Posts Made By: Hugh Bartlett

First off, the climate is always changing, regardless of what we or Al Gore exhales.

Secondly, correlation does not mean causation.

Thirdly, that warmer temperatures increase the duration of precipitation events is not all that surprising.

What the study fails to do, as is typical, is connect rising CO2 with the half a degree Celsius rise in global tempertures over the study period.

Finally, an examination of the geologic record clearly contradicts the warming/ more catastrophic climate event connection hypothesis. It is during glacial periods that the earth's climate is more variable.

Interesting that NASA in 2008 said 350 ppm was the critical limit. Here is a more recent NASA study that says AGW models are all wrong:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/12/nasa-warns-global-warming-models-wrong-dont-account-for-cooling-factors.html

According to the article, a doubling of CO2 from the current 390 ppm to 780 ppm in a corrected model accounting for plant growth would only result in a 1.64 degree Centigrade increase in global temperature.

Corroborating the inability of climate models to predict atmospheric phenomena, here is a related story about the lack of atmospheric warming (actually cooling) where the models predict warming due to additional CO2:

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Hotspot_vs_balloons1.jpg

The greenhouse models shown at the top of the graph forecast the greatest global warming high up in the tropics around 200 millibars in pressure where the greenhouse-gas heat-trapping and condensation from enhanced convection and increased moisture is greatest. Notice, however, in the chart how weather balloons don’t see the warming at that level. The data here is NOAA ARL data from Angell. Other radiosonde compilations such as RICH show less cooling but no warming.

NGC 253 is a very-bright southern galaxy only about 13 MLY away. It is easily visible from my 38 degree northern latitude, so it should be a showpiece from where you are. It is in Sculptor, so unless you are an early riser, you will have to wait six months for it to be situated in your early evening sky.

Inasmuch as my posting of the AGW doctrine may have been misinterpreted as a summary of Mr. Klaus' position, I want to clarify why I focused on this aspect of his speech. The public perception of global warming tends to gloss over the doctrine behind the position that we must take steps to reduce CO2 emissions to avoid a climate disaster. It is an important economic as well as environmental issue, and persons on both sides should take the time to critically evaluate the AGW doctrine. That is the why it is so important to outline the AGW position.

Most people , I fear, simply believe that the overwhelming consensus of scientists agree that we are causing a dangerous heating of the climate, and that we should take steps to reduce our influence on this warming, without understanding or critically evaluating logic behind that conclusion. The alarmists would rather not hold up their argument to public scrutiny. Thus, no one advocating climate action is forthright enough to set forth their complete argument. Therefore, what Mr. Klaus and I have done is to hold up the AGW alarmist's premises to public scrutiny. Each part of the doctrine must be true in order to accept their conclusion.

What the alarmists want us to do is to skip over the unsettled nature of the science, make a value judgment that any change from our "optimal" climate is bad, conclude that a correlation between CO2 and global temperature is sufficient proof that CO2 is a major cause of the warming, and not consider the null solution: the adapt-to-change option rather than try to fight nature, like we are some omnipotent global Corps of Engineers that should be ready to spend trillions of dollars for problem that is neither of our making nor of our ability to control, and may not exist in the first place.

Interesting! Mine would be a University Optics MK-40, which gives reasonably sharp views across the widest field possible in a 2" eyepiece. It's my go-to finder eyepiece when I am starhopping in a sparse field.

Not to interject religion into the AGW climate debate, but it is almost as if God were saying, "So you think you puny humans control the climate? I'll show you who's in charge; I'll just tweak down the sun a couple milliwatts per meter to let you know what really controls the climate."

I don't know if it is coincidence or not, but my computer crashed due to a Trojan attack right after I clicked that link. Proceed with caution.

It is surprising more physicists don't resign over this unabashedly politically-oriented and unscientific conclusion by a scientific body.

I resent, however, the news article's Obabma bashing. AGW is not a Republican/Democratic dispute, and it defiles both sides of the debate to reduce it to political bickering, which the nation is getting quite tired of.

Anthony Watts, in his post on "Watts Up With That" about the article, had to do a little backpeddling on the use of the word feedback:

UPDATE: Some people in comments including Dr. Roy Spencer, (and as I was writing this, Dr. Richard Allan) suggest that the paper isn’t about feedback (at least in the eyes of IPCC interpretations, but Spencer adds “it could be”). Thus I’ve removed the word from the headline to satisfy such complaints. My view is that clouds are both a feedback and a forcing. Others disagree. That’s an issue that will occupy us all for sometime I’m sure.

Regarding cloud feedbacks, here’s what I noted in the paper in section 6, near the end. Allan is referring to figure 7 which shows (a) net radiation and (b) net cloud radiative forcing:

Substantial negative anomalies in net radiative flux from ERA Interim are apparent in 1998 and 2010, both El Niño years, suggesting that the substantial re-organization of atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems act to remove energy from Earth during these periods.

You can clearly see the famous double peak in the 1998 El Niño, but it is inverted. To me that looks like a thermostat action, and not one with stuck electrical contacts, i.e. a negative feedback. I’ve also updated the text related to the incorrect comparison I made. – Anthony