I do not have the time nor desire to explicate this fully, creating a 'trap' that leads you to one inexplicable conclusion. I will make a few statements and if need be, the support can be found on the internet -
- the far left would like to see man eliminated or at the very least, our population reduced. They see humans as the threat.
This far left mentality slowly morphs as it heads toward the center, but is still believed in part by the left - man is the problem. If man were to disappear the world and all within (animals) would be happy and safer.
That if we would but end driving and end industry and end the use of petroleum and end ... the gases would be reduced and we would save the world.
That is a pretty common view held by the left.
Sad though - to be so idealistic and moronic at the same time.
If every human being, every car, every truck, every factory, every product man has produced - if everything were to get sucked up off planet earth tonight, global warming would be well on the way to climate change in a year or ten or twenty or fifty or ... well, we make no impact actually in whatever change is occurring. We are insignificant - to the universe and our earth. We are specks of dust, meaningless, and pretty darn useless. Not at all a serious threat to anything.
A total of 580 gigatonnes of carbon is emitted into the atmosphere each year. A lot by any measure. Humanity, and everything man has created - pumps in 30. The other 550 gigatonnes are pumped out by the earth.
Climate change will occur whether or not we do anything, and if we do ... it won't matter.
Feel real important now, really special.
All that pollution and greenhouse gas, emissions, toxins ...
New Scientist, 1/23/09
Issue 2692
Pages 30-31
The biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly; we put in only 30 gigatonnes. Ninety-nine per cent of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by consumers like bacteria, nematodes and worms.
James Lovelock
biosphere
Showing posts with label ice age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ice age. Show all posts
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Back to the Future with The Independent: Snow is Gone from England
Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past
By Charles Onians
Monday, 20 March 2000
The Independent
Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.
Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.
Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters - which scientists are attributing to global climate change - produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries.
The first two months of 2000 were virtually free of significant snowfall in much of lowland Britain, and December brought only moderate snowfall in the South-east. It is the continuation of a trend that has been increasingly visible in the past 15 years: in the south of England, for instance, from 1970 to 1995 snow and sleet fell for an average of 3.7 days, while from 1988 to 1995 the average was 0.7 days. London's last substantial snowfall was in February 1991.
Global warming, the heating of the atmosphere by increased amounts of industrial gases, is now accepted as a reality by the international community. Average temperatures in Britain were nearly 0.6°C higher in the Nineties than in 1960-90, and it is estimated that they will increase by 0.2C every decade over the coming century. Eight of the 10 hottest years on record occurred in the Nineties.
However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event".
"Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.
The effects of snow-free winter in Britain are already becoming apparent. This year, for the first time ever, Hamleys, Britain's biggest toyshop, had no sledges on display in its Regent Street store. "It was a bit of a first," a spokesperson said.
Fen skating, once a popular sport on the fields of East Anglia, now takes place on indoor artificial rinks. Malcolm Robinson, of the Fenland Indoor Speed Skating Club in Peterborough, says they have not skated outside since 1997. "As a boy, I can remember being on ice most winters. Now it's few and far between," he said.
Michael Jeacock, a Cambridgeshire local historian, added that a generation was growing up "without experiencing one of the greatest joys and privileges of living in this part of the world - open-air skating".
Warmer winters have significant environmental and economic implications, and a wide range of research indicates that pests and plant diseases, usually killed back by sharp frosts, are likely to flourish. But very little research has been done on the cultural implications of climate change - into the possibility, for example, that our notion of Christmas might have to shift.
Professor Jarich Oosten, an anthropologist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, says that even if we no longer see snow, it will remain culturally important.
"We don't really have wolves in Europe any more, but they are still an important part of our culture and everyone knows what they look like," he said.
David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow. Via the internet, they might wonder at polar scenes - or eventually "feel" virtual cold.
Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. "We're really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time," he said.
The chances are certainly now stacked against the sortof heavy snowfall in cities that inspired Impressionist painters, such as Sisley, and the 19th century poet laureate Robert Bridges, who wrote in "London Snow" of it, "stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying".
Not any more, it seems.
snow fall
By Charles Onians
Monday, 20 March 2000
The Independent
Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.
Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.
Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters - which scientists are attributing to global climate change - produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries.
The first two months of 2000 were virtually free of significant snowfall in much of lowland Britain, and December brought only moderate snowfall in the South-east. It is the continuation of a trend that has been increasingly visible in the past 15 years: in the south of England, for instance, from 1970 to 1995 snow and sleet fell for an average of 3.7 days, while from 1988 to 1995 the average was 0.7 days. London's last substantial snowfall was in February 1991.
Global warming, the heating of the atmosphere by increased amounts of industrial gases, is now accepted as a reality by the international community. Average temperatures in Britain were nearly 0.6°C higher in the Nineties than in 1960-90, and it is estimated that they will increase by 0.2C every decade over the coming century. Eight of the 10 hottest years on record occurred in the Nineties.
However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event".
"Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.
The effects of snow-free winter in Britain are already becoming apparent. This year, for the first time ever, Hamleys, Britain's biggest toyshop, had no sledges on display in its Regent Street store. "It was a bit of a first," a spokesperson said.
Fen skating, once a popular sport on the fields of East Anglia, now takes place on indoor artificial rinks. Malcolm Robinson, of the Fenland Indoor Speed Skating Club in Peterborough, says they have not skated outside since 1997. "As a boy, I can remember being on ice most winters. Now it's few and far between," he said.
Michael Jeacock, a Cambridgeshire local historian, added that a generation was growing up "without experiencing one of the greatest joys and privileges of living in this part of the world - open-air skating".
Warmer winters have significant environmental and economic implications, and a wide range of research indicates that pests and plant diseases, usually killed back by sharp frosts, are likely to flourish. But very little research has been done on the cultural implications of climate change - into the possibility, for example, that our notion of Christmas might have to shift.
Professor Jarich Oosten, an anthropologist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, says that even if we no longer see snow, it will remain culturally important.
"We don't really have wolves in Europe any more, but they are still an important part of our culture and everyone knows what they look like," he said.
David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow. Via the internet, they might wonder at polar scenes - or eventually "feel" virtual cold.
Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. "We're really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time," he said.
The chances are certainly now stacked against the sortof heavy snowfall in cities that inspired Impressionist painters, such as Sisley, and the 19th century poet laureate Robert Bridges, who wrote in "London Snow" of it, "stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying".
Not any more, it seems.
snow fall
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Polish Scientists: Consensus is ... Ice Age. Coldest Winter in 1000 years.
Coldest winter in 1,000 years on its way
04 October, 2010, 22:20
After the record heat wave this summer, Russia's weather seems to have acquired a taste for the extreme.
Forecasters say this winter could be the coldest Europe has seen in the last 1,000 years.
The change is reportedly connected with the speed of the Gulf Stream, which has shrunk in half in just the last couple of years. Polish scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic winds. According to them, when the stream is completely stopped, a new Ice Age will begin in Europe.
So far, the results have been lower temperatures: for example, in Central Russia, they are a couple of degrees below the norm.
“Although the forecast for the next month is only 70 percent accurate, I find the cold winter scenario quite likely,” Vadim Zavodchenkov, a leading specialist at the Fobos weather center, told RT. “We will be able to judge with more certainty come November. As for last summer's heat, the statistical models that meteorologists use to draw up long-term forecasts aren't able to predict an anomaly like that.”
In order to meet the harsh winter head on, Moscow authorities are drawing up measures to help Muscovites survive the extreme cold.
Most of all, the government is concerned with homeless people who risk freezing to death if the forecast of the meteorologists come true. Social services and police are being ordered to take the situation under control even if they have to force the homeless to take help.
Moscow authorities have also started checking air conditioning systems in all socially important buildings. All the conditioners are being carefully cleaned from the remains of summer smog.
global warming
04 October, 2010, 22:20
After the record heat wave this summer, Russia's weather seems to have acquired a taste for the extreme.
Forecasters say this winter could be the coldest Europe has seen in the last 1,000 years.
The change is reportedly connected with the speed of the Gulf Stream, which has shrunk in half in just the last couple of years. Polish scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic winds. According to them, when the stream is completely stopped, a new Ice Age will begin in Europe.
