PLEASE NOTE:
*
>From Max Wallis <WallisMK@Cardiff.ac.uk>
Press Release 7 January 2003
Controversial environmental author found guilty of 'scientific
dishonesty'
Bjørn Lomborg, author of the controversial anti-green critique
'The
Skeptical Environmentalist', has been found guilty of scientific
dishonesty
by a well-respected committee in his home country Denmark.
Lomborg came to prominence in August 2001 when the publication of
his book
caused great controversy within the scientific and environmental
communities
in both Europe and the United States. It was favourably reviewed
in much of
the non-specialist media, especially the Economist, the New York
Times, and
the Sunday Times. The Guardian ran extended extracts in its G2
supplement,
and at the recent Earth Summit in Johannesburg, Lomborg was given
a slot on
BBC2 on which to expound his theories.
Today's judgement in effect upholds what Lomborg's critics have
always
claimed - that his work is scientifically fraudulent and
seriously
misleading. Danish scientists expect the ruling to
threaten his position as Director of Denmark's Institute for
Enviromental
Valuation, to which he was appointed by the country's new
right-wing
government in March 2002.
The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty, which brings
together some of
the most senior members of Denmark's scientific establishment,
spent much of
2002 considering the evidence before concluding today that
Lomborg had
"clearly acted at variance with good scientific
practice".
The Committee's ruling continued: "There has been such
perversion of the
scientific message in the form of systematically biased
representation that
the objective criteria for upholding scientific dishonesty...
have been
met." Although the Committee did not feel able to conclude
that Lomborg had
misled his readers deliberately, this was only because the
scientists
considering the case felt that Lomborg might simply have
misunderstood the
issues he was working on.
Jeff Harvey, a former editor of the prestigious scientific
journal Nature
and currently a Senior Scientist at the Netherlands Institute of
Ecology,
was one of the original complainants who took the case to the
Danish
committee. He said: "It is unfortunate that I and many
others felt it
necessary to take Lomborg and his book to task for the veritable
deluge of
inaccuracies it contains, but Lomborg has veered well across the
line that
divides controversial, if not competent, science from unrepentant
incompetence."
He continued: "Lomborg has failed time and again to rectify
the egregious
distortions he makes, he has based his conclusions on
cherry-picking the
studies he likes, and he has seriously undermined the public's
understanding
of important contemporary scientific issues. Scientists must be
held
accountable for serious transgressions that are committed without
responsibility, and this judgement goes at least some way to
underlining
Lomborg's dishonesty."
Notes to editors:
1. The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty's judgement is
available in
full on
http://www.forsk.dk/uvvu/nyt/udtaldebat/bl_decision.htm.
It meets under the
aegis of the Danish Research Agency, and has email forsk@forsk.dk. Tel: + 45
3544 6200. Alternatively, contact
marklynas@zetnet.co.uk
(for telephone numbers see below).
2. Jeff Harvey is available for comment on the following
telephone numbers:
+31 26 47 91 312 (work) and +31 318 62 30 84 (home) or email:
harvey@cto.nioo.knaw.nl
3. Senior Danish scientist Carsten Rahbek can speak to the media
about the
significance of the decision within the country's scientific
community. He
can be reached at +45 38 79 48 60 (home)
and +45 35 32 10 30 (work)
4. There is also a UK-based website containing critiques of
Lomborg's work
on www.anti-lomborg.com.
For more assistance on any UK angle contact Mark
Lynas on 01865 711424 or 07811 456824.
*
CCNet TERRA 1/2003 - 8 January 2003
------------------------------------
"It seems the whole Northern Hemisphere is being swept up in
a deep
freeze stretching all the way from the USA to Japan to China,
India,
Bangladesh, Russia, eastern Europe, and now northern Europe.
Those
countries which were wise enough not to degrade their regular
power
sources for the new 'green' sources are well placed to ride
through this
period. However, some countries have been foolish enough not to
maintain their traditional sources and these are now paying the
penalty
with insufficient power to meet consumer needs for heating and
the prospect
of massive electricity bills for consumers."
--John Daly, 7 January 2003
"Rocks deposited by glaciers on mountain ranges in West
Antarctica
have given scientists the most direct evidence yet that parts of
the ice
sheet are on a long-term, natural trajectory of melting. The West
Antarctic Ice Sheet has been melting and contributing water
continuously
to the ocean for the last 10,000 years and is likely to keep
doing so, says
John Stone, University of Washington associate professor of Earth
and space
sciences."
