Monday, December 31, 2007
Well unless there is a tilt in th earth axis, the only way for it to occur is due to cloud cover. Recent increases in sunshine duration (accompanied with warmer weather) is an indication that perhaps we are just experiencing less clouds than normal, and that clouds is the sole reason why we are warming up.
However this website suggests that despite cloud cover decreasing from 1975 to 1998, cloud cover levels were greater than the 20 years before that.
Of course it really matters when the cloud cover is occurring. More cloud at night means warmer nights, whilst more clouds during the day generally means colder days. So is Australia experiencing any trends in cloud covers during the day and at night? We'll find out next.
Ohh, and Merry Christmas all and happy new year! (thats the reason why there hasn't been a post of late - my liver is feeling it!)
Thursday, December 20, 2007
On closer examination of the below analysis, a calculation error was found in the analysis of temperature and sunshine duration. The calculation error has a large effect on the results and the conclusion. The information below should not be taken as evidence or for any talking or arguementive point. On ocrrection of the error it was found that the effect of sunshine duration on maximum tempertaures is a lot smaller than as shown below. This will be discussed in analysis shortly to come. Apologies for the error involved and I will be providing more analysis and more in depth analysis of Australian temperatures in the very near future.
Abstract: Using twenty two weather stations across Australia, the variable sunshine duration is shown to have significantly increased since 1951. Its correlation with maximum temperature anomalies is highly statistically significant. By eliminating the influence of sunshine duration from the maximum temperature dataset, maximum temperature trends were shown to drop from an average of 1.4 to 0.1 degrees increase per 100 years. Hence the variable sunshine duration accounts for 93% of all positive trends in maximum temperature since 1951 in Australia. Implications of these findings and the relationship of the variable sunshine duration with respect to cloud cover trends and how they is measured will be discussed.
Our introduction on Tuesday laid out that we intend on looking at the variable sunshine duration to see if it has any effect on temperature change over the years.
Using our dataset we found a highly significant increase in maximum temperatures (t = 5.95, p < 0.001). Maybe because we have used urban stations or maybe because the bulk of the weather stations occur on the east coast of Australia (an area which has seen the majority of increase), that the rate of increase of temperature as shown on that graph (linked) is at 1.42 degrees per 100 years, which is more than greater Australia and the rest of the world.
Either way, this doesn't matter, as we are merely looking at the relationship between sunshine duration and temperature. Because some stations have data for maximum temperature that goes back further than sunshine duration (and vice versa), all years that did not have recordings for sunshine duration as well maximum temperatures were eliminated from the dataset for each individual station.
Interestingly, sunshine duration also significantly increased since 1951 (t = 2.58, p = 0.013). The strength of the trend is not as strong as temperature, but is still statistically significant.
The two variables shown on the same graph is shown above. Note that in general when temperatures are high, so too is sunshine duration and vice versa. The last six years of data highlights this. anomalies
The relationship between the maximum temperature per year per station as well as sunshine duration per year per station is shown below. The correlation between them is highly significant (t = 14.71, p < 0.001), and the r squared indicates that 17.5% of the variance of temperature can be explained by sunshine duration.
That might not sound like much, but when we account for the variable sunshine duration (i.e. minus its relationship with temperature off the original dataset), then we can analyse temperature without any influence of sunshine duration. In other words, we can look at temperature trends over the past 50 years by assuming that there has been no trends and no anomalies in sunshine duration at all.
The results are amazing. The following graph shows the temperature trend since 1951 should there be no variance in sunshine duration. The increase in temperature since 1951 still occurs, as is statistically significant (t = 5.8, p < 0.001), but take a look the rate of change of temperature, in particular the formula for the line of best fit as well as the left hand axis.
When taking into account sunshine duration, temperature rise in Australia is at the rate of 0.00099 per year or 0.099 degrees per 100 years. Now a 0.1 degree increase every 100 years is hardly anything to get worries about. It's not going to cause any great catastrophe. So we've gone from 1.4 degrees of warming per 100 years to 0.1 degrees of warming per 100 years. The variable sunshine duration has accounted for 93% (1.3/1.4) of all warming trend that we have seen since 1951.
So therefore the warming that we are seeing, is by and large highly correlated with sunshine duration. So does this mean that clouds are the major cause of global warming? Well, probably not. In order to discuss why the variable "sunshine duration" has a major effect on temperature change, we have to look into how it is measured, and the trends of clouds in Australia. And that will be in the next post
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Feedback effects due to clouds are an area of ongoing research. Seen from below, clouds emit infrared radiation back to the surface, and so exert a warming effect; seen from above, clouds reflect sunlight and emit infrared radiation to space, and so exert a cooling effect. Whether the net effect is warming or cooling depends on details such as the type and altitude of the cloud. These details are difficult to represent in climate models, in part because clouds are much smaller than the spacing between points on the computational grids of climate models.
Recently when questioning embers of the CSIRO as to why north-west Australia has seen a cooling trend in the last 50 years, he replied that it was due an increase in clouds in that area, possibly, due to an increase in aerosol usage in Asia.
And increase in clouds in that area made sense. IT has, after all, seen a massive increase in rainfall in the last 20 years, so one would also expect an increase in cloud activity. I asked him if eastern Australia is warming up due to less clouds, as the east also, has received less rain. His response was it could have a small minor effect, but that greenhouse gases were shown through models to be the major cause.
I needent have asked.
So, is what he says is true? Are we seeing more clouds in the north west, and no difference in clouds in the east? One would expect more or less clouds would cause an decrease and increase in temperature. How much of an effect it has we shall see. Luckily, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has the data so we can look into it.
However, the data is not as extensive as temperature based data, and to get a good sized data range, we've had to include stations that are classified as urban.
