Friday 29 January 2010

The Science (Fiction) of the Greenhouse Effect

source: The New American
by Rebecca Terrell


Two German physicists have written a paper debunking the "theory" of the greenhouse gas effect by demonstrating how it violates basic laws of physics. Their paper, Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within the Frame of Physics, was published last year in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Modern Physics.

The authors are Gerhard Gerlich, a professor of mathematical physics at the Technical University Carolo-Wilhelmina in Braunschweig, and Ralf Tscheuchner, a retired professor of theoretical physics and freelance lecturer and researcher in physics and applied informatics.


Gerlich and Tscheuschner first define carbon dioxide as a trace gas accounting for less than one percent of air's volume and mass. They say even a doubling of the concentration of atmospheric CO2 would hardly change the thermal conductivity of air. If it did, the change would be well within margins of error currently in place.

From this short tutorial, the scientists go on to show the vast difference in physical laws between real greenhouses and Earth's atmosphere. They expose the fallacies in accepted definitions of greenhouse effect from several popular sources. "It is not 'trapped' infrared radiation which explains the warming phenomenon in a real greenhouse but the suppression of air cooling." Gerlich and Tscheuschner explain Earth's atmosphere does not function in the same way, nor does it function in the way global-warming alarmists describe as "transparent for visible light but opaque for infrared radiation."

Then they make the point that climate models used to predict catastrophic global warming violate the second law of thermodynamics. The law states any closed system left to itself will continually deteriorate toward a more chaotic state. The German scientists illustrate how the idea of heat flow from atmospheric greenhouse gases to the warmer ground violates this principle. There would have to be a heat pump mechanism in perpetual motion in the atmosphere to transfer heat from a low to a high temperature reservoir, and such a machine cannot exist. They call the greenhouse effect a fictitious mechanism. "The claim that CO2 emissions give rise to anthropogenic [man-made] climate changes has no physical basis."

Throughout the paper the authors show that those who advocate the greenhouse gas theory use faulty calculations and guesstimates to arrive at their catastrophic conjectures, and though Gerlich and Tscheuschner make no specific accusation, they point out how many respected scientists have blamed alarmists for intentional fraud rather than mere scientific error. They also reveal that the idea of a greenhouse effect is modern and never mentioned in any fundamental work of thermodynamics, physical kinetics, or radiation theory. According to them, it is impossible to replicate forecasts made by climate modelers' computer simulations with any known scientific formulae.

Though their 115-page paper includes clear explanations, nearly 200 equations, tables and graphs, and 205 references, it should come as no surprise that Gerlich and Tscheuschner have been blacklisted by the climate-change community. "Stupidity," "crackpot," "dross," and "bunkum" are several of the descriptives used in online blogs blasting the paper. The first edition of the Gerlich/Tscheuschner paper released in 2007 caused enough of a stir to prompt Arthur P. Smith with the American Physical Society to issue a 2008 rebuttal, "Proof of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect." Yet in his nine-page article, Smith cited only five sources, one of which was the Gerlich/Tscheuschner work, and failed to address most of the points raised in it. The 2009 update of the original Gerlich/Tscheuschner piece has yet to be disproved, though for the most part alarmists continue to ignore it in their mad rush toward global eco-government and a world-wide carbon trading market worth billions.

Thursday 28 January 2010

Heat Wave Closes in on The IPCC

source: the FP
By Terence Corcoran

A catastrophic heat wave appears to be closing in on the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. How hot is it getting in the scientific kitchen where they’ve been cooking the books and spicing up the stew pots? So hot, apparently, that Andrew Weaver, probably Canada’s leading climate scientist, is calling for replacement of IPCC leadership and institutional reform.

He has also made numerous television appearances linking current weather and temperature events with global warming, painting sensational pictures and dramatic links. “When you see these [temperature] numbers, it’s screaming out at you: ‘This is global warming!”



Mr. Weaver is also one of the authors of The Copenhagen Diagnosis, an IPCC-related piece of agit-prop issued just before the recent Copenhagen meeting.


The Copenhagen Diagnosis is as manipulative a piece of policy advocacy as can be found, filled with forboding and alarming assessments. Described as “an interim evaluation of the evolving science,” it was an attempt to jump-start decision-making at Copenhagen. It failed, perhaps in part because one of the authors was U.S. climate scientist Michael Mann, who plays a big role in the climategate emails.


