PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 108/2003 - 19 November 2003
DISASTER PORN: NEW ICE AGE SCARE TO BE TURNED INTO HOLLYWOOD
BLOCKBUSTER
------------------------------------------------------------------
Wine lovers will be able to buy their first vintage of Scottish
wine within
the next 50 years, say scientists. Using computer models, the
scientists at
the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, in
Bracknell, say Britain
will enjoy rising temperatures within the next five decades,
possibly up by 2C,
making it possible for viticulturists to develop vineyards north
of the Border.
--The Scotsman, 17 November 2003
In thirty years time they say Britain's summers could be like the
South of France.
By the end of the century we could be as hot as Greece. This they
say is what global
warming could bring us. But a growing number of scientists
believe we could have
our future climate completely wrong... If these scientists have
it right forget
the Riviera, Britain could be heading for a climate like
Alaska's. And it could all
happen in the just the next twenty years.
--BBC Horizon, 13 November 2003
The quality of the science that BBC Horizon is promoting was
summed up by
the trailer for next week's programme - about a man who believes
that there
is a secret code in the Bible that reveals that the world is
going to end
in three years' time. Yeah, right, whatever.
-- Wilson Flood, The Scotsman, 17 November 2003
(1) "OLD" SUN SPOTS ARE BACK
Paal Brekke <pbrekke@esa.nascom.nasa.gov>
(2) NOAA REPORTS POTENT GREENHOUSE GAS LEVELS OFF
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(3) CHINA'S 2000-YEAR TEMPERATURE RECORD DISCREDITS CLIMATE
ALARMISTS
CO2 Science Magazine, 19 November 2003
(4) DISASTER PORN: NEW ICE AGE SCARE TO BE TURNED INTO HOLLYWOOD
BLOCKBUSTER
www.john-daly.com
(5) BBC HORIZON'S "THE BIG CHILL" PURE JUNKSCIENCE
The Scotsman, 18 November 2003
(6) BACK TO THE DARK AGES AS RESEARCHERS DELETE DODGY CLIMATE
DATA
www.john-daly.com,
15 November 2003
(7) IN SEARCH OF CLIMATE STABILITY
CO2 Science Magazine, 19 November 2003
(8) GLOBAL WARMING DEBATE HEATS UP CAPITOL HILL
USA TODAY, 18 November 2003
(9) NEW VIEW OF DATA SUPPORTS HUMAN LINK TO GLOBAL WARMING
The New York Times, 18 November 2003
(10) THE DAY THE WORLD BURNED
Michael Paine <mpaine@tpg.com.au>
(11) TIME TO TELL SLOVAK ASTRONOMERS TO BACK OFF: COMMUNISM IS
OVER, FOLKS
http://www.slovakspectator.sk/clanok.asp?cl=14435
(12) ICE AGE ANOMALIES
Nick Sault <tikouka@ihug.co.nz>
(13) IMPACT PROBABILITIES: WHAT ABOUT COMETS?
Hermann Burchard <burchar@math.okstate.edu>
(14) AND FINALLY: FLYING IN CIRCLES
John Michael Williams <jwill@AstraGate.net>
================
(1) "OLD" SUN SPOTS ARE BACK
Paal Brekke <pbrekke@esa.nascom.nasa.gov>
"OLD" spots back and a Earth directed CME today.
Giant sunspots 486 and 488, which caused so much intense space
weather last
month have been hiding on the far side of the sun. Sunpsot 488
can already be
seen in the MDI image below it looks very big.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/javagif/gifs/20031118_1426_mdi_igr.gif
Region 486 that unleashed the record flare last week is also back
(lower down on
the left limb). The spot itself can not bee seen yet but the
large hot
gassfilled loops above this region can bee seen. In fact the
region erupted
earlier today and the large hot loops are probably what we call
post-flare
loops. Looks like both regions still have some punch.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/javagif/gifs/20031118_1536_eit_195.gif
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/javagif/gifs/20031118_1319_eit_304.gif
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/javagif/gifs_small/20031118_1006_c2.gif
Earth directed CME!
The other "old" region close to the center of the Solar
disk also erupted today
with a modest M3.9 flare. However, LASCO observed a very nice
halo CME directed
towards the Earth so skywatchers should look out for auroras in
about 2 days.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/javagif/gifs/20031118_0848_eit_195.gif
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/javagif/gifs_small/20031118_0850_c2.gif
Paal
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Paal Brekke,
SOHO Deputy Project Scientist (European Space Agency - ESA)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Email: pbrekke@esa.nascom.nasa.gov
Mail Code 682.3, Bld. 26, Room 1, Tel.:
1-301-286-6983/301 996 9028 (cell)
Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA.
Fax: 1-301-286-0264
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOHO WEB: http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/
PERSONAL WEB: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/localinfo/brekke.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
==========
(2) NOAA REPORTS POTENT GREENHOUSE GAS LEVELS OFF
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
NOAA
Media Contact:
Barbara McGehan, NOAA Research
(303) 497-6288, barbara.mcgehan@noaa.gov
Nov. 17, 2003
NOAA REPORTS POTENT GREENHOUSE GAS LEVELS OFF
One of the atmosphere's most potent greenhouse gases, methane,
may now have
leveled off, according to a study by NOAA researchers and
National Institute for
Space Research in the Netherlands. Scientists aren't sure yet if
this "leveling
off" is just a temporary pause in two centuries of increase
or a new state of
equilibrium.