The following stations have data on "sunshine duration" that go back to at last 1961, (the standard of comparison over years in climate data is from 1961 to 1990):
GILES METEOROLOGICAL OFFICE
TENNANT CREEK AIRPORT
ALICE SPRINGS AIRPORT
MOUNT GAMBIER AERO
KAIRI RESEARCH STATION
COFFS HARBOUR MO
EAST SALE AIRPORT
NORFOLK ISLAND AERO
The placements of the stations are shown at this link.
Unfortunately, Western Australia is not very well surveyed, with only one station at Giles having accurate and lengthy data on sunshine duration. Similarly country Queensland and New South Wales have gaps. Conversely Tasmania and Cairns are over sampled.
But the purpose of this exercise is not to formulate whether Australia is warming or cooling based on the stations, but rather what relationship does sunshine duration have on temperature. If we account for sunshine duration, do we still see an increase in temperature over the past 50 years?
But to start off with, we will look into if sunshine duration, in the stations provided has increased or decreased or stayed around the same in the past 50 years. And this will be in the next post
Sunday, December 16, 2007
But what happens at 9am, Noon and 3pm. The details are below.
Interestingly, Winter was increasing at a significantly greater rate than summer at 9am (t = 5.62 , p 0.001). Likewise, Noon temperatures in winter were increasing in temperature significantly greater than summer since 1950 at Noon(t = -3.5, p = 0.001). However at 3pm, there was no significant summer / winter effect (t = -1.3, p = 0.21)
Lets look at the individual temperatures or summer and winter. No significant temperature increase was found during summer at 9am (t = -0.76, p = 0.45), Noon (t = 0.51, p = 0.61) and 3pm (t = 1.92, p = 0.06). Note here that an increase in temperature was found at 3pm in summer, but was only just insignificant.
During winter, temperature increases were significant at 9am (t = 7, p < 0.001), as well as at Noon (t = 4.7, p < 0.001) and 3pm (t = 3.1, p < 0.01).
So what does this all mean? What it means is that during winter we are seeing over time no temperature increasing trends overnight, then a dramatic increase in temperature at 9am. Increases over time in temperature continue at Noon and 3pm (although not as strong), and then from 6pm onwards there is no significant increases in temperature over the years.
In Summer we also are seeing no positive trends in temperature overnight, but it is taking longer to warm up. Positive trends in temperature over the years start to occur at around 3pm and last till 9pm, and from then on no increase.
In other words, in winter, massive increases when the sun rises, in summer, increases from the middle of the day until sunset. Perhaps this is because a warmer sun will increase a colder place quicker than it will a warmer place. I'm not entirely sure.
But either way, we are seeing a very strong summer/winter effect. Something that should be present if global warming was mainly sun induced, and would not be present if the world was warming up due to CO2.
But is it just the sun that is causing the warming? What about clouds and sun duration? We'll take a look at that next.
Friday, December 14, 2007
It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages…
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC’s conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.
The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line by government representatives. The great majority of IPCC contributors and reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.
Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:
z Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.
z The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.
z Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today’s computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.
In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is “settled,” significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_timetable_2006-08-14.pdf) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.
The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the “precautionary principle” because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future…
Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity’s real and pressing problems.
Monday, December 10, 2007
However if the sun was one of the major causes of global warming, then we would see no or little summer/winter effect overnight (as we previously showed), but would find that summer would be increasing in temperature at a greater rate than winter at 6pm and 9pm.
This is because during summer, the sun is still heating up the surface, whilst in winter, it is long set.
So what do we find? Firstly we find a significant increase in temperature for summer minus winter at 6pm (t = 2.85, p < 0.01). Likewise we also find a significant increase in summer minus winter temperatures at 9pm (t = 3.98, p < 0.001).
Both these two results give more evidence of sun induced global warming as opposed to man made global warming.
In fact both 6pm and 9pm showed significant increase in temperatures during summer (6pm: t = 2.24, p < 0.05; 9pm: t = 4.3, p < 0.001), whilst in winter, both 6pm and 9pm showed no significant increase or decrease in temperature (6pm: t = -1.88, p = 0.067; 9pm: t = -0.98, p = 0.33). Statisticians will note that the above figures actually indicate a decrease in temperature at 6pm and 9pm during winter, however insignificant.
So what we are seeing is that throughout the year, we we seeing no significant increase or decrease in temperature when the sun is not risen, however when the sun is in the air and influencing the earth, it is only then that we are seeing an increase in temperature in the last 50 years.
This points towards very strong proof that global warming is largely caused by the sun and not by man.
- ...the issue is not whether humanity will succumb to a "climate crisis," or how the international community might craft a successor to the tattered Kyoto Accord (Let's call it KyoTwo). The real theme of this United Nations gabfest -- like that of its 12 predecessors, and of the hundreds, if not thousands, of related meetings --is whether globalization and trade liberalization will be allowed to continue, with a corresponding increase in wealth, health and welfare, or whether the authoritarian enemies of freedom (who rarely if ever recognize themselves as such) will succeed in using environmental hysteria to undermine capitalism and increase their Majesterium.
- Science has to learn that science no longer controls the debate, and that 'truth' will not be legitimised by science alone.
- ...the language games of science are no longer self-legitimised, but are legitimised against the power and media relations in which they are embedded. They are, accordingly, legitimised by the social bond, which seeks out the 'science' that supports the bond, but actively rejects, and pours scorn on, the 'science' that challenges the bond.
- The social bond has created a desire for 'global warming' to be true in order to legitimise a whole suite of pre-ordained Neo-Malthusian agendas and fears....from anti-growth to anti-Americanism. Thus, the science is also uncritically legitimised...
- Science can no longer function in a vacuum and legitimise itself. Indeed, it is questionable whether this was ever the case. The fight for 'truth' involves, above all, the use of language, of words of power...
- Language is everything. One mythical phrase employed by one clever media outlet can overthrow the whole edifice of science at the press of a computer key.
- The battle ground is the social bond, not science.