That Mr. Weaver now thinks it necessary to set himself up as the voice of scientific reason, and as a moderate guardian of appropriate and measured commentary on the state of the world’s climate, is firm evidence that the IPCC is in deep trouble. He’s getting out while the getting’s good, and blaming the IPCC’s upper echelon for the looming crisis.


In the language typical of an IPPC report, one might say that the radiative forcing created by climategate and glaciergate strongly suggest there is very likely to bring about cataclysmic melting of the organization within the next portion of the current decadal period. The words “very likely” in IPCC risk assessment terms mean a 90% or greater probability that something will happen. As it looks now, the IPCC is burnt toast and unless it is overhauled fast there’s a 90% probability the climate change political machine is going to come crashing down.


Mr. Weaver’s acknowledgement that climategate—the release/leak/theft of thousands of incriminating emails from a British climate centre showing deep infighting and number manipulation — demonstrates a problem is real news in itself. When climategate broke as a story last November, Mr. Weaver dismissed it as unimportant and appeared in the media with a cockamame story about how his offices had also been broken into and that the fossil fuel industry might be responsible for both climategate and his office break-in.


The latest IPCC fiasco looks even more damaging. In the 2007 IPCC report that Mr. Weaver said revealed climate change to be a barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles, it turns out one of those missiles — a predicted melting of the Himalayan ice fields by 2035 — was a fraud. Not an accidental fraud, but a deliberately planted piece of science fiction. The IPCC author who planted that false Himalayan meltdown said the other day “we” did it because “we thought ... it will impact policy makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.”


Mr. Weaver told Canwest that the Himalayan incident is “one small thing” and not a sign of a “global conspiracy to drum up false evidence of global warming.” We shall see. It is a safe bet that there have been other tweaks, twists, manipulations and distortions in IPCC science reports over the years. New revelations are inevitable. Now is a good time to get out of the kitchen. Mr. Weaver is the first out the door.

Tuesday 26 January 2010

NASA Captures Largest Solar Flare in Two Years

source: fromtheold.com

The largest solar flare in two years was detected on January the 17th according to NASA.

As we know, the sun drives the earth's weather, what changes will this bring for our current climate??



Watch the video here

Monday 25 January 2010

Arctic Temperatures Above 80°N Are The Lowest in Six Years

Sources: wattsupwiththat.com

According to the Danish Meteorological Institute, Arctic temperatures are currently below 238K (-35.15 degrees Celsius or -31.27 degrees Fahrenheit)

That is more than five degrees below normal (the green line) and the lowest reading since 2004. The slope of decline has also recently been quite sharp, dropping from 252K on January 1, a drop of 14 degrees in 22 days.



The last time temperatures were this low in the Arctic was in February, 2004, where the 80N temperature reached 236K.

For an interactive view, showing historical data see:
In other news, temperatures in both the Arctic and Antarctic are well below normal.






Thursday 21 January 2010

UN Drops Deadline For Countries to State Climate Change Targets

source: guardian UK

Copenhagen deal falters as just 20 countries of 192 sign up to declare their global warming strategies



The UN has dropped the 31 January deadline by which time all countries were expected to officially state their emission reduction targets or list the actions they planned to take to counter climate change.

Yvo de Boer, UN climate change chief, today changed the original date set at last month's fractious Copenhagen climate summit, saying that it was now a "soft" deadline, which countries could sign up to when they chose. "I do not expect everyone to meet the deadline. Countries are not being asked if they want to adhere… but to indicate if they want to be associated [with the Copenhagen accord].

"I see the accord as a living document that tracks actions that countries want to take," he told journalists in Bonn.


"It's a soft deadline. Countries are not being asked to sign the accord to take on legally binding targets, only to indicate their intention," he said.


The deadline was intended to be the first test of the "Copenhagen accord", the weak, three-page document that emerged at the end of the summit, and which fell far short of original expectations. It seeks to bind all countries to a goal of limiting warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial times and proposes that $100bn a year be provided for poor countries to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change after 2020.


But with just 10 days to go, only 20 countries out of 192 have signed up, with many clearly unready or unwilling to put their name to the document. Countries which have signed so far include India, Russia, Mexico, Australia, France and Norway.


De Boer also endorsed the controversial idea of short-circuiting the traditional UN negotiating process of reaching agreement between all countries by consensus. Instead, he argued that a smaller group of countries could negotiate a climate agreement on behalf of the many.