--Sandra Hines, University of Washington, 2 January 2003
"Growing fears that pollution is damaging European forests
beyond
repair may have been ungrounded, according to research showing
that
wooded areas are actually thriving. A European Forests Institute
study of
39 countries suggests that forests across the continent may
actually
be helped by continued carbon dioxide emissions and the new
evidence
suggests they may have already greatly benefited from the
phenomenon
of human-created or anthropogenic CO2."
--Deutsche Welle, 6 January 2003
(1) COLD SPELL TRIGGERS POWER CRISIS IN NORTHERN EUROPE
www.john-daly.com,
7 January 2003
(2) FROZEN CHINA
www.John-Daly.com,
4 January 2003
(3) ASIA FREEZES
www.John-Daly.com,
5 January 2003
(4) COLD, COLD, COLD: NEW YEAR COMES IN WITH RECORD LOW
TEMPERATURES
Helsingin Sanomat, 2 January 2003
(6) KYOTO PROTOCOL IN ACTION: FINNS TOLD TO CUT DOWN SAUNA HABIT
AS COLD
BITES
Reuters, 3 January 2003
(7) SEVERE COLD WREAKS HAVOC IN EUROPE, KILLS 200 IN POLAND
The Irish Examiner, 6 January 2003
(8) FREEZING TEMPERATURES KILL MORE THAN 200 IN MOSCOW ALONE
The Times, 2 January 2003
(9) COLD SPELL KILLS 250 IN INDIA AND BANGLADESH
CNN, 2 January 2003
(10) COLD SPELL KILLS SIX IN BAGUIO
The Philippine Star 7 January 2003
(11) NORTH VIETNAM'S LONG COLD SPELL
Agence France Press, 7 January 2003
(12) SHOCK, HORROR: EUROPEAN FORESTS THRIVING IN HIGH OZONE AREAS
Deutsche Welle, 6 January 2003
(13) ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET HAS BEEN MELTING NATURALLY FOR 10,000
YEARS
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(14) ANTARCTIC ICEBERGS: HAVE THEIR NUMBERS BEEN INCREASING IN
RESPONSE TO
GLOBAL WARMING?
CO2 Science Magazine, 8 January 2003
(15) SNOW DATA CONTRADICT IPCC PREDICTIONS
CO2 Science Magazine, 8 January 2003
(16) RE: DEEP FREEZE CLIMATE SCARE GATHERING MOMENTUM
S. Fred Singer <singer@sepp.org>
(17) AND FINALLY: TOP UK SCIENTIST PREDICTS GLOBAL WARMING WILL
"DESTROY
WESTERN CIVILISATION"
The Sunday Times, 5 January 2003
====
(1) COLD SPELL TRIGGERS POWER CRISIS IN NORTHERN EUROPE
>From www.john-daly.com,
7 January 2003
It seems the whole Northern Hemisphere is being swept up in a
deep freeze
stretching all the way from the USA to Japan to China, India,
Bangladesh,
Russia, eastern Europe, and now northern Europe.
Those countries which were wise enough not to degrade their
regular power
sources for the new `green' sources are well placed to ride
through this
period. However, some countries have been foolish enough not to
maintain
their traditional sources and these are now paying the penalty
with
insufficient power to meet consumer needs for heating and the
prospect of
massive electricity bills for consumers.
Finland finds itself with a shortfall of about 10% on
power, making up the
difference with imported power from Sweden and Russia. Pity about
all those
windmills with blades hanging limp just when you need them most.
Norway is similarly hit. No new national power plant has been
built for 10
years or so because of environmental politics. Plans for two new
natural gas
plants were also ditched a few years ago. Production is now to
low to keep
up with demand in a normal year. Two elderly Oslo residents died
after they
were found in unheated apartments.
Also in Norway, electricity prices have risen three-fold in only
a few
months as demand-driven consumption is forcing up prices in a
recently
de-regulated market.
What makes this problem all the more serious is that these
countries have
very long nights at this time of year, making the freezing cold
virtually
permanent with little relief from higher daytime temperatures.
A word of advice to our Nordic friends. Forget Kyoto. Forget the
green
delusions. Forget the UN doomsayers and their 'consensus'. Go
build a few
coal or gas power plants and put this nightmare behind you. If
'global
warming' were that real, this would not be happening.
==========
(2) FROZEN CHINA
>From www.John-Daly.com,
4 January 2003
China is currently breaking cold and snow records, but this is
not being
reported by the western press. Had it been the other way around -
warm
events - the media would have been salivating about global
warming.
