What Do We Think About Climate Change

Redouble your defences, men - they've brought out the big guns! "Rent the Michael Moore movie 'Capitalism: A Love Story' to see brainwashing combined with swindling on a global scale." (oh, uh...SamSam, your "Synapses" are a little far apart, there buddy. The messages are making a jump, alright... but where they land is anybody's guess! I believe the word you are grappling with is "Synopsis")
"...Iintended as a derogatory remark against both the Danes and the Dutch, as well as being incorrect, and shows that had not researched the topic." - Jeeze, how you people latch onto things! It was just an off-the-cuff comment, basically downplaying the possibility of extrapolating a tiny country's experiences to a global scale because we are talking about global, aren't we? I mean it doesn't do enuf good unless the developing countries do it, too...
One was a report from GE Energy Financial Services entitled "Impact of 2007 Wind Farms on US Treasury". - When Barack Obama asks of Business; "Are you fo' us or agin us" they can answer one of two ways that will, for four years, or more, put that business on a track...to somewhere. If a business doesn't play by "Barack's rules" they will be shunned, demonized, taxed, taken over, or overrun (look at the coal industry as an example - "I will tax them out of existance" - Barack Obama), in other words, F'ed. On the other hand, if a corporation happens to be run by a scumbag progressive and chooses to be a lapdog for Barack, they can enjoy the benefits of positive media attention, preferential treatment by the WH, notice and quotation by progressives everywhere, and general feeling of "just had sex". It's not until after four years are up that GE will get their F'ing and experience "coyote morning". Warning to business; Although the easy path may seem appealing in the short run - Parties at the Whitehouse, rubbing elbows with Hollywood actors such as Sean Penn, bailouts, pension fund support at taxpayer expense, etc., do remember the morning after! He won't live in the same house and won't call you back, you will be shunned by future potential partners and will most definitely feel violated. It is a cruel world, GE, but you made your bed - now you deal with the itch, the embarrassment and pain, and YOU face the ones who made you.

"...wind power subsidy is paid by the consumer..." - you got that right!

"As to your comment that independence from foreign energy sources not being in debate here let me remind you that it was YOU that raised the issue of the motivations of the Danes for adopting wind power. My response simply pointed out that the Danes were not motivated to copy the Dutch but rather to achieve energy independence. This was a perfectly legitimate and reasonable response the the topic that YOU introduced." - actually, I believe it was me.

"The Australia Institute report says..." - You are going to quote a quasi- government "progressive think tank" (In their words) to prove windmills are groovy?

"...comments about subsidies are a bit disingenuous because they ignore the fact that fossil fuels are also subsidized by preferential tax treatment..." - I didn't explain this to you? You're coming back and muddling with THIS?

 

Forgetting our heritage gets unto places like where we are now.

 

Moore is full of B.S.:!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!::!: :!: :!:

 

How would you know?

(mark775, suffering synapses, synopsis it is!)

 

You don't have to taste B.S. to know it when you smell it.

 

Again, how would you know if Moore is full of it?

 

I have not watched the movie but have seen others and that guy is a piece of work. What a sick country when Glenn Beck is accused of sedition and people like Michael Moore, Bill Maher, etc., run rampant over everything MOST Americans hold dear and lies, distorts, and removes from context to make his buck.

Anti-gun distortion of interviews and facts.
9-11 truth
Cuba medicine superior to US.
Capitalism, which made him wealthy, is un-American
What else? I don't know but I take heart that (look at him) he'll be dead soon by his volition.


If you believe the gist of what Michael Moore has to say, you have voluntarily removed yourself from the credibility list.

 

I had to read your post a couple of times to be sure, but now I am: it makes no sense.

You start out sneering at Michael Moore's documentary, although I'm pretty sure you've never seen it and have no idea what's in it.

Then you sneer at SamSam for a typo or mispelling, as though it proves he's some sort of idiot whose points don't need to be answered.

