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  1. #2576
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    This isn’t good news

    New study links global warming to Hurricane Sandy and other extreme weather events

    The paper finds that global warming is putting extreme weather on steroids


    One of the hottest areas of climate research these days is on the potential connections between human emissions, global warming, and extreme weather. Will global warming make extreme weather more common or less common? More severe or less severe?

    New research, just published today in Nature Climate Change helps to answer that question by approaching the problem in a novel way. In short yes, human emissions of greenhouse gases have made certain particular weather events more severe. Let’s investigate how they arrived at this conclusion.

    Lead author Kevin Trenberth and his team recognized that there are two potential ways a warming climate may lead to weather changes. The first way is through something called thermodynamics. We experience thermodynamics in our own lives. Warm air can be more humid than cold air; we feel that difference throughout the year. Also, warm air evaporates water more quickly. That’s why hair blow dryers and restroom hand dryers usually use heated air. It’s why puddles evaporate more quickly on hot days.

    In short, the atmosphere can become either warmer and wetter or warmer and dryer, depending on where you are. The general rule of thumb is that areas which are currently dry will become drier; areas that are currently wet will become wetter; and rains will occur in heavier downbursts.

    The scientists list the following questions as a guide to their study.

    1. Given a particular weather pattern, how were the temperatures, precipitation, and associated impacts influenced by climate change?

    2. Given a drought, how was the drying enhanced by climate change and how did that influence the moisture deficits and dryness of the soils, leading to a more intense and long-lasting drought?

    3. Given a flood, where did the moisture come from? Was it increased by warmer ocean waters?

    4. Given a heat wave, how was that influenced by drought, changes in precipitation, and extra heat from global warming?

    5. Given extreme snow, where did the moisture come from? Was it related to oceans that are warmer?

    6. Given an extreme storm, how was it influenced by sea temperatures, ocean heat content, unusual moisture transports?

    7. Was a storm surge worse because of higher sea levels?

    In other words, the authors take for granted that an event has occurred and they ask, how did climate change affect its impact?

    The authors use a few well-known cases studies. “Snowmaggedon,” which occurred in Washington DC in 2010; superstorm Sandy; supertyphoon Haiyan; and the flooding in Boulder, Colorado. They found that for Snowmaggedon and Sandy, unusually warm waters made those events worse. In addition, for Sandy, the human-caused sea level rise added to the storm surge. They report,

    It is possible that subways and tunnels may not have been flooded without the warming-induced increases in sea level and storm intensity and size. Putting the potential price tag of human climate change on this storm in the tens of billions of dollars.

    For supertyphoon Haiyan which ravaged the Philippines in November 2013, the increased sea temperatures and ocean heating along its path increased its strength and this made the impacts worse. For the Colorado floods, the authors found that ocean temperatures off the coast of Mexico were very high. This was where much of the water entered the atmosphere before subsequently falling in Colorado. According to the authors,

    the extremely high sea surface temperatures and record water vapor amounts that accompanied the event … probably would not have occurred without climate change.

    Later, the authors make reference to the 2010 Russian heat wave and the current drought in California. This new study reconciles past conflicting studies where very little evidence of a climate link was found of general circulation changes, but evidence is clear in the thermodynamics.

    Without getting too deep in the weeds, the authors also explain why other teams have failed to make a connection between extreme weather and a warming planet. In some cases, they have asked the wrong questions. In other cases, they have used tools that were too crude. For instance, calculations performed in 2014 by another team relied upon climate models that did not have sufficient resolution.

    In summary, human warming affects weather in two ways. It changes the odds that any given extreme event will occur. But more importantly it makes the events more severe. I’ll leave you with the final paragraph from the paper which summarizes this as well as I could.

    The climate is changing: we have a new normal. The environment in which all weather events occur is not what it used to be. All storms, without exception, are different. Even if most of them look just like the ones we used to have, they are not the same.
    Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  2. #2577
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    The problem is that 99% of catholics can't do a thing about it as they are piss poor from having given all their money to the Vatican.
    Maybe in the Hispanic countries but you obviously don't know maney Catholics in the US.

  3. #2578
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RPETER65 View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    The problem is that 99% of catholics can't do a thing about it as they are piss poor from having given all their money to the Vatican.
    Maybe in the Hispanic countries but you obviously don't know maney Catholics in the US.
    To be accurate rather than flippant then, since you missed my point, 92%.

