News & Commentary February 9, 2010

 

House Republicans attack Penn State 

Republican representatives in the US Congress have criticised the Penn State investigation into Michael Mann's conduct.

The findings and, more importantly, the focus have set off a wave of criticism accusing the university panel of failing to interview key people, neglecting to conduct more than a cursory review of allegations and structuring the inquiry so that the outcome -- exoneration -- was a foregone conclusion.

On Friday, Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Investigations Committee, charged that the Penn State's failure to settle all the charges and called into question professor Mann's work. He is demanding that all grants to the noted scientist be frozen.

As whitewashes go, it has to be said that it was carried off very poorly. The failure to even go through the motions of interviewing aggrieved parties like Steve McIntyre was a mistake by the Penn State authorities. They have brought this unwelcome attention down upon themselves. (Bishop Hill)

Seems they may even be getting a little encouragement from the Commonwealth Foundation:

 

Bishop Hill: Gonzo science and the Hockey Stick - Torturing the climate numbers until they confess

Interview In 2001 the IPCC published its Third Assessment report prominently featuring a graph that became "the logo of global warming". Previous historical reconstructions didn't show our modern warm climate as particularly anomalous. This was very different, and was hailed as a "call to action". Yet Michael Mann's studies were deeply flawed. Omit one or two proxies, for example, and the scary warming 'spike' disappears. Mann's model could produce hockey stick shapes using random data, such as baseball scores, or red noise. Critics alleged that Mann's choices of data and statistical tools all cooled the Medieval Warm Period, and emphasised late 20th Century warming. (Andrew Orlowski, The Register)

 

Sins of omission

It’s what they don’t say that counts. In response to the current chaos in the scientific establishment John Krebs wrote a piece for The Times that is the epitome of the emollient – move along there is nothing to see here. These are the words he has to say about the place of scepticism in science:

This philosophy of science was formally instituted 350 years ago in  London by the small band of men, including Christopher Wren and Robert Boyle, who founded the Royal Society, the world’s oldest national academy of science. Their motto, Nullius in verba (“Take nobody’s word for it”) embodies the Royal Society’s founding principle of basing conclusions on observation and experiment rather than the voice of authority.

What he did not say was that as soon as the Greenies seized control of the Royal Society they abandoned that motto of centuries and replaced it with one that is apparently bland but actually reverses the sentiment. As we said on the subject of global warming as religion:

The Royal Society, as a major part of the flowering of the tradition, was founded on the basis of scepticism. Its motto “On the word of no one” was a stout affirmation. Now suddenly, following their successful coup, the Greens have changed this motto of centuries to one that manages to be both banal and sinister – “Respect the facts.” When people start talking about “the facts” it is time to start looking for the fictions. Real science does not talk about facts; it talks about observations, which might turn out to be inaccurate or even irrelevant.

If you include that “fact” the whole argument is reversed.

We welcomed the arrival on the national scene of Sir John Krebs, but he soon went native and even eventually appeared as a bit player in that appalling holocaust.

The establishment sticks together. (Number Watch)

 

Council of Science Editors

The Council of Science Editors, a body that, in its own words, is a leader in promoting ethical practices in science publishing, is going to take the theme The Changing Climate of Scientific Publishing-The Heat Is On for its annual conference.

It reflects a program that addresses both global climate change (and the role science editors have in communicating relevant research on the topic) and the rapidly changing nature of the workplace and technology in the 21st century.

This sounded pretty interesting. There are some huge lessons to be learned by scholarly publishers from the sorry story of the Hockey Stick and Climategate. Materials availability, gatekeeping at journals is just the start of it. In fact I wondered why nobody had contacted me to speak on the subject. ;-)

Here's the reason: the Council is only interested in the role editors can play in promoting global warming scaremongering. Here's the notes on the keynote address:

It is striking that on climate change, the overwhelming majority of climate scientists (and the
scientific literature) are in consensus concerning climate change; yet a cloud (pun intended) of doubt and distractions like the recent “Climate Gate” email scandal continues to exist. Like a jigsaw puzzle, the climate change picture is clear to climate scientists even with a few missing pieces. This talk will examine the current and best science thinking on climate change and objectively discuss what “we know, don’t know, or need to know.”

So a body that exists to promotes ethical practices in publishing, when presented with evidence of unethical practices, gets in a speaker who is going to write them off as "a distraction".

Oh dear. (Bishop Hill)

 

Panel on Climate Faces Challenges

The Nobel-prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change faces new challenges following a call for an investigation of its conduct and for its chairman to resign amid continuing criticism of the scientific basis of its reports.

Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming called on Thursday for the independent investigation and for Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Geneva-based panel, to resign. 

The panel has so far declined to make Dr. Pachauri available for an interview, and officials didn't return phone calls or emails over the weekend seeking further comment. Republicans previously had pushed for him to resign in the fall. 

The IPCC, whose vast reports on climate science influence policy makers and undergird global action against global warming, defends its work, saying that its reports "are as solid as careful science can make them," and that it is required to include some literature that hasn't been peer-reviewed and therefore requires "additional care and professional judgment" to evaluate.