- And, paradoxically, and perhaps amusingly, this is something that 'global warming' scientists are about to learn to their cost at Bali, where a different, but equally powerful, grand narrative from the developing world could well topple the 'global warming' grand narrative of a rich and ecochondriac North.
Friday, December 07, 2007
So we will first see whether a summer/winter effect occurs overnight. We obviously hope that we don't see an effect here, anything else would prove very interesting. However the overnight summer/winter analysis should not prove or disprove any global warming theory.
As shown below, all of Midnight, 3am and 6am had no significant increase or decrease in summer temperature anomalies over winter temperature anomalies. (Mid: t = 0.7, p = 0.44; 3am: t = 1.0, p = 0.32 ;6am: t = -0.25, p = 0.8).
Also, Midnight, 3am and 6am for summer, as well as Midnight, 3am and 6am for winter each recorded no significant increase or decrease in temperature anomalies over time. (Summer: Midnight: t = 1.3, p = 0.17; 3am: t = 1.7, p = 0.8; 6am: t = 0.9, p = 0.39; Winter: Midnight: t = 0.06, p = 0.96; 3am: t = 0.02, p = 0.99; 6am: t = 0.85, p = 0.4)
Hence it can be safely concluded that there is no summer/winter effect on overnight temperatures. But what happens at other times of the day? We will lok at evening temperatures next.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
But before we go into the analysis, lets hypthesise what changes we should see.
During the night (at Midnight,3am and possibly 6am) we should see very little change between summer and winter. Summer temperature increases may be slightly more, but I doubt that they would be significant. Hence we would hypothesise that there would be no differences between summer and winter temperature anomalies at Midnight, 3am and possibly 6am.
During summer the sun generally sets at around 8.30 to 9pm in many parts of Australia, as opposed to winter when it goes down at 5pm to 6pm. Given this, if the sun was a major contributer to global warming, we should see a positive summer effect at 6pm and 9pm. That is, temperature is increasing at a greater rate at 6pm and 9pm in the summer than it is in the winter.
However what will happen at 9am, Noon and 3pm is interesting. 9am in winter is closer to the minimum temperature time than summer, a time where we see the biggest increase in the day. However in summer, the sun has had a longer effect than in winter.
Does a hotter sun with less staying power increase a colder place more than a hotter sun with greater staying power in a hotter place?
I'm not so sure. But either way if there is a summer/winter effect, it is evidence for the sun being a major part in global warming. If CO2 were the major cause of global warming, then we should so no sumer winter effect, in that all temperature at all times are increasing at constant rate.
We'll find out in the next post if this is or isn't the case.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
His abstract is shown below with a graph of the temperature record following:
Historical data provide a baseline for judging how anomalous recent temperature changes are and for assessing the degree to which organisms are likely to be adversely affected by current or future warming. Climate histories are commonly reconstructed from a variety of sources, including ice cores, tree rings, and sediment. Tree-ring data, being the most abundant for recent centuries, tend to dominate reconstructions. There are reasons to believe that tree ring data may not properly capture long-term climate changes. In this study, eighteen 2000-year-long series were obtained that were not based on tree ring data. Data in each series were smoothed with a 30-year running mean. All data were then converted to anomalies by subtracting the mean of each series from that series. The overall mean series was then computed by simple averaging. The mean time series shows quite coherent structure. The mean series shows the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) quite clearly, with the MWP being approximately 0.3°C warmer than 20th century values at these eighteen sites.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
And, no, that’s not an exaggeration. Meet Toni Vernelli, who works for PETA, the animal rights group, and is a shiny-eyed believer in apocalyptic man-made global warming:
When Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet…
“I didn’t like having a termination, but it would have been immoral to give birth to a child that I felt strongly would only be a burden to the world.”
And meet, too, Sarah Irving, who works for the Ethical Consumer magazine:
Most young girls dream of marriage and babies. But Sarah dreamed of helping the environment - and as she agonised over the perils of climate change, the loss of animal species and destruction of wilderness, she came to the extraordinary decision never to have a child.
“I realised then that a baby would pollute the planet - and that never having a child was the most environmentally friendly thing I could do.”
This new warming faith is loathsome and inhuman. Pagan gods were always cruel, but few actually demanded the sacrifice of the believers’ own children. Evil is on foot, and I fear even worse will come.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
According to the report, Switzerland has not received such a strong start to its winter ski season since 1952, with the amount of snow being swept to the southern areas by the wind cited as a particularly interesting feature of the weather.
Maybe they didn't need to adapt to a report that said that
"Skiing will have to become just a side attraction, and not the main attraction anymore," said the report's author Hansruedi Muller, who is professor of leisure and tourism at the University of Berne.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Well we have on one hand Johnny Howard, the self processed cricket lover who still owes a slab to the Indians for bowling a ball that bounced near his feet. Then there’s KV07, who has nothing really to do with cricket, but at least Bob Hawke had some skill at the game despite being smashed in the face by a West Indies fast bowler. But probably the most important thing for us cricketers that the governments can manage is water. Whilst technically a state issue, both parties have in their budgets water plans.
Water is crucial to our game. In Geelong the whole season was cancelled and this could apply to us in the future. Our own ground hasn’t been watered for 2-3 years now and it is showing. The dirt is so hard only weeds grow and there is a very good chance that the ground will be dug up in the next year or two, hence making our ground unavailable for usage by either soccer or us (like other teams in the competition in the past years). I really can’t imagine our firsts playing at freeway, but that might have to be the way.
But what have the governments got to do with water? Well unbeknown to many, Melbourne’s rainfall is not showing any significant decrease. The media suggests we might be having the worst drought in a thousand years (even though records only go back 100 years), but the graph below shows no downward trend. Ok, the last 5 years have been a little lower than normal, but nothing like the drought of the early 1940s. In fact, every single state, Victoria included, has had more rainfall in the past 50 years than the 50 before that - at an average of 10% more.