  4. #2579
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    Hottest July day on record today in England, 38 centigrade

  5. #2580
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    The Smithsonian is having to modify its discloser rules because of Merchants of Doubt


    The Smithsonian Institution has written new rules to head off conflicts of interest, part of its long-awaited response to revelations that one of its scientists, climate contrarian Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon, failed to divulge the funding sources for research questioning man-made global warming.

    The organization's new disclosure policies would make funding sources for research by its staff more transparent––and allow the institution to assess potential conflicts before approving research grants.

    Those and other recommendations follow dual four-month investigations prompted by the revelation in February that Soon did not disclose the identity of fossil fuel interests that funded his published studies––which often place blame for rising global temperatures on solar activity instead of fossil fuel burning.

    Had the proposed policies been in place years ago when Soon––a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.––obtained more than $800,000 for widely discredited climate research, he would have been required to disclose the sources of his funding, said John Gibbons, Smithsonian spokesman.

    Soon did not respond to a request for comment.

    Eleven of Soon's studies published in nine scientific journals––going back more than five years––were funded by fossil fuel interests, including ExxonMobil, the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and the coal utility Southern Company Services Inc. Not all sources were divulged. The information was revealed four months ago, when Greenpeace and the Climate Investigations Center released documents detailing Soon's funding sources.

    Ethics experts and critics of Soon say the proposed policy changes could ripple beyond the Smithsonian and inspire other institutions to tighten disclosure rules, as well as making it more difficult for the fossil fuel industry to hide attempts to influence climate discussions.

    We can only hope,…….


  6. #2581
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    I thought I would make some personal observations rather then post up some articles.

    I was on vacation this past week. I go camping with a group of people. Its an annual camp out at the same spot on a river in the cascade mountains here in Washington state. The camp out has been going on for 43 years. I have been going the last 18. I have never seen the river so low this time of year as there is no snow pack left in the mountains. This has never happened so early. Last year the river was 41 degrees this year it was 65. It was 109 degrees outside last Friday.

    The snow pack in the cascades was the lowest in recorded history and it was half as much as the previous low. The rainy Olympic rainforest is on fire. They have had less rainfall there then in all recorded history. The last I checked the fire was 1200 acres and burning out of control. I never in all my life can recall a fire in that rainforest in June.

    The entire state and all of the west is a giant tinderbox waiting to explode. This coming fourth of July weekend could be disastrous as my fellow Americans set off fireworks.

    Western Washington set a new record high average temperature for the month of June besting the old record by four degrees. As a kid here there was never even one day in June where we had a 90 degree day. Never. This year there was several. The weather here shows no sign of letting up and it is just expected to get even hotter.

    Climate change is real. It would take a real thick skulled moron here to deny it.

  7. #2582
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    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    I thought I would make some personal observations rather then post up some articles.

    I was on vacation this past week. I go camping with a group of people. Its an annual camp out at the same spot on a river in the cascade mountains here in Washington state. The camp out has been going on for 43 years. I have been going the last 18. I have never seen the river so low this time of year as there is no snow pack left in the mountains. This has never happened so early. Last year the river was 41 degrees this year it was 65. It was 109 degrees outside last Friday.

    The snow pack in the cascades was the lowest in recorded history and it was half as much as the previous low. The rainy Olympic rainforest is on fire. They have had less rainfall there then in all recorded history. The last I checked the fire was 1200 acres and burning out of control. I never in all my life can recall a fire in that rainforest in June.

    The entire state and all of the west is a giant tinderbox waiting to explode. This coming fourth of July weekend could be disastrous as my fellow Americans set off fireworks.

    Western Washington set a new record high average temperature for the month of June besting the old record by four degrees. As a kid here there was never even one day in June where we had a 90 degree day. Never. This year there was several. The weather here shows no sign of letting up and it is just expected to get even hotter.

    Climate change is real. It would take a real thick skulled moron here to deny it.
    Don't think too many are outright denying it just whether humans are the cause or not. Point will be moot in a few years anyway once people start dying because of it.

    Wont take too much to send us over a cliff right now. A few powerful Hurricanes up the east coast will do it, or for the drought in the west to continue for a few more years. Cant rebuild with no money. I see dark days ahead.
    I'm not saying it was Aliens, but it was Aliens!

  8. #2583
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    Quote Originally Posted by beazalbob69
    Point will be moot in a few years anyway once people start dying because of it.
    Exactly. Most of the deniers will be dead anyway.

    Quote Originally Posted by beazalbob69
    I see dark days ahead. __________________
    I agree. This is going to be a vicious summer fire season out west. We have had warmer than average temps the last 14 months straight here.

