Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009625" target="_blank">http://www.opinionjournal.com/ editorial/feature.html?id=110009625</a> >>Last week's headlines about the United Nations' latest report on global warming were typically breathless, predicting doom and human damnation like the most fervent religious evangelical. Yet the real news in the fourth assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) may be how far it is backpedaling on some key issues. Beware claims that the science of global warming is settled. The document that caused such a stir was only a short policy report, a summary of the full scientific report due in May. Written mainly by policymakers (not scientists) who have a stake in the issue, the summary was long on dire predictions. The press reported the bullet points, noting that this latest summary pronounced with more than "90% confidence" that humans have been the main drivers of warming since the 1950s, and that higher temperatures and rising sea levels would result. More pertinent is the underlying scientific report. And according to people who have seen that draft, it contains startling revisions of previous U.N. predictions. For example, the Center for Science and Public Policy has just released an illuminating analysis written by Lord Christopher Monckton, a one-time adviser to Margaret Thatcher who has become a voice of sanity on global warming. Take rising sea levels. In its 2001 report, the U.N.'s best high-end estimate of the rise in sea levels by 2100 was three feet. Lord Monckton notes that the upcoming report's high-end best estimate is 17 inches, or half the previous prediction. Similarly, the new report shows that the 2001 assessment had overestimated the human influence on climate change since the Industrial Revolution by at least one-third. Such reversals (and there are more) are remarkable, given that the IPCC's previous reports, in 1990, 1995 and 2001, have been steadily more urgent in their scientific claims and political tone. It's worth noting that many of the policymakers who tinker with the IPCC reports work for governments that have promoted climate fears as a way of justifying carbon-restriction policies. More skeptical scientists are routinely vetoed from contributing to the panel's work. The Pasteur Institute's Paul Reiter, a malaria expert who thinks global warming would have little impact on the spread of that disease, is one example. U.N. scientists have relied heavily on computer models to predict future climate change, and these crystal balls are notoriously inaccurate. According to the models, for instance, global temperatures were supposed to have risen in recent years. Yet according to the U.S. National Climate Data Center, the world in 2006 was only 0.03 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in 2001--in the range of measurement error and thus not statistically significant. The models also predicted that sea levels would rise much faster than they actually have. The models didn't predict the significant cooling the oceans have undergone since 2003--which is the opposite of what you'd expect with global warming. Cooler oceans have also put a damper on claims that global warming is the cause of more frequent or intense hurricanes. The models also failed to predict falling concentrations of methane in the atmosphere, another surprise. Meanwhile, new scientific evidence keeps challenging previous assumptions. The latest report, for instance, takes greater note of the role of pollutant particles, which are thought to reflect sunlight back to space, supplying a cooling effect. More scientists are also studying the effect of solar activity on climate, and some believe it alone is responsible for recent warming. All this appears to be resulting in a more cautious scientific approach, which is largely good news. We're told that the upcoming report is also missing any reference to the infamous "hockey stick," a study by Michael Mann that purported to show 900 years of minor fluctuations in temperature, followed by a dramatic spike over the past century. The IPCC featured the graph in 2001, but it has since been widely rebutted. While everyone concedes that the Earth is about a degree Celsius warmer than it was a century ago, the debate continues over the cause and consequences. We don't deny that carbon emissions may play a role, but we don't believe that the case is sufficiently proven to justify a revolution in global energy use. The economic dislocations of such an abrupt policy change could be far more severe than warming itself, especially if it reduces the growth and innovation that would help the world cope with, say, rising sea levels. There are also other problems--AIDS, malaria and clean drinking water, for example--whose claims on scarce resources are at least as urgent as climate change. The IPCC report should be understood as one more contribution to the warming debate, not some definitive last word that justifies radical policy change. It can be hard to keep one's head when everyone else is predicting the Apocalypse, but that's all the more reason to keep cool and focus on the actual science. <<
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Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<Temperatures in Minneapolis and St. Paul were expected to stay below freezing until sometime Tuesday>> Silly reporters and editors... Temperatures are expected to stay below ZERO until some time on Tuesday. Temperatures below freezing are nothing. We just call that winter. Average Minneapolis high temperatures for December, January and February are ALL below freezing.
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Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm" target="_blank">http://www.canadafreepress.com /2007/global-warming020507.htm</a> >>Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition.“Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg.†. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why. What would happen if tomorrow we were told that, after all, the Earth is flat? It would probably be the most important piece of news in the media and would generate a lot of debate. So why is it that when scientists who have studied the Global Warming phenomenon for years say that humans are not the cause nobody listens? Why does no one acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes on? Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification. For example, Environment Canada brags about spending $3.7 billion in the last five years dealing with climate change almost all on propaganda trying to defend an indefensible scientific position while at the same time closing weather stations and failing to meet legislated pollution targets. << Much more at the link...
Originally Posted By Shooba >>Can you say "Beau's latest sockpuppet?"<< Maybe it's a new member, Louise from Penslyvania...or Frank from Conneticut... I noticed right away it's a sock puppet, and went crying to, I mean reported it to the moderators.
Originally Posted By DlandDug While I am certainly willing to entertain credible arguments about the Global Warming debate, my concern is that recently, nearly all arguments by opponents of the man made cause theory seem to be relying on anomalies. While a number of isolated facts can sound quite impressive, they aren't very convincing in light of the preponderance of credible evidence to the contrary that has been gathered and disseminated. Credible scientists will continue to acknowledge that there is room for debate on any theory, but to reach any conclusions on the basis of deviations is intellectually dishonest.