The study appears in the Nov. 18 issue of Geophysical Research
Letters. Lead
author Ed Dlugokencky of the NOAA Climate Monitoring and
Diagnostics Laboratory
in Boulder, Colo., said the study is based on air samples from a
globally
distributed network of more than 43 monitoring sites. The air
samples show that
global methane has been constant over the past four years,
suggesting that
methane emissions may be approximately equal to losses.
"Our observation that atmospheric methane has been constant
for four years is
good news for climate, but our limited understanding of what
caused this result
makes it impossible to predict whether or not methane levels will
continue to
remain constant," Dlugokencky said.
The researchers also determined there was a significant change in
the
distribution of methane globally during the early 1990s between
northern and
southern latitudes. They say this change is consistent with
reductions in
methane emissions during that same period because of lower fossil
fuel
production in the former Soviet Union as reported in databases of
methane
emission rates.
"This reported decrease in methane emission rates may have
moved the global
methane budget toward a steady state, although the annual
variability in methane
emission rates is too large to say so with certainty,"
Dlugokencky said.
Scientists have been projecting that methane levels would
continue to increase
in the atmosphere at a significant rate, so this new equilibrium
was not expected.
Methane is a trace gas that has more than doubled in the
atmosphere since
pre-industrial times, due mainly to human activities. After water
vapor and
carbon dioxide, it is the most important greenhouse gas and
accounts for
approximately 20 percent of the human-influenced greenhouse gas
warming potential.
While methane is emitted to the atmosphere by some natural
sources, such as
wetlands, more than 70 percent of total emissions are due to
human activities
including fossil fuel production and use, intestinal gas from
livestock and farm
animals, and cultivation of rice paddies. Since many methane
sources are the
result of human activities, increased industrialization in
developing countries
and stepped up global food demand could result in increased
emissions in the future.
NOAA Research conducts research, develops products, and provides
scientific
information and leadership to foster NOAA's evolving
environmental and economic
mission.
NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national
safety through the
prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and
providing
environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine
resources. NOAA is
part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Relevant Web Sites
* NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory
http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/
* NOAA Research
http://www.research.noaa.gov/
=============
(3) CHINA'S 2000-YEAR TEMPERATURE RECORD DISCREDITS CLIMATE
ALARMISTS
CO2 Science Magazine, 19 November 2003
http://www.co2science.org/edit/v6_edit/v6n47edit.htm
A 2000-Year Temperature Record of a Big Chunk of China
Controversy abounds over the temperature history of the earth,
particularly that of the past one to two millennia. The origins
of the debate date back only a few years to the papers of Mann et
al. (1998, 1999), which describe an analysis that challenged the
long-accepted view of most climatologists and prompted the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to disavow their
original presentation of the temperature history of the Holocene
(Houghton et al., 1990, reproduced in Earth's Climatic History:
The Last 10,000 Years). This earlier presentation had
clearly indicated there was nothing unusual or unnatural about
earth's current temperature, with many prior periods of time
having experienced temperatures significantly higher than those
of the past few decades.
The revisionist history of Mann et al. depicts a slightly
undulating 1700-year temperature decline that ends with a
dramatic 20th century warming that raises the mean surface air
temperature of the Northern Hemisphere to a level that is
unprecedented over the past 1800 years, although the same cannot
be credibly claimed for the entire planet, unless the proxy-based
record of the globe is extended at its end with modern
instrumental data in an "apples and oranges" type of
assumed equivalency [see our Journal Review of Mann and Jones
(2003)].
This revisionist history of earth's climate was recently
challenged by Soon and Baliunas (2003) and Soon et al. (2003a),
who in turn were challenged by Mann et al. (2003a), who in turn
were challenged by Soon et al. (2003b), who in turn were
challenged by Mann et al. (2003b), who in turn were, well, you
get the idea: the end of the debate is nowhere in sight. In
addition, the revisionist climate history of Mann et al. was even
more recently challenged on totally different grounds by McIntyre
and McKittrick (2003), who in turn have been challenged by Mann
and others (this time on the Internet), who in turn have been
challenged in the same medium by McIntyre and McKitrick, and on
and on it goes, again with no end in sight, even on the distant
horizon.
Nevertheless, what had a beginning must eventually have an end;
and so will this debate someday be decided, most likely by the
ever-accumulating masses of data that allow ever more temperature
histories of ever more parts of the world to be produced with
ever more reliability. Hence, we continue to report on the
many new developments in this field that will someday settle the
issue once and for all, highlighting the two-millennia
temperature history of central east China just published by Ge et
al. (2003).
Working with 200 different sets of phenological and
meteorological records extracted from a number of historical
sources, many of which are described by Gong and Chen (1980), Man
(1990, 2004), Sheng (1990) and Wen and Wen (1996), Ge et al.
produced a 2000-year history of winter half-year temperature
(October to April, when CO2-induced global warming is projected
to be most evident) for the region of China bounded by latitudes
27 and 40°N and longitudes 107 and 120°E. They describe
their findings thusly.