  9. #2584
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    Stanford biologist warns of early stages of Earth's 6th mass extinction event

    Stanford Biology Professor Rodolfo Dirzo and his colleagues warn that this "defaunation" could have harmful downstream effects on human health.

    By Bjorn Carey
    Claudia Paulussen/Shutterstock

    Elephants and other large animals face an increased risk of extinction in what Stanford Biology Professor Rodolfo Dirzo terms "defaunation."

    The planet's current biodiversity, the product of 3.5 billion years of evolutionary trial and error, is the highest in the history of life. But it may be reaching a tipping point.

    In a new review of scientific literature and analysis of data published in Science, an international team of scientists cautions that the loss and decline of animals is contributing to what appears to be the early days of the planet's sixth mass biological extinction event.

    Since 1500, more than 320 terrestrial vertebrates have become extinct. Populations of the remaining species show a 25 percent average decline in abundance. The situation is similarly dire for invertebrate animal life.
    And while previous extinctions have been driven by natural planetary transformations or catastrophic asteroid strikes, the current die-off can be associated to human activity, a situation that the lead author Rodolfo Dirzo, a professor of biology at Stanford, designates an era of "Anthropocene defaunation."
    Across vertebrates, 16 to 33 percent of all species are estimated to be globally threatened or endangered. Large animals – described as megafauna and including elephants, rhinoceroses, polar bears and countless other species worldwide – face the highest rate of decline, a trend that matches previous extinction events.
    Larger animals tend to have lower population growth rates and produce fewer offspring. They need larger habitat areas to maintain viable populations. Their size and meat mass make them easier and more attractive hunting targets for humans.
    Although these species represent a relatively low percentage of the animals at risk, their loss would have trickle-down effects that could shake the stability of other species and, in some cases, even human health.

    For instance, previous experiments conducted in Kenya have isolated patches of land from megafauna such as zebras, giraffes and elephants, and observed how an ecosystem reacts to the removal of its largest species. Rather quickly, these areas become overwhelmed with rodents. Grass and shrubs increase and the rate of soil compaction decreases. Seeds and shelter become more easily available, and the risk of predation drops.

    Consequently, the number of rodents doubles – and so does the abundance of the disease-carrying ectoparasites that they harbor.

    "Where human density is high, you get high rates of defaunation, high incidence of rodents, and thus high levels of pathogens, which increases the risks of disease transmission," said Dirzo, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. "Who would have thought that just defaunation would have all these dramatic consequences? But it can be a vicious circle."
    The scientists also detailed a troubling trend in invertebrate defaunation. Human population has doubled in the past 35 years; in the same period, the number of invertebrate animals – such as beetles, butterflies, spiders and worms – has decreased by 45 percent.

    As with larger animals, the loss is driven primarily by loss of habitat and global climate disruption, and could have trickle-up effects in our everyday lives.

    For instance, insects pollinate roughly 75 percent of the world's food crops, an estimated 10 percent of the economic value of the world's food supply. Insects also play a critical role in nutrient cycling and decomposing organic materials, which helps ensure ecosystem productivity. In the United States alone, the value of pest control by native predators is estimated at $4.5 billion annually.

    Dirzo said that the solutions are complicated. Immediately reducing rates of habitat change and overexploitation would help, but these approaches need to be tailored to individual regions and situations. He said he hopes that raising awareness of the ongoing mass extinction – and not just of large, charismatic species – and its associated consequences will help spur change.

    "We tend to think about extinction as loss of a species from the face of Earth, and that's very important, but there's a loss of critical ecosystem functioning in which animals play a central role that we need to pay attention to as well," Dirzo said. "Ironically, we have long considered that defaunation is a cryptic phenomenon, but I think we will end up with a situation that is non-cryptic because of the increasingly obvious consequences to the planet and to human wellbeing."

    The coauthors on the report include Hillary S. Young, University of California, Santa Barbara; Mauro Galetti, Universidade Estadual Paulista in Brazil; Gerardo Ceballos, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico; Nick J.B. Isaac, of the Natural Environment Research Council Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in England; and Ben Collen, of University College London.
    Media Contact

    Bjorn Carey, Stanford News Service: (650) 725-1944, bccarey@stanford.edu
    Rodolfo Dirzo, Biology: (650) 736-7643, rdirzo@stanford.edu


    Stanford biologist warns of early stages of Earth's 6th mass extinction event

  10. #2585
    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by beazalbob69 View Post
    I see dark days ahead.
    6:7-8 "And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see." "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."