So why are we so short of water? Obviously the last 5 years of below average rainfall has caused some of this, but also because Melbourne’s water usage increases in general by 2% each year, largely due to an increasing population. With Melbourne having the biggest increase in population than any other city in the past year (and tipped to outgrow Sydney), something has to be done waterwise. Melbourne has not built a dam since the Thomson in 1978, despite Melbourne’s water usage per year almost doubling since.
Hence the government, albeit a little late, has been working on solutions to this problem. The Mitchell river in Gippsland was previously allocated space for a dam, however the labor party, in their green ideology, made the Mitchell river a national park with the sole intention so that a dam cannot be built there. The labor party (and Vic Water) website said that “new dams do not create new water, but rather steal it from the rivers”. If new dams don’t create new water, then why are we so reliant on the current ones? Twice this year the Mitchell river has over flooded (last time just recently), causing major flood damage in the Gippsland area. Water caused damage which would otherwise be held in a dam for all of us, including our cricket ground, to use.
With Melbourne’s water usage increasing by 2% each year, no extra dams built since the mid 70s, and the labor ideology of not creating another one, labor have turned to a $1 billion National Urban Water and Desalination Plan. A good idea, however this produces one tenth of the water at more than ten times the cost. With desalination plants working hard (desalination plants are high energy producing huge amounts of greenhouse gases), it will only be a year or two before we need more water again due to an increasing population.
The only way to secure cricket being played comfortably and safely is to build a new dam in Gippsland. Desalination plants are merely a short term waste of money, and whilst dams are largely a state not federal issue, labor – state and federally – have clearly said that dams are a no-no. Liberal at least put a new dam on the agenda at their last state election. Water is crucial for our cricket club, and under a labor government, their green ideology will prevent us stealing from rivers that feed the ocean, so that we can play cricket. But hey, at least we all can bowl better than John Howard.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Interview of the President of the Czech Republic for the Wirtschaftswoche
Mr. President, German chancellor Angela Merkel fights for climate protection during her state visits throughout the world. She finds listeners in all countries except for yours. Why?
The unfair and irrational debate on global warming annoys me. The topic is increasingly evolving into the fundamental ideological conflict of the present era.
Has Mrs Merkel been caught into an ideology?
She probably thinks about these ideas. That surprises me. Because as a trained physicist, she should be undoubtedly able to test controversial hypotheses. But it also shows that this is not about science. The movement for the protection of the atmosphere embodies a new ideology. Surprisingly, it is espoused by Mrs Merkel who herself lived in socialist society. But she should know the risks associated with those ideologies that are directed against freedom.
Do you consider the chancellor to be a savior of the world?
I don't want to analyze Ms Merkel. The utopians are those who want to improve the world. However, politicians may find utopias to be an excellent thing because these politicians may start to talk about the distant future and avoid their everyday business. Such politicians are "escapists" because they want to escape reality. The issue of climate change is ideally suited for this purpose because we can spend 50 or even 100 years in the future by developing visions - while voters remain unable to control the consequences.
What are they escaping?
Politicians flee away from the emptiness of their own imagination. They have no ideas rich in content that could fill the present.
Does this also apply to the U.S. President George W. Bush who has apparently also warmed up to the climate debate?
I have talked about this topic with Bush several times. During our last meeting in the context of the U.N. high climate event in September, he asked me: "Václav, where is your book? I look forward (laughs)." As many Americans, he views the topic a bit more pragmatically. Americans have never been truly interested in utopias.
In your book, "Blue, Not a Green Planet", you only describe the environmentalists, as you call them, vaguely. Who are those conspirators whom you find so dangerous?
The climate debate itself deserves a sociological analysis. The politicians come first; they use the climate for the reasons explained above. Then we see the journalists who use the issue as a free ticket for a catchy theme on the title page. And finally the climate researchers only act to benefit and to maximize their profit by looking for subjects with the most promising funding situation.
Serious and prestigious researchers are among those who attack you. Are all of them opportunistic small minds?
Let's take for example the United Nations report on the climate. The presidium of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) decides on what is in it. People like IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri may have been scientifically active in the past, but since then they have become bureaucrats. These people published their last journal article years ago. Today they work on policymaking. And among the real scientists, there are many who can't offer any new approaches. They simply follow the mainstream.
One can analyze scientists ad hominem. But if there is a critic with a legitimate criticism, why is he not heard?
Whatever the climatologists find incompatible with the so-called consensus is even not included in the U.N. climate report. Every day, I receive letters from all around the world in which scientists disagree with the prevailing opinion but no one wants to listen to or print their hypotheses. They are simply unfashionable.
You seem to suppose that the climate research is being censored.
You know, the whole thing is very familiar to me. After the Warsaw Pact troops intervened to terminate the Prague Spring, I was dismissed from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences as an enemy of Marxism. In the 1970s, I couldn't write any articles on economics.
You are trained as en economist, not a climate researcher - are you able to judge the scientific debate?
As an unemployed economist, I had a job in the State Bank of Czechoslovakia. We had the first computer over there. My task was to work on statistical and econometric models and against my will, I became busy with things that are important and relevant for climatology. Climatology is not one of the fields of physics and chemistry where a controlled experiment can be repeated a thousand times. It deals with data and hypotheses which can either be accepted or not. It works with time series that require statistical analysis.
Do you therefore distrust the method of climate researchers?
I have played with similar models for years. In hundreds or thousands of similar equations, I could always see that a slight change of a parameter or the addition of another parameter may radically change the outcome of complex models. That is why I am very critical about this methodology.
Do you flatly disagree that climate is changing?
No, of course not. The fact is that the climate is changing but every child knows that. There have to be no Nobel prize winners or a professor at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Of course, humans also play a role. But the crucial question is: How big is the influence of people on this process? The dispute is about orders of magnitude. Is the induced temperature change nonzero in the third, fourth, or fifth digit after the decimal point? This is a serious question that we must answer. And there is no consensus.