Here is how the Chinese People's Daily is reporting it
"Yellow River Frozen along 1,211
Kilometers"
China's 5,400-km Yellow River has frozen along a course of about
1,211
kilometers so far this winter, according to sources with the
Yellow River
Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
"Snow Hits Northern Guangdong"
Snow has been falling in the northern mountain areas of south
China's
Guangdong Province over the past few days, a rare sight in these
areas.
"Heavy Snow in Beijing Spells Joy And Trouble"
As streams of pedestrians and vehicles inched along Beijing's
streets
Monday, China's capital city has been blanketed by falling snow
for six days
in a row -- its longest consecutive snowfall for the last 128
years.
"Taklimakan Covered with Thick Snow"
Taklimakan, the largest desert in China and one of the largest
moving ones
in the world, has got a 14-cm deposit of snow due to consecutive
snowing
since December 18.
=========
(3) ASIA FREEZES
>From www.John-Daly.com,
5 January 2003
The freezing weather in China reported above has also spread far
beyond
China. Anomalous cold weather is also being reported in India,
where upwards
of 250 people are reported to have died from weather related
causes. Bangla
Desh has seen 119 such deaths. Japan has seen disruptions to
transport
services including up to 2,000 people being stranded on trains.
Taiwan has
seen wintry weather sufficient to threaten native wild life. Even
tropical
Vietnam has not been spared where a cold spell has hit northern
Vietnam with
average temperatures dropping sharply from 13 to 4 degrees
Celsius.
Ironically, these are the very countries who the European Union
and the
Greens imagine will cheerfully sign up to `Son of Kyoto' in 2012.
==========
(4) COLD, COLD, COLD: NEW YEAR COMES IN WITH RECORD LOW
TEMPERATURES
>From Helsingin Sanomat, 2 January 2002
http://www.helsinki-hs.net/news.asp?id=20030102IE4
Finland is known in the wider world as a country of extreme cold,
but we
tend to shrug these matters off, knowing that the nation's
infrastructure is
built to withstand climatic extremes, and that it takes more than
a dip in
the mercury to stop the trains or prevent the snowploughs from
keeping the
roads clear.
All this being said, the last few days have tested Finnish
resolve, as
record winter lows were reached in many places and district
heating systems
hiccupped, leaving several thousand people without warmth when
they would
sorely have needed it.
The winter's unofficial record low temperature now stands at
-40.3°C, posted
on New Year's Eve in Toholampi, in Central Ostrobothnia. This
narrowly
defeated a reading in the Lapland ski resort of Salla on Monday
night. We
are nevertheless a good 10 degrees short of the all-time record
of -51.5°C
set in 1999.
Things are unlikely to get much better very fast. An area of very
cold air
is going to remain over central and northern districts of the
country until
the other side of the coming weekend. Things will thaw out a
little in the
south of Finland, but conditions even down here will remain
decidedly
Arctic, according to the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
Curiously enough, the very far north of the country has not had
it quite so
bad. In Utsjoki (about as far as you can go without hitting
Norway and the
Arctic Ocean) on New Year's Day it was only -10°C, while
Helsinki shivered
around 15 degrees below this. The cold was compounded by a light
northerly
wind that reduced the real temperature by a further several
degrees.
Electricity consumption has naturally peaked with the cold spell.
On New
Year's Eve at around 6pm, the all-time Finnish record for
consumption was
reached, at 13,650 MW. There were no problems despite the large
drain on the
system, as power was imported from Russia and also from the
joint-Nordic
electricity market via Sweden and Norway.
However, pipe breakages and faults in the district heating
network led to
thousands going without warm radiators and hot water in Kerava
(just outside
Helsinki), Oulu, and Rovaniemi. In Kerava the indoor temperature
in several
homes dipped to around 10°C on Tuesday evening. By Wednesday the
problem at
the local heating plant had been fixed and people could take off
their fur
coats once more.
This morning, local train services in the Greater Helsinki area
were also
badly hit as people returned to work after the New Year's break.
A number of
trains were taken out of service in the early morning as the
extreme cold
interfered with hydraulic braking systems, and this caused
widespread
cancellations and gave commuters a chilly wait on platforms. By
around 9 am,
schedules were returning to normal.
The unusually early arrival of severe winter conditions has also
caused the
icebreaker fleet to move fast. On Thursday a sixth icebreaker,
the Botnica,
will head out from Helsinki's Katajanokka for the Gulf of
Finland, where it
will join the Voima in keeping sea-lanes open. The ice in the
northern part
of the Gulf of Bothnia is already around 50cm thick, and Kontio
has been up
there shepherding merchant shipping since mid-November. She was
joined
recently by Otso, Urho, and Fennica.