"From the beginning of the Christian era, climate became
cooler at a rate of 0.17°C per century," which correlates
well with the fact that this is the period of time when the
planet slipped out of the Roman Warm Period and entered into the
Dark Ages Cold Period, "and around the AD 490s temperature
reached about 1°C lower than that of the present (the 1951-80
mean)."
"Then, abruptly, temperature entered a warm epoch from the
AD 570s to 1310s with a warming trend of 0.04°C per century; the
peak warming was about 0.3-0.6°C higher than present for 30-year
periods, but over 0.9°C warmer on a 10-year basis."
This finding pretty much speaks for itself. For a
considerable amount of time during the Medieval Warm Period, this
large chunk of China was warmer than has yet to be experienced in
modern times over a similarly-extended time span.
"After the AD 1310s, temperature decreased rapidly at a rate
of 0.10°C per century; the mean temperatures of the four cold
troughs were 0.6-0.9°C lower than the present, with the coldest
value 1.1°C lower." This, of course, was the Little
Ice Age, from which the world appears to still be in processes of
recovering.
"Temperature has been rising rapidly during the twentieth
century, especially for the period 1981-99, and the mean
temperature is now 0.5°C higher than for 1951-80."
Although such might well be true, Ge et al. report temperatures
during the Medieval Warm Period that rose higher still, and for
several 10- and 30-year time periods.
As new data such as these from central east China continue to
come to the fore, it is our belief that scientific support for
the revisionist climate history of Mann et al. will gradually
erode and that this entire sorry episode will be looked back upon
with both dismay and disbelief by those who follow us.
Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso
References
Ge, Q., Zheng, J., Fang, X., Man, Z., Zhang, X., Zhang, P. and
Wang, W.-C. 2003. Winter half-year temperature
reconstruction for the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow
River and Yangtze River, China, during the past 2000 years.
The Holocene 13: 933-940.
Gong, G. and Chen, E. 1980. On the variation of the
growing season and agriculture. Scientia Atmospherica
Sinica 4: 24-29.
Houghton, J.T., Jenkins, G.J. and Ephraums, J.J.
(Eds.). 1990. Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific
Assessment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Man, Z. 1990. Study on the cold/warm stages of Tang
Dynasty and the characteristics of each cold/warm stage.
Historical Geography 8: 1-15.
Man, Z. 2004. Climate Change in Historical Period of
China. Shandong Education Press, Ji'nan, China, in press.
Mann, M., Amman, C., Bradley, R., Briffa, K., Jones, P., Osborn,
T., Crowley, T., Hughes, M., Oppenheimer, M., Overpeck, J.,
Rutherford, S., Trenberth, K. and Wigley, T. 2003a.
On past temperatures and anomalous late-20th century
warmth. EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 84:
256-257.
Mann, M., Amman, C., Bradley, R., Briffa, K., Jones, P., Osborn,
T., Crowley, T., Hughes, M., Oppenheimer, M., Overpeck, J.,
Rutherford, S., Trenberth, K. and Wigley, T. 2003b.
Response [to Soon et al. (2003b)]. EOS, Transactions,
American Geophysical Union 84: 273, 276.
Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S. and Hughes, M.K. 1998.
Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the
past six centuries. Nature 392: 779-787.
Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S. and Hughes, M.K. 1999.
Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the past millennium:
Inferences, uncertainties, and limitations. Geophysical
Research Letters 26: 759-762.
Mann, M.E. and Jones, P.D. 2003. Global surface
temperatures over the past two millennia. Geophysical
Research Letters 30: 10.1029/2003GL017814.
McIntyre, S. and McKitrick, R. 2003. Corrections to
the Mann et al. (1998) proxy data base and Northern Hemispheric
average temperature series. Energy and Environment 14:
751-771.
Sheng, F. 1990. A preliminary exploration of the
warmth and coldness in Henan Province in the historical
period. Historical Geography 7: 160-170.
Soon, W. and Baliunas, S. 2003. Proxy climatic and
environmental changes of the past 1000 years. Climate
Research 23: 89-110.
Soon, W., Baliunas, S., Idso, C.D., Idso, S.B. and Legates,
D.R. 2003a. Reconstructing climatic and environmental
changes of the past 1000 years: A reappraisal. Energy and
Environment 14: 233-296.
Soon, W., Baliunas, S. and Legates, D. 2003b. Comment
on "On past temperatures and anomalous late-20th century
warmth. EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 84:
473.
Wen, H. and Wen, H. 1996. Winter-Half-Year Cold/Warm
Change in Historical Period of China. Science Press,
Beijing, China.
Copyright © 2003. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
=============
(4) DISASTER PORN: NEW ICE AGE SCARE TO BE TURNED INTO HOLLYWOOD
BLOCKBUSTER
www.john-daly.com
The BBC TV Horizon science programme has just broadcast a new
twist to climatic scares - this time warning of a new ice age to
grip Europe caused by - wait for it - global warming! It's
called `The Big Chill' and you can read the full BBC transcript
here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/bigchilltrans.shtml).
