Is the Sun to blame?
An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change-News-UK-TimesOnline — Can’t we just all get along? This is by Nigel Calder the former editor of the New Scientist. Watch Al Gore win an Oscar for his movie anyway along with the Dixie Chicks.
When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.
The small print explains “very likely” as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it…a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.
So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you’re at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it’s confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.
That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago. Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis.
thanks to Mad Dog Mike
GregA,
a pork-enriched diet with some fish now and then should do for me. Don’t worry for the future of NASCAR: They will switch to bycicle races.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/ have some good info and video about it….
And I totally agree with #7
We should stop polluting. But let’s do it for the right reasons.
Guys, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Neither is the number one greenhouse gas, water vapor. Fighting against greenhouse gases is not the same as fighting against pollution.
That carbon footprint calculator looks cool. I’m going to have to get a contest going with some friends to see who can generate the biggest footprint.
For the most part, the scientists aren’t activists on the issue. We can see this because the latest report doesn’t have the hockey stick, since it’s no longer as well-founded as they thought.
East Antarctica is not getting colder, but it has experienced deeper snows. This is commonly mis-interpreted as colder=snowier. Not so. Warmer air holds more moisture. In order to get more snow you need warmer air so that you can precipitate more moisture/snow.
So, more snow means more water in the air. More water in the air means warmer air. The snow is a little warmer and wetter – heavy snow. Just like Oswego, warmer water in Lake Erie means even more water in the air over the lake which always blows east, over Oswego. That’s why they have so much snow right now.
Same here in KC. We have a good deal of snow, but wetter and heavier than usual. In the past it has either been very cold snow (lighter) or ice storms.
Antarctica, by the way, is a cold desert. There are hot deserts and cold deserts. Deserts are not places without water, they are places with less than 10-inches of precipitation per year.
Global warming also interupts water and atmospheric flow patterns causing changes in the distribution of temperatures. Temperature rises are not globally uniform. So some areas will indeed get colder.