Late News: This winter's minimum temperature figure has been
rewritten, with
the town of Kuhmo (famed for its Chamber Music Festival) moving
into the
lead on Wednesday night with an impressive score of -41.3°C.
This is of
course still well short of our all-time low, and positively balmy
when set
alongside the world record of -89.2°C set at the Vostok Research
Station in
Antarctica one July day in 1983.
Just to give some balance, Finland's record high dates from July
1914, when
Turku enjoyed 35.9°C, and the January maximum belongs to
Mariehamn in the
Åland Islands, where the temperature crept up to +10.9°C in
January 1973.
Copyright 2002, Helsingin Sanomat
=============
(6) KYOTO PROTOCOL IN ACTION: FINNS TOLD TO CUT DOWN SAUNA HABIT
AS COLD
BITES
>From Reuters, 3 January 2003
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=1987296
HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finns have been told to cut down on one of
their
favorite comforts during the most bitter winter in decades -- the
sauna.
A dry cold snap in the Nordic country has sent electricity prices
soaring to
record levels, so the government has recommended ways to cut
bills. These
have even encroached on many Finns' sacred retreat after a long
day.
"The suggested sauna heat is 70-80 degrees Celsius. One
hundred degrees, for
example, adds up to 30 percent to energy costs," the
statement said late on
Thursday.
"Many people can fit in a typical sauna, and they don't
spend too much time
in the shower."
Media have called the winter one of the coldest for four decades.
The dry
spell has caused water levels in reservoirs in the Nordic region,
which
depends heavily on hydro power, to drop drastically.
Parts of northern and eastern Finland have seen temperatures
plunge to minus
40 Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit) or colder, and even in the
capital Helsinki
temperatures have hovered around an unusually cold minus 20
Celsius.
Copyright 2003, Reuters
============
(7) SEVERE COLD WREAKS HAVOC IN EUROPE, KILLS 200 IN POLAND
>From The Irish Examiner, 6 January 2003
http://www.online.ie/news/irish_examiner/viewer.adp?article=1920879
SEVERE winter weather has wreaked havoc across Europe, with
nearly 200
people freezing to death in Poland, two killed by storms in
Germany and
floods threatening several European countries.
Most of the 183 victims of Poland's bitterly-cold winter were men
who died
of hypothermia after drinking heavily and falling sleep outside,
police
said.
===========
(8) FREEZING TEMPERATURES KILL MORE THAN 200 IN MOSCOW ALONE
>From The Times, 2 January 2003
>From Clem Cecil in Moscow
POLICE and ambulance workers call them "snowdrops",
after the first flowers
to emerge in the spring thaw.
They are Russia's frozen homeless, whose icy bodies are picked up
daily.
Since the beginning of winter, 215 have been found in Moscow
alone.
Temperatures plummeted to -20C (-4F) almost every night in
December, well
below the seasonal average of around -5C (23F) , making it a
desperate
winter for the city's 100,000 homeless.
Already the death toll from hypothermia has doubled from last
year and the
authorities admit that they are fighting a losing battle....
==========
(9) COLD SPELL KILLS 250 IN INDIA AND BANGLADESH
>From CNN, 2 January 2002
http://asia.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/south/01/02/india.cold.ap/
NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Cold weather sweeping across northern
India and
Bangladesh has killed more than 250 people in the last few weeks,
news
reports and officials have said.
In Bangladesh, the death toll from a fall-winter cold spell rose
to 200,
when 10 elderly men and women died in the northern districts of
Rangpur,
Gaibandha and Pabna on Wednesday, the Janakantha newspaper
reported.
Government officials in Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital, confirmed
there had
been deaths from the cold, but declined to say how many.
In India's northern Uttar Pradesh state, at least 59 people have
died from
cold since early December, including 19 after the mercury
plummeted from
Christmas Day, a state Home Ministry official said on condition
of
anonymity.
Temperatures in some areas of neighboring Himachal Pradesh state
plunged to
minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 Fahrenheit) on Wednesday, while
Srinagar in
Jammu-Kashmir state recorded minus 5 degrees Celsius (23
Fahrenheit).
=========
(10) COLD SPELL KILLS SIX IN BAGUIO
>From The Philippine Star 7 January 2003
http://www.philstar.com/philstar/News200301070404.htm
By Artemio Dumlao
BAGUIO CITY - A Siberian chill and the cold front have claimed
six lives in
the highlands.
Two elderly persons and four children died after temperatures
dropped in
Baguio City, triggering their asthma and causing pneumonia,
health officials
here said... Meanwhile, residents along the famous Mountain Trail
near
Halsema Highway in Benguet are experiencing temperatures at least
two
degrees lower than the chill in Baguio.
