Cryosat-2 data was only obtained from 2 winters and 1 summer which scientists agree is insufficient time to be statistically significant. (For the record, whether or not Arctic ice is melting due to excess CO2, the US is no longer a culprit if it ever was. US CO2 has dropped and is heading lower. No 'climate treaties' needed. The CO2 gravy train has reached the end of the line.)
8/14/12, "Arctic ICE PANIC sparked by half-baked sat data," UK Register, A. Orlowski
"Listeners to Radio 4's Today programme - and this includes much of the political elite - will have been alarmed to be told that "the Arctic could be ice-free on a summer’s day by the end of the decade".
Yet the evidence for this "trend" turns out to be drawn from less than two years worth of data.
Dr Seymour Laxon of University College London raised the alarm using radar altimeter observations made by the European-funded Cryosat-2 satellite, a project he helped devise. This allows scientists to gain more accurate mapping of the sea floor and also sea ice extent and thickness.
Cryosat-2 began observing the Arctic ice cap in October 2010, and has been acquiring data since. So scientists have two winter seasons and one summer season on which to base any claims.
Is this a problem? Actually, according to the European Space Agency, it is. "Three to four years of data from Cryosat-2 can be averaged to reduce the 'noise' due to currents and tides and better chart the permanent topography related to marine gravity," it stated.
Using less than three or four years of data is frowned upon - and that's official.
In addition, Dr Laxon himself recommends using much longer timescales. As he wrote in a 2003 paper (High interannual variability of sea ice thickness in the Arctic region Laxon, Peacock and Smith, Nature), "the sea ice mass can change by up to 16 per cent within one year" and "this variability must be taken into account when determining the significance of trends".
So how can Dr Laxon now justify using an inadequate data set to make a long-term claim? Alas, we don't know. The tenacious questioning that Today typically gives to guests was suspended for this segment, and Laxon was received with the deference a Pope receives when lecturing his cardinals. The claim went unchallenged.
Arctic ice is cited by catastrophists as a potential "tipping factor" (or "hysteretic threshold behavior") for two reasons. Cooler water may affect oceanic circulation, with consequences for countries south of the ice cap. And less ice may decrease the albedo.
Yet the true picture is complicated. Ice extent has varied much more dramatically in the past, long before global-warming skeptical Top Gear was conceived or broadcast. Research published in the peer-reviewed Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences [PDF, 1.1MB] in 2008 looked at the Western Arctic, and noted that "the amplitude of these millennial-scale changes in sea-surface conditions far exceed those observed at the end of the 20th century".
Without causing a tipping.
Climate policy blogger Ben Pile has put together a roundup of "ice free" Arctic claims. "The alarmist story is allowed to proceed in spite of facts, and without scrutiny or criticism," he observed.
Scientists despair of the public's waning interest in climate change, and like to blame disinformation. They only have themselves to blame." via Climate Depot===============================
Ed. note: Scientists note US CO2 has been dropping for many years and is heading lower. Other countries have not lowered their CO2. US taxpayers have for some reason shipped billions of their tax dollars around the world to "tackle" alleged man-caused climate change despite the fact that many Americans are broke, hungry and suffering themselves. But we 'tackled' our alleged CO2 issue. Being into self-flagellation, we also paid for UN IPCC staff to jet set around the world and scold us. Congratulations to all the greens who wanted the US to lower its CO2 and GDP, you won!
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8/16/12, "AP IMPACT: CO2 Emissions In US Drop To 20-Year Low," AP via NPR
"In a surprising turnaround, the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere in the U.S. has fallen dramatically to its lowest level in 20 years, and government officials say the biggest reason is that cheap and plentiful natural gas has led many power plant operators to switch from dirtier-burning coal.
Many of the world's leading climate scientists didn't see the drop coming, in large part because it happened as a result of market forces rather than direct government action against carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere.
Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, said the shift away from coal is reason for "cautious optimism" about potential ways to deal with climate change."...
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This isn't to say the US hasn't become partners with the 'climate' industry. Trillions have been taken from US taxpayers for climate expenses via outright agency budget allocations, tax subsidies, diversion of US military to climate or green projects, countless federal regulations, vast sums shipped out in foreign aid for 'climate' endeavors, etc. Devoting 13 federal agencies to 'climate' matters is hardly 'lagging' in action! Global Warming 'action' was institutionalized in US government in 1990 by George Bush the 1st in the "U.S. Global Change Research Act of 1990." (He mentions CO2 near the end). The US even exports fuel now!
================================7/15/12, "Recession Special: Cleaner Air," NY Times, Matthew Wald
"What the government has not mandated, the economy is doing on its own: emissions of global warming gases in the United States are down.
According to the Energy Department, carbon dioxide emissions peaked in this country in 2005 and will not reach that level again until the early 2020s."...
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US CO2 has dropped steeply and is going lower:
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6/29/12, "US Carbon Output Forecasts Shrink Again," American Interest, Walter Russell Mead
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6/4/12, "Climate change stunner: USA leads world in CO2 cuts since 2006," Vancouver Observer, Saxifrage
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6/22/12, "U.S. cuts greenhouse gases despite do-nothing Congress," CNN, Steve Hargreaves
"Even factoring in a stronger economy, forecasters see greenhouse gas emissions continuing to fall."...