So far, the results have been lower temperatures: for example, in Central Russia, they are a couple of degrees below the norm.
“Although the forecast for the next month is only 70 percent accurate, I find the cold winter scenario quite likely,” Vadim Zavodchenkov, a leading specialist at the Fobos weather center, told RT. “We will be able to judge with more certainty come November. As for last summer's heat, the statistical models that meteorologists use to draw up long-term forecasts aren't able to predict an anomaly like that.”
In order to meet the harsh winter head on, Moscow authorities are drawing up measures to help Muscovites survive the extreme cold.
Most of all, the government is concerned with homeless people who risk freezing to death if the forecast of the meteorologists come true. Social services and police are being ordered to take the situation under control even if they have to force the homeless to take help.
Moscow authorities have also started checking air conditioning systems in all socially important buildings. All the conditioners are being carefully cleaned from the remains of summer smog.
global warming
Sunday, June 6, 2010
The Sun is Awakening
"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."
- NASA
Interesting. Have to also consider other earth events which may be related, or have however distant a connection, to the awakening.
sun
- NASA
Interesting. Have to also consider other earth events which may be related, or have however distant a connection, to the awakening.
sun
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Global Cooling
Global Cooling - from a volcano. The answer - pollute more, warm us up.
In June 1991, the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines rocked the Pacific region and led to a global drop in temperature.
"That volcano produced enough ash and aerosols that were injected into the atmosphere that cooled the globe for up to, I think, 2 degrees centigrade for several years," said Peter La Femina, Assistant Professor of Geoscience at the Pennsylvania State University.
[...]
Meanwhile, Katla has the whole range of magmatic compositions from basalt to rhyolite, which are richer in silica.
"So it has the ability to be much, much more explosive," he said.
However, the effect of these gases in the years following their release into the atmosphere are much more complex than just straight cooling.
"Not only did we have global cooling, but there was actually some warming during the Northern Hemisphere winters," said La Femina.
volcano
In June 1991, the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines rocked the Pacific region and led to a global drop in temperature.
"That volcano produced enough ash and aerosols that were injected into the atmosphere that cooled the globe for up to, I think, 2 degrees centigrade for several years," said Peter La Femina, Assistant Professor of Geoscience at the Pennsylvania State University.
[...]
Meanwhile, Katla has the whole range of magmatic compositions from basalt to rhyolite, which are richer in silica.
"So it has the ability to be much, much more explosive," he said.
However, the effect of these gases in the years following their release into the atmosphere are much more complex than just straight cooling.
"Not only did we have global cooling, but there was actually some warming during the Northern Hemisphere winters," said La Femina.
volcano
How Ominous is Ominous
The end of the world as we know it, or simply silly writers ...
It doesn't really matter does it - whether it is one or two volcanos that will erupt and do what decades and centuries of man made pollution didn't do - inextricably alter our environment and end (if this is to be believed) life as we know it and change how we look at life and the future.
All that pollution we are emitting - global warming - may be necessary to prevent another deep ice age.
Funny.
Scientists Issue Ominous Warning About Second Iceland Volcano ‘Katla!’
May 28th, 2010 - 12:15 am
ICT by Angela Kaye Mason -
May 27 (THAINDIAN NEWS) According to scientists, a second volcano in Iceland, known as ‘Katla’ is close to failure, and this could cause world wide catastrophe similar to that in the movie, “The Day After Tomorrow”. As Eyjafjallajokull began erupting, scientists were already warning that this event could trigger an eruption of nearby Katla, which would have repercussions of epic proportions. In the first warning issued came the frightening thought, “If lava flowing from Eyjafjallajokull melts the glaciers that hold down the top of nearby Volcano, Katla, then Katla could also erupt. That potential occurrence could send the entire world, even the United States, into a deep freeze.” Similar warnings were posted in Science Fair and USA today.
And now that very volcano is showing signs that it could be getting ready for an eruption of it’s own. A paper which was released from the University College of London Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction stated, “Analysis of the seismic energy released around Katla over the last decade or so is interpreted as providing evidence of a rising … intrusive magma body on the western flank of the volcano. Earlier seismic energy release at Katla is associated with the inflation of the volcano, which indicates it is close to failure, although this does not appear to be linked to seismicity around Eyjafjallajökull, We conclude that given the high frequency of Katla activity, an eruption in the short term is a strong possibility. It is likely to be preceded by new earthquake activity. Presently there is no unusual seismicity under Katla.”
The president of Iceland, Ólafur Grímsson has issued the following statement: “We [Iceland] have prepared … it is high time for European governments and airline authorities all over Europe and the world to start planning for the eventual Katla eruption.”
volcano
It doesn't really matter does it - whether it is one or two volcanos that will erupt and do what decades and centuries of man made pollution didn't do - inextricably alter our environment and end (if this is to be believed) life as we know it and change how we look at life and the future.
All that pollution we are emitting - global warming - may be necessary to prevent another deep ice age.
Funny.
Scientists Issue Ominous Warning About Second Iceland Volcano ‘Katla!’
May 28th, 2010 - 12:15 am
ICT by Angela Kaye Mason -
May 27 (THAINDIAN NEWS) According to scientists, a second volcano in Iceland, known as ‘Katla’ is close to failure, and this could cause world wide catastrophe similar to that in the movie, “The Day After Tomorrow”. As Eyjafjallajokull began erupting, scientists were already warning that this event could trigger an eruption of nearby Katla, which would have repercussions of epic proportions. In the first warning issued came the frightening thought, “If lava flowing from Eyjafjallajokull melts the glaciers that hold down the top of nearby Volcano, Katla, then Katla could also erupt. That potential occurrence could send the entire world, even the United States, into a deep freeze.” Similar warnings were posted in Science Fair and USA today.
And now that very volcano is showing signs that it could be getting ready for an eruption of it’s own. A paper which was released from the University College of London Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction stated, “Analysis of the seismic energy released around Katla over the last decade or so is interpreted as providing evidence of a rising … intrusive magma body on the western flank of the volcano. Earlier seismic energy release at Katla is associated with the inflation of the volcano, which indicates it is close to failure, although this does not appear to be linked to seismicity around Eyjafjallajökull, We conclude that given the high frequency of Katla activity, an eruption in the short term is a strong possibility. It is likely to be preceded by new earthquake activity. Presently there is no unusual seismicity under Katla.”
The president of Iceland, Ólafur Grímsson has issued the following statement: “We [Iceland] have prepared … it is high time for European governments and airline authorities all over Europe and the world to start planning for the eventual Katla eruption.”
volcano
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Iceland and the Fallout for Global Warming Prophets
All that ash and smoke, from the volcano no one but Icelandic people can pronounce, more CO2 than mankind has ever produced since the Industrial Age. Not just CO2 - according to San Diego State University, when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it shoved so much Sulfur Dioxide into the atmosphere that the Earth's temperature dropped an average two degrees for two years. And MAN had nothing to do with it, unless we caused the eruption.
All that cap and trade won't help much. I suppose you can force nature to abide by your inspidily idiotic ideas. If you can, by all means, confront nature about the aging process. Stop it, not just slow it down, reverse it.
Otherwise, select your arguments wisely. If mankind had not emitted any of that stuff into the atmosphere - that one volcano would have brought us even with current measures. So you may respond - well, even more reason to hurry up and stop emitting - nature is already doing it and we need to cut down. Silly. Another volcano will be erupting within the next year emitting at least the same amount into the atmosphere. Mankind in our entire history on earth will never have contributed so much. And that ignores the volcanos several years from now.
We will be lucky if a lot does not change - lower temperatures, less sun for those sun-starved people ...
Now we start to see the response - study after study after EPA argue the contrary about CO2 emissions. And so we will have to gather up all the studies from all the universities (5 so far) who argue it did emit tremendous amounts, more than man has produced since industry began, and line them up against each other and decide. Oh wait, we already did that with global warming and Al Gore won a prize.
weather
All that cap and trade won't help much. I suppose you can force nature to abide by your inspidily idiotic ideas. If you can, by all means, confront nature about the aging process. Stop it, not just slow it down, reverse it.