Hollywood is soon to join the act, with a new blockbuster movie
called `The Day After Tomorrow', complete with lavish special
effects, to be released in May 2004 by the same people who gave
us `Independence Day'. This time it is not aliens who will
ravage the earth, but - a sudden and catastrophic ice age. To add
a touch of irony to the movie, they show Americans fleeing south
across the Mexican border
`The Big Chill' and `The Day After Tomorrow' are about as equally
believable - `Science' and Hollywood as one.
It is over 25 years since the BBC broadcast its first climate
catastrophe documentary, then titled `The Weather Machine' , a
4-hour special broadcast on a Saturday evening during peak
viewing time. Nothing has changed, except the industry the
BBC helped to spawn has grown to gross proportions, feeding the
fears of ordinary people, and all invoked in the sacred name of
`science'.
Science and the greenhouse industry parted company years ago
because real scientists do not exploit the public in the way this
industry does. The scares for which this industry are responsible
flowed seamlessly from one to another - the `imminent ice age' of
the 1970s, the `nuclear winter' of the 1980s, `global warming' of
the 1990s, and now back to ice age again. The one common
denominator of each was the promotion of public fear, and even
hysteria, for the cynical purpose of bureaucratic growth.
===========
(5) BBC HORIZON'S "THE BIG CHILL" PURE JUNKSCIENCE
The Scotsman, 18 November 2003
http://www.news.scotsman.com/archive.cfm?id=1269982003
I watched The Big Chill on BBC's Horizon series and thought it a
ludicrously unbalanced
effort where sensationalism had replaced science. Even if the
predictions of a much colder
Britain did come true, I found myself wondering why the country
would collapse into chaos
as predicted.
After all, Canada, Sweden and Finland have bitterly cold winters
and people seem to cope.
Interestingly, all these countries have a much higher standard of
living than the UK, so
perhaps a little cold acts as a stimulus.
But the quality of the science that Horizon is promoting was
summed up by the trailer for
next week's programme - about a man who believes that there is a
secret code in the Bible
that reveals that the world is going to end in three years' time.
Yeah, right, whatever.
Dr Wilson Flood, Rowanbank Road, Dumfries
=========
(6) BACK TO THE DARK AGES AS RESEARCHERS DELETE DODGY CLIMATE
DATA
www.john-daly.com, 15
November 2003
Since the publication of the recent study by McIntyre &
McKitrick (M & M) (Energy & Environment, 14,751-771,2003
), in which they found extensive statistical processing errors in
Michael Mann's `Hockey Stick' theory, there have been some
strange happenings.
M & M found embarrassing statistical errors in Mann et al's
original work and now Mann claims that some of these errors were
not part of the original `Hockey Stick' at all, but were
accidentally included in an Excel spreadsheet which they sent to
M & M, and that M&M should have looked at the data on
Mann's FTP site instead. This suggests the errors were recent and
did not contaminate the original `Hockey Stick'.
However, M & M have stated in various forums that they asked
for FTP data, not for a separate Excel spreadsheet and, in fact,
Mann's web page listed in his original paper of 1988 (MBH98) does
not link to the FTP data at the University of Virginia.
After Mann disclosed the Virginia FTP location, M&M found the
identical file at Mann's FTP site as was sent to them, plus the
same data in a `MATLAB' version, both files dated August 2002.
However, just days after the publication of the M & M paper,
these key files were deleted from Mann's University of Virginia
FTP server sometime between October 29 and November 8,
2003. Why were they deleted? Why were they deleted
just after the release of the M & M paper?
Whatever the reason for the deletions, it was all too late.
Here are the original files -
pcproxy.mat
pcproxy.txt
More file deletions were to follow. Some data used in the M &
M study was originally located at Mann's old FTP site at the
University of Massachusetts. Mann's webpage on MBH98 links
to this FTP site. Shortly after M & M made an initial
reply to Mann's claims on an internet `blog' site, on November
13, 2003 (a reply which said that they had new results to report
about the Virginia FTP site), the entire Massachusetts FTP folder
on MBH98 was also deleted before M&M were able to copy
it.
The deletion of the University of Massachusetts FTP site is
surely the strangest event yet. The mere deletion of these
files which had been on public view for over a year and
probably as far back as 2000, implies an attempt at concealment.
We can only wonder at what they contained.
The Hockey Stick was uncritically and enthusiastically embraced
by the IPCC, the National Assessment Team and the whole
greenhouse industry, even though it overturned previous
scientific knowledge about the climate of the last millennium. As
such, its' conclusions should have been subject to rigorous
scientific scrutiny and replication. It wasn't. Instead, it took
two outsiders to do the audit that the industry itself should
have done. In finding so many faults and errors in the Hockey
Stick, the whole sorry episode reflects badly on the competence
and the motives of the `peer reviewers', the IPCC, and the US$4
billion research industry it leads.
===========
(7) IN SEARCH OF CLIMATE STABILITY
CO2 Science Magazine, 19 November 2003
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2003/v6n47c2.htm
Reference
Draut, A.E., Raymo, M.E., McManus, J.F. and Oppo, D.W.
2003. Climate stability during the Pliocene warm
period. Paleoceanography 18: 10.1029/2003PA000889.
