True Grit

I keep tabs on global-warming related posts, and I noticed one today from Brit and Grit basically asking, “Where’s the evidence?” for global warming. So I posted a reply, pointing to some online sources of information. I received a very polite and thoughtful reply from “the Grit.” In it he (she?) mentions some of the reasons for his doubt:

There are questions as to the reliability of the historic data, various warming and cooling cycles prior to any influence by human activity, satellite observations that don’t correspond to ground measurements, and so on.

He then concludes that there’s no justification for action until further study is undertaken. Given the state of information made public in the USA on the subject, this is an entirely understandable opinion. It also concords with my own approach: healthy skepticism. I felt an especial empathy for his statement, because a mere two years ago I was of exactly the same opinion.

Supreme Court

A case began today in the U.S. supreme court, Commonwealth of Massachussetts et al. vs US EPA et al. A number of states, led by Massachussetts, is suing the EPA, in order to force it to abide by the law. The law requires the EPA to regulate substances which might reasonably be expected to cause harm to the citizens of our nation. A number of prominent climate scientists have filed an amicus curiae brief (”friend of the court”) in order to provide background information.

Warming up to Iceland

We’ve previously discussed an editorial by Lord Monckton, Viscount of Brenchley, stating his case against global warming. In an accompanying document he elaborates at great length, producing many arguments. At one point he characterizes temperature trends in Iceland, stating on pg. 19,

“In Iceland, as in Greenland, the first half of the 20th century was warmer than the second half.”

He discusses at length the fact that the earth isn’t warming uniformly, and that some areas of the globe (Iceland, Greenland, and Antarctica) have shown unexpected temperature anomalies.

The Thermometer Record

Temperature records from thermometer measurements have been maintained over large areas of the globe for a century and a half, and in a few locations for several centuries. Numerous researchers have collected and organized these measurements, checking them carefully so that errors can be corrected if possible and eliminated if not, and compensating for all known biases and nonclimatological factors. The world’s two leading scientific institutions maintaining accurate and consistent temperature records are the Hadley Centre for Climate Research in the U.K. (HadCRU) and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in the U.S. They further estimate global and hemispheric averages of temperature; these data are the source for most of the temperature graphs published in the mass media.

Urban “heat-island” effects (UHI)

Monckton part ?

I guess it had to happen. Lord Monckton (author of a recent editorial and its accompanying document denying global warming in the English newspaper The Sunday Telegraph) is a Viscount, a peer of the British Empire, but he is definitely not a scientist. Yet a recent blog entry has elevated him to the status of “leading scientist”:

A leading scientist writing in the Sunday Telegraph reveals that much of the global climate change hysteria is less about saving the planet than about creating a one-world government. Christopher Monckton says…

But I digress.

An effort is underway to organize a group to respond rigorously, and in detail, to Lord Monckton’s essay. Rather than continue the series of blog posts, I intend to focus my efforts on this group response. But I promise my readers to keep them abreast of the details, and final outcome. My apologies for any delay, do stay tuned…

Monckton part 1

An editorial was recently published in the English newspaper The Sunday Telegraph by Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, claiming that global warming is false. Monckton is not a scientist, but he did produc a lengthy document supporting his claims. The editorial and its accompanying document have stirred controversy in Great Britain.

I intend to examine Lord Monckton’s claims in detail, for two reasons: first, to illustrate the incorrectness of his claims, and second, to illustrate the level of reliability of denialist propoganda. I’ll start with his “Summary of the argument”:

Who the heck started all this global warming fuss anyway?

I think we can give the credit — or blame — to Svante Arrhenius. He was a Swedish chemist, a Nobel prize-winner, a pretty smart guy. In 1896 he concluded that changing the carbon dioxide level in our atmosphere could alter, and in fact had altered, the temperature of planet Earth [On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature of the Ground, Philosophical Magazine 1896(41): 237-76]. He wasn’t the first to theorize that altering the amount of CO2 and other atmospheric gases could change global temperature, but he was the first to suggest that it had actually happened — it might even have caused the ice ages.

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Today’s entry is by a guest blogger, my wife.

It all started with the Tesla Purple Energy Shield.

If you’ve not heard of this piece of crap phenomenon, oh boy you’re missing out. In essence, for just under $300 (including shipping), you get what looks like a purple sex toy of some kind on a key chain. It heals diseases, slows the aging process, saves you money on car insurance, and I don’t recall what else but I remember the word “tachyons” used. I happened upon this while reading a post on Blogspot (link). The blogger mentioned sending correspondence to the makers of this overpriced chunk of aluminum modern miracle suggesting they enter the James Randi Educational Foundation’s Challenge.

Picking Cherries

There’s a website called co2science which regularly posts a “Temperature Record of the Week.” This week they’re featuring Beatrice, NE. From their website:

To bolster our claim that “There Has Been No Net Global Warming for the Past 70 Years,” each week we highlight the temperature record of one of the 1221 U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) stations from 1930-2000.

This issue’s temperature record of the week is from Beatrice, NE. During the period of most significant greenhouse gas buildup over the past century, i.e., 1930 and onward, Beatrice’s mean annual temperature has cooled by 1.07 degrees Fahrenheit. Not much global warming here!

Well … that settles it!

Days of Wine and Roses

There’s a new book out, Unstoppable Global Warming-Every 1500 Years, by well-known global warming denialists Fred Singer and Dennis Avery. You can read the press release here. The book claims it “Debunks Greenhouse Fears and Points to Natural 1,500-Year Warming Cycles”

One of the prominent evidences they give against the reality of current warming is the inability to grow wine grapes in modern England.

“The Romans wrote about growing wine grapes in Britain in the first century,” says Avery, “and then it got too cold during the Dark Ages. Ancient tax records show the Britons grew their own wine grapes in the 11th century, during the Medieval Warming, and then it got too cold during the Little Ice Age. It isn’t yet warm enough for wine grapes in today’s Britain. Wine grapes are among the most accurate and sensitive indicators of temperature and they are telling us about a cycle. They also indicate that today’s warming is not unprecedented.”

Not yet warm enough for wine grapes in today’s Britain! Sounds pretty convincing, eh?