The graph shows more ice this year than last year. Last year there wasn’t a lack of ice a the polls.

However, the conclusion despite the fact that there is more ice this year is an alarmists one.

ie. No evidence, but we still have to make up a story to frighten the children.

Meanwhile latest temperatures on a global basis show the world is getting cooler, as it has done over the last 10 years.

The IPCC prediction was for a 0.2C increase, and has been comprehensively shown to be wrong.

Once any real problem has been drug into a political rathole and been made into a lucrative political issue, it is virtually impossible to get the problem back out of the rathole so that it can be studied, researched and analyzed as the problem that it actually is.

Applied simplism and ideological sound bites are the lifeblood and the heartbeat of politics. The fact that neither has content that has any real value just doesn’t matter.

Will it get votes on election day?

Yes!

Then, by golly, that’s a good thing! Let’s keep saying it! It must be right if the voters believe it.

Sorry, folks. I may not be the most skeptic person in the nation where global warming is concerned but I am unabashedly cynical about politics, politicians, political parties and political operatives. (Consultants, pollsters, etc.)

I am especially cynical about elected officials who use the position to which they were elected by the rest of us as a stage from which to run for reelection instead of doing the job that they asked us to elect them to do.

Part of his problem with Al Gore is that he is so narrow-minded that he is unwilling to view the other side of any issue. He has stated a position several decades ago and only looks for confirmation that he is right. He is always right and anyone that disagrees with him is not only wrong but ignorant and dangerous.

Unfortunately for us all, the media and politicians and like-minded people have believed in him and his cause.

What is dangerous is that if you tell a big lie long enough then people will believe it. Now, Mr. Gore does not believe it is a lie. I believe he truly believes that global warming is all man’s fault and he probably believes catastrophes and calamities now and in the future are the result of man.

What Mr. Gore fails miserably in is critical thinking (looking at the facts, listening to dissent and other peoples interpretations of the facts) and economics (how badly would we damage the world economy - who would be the losers - mainly the poor).

But back to his speech…

Why is the US losing jobs to foreign countries? A good bit is due to US government regulations (labor and environmental), taxes, and laws. Would it get better with Mr. Gore’s plan - absolutely not.

Gasoline prices rising? Sending money to the Middle East? That one is a no-brainer. The US government policy is specifically tailored to rely on someone else for the oil. The US doesn’t want to use their own resources. Send a couple of 100 billion dollars to unstable governments every year and watch as the value of your dollar drops. Then the price of imports (gas) to up.

Replace all coal for electricity in 10 years? ridiculous.

Replace every car in the US in 10 years with a non-existent car that would cost much more than today’s cars? Impossible.

Completely redesign and rebuild the US economy in 10 years? I couldn’t write any better fiction than that.

Climate change is bad now? You can cherry pick your catastrophes all you want, Mr. Gore. I could do the same for the rest of history.

Oh, and what happens when the US invests trillions of dollars to solve a problem that may not be a problem (Still no one has proved that global warming is manmade. Many people have dispelled the THEORY that CO2 is the cause. - but they are the dissenters who should be punished for their crimes against nature.)

I could go on, but my computer is warming the room up too much and the ice in my glass of water is melting. Coincidence? I have a theory about computer generated global warming….

If you can read past The Goracle’s hyperbole and his overly simplistic obsession with atmospheric CO2 driven global climate change (Atmospheric CO2 is not a driver, it is a modifier.) this is a helluva good speech.

The problems and challenges that we face as a nation and as a people are there in stark detail.

The concern that I have is that if a problem is defined in a way that is an overly simplistic distorted caricature of the actual problem then the proposed solution will almost always be overly simplistic and the expectations for mitigating or solving the problem will be overly optimistic.

An issue is a topic of discussion and debate. Categorically, an issue can be one of three things. It can be a problem which is something for which there is a real and workable solution; it can be a situation which can be improved and its effects mitigated but which cannot be totally eliminated; or it can be a condition which is something over which we have no control or influence in which case our only course of action is to develop a better understanding of the condition so we can then learn better ways of living with the condition.

Even defining our energy situation as a problem may be overly optimistic. At this time, it is not possible for us to totally rule out that that our energy future is a situation or, perhaps, even a condition that we will have to learn to live with.

Going back to horse and buggy days is not an available option, either. Just as we don’t have enough farm land to produce the corn and other crops for biofuels, neither do we have enough farm land to provide for all the horses that we would need if we intend to be able to eat ourselves. Horses eat more than people, you know. Thus it takes more productive farm land to provide for a horse than it takes to provide for a human.