    The Church of Al Gore seen nodding with utter approval
    A Deplorable Bitter Clinger

  11. #2586
    Member Umbuku's Avatar
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    Pretty much every state west of the Rockies has been facing a water shortage of one kind or another in recent years. California's is a severe, but relatively short-term, drought. But the Colorado River basin — which provides critical water supplies for seven states including California — is the victim of a slower-burning catastrophe entering its 16th year. Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California all share water from the Colorado River, a hugely important water resource that sustains 40 million people in those states, supports 15 percent of the nation's food supply, and fills two of largest water reserves in the country.
    https://teakdoor.com/speakers-corner/...ml#post3051470 (Any doubts about Climate Change?)

    The drought is symptomatic of the increasing temperature both locally and worldwide.

  12. #2587
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by beazalbob69 View Post
    I see dark days ahead.
    6:7-8 "And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see." "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."

    The Church of Al Gore seen nodding with utter approval
    You don't believe all that jesus wheezer shit do you Booners?

    It would explain a lot....

  13. #2588
    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by beazalbob69 View Post
    I see dark days ahead.
    6:7-8 "And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see." "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."

    The Church of Al Gore seen nodding with utter approval
    You don't believe all that jesus wheezer shit do you Booners?

    It would explain a lot....
    Dark days ahead, Hairy. Don't take the Lord's name in vain.

  14. #2589
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    Boots on the ground don't count and neither does the science.

  15. #2590
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by beazalbob69 View Post
    I see dark days ahead.
    6:7-8 "And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see." "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."

    The Church of Al Gore seen nodding with utter approval
    You don't believe all that jesus wheezer shit do you Booners?

    It would explain a lot....
    Dark days ahead, Hairy. Don't take the Lord's name in vain.
    Fuck the lord.


  16. #2591
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    Lots of all time heat records reported this week from four continents, can we call it a global tropical blast in reference to the little local arctic blasts the kooks get exited about in winter? Germany won't join the record lists, the kooks have a lobby here too. The heat record is oficially 40.2°C, equalled countless times since 1983. This week, it was broken on three different days by at least 10 weather stations of the official record keeper Deutscher Wetterdienst. Right at this moment, the stations Ziesar report 41.2°C, Frankfurt West and Weyhausen 40.6°C. Earlier today, station Burg registered 41.8°C. That record is already expunged.
    Boon Mee: 'Israel is the 51st State. De facto - but none the less, essentially part & parcel of the USA.'

  17. #2592
    euston has flown

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    weather and climate are not the same thing. global warming is seen as an increase in the rate at which extreme weather events occur...

  18. #2593
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    Nobel Prize-winning scientist says Obama is ‘dead wrong’ on global warming

    By Michael BastaschPublished July 08, 2015
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    In 2008, Dr. Ivar Giaever joined over 70 Nobel Science Laureates in endorsing Barack Obama for president, but seven years later the Nobel Prize winner now stands against the president on global warming.

    “I would say that basically global warming is a non-problem,” Giaever, who won the Nobel for physics in 1973, told an audience at the Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting earlier this month.

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    Giaever ridiculed Obama for stating that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.” The physicist called it a “ridiculous statement” and that Obama “gets bad advice” when it comes to global warming.

    “I say this to Obama: Excuse me, Mr. President, but you’re wrong. Dead wrong,” Giaever said.

    Giaever was a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Engineering and School of Science and received the Nobel Prize for physics for his work on quantum tunneling. Giaever said he was “horrified” about the science surrounding global warming when he conducted research on the subject in 2012.

    Ironically, just four years earlier he signed a letter with more than 70 other Nobel winners saying the “country urgently needs a visionary leader” and that “Senator Barack Obama is such a leader, and we urge you to join us in supporting him.”

    But by 2011, Giaever left the American Physical Society because it officially stated that “the evidence is incontrovertible … [g]lobal warming is occurring.” The Society also pushed for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    “Global warming really has become a new religion,” Giaever said. “Because you cannot discuss it. It’s not proper. It is like the Catholic Church.”

    Giaever argued that there’s been no global warming for the last 17 years or so (based on satellite records), weather hasn’t gotten more extreme and that global temperature has only slightly risen — and that’s based on data being “fiddled” with by scientists, he said.

    “When you have a theory and the theory does not agree with the experiment then you have to cut out the theory. You were wrong with the theory,” Giaever said.

  19. #2594
    I am in Jail

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    Just out of Interest has anyone mentioned HAARP in the thread.?

  20. #2595
    euston has flown

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    ^Been testing out your new tin hat then.