Background
Alley et al. (2002, 2003) contend that "human forcing of
climate change" - by which they mean CO2-induced global
warming - "is increasing the probability of large, abrupt
events." Speaking of temperature increases of "as
much as 10°C change in 10 years," they state that these
changes "can occur when gradual causes push the earth system
across a threshold." In this regard, they further
state that "warming and the associated changes in the
hydrological cycle constitute a threshold for the THC," or
thermohaline circulation of the world's oceans, and that
"once reduced, the THC is more susceptible to
perturbations," additionally noting that "very close to
a threshold, the evolution of the THC loses predictability
altogether." Simply put, Alley et al. claim that
warming will vastly increase the instability of earth's climate.
What was done
Noting that still other studies, including those of Manabe and
Stouffer (1993) and Rahmstorf and Ganopolski (1999), "have
predicted that enhanced precipitation at higher latitudes in a
warmer world could enhance thermohaline (and hence regional
climate) instability," Draut et al. decided to test this
hypothesis by evaluating climate variability throughout a portion
of the mid-Pliocene, which they say "is an ideal interval in
which to investigate prolonged warm conditions at high
resolution," as this period "is the most recent in
geologic time with temperatures comparable to those projected for
the 21st century." Hence, they studied deep-sea
sediment cores retrieved from Ocean Drilling Program Sites 980
and 981 (55°29'N, 14°39'W) that span the mid-Pliocene from
about 3.1 to 3.3 million years ago.
What was learned
Draut et al. say their findings suggest that "no strong
temperature-related forcing mechanism affected thermohaline
circulation during the mid-Pliocene warm period,"
specifically stating that this observation "contrasts with
scenarios predicted for 21st century global warming by several
modeling studies, in which warm conditions are associated with
enhanced freshwater runoff and cessation of thermohaline
circulation in the North Atlantic, resulting in long-term
cooling." Instead, they report that their data point
"to a relatively stable climate during the mid-Pliocene warm
period, analogous to millennial-scale stability within the
Holocene and Marine Isotope Stage 11," noting further that
"millennial-scale climate fluctuations appear to occur with
reduced amplitude during warm episodes," additionally citing
Oppo et al. (1998), McManus et al. (1999, 2003) and McIntyre et
al. (2001) in support of this statement.
What it means
Clearly, there is a wealth of real-world data that indicates that
increasing warmth leads to increasing climate stability, which is
just the opposite of what many models - but not all [see, for
example, Saenko et al. (2003)] - predict to occur in response to
further global warming. When it comes to choosing between
contradictory model predictions and real-world observations,
therefore, we'll take the world of reality every single time it
has something to tell us. And it's been telling us for
quite a while now that warmth brings climate stability.
References
Alley, R.B., Marotzke, J., Nordhaus, W.D., Overpeck, J.T.,
Peteet, D.M., Pielke Jr., R.A., Pierrehumbert, R.T., Rhines,
P.B., Stocker, T.F., Talley, L.D. and Wallace, J.M.
2002. Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises. National
Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, DC.
Alley, R.B., Marotzke, J., Nordhaus, W.D., Overpeck, J.T.,
Peteet, D.M., Pielke Jr., R.A., Pierrehumbert, R.T., Rhines,
P.B., Stocker, T.F., Talley, L.D. and Wallace, J.M.
2003. Abrupt climate change. Science 299: 2005-2010.
Manabe, S. and Stouffer, R.J. 1993. Century-scale
effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on the ocean-atmosphere
system. Nature 364: 215-218.
McIntyre, K., Delaney, M.L. and Ravelo, A.C. 2001.
Millennial-scale climate change and oceanic processes in the late
Pliocene and early Pleistocene. Paleoceanography 16:
535-543.
McManus, J.F., Oppo, D.W. and Cullen, J.L. 1999. A
0.5-million-year record of millennial-scale climate variability
in the North Atlantic. Science 283: 971-974.
McManus, J.F., Oppo, D.W., Cullen, J.L. and Healey, S.L.
2003. Marine isotope stage 11 (MIS 11): Analog for Holocene
and future climate? Geophysical Monograph Series 137:
69-85.
Oppo, D.W., McManus, J.F. and Cullen, J.L. 1998.
Abrupt climatic events 500,000 to 340,000 years ago: Evidence
from subpolar North Atlantic sediments. Science 79:
1335-1338.
Rahmstorf, S. and Ganopolski, A. 1999. Long-term
global warming scenarios computed with an efficient coupled
climate model. Climatic Change 43: 353-367.
Saenko, O.A., Weaver, A.J. and Schmittner, A. 2003.
Atlantic deep circulation controlled by freshening in the
Southern Ocean. Geophysical Research Letters 30:
10.1029/2003GL017681.
Copyright © 2003. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change (www.co2science.org).
==========
(8) GLOBAL WARMING DEBATE HEATS UP CAPITOL HILL
USA TODAY, 18 November 2003
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2003-11-18-warming-debate_x.htm
By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
A global-warming brouhaha has critics of a landmark climate
report saying the 20th century was not as hot as it was cracked
up to be.
Climate scientists, who have long been raising red flags on the
impact modern man is having on Earth's climate, are calling the
critics half-baked.
The debate - the subject of a briefing Tuesday on Capitol Hill -
highlights the opposing arguments in the global-warming
controversy.
