By Steve Milloy
February 11, 2010, PajamasMedia.com
There’s good news for those who like to watch paint dry and grass grow. Now you can log on to www.climate.gov and watch the climate change.
Under the pretext that “Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards,” and that they “increasingly are asking the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for information about climate change in order to make the best choices for their families, communities and businesses,” this week the Obama administration unveiled its National Climate Service (NCS).
Though we can’t rely on a weather forecast that extend more than a few days, the National Climate Service is going to help us plan for micro-changes in climate decades and more into the future.
Climate.gov features a “climate dashboard” with constantly updated graphs showing changes in global temperature, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), incoming sunlight, sea level, and Arctic ice. How any of this information will help anyone make any choice for any family, community, or business is not even suggested on the website. But rest assured, says NOAA:
People are searching for relevant and timely information about these changes to inform decisionmaking about virtually all aspects of their lives.
Climate.gov is more self-lampooning than informative.
No one lives at the mean global temperature, so it’s of dubious relevance to anyone. Moreover, NOAA’s calculation is not very robust. Not only are there not enough surface and atmospheric temperature samplings — by a long shot — but the measurements from the Earth’s surface tend to be biased, generally towards warming by the urban heat island effect.
While the atmospheric CO2 level is slowly rising, NOAA omits that this is an utterly meaningless phenomenon for most of the planet. In tropical and temperate zones, the greenhouse effects of water vapor and clouds essentially block out those of CO2 at current levels. Moreover, each molecule of CO2 emitted to the atmosphere has exponentially less greenhouse warming potential than the preceding molecule. Given current atmospheric CO2 levels, this relationship is why alarmists cannot show that CO2 emissions measurably impact global climate.
Climate.gov shows a measurement of incoming sunlight — but NOAA itself dismisses the link between incoming sunlight and climate change.
The sea level change graph? It only represents measured sea level change at the Battery in New York City. Moreover, it fails to indicate whether sea level is rising, or whether New York City is sinking.
While the Arctic sea ice graph dramatizes the increasing summer melt, NOAA omits showing the increase in Antarctic sea ice that has resulted in an overall increase in net global sea ice.
With the information that NOAA presents, the only thing that you can plan on is being confused, misinformed, and frustrated.
The real purpose of the NCS, of course, has nothing to do with education. It has everything to do with the politicization of the natural process of climate change for the unnatural ends of egomaniacal profiteers like Al Gore, and international socialists who want to use greenhouse gas regulation as a means of imposing their political agendas.
The NCS will be led by NOAA’s Thomas Karl, a prominent global warming alarmist. He will report to Jane Lubchenco, another longtime climate chicken little. NOAA’s media release features endorsements from Obama energy/environment czar — and former Socialist International official — Carol Browner, as well as from Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers. Rogers not only lobbied for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, but he admits to tackling climate change at the behest of his grade school-aged grandchildren.
It’s pretty obvious that the NCS and Climate.gov intend to reinflate Al Gore’s “the planet has a fever” theme, in the wake of the Senate death of cap and trade, Climategate, glaciergate, rainforestgate, the failed Copenhagen conference, the exposure of IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri’s financial conflicts of interest, and other recent events that have derailed the alarmist freight train.
If NCS wants to present useful information to the public and decisionmakers, it might try showing the change in the political climate for global warming alarmism. A photo of a falling rock would probably be sufficient.
Steve Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and is the author of Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them.