Next, you weasel around the fact that you and Marco are trying to invalidate Denmark's achievements in enegy independence simply by sneering at it for its size (and for copying the Dutch?!?). No one ever claimed Denmark should be the exact model for a worldwide effort. Obviously every country's situation is different, and the approaches will be too. The point was that if countries are willing to put their minds to it, something can be done to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Denmark and Brazil are two clear examples, even though their approaches are completely different.

That's as irrational a rant as I've ever read. Apparently you're saying that anyone who says anything you don't want to hear is doing so because he's been terrorized by Barack Obama, or is trying to suck up to him? Puh-leeze....when did Obama develop that much power, and start instilling that sort of fear in people worldwide? What supernatural power is he wielding?

You might just want to let it lie. The more you talk about Denmark, the sillier you sound.

Would you have been happier if Alan had quoted some wingnut blogger, or out-and-out whores like the Heartland Institute? Of course, simply sneering at the Australia Institute as a 'quasi-government progressive think tank' is so much easier than actually addressing what he said...

If you're saying the oil companies haven't received unreasonably preferential tax treatment over the years, particularly under the Bush administration, you're an out-and-out liar--because you couldn't possibly be that ignorant.

And if you're going to try to talk down to people, Mark, you need to flap both of those right wings and gain a little altitude first. You should really wipe the sneer off, while you're at it. Didn't your mother ever warn you your face could freeze that way?

 

NOAA ESRL Water Vapor Data

The NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory [http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl] provides plots of trends of various data items from the NCEP / NCAR reanalysis database. The figures show the specific humidity at 300, 600 and 1000 mb (1000 mb is near the earth’s surface, the approximate altitudes 600 and 300 mb correspond to roughly 15,000 and 30,000 feet).

The general trend is decreasing specific humidity at 300 mb and increasing specific humidity near the Earth’s surface (1000 mb).

The specific humidity at 300 mb (the altitude which should be showing the most warming according to the CO2 theory) has been decreasing for most of the world. In the southern hemisphere it has not been decreasing, but also has not increased since the 1970s.

The specific humidity at 600 mb was been decreasing for most of the world until the 1960s, then shows an increasing trend.

The specific humidity at 1000 mb (near the Earth’s surface) was been decreasing for the northern hemisphere, then shows an increasing trend starting around 1970. For the southern hemisphere there has been no trend since 1970.

The specific humidity has been increasing over the last few decades near the Earth’s surface (as shown by the 1000 mb data), while it has been decreasing in the upper troposphere (as shown by the 300mb data). The increase in specific humidity at the Earth’s surface (1000 mb) is related to surface temperatures. For all except the far southern hemisphere bands, the effect of the 1997/98 El Nino can be seen in the specific humidity graphs. The decreasing specific humidity in the upper troposphere (300 mb) indicates that the warming at the Earth’s surface does not match the CO2 based warming theory. This is especially so in the northern hemisphere, which has experienced most of the warming in recent decades.

A 2008 study of NCEP reanalysis data (Paltridge, Arking & Pook, “Trends in middle- and upper-level tropospheric humidity from NCEP reanalysis data”, Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Feb. 2009 [http://www.springerlink.com/content/m2054qq6126802g8/]) states: “35-year trend in zonal-average annual-average specific humidity q is significantly negative at all altitudes above 850 hPa (roughly the top of the convective boundary layer) in the tropics and southern midlatitudes and at altitudes above 600 hPa in the northern midlatitudes. It is significantly positive below 850 hPa in all three zones, as might be expected in a mixed layer with rising temperatures over a moist surface. ... The upper-level negative trends in q are inconsistent with climate-model calculations ... Negative trends in q as found in the NCEP data would imply that long-term water vapor feedback is negative—that it would reduce rather than amplify the response of the climate system to external forcing such as that from increasing atmospheric CO2.”

 

Thanks, Guillermo.
You are flailing, Troy.