On one side are researchers concerned about temperature-raising
pollutants. On the other are those concerned that this is an over
blown argument that will stall economic progress.
At issue is a 1998 study in the journal Nature that described the
20th century as the hottest in centuries. Similar warnings from
an influential United Nations science panel echoed that report.
Climate research has been an increasingly politicized issue since
2001, when President Bush rejected a multination plan crafted in
Kyoto, Japan, to combat global warming. Bush cited the costs of
capping emissions of greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil
fuels such as coal and petroleum.
In a paper published last month in Energy & Environment, a
social science journal known for reports critical of
climate-change research, Canadian businessman Stephen McIntyre
and economist Ross McKitrick of Canada's University of Guelph
charge that the Nature report contains numerous errors regarding
temperatures from the past six centuries.
When corrected, the data suggest the 15th century was actually
warmer than today, they say.
They also criticize the U.N. panel for relying on the Nature
study in its warnings about global warming. In 2001, the U.N.'s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the average
surface temperature rose 1 degree during the 20th century and
could rise 2.6 to 10.4 degrees this century, partly driven by
industrial activities that emit greenhouse gases. (Related
document: The IPCC 2001 report on climate science)
"Unfortunately, a lot was made of the Nature paper, so
ordinary debate about its technical soundness takes on inordinate
political overtones," says McKitrick.
The George C. Marshall Institute, one of a number of think tanks
that question the human role in global warming, sponsored a
briefing Tuesday for congressional staffers and others on the
rebuttal report.
The authors of the Nature paper, led by climatologist Michael
Mann of the University of Virginia, respond that the critics
botched their analysis, selectively dropping records to invent a
warm 15th century and making numerous other statistical mistakes.
Climate researcher Tom Wigley of the National Center for
Atmospheric Research. in Boulder, Colo., calls the critics'
complaints "seriously flawed" and "silly."
In addition to the Nature paper, about a dozen independent
studies suggest the 20th century was warmer than normal, Wigley
points out.
From a statistical viewpoint, "I lean in favor of
Mann," says statistician George Shambaugh. of Georgetown
University. "There is an increase in the 20th century that
is greater than the cyclical patterns found by either group since
1550. And since the early 1900s, we have been hotter than any
time since then."
Princeton geoscientist Michael Oppenheimer compares climate
skeptics to tobacco industry scientists who sought for decades to
obscure the link between smoking and lung cancer. Arguing over
whether man-made global warming exists obscures a more important
debate over what steps are possible to moderate its effects, he
says.
But skeptics are providing a valuable public service in keeping
the debate alive, says William O'Keefe of the Marshall Institute.
O'Keefe, formerly with the American Petroleum Institute, says:
"We have to encourage healthy debate."
Copyright 2003, USA Today
==========
(9) NEW VIEW OF DATA SUPPORTS HUMAN LINK TO GLOBAL WARMING
The New York Times, 18 November 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/18/science/earth/18CLIM.html
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
One of the last gaps in the evidence pointing to a human cause
for global warming appears to be closing.
A re-examination of 24 years of data from weather satellites has
found that temperatures are rising in the lower layer of the
atmosphere, called the troposphere, at a rate that is consistent
with what has been measured at the earth's surface.
The finding is subtle but significant, experts say, particularly
because previous studies of the same data, showing no warming,
have been highlighted by opponents of curbs on heat-trapping
smokestack and tailpipe emissions linked to recent warming.
The difference between the two analyses also now has a clear
explanation, with most of the divergence resulting from the way
data were adjusted to account for a transition from one weather
satellite to a successor in the mid-1980's.
The result is more consensus than ever that emissions of carbon
dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases are noticeably
altering climate.
But at the same time, the new research is showing that, at least
so far, the influence of greenhouse gases appears to have been
more modest than some climate experts once predicted.
The findings, after a year of review and debate at workshops,
appear in the current issue of The Journal of Climate.
Dr. Thomas R. Karl, the director of the National Climatic Data
Center in Asheville, N.C., called the new work "a
significant step forward," but stressed that more work would
be necessary to reconcile the persistent differences between
computer models of the climate and the real thing.
The new study, done by private satellite experts at Remote
Sensing Systems for the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration and the Commerce Department, has not quelled
doubters. But several experts not associated with the work said
it had pushed the satellite record of recent warming more in line
with what computer simulations had projected.
Dr. Frank J. Wentz, an author of the study and the director of
the research firm, said continuing refinements in climate models
had also brought the computer projections more in line with what
the measurements were showing.
"The controversy is somewhat going away," Dr. Wentz
said. "As time has gone on, the disconnect between the
satellites and the models has gotten smaller and smaller."
Dr. John R. Christy, a University of Alabama at Huntsville
scientist whose group was the first to analyze the satellite data
for climate clues, agreed that the gap between models and
measurements was closing somewhat.
But he added that the evidence was pointing more firmly toward a
modest impact from rising greenhouse gases.
Dr. Christy, who has long been an outspoken critic of
catastrophic climate predictions, said, "We've had enough
years of this human-induced forcing to get some boundaries on it,
and it's just not going in the dramatic and catastrophic
direction."