Otherwise, select your arguments wisely. If mankind had not emitted any of that stuff into the atmosphere - that one volcano would have brought us even with current measures. So you may respond - well, even more reason to hurry up and stop emitting - nature is already doing it and we need to cut down. Silly. Another volcano will be erupting within the next year emitting at least the same amount into the atmosphere. Mankind in our entire history on earth will never have contributed so much. And that ignores the volcanos several years from now.
We will be lucky if a lot does not change - lower temperatures, less sun for those sun-starved people ...
Now we start to see the response - study after study after EPA argue the contrary about CO2 emissions. And so we will have to gather up all the studies from all the universities (5 so far) who argue it did emit tremendous amounts, more than man has produced since industry began, and line them up against each other and decide. Oh wait, we already did that with global warming and Al Gore won a prize.
weather
An Ice Age is Coming and the Volcanoes Will Help Cause it.
Something to look forward to.
Rare Yellowstone volcano eruption would be deadly
(AFP)
April 17, 2010
WASHINGTON — As ash from an Iceland volcano snarled air travel across Europe, experts said an eruption of the 'supervolcano' at the Yellowstone national park would be deadly, though it is unlikely any time soon.
"The next major eruption for Yellowstone, if you have a guess, is probably thousands of years in the future," Bill Burton, a vulcanologist with the US Geological Survey, told AFP.
The volcano, dubbed a 'supervolcano' because of its enormous strength, has not erupted for hundreds of thousands of years.
It last erupted some 640,000 years ago, and the two prior eruptions were 1.3 million and 2.1 million years ago.
That track record -- a major event approximately each 730,000 years -- suggests the volcano won't erupt again for another 90,000 years, though Burton noted that there is no real certainty when it comes to volcanic activity.
"You cannot be totally complacent and assume nothing is going to happen," he said.
For vulcanologists, the key is continued study of the history of individual sites. "The more we know about their past behavior makes you a little more confident about what's going to happen next," Burton said.
Some volcanos erupt regularly, every ten years, usually providing signs of instability in the run up to an eruption. Others lie dormant for extremely long periods.
Experts will examine a volcano's history of eruptions, but also use surveillance techniques and technology including GPS to detect whether the volcano is "swelling" because of pressure created by magma.
"If the seismicity and the GPS start showing signs of magma moving then its time to think about gas coming out," Burton said. "So we keep track of all of those things and the more data... you have, the better."
An eruption at Yellowstone, though unlikely in the near future, would have devastating consequences, Burton said.
"The impact would be severe," and would likely send large quantities of volcanic material into the atmosphere.
Yellowstone's last eruption, some 640,000 years ago, sent an estimated 1,000 cubic kilometers of ash and volcanic rock over the American west and parts of the Midwest, spreading as far south as Mexico.
The eruption was some 3,000 times stronger than that at Mount Vesuvius in the year 79, and around 1,000 times stronger than the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens in the US northwest.
A similarly violent eruption at Yellowstone could decimate the population, producing "crop failure (and) water contaminations," Burton said.
The biggest volcanic eruption in the last two centuries, the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, sent 160 cubic kilometers of volcanic debris into the atmosphere and caused an overall drop in global temperatures for the year -- a "year without a summer," Burton said.
The disaster also killed at least 71,000 people.
The eruption of the Toba volcano in Sumatra some 73,000 years ago, an event 1,000 times more powerful than the 1980 Mount St Helens eruption, may even have wiped out most of the human race, according to a theory based on fossil evidence.
volcano
Rare Yellowstone volcano eruption would be deadly
(AFP)
April 17, 2010
WASHINGTON — As ash from an Iceland volcano snarled air travel across Europe, experts said an eruption of the 'supervolcano' at the Yellowstone national park would be deadly, though it is unlikely any time soon.
"The next major eruption for Yellowstone, if you have a guess, is probably thousands of years in the future," Bill Burton, a vulcanologist with the US Geological Survey, told AFP.
The volcano, dubbed a 'supervolcano' because of its enormous strength, has not erupted for hundreds of thousands of years.
It last erupted some 640,000 years ago, and the two prior eruptions were 1.3 million and 2.1 million years ago.
That track record -- a major event approximately each 730,000 years -- suggests the volcano won't erupt again for another 90,000 years, though Burton noted that there is no real certainty when it comes to volcanic activity.
"You cannot be totally complacent and assume nothing is going to happen," he said.
For vulcanologists, the key is continued study of the history of individual sites. "The more we know about their past behavior makes you a little more confident about what's going to happen next," Burton said.
Some volcanos erupt regularly, every ten years, usually providing signs of instability in the run up to an eruption. Others lie dormant for extremely long periods.
Experts will examine a volcano's history of eruptions, but also use surveillance techniques and technology including GPS to detect whether the volcano is "swelling" because of pressure created by magma.
"If the seismicity and the GPS start showing signs of magma moving then its time to think about gas coming out," Burton said. "So we keep track of all of those things and the more data... you have, the better."
An eruption at Yellowstone, though unlikely in the near future, would have devastating consequences, Burton said.
"The impact would be severe," and would likely send large quantities of volcanic material into the atmosphere.
Yellowstone's last eruption, some 640,000 years ago, sent an estimated 1,000 cubic kilometers of ash and volcanic rock over the American west and parts of the Midwest, spreading as far south as Mexico.
The eruption was some 3,000 times stronger than that at Mount Vesuvius in the year 79, and around 1,000 times stronger than the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens in the US northwest.
A similarly violent eruption at Yellowstone could decimate the population, producing "crop failure (and) water contaminations," Burton said.
The biggest volcanic eruption in the last two centuries, the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, sent 160 cubic kilometers of volcanic debris into the atmosphere and caused an overall drop in global temperatures for the year -- a "year without a summer," Burton said.
The disaster also killed at least 71,000 people.
The eruption of the Toba volcano in Sumatra some 73,000 years ago, an event 1,000 times more powerful than the 1980 Mount St Helens eruption, may even have wiped out most of the human race, according to a theory based on fossil evidence.
volcano
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Global Warming? Scientists now sure why it is getting colder.
ANALYSIS-Scientists examine causes for lull in warming
25 Feb 2010
By Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle
LONDON/OSLO, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Climate scientists must do more to work out how exceptionally cold winters or a dip in world temperatures fit their theories of global warming, if they are to persuade an increasingly sceptical public.
At stake is public belief that greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet, and political momentum to act as governments struggle to agree a climate treaty which could direct trillions of dollars into renewable energy, away from fossil fuels.
Public conviction of global warming's risks may have been undermined by an error in a U.N. panel report exaggerating the pace of melt of Himalayan glaciers and by the disclosure of hacked emails revealing scientists sniping at sceptics, who leapt on these as evidence of data fixing.
Scientists said they must explain better how a freezing winter this year in parts of the northern hemisphere and a break in a rising trend in global temperatures since 1998 can happen when heat-trapping gases are pouring into the atmosphere.
"There is a lack of consensus," said Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, on why global temperatures have not matched a peak set in 1998, or in 2005 according to one U.S. analysis. For a table of world temperatures: [ID:nLDE6050Y5]
Part of the explanation could be a failure to account for rapid warming in parts of the Arctic, where sea ice had melted, and where there were fewer monitoring stations, he said.
"I think we need better analysis of what's going on on a routine basis so that everyone, politicians and the general public, are informed about our current understanding of what is happening, more statements in a much quicker fashion instead of waiting for another six years for the next IPCC report."
The latest, fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was published in 2007 and the next is due in 2014.
The proportion of British adults who had no doubt climate change was happening had dropped in January to 31 percent from 44 percent in January 2009, an Ipsos MORI poll showed this week.
HOTTEST DECADE ON RECORD
The decade 2000-2009 was the hottest since 1850 as a result of warming through the 1980s and 1990s which has since peaked, says the World Meteorological Organisation.
British Hadley Centre scientists said last year that there was no warming from 1999-2008, after allowing for extreme, natural weather patterns. Temperatures should have risen by a widely estimated 0.2 degrees Centigrade, given a build up of manmade greenhouse gases.