You say that the environmentalists such as the former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore threaten the freedom of thought. It is easy to argue against it. Who would be against freedom? What do you actually mean?
It is hard to answer in a few sentences. I have both political as well as economic and scientific freedom in mind. It is important that we don't lose either of them. Communism was another version of this ideology that placed something else as a "sacred" value above freedom. Environmentalism follows the same logic. First, the climate, then comes freedom followed by prosperity. Such priorities are wrong. For me, freedom is an important value. We Czechs have some experience with a lack of freedom. We sensitively and perhaps oversensitively respond to the threats to freedom - including those that the people in Western Europe don't understand too well.
The European Union has set - with the approval by the Czech government - ambitious climate targets. Your views make you totally lonely.
I am not alone. But I do find the current situation in Europe and the U.S. somewhat tragic. During the recent climate change conference in New York, my speech was the only one that criticized the climate policies. I didn't hear applause. Only after the dinner, many heads of state came to me and congratulated me. "There must have been someone to tell it," they said. One already probably needs political courage to speak against the policy of climate.
Who has thanked you?
I can't give you the names. It wouldn't have the right effect.
You argue that the economy and technological progress has the capacity to solve all problems resulting from climate change. What makes you so sure?
I didn't say the economy, I mean the market! This difference is fundamental. I believe in the market. Throughout my life, I have studied the economy in all of its manifestations, including communism. Plans vs market, external control vs spontaneity - these have been the eternal debates since Adam Smith. Why am I so confident? Because of my life experience. I have seen governments being mistaken hundreds of times. The market is not perfect, but its shortcomings are slight in comparison with the mistakes governments make. I lived in the regime of the planned economy - I consider the 50-year long plans of Angela Merkel just as misleading as the former five-year-plans.
What do you think about emissions trading? If carbon dioxide gets a price, the forces of the market will operate freely.
That's nonsense. This is a fraud by climatologists and environmentalists. Only fake economists could say what you did. This is about dirigism and not a free market. This method only pretends to be market-friendly. Emissions trading is just a game that looks like a market and as a classical liberal, I disagree with it.
There are entrepreneurs who earn money with the help of the environment. Germany has become the market leader in environmental technologies. It seems that the environment and the entrepreunerial spirit fit together wonderfully.
It is completely appropriate when entrepreneurs earn money by their effort to save energy. All of us should be thrifty regarding the energy, after all. Something else happens when entrepreneurs make profits out of alternative technologies. Transactions involving solar and wind energy are only possible because of the high subsidies paid for by the governments. These companies thus have political objectives and they don't play according to the rules of the free market.
No one doubts that we need traffic signs. Without minimal rules, chaos would threaten whole societies. Don't we need a couple of warning signs for the environment as well?
It depends on whether we talk about the environment or climate change. I have nothing against laws that protect ponds against waste disposal. But the environment protection laws, especially those in the EU, now go too far. But in this case we at least know what are the negative consequences of our actions or sins, if you wish. When the lake is polluted, it becomes contaminated. On the other hand, one cannot see how large and important the human influence on climate change is. It is an equation with too many unknowns - I am against climate restrictive laws and other forms of dirigism.
Václav Klaus, Wirtschaftswoche, November 10th, 2007
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
We have pointed out time and time again how minimum temperatures are not a good indication of night time warming, especially when it rarely occurs at night.
But what about the rate of change of temperature anomalies between neighboring times? If CO2 was the major cause of global warming then we would see no significant difference in rate of change of temperature anomalies, in other words, all temperatures should increase equally. If the sun was a major cause of global warming then we would see no or limited changes at night, an increase int he rate of change approaching the middle of the day, and then a decreasing rate of change of temperature anomalies when the sun starts to lose its daytime strength.
So what do we find when looking at the data?
Rate of change in temperature anomalies between Midnight and 3am as well as 3am and 6am proved insignificant. However when the sun rises, we see a significant increase in the rate of change of temperature anomalies as compared to 6am. The increase is amplified int he last few years which, interestingly is the same period where maximum temperatures Australia wide have been high.
However rate of change of temperature anomalies at Noon was not significantly higher than 9am, nor 3pm compared to Noon (despite large cyclic variations in the latter). However when the sun starts to lose its power, the rate of change of temperature anomalies significantly decreases. The pattern in this decrease as shown below is strong and obvious.
Interestingly, 9pm saw significant increases in temperature as compared to 6pm, which goes against the Sun induced global warming theory. However there is no significant increase since 1960, and the rate of change of temperature anomalies from 9pm as a decreasing trend, although not quite significant in comparison to 9am, Noon and 3pm. Midnight had significant lower rate of change of temperature anomalies as compared to 9pm.
So what does all this mean? Well it shows once again that we are not having any changes in overnight temperatures despite increases in minimum temperature. The minimum is strongly influenced by the sun, and this shows in massive increases at 9am temperatures. Whilst temperatures have seen sudden increases at 9am, the increases have been constant throughout the day. But when the sun starts to lose its strength, we have seen a decreasing rate of change of temperature in comparison to neighboring times.
This shows the power of looking at temperatures at constant times of the day. Whilst maximum and minimum temperatures are increasing, we have shown that night time temperatures are not, and temperature increases are occurring moreso at and around 9am and decreasing in rate of change at 9pm.
A CO2 temperature blanket cannot be the cause of such results. The data points heavily towards sun induced global warming.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Well we can actually compare Melbourne to Laverton, which is just a good 15 minute drive from the Melbourne site. Whilst we don't expect the two to follow suit exactly, with only a small driving distance between them we should expect only small white noise errors if there was no problem with urban warming.
Unfortunately this is not what we get. Starting from 1955, shown below is the difference between Melbourne and Laverton temperature anomalies for average temperature (average of max and min).