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Originally Posted By imadisneygal At first I thought it might be Beau, too, but then the poster spelled medieval correctly and I dropped that theory. Unless, of course, it was cut and pasted directly from another site in which case I could still be right.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <People who think man is causing global warming point to a hot day in June or a Hurricane in August or a run of hot weather in Akron to prove their point.> Actually, no, they point to 650,000 years worth of climate samples. It's the climate change would-be debunkers who tend to rely on "look - the citrus crop in California froze this year"-type isolated incidents, and/or, as Dug pointed out, anomalies.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Doug's post #9 puts it very well. I think most people can see through the lame attempts at making anyone concerned about climate change look like some hysterical chicken littles. But it is very revealing, in more ways than one.
Originally Posted By DlandDug >>People who think man is causing global warming point to a hot day in June or a Hurricane in August or a run of hot weather in Akron to prove their point.<< Of course they do, just as people who don't believe it point to cold weather events to dispute it (as dabob pointed out above). That is what is called anecdotal information. In the hands of people, it is really of little use in reaching any meaningful conclusions. Scientists, on the other hand, have been looking at statistical information to prove that the earth is warmer now than it has been in the recent past. While there is room for debate on the exact causes, saying it is warmer or colder on the basis of today's weather forecast has never really been the deciding factor.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer Attention: News Editors, Political Reporters, Science and Environment Reporters MEDIA RELEASE NRSP cautions against relying on February 2 UN Climate Report IPPC documents have a history of bias and misrepresentation of actual science findings Ottawa , Canada , February 1, 2007 – The Natural Resources Stewardship Project calls attention to the serious problems that have plagued past climate reports of the sort to be issued by the United Nations on Friday. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I (WG1), assigned to report on the state of climate change science, will release its ‘Summary for Policymakers' on Friday, February 2. This is ostensibly an executive summary of their ‘Fourth Assessment Report' WG1 full science report that will not be issued until May 2007. According to official IPCC procedures (section 4), the main science report shall be modified after publication of the Summary so as to “ensure consistency with†the Summary. But the Summary is written by government representatives to fulfill political objectives in support of carbon dioxide reduction negotiations. IPCC lead author and NRSP Allied Scientist Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT explained that the Summary “represents a consensus of government representatives (many of whom are also their nations' Kyoto representatives), rather than of scientists.†In the IPCC's Second Assessment Report (1995), this unorthodox reporting procedure led to the “Chapter 8 controversy†in which significant and unwarranted modification of the science report was known to have been made before it was issued so as to conform to the Summary. How often this has happened, or how much the science report will be altered this time to conform to the Summary, is unknown since no one outside of a select group sworn to secrecy knows the contents of the science reports being summarized. Besides questioning the legitimacy of releasing the S ummary months before the release of the report it is supposedly written to summarize, attention should also be focused on situations in which lead authors of the Fourth Assessment Report are using their own work, reviewed by scientists with whom they work closely, as the primary support for conclusions of specific IPCC report chapters. The US National Academy of Sciences Wegman Report (2006) highlighted how this lack of independent review resulted in serious problems with the last WG1 Summary (2001). In that Summary, the ‘Mann Hockey Stick', a now-discredited graph that purported to show that 20 th century warming was unusual, formed the cornerstone of the IPCC conclusions. Wegman concluded “ authors of policy-related documents like the IPCC report … should not be the same people as those that constructed the academic papers.†Finally, it should also be recognized that the fact that many scientists were involved in reviewing the Fourth Assessment does not necessarily mean that these scientists agree with the report. For example, NRSP Allied Scientist Dr. Madhav Khandekar was an official reviewer of parts of the document that related to his specialty (extreme weather) and has revealed that the IPCC ignored his comments. NRSP Science Advisory Committee member, Dr. Vincent Gray , also an official reviewer of IPCC reports, speaks about his experience, “They sometimes take notice of your comments. They don't take much notice of mine because most of the time I don't agree with what they are saying…. It is not like the scientific press where you are supposed to answer objections; they don't bother to answer objections; they go their own way.â€
Originally Posted By thenurmis so in simple terms , when the report is released ,it will have been filtered through the pens of people who have already made up there minds that man is, or is not, responcable for the change in the climate. In the mean while the weather might be changing, but we don't know for sure because all the reports and data that have been released may, or may not, have been censored by the same "magic pens". Why is the the Clash song "should I stay or should I go" ringing through my head it had nothing to do with global warming, yet it may have... no it didn't I kinda think that the sky is falling, and who ever caused it dosn't seem as important as can we stop it, or slow it down?
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I'm surprised there were people around taking these temperature measurements millions of years ago. Who knew? Of course there weren't. This means that any temperatures from that time are extrapolated from other known data. And while I have no doubt these estimates are quite good, when temperature shifts of 1/2 degree are considered really significant, what degree of certainty do we have that the extrapolated data is that accurate? Pretty much none, I'd say. I'm not going to spend any of my time worrying about it.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Note that the so-called "The Natural Resources Stewardship Project" is essentially an industry-tied group devoted to obfuscating the issue of climate change, presenting itself as a non-profit "grass roots" group (a practice sometimes known as "astroturfing."). <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Natural_Resources_Stewardship_Project" target="_blank">http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind ex.php?title=Natural_Resources_Stewardship_Project</a> One of the other sites I found when I googled them opined that the acronym should really stand for "Not Real Science People."
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Note that the so-called "The Natural Resources Stewardship Project" is essentially an industry-tied group devoted to obfuscating the issue of climate change, presenting itself as a non-profit "grass roots" group (a practice sometimes known as "astroturfing.").<< I'm shocked.