Dr. Barrasso said that "new scandals" emerge "every day" about the "so-called 'facts'" in the panel's reports. "The integrity of the data and the integrity of the science have been compromised.…The scientific data behind these policies must be independently verified," he said. (WSJ)

 

Why The IPCC Cannot Survive – Qui Fama Ferit Fama Perit

“Qui Fama Ferit Fama Perit” is Latin for  “He who lives by reputation, die by reputation“

(the below has been inspired by “The Future is Another Country” on the “Marc Roberts cartoon” blog)

The number of big and little mistakes surfacing up day in and day out and known with various terms including “Gate du Jour” is fatally undermining the very idea of the IPCC, not necessarily for the most obvious reasons. You see, it’s a matter of square science pegs and round policy holes… Read the rest of this entry » (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)

 

IPCC warmist draws on his favorite peer reviewer: himself

Marc Sheppard says it’s bad enough that the IPCC bought the theory of warmist Professor David Karoly that man-made warming was causing the higher temperatures and evaporation in the Murray Darling basin.

After all, new research suggests almost the very opposite - that the higher temperatures come from a natural fall in cloud cover, and a lack of rain and a subsequent lack of evaporative cooling. Drought causes higher temperatures, and not vice versa.

But Sheppard notes that Karoly’s theory was heavily relied upon in a chapter the IPCC’s alarmist 2007 report that was supposed to be reviewed by ... Karoly himself:

But amazingly, the story doesn’t end with how wrong the chapter was. Professor Franks also pointed out that ... David Karoly, whose work was also heavily cited in WG1 Chapter 9, was its Review Editor.

Fabulous peer reviewing, guys. The man in charge of the reviewing supervises reviews of his own theory.

Is this the kind of thing that Climategate ringleader Phil Jones meant when he once boasted he’d ”redefine what the peer-review literature is”? (Andrew Bolt)

 

Why Scientists Do Not Talk to Journalists

“It is because of this lazy reporting and repeating of memes that I refuse to talk to any newspaper journalist including Paul Bignell of the ‘Independent on Sunday’.” [The scientist, Paul Dennis, in response to an attempt to smear him by association in the ‘Independent on Sunday’ article (February 7), entitled: ‘“Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers”’.

There is nothing angrier than a scientist scorned, or misreported, or misrepresented. I am often asked why so few scientists are willing to appear in the media. There are a number of reasons, of course, including career pressure and a general lack of confidence in the public communication of science, but, unquestionably, one of the most significant is that many practising scientists simply do not trust reporters one micron, even when the journalist appears to be on their side. Journalists are perceived to have little interest in reporting the complexities and uncertainties of the science, and to be out to distort, or to cherry-pick, what the scientist states merely to obtain a ‘good’ story, or one that fits the current media fashion.

Yesterday, we witnessed a classic, and, in my opinion, entirely justified, angry response from one scientist, namely Paul Dennis, Head of the Stable Isotope and Noble Gas Geochemistry Laboratories, Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia (UEA), with respect to an article published in the Independent on Sunday [February 7], in which Dennis was clearly smeared by that old journalist trick of guilt by association: (The Clamour of the Times)

 

IPCC And CRU Are The Same Corrupt Organization

Cost of the corruption of climate science by the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) is likely a trillion dollars already and there is no measure of the lives lost because of unnecessary reactions like biofuels affecting food supplies. Stories appear about the corruption at the IPCC and others about the leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). Most people, including the media, don’t seem to realize the IPCC is the CRU. Some articles mention both but don’t make the connection. A recent article in the Globe and Mail is a good example.

The article is a small shift because the Globe has consistently promoted human caused warming and attacked skeptics. However, failure to make the connection allows people involved to develop defenses, withdraw from associations or go into hiding. (Tim Ball, CFP)

 

UN Climate Cronies

With UN climate guru Rajendra Pachauri under fire for alleged conflicts of interest and the purveying of flawed “science,” another United Nations eco-official is stepping forward to defend UN climate findings.

His name is Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Program, or UNEP, based in Nairobi. If you are curious about potential conflicts of interest among the UN climate crowd, Steiner, along with Pachauri, is someone to watch.

Like Pachauri, Steiner is still talking about “overwhelming evidence” supporting the findings of Al Gore’s co-Nobelist Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — despite the growing body of evidence that the IPCC’s findings were more a product of UN politics than of science. In recent remarks featured as a top item on the UN’s official news site, Steiner has just praised the IPCC and re-issued the UN’s usual apocalyptic warnings: “Any delay… risks of a magnitude…urgent international response” — etc. (Claudia Rosett, PJM)

 

Lawrence Solomon: IPCC faces another desertion – its own past chair!

The past chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has joined the growing list of IPCC critics. According to the Sunday Telegraph, Rajendra Pachauri, the disgraced current IPCC chair, now faces criticism from his immediate predecessor, Robert Watson. The Telegraph reports that Watson “stressed that the chairman must take responsibility for correcting errors.”  In another indication that Watson is taking pains to distance himself from the organization he once headed, the Sunday Times, in a story entitled Top British scientist says UN panel is losing credibility, reports that Watson warned the IPCC that it must tackle its blunders.

Watson’s comments come on the heels of another glaring embarrassment to come out of the IPCC, this time a claim that global warming could cut crop production in north Africa by up to 50% by 2020. “Any such projection should be based on peer-reviewed literature from computer modelling of how agricultural yields would respond to climate change,” Watson stated. “I can see no such data supporting the IPCC report.”
In this latest high-profile IPCC gaffe, which has been repeated around the world, including by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the IPCC seems to have relied on a 2003 report from a Winnipeg-based think tank called the International Institute for Sustainable Development. The report, which was not peer-reviewed, in turn seems to have relied on submissions to the UN by civil servants from Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, which also appear not to have been peer-reviewed.

Apart from his post as past IPCC chair, Watson is also the UK’s highest level environmental scientist, as Chief Scientist at the UK’s environment ministry. Prior to his current position, which he assumed in 2007, Watson was Chair of Environmental Science and Science Director of the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia, the same university caught up in the Climategate scandal.