    ^^
    "I am not really terribly interested in global warming. Like most physicists I don't think much about it. But in 2008 I was in a panel here about global warming and I had to learn something about it. And I spent a day or so - half a day maybe on Google, and I was horrified by what I learned. And I'm going to try to explain to you why that was the case."

  21. #2596
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    Quote Originally Posted by RPETER65
    Dr. Ivar Giaever
    Oh yay!! Another asshole who is not a climate scientist.

    We often see scientists from non-climate fields who believe they have sufficient expertise to understand climate science despite having done minimal research on the subject; William Happer, Fritz Vahrenholt, and Bob Carter, for example. As he admits in his own words, Nobel Prize winning physicist Ivar Giaever fits this mould perfectly:
    "I am not really terribly interested in global warming. Like most physicists I don't think much about it. But in 2008 I was in a panel here about global warming and I had to learn something about it. And I spent a day or so - half a day maybe on Google, and I was horrified by what I learned. And I'm going to try to explain to you why that was the case."
    That quote comes from a presentation Giaever gave to the 62nd Meeting of Nobel Laureates in 2012, for some unknown reason on the subject of climate change. As Giaever notes at the beginning of his talk, he has become more famous for his contrarian views on global warming than for his Nobel Prize, which have made him something of a darling to the climate contrarian movement and climate denial enablers.

    In this post we will examine the claims made by Giaever in his talk, and show that his contrarian climate opinions come from a position of extreme ignorance on the subject, as Giaever admits. Giaever personifies the classic stereotype of the physicist who thinks he understands all scientific fields of study:




    Cartoon from xkcd which describes the behavior of Ivar Giaever to a 'T'

    Accuracy of the Surface Temperature Record


    In his talk, Giaever spent a lot of time criticizing Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri (IPCC chairman) for winning the Nobel Peace Prize for - according to Giaever - 'making the global surface temperature record famous' (Figure 1).



    Figure 1: Various global surface and lower troposphere temperature data sets.

    Giaever proceeded to question the accuracy of the surface temperature record, ultimately asking:
    "How can you measure the average temperature of the Earth? I don't think that's possible."
    Unfortunately this simply displays an ignorance regarding the surface temperature record, whose accuracy has been confirmed time and time again, and which is also consistent with lower troposphere temperature measurements, as illustrated in Figure 1.
    Glenn Tramblyn has answered Giaever's question in great detail in his four part series Of Averages & Anomalies, and Kevin C also had an excellent and detailed post on recent temperature measurements in The GLOBAL global warming signal. The answers to these questions are out there for those who are willing to spend more than a few hours on Google searches, and it is not constructive to give presentations on subjects without first doing such basic research. We are again left wondering why Giaever was asked to give a presentation to Nobel Laureates on a subject on which he has no expertise and has not done even the most basic research.

    The Significance of the Observed Global Warming


    Giaever also disputed the significance of the measured 0.8°C average global surface warming over the past 130 years, comparing it to a human fever and the temperature at which he had to maintain tissue for cell growth during his own biophysical experiments, also showing the following slide:



    Giaever does not seem to know how to put the observed 0.8°C global surface temperature change in proper context. It may sound small in comparison to the absolute global temperature in Kelvin, or in comparison to changes in human body temperatures, but it is a very large change in global surface temperature, especially over a period as brief as 130 years (Figure 2).



    Figure 2: Eight records of local temperature variability on multi-centennial scales throughout the course of the Holocene, and an average of these (thick dark line) over the past 12,000 years, plotted with respect to the mid 20th century average temperature. The global average temperature in 2004 is also indicated. (Source)

    In addition to this rapid surface warming, the global oceans have also been accumulating heat at an incredible rate - the equivalent of more than two Hiroshima "Little Boy" atomic bomb detonations per second, every second over a the past half century. Presumably a physicist of Giaever's stature would appreciate the magnitude of this global energy accumulation.
    As a physicist, Giaever should also understand that seemingly small objects and quantities can have large effects, but instead he seems to rely on incorrect "common sense" perceptions which are based on ignorance of the subject at hand.

