Extensive scientific research finds typhoons are not caused by global warming, no evidence that CO2 impacts frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones. The Pope is therefore quite mistaken to claim otherwise to typhoon victims in poor, corrupt countries

"January 17, 2005

Chris Landsea Leaves IPCC

This is an open letter to the community from Chris Landsea. 

Dear colleagues, 
.
"After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant

• as having become politicized.

In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership,

• their response was simply to dismiss my concerns.

With this open letter to the community, I wish to explain the basis for my decision and bring awareness to what I view as a problem in the IPCC process. The IPCC is a group of climate researchers from around the world that every few years summarize how climate is changing and how it may be altered in the future due to manmade global warming. I had served both as an author for the Observations chapter and a Reviewer for the 2nd Assessment Report in 1995 and the 3rd Assessment Report in 2001,

• primarily on the topic of tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons).

My work on hurricanes, and tropical cyclones more generally, has been widely cited by the IPCC. For the upcoming AR4, I was asked several weeks ago by the Observations chapter Lead Author - Dr. Kevin Trenberth - to provide the writeup for Atlantic hurricanes. As I had in the past, I agreed to assist the IPCC in what I thought was to be an important, and politically-neutral determination of what is happening with our climate.
.
Shortly after Dr. Trenberth requested that I draft the Atlantic hurricane section for the AR4's Observations chapter, Dr. Trenberth participated in

• a press conference organized by scientists at Harvard on the topic "Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity"

along with other media interviews on the topic.

• The result of this media interaction was widespread coverage that directly connected

the very busy 2004 Atlantic hurricane season

• as being caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming occurring today.

Listening to and reading transcripts of this press conference and media interviews, it is apparent that Dr. Trenberth was being accurately quoted and summarized in such statements and was not being misrepresented in the media.

• These media sessions have potential to result in a widespread perception that global warming has made recent hurricane activity much more severe.

I found it a bit perplexing that the participants in the Harvard press conference had come to the conclusion that global warming was impacting hurricane activity today.

• To my knowledge, none of the participants in that press conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, nor were they reporting on any new work in the field.

All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown

• no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones,
  

• either in the Atlantic or any other basin.
  

The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also

• concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.
  

Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supported by the most recent credible studies that any impact in the future from global warming upon hurricane will likely be quite small. The latest results from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Knutson and Tuleya, Journal of Climate, 2004) suggest that by around 2080, hurricanes may have winds and rainfall about 5% more intense than today. It has been proposed that even this tiny change may be an exaggeration as to what may happen by the end of the 21st Century (Michaels, Knappenberger, and Landsea, Journal of Climate, 2005, submitted).
.
It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming.

• Given Dr. Trenberth’s role as the IPCC’s Lead Author responsible for preparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to concern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed objectively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity.

My view is that when people identify themselves as being associated with the IPCC and then make pronouncements far outside current scientific understandings that this will harm the credibility of climate change science and will in the longer term diminish our role in public policy. 

My concerns go beyond the actions of Dr. Trenberth and his colleagues to how he and other IPCC officials responded to my concerns.

• I did caution Dr. Trenberth before the media event and provided him a summary of the current understanding within the hurricane research community.

• I was disappointed when the IPCC leadership dismissed my concerns when I brought up the misrepresentation of climate science while invoking the authority of the IPCC.

Specifically, the IPCC leadership said that Dr. Trenberth was speaking as an individual even though he was introduced in the press conference as an IPCC lead author; I was told that that the media was exaggerating or misrepresenting his words, even though the audio from the press conference and interview tells a different story (available on the web directly); and that Dr. Trenberth was accurately reflecting conclusions from the TAR,

• even though it is quite clear that the TAR stated that there was no connection between global warming and hurricane activity.

The IPCC leadership saw nothing to be concerned with in Dr. Trenberth's unfounded pronouncements to the media, despite his supposedly impartial important role that he must undertake as a Lead Author on the upcoming AR4.
.
It is certainly true that "individual scientists can do what they wish in their own rights", as one of the folks in the IPCC leadership suggested. Differing conclusions and robust debates are certainly crucial to progress in climate science.

• However, this case is not an honest scientific discussion conducted at a meeting of climate researchers.