Watson’s new-found scepticism of the science being produced by the IPCC represents an ironic reversal. In 2002, he remarked that "The only person who doesn't believe the science is President Bush." (Financial Post)

 

Prof Robert Watson on climate science

Chief Scientist at the Department for the Environment, Professor Robert Watson on the science of climate change, and whether the case for man-made global warming is now unravelling after months of damaging revelations. (BBC)

 

Climate scientists hit out at 'sloppy' melting glaciers error

Experts who worked on the IPCC report say the error by social and biological scientists has unfairly maligned their work (The Guardian)

 

India Supports a Toothless IPCC - The less credibility the climate body has, the less it can do to block vital economic development.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed support for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its leader, Rajendra Pachauri, at a local energy conference in New Delhi Friday. The move has surprised many observers, but it may prove to be politically astute.

The IPCC's credibility is in tatters. From climategate to glaciergate, Amazongate, natural-disaster gate, and now Chinagate, the revelations of bad science keep coming. Given all that, plus the much-publicized flap between Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and Mr. Pachauri over the science behind "melting" Himalayan glaciers weeks before the Copenhagen climate summit in December, superficially one might have expected the Indian government to jettison Mr. Pachauri as soon as possible.

But Delhi isn't just offering him and the organization rhetorical backing. At Friday's annual flagship event of the Energy and Resources Institute—which Mr. Pachauri has headed for almost 30 years—the prime minister offered to provide technical assistance through a newly established glacier research center. The government has also formed a network of scientific institutions to develop domestic science and research capacities on climate issues.

The explanation for this support is simple: It is in the Indian government's interest to perpetuate a weak IPCC and a toothless Mr. Pachauri at its helm. Given the recent scandals, the IPCC is hardly in a position to lobby India for carbon concessions. No one from the IPCC can again cavalierly dismiss their critics as promoting "voodoo" science or "vested interests," as was Mr. Pachauri's wont. By offering scientific support to the IPCC, the Indian government is actually confirming its lack of confidence in the U.N. body's scientific credentials. (WSJ)

 

Cap and trade puts vulnerable Democrats on defense

As Democrats descend into a spiral of panic about the 2010 midterm elections, strategists for both parties are wondering how big an issue the cap-and-trade energy plan will be.

On June 26, the House, in a tight 219-212 vote, passed a Democratic bill that aims to reduce emissions through tradable pollution credits. Republicans say the bill would burden the economy and jack up electricity rates while producing uncertain benefits.

Forty-four Democrats — many from energy-producing or industrial districts — abandoned their party, but at least two dozen vulnerable Democrats bit the bullet and voted yes.

As the bill awaits Senate action, Republicans believe they have a winning issue.

“The bill may be stopped dead in its tracks, but this vote will still haunt them until Election Day,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Paul Lindsay. (Politico)

 

The UN’s climate of cash

Claudia Rossett, who helped to expose UN corruption in the oil-for-food scandal, now turns her attention to the UN warmists. One in particular:

With UN climate guru Rajendra Pachauri under fire for alleged conflicts of interest and the purveying of flawed “science,” another United Nations eco-official is stepping forward to defend UN climate findings.

His name is Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Program, or UNEP, based in Nairobi. If you are curious about potential conflicts of interest among the UN climate crowd, Steiner, along with Pachauri, is someone to watch.

Like Pachauri, Steiner is still talking about “overwhelming evidence” supporting the findings of Al Gore’s co-Nobelist Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — despite the growing body of evidence that the IPCC’s findings were more a product of UN politics than of science. In recent remarks featured as a top item on the UN’s official news site, Steiner has just praised the IPCC and re-issued the UN’s usual apocalyptic warnings: “Any delay… risks of a magnitude…urgent international response” — etc.

Who is Achim Steiner? A German, born in Brazil, he is a longtime environmentalist, former head from 2001-2006 of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or IUCN....

Anyway, in December, 2005, Achim Steiner served as a judge on a panel in Dubai that awarded a $500,000 environmental prize to then-Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan. With a big smile, at a banquet in Dubai, Annan — then the UN’s top official — accepted this six-figure purse for his personal use. About three months later, Annan named Steiner, one of the judges who picked Annan for the prize, to head UNEP.

Green is the colour of the cash. (Andrew Bolt)

 

The case for climate action must be remade from the ground upwards

With the science under siege and the politics in disarray, it may fall to civil society to keep this still crucial fight alive (Ian Katz, The Guardian)

But Ian, there can be no case for gorebull warbling because we do not know what temperature the planet "should" be, nor what it is or even if this has any validity as a climate metric.

 

Peter Foster: The science of alien invasions

Why Bjorn Lomborg chooses to stay with the climate fiasco is a mystery

By Peter Foster

What is the most appropriate way to deal with a non-existent problem? Say, for example, that we are concerned about an invasion by Little Green Men from Mars. Would it be more appropriate to stage a preemptive strike on the Red Planet, devote more money to Star Wars-type technology, or perhaps look to bio-warfare of the type suggested in H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, where the Martian invaders were offed by germs?

Most sensible people’s immediate reaction to this range of “policy alternatives” would be: “Don’t be ridiculous. The problem doesn’t exist.”

Click here to read more... (Financial Post)

 

Oh boy... New Climate Service Aims To Help Business Adapt

WASHINGTON - A proposed new U.S. NOAA Climate Service is meant to help businesses adapt to the impact of climate change, and to spur development of new technologies to cope with it, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on Monday.