    CO2 vs. Water Vapor


    As another example of this behavior, Giaever proceeds to demonstrate that he also does not understand the role of the greenhouse effect in climate change.
    "Water vapor is a much much stronger green[house] gas than the CO2. If you look out of the window you see the sky, you see the clouds, and you don't see the CO2."
    Needless to say, the second sentence above represents a very bizarre argument. Giaever is either arguing that CO2 is a visible gas (it is not) and the fact that you can't see it means there is too little in the atmosphere to have a significant warming effect, or that only visible gases can warm the planet, or some other similarly misinformed assertion.
    That clouds are visible to the human eye and CO2 isn't simply is not relevant to the greenhouse effect and global warming. It's also worth noting that like CO2, water vapor is not visible - clouds are condensed water droplets, not water vapor.
    Additionally, water vapor does not drive climate change. There is a lot of it in the atmosphere, so it is the largest single contributor to the greenhouse effect. However, water vapor cannot initiate a warming event. Unlike external forcings such as CO2, which can be added to the atmosphere through various processes (like fossil fuel combustion), the level of water vapor in the atmosphere is a function of temperature. Water vapor is brought into the atmosphere via evaporation - the rate depends on the temperature of the ocean and air. If extra water is added to the atmosphere, it condenses and falls as rain or snow within a week or two. As Lacis et al. (2010) showed, as summarized by NASA (emphasis added):
    "Because carbon dioxide accounts for 80% of the non-condensing GHG forcing in the current climate atmosphere, atmospheric carbon dioxide therefore qualifies as the principal control knob that governs the temperature of Earth."
    Climate Myth Whack-a-Mole


    Giaever continues ticking off the most common climate myths, going from arguing that it may not even be warming, to claiming the warming is insignificant, to asserting the warming is caused by water vapor, and ultimately that the warming is indeed caused by human influences:
    "Is it possible that all the paved roads and cut down forests are the cause of "global warming", not CO2? But nobody talks about that."
    Climate scientists do of course investigate and discuss the effects of deforestation and urban influences. The 2007 IPCC report discusses the influences of deforestation on climate in great detail, for example here and here, and devotes a section to policies aimed at reducing deforestation here. The United Nations has also implemented the Collaborative initiative on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) to address the effects of deforestation on climate change. In short, by claiming that nobody has considered the effects of deforestation on climate, Giaever once again demonstrates that he simply has not done his homework.

    The IPCC report also discusses the influences of urban heat islands and land use effects here and here, for example. Giaever then claims that one person has talked about these effects - US Secretary of Energy and fellow Nobel Laureate Steven Chu, who suggested paining roofs white to offset some warming, though he does not discuss Chu in a very flattering light.
    "[Chu has] been bought by the global warming people, and he's now helping Obama trying to make green energy in the United States."
    In the presentation in question, Chu described the potential effects of the white roof proposal as follows:
    "Making roads and roofs a paler color could have the equivalent effect of taking every car in the world off the road for 11 years"
    Chu discusses white roofs as a geoengineering possibility in response to greenhouse gas-caused climate change, as a way to offset a small portion of the global warming our fossil fuel combustion and associated carbon emissions are causing.

    Failure to do Homework Earns a Failing Grade


    At this point we're 9 minutes into Giaever's 32-minute presentation, and he begins comparing climate science to religion. Yet based on his arguments in those first 9 minutes, it's clear that Giaever has not done even the most basic climate research, so how can he possibly make such a radical determination?

    While Giaever is certainly a highly accomplished physicist, that does not automatically make him a climate expert as well. As Giaever himself has admitted, he has spent very little time researching the subject, and it shows. He simply bounces from one climate myth to the next, demonstrating a lack of understanding of Climate Science 101, and then insults the entire scientific field by comparing it to a religion, brining life to the xkcd cartoon at the top of this post.
    Memo to climate contrarians - expertise comes from actually researching a subject. There is a reason why scientists who have researched climate change in the most depth are also the most likely to be convinced that global warming is human-caused (Figure 3).



    Figure 3: Distribution of the number of researchers convinced by the evidence of anthropogenic climate change (green) and unconvinced by the evidence (red) with a given number of total climate publications (Anderegg 2010).

    In his talk, Giaever complained that he had become famous for his climate contrarianism, which he claimed indicated that dissenting opinions on the subject are not welcome. On the contrary, Giaever has been criticized for repeating long-debunked climate myths which he could have easily learned about through a little bit of research - by perusing the Skeptical Science database, for example, where we have debunked all of his Googled climate misconceptions.
    Instead, Giaever has used his position of scientific authority as a Nobel Laureate to misinform people about a subject on which he has not even done the most basic research. That is not how a good scientist should behave, and that is why Giaever has rightfully and deservedly been criticized. Giaever finishes his talk by proclaiming
    "Is climate change pseudoscience? If I’m going to answer the question, the answer is: absolutely."
    The problem is that Giaever has not done his homework, which is why he gets the wrong answer, and his presentation deserves a failing grade. Ironically, Giaever defines "pseudoscience" as only seeking evidence to confirm one's desired hypothesis, which is precisely how Giaever himself has behaved with respect to climate science.

