Monday, February 9, 2015


OKAY, KIDS, LET’S TAKE a WHACK or TWO or TEN at THESE HEADLINES

Dramatic scene of a "calving" glacier






Satellite photo showing Great Lakes frozen solid

SO WHICH IS IT –– BIG MELT? –– or DEEP FREEZE?

31 comments:

  1. Altering records, huh?

    Orwell's Ministry of Truth -- for the purposes of promoting a particular agenda, of course.

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  2. There must be crony capitalism involved.

    For one thing, catalytic converters and the like make a simple tune-up on a car damned expensive.

    Second, annual emissions "sniffs" cost money. Here in Virginia, one cannot get a car registered without that sniff, and sniffs are required every two years. More money out of my pocket.

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    1. Catalytic converters are expensive items, but they don't typically need changing (I've never had to change one, for example) so shouldn't contribute to regular servicing costs. The exception to that rule is if you let your car run out of fuel, that can damage the cat.
      How much does a sniff cost? Over here, cars have to pass an annual general checkup. Seems reasonable to me, I don't want to share the road with unmaintained cars.

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    2. Well, you could try living in Peking.

      Delete
    3. Jez,
      When catalytic converters first came out -- and for some time following -- they didn't last long and they drastically cut the gas mileage and the engine's power, the latter to the point that merging onto an interstate was damned dangerous.

      Yes, cats are better now.

      But back then a properly maintained car without cats emitted fewer whatevers than the cars with cats.

      How much does a sniff cost?

      Not sure -- maybe $30. But if the car doesn't pass, adjustments are very expensive unless the car is a certain age. And the standards for passing keep changing.

      Half the time, when I go for emissions inspection, which lasts about 30 minutes, the machines are out of order. More time off from work is then required.

      We have annual safety inspection here in Virginia, but the safety inspection doesn't include a sniff.

      Delete
    4. You can't live in Peking, Canardo. There is no such place. Do you by any chance mean Beijing?

      IF so, why bring it up in the context of this particular discussion? If five or six BILLION people can live in Red China, it can't be all that dangerous a place, can it?

      By the way, have you EVER seen a dish called BEIJING DUCK on the menu in a Chinese restaurant?

      If so, you'd better watch your step. ;-)

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    5. China is an environmental nightmare, and Ducky is introducing the red herring of no environmental laws whatsoever, which no one here has suggested.

      Sensible people understand we need sensible laws and regulations, but when they turn into nothing more than revenue generators with little benefit to the public, sensible people understand that government has stepped over the line. Selling 'loosies' for example.

      Delete
  3. These journalists who don't understand why data is adjusted haven't investigated very far. I found

    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ghcnm/v3.php

    pretty quickly. I also found

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=255

    which might help put the adjustments into perspective.
    "Zeke Hausfather has done comparisons using both the adjusted and raw versions of the GHCN data set, and as shown in fig. 5, the results are not substantially different at the global scale..."

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  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, and all scientists know that the sun revolves around the earth, radio waves travel through the luminiferous ether, and thalidomide is a good anti-nausea treatment for pregnant women... we're an arrogant species and don't know half of what we think we do.

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    2. Sorry, Finntann., but we don't tolerate the irresponsible ravings of boilerplate fanatics, whether they from the Left OR the Right.

      I'll defend to the death the right of anyone to say anything they want -- as long as it's said OUTSIDE the confines of THIS blog. };-)>

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    3. No problem FT, I only responded because I couldn't delete him ;)

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  5. I'm more inclined to think that there is a bigger scandal than the adjusting of the records of the weather to fit the theory—although it does underline the reality that this is not a debate about reality but of a projected false "theory" designed from the start to identify a bigger issue that could be used to point a finger of guilt at everyone that lives on this planet .

    Of course, the designers of this ploy conveniently exclude themselves from the picture as they flit around the globe in their private jets to lecture the great unwashed masses on their sinful behavior of even breathing air and exhaling. Meanwhile an a conveniently designed disposable world consumer items are discarded in mountains of trash so that the profits of the slobbering hypocrites can be "maximized".

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  6. Jez,
    Point is, regardless of what multi-millionaire Reveren Al Gore, International Church of Gaia, tells us, the science is not settled. They keep fiddling and fudging the data to make it fit, and they've been caught at it several times.

    The Earth's climate is horribly complex and it is variegated. One region can be undergoing 'warming' while another is cooling, droughts, La ninas, etc.

    The models scientists have set up can in no way take all factors into account. There are too many variables and the interactions among them are still not clear. This is a situation ripe for abuse.

    The earth has a history of warming and cooling that predates the combustion engine. How did it warm itself back up, say, after the little ice age?

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    1. "One region can be undergoing 'warming' while another is cooling, droughts, La ninas, etc."

      I'm well aware of this, I often have to explain this to climate "skeptics" who think that a cold winter where they happen to live disproves global warming.

      "They keep fiddling and fudging the data to make it fit,"
      so certain people keep noisily claiming, problem is even if the claims are true and these are fudges that they are uncovering, they're not enough to substantially alter the trend (that's the point of my second link before).

      Of course, "the science is settled" is not a philosophically pure statement. It's an approximation, aimed at non-scientist politicians who don't understand science, but who must be persuaded if there is to be any action. What sort of language do you suggest scientists use in their advisory capacity?

