[lizard]

Naw, it was those Climate Change Contrarians who didn't see it coming because they had their heads in the sand.

Actually, the blizard we just went through in the last few days left snow banks about that high.
Worst snow storm since the 70's. Last year we didn't have snow that stayed around until about February. It would snow then melt and snow and melt for months. This year the first snow fall stayed on the ground...and then there was more.

No dreaming of a white Christmas this year.

[Sins]

Originally Posted by lotuseclat79

'The Arctic is screaming,' expert says
Article here.

Scientists say ice sheet is melting so rapidly, it could be gone by 2012

An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.

-- Tom

Interesting article. Anyone consider whether or not the melt weight would be sufficient to cause a shift in the earth's poles, i.e. The HAB theory?

[Stoner]

http://www.habtheory.com/1/hab0.php

Looks like material for the SciFi Channel

[lotuseclat79]

Wind & Solar Incentives Stripped From Energy Bill
Article here.

The Senate version of the energy bill that passed last week includes great things, like boosting vehicles’ average fuel efficiency to 35 miles per gallon, increasing the use of biofuels & updating efficiency standards for federal buildings. But the glaring gaps include the absence of renewable energy incentives.

A major disconnect! How will we ever be able to afford protection for LAN from snow in AK?
Oh, that's right - LAN's snowjob is coming to us from AK!

-- Tom

[LANMaster]

Year of global cooling

Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.

Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency.

<snip>

Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years.

Link

[LANMaster]

Originally Posted by lotuseclat79

Wind & Solar Incentives Stripped From Energy Bill
Article here.

The Senate version of the energy bill that passed last week includes great things, like boosting vehicles’ average fuel efficiency to 35 miles per gallon, increasing the use of biofuels & updating efficiency standards for federal buildings. But the glaring gaps include the absence of renewable energy incentives.

A major disconnect! How will we ever be able to afford protection for LAN from snow in AK?
Oh, that's right - LAN's snowjob is coming to us from AK!

-- Tom

First of all, AK is Alaska. Arkansas is AR.

WRT the bill, Southern states do not havbe the wind and hydro capabilities that the rest of the nation do. It does not make sense to place the same regs in those areas that don't have the wind to support the requirements.

The addition of those regs was purely political, and makes no sense whatsoever.

That said, I support the President's signing of the better fuel efficiency, and you should too.

[valis]

I think what you are missing, Lan, is that the very fact that the extremes are being recorded is actually proof of an unstable system; this is not uncommon to see record lows in the same year as record highs.

fwiw, down here in Houston, to counteract Korea's record lows, we've broken some pretty significant records for heat in the last few weeks. Hit 75 yesterday.

Still mowing that *(^*()&ing lawn.

[LANMaster]

Originally Posted by valis

I think what you are missing, Lan, is that the very fact that the extremes are being recorded is actually proof of an unstable system; this is not uncommon to see record lows in the same year as record highs.

When in global history has the climate been stable?
The average is a colling effect, not a warming one.

fwiw, down here in Houston, to counteract Korea's record lows, we've broken some pretty significant records for heat in the last few weeks. Hit 75 yesterday.

Still mowing that *(^*()&ing lawn.

I stopped moving my lawn 2 months ago! Frost has killed the wife's garden. Last Devember I was still getting nice tomatoes from it. Not anymore.

[Stoner]

Originally Posted by LANMaster

The average is a colling effect, not a warming one.

Where is the data quoted that states there is an average cooling effect?

[LANMaster]

See 3170.

[Stoner]

Originally Posted by LANMaster

See 3170.

I read it twice.
I don't see any claim average global temps are cooling.
Only isolated cases.

[Stoner]

From Wikipedia:

[valis]

also fwiw, a global rise of .7 C is a fairly significant change.....

[LANMaster]

Dishonest Political Tampering with the Science on Global Warming

As a contributor to the IPCC’s 2007 report, I share the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Yet I and many of my peers in the British House of Lords - through our hereditary element the most independent-minded of lawmakers - profoundly disagree on fundamental scientific grounds with both the IPCC and my co-laureate’s alarmist movie An Inconvenient Truth, which won this year’s Oscar for Best Sci-Fi Comedy Horror.

Two detailed investigations by Committees of the House confirm that the IPCC has deliberately, persistently and prodigiously exaggerated not only the effect of greenhouse gases on temperature but also the environmental consequences of warmer weather.

My contribution to the 2007 report illustrates the scientific problem. The report’s first table of figures - inserted by the IPCC’s bureaucrats after the scientists had finalized the draft, and without their consent - listed four contributions to sea-level rise. The bureaucrats had multiplied the effect of melting ice from the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets by 10.
The result of this dishonest political tampering with the science was that the sum of the four items in the offending table was more than twice the IPCC’s published total. Until I wrote to point out the error, no one had noticed. The IPCC, on receiving my letter, quietly corrected, moved and relabeled the erroneous table, posting the new version on the internet and earning me my Nobel prize.

More

[LANMaster]

Foundations of Bali Climate Change Policy Condemned by 100+ Experts

Proposals based on flawed science and economics

(CHICAGO, Illinois - December 18, 2007) An open letter to the United Nations Secretary-General, issued during the recently concluded climate change conference in Bali, characterizes attempts to prevent global climate change as "futile" and "a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems."

Endorsed by more than 100 independent scientists, engineers, and economists who work in the field of climate change, the open letter calls on world leaders to abandon the goal of "stopping climate change" and focus instead on helping nations become resilient to natural changes by promoting environmentally responsible economic growth.

The signatories to the letter include distinguished professionals who have occupied leading positions in national and international science organizations, government organizations, and universities. Many have been elected as fellows of distinguished scientific academies or awarded prestigious science prizes.

Their letter emphasizes that the reports issued by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are an "inadequate" foundation on which to base policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. The IPCC reports do not reflect many of the most recent peer-reviewed findings in climate science, discoveries that shed serious doubt on the increasingly improbable hypothesis that human carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are having a significant impact on global climate.

More