These low temperatures are sending fear throughout the vast
vegetable
plantations in the country's Salad Capital that frost may cause
crop damage.
During these months last year, farmers in Benguet lost millions
of pesos
woerth of harvestable and budding vegetables due to the heavy
frost that
damaged the crops.
===========
(11) NORTH VIETNAM'S LONG COLD SPELL
>From Agence France Press, 7 January 2003
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,164566,00.html
BITING westerly winds have left residents in northern Vietnam
shivering from
the earliest and longest spell of cold weather the country has
faced in 18
years.
Average temperatures in the north have dropped to around 13 deg
C,
plummeting to minus six in some parts of the mountainous border
provinces of
Lao Cai and Lang Son.
The authorities in Vinh Phuc province, just north of the capital,
have
advised farmers to let their buffalos and cows into their houses
and to
stock food for them. --AFP
==========
(12) SHOCK, HORROR: EUROPEAN FORESTS THRIVING IN HIGH OZONE AREAS
>From Deutsche Welle, 6 January 2002
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1446_A_740394_1_A,00.html
Growing fears that pollution is damaging European forests beyond
repair may
have been ungrounded, according to research showing that wooded
areas are
actually thriving.
A European Forests Institute study of 39 countries suggests that
forests
across the continent may actually be helped by continued carbon
dioxide
emissions and the new evidence suggests they may have already
greatly
benefited from the phenomenon of human-created or anthropogenic
CO2.
Air pollution by other damaging gases has been significantly
reduced in
central Europe over the past two decades while ozone levels have
been on the
rise, according to research collected from European databases
that include
ozone measurements from about 100 stations in Austria and
Germany.
The study, covering forests from Portugal to the Urals in Russia,
shows what
German ecologists had been fearing for two decades - that their
woodlands
are in danger.
However, even though the amounts of ozone reported across Germany
and
Austria have exceeded the United Nations critical level, known as
AOT40, by
approximately seven times and have been shown to reduce tree
growth by 10
percent in controlled experiments, the expected ecological
disaster has not
materialized.
In these areas of Germany and Austria where a seven-fold level
has been
reported, the forests are far from devastated. Experts studying
the
phenomena have reported that not only is there no sign of damage,
but in
fact there have been marked improvements in the health of trees
and growth
in the crown areas at the top of the trees has increased.
Instead of dying, trees are thriving on CO2
The research report shows that under present ozone levels, the
trees in the
target grid section in Germany and Austria do show some reduction
of
photosynthetic CO2 absorption. This is particularly evident in
old trees at
high altitudes where the levels of ozone are much more extreme,
and in trees
that are experiencing "additional climatic stress."
However, the researchers are quick to point out that the
reductions in
carbon dioxide being absorbed by the trees "are in no
proportion to the
massive excess of the AOT40."
So what does this all mean and how is it possible? With levels so
high and
evidence showing reduction in tree growth at a fraction of these
current
levels, trees across Europe should be suffering a 70 percent
reduction in
growth, according to research. Instead, growth conditions seem to
have
improved almost everywhere, except at high altitudes and under
conditions of
more-than-usual climatic stress.
One possible suggestion is that the once-adequate critical level
of ozone
exposure is no longer suitable for research purposes. But why?
Researchers
suggest that the answer comes not from using the level of
atmospheric ozone
as the critical level but the ozone dose absorbed by the trees.
This would
mean a new level based on the ability of certain leaves to absorb
carbon
dioxide.
Increasing levels of climactic change may be protection
According to researchers, these findings suggest that the
continuous
changing of the Earth's atmospheric conditions must be taken into
consideration when monitoring the effects of pollution on
European forests.
Predicted damage by ozone poisoning may have been offset by the
increasing
amounts of other gases and climactic factors arriving in the air
surrounding
the planet.
The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change in
the United
States supports the theory that the trees have adapted in a way
to reduce
ozone damage. The Arizona-based research body believes that the
lack of
ozone damage in the forests of central Europe may well be the
result of
benefits arising from rising levels of CO2 content in the air.
If it is proved that rising CO2 levels are in some way protecting
the trees,
experts can only wonder at the widespread damage that will occur
if this
changes and the forests begin to show the catastrophic effects
that have
been predicted for the past 20 years.
Copyright 2002, Deutsche Welle
==========
(13) ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET HAS BEEN MELTING NATURALLY FOR 10,000
YEARS
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington
FROM: Sandra Hines, 206-543-2580, shines@u.washington.edu
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Jan. 2, 2003
Hitchhiking rocks provide details of glacial melting in West
Antarctic
Rocks deposited by glaciers on mountain ranges in West Antarctica
have given
scientists the most direct evidence yet that parts of the ice
sheet are on a
long-term, natural trajectory of melting.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been melting and contributing
water
continuously to the ocean for the last 10,000 years and is likely
to keep
doing so, says John Stone, University of Washington associate
professor of
Earth and space sciences.