The rate of increase is obvious. IN fact it is increasing at more than 2 degrees every 100 years. The minimum temperature increase was even greater at 3 degrees per 100 years or at 3 times the supposed global mean increase due to global warming. The Urban Heat Island effect obviously has a major influence in the temperature data, so much so that at some stations it can increase it by up to 3 times he normal amount.
Whilst there is debate over to its use in global warming analysis. (this website say that it is not used, this article suggests that it is used in much research, and this Australian Bureau of Meteorology website suggests that it is used in temperature maps, as well as a personal email from the BOM that says that it does, and it is also included in the Australian temperature extreme analysis), there are some big applications in these findings.
Firstly, is suggests that the Urban Heat Island effect is real. This goes against research by Peterson (2003) who indicated that "Contrary to generally accepted wisdom, no statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual temperatures.
Parker (2004) suggested that the Urban heat island effect didn't exist because calm nights were as warm and windy nights (huh???).
Even the IPCC (2007) concluded that
"the global land warming trend discussed is very unlikely to be influenced significantly by increasing urbanisation"
If this is the case, can you explain the above graph? And this one as well as shown on this website?
Granted of course, that this is an extreme case. The weather station might well have been plotted on a few squared of grass, but amongst cars, trams, concrete, street lights etc. Not all stations are like this. However whatts up with that suggests that this is far from a one off occurrence.
So if Melbourne's Urban Heat Island Effect makes a 2 degree increase in temperature per 100 years, and a 3 degree increase in minimum temperatures, then how much will a small urban effect make? Half a degree? One degree?
Either way, the IPCC is clearly only kidding themselves that the Urban Heat Island effect is insignificant. The graph above is significant at less than the 0.001 level of significance.
To the usual problems - that when the wind don’t blow, the power don’t flow - add the fact that the ones already installed at great expense aren’t producing as much power as promised.
From pages 30 and 33 we read that VENCorp has had to revise future summer wind generation from 24 per cent to 23 per cent of installed capacity, and winter wind generation even further down - from 27 per cent to just 19 per cent of capacity.
This is “based on the analysis of actual half-hourly wind generation during peak times”. Ugly, expensive and next to useless.
Friday, October 26, 2007
But the result? well with hurricane season ending Nov 30th, is looking well below normal. According to COAPS: “Unless a dramatic and perhaps historical flurry of activity occurs in the next 11 weeks (ACE is based on calendar year, not traditional June-November hurricane season) , 2007 will rank as a historically inactive Tropical Cyclone year for the entire Northern Hemisphere.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
But it wont stop there, at night, Victoria street and La Trobe street is lit up by street lights. Not country style street lights, but city street lights, so there is not a single section of the area under shade.
View the map here.
So how have the records gone for this station? You guessed it, increases in maximum temperature and minimum temperature, even increases before bitumen was invented. So surprises really, in fact temperatures at Midnight, 3am, 6am, 9a, Noon, 3pm, 6pm and 9pm have all seen increases.
No surprises really. With cars and concrete buzzing past during the night, and under constant heat lights at night, well, the conclusion answers itself.
And as for rainfall? well there's a reasonable chance that the surrounding sky scrapers eliminate some of this, and the last 10 years has seen decreases despite no significant difference. Ohh,and don't even bother getting meaningful readings about Sunshine duration or wind.
Well if the CO2 blanket was the major cause of global warming then we would see increased temperature, relatively constant throughout the day. Unfortunately this, as we have shown doesn't occur in Australia at night. However we have shown that maximum temperatures, just like temperatures at 9am, Noonand 3pm all have shown a significant increase in temperature. 6pm and 9pm failed to record a significant increase.
Has the maximum temperature increased at the same rate as temperatures at these times? Well if the sun was the major source of global warming, then unless the maximum occurred all the time at say, 3pm, then maximum temperatures should have increased at a greater rate than those at recorded specific times.
Shown below is the difference in monthly temperature anomalies of maximum temperature and 9am. As one can see, there doesn't seem to be much of a linear trend. A possible cyclic trend might exist, but there is not enough data t prove either way.
However as shown below the difference in monthly temperature anomalies of maximum temperature and Noon is starting to shape form. Whilst in more recent years (since around 1992) there has been no major difference, beforehand there was a significant increasing trend indicating that temperature anomalies at he maximum were increasing at a greater rate than temperatures at Noon.
Shown below are the differences in monthly temperature anomalies of maximum temperature and 3pm and 6pm.
The pattern is obvious. In fact maximum temperatures anomalies have been increasing with respect to 3pm temperatures at a rate of 0.0054 degrees per year or 0.34 degrees since 1943. And the increase compared to 6pm is at a rate of 0.0131 degrees per year or 0.83 degrees since 1943.
The graph of the different between maximum temperature and 9pm is shown below which shows a gradual but not not as significant trend.
So this tells us a few things. Firstly, the maximum temperature anomalies are increasing at a greater rate than temperatures at strict consistent times. Hence we are of more recent times getting more "spikes" around the maximum temperature during the day.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics would no doubt agree with this conclusion as they show that their amount of Warm Days has remained relatively steady bar an increase in the last 5 years.
It also means that using the variable maximum temperature over exaggerates the amount of warming that Australia has actually seen. A more accurate measure would be an average of all increases at each of the 8 constant times of the day/night.
But it also means something else, that temperatures are not increasing constantly throughout the day and night. We have shown earlier that temperatures at night are not increasing and have also suggested here that maximums are increasing at a greater rate over the years that constant times at Noon, 3pm and 6pm. Hence it seems that either the sun is a larger contributer to global warming, or that the CO2 greenhouse blanket is ineffective at night, and is only effective as the sun has a greater influence during the day.