"Even with our best efforts, we know that some degree of climate change is inevitable and American citizens and businesses, and American governments ... must be able to rise to environmental and economic challenges that lie ahead," Locke told reporters in announcing the move. (Reuters)

 

Uh-huh... MPs propose carbon tax to boost green investment

The European Union's Emissions Trading System (ETS) is failing to deliver vital green investment after a collapse in carbon prices, MPs warn in a report out today.

The environmental audit committee is calling on the government to introduce measures such as a new carbon tax to push the price of carbon from its level of €15 (£13) a tonne to what the MPs see as a more credible price of €100. (The Guardian)

 

Australian climate poll: 60% passionate (but half in the dark)

The poll of Australians commission by the Australian Climate Science Coalition is more sophisticated than the BBC poll, and shows a similar trend against the theory of man-made global catastrophe. But, perhaps not surprisingly, as with the nature of fraud and misinformation, the results also contain contradictions. It’s quicksand out there in voter-world. Half the population is no longer sold on the emissions trading scheme, but the other half is unaware of what is unfolding. A bare majority of Australians still want to do “something” to combat climate change (I wonder if the same number of people want to do “something” to combat the weather), but even those who want action don’t want to spend very much.

The full report PDF.

Table 20: ACSC Poll of Australians Jan 2010

The things we know for sure:

1. Skepticism is growing in Australia since Climategate (and all the other gates) and the failure of Copenhagen.
2. There is a great deal of ignorance out there on both sides of the fence. (The science communication on this topic has been poor, worse, and awful.)
3. The population is politically split: The half that doesn’t believe in the scare campaign is also the half more likely to vote conservative or independent.
4. People are polarized. It’s not a bell shaped curve, where most people are in the middle, and the fringes thin out. It’s a U-shape, where the middle is deserted. From the graph above, 28% strongly support action, while 33% strongly oppose it. On this matter, around 60% of Australians are passionate, and half of them are wrong.

More » (Jo Nova)

 

Rudd with more Qs than As

No transcript or video yet, but Kevin Rudd will be worried by his reception on the ABC’s Q&A last night.

Everything was in his favor. Host Tony Jones is a fellow warming alarmist. The live audience comprised school children of the “aware” kind. The usual format was junked so that Rudd had no fellow panellists to challenge him.

And yet, while most of the students still seemed indeed of the Left, as you’d expect from that age group, the evening did not go smoothly.

Rudd was openly laughed at for his mannerisms and tendency to blather. Never have I heard the phrase “you know what?” said so often. He was challenged on his broken promises.

There was huge laughter and prolonged applause when Jones noted that in answering whether he supported lifting the drinking age to 21 (at 16:30), Rudd first said “of course”, then claimed he’d rely on “evidence” before having an opinion, and then (so characteristically) asked for a show of hands on whether such a ban would be good. Tell me what to think. I couldn’t think of a more classic demonstration of Rudd’s essential emptiness.

One student even asked (at 42:20) him whether the Climategate and IPCC scandals, and the Dutch Government’s decision to review the IPCC advice, made him think twice about relying on the IPCC, too. Even more interesting, the question got sustained applause and Rudd was visibly angered. He refused to look at the student while answering, knowing the young man had his hand in the air, wanting to object to his claim that the IPCC just comprised 4000 (sic) scientists who just “measured things”. True, there was even more applause for Rudd’s I’ll-save-you-from-warming exhortation, but the strong division among the students was extraordinary. The great scare is crumbling, even on Rudd’s turf.

Another student, again with applause, noted that the Copenhagen climate summit was a failure (at 44:47), and Rudd struggled to show it wasn’t.

They’re on to him, these students. On to the scares, on to the spin, on to the populism.

UPDATE

David Penberthy agrees.

UPDATE 2

The video is now up.

UPDATE 3

I don’t think Q&A did Rudd any favors with the hammer-and-sickle look:

UPDATE 4

When even questions from school children can give Rudd a hard time, is it no wonder he’s still dodging questioning by Insiders? (Andrew Bolt)

 

Emissions 'could rise' under ETS

THE Federal Government cannot guarantee that its controversial climate plan will cut Australia's greenhouse gas emissions at all.

Labor and the Liberals are fiercely arguing over whose climate change plan is the best.

Both plans aim to reduce emissions by 5 per cent by 2020.

The government says the opposition's plan won't work and could see emissions rise.

But the same argument could be levelled against the government's proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Government data appears to show that under the ETS, Australia's emissions would rise from 553 million tonnes in 2000 to 585 million tonnes by 2020.

The target to cut emissions by 5 per cent is only reached by paying other countries to reduce their emissions.

Modelling from the Treasury Department says Australia's emissions don't begin to fall under the ETS "until the mid-2030s".

Junior climate change minister Greg Combet was unable to guarantee the ETS would reduce Australia's emissions by 2020. (AAP)

 

WA drought 'could be worst for 750 years'

If you thought the drought affecting south-west WA since the 1970s was extreme, you were right.

But just how extreme has been a matter of contention.

Now, scientists believe it could be the worst of its kind in 750 years, after making an unexpected discovery.

Researchers from the Australian Antarctic Division and Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre have identified a link between the drought, which began in the early 1970s, and snowfall at a site in East Antarctica over the same period.

In research published in Nature Geoscience, they say the relationship is inverse - high snowfalls at the Law Dome site correlate with low rain in the South-West.

That is as a result of the atmospheric circulation pattern that brings dry, cool air to Australia, while sending warm, moist air to East Antarctica.

However, the high snowfall at Law Dome was unlike any other in the past 750 years, and led the researchers to believe the drought was similarly unusual.