Measuring and understanding changes in the Earth's ice sheets
over the past
few decades, and predicting their future behavior are major
challenges of
modern glaciology. But it is important to view these changes in
the context
of what's been happening naturally over centuries and millennia.
This work
establishes a background pattern of steady decline in the West
Antarctic ice
sheet, Stone says. If melting continues at the same pace in
future, the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet -- about 360,000 square miles, or about the
size of
Texas and Colorado combined -- would melt away in another 7,000
years.
It is still unknown if that process is being speeded by
human-caused warming
of the oceans and atmosphere, Stone says, but because much of the
bedrock
beneath the ice is below sea level, the ice sheet could be
particularly
susceptible to any future thinning and warming of the oceans
around its
edges.
The ice sheet contains enough water to raise global sea level by
about 5
meters, or 16 to 17 feet, but says Stone, lead author of a paper
in the Jan.
3 issue of the journal Science. "A rapid melting event that
released even a
small faction of this amount could have disastrous consequences
for coastal
regions".
Previous research inferred the history of the ice sheet
indirectly, from
such things as changing beach levels or volcanic debris. In this
study, the
scientists gathered rocks deposited by glaciers on mountain peaks
and dated
them using a new technique that allowed them to track the
thinning of the
ice sheet over the last few thousand years. The scientists
believe they have
documented the retreating margins of the ice like never before.
A research grant and logistic support from the National Science
Foundation
made it possible for researchers to visit seven peaks in the Ford
Ranges, a
series of mountain ranges near the Ross Sea. The Ford Ranges are
one of only
a handful of places in West Antarctica where mountains protrude
through the
ice sheet.
Even the peaks of the Ford Ranges -- some that now jut nearly
half a mile
above the ice surface -- were buried by ice 10,000 years ago,
only emerging
after glaciers scraped down their flanks. In the process, the
glaciers left
behind time capsules of a sort: rocks ranging in size from bricks
to
boulders that hitched rides inside glaciers until the ice melted
away,
leaving the rocks stranded high and dry on the mountainsides.
As the covering layer of ice thinned and disappeared, the rocks
were exposed
to bombardment by cosmic rays, altering their isotopic makeup.
Using a
particle accelerator to count the cosmic ray-produced atoms in a
rock allows
scientists to determine its age and, as a result, the time the
glacier and
rock parted ways.
"In all cases we got very tight, consistent correlations of
age with
altitude, so we are able to track the margins of the ice sheet
coming down
the mountain sides with this approach," Stone says. The most
surprising
aspect is how recently the ice has thinned in West Antarctica.
Ice
sheets which once covered huge areas of North America and Europe
had all but
disappeared by 10,000 years ago. Deglaciation in West Antarctica
had only
just begun by that time. Hundreds of meters of ice have since
disappeared,
under climatic conditions very similar to the present day.
"The Ice Age never really came to an end in that part of the
world," Stone
says.
Co-authors on the Science paper are Gregory Balco and Seth
Cowdery,
University of Washington graduate students in earth and space
sciences
(Cowdery was an undergraduate at Colorado College when the work
was done);
David Sugden, professor of geography, University of Edinburgh,
Scotland;
Marc Caffee, associate professor of physics, Purdue University
(he was with
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory when the work was done);
Louis Sass,
National Outdoor Leadership School (an undergraduate student at
Colorado
College when the work was done) and Christine Siddoway, professor
of
geology, Colorado College.
For more information:
Stone, 206-685-9514, stone@geology.washington.edu
See also report by BBC Online, News, 3 January 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2624603.stm
===========
(14) ANTARCTIC ICEBERGS: HAVE THEIR NUMBERS BEEN INCREASING IN
RESPONSE TO
GLOBAL WARMING?
CO2 Science Magazine, 8 January 2003
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2003/v6n2c1.htm
Reference
Long, D.G., Ballantyne, J. and Bertoia, C. 2002. Is the number of
Antarctic
icebergs really increasing? EOS, Transactions, American
Geophysical Union
83: 469, 474.
Background
According to Bindschadler and Rignot (2002), the production of
icebergs in
the vicinity of Antarctica "appears to be on the rise in
recent years,
increasing concern that this phenomenon portends some recent
climatic
trend." This perception is also supported by data from the
National Ice
Center (NIC), as noted by Long et al. (2002).