Have you noticed how it is always the availability of natural resources that establishes the parameters of the possible? Do you reckon there may be an explainable reason for that?

I think there very well may be an explainable reason for that. After all, our technologies of all kinds actually do just one thing for us: They enable us to make indirect beneficial use of kinds of energy and sources of energy that we are not biologically able to use directly and beneficially.

Have a wonderful day.

http://www.aps.org/

But its Climate Chage Statement does call for proper research into the matter.

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming “incontrovertible.”

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,”There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.”

Unfortunately it’s not just a coincidence. “Global Warming” has so many people talking freely about things they know little about that real information is hard to come by.

I thought I did say they were WRONG. Maybe by saying that they used spin, I was misunderstood. Or by saying “not totally correct”. Either way, it was my intention to say that SPPI appears to be wrong.

To reiterate:

Since they didn’t point to a study that says the Arctic is warming and I can’t find anything to support this statement, it appears that SPPI is wrong (unless they can point out a study that disputes this).

It is not apparent to me what the correct albedo for the Arctic Ocean is as I have not seen a study for this. Any statements to the contrary would be either conjecture, assumptions, or wrong (or maybe a combination of the three).

The air does influence the ice but I cannot follow the logic of SPPI that it is the only influence, which is what they infer, and that solar energy doesn’t influence it as well.

The whole point may be moot though. Mr. Gore created a movie that discussed global warming and mankind’s influence on the climate. He spent many minutes discussing the Arctic which by its inclusion implies that the reduction of ice in the Arctic is mankind’s fault. Multiple studies have been written to question this assertion and have blamed water currents and wind currents for some, much or all of this change. By including statements about the Arctic but not discussing that humans do not appear to affect ocean currents and therefore may not have anything to do with the ice in the Arctic is at best SPIN and quite possibly WRONG.

If Mr. Gore would have been more complete in his explanations then perhaps SPPI wouldn’t have made the mistakes. Regardless of his Nobel prize status, he still is trying to incite some degree of panic by, in some cases such as this, giving incomplete information.

A Google search for ‘Al Gore 35 Errors’ now reveals hundreds of websites and links screaming about Al Gore errors and lies (that is how I came across yours). Yet, I have completely discredited the first two I looked at. You could have done the same but chose not to. When confronted with this, you quibble about 80% vs 90% albedo or whether the Arctic has warmed 1 C or 0.7 C (as opposed to cooling 1 C as claimed by SPPI). You can paint all the lipstick you want on that pig, but on ERRORs 17 and 18 SPPI is WRONG (that is W-R-O-N-G). Maybe you should ask yourself why it is so difficult to admit that.

I am not sure that your referenced graph proves your point though. As with most temperature average graphs, this one shows a local high in the mid 40s which drops for a few decades to a low and then a steady climb to the end of the century where it goes relatively flat for about a decade. If you look at the high and low extremes, you can see that for one year in the 40s and one year at about 2005, the temperature is just a tad cooler. While I am not saying that this is significant, this is a standard “fact trick” that skeptics often use (or a variation of this). Most skeptics talk about the warming from the 40s and not the warming from 1900 or 1970 since there was a multi-decade warming and then cooling in the the late 30s and then into the 60s. Conversely, Gore followers almost exclusively talk of warming from the 60s or 70s and rarely discuss the cooling period in the 50s.

Regardless of this small “trick”, it doesn’t appear that warming was a full 1 degree that you state. I don’t see any link to the raw data behind the graph but the 10 year average in the 40s visually appears to be somewhere just less than .5C. The ten years from 1996-2006 visually appears to be somewhere between 1 and 1.2C (once again, this is a visual approximation - without the raw data I am not sticking to these numbers). That would leave a rise of about .6-.8C.

I go back to the first statement though. SPPI says that it was 1C cooler and I can’t find that reference. I am not saying that they are wrong just that I don’t believe it and considered their statement to be spin. AIT definitely spun their comments in this area as well.

I believe that 80% of the light that hits sea ice is reflected. At least that is what the National Snow and Ice Data Center says when I quoted them in this article http://globalwarming-factorfiction.com/2007/09/07/why-is-arctic-ice-melting-50-years-too-fast/
They also quote the absorption of sea water at 90%, not 95%. Your sources may be more correct and I am not going to argue about the exact percentage since we both appear to agree on the principle.

