=_e

posted 01-12-2004 11:13 PM               

"Yeha! Extreme colds like the ones experienced in the December 2002 - March 2003 winter, and the present 2003-2004 winter? In Montreal they broke on January 10th, 2004, cold records with 24ºC below Zero, and Boston broke a 129 year-long record with 20ºC below Zero. Less likely? This is the way in which Mother Nature and Father Reality contradicts Sore Throat every time he opens his mouth. "

"Sore Throat keeps posting the same prophecies (lies) that has been digging is grave. Those more extreme heats have not shown, but the extreme cold spells keep increasing as every year passes, contradicting Sore Throat's and IPCC's prophecies. Fortune tellers and Tarot card readers can make a better job predicting the climate than Sore or the IPCC. They should hire a team of readers of chicken guts for predicting the future climate."

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

Here's the reality:

Source: 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: Trend of global annual surface temperature relative to 1951-1980 mean.

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.

Figure 2: Global map of temperature anomalies for the 2002 meteorological year (Dec. 2001-Nov. 2002) relative to the 1951-1980 baseline.

Figure 3: Global map of temperature anomalies for November 2002. (Note color scale is not the same as in Fig. 2.)

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.

References

-Christy, J.R., R.W. Spencer, and W.D. Braswell 2000. J. Atmos. Oceanic Tech. 17, 1153.

-Hansen, J., R. Ruedy, M. Sato, M. Imhoff, W. Lawrence, D. Easterling, T. Peterson, and T. Karl 2001. A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change. J. Geophys. Res. 106, 23947.

-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2001. Climate Change 2001 (J.T. Houghton et al., Eds.), Cambridge Univ. Press, New York.
National Research Council 2000. Reconciling Observations of Global Temperature Change. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 85 pp.

-Reynolds, R.W., N.A. Rayner, T.M. Smith, D.C. Stokes, and W. Wang 2002. J. Climate, in press.
*********************************************

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

Of course, if you don't like these GLOBAL maps of temperature trends produced by NASA, then you can do what Eduardo Ferreyra does...

...buy a PC Paint program and make some of your own.

posted 01-12-2004 11:24 PM               

The various grid-box temperature anomaly (from the base period 1961-90) datasets which have been available from the Climatic Research Unit have been replaced with new versions. Hemispheric and global average anomaly values are also available as separate files for those wanting this summary information. This text gives some brief information to users about the datasets including:

Scientific References

Christy, J.R., Parker, D.E., Stendel. M. and Norris, W.B., 2001: Differential trends in tropical sea surface temperature and atmospheric temperatures since 1979. Geophysical Research Letters 28, 183-186.

Folland, C.K., Rayner, N.A., Brown, S.J., Smith, T.M., Shen, S.S.P., Parker, D.E., Macadam, I., Jones, P.D., Jones, R.N., Nicholls, N. and Sexton, D.M.H., 2001a: Global temperature change and its uncertainties since 1861. Geophysical Research Letters 28, 2621-2624.

Folland, C.K., Karl, T.R., Christy, J.R., Clarke, R.A., Gruza, G.V., Jouzel, J., Mann, M.E., Oerlemans, J., Salinger, M.J. and Wang, S.-W., 2001b: Observed Climate Variability and Change. pp. 99-181 In: Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Houghton, J.T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D.J., Noguer, M., van der Linden, P.J., Dai, X., Maskell, K. and Johnson, C.A. Eds.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 881pp.

Jones, P.D., Osborn, T.J. and Briffa, K.R., 1997: Estimating sampling errors in large-scale temperature averages. J. Climate 10, 2548-2568.

Jones, P.D., New, M., Parker, D.E., Martin, S. and Rigor, I.G., 1999: Surface air temperature and its variations over the last 150 years. Reviews of Geophysics 37, 173-199.

Jones, P.D., Osborn, T.J., Briffa, K.R., Folland, C.K., Horton, B., Alexander, L.V., Parker, D.E. and Rayner, N.A., 2001: Adjusting for sampling density in grid-box land and ocean surface temperature time series. J. Geophys. Res. 106, 3371-3380.

Jones, P.D. and Moberg, A., 2003: Hemispheric and large-scale surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2001. J. Climate 16, 206-223.

Rayner, N.A., Parker, D.E., Horton, E.B., Folland, C.K., Alexander, L.V, Rowell, D.P., Kaplan, A. and Kent, E.C., 2003: Globally complete analyses of sea surface temperature, sea ice and night marine air temperature, 1871-2000. J. Geophys. Res. (in press).

******************************************** http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Global Surface Temperature Anomalies

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

Twentieth-Century Sea Surface Temperature Trends

M. A. Cane, A. C. Clement, A. Kaplan, Y. Kushnir, D. Pozdnyakov, R. Seager, S. E. Zebiak, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY 10964-8000, USA. R. Murtugudde, Universities Space Research Association, Laboratory for Hydrospheric Processes, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.

Science. 1997 Feb 14;275(5302):957-60.

posted 01-13-2004 12:21 AM               

In 1990, scientists at the University of Alabama-Huntsville (Spencer et al, 1990) reported that satellite-derived measurements of tropospheric temperature did not show a warming over the period since 1978 (beginning of the period over which satellite data are available) and therefore seemed to be in contradiction with warming trends observed at the earth's surface. Various corrections to satellite data since the first report have gradually narrowed this discrepancy. Vinnikov and Grody (2003) report analysis of satellite temperatures from 1978-2002 and show "a trend of +0.22ºC to 0.26ºC per 10 years, consistent with the global warming trend derived from surface meteorological stations." This trend of warming is consistent with global climate models that ascribe this warming to increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases.