 

Polar bears not at risk: Nunavut

CBC News

The Nunavut government does not think the polar bear should be classified as a species of special concern under the federal Species at Risk Act, says territorial Environment Minister Daniel Shewchuk.

Shewchuk said there is no clear evidence to support assigning that status to the polar bear despite recommendations to the contrary by Environment Canada and a federal scientific panel.

“We live in polar bear country,” Shewchuk told reporters in Iqaluit on Friday afternoon. “We understand the polar bears, and we do actually think our polar bear population is very very healthy, with the exception of a couple of populations that we are taking action on.”

The polar bear was most recently designated a species of special concern in 2002. “Of special concern” is the least serious “at risk” designation - one level below “threatened” and two levels below “endangered.”

Currently, the special-concern designation has been suspended while the government reviews the polar bear’s status and decides whether to renew the classification or change it.

An arm’s length scientific panel, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), reviewed the polar bear’s status in 2008 and recommended that it remain in the special-concern category.

Change of position

Speaking to reporters Friday in Iqaluit, Nunavut Environment Minister Daniel Shewchuk said his government has an ‘excellent track record’ on collaborative wildlife management. (CBC)The recommendation has initiated a long process of hearings and consultations, including a round of hearings in Nunavut in April.

Environment Canada is expected to decide in a couple of months whether to renew the special concern status.

Shewchuk said while the Nunavut government originally agreed with the special-concern listing, it changed its position after consulting with Inuit hunters and others on a recent community tour.

“Through direct consultation, they are unanimous in their belief that polar bears have not declined,” Shewchuk said.

Scientists on the committee have argued that although Canada’s polar bear population has improved over the last 50 years, the future of the species could be threatened by climate change and receding sea ice.

“Certainly, we recognize that the Arctic may experience substantial impacts from climate change,” Shewchuk said. “But listing polar bears now, based on predicted but unknown future impacts, is not reasonable.

“Based on hunter observations, polar bears are presently still healthy and abundant across Nunavut and for that reason, not a species of special concern.”

At-risk designation requires management plan
Being listed as a species of special concern means polar bears must be protected by a management plan that would address the habitat and survival of the species.

But Shewchuk said the Nunavut government already has an “excellent track record” in terms of collaborative wildlife management, using a combination of the best scientific data and Inuit traditional knowledge.

He said appropriate steps are already being taken to conserve two polar bear subpopulations - in western Hudson Bay and Baffin Bay - that have been of most concern to federal authorities.

Those subpopulations have been of concern to scientists who said their numbers are declining. Inuit in those areas have disputed the scientific claims, saying they have seen more bears.

Shewchuk said his new decision has already been sent to federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice.

“I’m aware that I will be under tremendous pressure externally for no longer supporting the special-concern proposal,” he said.

“However, I’m being responsive and listening to Nunavummiut, especially hunters and elders, who have lived all their lives in the North, who have extensive and professional knowledge of the environment and our wildlife in Nunavut,” he said.

Read more here:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/05/28/nunavut-polar-bear-status.html?ref=rss#ixzz0pKq8AQAc

 

The same way I know you are full of it and I haven't seen any of YOUR movies, either.

 

Roman Warm Period (Europe -- Mediterranean)

Working with a core of 2.5 meters length, which they sampled at intervals of 2 cm in the upper 1 meter and at intervals of 5 cm below that depth, Martinez-Cortizas et al. (1999) derived a record of mercury deposition in the peat bog of Penido Vello in northwest Spain that extends to 4000 radiocarbon years before the present, which they analyzed for a number of parameters. This work revealed, in their words, "that cold climates promoted an enhanced accumulation and the preservation of mercury with low thermal stability, and warm climates were characterized by a lower accumulation and the predominance of mercury with moderate to high thermal stability." Based on these findings and further analyses, they derived a temperature history for the region that they standardized to the mean temperature of the most recent 30 years of their record. This work revealed that the mean temperature of the Medieval Warm Period in northwest Spain was 1.5°C warmer than it was over the 30 years leading up to the time of their study, and that the mean temperature of the Roman Warm Period was 2°C warmer. Even more impressive was their finding that several decadal-scale intervals during the Roman Warm Period were more than 2.5°C warmer than the 1968-98 period, while an interval in excess of 80 years during the Medieval Warm Period was more than 3°C warmer. Thus, Martinez-Cortizas et al. concluded, and rightly so, that "for the past 4000 years ... the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period were the most important warming periods."