"Solar might be one part of it," said the Hadley's Jeff Knight, adding that changes in the way data was gathered could be a factor, as well as shifts in the heat stored by oceans.
The sun goes through phases in activity, and since 2001 has been in a downturn meaning it may have heated the earth a little less, scientists say.
"We've not put our finger precisely on what has changed," Knight said. "(But) If you add all these things together ... there's nothing really there to challenge the idea that there's going to be large warming in the 21st century."
Melting Arctic ice was evidence for continuing change, regardless of observed temperatures, said Stein Sandven, head of the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Norway.
"The long-term change for the Arctic sea ice has been very consistent. It shows a decline over these (past) three decades especially in the summer. In the past 3-4 years Arctic sea ice has been below the average for the last 30 years."
Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, told Reuters that the IPCC stood by its 2007 findings that it is more than 90 percent certain that human activities are the main cause of global warming in the past 50 years.
"I think the findings are overall very robust. We've made one stupid error on the Himalayan glaciers. I think that there is otherwise so much solid science." The IPCC wrongly predicted that Himalayan glaciers could vanish by 2035.
NATURAL CAUSES?
One long-running doubter of the threat of climate change, Richard Lindzen, meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said a lull in warming was unsurprising, given an earlier "obsessing about tenths of a degree" in the 1980s and early 1990s.
The world warmed 0.7-0.8 degrees Celsius over the last century. Lindzen expected analysis to show in a few years' time that recent warming had natural causes. "It just fluctuates. I think the best explanation is the ocean. The timescale for ocean circulations can be decades."
He dismissed recent ice melt over a short, 30-year record.
Pachauri said that scientists had to unpick manmade global warming from natural influences -- such as the sun and cyclical weather patterns -- also dubbed "natural variability".
"Natural variability is not magic, there is movement of energy around the climate system and we should be able to track it," said Trenberth.
Trenberth attributed the cold winter to an extraordinary weather pattern not seen since 1977 which had curbed prevailing westerly winds across the northern hemisphere, and said that the underlying cause was "one we don't have answers to."
ice age
25 Feb 2010
By Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle
LONDON/OSLO, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Climate scientists must do more to work out how exceptionally cold winters or a dip in world temperatures fit their theories of global warming, if they are to persuade an increasingly sceptical public.
At stake is public belief that greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet, and political momentum to act as governments struggle to agree a climate treaty which could direct trillions of dollars into renewable energy, away from fossil fuels.
Public conviction of global warming's risks may have been undermined by an error in a U.N. panel report exaggerating the pace of melt of Himalayan glaciers and by the disclosure of hacked emails revealing scientists sniping at sceptics, who leapt on these as evidence of data fixing.
Scientists said they must explain better how a freezing winter this year in parts of the northern hemisphere and a break in a rising trend in global temperatures since 1998 can happen when heat-trapping gases are pouring into the atmosphere.
"There is a lack of consensus," said Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, on why global temperatures have not matched a peak set in 1998, or in 2005 according to one U.S. analysis. For a table of world temperatures: [ID:nLDE6050Y5]
Part of the explanation could be a failure to account for rapid warming in parts of the Arctic, where sea ice had melted, and where there were fewer monitoring stations, he said.
"I think we need better analysis of what's going on on a routine basis so that everyone, politicians and the general public, are informed about our current understanding of what is happening, more statements in a much quicker fashion instead of waiting for another six years for the next IPCC report."
The latest, fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was published in 2007 and the next is due in 2014.
The proportion of British adults who had no doubt climate change was happening had dropped in January to 31 percent from 44 percent in January 2009, an Ipsos MORI poll showed this week.
HOTTEST DECADE ON RECORD
The decade 2000-2009 was the hottest since 1850 as a result of warming through the 1980s and 1990s which has since peaked, says the World Meteorological Organisation.
British Hadley Centre scientists said last year that there was no warming from 1999-2008, after allowing for extreme, natural weather patterns. Temperatures should have risen by a widely estimated 0.2 degrees Centigrade, given a build up of manmade greenhouse gases.
"Solar might be one part of it," said the Hadley's Jeff Knight, adding that changes in the way data was gathered could be a factor, as well as shifts in the heat stored by oceans.
The sun goes through phases in activity, and since 2001 has been in a downturn meaning it may have heated the earth a little less, scientists say.
"We've not put our finger precisely on what has changed," Knight said. "(But) If you add all these things together ... there's nothing really there to challenge the idea that there's going to be large warming in the 21st century."
Melting Arctic ice was evidence for continuing change, regardless of observed temperatures, said Stein Sandven, head of the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Norway.
"The long-term change for the Arctic sea ice has been very consistent. It shows a decline over these (past) three decades especially in the summer. In the past 3-4 years Arctic sea ice has been below the average for the last 30 years."
Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, told Reuters that the IPCC stood by its 2007 findings that it is more than 90 percent certain that human activities are the main cause of global warming in the past 50 years.
"I think the findings are overall very robust. We've made one stupid error on the Himalayan glaciers. I think that there is otherwise so much solid science." The IPCC wrongly predicted that Himalayan glaciers could vanish by 2035.
NATURAL CAUSES?
One long-running doubter of the threat of climate change, Richard Lindzen, meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said a lull in warming was unsurprising, given an earlier "obsessing about tenths of a degree" in the 1980s and early 1990s.
The world warmed 0.7-0.8 degrees Celsius over the last century. Lindzen expected analysis to show in a few years' time that recent warming had natural causes. "It just fluctuates. I think the best explanation is the ocean. The timescale for ocean circulations can be decades."
He dismissed recent ice melt over a short, 30-year record.
Pachauri said that scientists had to unpick manmade global warming from natural influences -- such as the sun and cyclical weather patterns -- also dubbed "natural variability".
"Natural variability is not magic, there is movement of energy around the climate system and we should be able to track it," said Trenberth.
Trenberth attributed the cold winter to an extraordinary weather pattern not seen since 1977 which had curbed prevailing westerly winds across the northern hemisphere, and said that the underlying cause was "one we don't have answers to."
ice age
Friday, February 12, 2010
Snow = Warming
weather
The argument goes as thus ... some places will have more cold weather while other areas are warmer, some will be wetter while others are dryer, yet all weather issues are the result of global warming.
California received great rains, Vancouver received no snow, Washington D.C. had mammoth snowfalls, while Brazil roasted.
So - let's look around:
Australia - wetter than usual with average temperatures.
California - cooler than average, with greater rainfall than in the last five or six years, but less than other years. Meanwhile in the mountains, more snow than usual. In local mountains, they have had up to 3 feet of snow, whereas in an average year it would be 1-2 feet.
China - COLD and SNOW. Usual.
Afghanistan - cold. Loss of livestock due to freezing on par with 2000-2005.
Canada - Eatsern Canada cold and snow while Western Canada, cooler with less snow.
Northern Canada - colder than in the last decade and more snow.
Russia - freezing and lots of snow.
Britain - snow, snow, and cold.
Germany - average with slightly more snow.
Congo - below average temperatures, by approximately .2 inches above rainfall average.
South Africa - little variation in temperature, more rainfall.
Morrocco (Tangier) - Higher than usual rainfall, temperatures slightly lower than average.
The US - South: Snow. North: Snow. West: Snow. East: Lots of Snow.
Columbia: Slightly above average rainfall levels, temperatures within average for last decade.
Global Warming adhearants will say everything above proves global warming. Sort of like saying - eveyrthing proves God's existence. Why did bad stuff happen - God. Why did good stuff happen - God. Why did nothing happen - God. Why can't we see Him - He doesn't want it. Why did we see Him - He wanted it. The religion of the left refuses to acknowledge the fallacies of its belief system. Unfortunately, global warming does not equal God, and consequently, the belief system will be washed away on the tides of history.
If global warming melts the glaciers that raise sea levels that provides greater moisture - thus the rainfall in Southern California and around the world along with the mammoth snowfalls innundating almost every corner of the US, China, Britain, Afghanistan, Russia ... then global warming explains all, like God. Except it doesn't.
Warming could be responsible for rain, but warming is not responsible for SNOW. SNOW requires cold and cold is not warm no matter how many mittens you put on. SNOW is ice and ice is cold and cold is not global warming. Cold is ICE AGE and the rainfall is all within norms.