Since the 1970s, there has been a decline of up to 20 per cent in winter rainfall in the South-West and, though the cause of the drought remains unclear, others have pointed to land-use changes, ocean temperatures, air circulation changes and natural variability. (WA Today)

 

Some Thoughts on the Warm January, 2010

I continue to get lots of e-mails asking how global average tropospheric temperatures for January, 2010 could be at a record high (for January, anyway, in the 32 year satellite record) when it seems like it was such a cold January where people actually live.

I followed up with a short sea surface temperature analysis from AMSR-E data which ended up being consistent with the AMSU tropospheric temperatures.

I’m sure part of the reason is warm El Nino conditions in the Pacific. Less certain is my guess that when the Northern Hemisphere continents are unusually cold in winter, then ocean surface temperatures, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, should be unusually warm. But this is just speculation on my part, based on the idea that cold continental air masses can intensify when they get land-locked, with less flow of maritime air masses over the continents, and less flow of cold air masses over the ocean. Maybe the Arctic Oscillation is an index of this, as a few of you have suggested, but I really don’t know.

Also, remember that there are always quasi-monthly oscillations in the amount of heat flux from the ocean to the atmosphere, primarily in the tropics, which is why a monthly up-tick in tropospheric temperatures is usually followed by a down-tick the next month, and vice-versa.

So, it could be that all factors simply conspired to give an unusually warm spike in January…only time will tell.

But this event has also spurred me to do something I’ve been putting off for years, which is develop limb corrections for the Aqua AMSU instrument. This will allow us to make global grids from the data (current grids are still based upon NOAA-15, which we know has a spurious warming over land areas from orbital decay and a changing local observation time). Since the Aqua AMSU is the first instrument on a satellite whose orbit is actively maintained, there will be no problem with those data since Aqua came online in mid-2002.

[Don't get confused here...we use NOAA-15 AMSU ONLY to get spatial patterns, which are then forced to match the Aqua AMSU measurements when averaged in latitude bands. So, using NOAA-15 data does not corrupt the global or latitude-band averages...but they do affect how the warm and cool patterns are partitioned between land and ocean.]

I might also extend the analysis to specifically retrieve near-surface temperatures over land. I did this several years ago with SSM/I data over land, but never tried to get it published. It could be that such a comparison between AMSU surface and near-surface channels will uncover some interesting things about the urban heat island effect, since I use hourly surface temperature observations as training data in that effort. (Roy W. Spencer)

 

A Paper On The Limits Of Seasonal Weather Prediction And Relevance To Longer Term Climate Predictions By Lavers Et Al 2009

There is a paper by

Lavers, D., L. Luo, and E. F. Wood (2009), A multiple model assessment of seasonal climate forecast skill for applications, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L23711, doi:10.1029/2009GL041365. [thanks to Jos de Laat for alerting us to it!].

The paper includes a very important conclusion on what is achievable in terms on seasonal (and thus) longer term forecast skill.

The abstract reads

“Skilful seasonal climate forecasts have potential to affect decision making in agriculture, health and water management. Organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are currently planning to move towards a climate services paradigm, which will rest heavily on skilful forecasts at seasonal (1 to 9 months) timescales from coupled atmosphere-land-ocean models. We present a careful analysis of the predictive skill of temperature and precipitation from eight seasonal climate forecast models with the joint distribution of observations and forecasts. Using the correlation coefficient, a shift in the conditional distribution of the observations given a forecast can be detected, which determines the usefulness of the forecast for applications. Results suggest there is a deficiency of skill in the forecasts beyond month-1, with precipitation having a more pronounced drop in skill than temperature. At long lead times only the equatorial Pacific Ocean exhibits significant skill. This could have an influence on the planned use of seasonal forecasts in climate services and these results may also be seen as a benchmark of current climate prediction capability using (dynamic) couple models.”

The discussion part of the paper has the very important finding (which comments on climate predictions)

“Given the actual skill demonstrated by operational seasonal climate forecasting models, it appears that only through significant model improvements can useful long-lead forecasts be provided that would be useful for decision makers – a quest that may prove to be elusive.” (Climate Science)

 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Says Pika Not Imperiled by Climate Change

The Obama administration has determined that the American pika, a small rabbit-like mammal, is not threatened by climate change. 

The decision underscores how the Endangered Species Act has become the latest battlefield in the fight over global warming.

Environmentalists consider the pika to be the animal most vulnerable to climate change in the continental United States due to its inability to survive even small increases in temperature. 

The pika lives on alpine mountain ranges throughout the West, and as average temperatures have increased in recent decades, some populations have disappeared at lower elevations while others have moved to higher peaks, according to scientific studies. 

In an initial finding issued last April, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that protecting the pika under the Endangered Species Act “may be warranted because of the present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range as a result of effects related to global climate change.” 

But after a full review, government scientists have concluded that the pika could survive temperatures projected to increase 3 degrees Celsius in its mountain habitat as well as the loss of snow pack, which the animals depend on for shelter. “The American pika has demonstrated flexibility in its behavior and physiology that can allow it to adapt to increasing temperature,” the scientists wrote in the finding released Friday. (Todd Woody, Green Inc.)

 

Still trying though... Earlier springs could destroy delicate balance of UK wildlife, study shows

Global warming could be changing seasonal timing with profound consequences, according to analysis of 726 species of plants and animals (David Adam, The Guardian)

 

Using Smokestack Gases to Pump Oil - Denbury Resources, Seeking Source of Carbon Dioxide for its Fields, to Scrub Emissions From Dow Chemical Plant

Carbon dioxide pouring from smokestacks hardly has a reputation as a valuable commodity. But one company has launched a series of projects to see if it can use the refuse of the industrial economy to breathe new life into tired oil fields.