Other scientists who have assessed the satellite findings, old
and new, cautioned that no one should draw any conclusion about
the prospect for significant climate shifts from subtle trends in
surface or air temperature trends over a few decades.
Dr. Roger A. Pielke Sr., a climatologist at Colorado State who
participated in a workshop last month assessing the new paper and
other work assessing temperature trends, said the climate system
had a tendency to jump from one steady state to another.
"It is characterized by rapid shifts, rather than smooth
changes," he said.
Dr. Christy and Dr. Roy W. Spencer, at NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, pioneered efforts to sift
weather-satellite data for clues to longer-term temperature
trends.
The data are notoriously difficult to deal with because they were
gathered by a dozen satellites launched over several decades with
different kinds of instruments. In a number of cases, one
satellite sometimes overlapped with its predecessor for only a
short time, preventing adequate cross-checking of their readings.
Adjustments to calculations had to be made for all manner of
variables, including the tendency of the satellites to tip and
drift up and down and east and west, distorting readings.
Initially, Dr. Christy and his group found that the lower
troposphere was actually cooling, and not warming, drawing strong
interest in their work from companies and elected officials
questioning whether global warming was happening.
More recently, as Dr. Christy and his team took into account
factors that could distort the readings, they concluded that
there had been a slight, but inconsequential warming.
The new analysis was begun several years ago by Remote Sensing
Systems and the two groups have increasingly shared data over the
past year. The rate of warming calculated by the new group is
higher than the old analysis by just a sixth of a degree per
decade.
But that adds up over time to a trend that is consistent with
what some computer simulations say would occur under the
influence of building greenhouse-gas concentrations, Dr. Wentz
said.
Dr. Christy says his work matches up much better with readings
taken by an independent method, instrument-laden balloons
launched from hundreds of weather stations.
But other scientists said the balloon-gathered data were spotty
and inconsistent as well, and did not provide a useful yardstick.
Some scientists said the most valuable result of the new analysis
of the satellite record was to take it out of the realm of
politicized science.
Now, they said, it is simply one more data set in the broader
body of evidence pointing in a generally warmer direction in
years to come.
The only way to improve understanding of the causes and
consequences of warming, Dr. Karl said, will be to look for clues
in many places at once - melting glaciers, ocean temperatures and
satellites, among others - and not rely on a lone line of
evidence.
"The whole issue of global climate change is weighing
evidence," he said. "Any conclusion will ultimately
have to look like the results of a 100-question test. If you get
a 90, you're probably on track."
Copyright 2003, The New York Time
===========
(10) THE DAY THE WORLD BURNED
Michael Paine <mpaine@tpg.com.au>
Dear Benny
The December issue of Scientific American has an interesting
article by
Kring and Durda (below). The full article can be purchased but I
will
wait until my paper copy arrives in a few weeks.
regards
Michael Paine
The Day the World Burned
By David A. Kring and Daniel D. Durda
http://www.sciam.com/issue.cfm?issuedate=Dec-03
By now it is common knowledge that the impact of an asteroid or
comet
brought the age of the dinosaurs to an abrupt end. Less well
known,
though, is exactly how they and so many other species became
extinct and
how ecosystems managed to rebuild themselves afterward. The
cataclysm
went far beyond the regular insults from which living things must
recover. The asteroid or comet flashed through the sky more than
40
times as fast as the speed of sound. It was so large that when
its
leading edge made contact with ground, its trailing edge was at
least as
high as the cruising altitude of a commercial airliner. It
produced an
explosion equivalent to 100 trillion tons of TNT, a greater
release of
energy than any event on our planet in the 65 million years since
then.
The remnants of that collision lie below the tropical forest of
the
Yucatán, the Maya ruins of Mayapán, the seaport village of
Progreso and
the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The crater, called Chicxulub
after
modern Maya villages in the area, is approximately 180 kilometers
in
diameter and is surrounded by a circular fault 240 kilometers
across,
apparently produced when the crust reverberated with the shock of
the
impact....continued at Scientific American Digital (for a price!)
========
(11) TIME TO TELL SLOVAK ASTRONOMERS TO BACK OFF: COMMUNISM IS
OVER, FOLKS
Planet named after Slovak satirist sparks trouble
http://www.slovakspectator.sk/clanok.asp?cl=14435
AN ASTEROID named after the recently deceased Slovak cult
comedian Július Satinský has sparked trouble between the
astronomer who discovered the space body and his bosses in the
Institute of Astronomy at Bratislava's Comenius University (AÚ
UK).
"My bosses blamed me because I hadn't consulted the name
with them before reporting it to the [reference] Centre for Small
Planets in Cambridge, US," astronomer Adrián Galád from an
observatory based in the western Slovak town of Modra said to the
Slovak daily Pravda.
Galad, together with his former colleague Alexander Pravda,
discovered the Satinský asteroid, which moves on an orbit
between Mars and Jupiter, back in 1998. Before a planet is
officially registered, it has to be observed for several seasons.
And so the planet finally received its name this past March.
According to Pravda, who left the observatory for several
reasons, including the hassle over the name of the planet, it is
common practice for those who discover a planet to pick its name.
But AÚ UK head Vladimír Porubčan said that his institute would
like to have astronomers consult the names with their bosses.
