Odds & Ends On Global Warming

Some odds and ends regarding the global warming hoopla that I thought was interesting.  First, lets look at this study done in 2005 which claimed greenhouse gas would slow the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean which would then cause a mini ice age in Europe (Here comes the Ice Age hysteria again).  (h/t JunkScience)

The media release for the 2005 Nature study ominously read, “The ocean currents that help to maintain Northern Europe’s relatively clement climate are weakening, according to a new survey carried out in the Atlantic Ocean. The new data shows that the system of currents that moves warm waters north and returns cooler waters to more southerly latitudes has weakened by 30 percent since 1957.”

Researchers aboard a 2004 voyage led by the UK National Oceanography Centre’s Harry Bryden surveyed the strength of currents at various depths at latitude of 25 degrees north. Although Bryden found no change to the Gulf Stream — the northward flow of warm water near the surface — he reported a 50 percent reduction in the amount of cold, deep waters flowing southwards and a 50 percent increase in the amount of water recirculating within subtropical regions without reaching higher latitudes. These changes, according to Bryden, showed that less water is completing a full circuit of the entire Atlantic current system.

Bryden’s study was used by the IPCC:

Bryden’s line of thinking also found its way into the most recent report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — a report that includes him as one of its reviewers. Although the report didn’t endorse Bryden’s claimed magnitude for the Atlantic slowdown, it did conclude that such a slowdown was “very likely” during the 21st century.

When the results of the study were released it unleashed a torrent of hysterical headlines:

The Nature study spawned a tidal wave of scary headlines around the world that December, including “Scientists Say Slow Atlantic Currents Could Mean a Colder Europe” (New York Times); “Fears of Big Freeze as Scientists Detect Slower Gulf Stream” (The Independent, UK); “Shifting Currents Renew Fears of Freezing” (The Gazette, Montreal); “Europe Faces Feal Day After Tomorrow” (Courier Mail, Australia); and “Ocean Flow Findings Indicate Harsher Winters for Europe” (Press Trust of India).

I found some headlines myself:

• Slowed Atlantic Currents May Herald Climate Change in Europe
• Failing ocean current raises fears of mini ice age
• Study: Current that warms Europe weakening

Pretty similar to the headlines we see when a global warming zealot exits the Goracles compound and tells us another fairy tale…ahem, gives us another study.

Problem is that as often is the case, another study debunked their study.  The jounal Science released a study three days ago that puts a mighty big crimp into the original studies results.  JunkScience again:

An international team of researchers just reported in the journal Science (Aug. 17) that the intensity of the Atlantic circulation may vary by as much as a factor of 8 in a single year. The decrease in Atlantic circulation claimed in the Nature study falls well within this variation and so is likely part of a natural yearly trend, according to the new study.

~~~

Bryden worked with only very limited oceanic data — five sets of ship-based temperature and salinity measurements from the north Atlantic collected during research cruises between 1957 and 2004. His prediction of a much larger slowdown of the Atlantic current than made by climate model simulations is the sort of extreme outlier result that often occurs with the use of incomplete and inadequate data.

In contrast, the new result is based on bottom pressure, temperature and salinity data for the full water column on either side of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge collected continuously since March 2004. The ocean-interior measurements were complemented by sea cable and satellite measurements of the northward flow of the Gulf Stream and surface-driven wind transport, respectively. What a difference high-quality data makes.

JunkScience does note that Bryden backed off many of his claims as more information was released about the limited data used to model the currents.  But alas, the MSM was no where to be found.  The environazi’s were silent. 

This is a perfect example of what is so wrong with the hysteria created by politicians, the MSM, and ignorant celebrities.  There is just not enough data to come to a conclusion on any of the warming zealots claims.  But still they pounce on any study that tends to prove even a little inkling of what they preach to the choir.   They pounce on it and tell us the debate is over.

Remember the recent brouhaha over the data change by NASA which caused the warmest year in the US to change from the 90’s to the 30’s?  Well the guy who made the "mistake" in the first place, the nations "top climate scientist", has released a statement which proves once and for all that he is not a unbiased scientist.  Rather he is a dyed in the wool Goracle priest:

The contrarians will be remembered as court jesters. There is no point to joust with court jesters. They will always be present. They will continue to entertain even if the Titanic begins to take on water. Their role and consequence is only as a diversion from what is important.

The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children. The court jesters are their jesters, occasionally paid for services, and more substantively supported by the captains’ disinformation campaigns.

Court jesters serve as a distraction, a distraction from usufruct. Usufruct is the matter that the captains wish to deny, the matter that they do not want their children to know about. They realize that if there is no ‘gorilla’, then usufruct is not an important issue for them. So, with the help of jesters, they deny the existence of the gorilla. There is no danger of melting the Arctic, of destabilizing the West Antarctic ice sheet, of increasing hydrologic extremes, more droughts and stronger forest fires on one hand and heavier downpours and floods on the other, threats to the fresh water supplies of huge numbers of people in different parts of the globe. “Whew! It is lucky that, as our jesters show, these are just imaginary concerns. We captains of industry can continue with business-as-usual, we do not need to face the tough problem of how to maintain profits without destroying our legacy in our children’s eyes.”