How well Denbury Resources Inc.'s projects go will be closely watched not just by environmentalists but other oil producers. For decades, companies have pumped naturally-occurring carbon dioxide from geological basins into existing oil wells. The gas acts like a solvent for the oil, removing it from rock formations.

Denbury is a regional oil and natural-gas producer based in Plano, Texas, whose primary source of carbon dioxide is a basin near Jackson, Miss. It is hoping to add to that finite supply by using carbon dioxide recovered from industrial plants. Next month, it is slated to acquire Encore Acquisition Co., an oil company in the Rocky Mountain region that is considering using similar industrial sources of carbon dioxide to recover oil.

By mid-2011, Denbury plans to treat and ship its first batch of industrial emissions from a Dow Chemical Co. factory in Plaquemine, La., to its oil fields in Texas via a pipeline network it is building. Although the U.S. government recently announced funding for a host of other "industrial carbon capture" projects, the Dow project is unique because itappears to be economically viable without government aid. (WSJ)

Provided you have a profitable use for the CO₂, great. CCS, for the sake of CCS is simply foolish.

 

Remembering Julian Simon (1937–1998)

by Robert Bradley Jr.
February 8, 2010

Editor note: Julian Simon (1937–1998) is a primary inspiration for this free-market energy blog, the name of which comes from his characterization of energy as the master resource.

Twelve years ago today came the shocking news: Julian Simon, age 65, had died of heart failure after his regular morning workout in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He had undiagnosed heart disease.

Just two months before, I had visited extensively with Simon when he came Houston to give what would be his last major address, titled: “More People, Greater Wealth, Expanded Resources, Cleaner Environment.” A full house of 200 heard Simon that day, and one in attendance, free-market entrepreneur Gordon Cain, was so impressed that he mailed Simon an unsolicited $25,000 check for research.

Simon invited me to coauthor an energy paper with him for a conference he was planning. This excited me, as did his warm inscription to my first edition copy of The Ultimate Resource. After all, he was the latest major influence on me in a line of thinkers that began with Ayn Rand and had continued with Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek. Not unlike other libertarians, I had gone from individualism-is-cool (Rand’s The Fountainhead) to free-markets-work (Mises’s Human Action) to the-perils-of-government-planning (Hayek, various).

I am not the only one to list Simon alongside other top classical liberal/libertarian scholars. Don Boudreaux, chair of the department of economics at George Mason University, wrote:

The three scholars who have had the the greatest impact on my own thinking are F. A. Hayek, James Buchanan, and Julian Simon….  [Simon's] vital idea of “the ultimate resource”  … is one of the most profound—and least understood—in all of the social sciences.

Two Letters from F. A. Hayek

Hayek, in fact, credited Julian Simon for having crystallized the big picture for him and wrote a self-described “fan letter” to him in 1981.

 Dear Professor Simon,

I have never before written a fan letter to a professional colleague, but to discover that you have in your Economics of Population Growth provided the empirical evidence for what with me is the result of a life-time of theoretical speculation, is too exciting an experience not to share it with you. The upshot of my theoretical work has been the conclusion that those traditional rules of conduct (esp. of several property) which led to the greatest increases of the numbers of the groups practicing them leads to their displacing the others — not on “Darwinian” principles but because based on the transmission of learned rules — a concept of evolution which is much older than Darwin.

I doubt whether welfare economics has really much helped you to the right conclusions. I claim as little as you do that population growth as such is good — only that it is the cause of the selection of the morals which guide our individual action. It follows, of course, that our fear of a population explosion is unjustified so long as the local increases are the result of groups being able to feed larger numbers, but may become a severe embarrassment if we start subsidizing the growth of groups unable to feed themselves.

Sincerely, F. A.Hayek

Hayek wrote a second letter upon reading The Ultimate Resource: [Read more →] (MasterResource)

 

More companies line up to join the Falklands’ oil rush

While there have been strong protests from the Argentine Government about the drilling program due to start in Falkland Islands waters this month, it has not deterred other companies wanting to join Desire Petroleum, Rockhopper Exploration and Falklands Oil and Gas in the search for oil. (Merco Press)

 

Shareholders put oil-sands risks on agenda

CALGARY -- A small British lobby group, for the second time in four weeks, has tabled a shareholder resolution with a major international oi-and-gas company demanding more information about the financial risks tied to oil-sands operations.

FairPensions, which is funded by charities, trade unions and non-governmental organizations, said Monday it filed a resolution with BP PLC and has the support of about 150 institutional and individual shareholders. 

BP’s annual shareholders meeting is scheduled for April 15. (Carrie Tait, Financial Post)

 

Momentum For Clean Coal Conversion Burning Out

President Obama’s recent public support of clean coal and his waning interest in cap-and-trade legislation may not be enough to save the American coal industry from a perfect storm of competitive technology, stricter regulation and growing obsolescence. (Trevor Curwin, CNBC.com)

Coal? Obsolete? Sheesh!

 

Coal Ad Blitz Launches New Spot as Industry Sees Political Gains

An advertising campaign that previously pushed the phrase "clean coal" launches new spots this week focused on jobs and low-cost power, the latest offering in a three-year, nearly $120 million effort to sell Congress and the White House on coal's future. Increasingly, there are signs that it is working. (Greenwire)

Bottom line: we need coal, lots of it and will do so for a very long time to come.

