Monday afternoon catch-up - Climate Change Special

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1) Climate Realists reported on 13 January that

'Ex-CIA agent emails former colleagues of disgraced United Nations professor offering millions for evidence of climate fraud.

Kent Clizbe took time out from a busy work schedule this week to help climate skeptics in efforts to nail one of their biggest targets in the global warming scam, Penn. State University professor, Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann.

Mann is the climate scientist who devised the so-called ‘hockey stick’ graph that the UN used to blame human emissions of carbon dioxide for ‘global warming.’ The UN has since dropped the discredited graph from its publicity while Mann has been subject to increasing legal scrutiny.

State Prosecutor Makes Breakthrough in Climate Case

The latest initiative follows hot on the heels of last week’s courtroom success for Virginia Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli against Mann’s former employers at the University of Virginia. The university squandered half a million dollars in a desperate attempt to withhold past records of Mann from Cuccinelli. A court ruling ended such shenanigans.

Buoyed by the success Clizbe has been able to identify over 40 ex-colleagues of Mann at the University of Virginia (U.Va) and he’s making each and everyone one of them a tempting multi-million dollar offer.'

I wonder if anyone has taken up the offer yet?


2) Resilient Earth put forward 'The Case For Doing Nothing About Global Warming', it's a long and fascinating article, do take the time to read it all. However here's one graph and mote that I think says more than most words ever could:

'Since the rise of human civilization we have been blessed with good climatic conditions—most of the past 10,000 have been warmer than the present. With the exception of a brief cool period about 8,200 years ago, the entire period from 1,500 to 10,500 years ago was significantly warmer than present. The graph below is from Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, and is based on GISP2 Greenland ice core data. Consider all the attention that 2010 is getting as a contender for the “warmest year of the century.” Of the past 10,500 years, 9,100 were warmer than 1934/1998/2010) Thus, regardless of which year—1934, 1998, or 2010, NOAA keeps changing their data—proves to be the warmest of the past century, that year will rank number 9,099 in the long-term Holocene list.

...

That kind of puts the hoopla about the “hottest year since” contest into perspective. For more detailed information see “2010 – where does it fit in the warmest year list?” on the Watts Up With That? website. Again, the point here is that warm is good and warmer is better. If not for global warming we would still be huddled in caves and hunting mastodon for dinner.'

Here's the article's finale:

'The likely effects of global warming are more moderate weather at higher latitudes, more food from greater rainfall and longer growing seasons, and better health for all. Tropical regions are unlikely to be damaged and there will be fewer tropical storms. Commerce will be boosted as new trade routes appear around the formerly ice choked Arctic, which will also become available for oil and gas exploration. Sea-levels could rise a few feet over time (centuries), but you can build a dike around a city or even a country to hold the ocean at bay—there is nothing that can stop an advancing glacier.

As Svante Arrhenius said more than 100 years ago, global warming will make Earth's climate “more equable.” Weigh the benefits against the detriments and the conclusion is obvious—instead of trying to stop global warming, at the very least we should kick back and do nothing.

Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical.'

3) C3 Headlines reports that the oceans are not warming:

'Read here. The 'Argo' ocean buoy real-time reporting system is the most advanced technology that scientists possess for measuring ocean temperatures at varying levels. Recently, NASA scientists at its Jet Propulsion Lab reported that the Argo data was showing a slight ocean cooling trend since 2003, which was recently confirmed by another peer-reviewed paper.
This ocean cooling has proven to be a major source of embarrassment to AGW scientists as it is the exact opposite of what they and the IPCC climate models predicted.'

4) Daily Bayonet report that 'A new study suggests that compact fluorescent light bulbs may cause an increase in breast cancer:'


5) The Inconvenient Skeptic moans that:

'The longer I am involved in the global warming debate the more frustrated I am getting with the CRU temperature data.   This is the one of the most commonly cited sources of global temperature data, but the numbers just don’t stay put.  Each and every month the past monthly temperatures are revised.  Since I enter the data into a spreadsheet each month I am constantly seeing the shift in the data.  If it was the third significant digit it wouldn’t bother me (very much), but it is much more than that.
For example, I have two very different values for January of 2010 since September 2010.  Here are the values for January based on the date I gathered it.