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4/21/12, "Why [CO2] Emissions Are Declining in the U.S. But Not in Europe," by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, newgeography.com
"As we note below in a new article for Yale360, a funny thing happened: U.S. emissions started going down in 2005 and are expected to decline further over the next decade."
11/23/11, "Europe's $287 billion carbon 'waste': UBS report," The Australian, by Sid Maher
"SWISS banking giant UBS says the European Union's emissions trading scheme has cost the continent's consumers $287 billion for "almost zero impact" on cutting carbon emissions."...EU CO2 trading provided "windfall profits" to participants paid for by "electricity customers.""
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4/23/12, "'I made a mistake': Gaia theory scientist James Lovelock admits he was 'alarmist' about the impact of climate change," UK Daily Mail, L. Warren
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A 2011 report noted EIA results through 2009, US CO2 emissions dropped steadily since 1999. If, hypothetically, US temperatures have been on the increase, they couldn't possibly be related to US carbon dioxide emissions:
4/14/11, "Biggest Drop in U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions," World Climate Report
"In 2009, greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. experienced their biggest drop since the U.S. Energy Information Administration began tracking them during the 1990-2009 timeframe."
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1/25/2009, "Global warming industry becomes too big to fail," Timothy Carney, Washington Examiner
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8/23/11, "The Alarming Cost Of Climate Change Hysteria," Forbes, Larry Bell
"The Small Business Administration estimates that compliance with such regulations costs the U.S. economy more than $1.75 trillion per year — about 12%-14% of GDP, and half of the $3.456 trillion Washington is currently spending. The Competitive Enterprise Institute believes the annual cost is closer to $1.8 trillion when an estimated $55.4 billion regulatory administration and policing budget is included."...
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11/21/11, "Analysis: U.S. government a tenuous beachhead for biofuel firms," Reuters
"The U.S. military has emerged as a key ally for fledgling producers of non-food-based biofuels."...
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A few examples of climate cash sought in 2011:
1/11/11, "Big Money in Climate Change: Who Gives, Who Gets," Al Fin
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CRS says congress may want to consider that global warming isn't happening anyway.3/26/12, "Obama Requests $770 Million to Fight Global Warming Overseas," CNS News, Matt Cover
"The Obama administration has requested $770 million in federal funds to combat the effects of global warming in developing countries, a new congressional report details, continuing its policy of using foreign aid to combat the effects of global warming in the developing world.
The figure, from a recent report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), shows that despite another year of $1 trillion deficits, the Obama administration continues to pursue its policy of using foreign aid funds for anti-global warming measures – known as the Global Climate Change Initiative (GCCI).
According to CRS, the government has spent a total of $2.5 billion on GCCI since 2010 on overseas anti-global warming efforts in Latin America, Asia, and Africa."...
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7/16/12, "Offshore drilling: Extra-thick ice freezes early operations in Arctic," E&E reporter, Margaret Kriz Hobson
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11/30/11, "U.S. Nears Milestone: Net Fuel Exporter," Wall St. Journal, by L. Pleven, R. Gold
"U.S. exports of gasoline, diesel and other oil-based fuels are soaring, putting the nation on track to be a net exporter of petroleum products in 2011
for the first time in 62 years.
A combination of booming demand from emerging markets and faltering domestic activity means the U.S. is exporting more fuel than it imports,
- upending the historical norm.
According to data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Tuesday, the U.S. sent abroad 753.4 million barrels of everything from gasoline to jet fuel in the first nine months of this year, while it imported 689.4 million barrels."...
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"But those glory days are over now, and the smarter environmentalists are bowing to the inevitable."...
7/28/12, "The Energy Revolution 4: Hot Planet?," Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest
"But there is one group (other than the Russians and the Gulf Arabs and the Iranians) that isn’t sharing in the general joy: the greens. For them, the spectacle of a looming world energy crisis was good news. It justified huge subsidies for solar and wind power (and thereby guaranteed huge fortunes for clever green-oriented investors). Greens outdid themselves year after year with gloom and doom forecasts about the coming oil crunch. They hoped that public dislike of the Middle East and the costs of our involvement there could be converted into public support for expensive green energy policies here at home: “energy independence” was one of the few arguments they had that resonated widely among average voters. Back in those salad days of green arrogance, there was plenty of scoffing at the ‘peak oil deniers’ and shortage skeptics who disagreed with what greens told us all was settled, Malthusian science. “Reality based” green thinkers sighed and rolled their eyes at the illusions of those benighted techno-enthusiasts who said that unconventional sources like shale oil and gas and the oil sands of Canada would one day become available. "...
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7/02/09, "The Great American Bubble Machine: How Goldman Sachs has Engineered Every Major Market Manipulation Since the Great Depression," Rolling Stone, by Matt Taibbi
"A groundbreaking new commodities bubble,
- called cap-and-trade."...
1/3/12, "U.S. Taxpayers Cover Nearly Half the Cost of U.N.’s Global Warming Panel," CNS News, E. Harrington
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2/19/11, "Republicans attempt to defund 'nefarious' global warming research group," The Hill, J. Ryan
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11/28/2009, "Western lifestyle unsustainable, says climate expert Rajendra Pachauri," UK Guardian
UN IPCC chief Pachauri, getty photo
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