~~~

What we have here is a case of dogged contrarians who present results in ways intended to deceive the public into believing that the changes have greater significance than reality. They aim to make a mountain out of a mole hill. I believe that these people are not stupid, instead they seek to create a brouhaha and muddy the waters in the climate change story. They seem to know exactly what they are doing and believe they can get away with it, because the public does not have the time, inclination, and training to discern what is a significant change with regard to the global warming issue.

Funny, this whole brouhaha was created because of Hansen’ deception.  He changed the data silently and without notice expecting no one to ask questions, THEN he refuses to release all of his data collection methods and computer codes involved in the GISS calculations….but it’s all our fault for DARING to think this is a big deal. 

And now we understand why this "mistake" happened in the first place.  A scientist calling critics court jesters is hardly a dispassionate man of science who is only looking for the truth.  His silly liberal worldview of "captains of industry" (big oil) caring little for the fate of the earth and only smiling with glee as they rake in the cash is just that….silly, and ignorant.  He believes that these  captains have no family, no children, no one they care about….he must believe this right if what he says is true.  The captains KNOW the titanic is sinking but still want to get a few more bucks in their pockets, their children be damned.  I mean it couldn’t be that maybe, just maybe these captains understand that the data does not support the conclusions he is espousing. 

Hansen has unveiled himself as a liberal leftist, and should now be ignored. 

Then there is this winner of a MSM piece:

As the policy debate over climate change unfolds, the Big Bet gets lost in the rhetoric. Congress and the American people are being asked to place a bet on how sensitive the Earth’s climate is to changes in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A wager on the low end could trigger the catastrophic events we all dread. The alternative, a policy that acknowledges how high and likely the risk really is, leads to the best possible future.

Oh, I see.  We should practically ruin our economy and ensure the demise of whole industries based on a bet?  Because it MIGHT happen.  But as JunkScience writes, the information and studies released daily by the minions of Gore (Hansen has proven himself to be a Cardinal of the order now) is not sound.  Their models are not sound because there is just not enough data to support their conclusions.  Sure, they can make guesses but acknowledge them as guesses.  DO NOT tell us the debate is over:

This would be correct if the basic information on which decisions are to be made is sound, something which cannot be claimed for climate. The problem lies in the manner in which fudged ‘climate models’ have been made to wiggle fit estimates of recent global mean temperature with an inadequate parameter toolbox. Myriad ‘adjustments’ have been made and a whopping 250% multiplier imposed to make increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide drive estimated trends (through unobserved ‘positive feedbacks’) simply because the known physics of CO₂ don’t produce the goods. That empirical observations repeatedly contradict such asserted and apparently mythical magical magnifiers is curiously overlooked by an industry now desperate to pin the ‘blame’ on carbon dioxide and so we have these physically implausible claims of catastrophic warming injected into risk analyses — bad idea!

The man-made global warming crowd has become an industry.  An industry to scare the bejesus out of every person on the planet so the cash will flow.

UPDATE

I completely missed this reference to Thomas Jefferson by the obviously biased "scientist" James Hansen in his recent rebuttal.  Lumo at The Reference Frame did not however:

reflecting the most rigorous kind of scientific "thinking" that this director of a NASA institute is capable or willing to perform. He explains that all global warming skeptics are controlled by big fish and that no errors in his work can ever matter. I suppose that everyone has already seen these "theories" and everyone could be bored if we responded again.

But there is a brand new "argument" in Hansen’s new "paper", after all: it turns out that Thomas Jefferson was an AGW alarmist! Who could have thought? That should really settle the question about global warming! 🙂

How does Dr Hansen prove that Thomas Jefferson was an alarmist? Well, he quotes a letter that Jefferson sent to James Madison during their discussion about the Bill of Rights.

The question whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government. … I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self evident, "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living;" that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. …

Hansen interprets this letter by saying that Jefferson was an environmentalist and the Earth belongs to living beings of all generations. He apparently wants you to believe that the "living" in Jefferson’s letter means "Gaia" – the union of all plants, animals, and bacteria of all generations.

If you actually read the whole letter, it is very obvious that Jefferson’s point was exactly the opposite. Jefferson said very explicitly that the past generations – the dead people – or the people who are not yet living have no right to control the resources that exist at a given moment or bind the future generations to pay any money (or land). That’s a good policy because otherwise we would be governed by zombies which would be bad unless they would be lively zombies. 😉 According to Jefferson as well as any other person who understands some of the basic principles of Western democracy, a generation has no right to bind another generation, e.g. by carbon targets or a territorial debt.

Jefferson declares clearly that everything about these resources should be decided by the people who live at the particular moment. The Earth belongs to them in "usufruct".

There is a whole lot more at The Reference Frame, and much more clarification but you get the point.  Somehow this supposedly unbiased scientist at NASA thinks using Thomas Jefferson as an argument against those who don’t believe his hysteria is a good idea, but then he interprets  the very letter quite badly.

And this is what is heading the NASA GISS unit? 

Wow…..real impressive.

Curt

See author page