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    2. I don't know what language they should use, but imperious alarmist pronouncements don't cut it.

      Show me a cock-sure scientist, and I'll show you an advocate with an agenda.

      Also, anyone who has constructed algorithms and mathematical or logical models understands that to construct them, you must understand the underlying factors and how they interact with one another. There are too many unknowns in climatology, so they make assumptions based upon their unproved theories. You don't think bias enters in?

      The earth has cooled before. I'll repeat my question. How did it warm back up without the aid of the combustion engine?

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    3. Flashback: Meteorologist Anthony Watts on ‘adjusted’ U.S. temperature data: ‘In the business and trading world, people go to jail for such manipulations of data’

      Watts: 'Is history malleable? Can temperature data of the past be molded to fit a purpose? It certainly seems to be the case here, where the temperature for July 1936 reported ... changes with the moment'

      Updated Feb. 8, 2015: ‘BREATHTAKING’ ADJUSTMENTS TO ARCTIC TEMPERATURE RECORD. IS THERE ANY ‘GLOBAL WARMING’ WE CAN TRUST?

      Satellites: Warming pause continues & 2014 not the hottest
      UK Telegraph on new climategate: ‘Fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever’

      ... Lord Robert and Lady Cora Grantham of Downton Abbey

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    4. I don't know, and each warming episode might have different specific causes, but the theory of AGW does not rest on the premise that all warming requires human activity.

      I agree, scientists who advocate a position tend to downplay the language of doubt. But perhaps there's a good reason for this field to generate so many advocates?

      The point of a model is, what is the simplest set of interactions that explains the data? There might be bias in what interactions climatologists choose to model, but there is none in assessing how closely that model matches the real temperature record.
      What types of interaction do you think have been overlooked?

      Delete
    5. Jes,

      What I am saying is that there are myriad variables, many unknown, and many of the knows are not well-understood. Does solar activity affect the earth's temperature? Do the models include that?

      If you bias the model, then you don't have to bias the output.

      Why so many advocates sounding so many alarums? Money. UN and national government are funding much of this and they scientists are singing the tune that will shake more ducats from the money tree.

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    6. Solar activity is an area of active research. There are challenges, such as inferring what the sun was up to in prehistory (or even before about 1980). But no, climatologists aren't ignoring the sun. Did you imagine they were? Let me reassured that they aren't all idiots.

      "If you bias the model, then you don't have to bias the output."
      What do you mean? I'm not sure, but what you're calling "bias" could just be the process of optimizing the model's parameters with a training data set, which is not nefarious.

      You can make more money more easily shilling for oil companies than from research councils.

      Here's the bbc interview the Mail selectively quoted to produce your article.

      Delete
  7. It is hard to know who might be cooking the data.

    Putting that to the side, one day the fossil fuels will dry up.

    Lets get smart instead or lobbing firebals.

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  8. Here, let me throw a wrench into the whole argument. Even if the models are correct in regards to CO2 and temperature, no one has demonstrated that the net effect will be a negative one. The earth was not an inhospitable place during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the Medieval Warm Period was also more hospitable to civilization than the earth today. Climate is not nor has it ever been static and don't forget we are an interglacial period, the earth will eventually start cooling and the effects of that will be far worse than global warming...period.

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    1. Glaciers move glacially Finn.

      The fear many scientists have, and it's pretty reasonable, is that whatever the upsides (no one fears upsides) there will be some downsides, and these downsides probably can't be compared to prior periods because they did not occur for the same reasons. I would think it's safer to err on cleaner air, but apparently that simple tenet is ignored by some political ideologues who attach this issue to the rest of their package of official things to be against. I don't know why they ignore it, as most of them stand only to lose, but there ya' go.

      JMJ

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    2. Hey, I'm all for clean air, solar power, wind power, composting, etc. I'm simply pointing out that we don't know what we don't know.

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    3. It's not so much where we end up, climatically, it's how we get there. Evolving creatures can exploit changing conditions, given enough generations to adapt. That's why whatever killed off the large dinosaurs, which took years to grow the next generation, spared the small rodents, which bred more quickly.

      The reason I worry about AGW is the possibility that a rapid change will bring about mass extinctions. There seems to be an unusually large number of extinctions happening already.

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  9. My official position... Glad the sands of time allotted me will run out before the environmental apocalypse occurs.

    Naturally a small possibility exists that science could be wrong.

    Maybe we should take the odds they are likely right.

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    1. Not worth bothering about, because there is NOTHING "we" can do about it, even if it is true, anymore than we can "prevent" hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

      Man is incredibly arrogant to think he has the capacity to function in a god-like capacity.

      Que sera sera.
      Whatever will be will be,
      The future's not ours to see.
      Que sera sera.

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  10. If all the hullaballoo about this supposedly MANMADE "CRISIS" is NOT primarily a politically-motivated power play, then how come nearly everyone who supports the assertion is a LEFTIST, and those who are highly skeptical about it are CONSERVATIVES?

    Naturally, the Crony-Capitalists are going to take full advantage of ANY situation -- natural OR manmade in ways bound to line their already overstuffed pockets with ever greater amounts of filthy lucre.

    As always this is about MONEY not CLIMATE

    "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other."

    ~ Voltaire (1694-1778)

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