Instead, a scientist with an important role in the IPCC represented himself as a Lead Author for the IPCC has used that position to promulgate

• to the media and general public his own opinion that the busy 2004 hurricane season was caused by global warming,

• which is in direct opposition to research written in the field and is counter to conclusions in the TAR.
  

This becomes problematic when I am then asked to provide the draft about observed hurricane activity variations for the AR4 with, ironically, Dr. Trenberth as the Lead Author for this chapter. Because of Dr. Trenberth's pronouncements, the IPCC process on our assessment of these crucial extreme events in our climate system

• has been subverted and compromised, its neutrality lost.
  

While no one can "tell" scientists what to say or not say (nor am I suggesting that), the IPCC did select Dr. Trenberth as a Lead Author and entrusted to him to carry out this duty in a non-biased, neutral point of view.
.
When scientists hold press conferences and speak with the media, much care is needed not to reflect poorly upon the IPCC. It is of more than passing interest to note that Dr. Trenberth, while

• eager to share his views on global warming and hurricanes with the media,

• declined to do so at the Climate Variability and Change Conference in January where he made several presentations.

Perhaps he was concerned that such speculation - though worthy in his mind of public pronouncements – would not stand up to the scrutiny of fellow climate scientists.
.
I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound. As the IPCC leadership has seen no wrong in Dr. Trenberth's actions and have retained him as a Lead Author for the AR4, I have decided to no longer participate in the IPCC AR4. 
.
Sincerely, Chris Landsea
.
Attached are the correspondence between myself and key members of the IPCC FAR, Download file.
.
Posted on January 17, 2005 11:39 AM" via WUWT



.

Waiting for what we thought was Scott Brown

Scott Brown told GOP, per AP report: ""I already told them, you know, `I got here with the help of a close group of friends and

• very little help from anyone down there,

so there'll be issues when I'll be with you and there are issues when I won't be with you,'" Brown said Thursday during the half-hour interview. "So, I just need to look at each vote and then make a proper analysis and then decide.""

• From what I've heard and seen since his election, Scott Brown may be a different person than what I thought. Either he's controlled by the Trojan Horse McCain, or Trojan Horse Romney, or he's just a phony. ed.
  

Media still eager to invent racism around every corner

• And are still able to belatedly delete racist statements made in error without admitting their mistake.
  

"In this case, it's sports guy Filip Bondy of the NY Daily News, writing about this past Sunday's NFC Championship game in New Orleans:

Bondy: "If you needed further proof of this [New Orleans racial] divide, then it came during a pregame introduction of former President Bush. Once pilloried for his approach to the Katrina catastrophe in 2005, Bush was heartily cheered at the Superdome - which tells you all you need to know about the crowd's demographics."

No, he was probably cheered because it wasn't the former President Bush that had dealt with Hurricane Katrina. The "former President Bush"

• in attendance was George W. Bush's father, George H. W. Bush. (See here, here, and here.)
  

Anyone who actually watched the game -- which Bondy obviously did not -- would have seen the various shots of the elder Bush (and his wife, Barbara) watching the Saints-Vikings.

• But why let basic factual and visual evidence muss up a good cheap shot, eh?

UPDATE: Bondy's article has deleted the paragraph noted above -- without any reference as to why. There's just an "Updated: Tuesday, January 26th 2010, 11:37 AM" notice. But no worries -- we got a screen cap of it.

And you can see here, via a cache of USA Today's linked topics under "George W. Bush," a summary of Bondy's original article with almost all of the now-deleted G.W. Bush reference."

• from Newsbusters, 1/26/10, via mention on Steve Malzberg radio show
  

John McCain and the GOP are the reason the United States has been permanently lost

"The Currency of Social Justice"

• "Government jobs have now surpassed goods-producing jobs."...

"What happens if the dollar becomes worthless? People on the left have given serious thought to a replacement for money itself.

• Many Americans believe that the Cloward-Piven strategy is not only what purposefully bankrupted New York, but also what the Obama administration is employing
  
• to erode capitalism in America.

So what economic system is being erected in its place? Using Gesell and Keynesian monetary theories, as well as precedents by the Obama administration and Congress, we can see "social justice" transforming America through "green jobs" and our currency crisis.