    Listening to Giaever's opinions on climate science is equivalent to giving your dentist a pamphlet on heart surgery and asking him to crack your chest open. While climate science has a basis in phyiscs (and many other scientific fields of study), it is an entirely different subject, whose basics Giaever could undoubtedly grasp if he were willing to put the time in to do his homework.
    But individual scientists (even Nobel Laureates) suffer from cognitive biases like anyone else. That's why we don't rely on indvidual scientists or individual papers to draw conclusions about climate change. The only way to get an accurate picture is through the work of many scientists, peer reviewed and scrutinized over decades and tested against multiple lines of evidence. Giaever demonstrates how far cognitive bias - reinforced by a few hours of Googling - can lead anyone to the wrong conclusions, and also proves that no individual's opinion, regardless of his credentials, can replace the full body of climate science evidence.


    https://www.skepticalscience.com/iva...scientist.html

    Retards
    Last edited by bsnub; 09-07-2015 at 02:42 AM.

  22. #2597
    euston has flown

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    its just yet another example of noble prize disease

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    Well, some media reported a new record of 40.3°C in Germany while others continue to claim we just fell short. Suspiciously absent are news of casualties, but there has been a handful in our little town alone. The coldest place in Germany not on a mountain top, the narrow valley gets plenty of inverted weather with high fog blocking the sun. The heat record here's now 35.6°, after 34.8° in 2012 and 34.5° in 2003. We had 5 days above 30° back to back, 7 so far this season. Average is 1. Who would have thought the atrocious heatwave of 2003, a "once in a century" event, would be topped just 12 years later and much, much worse? It's bloody 50° north here, just can't be hotter than Pattaya. I had 33° in my appartment for several days, more indoors than I ever had at Songkran in sin city. Other than there, no aircon here of course. It sucks. I'm open to suggestions what causes it other than global warming. Is the sun burning hotter? Also combed the solar intensity readings, and we weren't above 800 Watts/sqm yet. July normally tops out at 1,000.

  24. #2599
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    Home About Us Authors Terms of use Privacy policy Registration Information Contact Information General News The State of the Nation The State of New York World News The Outpost This Week in History Opinion WOW
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    Guess Who Writes the Oppressive EPA Rules in the War on Coal
    by S. Noble • July 8, 2015

    17
    The EPA is an unelected conglomerate of bureaucrats charged with writing climate change policy, some of which is aimed at destroying coal-fired plants. They are collaborating in stealth and illegally with Soros-funded groups including The Center for American Progress and the League of Conservation Voters. There is also an unholy alliance with groups like the Sierra Club International and the American Lung Association.

    These associations are mutually beneficial, not only to promote an ideological agenda but to acquire millions in taxpayer dollars. None of them were elected by the American people.

    The EPA’s climate rules, which will destroy the coal industry if successful, aren’t based on science so much as leftist ideology, on fact so much as on propaganda.

    Beginning in 2012 and continuing over a period of a year-and-a-half, the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E & E Legal) filed FOIA requests with the EPA to explore their close, taxpayer-funded relationship with the American Lung Association (ALA) and the Sierra Club. Both are pressure groups who are uncomfortably and intricately intertwined with the EPA, perhaps illegally if not unethically.

    E & E were forced to sue in January 2013 for release of the records. They were joined by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

    They learned that the ALA lobbies for funds in the tens of millions from government agencies and then actively promotes their agenda.

    The Sierra Club enjoys a similar relationship and has been exposed for its sue-and-settle cases in which they and the government agencies work together to force regulations acting as laws on Americans. In sue and settle, the government gets environmental groups to sue them and they allegedly settle, but it’s all preordained.

    An EPA Power-Point document surfaced during this legal investigation that proved the EPA staff were encouraged to use instant messaging systems (IMs) – AOL and Yahoo – to avoid federal record keeping and FOIA requests. They were taught how not to leave a trail that the public would later find. It also instructed in the art of stonewalling “unfriendly” requests. All of this is illegal.

    One FOIA specialist admitted that a supervisor instructed her and a colleague to do no work on “unfriendly” requests including those of the E&E Legal.

    Instant messaging systems have been used illegally to obfuscate what is going on at the EPA with these leftist groups. Gina McCarthy said she didn’t know how to use instant messaging when questioned about it. Like most people in the executive branch, they either don’t know, don’t remember or they just lie. We’ve seen that repeatedly in hearings before Congress, whether it be the IRS, the FBI, the NSA, any agency.