Yet the adherants of GW will continue down their path, propounding their faith as they go, door to door, city to city, state to state, country to country, seeking more adherants for their cult.
However, before the apostles of GW bang down my door and hang me for hereasy, I admit that there has been a warming of the earth, and a cooling, a melting, and a freezing. Summer ice is thinner, winter ice however is THICKER and there is MORE of it than there was 20 years ago.
Furthermore, an interesting image below -
What I find interesting about this map, which coincidentally correlates to the NOAA findings and several map texts available for geography courses in college is the ancient coast line. The gulf area shows it best. Florida was at least twice as wide as it is today, at some point in the past (10,000 ya or so). In fact, the gulf was more likely a lake at some point in the ancient past. And so the question of why these areas are now all under water brings us to the snow of the day.
The ice melted - remember the land bridge, Beringia, and the trek from Siberia to Alaska - under water. Why? Water levels rose. Why? Ice melted. Why?
global warmingglobal warming
The argument goes as thus ... some places will have more cold weather while other areas are warmer, some will be wetter while others are dryer, yet all weather issues are the result of global warming.
California received great rains, Vancouver received no snow, Washington D.C. had mammoth snowfalls, while Brazil roasted.
So - let's look around:
Australia - wetter than usual with average temperatures.
California - cooler than average, with greater rainfall than in the last five or six years, but less than other years. Meanwhile in the mountains, more snow than usual. In local mountains, they have had up to 3 feet of snow, whereas in an average year it would be 1-2 feet.
China - COLD and SNOW. Usual.
Afghanistan - cold. Loss of livestock due to freezing on par with 2000-2005.
Canada - Eatsern Canada cold and snow while Western Canada, cooler with less snow.
Northern Canada - colder than in the last decade and more snow.
Russia - freezing and lots of snow.
Britain - snow, snow, and cold.
Germany - average with slightly more snow.
Congo - below average temperatures, by approximately .2 inches above rainfall average.
South Africa - little variation in temperature, more rainfall.
Morrocco (Tangier) - Higher than usual rainfall, temperatures slightly lower than average.
The US - South: Snow. North: Snow. West: Snow. East: Lots of Snow.
Columbia: Slightly above average rainfall levels, temperatures within average for last decade.
Global Warming adhearants will say everything above proves global warming. Sort of like saying - eveyrthing proves God's existence. Why did bad stuff happen - God. Why did good stuff happen - God. Why did nothing happen - God. Why can't we see Him - He doesn't want it. Why did we see Him - He wanted it. The religion of the left refuses to acknowledge the fallacies of its belief system. Unfortunately, global warming does not equal God, and consequently, the belief system will be washed away on the tides of history.
If global warming melts the glaciers that raise sea levels that provides greater moisture - thus the rainfall in Southern California and around the world along with the mammoth snowfalls innundating almost every corner of the US, China, Britain, Afghanistan, Russia ... then global warming explains all, like God. Except it doesn't.
Warming could be responsible for rain, but warming is not responsible for SNOW. SNOW requires cold and cold is not warm no matter how many mittens you put on. SNOW is ice and ice is cold and cold is not global warming. Cold is ICE AGE and the rainfall is all within norms.
Yet the adherants of GW will continue down their path, propounding their faith as they go, door to door, city to city, state to state, country to country, seeking more adherants for their cult.
However, before the apostles of GW bang down my door and hang me for hereasy, I admit that there has been a warming of the earth, and a cooling, a melting, and a freezing. Summer ice is thinner, winter ice however is THICKER and there is MORE of it than there was 20 years ago.
Furthermore, an interesting image below -
What I find interesting about this map, which coincidentally correlates to the NOAA findings and several map texts available for geography courses in college is the ancient coast line. The gulf area shows it best. Florida was at least twice as wide as it is today, at some point in the past (10,000 ya or so). In fact, the gulf was more likely a lake at some point in the ancient past. And so the question of why these areas are now all under water brings us to the snow of the day.
The ice melted - remember the land bridge, Beringia, and the trek from Siberia to Alaska - under water. Why? Water levels rose. Why? Ice melted. Why?
global warmingglobal warming
Monday, January 11, 2010
An Ice Age is Coming. An Ice Age is Coming .... say the scientists.
We will get colder for 30 years, a mini ice age, and then global warming will really kick in.
So .... we know this based on? Models of weather patterns? And the 10,000 scientists Gore touted as arguing global warming was here and we only had 18 months (Prince Charles) to save the Earth ... none of them mentioned the coming Ice Age ... and they all saw the patterns and models.
January 11, 2010
30 Years of Global Cooling Are Coming, Leading Scientist Says
FOXNews.com
From Miami to Maine, Savannah to Seattle, America is caught in an icy grip that one of the U.N.'s top global warming proponents says could mark the beginning of a mini ice age.
Oranges are freezing and millions of tropical fish are dying in Florida, and it could be just the beginning of a decades-long deep freeze, says Professor Mojib Latif, one of the world's leading climate modelers.
Latif thinks the cold snap Americans have been suffering through is only the beginning. He says we're in for 30 years of cooler temperatures -- a mini ice age, he calls it, basing his theory on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the world's oceans.
Latif, a professor at the Leibniz Institute at Germany's Kiel University and an author of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, believes the lengthy cold weather is merely a pause -- a 30-years-long blip -- in the larger cycle of global warming, which postulates that temperatures will rise rapidly over the coming years.
At a U.N. conference in September, Latif said that changes in ocean currents known as the North Atlantic Oscillation could dominate over manmade global warming for the next few decades. Latif said the fluctuations in these currents could also be responsible for much of the rise in global temperatures seen over the past 30 years.
Latif is a key member of the UN's climate research arm, which has long promoted the concept of global warming. He told the Daily Mail that "a significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles -- perhaps as much as 50 percent."
According to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, the warming of the Earth since 1900 is due to natural oceanic cycles, and not man-made greenhouse gases. The agency also reports that Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007.
Many parts of the world have been suffering through record-setting snowfalls and arctic temperatures. The Midwest saw wind chills as low as 49 degrees below zero last week, while Europe saw snows so heavy that Eurostar train service and air travel were canceled across much of the continent. In Asia, Beijing was hit by its heaviest snowfall in 60 years.
And this scientist tells us that the global warming we have been experiencing is due more likely to the oceans, which using his argument is part of the natural cycle (which will bring us the ice age) of the earth.
global warming
So .... we know this based on? Models of weather patterns? And the 10,000 scientists Gore touted as arguing global warming was here and we only had 18 months (Prince Charles) to save the Earth ... none of them mentioned the coming Ice Age ... and they all saw the patterns and models.
January 11, 2010
30 Years of Global Cooling Are Coming, Leading Scientist Says
FOXNews.com
From Miami to Maine, Savannah to Seattle, America is caught in an icy grip that one of the U.N.'s top global warming proponents says could mark the beginning of a mini ice age.
Oranges are freezing and millions of tropical fish are dying in Florida, and it could be just the beginning of a decades-long deep freeze, says Professor Mojib Latif, one of the world's leading climate modelers.
Latif thinks the cold snap Americans have been suffering through is only the beginning. He says we're in for 30 years of cooler temperatures -- a mini ice age, he calls it, basing his theory on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the world's oceans.
Latif, a professor at the Leibniz Institute at Germany's Kiel University and an author of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, believes the lengthy cold weather is merely a pause -- a 30-years-long blip -- in the larger cycle of global warming, which postulates that temperatures will rise rapidly over the coming years.
At a U.N. conference in September, Latif said that changes in ocean currents known as the North Atlantic Oscillation could dominate over manmade global warming for the next few decades. Latif said the fluctuations in these currents could also be responsible for much of the rise in global temperatures seen over the past 30 years.
Latif is a key member of the UN's climate research arm, which has long promoted the concept of global warming. He told the Daily Mail that "a significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles -- perhaps as much as 50 percent."
According to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, the warming of the Earth since 1900 is due to natural oceanic cycles, and not man-made greenhouse gases. The agency also reports that Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007.