• The government is contriving a green jobs boom. Last year, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocated over $500 million for entry-level and advanced training for jobs in the clean energy and health care industries.
  
• Job growth would be nice if it were controlled by the private sector, but
  
• government employment and regulation will dominate a "green energy" industry since the free market has not yet seen fit to produce this boom on its own.

The resulting expense from this artificial boom will be

• increased taxes to support green subsidies.

In addition, the current fuel industry will be decimated by cap-and-trade legislation designed to skyrocket the cost of traditional energy methods.

• Our economy is not undergoing a recovery; it's undergoing restructuring to remove the element of free-market capitalism."....

• from American Thinker, 1/24/10, via Lucianne.com
  

Faked data in UN Climate Report and Al Gore movie used to extort billions in climate 'reparations'

• The alleged melting Himalayas alone was used to foment hatred of US citizens and insane rants that we are condemning many to death and must pay billions. It's just one of global warming's criminal house of cards that will tumble.

"To understand why the future of Himalayan glaciers should arouse such peculiar passion, one must recall why they have long been

• a central icon in global warming campaigners' propaganda.

Everything that polar bears have been to the West, the ice of the Himalayas has been – and more – to the East.

• This is because, as Mr Gore emphasised in his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth, the vast Himalayan ice sheet

feeds seven of the world's major river systems, thus helping to provide water to

• 40 per cent of the world's population."...

Al Gore and others have become multi-millionaires based on a fraud.

• With this hook, the US was given the most blame for supposedly causing imminent death of
  
• 40% of the world's population.

Foreign fat cats and hedge fund managers in a lather saw Copenhagen as the beginning of billions in yearly payments from American wage slaves as punishment. US representatives Clinton and Obama, fed this lie, volunteered how bad US citizens really are, and pledged much more cash and self flagellation to come.

• We demand our money back.

Not that we ever owed it, but now the UN Nobel Prize winning report has been shown to be a fraud and there is no excuse for them to keep our money.

• We have plenty of people here who worked for that money and who are suffering now.

Reference: "Pachauri: the real story behind the Glaciergate Scandal," UK Telegraph by Christopher Booker, 1/23/10

• Washington Post, "In a private meeting, (Hillary) Clinton told Brazilian officials that a climate change bill that was passed by the House would set aside

• billions to help preserve tropical rain forests in developing countries....

In fact, U.S. officials added, the new administration is taking steps with or without Congress to reduce carbon emissions through new fuel standards and other measures. "They are saying, 'Trust us that we can do better,' " said Brazil's climate change ambassador, Sergio Serra, who attended the meeting with Clinton on Thursday. ...

• Clinton pledged that the country would help mobilize $100 billion a year in public and private financing by 2020 -- ...She did not specify how much the U.S. government would commit to giving, but a senior administration official said
  
• it would be 20 to 30 percent."...12/18/09,
  
• "US Pledges aid, urges developing nations to cut emissions"
  

"Obama Loses Kennedy's Seat" Sydney Morning Herald

"'Tsunami' in US politics: Obama loses Kennedy's seat," Sydney Morning Herald,
1/20/10, photo from Morning Herald

FDIC, others move on, insult duped citizens with empty words

"Sheila Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which regulates banks and runs the industry's life-boat fund, made the stark admission on the second day of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) .

• "Not only did market discipline fail to prevent the excesses of the last few years, but the regulatory system also failed in its responsibilities," Ms Bair said, adding that record profits across the banking sector also served to limit "second-guessing" among the regulatory community.
  

Ms Bair told the FCIC, set up by the US Congress to look into the causes of the crisis, that supervision of what she called the

• "shadow banking system" of firms such as hedge funds that are involved in some of the riskiest activities
  

• should be increased."....("Should" be increased? After all this time, all the lawyers and money spent by Obama, and you're saying nothing has been done-nor will it).

(continuing, Telegraph): "The 10-man commission also heard from Mary Schapiro, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has come under considerable criticism for its failings in detecting systemic problems across the industry as well as specific problems, such as Bernard Madoff's $65bn (£40bn) Ponzi scheme fraud.

• Ms Schapiro said the SEC is looking into the role investment banks played in developing derivative products around the sub-prime mortgage sector, to assess whether any wrongdoing took place."....(No, Ms. Schapiro, you're not "looking into" anything, you've already said as much, nothing will be done, you're part of the whole racket).