The first part of my statement is also correct because it is not purely the direct sunlight that is melting the ice rather some scientists are theorizing the water current change underneath the ice is causing much of the melting. While that current change may be the result of global warming, that is a hypothesis I have yet to see adequately discussed. If the ice melt is caused by currents and not atmospheric temperature then the reduction of arctic ice is not caused by man but instead caused by nature.

Perhaps I should have been more clear in my analysis. Mr. Gore gives the “feeling” in his movie that the reduction of ice in the arctic is caused by man-made global warming. He then points out that this will cause the waters to warm more dramatically. There is no question that open sea water absorbs more energy than sea ice and I apologize if you thought I was saying that.

SPPI’s statement is patently ridiculous and any Junior High science student can figure that out. For the record, the annual average solar flux incident at the surface in the Arctic is on the order of 90-100 Watt/m^2, which dwarfs warming from the atmosphere (2 W/m^2) and re-emission in the IR (22 W/m^2). (See ‘Measurements near the Atmospheric Surface Flux Group tower at SHEBA: A near-surface conditions and surface energy budget’, Persson et al., J. Geophys. Res., Vol. 107, pages SHE 21-1 to 21-24, 2002). Because of the high reflectivity of sea ice (particularly snow-covered sea ice) most of the incident solar flux (about 72 W/m^2) is reflected back and does not heat the surface. If the ice is removed then the incident solar flux falls directly on the ocean where 95% will be absorbed. Yes, it will heat the ocean. This is referred to as ice-albedo feedback. This is essentially what Gore said. Here is the quote:

“When the sun’s rays hit the ice, more than 90 percent of it bounces off right back into space like a mirror. But when it hits the open ocean more than 90 percent is absorbed. As the surrounding water gets warmer, it speeds up the melting of the ice. Right now the arctic ice cap acts like a giant mirror. All the sun’s rays bounce off, more than 90 percent, to keep the earth cooler.”

I am afraid your comments add nothing to the issue. It isn’t difficult if you actually know something about the subject before you start discussing it and ‘the climate models’ are NOT involved. It is simple physics and direct measurements. Note, Gore did not say ‘the polar ocean absorbs 90% of the light that hits it’ he said ‘open’ ocean – i.e., seawater with no ice on it. The mean albedo of seawater is 5%, so about 95 % is absorbed (I can furnish references if you think this is false). Gore actually understated it.

Acutally, SPPI said the Arctic cooled 1 C in the last 60 years. Here is the quote:

“Gore does not mention that the Arctic has been cooling over the past 60 years, and is now one degree Celsius cooler than it was in the 1940s”

I refer you to Fig. 5.2 in ‘State of the Climate in 2006’, Special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol 88, No. 6, June 2007, which shows the Arctic has warmed about 1 C in the last 60 years (1946 to 2006). This section of the Supplement was written by Overland et al. and I found it in about 3 minutes with a Google search. See http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/atmosphere.html . Not sure what this has to do with ice bound ships and spin. SPPI is just plain wrong. Apparently they aren’t sufficiently competent to read a simple graph.

This is a great idea. Do you have the ability to do this and I can post it here? If not, I may be able to do something like this.

I don’t know if 10 years is a reality. I would wonder about the life of the many batteries on the Prius and the cost of replacement. Perhaps 5 or 6 years with a lower cost of trade-in is more realistic.

You are right about some of the flaws in the analysis. We would really need to do a present value analysis of the life cycle costs to see which one costs less in terms of present value of all cash flows. The present value analysis would discount future fuel savings of the Prius. That would place slightly less emphasis on the future costs (or savings), but I still think the Prius would the lower up-front costs more.

We should also do a 10 year analysis without resale, because resale is too subjective to consider that kind of cash flow.

A weatherman of 30+ years that has worked for such pre-eminent stations as John at least has the credentials to comment on the science even if he doesn’t have the education or desire to perform the actual analysis or do the research. By this standard, he is expert enough for me to consider what he has to say and I think other readers on this site.

But I don’t know who the experts are.

[sarcasm] Put Jimmy Hansen on trial for falsifying data, embellishing temp. records, massaging climate models, transferring a $700,000 Soros grant into political rhetoric costing corporations billions, and using a Government position to spout unproven malarkey. [/sarcasm]

This part below I stand behind.

But, first…fire his political hack posterior.

Sincerely,
JR, Esquire ;D

But I also agree with your concern in the above comment, Sean, that government employees should not engage in politicking. He should quit NASA or be fired. If he loses his impressive NASA title, he may find he is no longer valuable to Soros either, but that is a price he should be willing to pay to save the world.