Hence still, the reliance on the sun. But is there more evidence of sun caused global warming in the time based temperature anomalies? You bet. Next we will prove to you about the rate of change of temperature anomalies as we approach the heat of the day and move from it, and it is devastating evidence indeed.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
"About half of all tornadoes in Australia occur during May to October." (page 23)
My recommended rewording:
"About half of all tornadoes in Australia occur during May to October, as do almost half the months of the year"
Monday, October 22, 2007
Canadian mathematician and climate scientist Steve McIntyre has found another striking error in the academic work supporting the case for climate alarmism.
Recall, in August McIntyre found an error in the way NASA was collating the temperature records from 1200 North American monitoring stations operating since the 1870s. NASA admitted the error, acknowledging they had been overstating the warming in North America since 1930 by a factor of 1.75x. (We wrote about the incident here, here, here, and here.)
This week McIntyre got his hands on the source data cited in an influential 2003 paper claiming the Urban Heat Island effect not having an important impact on historical temperature measurements. The article suggestively titled, Assessment of Urban Versus Rural In Situ Surface Temperatures in the Contiguous United States: No Difference Found, claimed:
Contrary to generally accepted wisdom, no statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual temperatures.
Using the same data (sent to him by the author Thomas Peterson) McIntyre this claim to be completely unsupported. Here’s McIntyre’s plot of data, separating urban and rural monitoring stations based on Peterson’s own definition (click to enlarge):
Its painfully obvious to the most casual observer that there’s a strong warming trend among urban stations, and none for the rural ones.
McIntyre cuts the data another way. Rather than using Peterson’s definition of what constitutes an urban station, he looks at stations in cities with NFL teams (he calls them ‘major cities’) versus everything else. Here’s the graph (click to enlarge):
2. Can you please explain the predictions of increased drought and flooding, coupled with a decrease in rainfall when you consider that the second half of the 20th century had a 9.5% increase in rainfall compared to the first half of the 20th century (an increase in every state), and that the number of very wet days and not significantly increased or decreased, neither has the number of days of no rainfall?
3. As Kerplunk puts it "If 'the science is settled' then why does the United Nations' IPCC need 17 climate models when just one should do?"
Friday, October 19, 2007
This will cause:
"increases in droughts, floods, fire, tropical cyclones and hail"
"large areas of mainland Australia are likely to have less soil moisture"
Expect heavier rainfall events, and the number people who will die every year over the age of 65 from heat waves will increase from 1000 (current) to 2300 to 2500 in 2030 to 4300-6300 in 2050. (or they could just buy air conditioners).
The murray darling basin had the driest September on record and they forecast rainfall in Australia to decline by at least 10%, especially in winter and spring.
And as their website says:
Since 1950, most of eastern and south-western Australia has experienced substantial rainfall declines. Across New South Wales and Queensland these rainfall trends partly reflect a very wet period around the 1950s, though recent years have been unusually dry. In contrast, north-west Australia has become wetter over this period, mostly during summer.
From 1950 to 2005, extreme daily rainfall intensity and frequency has increased in north-western and central Australia and over the western tablelands of New South Wales, but decreased in the south-east and south-west and along the central east coast.
Where to start! I have noted before that there is no evidence of increased drought, and there is no evidence of increased hail or very wet weather scenarios.
And increased cyclones? Nope, no evidence of that. If anything, cyclones are decreasing in Australia.
The Murray darling basin did have the driest September on record, but there is no evidence that we have a decreasing trend there. Long term trends suggest no evidence of decreasing rainfall.
I questioned Dr. Scott Power as to why the north west Australia has cooled down. He replied that it is due to increased cloud cover in that area, hence why it has seen more rain. Of course the reason south east Australia has warmed up is not due to less cloud cover (and less rain) but due to global warming.
I also asked him if under the theory of global warming, do we see temperatures constantly increasing throughout the day, in other words, are night time temperatures increasing at a similar rate to day time temperatures.
I expected an answer of yes, but he "correctly" pointed out that that night time temperatures are increasing at a greater rate (this mind you is due to analysis of the minimum temperatures which as we all know doesn't even occur a night). On questioning why this is, he said he didn't know, despite the fact he did a paper on it. He thinks it might have something to do with increased cloud cover, but he's not sure. Ahh, cloud cover!
But what Dr. Scott Power did mention on many times is the decreasing trend of rainfall since 1950, and because of this the expected continued decrease due to global warming.
I questioned this, and commented that rainfall was actually higher in the last 65 yeas than in the 50 before that. He agreed with me saying that they were very constant back then. A lot more variability now, but continued to say that we are seeing a decreasing trend since 1950.
So are we seeing a decreasing trend in rainfall in the last 50 years. Lets look at the stats:
My regression tells me in fact the complete opposite. Since 1950 Australia has seen an increase in rainfall at a rate of 0.79mm extra per year. Hence in 1950 we averaged around 456mm and then now averaging around 500mm, a 44mm increase since 1950.
So where is this decrease? Note the above is however not statistically significant (p = 0.3).
But is this Australia wide? Victoria is the only state to record a significant decrease in rainfall since 1950 (p=0.03), whilst South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory all record significant increases in rainfall. Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania all record decreases in rainfall, but it is not significant.
Keeping mind however, that all states, every single one has had on average 10% more rainfall from 1950 to 2006 than from 1900 to 1950.
So where are the decreases in rainfall? Seriously, where are they? And how on earth can one continue to predict decreasing rainfall, when Australia has had nothing but the opposite.
I do hope that someone answers my 3 questions to the CSIRO, which will be posted in the next post
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Apparently, global warming likes to increase rainfall in some places and decrease in others. Who knows why!
But I was strangely interested in why the website only mentions rainfall trends since 1950. Australia has great and accurate rainfall data going back to the start of the 20th century, so why not use these? I'll show you why.