"You cannot have 192 countries involved in discussing all the details. You cannot have all countries all of the time in one room. You do have to safeguard transparency by allowing countries to decide if they want to be represented by others, and that if a debate is advanced then the conclusion is brought back to the larger community", he said.


However, this more exclusive method of reaching agreement was criticised by some in Copenhagen after the host government, Denmark, convened a meeting of 26 world leaders in the last two days of the conference to try to reach agreement on behalf of everyone.


Critics argued that this was not only illegal, but undermined negotiations already taking place among the 192 countries and threatened the UN's multilateral and democratic process.


"The selected leaders were given a draft document that mainly represented the developed countries' positions, thereby marginalising the developing countries' views tabled at the two-year negotiations. The attempt by the Danish presidency to override the legitimate multilateral process was the reason why Copenhagen will be considered a disaster," said Martin Khor, director of the South Centre, an intergovernmental think tank for developing countries based in Geneva.


The US and Britain have argued since the conference that climate negotiations are best served by meetings of the world's largest polluters, such as China, the US, India, Brazil and South Africa. These countries, which emit more than 80% of global emissions, signed up to a deal in the final hours of the summit.


Brazil, India, China and South Africa, known as the "BASIC" group, meet next week in Delhi to agree a common position ahead of further UN climate talks.

Wednesday 20 January 2010

Solar Flare, Sun & Space Weather Information - Continually Updated

source: exopolitics.blogs.com

If you want sun info go to http://www.spaceweather.com
The left side Margin has the most relevant information


When the solar winds are over 400 then we are in a solar wind stream. This usually makes people hyper and edgy.
Over 500 may cause EM problems. They usually have a write up on any unusual sun activity.


Also for the solar flare classifications
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov this site tells you what effects are happening.


There is a difference between solar winds and solar flares.
Winds usually originate from coronal holes (see http://www.spaceweather.com)


Solar flares originate from sunspots and may or may not cause high solar winds
but definitely can throw a monkey wrench into earthward EMF effects.

Monday 18 January 2010

India 'Arrogant' to Deny Global Warming Link to Melting Glaciers


source: the guardian



A leading climate scientist today accused the Indian environment ministry of "arrogance" after the release of a government report claiming that there is no evidence climate change has caused "abnormal" shrinking of Himalayan glaciers.


Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister, released the controversial report in Delhi, saying it would "challenge the conventional wisdom" about melting ice in the mountains.


Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN agency which evaluates the risk from global warming, warned the glaciers were receding faster than in any other part of the world and could "disappear altogether by 2035 if not sooner".


Today Ramesh denied any such risk existed: "There is no conclusive scientific evidence to link global warming with what is happening in the Himalayan glaciers." The minister added although some glaciers are receding they were doing so at a rate that was not "historically alarming".


However, Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, told the Guardian: "We have a very clear idea of what is happening. I don't know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement."


Ramesh said he was prepared to take on "the doomsday scenarios of Al Gore and the IPCC".


"My concern is that this comes from western scientists … it is high time India makes an investment in understanding what is happening in the Himalayan ecosystem," he added.


The government report, entitled Himalayan glaciers (pdf), looks at 150 years' worth of data gathered from the Geological Survey of India from 25 glaciers. It claims to be the first comprehensive study on the region.


Vijay Kumar Raina, the geologist who authored the report, admitted that some "Himalayan glaciers are retreating. But it is nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to suggest as some have said that they will disappear."


Pachauri dismissed the report saying it was not "peer reviewed" and had few "scientific citations".


"With the greatest of respect this guy retired years ago and I find it totally baffling that he comes out and throws out everything that has been established years ago."


In a remarkable finding, the report claims the Gangotri glacier, the main source of the River Ganges, actually receded fastest in 1977 – and is today "practically at a stand still".


Some scientists have warned that the river beds of the Gangetic Basin – which feed hundreds of millions in northern India – could run dry once glaciers go. However, such concerns are scotched by the report.


According to Raina, the mistake made by "western scientists" is to apply the rate of glacial loss from other parts of the world to the Himalayas. "In the United States the highest glaciers in Alaska are still below the lowest level of Himalayan glaciers. Our 9,500 glaciers are located at very high altitudes. It is completely different system."