I do wonder on the policy of government scientists that use their position to condone political agendas. If Mr. Hansen was speaking as a private citizen, that is fine, but having a government employee actively campaign against an elected representative using his government credentials seems to be wrong.

But, first…fire his political hack posterior.

Since his prediction is for increases, his science has been falsified.

Nick

I love that it was made from video game parts–it’s really the 13 year old boys who get the really cool computers.

It will be used principally to…ensure that the nation’s stockpile of nuclear weapons will continue to work correctly as they age.

I’m more concerned about what Russia’s stockpile might be doing as it ages.

I heard Newt Gingrich in a speech a while back and he felt that this level of oil pricing would push through new innovation to make diversification possible. Of course, if alternate energy sources catch on, the price of oil will drop rapidly to prevent the widespread adoption of a competitor.

This shows in your chart and a year by year breakdown would show it even more dramatically.

At the moment, I dont see any reason why it won’t happen again. Two differences this time are increased demand from growing economies like China and India and production lags created artificially by governments like our own playing to misplaced environmentalist fears, but eventually production and technology will do what they do and gas prices will fall back into line.

As a geologist of more than 30 years practise, I have often been bemused as to how categorically we appear to be able to state the case for a fear of global warming, while at the same time being unable to reliably predict the weather in the next week. my position is concerned but not alarmed, and I wish I had time to become more informed.

I do think there is room for being cautious about the possible effects that the earths burgeoning polulation and rapidly increasing urbainzed societies may have on all types of pollution, including atmospheric carbon. Further, I do NOT think that there is ANY dispute amongst informed scientists that the Earth is currently in a warming cycle. The issue is whether this has a signifant anthropogenic component of cause and, if so, what risk it has for us as a civilization.

The recent article by Robinson et al 2007 puts a strong and scientific case that there is an anthropogenic increase in CO2 emissions, but that this has no measurable effect on any of the variables used to monitor climatic change. I will look with interest to see how this is evaluated by those scientists who support anthropogenic warming.

You can tell what a scam this is because a Google search turns up hundreds of places to BUY credits, but I can’t seem to find anyplace to SELL credits.

The problem I see, is that the industrial revolution began in Great Briton in 1750. They were mining coal well before it is shown being used on this graph - about a hundred years to be exact. That taken into account would support the theory of global warming.

It sets a dangerous precedent to use this type of species protection against a hypothetical threat.

SUPERNOVA!!

http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/94145/detail/

Can’t anybody talk some sense into McCain and Obama about how temperatures rise first, and THEN carbon-dioxide levels rise.
Carbon-dioxide doesn’t cause warming, sun activity does, warming causes CO2 levels to rise.
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
humans’ breath is poison

just one child hurts the world
worse than a jet engine

.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
keep people all worked up

about global warming
despite inconvenient facts

.
The Great Global Warming Scam Movie

USpace

.

Clearly a fair 50-50 bet.

That fell into their “tirade and misrepresentation” bucket.

If they can’t allow straightforward comments and critiques of their ’science’, they’ve clearly lost the argument.

Nick

Just so my readers are clear, all of my comments on that site were respectful of them and allowed that making a gentleman’s bet (small amount of money or some regional item). I even pointed out that recent mayor bet between New York and Boston for the Super Bowl (Clam Chowder) was a good example.

I also posted a response to comment 72 that someone must have posted on another site to get so many people to comment. I admitted in a comment that was never published that I had done that on this site.

Yes, I was critical of the various writers of RealClimate but they evidently would not have that criticism voiced on their pages. I have no idea if their editors blocked other critics.

Since I am concerned that my last comment will also get blocked, I am reproducing it here:
“Re. 168. Gentlemen, I do not think that my comments on your site fall into the “tirade and misrepresentation” bucket. If you think that I am putting up a misrepresentation then publish it and poke holes in my logic. I wasn’t doing a tirade because I was simply responding to other comments that were left. I see no reason for you to hold back my comments. Do you really mean to be so Orwellian? I begin to wonder how many other comments get edited out because they are critical of your logic.”

Nick

Evidently, I am being blacklisted at RealClimate now as my comments in their discussion are not being added to the mix. I don’t know how many others are making comments there (I can tell there are some) but it is frustrating that my comments are being edited out of the stream. Obviously this is a good way to control the conversation.

This bet is indicative of the cheerleading attitude that prevails on that site. However more qualified as scientists they might be than me, I rarely visit the site for enlightenment because they are clearly rooting for a team and not simply trying to make the best sense of confusing facts.