Many parts of the world have been suffering through record-setting snowfalls and arctic temperatures. The Midwest saw wind chills as low as 49 degrees below zero last week, while Europe saw snows so heavy that Eurostar train service and air travel were canceled across much of the continent. In Asia, Beijing was hit by its heaviest snowfall in 60 years.
And this scientist tells us that the global warming we have been experiencing is due more likely to the oceans, which using his argument is part of the natural cycle (which will bring us the ice age) of the earth.
global warming
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Global Warming: Peruvian Natives Facing Extinction (due to the cold) but due to Global Warming
(Even amidst the growing evidence that we are cooling, they have to get in that little jab - the reason these people may go extinct is because the glaciers are metlting. The truth is - they aren't. The summer glaciers are meting at faster paces than in the past, but the winter ice is still all there and in fact, increasing - THOSE are the facts Mr. Gore.)
Peru's mountain people face fight for survival in a bitter winter
Annie Kelly in Pichccahuasi
The Observer
Sunday 3 January 2010
For alpaca farmer Ignacio Beneto Huamani and his young family, life in the Peruvian Andes, at almost 4,700m above sea level, has always been a struggle against the elements. His village of Pichccahuasi, in Peru's Huancavelica region, is little more than a collection of small thatched shelters and herds of alpaca surrounded by beautiful, yet bleakly inhospitable, mountain terrain.
The few hundred people who live here are hardened to poverty and months of sub-zero temperatures during the long winter. But, for the fourth year running, the cold came early. First their animals and now their children are dying and in such escalating numbers that many fear that life in the village may be rapidly approaching an end.
In a world growing ever hotter, Huancavelica is an anomaly. These communities, living at the edge of what is possible, face extinction because of increasingly cold conditions in their own microclimate, which may have been altered by the rapid melting of the glaciers.
A consequence is that Quechua-speaking farmers and their families, who have managed to subsist for centuries at high altitude, believe they may not make it through the next southern winter.
There have been warnings from meteorologists in Peru that this month will see the Huancavelica region hit by the worst weather conditions in years with plunging temperatures, floods and high winds. The weather is already claiming lives; last month seven people died and scores were treated in hospital after torrential rain caused flash flooding in Ayacucho, the capital of the neighbouring region.
The cold is tipping Pichccahuasi into a spiralling decline brought on by pneumonia, bronchitis and hunger.
Although designed to withstand the cold, Huamani's house is crumbling and his roof, half-collapsed from the snowstorms that battered the village last June and July, offers scant protection from the freezing wind and rain.
His family, including four young children, sleep on wet ground night after night. His children have not yet recovered from illnesses from this year's winter and he is terrified that they won't be resilient enough to endure further freezing weather.
He points to his youngest son, aged two, who trails after him, soaking wet and racked with bouts of coughing, as he goes about his work
"All the children here are sick, they all have breathing problems," he says. "The problem is there is too much cold, too much rain. We have had no time to recover from last winter before it has begun again. There is nothing I can do."
Climate change campaigners and development NGOs say that the failure of Copenhagen has signed the death warrant for hundreds of thousands of the world's poorest and that a quarter of a million children will die before world leaders meet again to try to thrash out another deal at the United Nations next climate change conference in Mexico in December. Among them may be these children of the high mountains.
Enduring prolonged sub-zero temperatures is a matter of course for Peru's indigenous mountain people, many of whom live at more than 3,000m above sea level. Scores die every year from the cold, but in recent years the number of people succumbing to the freezing temperatures has triggered talk of a national crisis.
This year the neighbouring district of Puno saw a severe spike in child mortality as the winter brought months of high winds and relentless ice storms. Government figures record that more than 300 children died in Puno in May last year from the cold; NGOs say that the figure was probably much higher.
Local government officers in Huancavelica could not provide figures for how many children died here last year, but admit that child mortality is rising in the region.
"There have been many dead children. I don't know how many, but there are more and more and mainly the deaths have been from pneumonia," says Rafael Rojas Huanqui, regional director for the Defensa Civil, the national disaster protection agency. "They have no resilience of any kind to deal with the weather getting colder."
Huancavelica has always been one of Peru's most deprived regions, with 80% of families, largely indigenous farmers living at heights of up to 5,000m, subsisting below the poverty line.
The changing weather has come on top of a lack of basic health services, animal diseases, rising food prices and a declining availability of water.
Since 2007, children's acute respiratory infections have increased by 30% and staple food production has fallen by 44%. Latest figures show that one in 10 children do not live to see their first birthday.
Ignacio Huamani says that the main problem his village faces is a lack of water, as more extreme temperatures mean there is no grass or drinking water for the alpaca that people breed for wool and meat. "If the alpaca die, then we all die," he says. He works with his neighbours to build shelters for the alpaca to give some protection from the elements, but he is fighting a losing battle.
Since 2007, alpaca mortality in Huancavelica has more than doubled, with pregnant animals aborting their calves, a huge psychological as well as economic blow to people who rely on their ability to keep their herds alive.
Any money the village has is spent on trying to keep their animals from dying. NGOs and children's groups working in the area warn that in such desperate situations, the lives of alpaca become more valuable than those of children.
"The welfare of children is sidelined because the situation is so bad that everything has become about the survival of the animals, both for the families themselves and the agencies who are trying to support them," says Teresa Carpio, director of Save the Children Peru. She expects to see child mortality in the region rise this year.
"In the west we tend to think that children take priority above all else, but when there is this level of desperation, children can be the last to get the attention they so badly need – until it is too late."
Four hours' drive away in the larger community of Incahuasi, a health clinic is full of women and children waiting to see a visiting nurse. Helen dos Santos trained in nearby Ayacucho, but unlike most other locally trained health workers has stayed to work in the region. Now she spends her week travelling on foot between villages, walking for up to five hours a day.
"It's always been poor here, but now the situation is getting critical," she says. She points to the 20 or so children lined up in the waiting room. "All of these children are malnourished, some very dangerously so, and winter is still five months away.
"I don't have any strong antibiotics to give them, only aspirin. I can't even refer them to the hospital in Huancavelica because nobody has enough money to pay for transport there and the men here are reluctant to spend on anything but the animals."
Rojas Huanqui says the regional government is working hard to strengthen health systems with more doctors and nurses in "most" of the villages, but admits that the state has been unable to deliver the basic services required.
"I'm not going to deny that it's really hard to supply the great amount of villages there are, and they are used to getting everything for free, so the progress that the government makes is limited, but we do need to implement stronger medicines up in the villages that need it most," he says.
There is anger among Huancavelica's mountain people at what they see as the inaction of regional and central government. Although aid packages and clothing bundles arrive with the onset of winter, it does not compensate for what these people believe is the ambivalence of the authorities to their fate.
"We can only put ourselves in God's hands, because nobody else is helping us," says Carolina Flores, a mother of six whose six-month-old daughter is dangerously ill with pneumonia. "Our men have gone and talked to people in the government and told them what is happening to us, but they do nothing. We are not important to them, so we die up here and nobody helps us."
For how long the mountain people are prepared to wait for action remains to be seen. After hundreds of years of systematic discrimination, there are signs that indigenous people across Peru are prepared to fight what they consider to be threats to their survival.
Last July, dozens of indigenous protesters were killed and scores injured when riots broke out in Bagua Grande in the Amazonas region over claims that the government was giving away land to oil and gas drilling. The relationship between Peru's indigenous people and the government of the president, Alan García remains tense.
Those working with indigenous populations in Huancavelica are warning that governments cannot expect people in threatened villages to accept their fate lying down.
"The conduct of the authorities in relation to Peru's Quechua mountain communities is similar to the one they take to indigenous communities throughout the country, which is to ignore their problems because they don't believe that they are a priority," says Dr Enrique Moya, the former dean of Huamanga University, who now works with local NGOs which are running support programmes in the region.
"Religion is still a strong sedative in these communities, but although the first reaction to what they are facing might be fatalism – the feeling that they are in God's hands – we are starting to see a change.