What was done
The authors used recently developed techniques that employ
enhanced radar
scatterometer data to address the question of whether the
increasing number
of icebergs reported by the NIC reflects a climate trend or
changes in
observation tools.
What was learned
The authors conclude that "technological advances in iceberg
observation and
tracking techniques explain much of the NIC's increasing iceberg
count
through 1999," while noting that the rest of the increase is
"clearly linked
to episodic calving events," which they describe as "an
expected
phenomenon," since "major calvings occur every 50-100
years as an ice sheet
advances into the ocean (Jacobs et al., 1986)." In
this regard, for
example, they note that "the recent 10 May 2002 calving of
C19 along the
edge of the Ross Ice Shelf was expected and probably finishes the
Ross Ice
Shelf reduction initiated by the 1998 and 2000 calvings,"
with respect to
which they report that "a relationship between the formation
of large,
tabular icebergs and climate trends has not been established
(Lazzara et
al., 1999)."
What it means
Nothing unusual has been happening with respect to iceberg
formation around
Antarctica over the past quarter century. Indeed, the
authors specifically
and emphatically state "we cannot conclude that the apparent
increase in the
number of icebergs represents a climate trend."
What it means
Bindschadler, R.A. and Rignot, E. 2001. "Crack!"
in the polar night. EOS,
Transactions, American Geophysical Union 82:497-498,505.
Jacobs, S.S., MacAyeal, D.R. and Ardai Jr., J.L. 1986. The recent
advance of
the Ross Ice Shelf. Journal of Glaciology 32: 464-474.
Lazzara, M.A., Jezek, K.C., Scambos, T.A., MacAyeal, D.R. and van
der Veen,
C.J. 1999. On the recent calving of icebergs from the Ross Ice
Shelf. Polar
Geography 23: 201-212.
Copyright © 2003. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change
============
(15) SNOW DATA CONTRADICT IPCC PREDICTIONS
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 8 January 2003
http://www.co2science.org/subject/s/summaries/snow.htm
According to model scenarios described in the 2001 IPCC report,
"as the
climate warms, Northern Hemispheric snow cover and sea-ice extent
decrease."
In this summary, we evaluate the snow-cover portion of this claim
by
examining historical trends in snowfall accumulation, snow season
length and
snow cover extent to learn how these parameters have responded to
the
warming that resulted in the demise of the Little Ice Age.
Using a 103-m ice core retrieved from a high-elevation site on
Mount Logan
-- Canada's highest mountain -- which is located in the
heavily-glaciated
Saint Elias region of the Yukon, as well as subsequent shallow
coring and
snow-pit sampling, Moore et al. (2002) derived a snow
accumulation record
for this region stretching from 1693 to 2000. Over the first half
of the
record, i.e. 1693 to about 1850, there was no significant trend
in snow
accumulation. After 1850, however, when Northern Hemispheric
temperatures
began to rise, there was a positive trend, significant at the 95%
confidence
level.
Complementary results are reported by Ye (2001), who analyzed
first and last
snowfall dates for 139 stations throughout north central and
northwest Asia
for the period 1937-1994. Statistically significant
increases in snow
season length were observed over much of the area studied, with
most of the
stations having a trend "higher than 4 days per
decade." These increases in
snow season length, according to Ye, "can be attributed more
to earlier
snowfall than to later last snowfall," although both
phenomena played a role
in the overall lengthening of the snow season. In the mean,
the results of
this study indicate a lengthening of the snow season of somewhat
more than
23 days over the 58-year period. Since the mean snow season
length of the
stations studied ranged from 60 to 260 days, this increase in
snow season
length amounts to an extension of anywhere from 10 to 40%.
In a recent analysis of data from Canada, the United States, the
former
Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, Brown (2000)
reconstructed
monthly snow cover extent over midlatitude (40-60°N) regions of
North
America and Eurasia back to 1915, finding that this
reconstruction "provided
evidence of a general twentieth century increase in North
American snow
cover extent, with significant increases in winter
(December-February) snow
water equivalent averaging 3.9% per decade." This
finding, Brown notes, is
consistent with "evidence of increasing twentieth-century
snowfall over
North America" and with "winter snow depth increases
over Russia." As an
aside, we also note that this phenomenon (1) would be expected to
produce
more snowmelt in the spring and greater replenishment of soil
moisture
reserves for the subsequent growth of agricultural crops and
natural
vegetation, and (2) may well be acting as a negative feedback on
warming by
increasing the amount of incoming solar radiation that is
reflected back to
space (Herman et al., 2001).