    Emails finally obtained by E & E Legal and CEI were released and obtained by Rep. Lamar Smith.

    Rep. Smith reviewed a series of emails from EPA policy director Michael Goo’s personal email account and determined the EPA was forming “clean air” policies and greenhouse gas regulation in collaboration with the president of the leftist mega-group, Sierra Club International, John Coequyt, who is also a federal lobbyist.



    Goo, pictured above, was charged with writing the New Source Performance Standards, or NSPS, that the EPA expected to use to curb carbon emissions from coal plants.

    Rep. Lamar Smith, as the chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, said the use of private emails could be illegal, which was verified by CEI senior fellow Christopher Horner.

    “For two years, his communications with the Sierra Club and other outside groups were hidden from congressional inquiries and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests—potentially violating the Federal Records Act,” Smith said in a May statement.

    “These records prove how the EPA gave anti-coal activists an opportunity to review, comment, and shape the strategy EPA would pursue to block development of more coal plants and shutter existing plants,” Smith wrote.

    The EPA is writing policy with groups that seek the demise of the coal industry with no input from opposing groups.



    It’s not just the Sierra Club, it’s the lunatic fringe who guide the president – the Soros-funded-controlled Center for American Progress (CAP). The former president of CAP is John Podesta, advisor to Barack Obama and now Hillary Clinton.

    The Center for American Progress is the organization that wrote the blueprint for Barack Obama’s use of memos, rules, regulations, EOs, agencies to circumvent Congress and the American people.

    There is also a rotating door of employees between these powerful left-wing fringe organizations and the agencies/White House.

    E & E obtained emails via a FOIA request that show Joseph Goffman, the senior counsel of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, circulated talking points from Center for American Progress climate strategy director Daniel Weiss among EPA colleagues attempting to sell the agency’s controversial power plant regulations to a New York Times reporter, Matt Wald.

    They show extensive behind-the-scenes collaboration between EPA and left-wing third-party groups that support the regulations.

    “The chief lawyer tasked with making the global warming agenda happen cuts and pastes Team Soros arguments and strategies into emails and sends them to colleagues as his own,” Christopher Horner of CEI said in an email.

    There were other green groups involved such as the League of Conservation Voters but no opposing.

    The collusion went right to the White House from these groups and it involved attempts to convince Matt Wald that a certain technology could keep coal a viable source of energy, knowing there was absolutely no evidence of that. They desperately tried to find a way to convince the reporter it was true though it wasn’t. The details can be read at the Washington Free Beacon.

    “The brazen collusion is staggering,” CEI’s Christopher Horner said.



    Christopher Horner

    Wald’s story reflected his own research and cast doubt on the technology so the collaborators got going again.

    Weiss co-authored a Center for American Progress (CAP) paper repeating the points he had emailed to EPA.

    “Anyone who pays attention to these issues must acknowledge that CAP [Soros’ Center for American Progress] plays a very unique, almost extraordinary role in developing documents for the administration and in advancing personnel,” energy lobbyist Scott Segal told Greenwire in April.

    Horner said collaboration between CAP and EPA illustrates a trend that has borne itself out in the language of regulations promulgated by the agency, including its rules regarding power plant emissions.

    “Other emails I have obtained demonstrate that they take what the greens tell them and paste it in,” he said. “That’s unlawful and one of the major reasons these greenhouse gas rules need to be blocked.”



    Radical Marxist-Socialist George Soros is the most powerful man on earth and he is determining our future. He has formed The Shadow Party which is an alliance of leftist groups who band together to get Democrats elected. They often use unethical methods. These leftist groups and others band together on all manner of issues. There are about 35 who join together to fight the NRA.

    For those who agree with the leftist agenda and the way they are implementing it, what happens when they begin to put through oppressive rules that affect you and you find you have nothing to fight them with because you gave up your freedom for privileges and agenda items? You will rue the day.

    SOURCES

    The Energy & Environment Legal Institute

    E & E Legal and Heartland

    Free Beacon: EPA-The Center for American Progress Relationship



    Related Posts:

    Happy Thanksgiving! Obama Issues Most Expensive Ozone Reg…
    Sierra Club – Taking A Hatchet to Civilized Society…
    Government Agencies Are Being Used to Forward a Far-Left…
    Podesta Boasts That Obama’s Dictates on Climate Change
    Obama’s Re-election Means the End of Coal
    17

  25. #2600
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    Quote Originally Posted by RPETER65
    Radical Marxist-Socialist George Soros

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