"The difficulty is that the government only reacts when things turn violent, so I think what we have here is potentially an area of great conflict, because no matter how used to poverty they are, these people won't be left to die."
global warming
Peru's mountain people face fight for survival in a bitter winter
Annie Kelly in Pichccahuasi
The Observer
Sunday 3 January 2010
For alpaca farmer Ignacio Beneto Huamani and his young family, life in the Peruvian Andes, at almost 4,700m above sea level, has always been a struggle against the elements. His village of Pichccahuasi, in Peru's Huancavelica region, is little more than a collection of small thatched shelters and herds of alpaca surrounded by beautiful, yet bleakly inhospitable, mountain terrain.
The few hundred people who live here are hardened to poverty and months of sub-zero temperatures during the long winter. But, for the fourth year running, the cold came early. First their animals and now their children are dying and in such escalating numbers that many fear that life in the village may be rapidly approaching an end.
In a world growing ever hotter, Huancavelica is an anomaly. These communities, living at the edge of what is possible, face extinction because of increasingly cold conditions in their own microclimate, which may have been altered by the rapid melting of the glaciers.
A consequence is that Quechua-speaking farmers and their families, who have managed to subsist for centuries at high altitude, believe they may not make it through the next southern winter.
There have been warnings from meteorologists in Peru that this month will see the Huancavelica region hit by the worst weather conditions in years with plunging temperatures, floods and high winds. The weather is already claiming lives; last month seven people died and scores were treated in hospital after torrential rain caused flash flooding in Ayacucho, the capital of the neighbouring region.
The cold is tipping Pichccahuasi into a spiralling decline brought on by pneumonia, bronchitis and hunger.
Although designed to withstand the cold, Huamani's house is crumbling and his roof, half-collapsed from the snowstorms that battered the village last June and July, offers scant protection from the freezing wind and rain.
His family, including four young children, sleep on wet ground night after night. His children have not yet recovered from illnesses from this year's winter and he is terrified that they won't be resilient enough to endure further freezing weather.
He points to his youngest son, aged two, who trails after him, soaking wet and racked with bouts of coughing, as he goes about his work
"All the children here are sick, they all have breathing problems," he says. "The problem is there is too much cold, too much rain. We have had no time to recover from last winter before it has begun again. There is nothing I can do."
Climate change campaigners and development NGOs say that the failure of Copenhagen has signed the death warrant for hundreds of thousands of the world's poorest and that a quarter of a million children will die before world leaders meet again to try to thrash out another deal at the United Nations next climate change conference in Mexico in December. Among them may be these children of the high mountains.
Enduring prolonged sub-zero temperatures is a matter of course for Peru's indigenous mountain people, many of whom live at more than 3,000m above sea level. Scores die every year from the cold, but in recent years the number of people succumbing to the freezing temperatures has triggered talk of a national crisis.
This year the neighbouring district of Puno saw a severe spike in child mortality as the winter brought months of high winds and relentless ice storms. Government figures record that more than 300 children died in Puno in May last year from the cold; NGOs say that the figure was probably much higher.
Local government officers in Huancavelica could not provide figures for how many children died here last year, but admit that child mortality is rising in the region.
"There have been many dead children. I don't know how many, but there are more and more and mainly the deaths have been from pneumonia," says Rafael Rojas Huanqui, regional director for the Defensa Civil, the national disaster protection agency. "They have no resilience of any kind to deal with the weather getting colder."
Huancavelica has always been one of Peru's most deprived regions, with 80% of families, largely indigenous farmers living at heights of up to 5,000m, subsisting below the poverty line.
The changing weather has come on top of a lack of basic health services, animal diseases, rising food prices and a declining availability of water.
Since 2007, children's acute respiratory infections have increased by 30% and staple food production has fallen by 44%. Latest figures show that one in 10 children do not live to see their first birthday.
Ignacio Huamani says that the main problem his village faces is a lack of water, as more extreme temperatures mean there is no grass or drinking water for the alpaca that people breed for wool and meat. "If the alpaca die, then we all die," he says. He works with his neighbours to build shelters for the alpaca to give some protection from the elements, but he is fighting a losing battle.
Since 2007, alpaca mortality in Huancavelica has more than doubled, with pregnant animals aborting their calves, a huge psychological as well as economic blow to people who rely on their ability to keep their herds alive.
Any money the village has is spent on trying to keep their animals from dying. NGOs and children's groups working in the area warn that in such desperate situations, the lives of alpaca become more valuable than those of children.
"The welfare of children is sidelined because the situation is so bad that everything has become about the survival of the animals, both for the families themselves and the agencies who are trying to support them," says Teresa Carpio, director of Save the Children Peru. She expects to see child mortality in the region rise this year.
"In the west we tend to think that children take priority above all else, but when there is this level of desperation, children can be the last to get the attention they so badly need – until it is too late."
Four hours' drive away in the larger community of Incahuasi, a health clinic is full of women and children waiting to see a visiting nurse. Helen dos Santos trained in nearby Ayacucho, but unlike most other locally trained health workers has stayed to work in the region. Now she spends her week travelling on foot between villages, walking for up to five hours a day.
"It's always been poor here, but now the situation is getting critical," she says. She points to the 20 or so children lined up in the waiting room. "All of these children are malnourished, some very dangerously so, and winter is still five months away.
"I don't have any strong antibiotics to give them, only aspirin. I can't even refer them to the hospital in Huancavelica because nobody has enough money to pay for transport there and the men here are reluctant to spend on anything but the animals."
Rojas Huanqui says the regional government is working hard to strengthen health systems with more doctors and nurses in "most" of the villages, but admits that the state has been unable to deliver the basic services required.
"I'm not going to deny that it's really hard to supply the great amount of villages there are, and they are used to getting everything for free, so the progress that the government makes is limited, but we do need to implement stronger medicines up in the villages that need it most," he says.
There is anger among Huancavelica's mountain people at what they see as the inaction of regional and central government. Although aid packages and clothing bundles arrive with the onset of winter, it does not compensate for what these people believe is the ambivalence of the authorities to their fate.
"We can only put ourselves in God's hands, because nobody else is helping us," says Carolina Flores, a mother of six whose six-month-old daughter is dangerously ill with pneumonia. "Our men have gone and talked to people in the government and told them what is happening to us, but they do nothing. We are not important to them, so we die up here and nobody helps us."
For how long the mountain people are prepared to wait for action remains to be seen. After hundreds of years of systematic discrimination, there are signs that indigenous people across Peru are prepared to fight what they consider to be threats to their survival.
Last July, dozens of indigenous protesters were killed and scores injured when riots broke out in Bagua Grande in the Amazonas region over claims that the government was giving away land to oil and gas drilling. The relationship between Peru's indigenous people and the government of the president, Alan García remains tense.
Those working with indigenous populations in Huancavelica are warning that governments cannot expect people in threatened villages to accept their fate lying down.
"The conduct of the authorities in relation to Peru's Quechua mountain communities is similar to the one they take to indigenous communities throughout the country, which is to ignore their problems because they don't believe that they are a priority," says Dr Enrique Moya, the former dean of Huamanga University, who now works with local NGOs which are running support programmes in the region.
"Religion is still a strong sedative in these communities, but although the first reaction to what they are facing might be fatalism – the feeling that they are in God's hands – we are starting to see a change.
"The difficulty is that the government only reacts when things turn violent, so I think what we have here is potentially an area of great conflict, because no matter how used to poverty they are, these people won't be left to die."
global warming
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
In Poland it is quite cold.
Winter freeze kills 79 in Poland
AFP
December 22, 2009
WARSAW - Ten people have died of cold in Poland over the past day, taking the toll since winter set in earlier this month to 79, police said Tuesday.
A national police spokeswoman told AFP that 10 people had been found dead since Monday.
The majority of the victims were homeless men who died while drunk, police said.
Fifty-two of the 79 deaths recorded since December 1 occurred since Friday, as temperatures plunged to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus four Fahrenheit).
By Tuesday, temperatures had risen to around zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit).
Police and municipal employees have boosted patrols in areas where the homeless gather, notably public parks and allotments, to try to persuade them to head to special hostels.
The death toll is far from unusual in Poland, which regularly faces harsh winter conditions.
In the 2008 to 2009 winter season, for example, police recorded 82 deaths from hypothermia.