In another study more localized in time and space, McConnell et
al. (2000)
calculated changes in ice-sheet elevation in southern Greenland
for the
years 1978-88 using "a physically based model of firn
densification and
records of annual snow accumulation reconstructed from 12 ice
cores at high
elevation." The changes they observed were found to be
typical of those that
regularly occurred over the last few centuries and were primarily
driven by
variability in snow accumulation. Hence, they too found no
increase in
twentieth-century snowfall compared to that of earlier times.
In light of the results of the several studies listed above, the
model-based
IPCC prediction of decreasing Northern Hemispheric snow cover
with
increasing temperature appears not to be supported by the
historical record.
References
Brown, R.D. 2000. Northern hemisphere snow cover
variability and change,
1915-1997. Journal of Climate 13: 2339-2355.
Herman, J.R., Larko, D., Celarier, E. and Ziemke, J.
2001. Changes in the
Earth's UV reflectivity from the surface, clouds, and
aerosols. Journal of
Geophysical Research 106: 5353-5368.
McConnell, J.R., Arthern, R.J., Mosley-Thompson, E., Davis, C.H.,
Bales,
R.C., Thomas, R., Burkhart, J.R. and Kyne, J.D. 2000.
Changes in Greenland
ice sheet elevation attributed primarily to snow accumulation
variability.
Nature 406: 877-879.
Moore, G.W.K., Holdsworth, G. and Alverson, K. 2002.
Climate change in the
North Pacific region over the past three centuries. Nature
420: 401-403.
Ye, H. 2001. Increases in snow season length due to
earlier first snow and
later last snow dates over North Central and Northwest Asia
during 1937-94.
Geophysical Research Letters 28: 551-554.
Copyright © 2003. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(16) RE: DEEP FREEZE CLIMATE SCARE GATHERING MOMENTUM
>From S. Fred Singer <singer@sepp.org>
Dear Benny
The scare story on the Dec 17 Toronto Star (CCNet Terra, 19
December 2002)
deserves some comment. Someone should write them a letter and
also copy the
proper people in the Canadian govt.
1. The story is based entirely on a speculative paper claiming
that
increasing Arctic river flow will affect the North Atlantic
thermohaline
circulation (THC) and thereby produce a major climate shift.
(Bruce Peterson
et al, Science 298, 2171, Dec 13, 2002). They suggest (esp.
co-author and
climate modeler Rahmstorf) that Global Warming is the cause of
the increased
river flow. But when I look at their graph for evidence, I notice
that the
flow increases even when the global climate cools (between 1940
and 1975).
The paper ignores this embarrassing problem.
2. The paper says nothing about the obvious remedy of
geo-engineering: Water
transfer from Siberian rivers to the deserts of the former Soviet
Union and
to the Aral Sea.
3. Nor does the paper mention the interesting work of R G Johnson
(Eos 78,
227, 1997), who suggested that the THC could overturn as a result
of the
increasing salinity of the Mediterranean outflow into the
Atlantic (as a
result of the damming of the Nile). I find this hypothesis
soundly based --
and it has nothing to do with Global Warming.
4. Most astounding is the statement by Gordon McBean that Kyoto
will help
avert this horrible climate calamity about to befall Canada and
Western
Europe. He knows (or should know) that Kyoto -- even if
punctiliously
observed -- will have only a minute and essentially unmeasurable
effect on
the calculated temperature rise. But Kyoto will assuredly
damage the
Canadian energy industry by making it less competitive and
therefore reduce
exports.
Best
wishes
Fred
===============
(17) AND FINALLY: TOP UK SCIENTIST PREDICTS GLOBAL WARMING WILL
"DESTROY
WESTERN CIVILISATION"
>From The Sunday Times, 5 January 2003
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-532525,00.html
...One of Britain's most respected scientists has predicted
further
disruption caused by climate change. In a new book, The Story of
Life,
published next week, Sir Richard Southwood, an Oxford zoology
professor,
will warn that climate change is likely to "destroy western
civilisation"
with food shortages, flooding and war as nations fight for
dwindling
resources.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
CCNet is a scholarly electronic network. To
subscribe/unsubscribe, please
contact the moderator Benny J Peiser < b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk
>. Information
circulated on this network is for scholarly and educational use
only. The
attached information may not be copied or reproduced for any
other purposes
without prior permission of the copyright holders. The fully
indexed archive
of the CCNet, from February 1997 on, can be found at
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions,
beliefs and viewpoints expressed in the articles and texts and in
other
CCNet contributions do not necessarily reflect the opinions,
beliefs and
viewpoints of the moderator of this network.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------