"As long as we have monsoons we will have glaciers. There are many factors to consider when we want to find out how quickly (glaciers melt) … rainfall, debris cover, relief and terrain," said Raina.


In response Pachauri said that such statements were reminiscent of "climate change deniers and school boy science".


"I cannot see what the minister's motives are. We do need more extensive measurement of the Himalayan range but it is clear from satellite pictures what is happening."


Many environmentalists said they were also unconvinced by the minister's arguments. Sunita Narain, a member of the Indian prime minister's climate change council and director of the Centre for Science and Environment, said "the report would create a lot of confusion".


"The PM's council has just received a comprehensive report which presents many studies which show clear fragmentation of the glaciers would lead to faster recession. I am not sure what Jairam (Ramesh) is doing."

Sunday 17 January 2010

Climategate Scientist Received Over Half A Million From Obama Stimulus Package

source: PrisonPlanet
by Steve Watson

Corporate media completely silent on latest development with warming fraudsters.

A leading scientist involved in the climategate scandal received over half a million dollars in federal economic stimulus funds from the Obama Administration last Summer, it has been revealed.



Professor Michael Mann of Penn State University, currently under investigation by the institution itself for his role in massaging climate data and hijacking the peer review process to advance the myth of anthropogenic global warming, was awarded a grant of $541,184 by the government in June 2009.

Mann, the creator of the now infamously discredited Hockey Stick Graph, landed money that came directly from the U.S. Treasury’s economic stimulus package, reveals the Washington free-market think-tank group The National Center For Public Policy Research (NCPPR).


The official justification for the grant, authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was labeled as “climate change research”.


An NCPPR press release, published today, calls for the funds to be returned:


“It’s outrageous that economic stimulus money is being used to support research conducted by Michael Mann at the very time he’s under investigation by Penn State and is one of the key figures in the international Climategate scandal. Penn State should immediately return these funds to the U.S. Treasury,”
said Tom Borelli, Ph.D., director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project.


The funds Mann is receiving from the government come in addition to another award to Penn State University researchers of $1.9 million in stimulus funds to study the effects of climate change on the spread of infectious diseases.


NCPPR
further commented in its press release:


“It’s no wonder that Obama’s stimulus plan is failing to produce jobs. Taxpayer dollars aren’t being used in the ways most likely to spur job creation. The stimulus was not sold to the public as a way to reward a loyalist in the climate change debate. Nor was the stimulus sold as a way to promote the Obama Administration’s position on the global warming theory…As is often the case, political considerations corrupt the distribution of government funds,”
said Deneen Borelli, a fellow with the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network.


Of course, the kind of economic stimulus Obama has in mind in awarding such grants to proponents of AGW may stem directly from his own intimate involvement in the carbon tax program he is now seeking to broadly implement.


The mainstream media, once again, remains completely silent on the matter as the vast majority did throughout the climategate controversy.


Warming alarmists are sure to point to the fact that NCPPR has a vested interest, being a member of the Cooler Heads Coalition, whose object is described as “dispelling the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk analysis”.


In 25 years of operation, NCPPR has received about $280,000 from ExxonMobil and presently receives about one half of one percent of its funding from the company.


However, the funding received by groups such as the NCPPR from companies like Exxonmobil pales in comparison to the gargantuan amounts, of mostly tax payer dollars, awarded to AGW proponents.


The leaked emails from the Hadley centre revealed that (now former) CRU chief Phil Jones received 55 endowments since 1990 from agencies ranging from the U.S. Department of Energy to NATO, worth a total of £13,718,547, or approximately $22.6 million.


$19 million alone came between the years 2000 and 2006.


The London based intergovernmental organisation The Commonwealth Foundation has called for an outside, independent investigation of Michael Mann and his involvement in climategate, a move that is further vindicated entirely by these latest revelations.



Friday 15 January 2010

Global Warming - The Otherside

source: www.kusi.com

John Coleman’s hourlong news special “Global Warming – The Other Side” now online, all five parts here

This is basic issue of Global Warming, In this segment we present the rebuttal to the bad science behind the global warming frenzy. We explain the hypothesis of your carbon footprint, the result of the CO2 that enters the atmosphere as a result of burning of fossil fuels to support your lifestyle. We show how that theory has failed to verify and has proven to be wrong.


Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5

Thursday 14 January 2010

The Next Big Hoax: Ocean Acidification

Source: factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com
By Alan Caruba

Just when you thought “global warming” has been put to rest by the revelations of how the computer models supporting the hoax had been deliberately falsified to “hide the decline” in the Earth’s temperature, along comes the next Big Lie, focused again on carbon dioxide (CO2).


Wednesday, January 13, has been designated “Wear Blue for Oceans Day” by some coalition calling itself Clean Ocean Action. I don’t even care whose funding this scam, but Friends of the Earth is proudly announcing it is part of it.


They are still smarting over the December debacle in Copenhagen despite being “one of the main groups organizing a December 12 march that attracted more than 100,000 participants…” The FOE neglected to mention they all stood out in a snow storm to make their voices heard on the way the Earth was warming.



Perhaps sensing that people might begin to wonder where all the global warming had gone since a global cooling cycle began in 1998, these perpetrators of the fraud turned their attention to the fact that the same CO2 that was supposed to “cause” global warming was nonetheless building in the atmosphere and that means in the oceans as well.


At far back as February 2009, these scare mongers organized an international symposium, the second one actually, on “The Ocean in a High-CO2 World.” It brought together “150 marine scientists from 26 countries” who allegedly are “calling for immediate action by policy-makers to sharply reduce CO2 emissions so as to avoid widespread and severe damage to marine ecosystems from ocean acidification.”


An article in Science Daily reported that “The scientists note that ocean acidification is already detectable and is accelerating.”


What these scientists are more interested in detecting is where the next wasted billions in government and foundation grants can be found.


The oceans of the world comprise some 70% of the Earth’s surface. They are like the lungs of the Earth, absorbing and releasing carbon dioxide. They have been doing this for billions of years and a rise in the amount of CO2 is essentially meaningless.


“It is well established among researchers that the uptake of increased amounts of carbon dioxide will make ocean water more acidic as the gas dissolves to create carbonic acid,” said the Science Daily article and, to scare you just a bit more, “Ocean chemistry is changing 100 times more rapidly than in the 650,000 years that preceded the modern industrial era…”


The global warming fraud was based on the assertion that, as the Earth encountered greater industrialization, the increased use of oil, natural gas, and coal as sources of energy, the CO2 released was “causing” the Earth to warm exponentially.


The only problem with that “theory” is that it was (1) based on phony computer models and other false interpretations of data, and (2) the latest, perfectly natural climate cycle, is causing havoc around the world by dumping mountains of snow everywhere along with breaking cold temperature records faster than new readings can be taken.


So, please, do not “Wear Blue for Oceans Day” on Wednesday because it will only indicate you are one of the idiots who still believe in global warming and that you are now prepared to further confirm that by thinking the oceans cannot handle a rise in CO2 in the same fashion they have for eons.


For the scientifically inclined, check out 


Why is it important to know that global ocean temperatures are the warmest since records began in 1880? Because the colder the water, the more carbon dioxide it retains. Warmer oceans would generate less, not more acidification.

Tuesday 12 January 2010

Antarctic Sea Water Shows ‘No Sign’ Of Warming

source: theaustralian

SEA water under an East Antarctic ice shelf showed no sign of higher temperatures despite fears of a thaw linked to global warming that could bring higher world ocean levels, first tests showed yesterday.



Sensors lowered through three holes drilled in the Fimbul Ice Shelf showed the sea water is still around freezing and not at higher temperatures widely blamed for the break-up of 10 shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula, the most northerly part of the frozen continent in West Antarctica.


"The water under the ice shelf is very close to the freezing point," Ole Anders Noest of the Norwegian Polar Institute wrote after drilling through the Fimbul, which is between 250m and 400m thick.

"This situation seems to be stable, suggesting that the melting under the ice shelf does not increase," he wrote of the first drilling cores.

The findings, a rare bit of good news after worrying signs in recent years of polar warming, adds a small bit to a puzzle about how Antarctica is responding to climate change, blamed largely on human use of fossil fuels.

Antarctica holds enough water to raise world sea levels by 57m if it ever all melted, so even tiny changes are a risk for low-lying coasts or cities from Beijing to New York.

The Institute said the water under the Fimbul was about -2.05C. Salty water freezes at a slightly lower temperature than fresh water.

And it was slightly icier than estimates in a regional model for Antarctica, head of the Norwegian Polar Institute's Center for Ice, Climate and Ecosystems, Nalan Koc, said.

"The important thing is that we are now in a position to monitor the water beneath the ice shelf.