"We don't want to interfere, but we do want to consult - the
dignified representation of Slovakia is in play here,"
Porubčan said.
He said he had no objections towards the Satinský planet as such
but insisted that because there are not presently many planets
that were discovered by Slovaks, assigning them good
representative names matters a lot to him.
"Also, the institute has a right to know about this in
advance because the discoveries took place at its working
premises, and with its devices," he said.
Although Galád has discovered many other planets apart from
Satinský, he has not reported any names to Cambridge yet, as he
is annoyed over the problems with the first one.
However, if those who discover a planet fail to report a name
within a certain period of time, the Cambridge centre picks the
name itself. Slovak astronomers are therefore advised to act
quickly.
========= LETTERS ========
(12) ICE AGE ANOMALIES
Nick Sault <tikouka@ihug.co.nz>
Hi Benny
In reading the BBC News Online article about the demise of the
Alaskan horse, It brought
up a dilemma I have had, and other thinking men and women must
have had, in regard to the
apparent disparities in the distribution of the last great
northern ice sheets.
It was the reference in the article to the apparent fact that
Alaska was running alive
with fauna of all kinds while London and New York were
"submerged in glacial ice".
This seemingly geographic disparity might be a veritable mystery
to all and sundry of
CCNet's intelligent readers until perhaps they read the piece in
the same CCNet
transmission regarding the fears about the demise of the Gulf
Stream. Of course, if
14,000 years ago there was no Gulf Stream to bathe the shores of
Blighty, while a Pacific
Gulf Stream equivalent bathed the shores of Alaska, the disparity
is easily explained.
However, the Alaska Ice Age Disparity (my term) was not the only
weird anomaly in the
configuration of the last ice sheet. There was the Siberian
disparity.
I understand that the larger part of northern Siberia was free of
ice throughout the
last ice age. How could that be? Why was the northern ice sheet
seemingly centered
20 or 30 degrees off the pole? Why was the largest landmass left
alone by those giant
claws of ice? Where would the warm current come from that
would supposedly keep
Siberia ice free, when the nearest southern ocean is thousands of
miles away?
And don't tell me it was lack of precipitation. Antarctica is the
driest place on
Earth and has ice sheets four kilometers thick.
The Alaskan Horse article passed over the dilemma like it doesn't
exist. Surely any
thinking person reading that London was ice covered while Alaska
was running alive like
the Savanna, would have been scratching their heads saying
"how come?". In all scientific
publications I have read on the ice age, the ice sheet
distribution disparity seems to be
something that is passed over, and I wonder if that is because
scientists don't like to
deal with findings that leave them staggered when they are
researching something that they
do understand, or are in the throes of being able to
understand.
Changing ocean currents could explain the Alaskan ice sheet
disparity, but what about
Siberia? Can any of your informed readers put this to rest for
me?
Yours
Nick Sault
Technical Writing Specialist
E-Writers Ltd
nick@e-writers.org
==============
(13) IMPACT PROBABILITIES: WHAT ABOUT COMETS?
Hermann Burchard <burchar@math.okstate.edu>
Dear Benny,
regarding ever-changing impact probabilities for asteroids, it
seems
that in recent years much new insight has been gained about
comets, too,
so new and improved impact probability estimates for comets
perhaps are
becoming available?
The Peshtigo Comet story (and its relationship to the Chicago
Fire of
1871) remains as an example of puzzling circumstances. Has
Comet Biela
been definitely ruled out by astronomers as a vector? Some
of the reports
read like ionized plasma was involved. There are so many
other reports of
"fire from heaven" that comet impacts may be more
frequent than thought
previously. Are there good data on the frequency of such
events in our
past?
On one hand, Gene Shoemaker had favored a comet for Chicxulub
but,
recently, Tom Van Flandern threw cold water on the multiple comet
impact
hypothesis for the K/T transition, CCNet 98/2003 - 6 November
2003:
"Capture and tidal break up by Earth, similar to
Jupiter's capture of
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, is extremely unlikely (by a factor
of over 10
million) because Earth has a much smaller mass and is
closer to the
Sun."
However, this is NOT a quantitative statement and I don't think
it totally
settles the question of multiple or single comet impacts.
For one thing,
if comets really are just loose agglomerates of ice, carbon, and
dust of
various minerals, then the mere passage of a comet near Earth can
be
counted on to break it up into fragments, some of which may then
interfere
with the planet. Just one or two small pieces would be
enough to cause
havoc and surely we are not expecting anything on the scale of
S-L-9,
which would have obliterated life on Earth forever. Yet,
comets are known
to have approached our planet frequently, even in recent
centuries.
Hence a precise probability estimate for such events seems to be
still
wanting.
Regards,
Hermann G. W. Burchard
========
(14) AND FINALLY: FLYING IN CIRCLES
John Michael Williams <jwill@AstraGate.net>
Hi Benny.
Concerning,
"The Moon is the next logical step after the space
station..."
(CCNet 18 November 2003). A better plan would be to use the
Moon in place of ISS. There is real estate on the Moon.
How does perpetually flying in circles on the ISS help anything
except to drain away necessary funding for real exploration?
--
John
jwill@AstraGate.net
John Michael Williams
-----------
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