Looking at rainfall patterns from 1900 to 1950 and since 1950 we come across some interesting trends as shown below:
State Av.Pre1950 Av.Post1950 %Increase
TOTAL 3813.3 4174.9 9.5%
NSW 481.2 559.2 16%
NT 486.1 553.0 14%
QLD 586.5 638.3 9%
SA 204.6 233.1 14%
TAS 1110.4 1174.5 6%
VIC 608.6 651.3 7%
WA 335.9 365.5 9%
In the last 57 years, every single state has seen an increase in rainfall compared to the 50 years before this. And Australia wide, we have had a 9.5% increase in rainfall.
Hence, if anything, global warming has meant that we are having increased rainfall in Australia. So does global warming cause more droughts, looks like the complete opposite.
But wait, critics (of the non-critical side) will argue that global warming causes more very heavy rains and more periods of no rain - hence greater rainfall in one particular time (more floods) and more droughts. This of course is not shown in the above table, but lets look at the ABOM's own website to see if this is happening:
This graph shows the number of very heavy precipitation days (mm>30):
Nope doesn't seem to any pattern there. And shown below is the number of consecutive dry days:
Damn! No pattern there either.
So there you have it. There is no evidence at all to suggest that global warming will increase droughts or flooding. But there is evidence that we could be getting more rain, and given the greater need for drinkable rain water...this surely is one major advantage of global warming.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Let me tell you why.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology, on their website, love to look at climate extremes. Like how many very hot days have we had etc. All point to the obvious; that we are having more hot days and less cold ones, more hot nights and less cold ones - An obvious conclusion when considering the theory of Global Warming.
But lets concentrate on the nights. They claim that Australia has seen an increase in very hot nights, a veyr large increase in hot nights, whilst also having a decrease in cold nights, a decrease in frost nights (thank goodness - the farmers will be happy) and a decrease in cool nights.
But lets look at how they came to these graphs. This website shows their analysis, where you will notice that the above information is solely put together using the minimum temperature only.
We pointed out before that minimum temperatures in Australia have been increasing since the second world war, but we also showed that temperatures at Midnight, 3am and 6am have shown no statistically significant increase in temperature.
This is because the minimum temperature actually occurs usually around 15 to 60 minutes after sunrise. Thats right, the minimum temperature does not occur at night. Hence the minimum would be influenced by the sun, and is not a reliable statistic to measure overnight temperatures. It doesn't even occur at night.
But that doesn't stop the Australian Bureau of Meteorology from announcing increasing warm nights and decreasing cold nights based on the minimum temperature. Complete Incompetence indeed.
It is a shame that the ABOM cannot analyse their own data statistically well, because their collection methods are one of the best. Generally they get the CSIRO to do the analysis, and, well, we all know how good they are at doing statistical analysis too.
Incompetence or perhaps intolerance.
Some critics of Al Gore's award:
- Claude Allegre, a Frenchman who is both an esteemed scientist and a new socialist (and a new skeptic), calls the Friday Nobel announcement "a political gimmick"
- Klaus, Lomborg, Gray
- Richard Lindzen: the award shows that the issue is now about fashions and politics and not science
- Manchester Union Leader: the award is a fraud on the people
- William Gray: the theory behind the prize is ridiculous and in 10-15 years, everyone will know it
- Tehran Times: the award is an attack of old Europe against the Bush team
- Anthony Watts: there are emerging calls initiated in New Zealand to rescind Gore's Oscar etc. because of the inaccuracies in the movie
- Republican American: Gore is as much a liar as he was before
- Business and Media Institute: Gore won thanks to the hysteria in the media
Let us abolish the IPCC:
- Vincent Gray, a fresh co-winner of the Nobel peace prize, proposes to abolish the IPCC because the whole process is a swindle
- David Henderson: scientists are not in charge of the IPCC (Wall Street Journal)
Maestro has grave doubts about carbon trading:
- Alan Greenspan thinks that the cap-and-trade carbon market either destroys the economy or won't work
About Osama's motivation:
- Timothy Ball recommends to be skeptical about Kyoto because Osama bin Laden has correctly figured out that it could seriously hurt the West
Amazon shaman fights green colonialism:
- Davi Kopenawa, a shaman, visits Britain and blames the anti-greenhouse religion for sickness, depression, suicide, obesity and drug addiction of the indigenous people
- Colorado gets a foot of snow
Gore is jealous:
- Britney, OJ, Paris get more media attention than global warming (count news.google.com hits), a fact that drives the prophet up the wall
An update on the recent High Court ruling in Britain, via Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters:
Here's something American media are virtually guaranteed to not report: a British court has determined that Al Gore's schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" contains at least eleven material falsehoods.
It seems a safe bet Matt Lauer and Diane Sawyer won't be discussing this Tuesday morning, wouldn't you agree?
For those that haven't been following this case, a British truck driver filed a lawsuit  to prevent the airing of Gore's alarmist detritus in England's public schools.
According to  the website of the political party the plaintiff, Stewart Dimmock, belongs to (ecstatic emphasis added throughout, h/t Marc Morano):
In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.
How marvelous. And what are those inaccuracies?
In the end, a climate change skeptic in the States must hope that an American truck driver files such a lawsuit here so that a U.S. judge can make similar determinations.
- The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
- The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
- The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
- The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
- The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
- The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
- The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
- The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
- The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
- The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
- The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.
Of course, even if one could find such an impartial jurist, our media wouldn't find it newsworthy, would they?
Thursday, October 11, 2007
A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the con clusion that increases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth’s weather and climate. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in hydrocarbon
use and minor greenhouse gases like CO2 do not conform to current experimental knowledge....
Atmospheric temperature is regulated by the sun, which fluctuates in activity as shown in Figure 3; by the greenhouse effect, largely caused by atmospheric water vapor (H2O); and by other phenomena that are more poorly understood… Solar irradiance correlates well with Arctic temperature, while hydrocarbon use (7) does not correlate… There are no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other green house gases are causing or can be expected to cause unfavorable changes in global temperatures, weather, or landscape.