Four years later, Desprat et al. (2003) studied the climatic variability of the last three millennia in northwest Iberia via a high-resolution pollen analysis of a sediment core retrieved from the central axis of the Ria de Vigo in the south of Galicia. By so doing, they found "an alternation of three relatively cold periods with three relatively warm episodes." In order of their occurrence, these periods were described by Desprat et al. as the "first cold phase of the Subatlantic period (975-250 BC)," which was "followed by the Roman Warm Period (250 BC-450 AD)," which was followed by "a successive cold period (450-950 AD), the Dark Ages," which "was terminated by the onset of the Medieval Warm Period (950-1400 AD)," which was followed by "the Little Ice Age (1400-1850 AD), including the Maunder Minimum (at around 1700 AD)," which "was succeeded by the recent warming (1850 AD to the present)." Commenting on their findings, Desprat et al. offered the opinion that "solar radiative budget and oceanic circulation seem to be the main mechanisms forcing this cyclicity in NW Iberia," noting that "a millennial-scale climatic cyclicity over the last 3000 years is detected for the first time in NW Iberia paralleling global climatic changes recorded in North Atlantic marine records (Bond et al., 1997; Bianchi and McCave, 1999; Chapman and Shackelton, 2000)." And this body of findings suggests that the establishment of the Current Warm Period over the course of the past century or so may have been nothing more than the most recent manifestation of this naturally-recurring phenomenon.

After two more years had passed, Kvavadze and Connor (2005) analyzed various sets of data pertaining to the ecology, pollen productivity and Holocene history of Zelkova carpinifolia, a Tertiary-relict tree whose pollen is almost always accompanied by elevated concentrations of the pollen of other thermophilous taxa; and because Zelkova carpinifolia requires heat and moisture during the growing period, they say that the discovery of fossil remains of the species in Holocene sediments "can be a good indicator of optimal climatic conditions." More specifically, they indicate that "Western Georgian pollen spectra of the Subatlantic period show that the period began in a cold phase, but, by 2200 cal yr BP, climatic amelioration commenced," noting that "the maximum phase of warming [was] observed in spectra from 1900 cal yr BP," which interval of warmth was Georgia's contribution to the Roman Warm Period.

A cooler phase of climate, during the Dark Ages Cold Period, "occurred in Western Georgia about 1500-1400 cal yr BP," according to the two scientists; but it too was followed by another warm period "from 1350 to 800 years ago," which was, of course, the Medieval Warm Period. During portions of this latter warm epoch, they report that tree lines "migrated upwards and the distribution of Zelkova broadened." In addition, they present a history of Holocene oscillations of the upper tree-line in Abkhasia -- derived by Kvavadze et al. (1992) -- that depicts slightly greater-than-1950 elevations during a portion of the Medieval Warm Period and much greater extensions above the 1950 tree-line during parts of the Roman Warm Period, which observations imply much warmer conditions than what prevailed there around AD 1950, which was the "present" of Kvavadze and Connor's study.

Working contemporaneously, Pla and Catalan (2005) analyzed chrysophyte cyst data they collected from 105 lakes located within the Central and Eastern Pyrenees of northeast Spain to produce a Holocene history of winter/spring temperatures. A significant oscillation was evident in this thermal reconstruction in which the region's climate alternated between warm and cold phases over the past several thousand years. Of particular note were the Little Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period, Dark Ages Cold Period and, once again: the Roman Warm Period.