Telegraph UK, "US Regulator Apologizes for letting public down," 1/14/10, by James Quinn

50% of soda fountains found to have fecal bacteria

"A ...Hollins University...study has shown that nearly half of all soda fountain machines have a bacteria found in fecal matter.

• The study found that 48% of all of the soda fountains tested in fast food places came up positive for this form of fecal bacteria, called coliform.
  

Eleven percent of the actual beverages contained Escherichia coli (E coli). Other organisms that can make you sick that were found either in the beverages themselves

• or on/in the fountains include Staphylococcus, Stenotrophomonas, Candida and Serratia.
  

In further testing the bacteria found were resistance to one of the eleven antibiotics tested on them."...

NY Governor Paterson seeks scheme to attract hedge funds

Reuters hides the lead as it often does. At the end of a general list of things NY Governor Paterson wants to do:

• "and reviving the so-called insurance exchange."...

• "Insurance Exchange?"

1/6: "The original New York exchange, a centralized marketplace for brokering and underwriting, was founded to great fanfare in 1980 but later that decade closed its doors after the industry was hit by a severe period of losses.

State laws permitting the exchange still exist. James Wrynn, the insurance superintendent, said the

• focus would be on newer, more complex policies to lure non-traditional players,

• such as hedge funds and private equity firms.

To carve out a niche that is distinct from London and Bermuda, the current insurance capitals, Wrynn told reporters in a conference call that the policies would cover:

• "reputational risk, cyber security, terrorism, supply chain integrity,

• and the growing effect of climate change" ...(which is nonexistent)

Reuters: "professional integrity, and risks associated with mergers and acquisitions ...

• catastrophic marine and aviation risks.""...***********

Perfect. Another commodity exchange dealing with smoke and mirrors meant for convicted criminals like Soros, Bernie Madoff and the rest. Goldman Sachs no doubt has been in on set-up.

• We need another speculative, high risk, 'complex' global financial exchange. Right.
  

Key: Obama has been open in his efforts to get Paterson to step down, not run again, get out of democrats' lives. Perhaps Obama has met his match: Paterson is doubling down and using risky, back room Wall Street deals to do it.

• Reuters faux headline to throw you off the track about what the real news is: "NY Governor outlines measures to revive economy," 1/6/10

Soros-Obama succeeds exactly as planned. America is officially dead. That was easy.

• More now work in government than in jobs producing goods!

The goal was to kill the American Dream, bitterly termed the American "Bubble" by Soros. The Dream was based on an entrepreneurial, can-do spirit. Soros, Obama, and investment bankers sought to siphon and enslave American spirit to level the playing field. To that of misery and hopelessness experienced in third world cultures. After years of waiting, they have succeeded but aren't finished. More will be done to ensure the coffin is nailed shut.

• It didn't take much effort--these people never actually build or create anything, just do back room deals to take money from those who did actual work, who produced something. Their obsession is that there was a Bubble--a terrible one--and that it must be burst.

"Bubbles do not grow out of thin air. They have a basis in reality—...

• Eventually...

...the bubble bursts."..."George Soros from his book, "The Bubble of American Supremacy" excerpted in

• The Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 2003

"and the moment of truth may be here." from the Atlantic Monthly introduction to Soros excerpt,

• "The Bubble of American Supremacy"

""The growth in six-figure salaries has pushed the average federal worker’s pay to

• $71,206, compared with

• $40,331 in the private sector.""

from the TimesNews.net per USA Today, 12/11/09, via Free Republic, via Gateway Pundit

• Graph from ClusterStock, via Gateway Pundit

Government produces nothing, has no incentive to do so. Any money it spends is first taken from a worker who actually gave his finite time and energy to earn it.

UK Climate office missing 10 key measurements

"There have been references at other blogs to sloppiness in Jones station data files. I find it staggering that in the 1500 odd station data files newly released by the UKMO, of 36 stations in the UK, there are 10 with heights missing. And this is after 20 years !!"

• "missing data is -999." List by Warwick Hughes, 1/1/2010, "Errors in IPCC climate science: UK Met Office cannot find heights for 10 UK stations." via Tom Nelson