Sep 10th, 2010:  January 2010 anomaly was  0.707 °C

Jan 30th, 2011:  January 2010 anomaly is now 0.675 °C

That is a 5% shift in the value for last January that has taken place in the past 4 months.  All of the initial months of the year show a fairly significant shift in temperature.'

Read it all, a fantastic piece.


6) Climate Realists has an interesting piece on a subject that environmentalists tend not to speak about:

'In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale,

This toxic lake poisons Chinese farmers, their children and their land. It is what's left behind after making the magnets for Britain's latest wind turbines... and, as a special Live investigation reveals, is merely one of a multitude of environmental sins committed in the name of our new green Jerusalem

On the outskirts of one of China’s most polluted cities, an old farmer stares despairingly out across an immense lake of bubbling toxic waste covered in black dust. He remembers it as fields of wheat and corn.

Yan Man Jia Hong is a dedicated Communist. At 74, he still believes in his revolutionary heroes, but he despises the young local officials and entrepreneurs who have let this happen.

‘Chairman Mao was a hero and saved us,’ he says. ‘But these people only care about money. They have destroyed our lives.’'

7) Autonomous Mind says that 'The Met Office winter forecast lie is finally nailed' and explains why...


8) UD/RK Samhalls Debatt has a fascianting article on a subject that I have blogged about several times in the recent past 'How the world temperature “record” was manipulated through dropping of (weather) stations'. Here's an extract, please do read up on this scandalous fact that the BBC have never (to my knowledge) ever mentioned. Here's a long'ish extract from a very long piece:

'I have written extensively on this blog about the tweaking, “adjustment” and manipulation of the historic and present temperature “record” which are presented in the official figures.

With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking” to cool the past etc.

Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations around 1990 – roughly 63 % of all climate measuring stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations are back at the same numbers as in 1890.

(See for example my posts:

Rewriting Temperature History – Time and Time Again!,

More on the Blunder with NASA: s GISS Temperature data and the mess they have,

The Big dropout of weather stations since 1989 – A 66% reduction in 11 years,

The Big Difference Between GISS and UAH Temperature Data.

Minus 60 C or not?

The world has never seen such freezing heat OR the Blunder with NASA: s GISS Temperature data)

Just one example of this historical “adjustment and tweaking” they are doing:

On average 20% of the historical record was modified 16 times 2006 to beginning of 2008. The largest single jump was 0.27 C. This occurred between the Oct 13, 2006 and Jan 15, 2007 records when Aug 2006 changed from an anomaly of +0.43C to +0.70C, a change of nearly 68%.

And what a “coincidence” that the data is always “modified” in only on direction – guess which one.

Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.

And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit there agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..'

9) The Vancouver Sun reports that oddly 'A switch from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs could up carbon dioxide emissions' - how can that be?

'Electricity in British Columbia, as in Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec, is almost entirely hydro. For climate-change environmentalists this is the holiest form of energy because hydroelectric generators release zero grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour. About one-third of B.C. homes are heated electrically, thus generating no carbon dioxide.

Two-thirds of B.C. homes, however, are heated with natural gas -- carbon fuel from deep in the earth.

Natural gas furnaces release 220 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour of heat.

The provincial government, the BC Hydro Power Smart advertisements, the David Suzuki website, Greenpeace and Natural Resources Canada all claim -- falsely -- that old-style light bulbs "waste energy." The reality is that old-style light bulbs and all electrical appliances are 100-per-cent efficient as space heaters.

There has been some debate about this in recent letters to The Vancouver Sun, so let's examine exactly what "100-per-cent efficient" means. Fundamental laws of thermodynamics state that energy cannot be lost: The power coming out of a light bulb must equal the power going into it. If a 100W light bulb is seven-per-cent efficient, it generates 93W of heat and 7W of light. But even the 7W of light ends up as heat (what else would it turn into?) when it gets absorbed by objects in the room. So 100 per cent of the electrical energy ends up as heat. Okay, you got me: If the blinds are open, a very small amount of the light may go out the window and heat up your lawn instead.

In the summer, I admit, light bulb heat is "wasted" but in the other three seasons it provides valuable heat that reduces natural gas consumption. As we replace old-style "hot" light bulbs with efficient "cool" light bulbs, our thermostats will keep the furnaces on longer and more carbon dioxide will be released into the atmosphere.'

Somehow I don't think that this news will be reported widely.


10) The Observatory is not a big fan of the predictions of Dr James Hansen and thinks he may have been proved wrong by events.