 

Ofgem: UK cannot trust energy companies to keep the lights on

Regulator says free market approach will leave UK short of energy supplies by 2015 (The Guardian)

 

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Green Police: Audi Super Bowl Ad

I don't know about you but viewing the above clip I felt a really strong urge to clean my guns...

 

But it's nachural... Herbal cures `a toxic mix'

MANY herbal medicines are contaminated with potentially lethal doses of heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, belying their reputation as low-risk "natural" products.

Cheaper and less effective herbs may be substituted for the one on the label, and some medicines are often secretly adulterated with conventional prescription or over-the-counter drugs to boost their effectiveness.

The warnings come from an Australian expert, who conducted a review of the potential hazards linked to herbal medicines -- and came away shocked by how many different dangers there were.

A previous analysis of 251 herbal products sold in the US found arsenic in 36, mercury in 35 and lead in 24 of the preparations, according to the review by Roger Byard, a forensic pathologist at the University of Adelaide. (The Australian)

 

Soft drinks boost pancreatic cancer risk

PEOPLE who drink at least two soft drinks a week nearly double their risk of developing pancreatic cancer, a study has revealed.

Researchers collected data on the consumption of soft drinks, juice and other dietary items, as well as lifestyle and environmental factors of 60,524 people who were part of the huge Singapore Chinese Health Study, following up with study participants for up to 14 years.

The research found there was a 87 per cent higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer for those who drank two or more soft drinks per week. No link was found between drinking fruit juice and developing pancreatic cancer, said the study which was published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention said.

"The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth," lead researcher Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota said. (AFP)

Are they using soft drink consumption as a marker of sweet tooth or something? Never mind the fact they are still only talking RR 1.87 (3.0 might be of interest, 2.0 is boring and less than that simple chance), it is not clear why they fixated on soft drinks (are they talking aerated sodas, cordials, flavored water... what about diet formulations? Weird.

Nonetheless, you have a very small likelihood of developing pancreatic cancer and even double that remains, well, a very small risk.

 

Age of mother affects child's autism risk: study

CHICAGO - Being an older mother significantly increases the risk of having a child with autism, but being an older father only increases the risk when the mother is under the age of 30, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

They found that a 40-year-old woman's risk of having a child later diagnosed with autism was 50 percent greater than that of a woman between 25 and 29.

But being an older father - 40 or older - only contributes significantly to autism risk when the mother is under 30.

"The older the mother, the more the risk that the child will develop autism, regardless of whether the father is young or old," said Irva Hertz-Picciotto of the University of California Davis MIND Institute, who worked on the study published in the journal Autism Research.

The findings contradict a 2006 study of children born in Israel that suggested paternal age played a much larger role. (Reuters)

 

A Federal Effort to Push Junk Food Out of Schools

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will begin a drive this week to expel Pepsi, French fries and Snickers bars from the nation’s schools in hopes of reducing the number of children who get fat during their school years.

In legislation, soon to be introduced, candy and sugary beverages would be banned and many schools would be required to offer more nutritious fare. (NYT)

 

WWII program enlisted for war on child obesity

Washington -- A federal program that began in 1946 to remedy the shocking malnutrition among World War II recruits is being transformed into ground zero in the nation's new war against obesity.

The national school lunch program and other food programs under the Child Nutrition Act may be the most promising avenue to improve the nutrition of a generation of children who think food comes out of a wrapper and who face shorter lives because of their rising weight. (SF Chronicle)

 

How do you make children eat healthily? Lock them in - School meals tsar wants children kept away from fast-food outlets

The newly appointed school food tsar will today urge headteachers to bar pupils from leaving the premises at lunchtime in an effort to promote healthy eating habits.

Rob Rees, a former chef who now runs a private cookery school and his own food consultancy, has taken over from the television cook Prue Leith as chairman of the School Food Trust, which was set up by the Government to promote healthy school dinners.

In his first interview since taking office, he said: "I would like headteachers to have a policy of no one being offsite during lunchtime. Schools that have done this have found improvements in behaviour in the afternoon."

He said that schools unwilling to lock up pupils at lunchtime should at least demand that local fast-food outlets provide healthier fare. (The Independent)

 

For obese, vaccine needle size matters

NEW YORK - Our ever-expanding waistlines may have outgrown the doctor's needle, researchers say, in what could be another casualty of the obesity epidemic. (Reuters Health)

 

Super-size equipment helps D.C. area EMTs move the obese

Local paramedics and firefighters don't need to follow television shows about a half-ton teen or biggest losers to track the obesity trend. 

They carry that knowledge with them. 

Calls for patients weighing 350 pounds come daily in the District. A patient between 400 pounds and 600 pounds is part of every workweek for many crews throughout the region. Patients topping 600 pounds are transported by emergency teams every few months. 

Girth is a separate challenge. 

"I think everyone has struggled with this issue, and technology is just now coming to grips with it," said Fairfax Deputy Fire Chief Christine Louder. 

Across the Washington region and the country, departments have been adapting steadily to plus-size patients. They have added specialty equipment and training to reduce their back injuries and avoid the spectacle of moving a person on planks, tarps or the floor of an ambulance. (Washington Post)

 

Obesity threatens national security

When first lady Michelle Obama launches her campaign to reduce child obesity today, many Americans will be cheering her on — including parents, teachers, doctors, business leaders ... and retired generals and admirals such as me. Generals and admirals?

Yes, child obesity has become so serious in this country that military leaders are viewing the epidemic as a potential threat to our national security.