******************************************** http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2003/wigley2.html

New Look at Satellite Data Supports Global Warming Trend

BOULDER—A new analysis of satellite data collected since the late 1970s from the lowest few miles of the atmosphere indicates a global temperature rise of about one-third of a degree Fahrenheit between 1979 and 1999. The results are at odds with previous analyses that show virtually no warming in the satellite record over the 20-year period. The findings will be published by the journal Science at its Science Express Web site on May 1.

The team behind the study includes scientists Tom Wigley, Gerald Meehl, Caspar Ammann, Julie Arblaster, Thomas Bettge, and Warren Washington, all from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The lead author is Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

"It's undeniable that the agreement with both global climate models and surface data is better for the new analysis than for the old one," says Wigley.

Over the past 25 years, a series of instruments aboard 12 U.S. satellites has provided a unique temperature record extending as high as the lower stratosphere. Each sensor intercepts microwaves emitted by various parts of the atmosphere, with the emissions increasing as temperatures rise. These data are used to infer the temperature at key atmospheric layers.

Since the 1990s, skeptics have pointed to the absence of a warming signal in the satellite-derived temperatures, which stood in contrast to a distinct warming trend in average air temperature at Earth's surface. A 2000 report from the National Research Council concluded that both trends might be correct—in other words, the global atmosphere might be warming more quickly near the ground than higher up. Although Wigley agreed, he felt there was more to be explained.

"The real issue is the trend in the satellite data from 1979 onward," says Wigley. "If the original analysis of the satellite data were right, then something must be missing in the models. With the new data set, the agreement with the models is improved, and the agreement with the surface data is quite good."

In order to glean temperatures from the raw satellite data, several adjustments and corrections must be made. Until now, only one group, based at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), had produced a complete set of global temperatures from the raw data.

For the new study, a group based at Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, California, applied a revised set of corrections to the satellite data. These corrections accounted for the effects of heating on the radiation sensor itself—the first time this source of error had been addressed fully, according to the authors—as well as new adjustments for the drifting orbit of each satellite and other factors.

The group found a warming trend of 0.16°F per decade in the layer between about 1.5 and 7.5 miles high, compared to a trend of 0.02°F in the previously published UAH analysis. Both estimates have a margin of error of nearly 0.2°F (plus or minus). According to the authors, the new results are a closer match with surface warming, as well as with four computer-model simulations of 20th-century climate produced by NCAR and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

As a further check on the new satellite data set, the team examined regional patterns. Using a statistical technique, the group analyzed the 20th-century simulations and searched for an underlying "fingerprint" of climate change. For instance, the rates of warming in the satellite-monitored data vary by latitude from north to south. The authors found that the overall fingerprint of climate change in the models resembled this and other regional patterns found in the new satellite data set.

posted 01-13-2004 12:30 AM               

Researchers determine global warming during the 20th century may be slightly larger than earlier estimates

LIVERMORE, Calif.—Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who examined effects of gaps in temperature measurements during the 20th century have concluded that global warming during that time period may have been slightly larger than the previously estimated value of roughly 0.6 degrees Celsius. These findings contrast with claims by greenhouse skeptics who contend that the warming seen in the observational record is an error introduced by incomplete and changing geographical coverage of temperature measurements.

The measured increase in the Earth’s surface temperature during the 20th century is based upon thermometer measurements, which become increasingly incomplete further back in time. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century, thermometer measurements covered only 20 percent of the Earth’s surface, compared to more than 87 percent in 1987. Some greenhouse-warming dissenters have claimed that the gradual increase in coverage during the 20th century introduced an artificial warming trend into the temperature record, which accounts for most or all of the 20th century’s measured warming.

In an article titled "Effect of Mission Data on Estimates of Near-Surface Temperature Change Since 1900," in the July 1 edition of the Journal of Climate, LLNL researchers Philip B. Duffy, Charles Doutriaux, Imola Fodor and Benjamin Santer studied effects of the incompleteness of surface thermometer records on the estimated 20th century warming by examining 16 climate model simulations of the surface temperature changes from 1899 to 1998.

The scientists compared temperature trends obtained from globally complete model output with temperature trends derived by sampling the model output at only those locations where temperature observations are actually available. The comparison enabled the researchers to assess the effect of missing observational data on the apparent temperature trend during the 20th century.

"We found no evidence to support the hypothesis that incomplete observational data has caused us to overestimate the true warming trend," said Duffy, lead author of the paper. "On the contrary, our results suggest that the actual warming during the 20th century may have been slightly larger than the warming estimated from the incomplete observational data of -about 0.7 degrees Celsius instead of 0.6 degrees Celsius."

Livermore scientists examined climate models that incorporated estimated historical changes in both greenhouse gases and anthropogenic sulfate aerosols. Scientists concluded that in 10 of the 16 climate change simulations, missing data led to significant underestimates of the true global warming trend. In the remaining six simulations, missing data had no significant impact on the 20th century’s warming trend.

If the climate simulations are credible estimates of human effects on historical climate and of natural climate variations, it is extremely unlikely that missing observational data caused the 20th century’s warming to be overestimated.