Last of all, we come to the paper of Garcia et al. (2007), who introduced the report of their work by noting that "despite many studies that have pointed to ... the validity of the classical climatic oscillations described for the Late Holocene (Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, etc.), there is a research line that suggests the non-global signature of these periods (IPCC, 2001; Jones and Mann, 2004)." Noting that "the best way to solve this controversy would be to increase the number of high-resolution records covering the last millennia and to increase the spatial coverage of these records," they proceeded to do just that.

Working with a number of sediment cores retrieved from a river-fed wetland that is flooded for approximately seven months of each year in Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park (south central Iberian Peninsula, Spain), Garcia et al. employed "a high resolution pollen record in combination with geochemical data from sediments composed mainly of layers of charophytes alternating with layers of vegetal remains plus some detrital beds" to reconstruct "the environmental evolution of the last 3000 years." In doing so, the six Spanish researchers were able to identify five distinct climatic stages: "a cold and arid phase during the Subatlantic (Late Iron Cold Period, < B.C. 150), a warmer and wetter phase (Roman Warm Period, B.C. 150-A.D. 270), a new colder and drier period coinciding with the Dark Ages (A.D. 270-900), the warmer and wetter Medieval Warm Period (A.D. 900-1400), and finally a cooling phase (Little Ice Age, >A.D. 1400)."

Noting that "the Iberian Peninsula is unique, as it is located at the intersection between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, Europe and Africa, and is consequently affected by all of them," Garcia et al. significantly advanced the likelihood that the classical climatic oscillations described for the Late Holocene -- of which the Roman Warm Period is a prime example -- were indeed both real and global in scope, as well as not-CO2-induced, which means that earth's current level of warmth need not be CO2-induced as well.

References
Bianchi, G.G. and McCave, I.N. 1999. Holocene periodicity in North Atlantic climate and deep-ocean flow south of Iceland. Nature 397: 515-517.

Bond, G., Showers, W., Cheseby, M., Lotti, R., Almasi, P., de Menocal, P., Priore, P., Cullen, H., Hajdas, I. and Bonani, G. 1997. A pervasive millennial-scale cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and glacial climates. Science 278: 1257-1266.

Chapman, M.R. and Shackelton, N.L. 2000. Evidence of 550-year and 1000-year cyclicities in North Atlantic circulation patterns during the Holocene. The Holocene 10: 287-291.

Desprat, S., Goñi, M.F.S. and Loutre, M.-F. 2003. Revealing climatic variability of the last three millennia in northwestern Iberia using pollen influx data. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 213: 63-78.

Garcia, M.J.G., Zapata, M.B.R., Santisteban, J.I., Mediavilla, R., Lopez-Pamo, E. and Dabrio, C.J. 2007. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 16: 241-250.

IPCC. 2001. Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Jones, P.D. and Mann, M.E. 2004. Climate over past millennia. Reviews of Geophysics 42: 10.1029/2003RG000143.

Kvavadze, E.V., Bukreeva, G.F., Rukhadze, L.P. 1992. Komp'iuternaia Tekhnologia Rekonstruktsii Paleogeograficheskikh Rekonstruksii V Gorakh (na primere golotsena Abkhazii). Metsniereba, Tbilisi.

Kvavadze, E.V. and Connor, S.E. 2005. Zelkova carpinifolia (Pallas) K. Koch in Holocene sediments of Georgia -- an indicator of climatic optima. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 133: 69-89.

Martinez-Cortizas, A., Pontevedra-Pombal, X., Garcia-Rodeja, E., Novoa-Muñoz, J.C. and Shotyk, W. 1999. Mercury in a Spanish peat bog: Archive of climate change and atmospheric metal deposition. Science 284: 939-942.

Pla, S. and Catalan, J. 2005. Chrysophyte cysts from lake sediments reveal the submillennial winter/spring climate variability in the northwestern Mediterranean region throughout the Holocene. Climate Dynamics 24: 263-278.

 

I just did a random check through all your previous posts. I'm sorry, I didn't realize...it must be tough.

 

Ack!!