Obesity, it turns out, is the No. 1 reason why applicants fail to qualify for military service, and it is posing serious health problems within the services. The issue is causing heartbreak among some military families that have always had a son or daughter in the service. Today, otherwise excellent recruit prospects, with generations of military service in their family history, are being turned away because they are just too heavy. (AJC)

 

Smoking outdoors to be outlawed on three busy Frankston streets

SMOKING outdoors will be outlawed along entire streets in a Victorian-first trial.

Frankston City Council is preparing to impose blanket bans along three busy open-air shopping strips, including opposite the train station.

Lighting up in the designated exclusion zones during the planned six-month trial could cost defiant smokers fines up to $110. (Herald Sun)

 

Auto exhaust linked to thickening of arteries, possible increased risk of heart attack

BERKELEY — Swiss, California and Spanish researchers have found that particulates from auto exhaust can lead to the thickening of artery walls, possibly increasing chances of a heart attack and stroke.

In a study reported this week in the journal PLoS ONE, the researchers used ultrasound to measure the carotid artery wall thickness of 1,483 people who lived near freeways in the Los Angeles area. The researchers took these measurements every six months for approximately three years, and correlated them with estimates of outdoor particulate levels at the study participants' homes.

They found that the artery wall thickness among those living within 100 meters (328 feet) of a highway increased by 5.5 micrometers – one-twentieth the thickness of a human hair – per year, or more than twice the average progression observed in study participants. (UC Berkeley)

 

India awaits go-ahead on first GM crop despite scientists’ warnings

India will decide tomorrow whether to approve its first genetically modified (GM) food crop. It is a move that supporters argue will help to avert a global food crisis but which critics say is being rushed through recklessly. 

The new vegetable, an aubergine — or brinjal in Hindi — contains a toxic gene that poisons insect pests and will boost yields while reducing dependence on pesticides, its champions say. It would also open up the world’s second most-populous nation to at least 56 other GM crops that are in the final stages of development. 

Scientists have warned that not enough is known about the effects of the new variety on human beings and the environment. Long-term toxicity and the risk of dangerous mutations have not been ruled out, they say. (The Times)

 

Pollies express dismay and defiance at taskforce conclusions on Top End food bowl

POLITICIANS reacted angrily to yesterday's taskforce report rejecting major agricultural development of Australia's north, labelling the committee lightweight and ineffective.

Country Liberals senator Nigel Scullion said the taskforce seemed more interested in presenting barriers to development than finding solutions.

"I'm very disappointed that the great vision of the north of Australia becoming the food bowl of Asia and the future for Australia -- well, if you read this report, it's going to be a hungry future," Senator Scullion said.

The West Australian government said it would have an extra 8000ha of irrigated land for agriculture available in the remote Kimberley by next year as it pushed ahead with its plan to create the northern food bowl.

State Nationals leader Brendon Grylls dismissed as "naysayers" those predicting that limited water supplies would stifle agricultural growth.

Mr Grylls said people who doubted Western Australia's potential should visit the Ord River irrigation scheme. (The Australian)

As they should, the 'report' was a pathetic green sop -- so bad it was not even [merely] wrong.

 

Some of the reason they got it so wrong: Dams not an option in Labor food plan

A RESEARCH report that found there was insufficient water to make northern Australia a food bowl for the nation did not consider building dams because it was against Labor policy.

The Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce relied heavily on the work done by the CSIRO's Northern Australia Sustainable Yields project, whose scientists were told not to worry about investigating dams.

The CSIRO's Richard Cresswell said: "At the time of the study, all jurisdictions (the West Australian, Queensland and NT governments) had a no-dams policy, and therefore we did not investigate the opportunities for dams in the north.

"We weren't asked not to investigate them, but we were told it wasn't necessary to investigate them," Dr Cresswell said.

During the course of the project, the West Australian government changed from Labor to a Liberal-Nationals alliance, "and the prospect of putting dams on some of the rivers was put back on the table", Dr Cresswell said. (The Australian)

 

Taking the fight to misanthropic watermelons: Tony Abbott calls Kevin Rudd's bluff on wild rivers

TONY Abbott has challenged Kevin Rudd to use the promise he made in delivering the national apology to the Stolen Generations two years ago to overturn the Queensland government's Wild Rivers legislation.

Introducing his private member's bill in parliament last night, the Opposition Leader said that when the Prime Minister made the apology, he said that unless the great symbolism of reconciliation was accompanied by even greater substance, it would be little more than a clanging gong.

"In making that statement, the Prime Minister was absolutely right," Mr Abbott told parliament.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh announced last year that three major waterways on Cape York - the Archer, Stewart and Lockhart Rivers - had been declared wild rivers. The declaration, opposed by most indigenous people and cattle producers, imposed severe restrictions on future development of land near the rivers or catchment areas.

At the time, the Wilderness Society welcomed the move and congratulated Queensland's parliament for passing the necessary law with bipartisan support to preserve Cape York as one of the earth's great natural wonders.

Cape York indigenous leader Noel Pearson has accused the Bligh government of creating the wild rivers legislation as part of a deal with the Greens for preferences at last year's state election. (The Australian)

 

Goodbye Galapagos, you're too warm for us

Marine scientists are reporting that a colony of sea lions, previously unique to the Galapagos Islands, has unexpectedly decamped 900 miles south-east to an island just off the coast of Peru in what may be another symptom of global warming.

According to the Peru-based Organisation of Research and Conservation of Aquatic Animals, it is the first recorded instance of a colony of Galapagos sea lions abandoning their familiar waters around the archipelago, which belongs to neighbouring Ecuador. About 30 of the animals in the group have moved. (The Independent)

A few dozen sea lion exploit conditions while they suit? Wow! Call out the guard!

 

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