"If there is a warming in future we can tell."

She said data collected could go into a new report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due in 2013-14.

The last IPCC report, in 2007, did not include computer models for sea temperature around the Fimbul Ice Shelf.

Experts have generally raised estimates for sea level rise - the United Nations spoke in late 2009 of a maximum 2m rise by 2100, up from 18-59cm estimated by the IPCC in 2007 that excluded any possible acceleration from Antarctica.

The break-up of ice shelves does not in itself contribute to raising sea levels since the ice is already floating.

The risk is that pent-up glaciers on land will flow faster towards the ocean if the shelves are removed.

Last month, most nations agreed at a Copenhagen climate summit to limit any rise in world temperatures to below 2C above pre-industrial times.

But they failed to set cuts in greenhouse gas emissions needed to achieve the goal. 

Monday 11 January 2010

The Mini Ice Age Starts Here

source: dailymail.co.uk

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.



Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in summer by 2013.


According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.

The scientists’ predictions also undermine the standard climate computer models, which assert that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise.

They say that their research shows that much of the warming was caused by oceanic cycles when they were in a ‘warm mode’ as opposed to the present ‘cold mode’.

This challenge to the widespread view that the planet is on the brink of an irreversible catastrophe is all the greater because the scientists could never be described as global warming ‘deniers’ or sceptics.

However, both main British political parties continue to insist that the world is facing imminent disaster without drastic cuts in CO2.

This image of the UK taken from NASA's multi-national Terra satellite on Thursday shows the extent of the freezing weather

Last week, as Britain froze, Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband maintained in a parliamentary answer that the science of global warming was ‘settled’.

Among the most prominent of the scientists is Professor Mojib Latif, a leading member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has been pushing the issue of man-made global warming on to the international political agenda since it was formed 22 years ago.

Prof Latif, who leads a research team at the renowned Leibniz Institute at Germany’s Kiel University, has developed new methods for measuring ocean temperatures 3,000ft beneath the surface, where the cooling and warming cycles start.

He and his colleagues predicted the new cooling trend in a paper published in 2008 and warned of it again at an IPCC conference in Geneva last September.

Last night he told The Mail on Sunday: ‘A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles – perhaps as much as 50 per cent.

'They have now gone into reverse, so winters like this one will become much more likely. Summers will also probably be cooler, and all this may well last two decades or longer.

‘The extreme retreats that we have seen in glaciers and sea ice will come to a halt. For the time being, global warming has paused, and there may well be some cooling.’

As Europe, Asia and North America froze last week, conventional wisdom insisted that this was merely a ‘blip’ of no long-term significance.

Though record lows were experienced as far south as Cuba, where the daily maximum on beaches normally used for winter bathing was just 4.5C, the BBC assured viewers that the big chill was merely short-term ‘weather’ that had nothing to do with ‘climate’, which was still warming.

The work of Prof Latif and the other scientists refutes that view.

On the one hand, it is true that the current freeze is the product of the ‘Arctic oscillation’ – a weather pattern that sees the development of huge ‘blocking’ areas of high pressure in northern latitudes, driving polar winds far to the south.

Meteorologists say that this is at its strongest for at least 60 years.

As a result, the jetstream – the high-altitude wind that circles the globe from west to east and normally pushes a series of wet but mild Atlantic lows across Britain – is currently running not over the English Channel but the Strait of Gibraltar.

However, according to Prof Latif and his colleagues, this in turn relates to much longer-term shifts – what are known as the Pacific and Atlantic ‘multi-decadal oscillations’ (MDOs).

For Europe, the crucial factor here is the temperature of the water in the middle of the North Atlantic, now several degrees below its average when the world was still warming.

But the effects are not confined to the Northern Hemisphere. Prof Anastasios Tsonis, head of the University of Wisconsin Atmospheric Sciences Group, has recently shown that these MDOs move together in a synchronised way across the globe, abruptly flipping the world’s climate from a ‘warm mode’ to a ‘cold mode’ and back again in 20 to 30-year cycles.

'They amount to massive rearrangements in the dominant patterns of the weather,’ he said yesterday, ‘and their shifts explain all the major changes in world temperatures during the 20th and 21st Centuries.

'We have such a change now and can therefore expect 20 or 30 years of cooler temperatures.’

Prof Tsonis said that the period from 1915 to 1940 saw a strong warm mode, reflected in rising temperatures.

But from 1940 until the late Seventies, the last MDO cold-mode era, the world cooled, despite the fact that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continued to rise.

Many of the consequences of the recent warm mode were also observed 90 years ago.

For example, in 1922, the Washington Post reported that Greenland’s glaciers were fast disappearing, while Arctic seals were ‘finding the water too hot’.

It interviewed a Captain Martin Ingebrigsten, who had been sailing the eastern Arctic for 54 years: ‘He says that he first noted warmer conditions in 1918, and since that time it has gotten steadily warmer.

'Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now moraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended into the sea they have entirely disappeared.’

As a result, the shoals of fish that used to live in these waters had vanished, while the sea ice beyond the north coast of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean had melted.

Warm Gulf Stream water was still detectable within a few hundred miles of the Pole.
In contrast, Prof Tsonis said, last week 56 per cent of the surface of the United States was covered by snow.

‘That hasn’t happened for several decades,’ he pointed out. ‘It just isn’t true to say this is a blip. We can expect colder winters for quite a while.’

He recalled that towards the end of the last cold mode, the world’s media were preoccupied by fears of freezing.

For example, in 1974, a Time magazine cover story predicted ‘Another Ice Age’, saying: ‘Man may be somewhat responsible – as a result of farming and fuel burning [which is] blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the Earth.’

Prof Tsonis said: ‘Perhaps we will see talk of an ice age again by the early 2030s, just as the MDOs shift once more and temperatures begin to rise.’

Like Prof Latif, Prof Tsonis is not a climate change ‘denier’. There is, he said, a measure of additional ‘background’ warming due to human activity and greenhouse gases that runs across the MDO cycles. 

'This isn't just a blip. We can expect colder winters for quite a while' 

But he added: ‘I do not believe in catastrophe theories. Man-made warming is balanced by the natural cycles, and I do not trust the computer models which state that if CO2 reaches a particular level then temperatures and sea levels will rise by a given amount.

'These models cannot be trusted to predict the weather for a week, yet they are running them to give readings for 100 years.’

Prof Tsonis said that when he published his work in the highly respected journal Geophysical Research Letters, he was deluged with ‘hate emails’.

He added: ‘People were accusing me of wanting to destroy the climate, yet all I’m interested in is the truth.’

He said he also received hate mail from climate change sceptics, accusing him of not going far enough to attack the theory of man-made warming.

The work of Profs Latif, Tsonis and their teams raises a crucial question: If some of the late 20th Century warming was caused not by carbon dioxide but by MDOs, then how much?

Tsonis did not give a figure; Latif suggested it could be anything between ten and 50 per cent.

Other critics of the warming orthodoxy say the role played by MDOs is even greater.

William Gray, emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University, said that while he believed there had been some background rise caused by greenhouse gases, the computer models used by advocates of man-made warming had hugely exaggerated their effect.

According to Prof Gray, these distort the way the atmosphere works. ‘Most of the rise in temperature from the Seventies to the Nineties was natural,’ he said. ‘Very little was down to CO2 – in my view, as little as five to ten per cent.’

But last week, die-hard warming advocates were refusing to admit that MDOs were having any impact.

In March 2000, Dr David Viner, then a member of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, the body now being investigated over the notorious ‘Warmergate’ leaked emails, said that within a few years snowfall would become ‘a very rare and exciting event’ in Britain, and that ‘children just aren’t going to know what snow is’.

Now the head of a British Council programme with an annual £10 million budget that raises awareness of global warming among young people abroad, Dr Viner last week said he still stood by that prediction: ‘We’ve had three weeks of relatively cold weather, and that doesn’t change anything.

'This winter is just a little cooler than average, and I still think that snow will become an increasingly rare event.’

The longer the cold spell lasts, the harder it may be to persuade the public of that assertion.

Friday 8 January 2010

Global Cooling in 2009

source: Populartechnology.net



2009 was another year of global cooling, which saw numerous low temperature and high snowfall records smashed. The Dutch canals froze over for the first time in 12 years, record cold came to Al Gore's home town and ironically a blizzard dumped snow on the Copenhagen convention where world leaders met to try and stop global warming. It was so cold that even the BBC was forced to ask, what happened to global warming? As Climategate would reveal, IPCC scientists had been hard at work hiding evidence of global cooling. Yet the observational evidence cannot be ignored.