Poland's highest winter toll in recent years was in 2005 to 2006, when 233 died.
Poland
AFP
December 22, 2009
WARSAW - Ten people have died of cold in Poland over the past day, taking the toll since winter set in earlier this month to 79, police said Tuesday.
A national police spokeswoman told AFP that 10 people had been found dead since Monday.
The majority of the victims were homeless men who died while drunk, police said.
Fifty-two of the 79 deaths recorded since December 1 occurred since Friday, as temperatures plunged to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus four Fahrenheit).
By Tuesday, temperatures had risen to around zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit).
Police and municipal employees have boosted patrols in areas where the homeless gather, notably public parks and allotments, to try to persuade them to head to special hostels.
The death toll is far from unusual in Poland, which regularly faces harsh winter conditions.
In the 2008 to 2009 winter season, for example, police recorded 82 deaths from hypothermia.
Poland's highest winter toll in recent years was in 2005 to 2006, when 233 died.
Poland
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
OSLO - Global Warming?
February 24th, 2009
Ice Age or global warming?
Alister Doyle
Reuters
It looks more like an Ice Age than global warming.
There is so much snow in Oslo, where I live, that the city authorities are resorting to dumping truckloads of it in the sea because the usual storage sites on land are full.
That is angering environmentalists who say the snow is far too dirty – scraped up from polluted roads — to be added to the fjord. The story even made it to the front page of the local paper (’Dumpes i sjøen’: ‘Dumped in the sea’).
In many places around the capital there’s about a metre of snow, the most since 2006 when it was last dumped in the sea. Extra snow usually gets trucked to sites on land, where most of the polluted dirt is left after the thaw. Those stores are now full — in some the snow isn’t expected to melt before September.
But are these mountains of snow a sign that global warming isn’t happening?
Unfortunately, more snow might fit projections by the U.N. Climate Panel, which says that northern Europe is likely to get wetter and the south drier as temperatures rise this century.
“By the 2070s, hydropower potential for the whole of Europe is expected to decline by 6 percent, with strong regional variations from a 20 to 50 percent decrease in the Mediterranean region to a 15 to 30 increase in northern and eastern Europe.” it said in a 2007 report.
So people in northern Europe may have to buy more snow shovels than parasols to cope with global warming?
How about where you live?
global warming
Ice Age or global warming?
Alister Doyle
Reuters
It looks more like an Ice Age than global warming.
There is so much snow in Oslo, where I live, that the city authorities are resorting to dumping truckloads of it in the sea because the usual storage sites on land are full.
That is angering environmentalists who say the snow is far too dirty – scraped up from polluted roads — to be added to the fjord. The story even made it to the front page of the local paper (’Dumpes i sjøen’: ‘Dumped in the sea’).
In many places around the capital there’s about a metre of snow, the most since 2006 when it was last dumped in the sea. Extra snow usually gets trucked to sites on land, where most of the polluted dirt is left after the thaw. Those stores are now full — in some the snow isn’t expected to melt before September.
But are these mountains of snow a sign that global warming isn’t happening?
Unfortunately, more snow might fit projections by the U.N. Climate Panel, which says that northern Europe is likely to get wetter and the south drier as temperatures rise this century.
“By the 2070s, hydropower potential for the whole of Europe is expected to decline by 6 percent, with strong regional variations from a 20 to 50 percent decrease in the Mediterranean region to a 15 to 30 increase in northern and eastern Europe.” it said in a 2007 report.
So people in northern Europe may have to buy more snow shovels than parasols to cope with global warming?
How about where you live?
global warming
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Global Warming and Sustainability
The parts in red are made up numbers:
In 1800, man polluted the air with 100 pounds of emissions, mostly from fires.
In 1850, man polluted the air with 100% more than he did fifty years before.
In 1880, man polluted the air 70% more than he did in 1850.
In 1910, man polluted the air 800% more than thirty years prior.
None of that means anything.
You need perspective.
James Lovelock, one of the pioneers of the global warming movement tells us the pieces we are missing in the story.
Like HOW MUCH MANKIND PRODUCES
30 gigatonnes - TODAY.
So using my made up numbers, you can then see how much we produced at that time.
Very scary when you think about 30 gigatonnes. Until I tell you that the total amount sent into the atmosphere is 550 gigatonnes each year, and what we create of that amount is less than 8%.
If every car, SUV, plane, train, truck, home, building, cow, pigs, and horse, along with every human being on earth - all vanished tomorrow - EARTH would emit 520 gigatonnes.
There is, according to Lovelock, absolutely NOTHING mankind can do to change what will happen.
The answer is NOT to drive faster, pollute more, rather act prudently - cut back not because it will change anything BUT rather because it will make the time you have better. That and the more important point - instead of wasting the $7 trillion on useless tripe, use it to help the millions who will lose their property, farms, homes, to the rising water. This idea rather than throwing $7 trillion at a problem you cannot in any way change and then when it happens anyway, coming back and demanding we now spend another $7 trillion to help the people - that is theft, that is dishonesty, that is fraud, that is illegal and immoral.
The other issue is sustainability and no, they are not the same, and no real scientist would suggest they are. They are separate issues entirely - different species if you will.
That we are using too many resources and nothing will remain.
Much of that is a lie. The rest, fear, prompted by people who profit off the fear and make a great deal of money (Al Gore establishing a company to buy and sell carbon credits).
In any way, shape, form - have I suggested there is no global warming. Nope. I have said it wouldn't make any difference what you do, it will happen anyway, and your role in the grand scheme is so infinitesimally insignificant as to border on invisible. I understand people want to believe they make a difference. It simply isn't true.
One example - the Mediterranean in the late 1960s and early 1970s versus 1982. Over the course of 10-12 years something happened.
The way this works is - I don't need to prove everything you believe is wrong, just enough to warrant reconsideration of unscientific fear mongering. On the other hand, you have to prove beyond a doubt that your theory IS more than a theory and is accurate and real, backed by more than 100 years of data. The issue - you can't. You have to prove why stealing $7 trillion is worth it, and not with mumble jumble about resources.
More geologists believe (than those who don't) that there are upwards of 100,000,000,000 barrels of oil in the Rocky mountains. Some geologists have suggested there are more than 4 trillion barrels of oil. More oil in the Rocky mountains than man has pumped and used in the entire history of oil. We cannot ever run out of oil. Some Russian scientists believe, wrongly I believe, that resources can never run out - they are constantly replenished. Whether the fact - there are more barrels of oil in the Rocky mountains than in all of the Middle East or the Russians - we are not in danger of running out of that resource. (The estimates range from 100 billion to over 3 trillion barrels)
Water - the answer is more complicated than we might first believe. We could construct huge pipelines to Northern Canada and no, we would not need to worry about water for 300-400 years. There is absolutely no shortage of rain or water north of Edmonton Alberta. None. Enough for as many people as need water. The issue will be getting to it.
The other part of the issue is - more people = more water use. Immigration will have to be reviewed.
What other resource?
In 1800, man polluted the air with 100 pounds of emissions, mostly from fires.
In 1850, man polluted the air with 100% more than he did fifty years before.
In 1880, man polluted the air 70% more than he did in 1850.
In 1910, man polluted the air 800% more than thirty years prior.
None of that means anything.
You need perspective.
James Lovelock, one of the pioneers of the global warming movement tells us the pieces we are missing in the story.
Like HOW MUCH MANKIND PRODUCES
30 gigatonnes - TODAY.
So using my made up numbers, you can then see how much we produced at that time.
Very scary when you think about 30 gigatonnes. Until I tell you that the total amount sent into the atmosphere is 550 gigatonnes each year, and what we create of that amount is less than 8%.
If every car, SUV, plane, train, truck, home, building, cow, pigs, and horse, along with every human being on earth - all vanished tomorrow - EARTH would emit 520 gigatonnes.
There is, according to Lovelock, absolutely NOTHING mankind can do to change what will happen.
The answer is NOT to drive faster, pollute more, rather act prudently - cut back not because it will change anything BUT rather because it will make the time you have better. That and the more important point - instead of wasting the $7 trillion on useless tripe, use it to help the millions who will lose their property, farms, homes, to the rising water. This idea rather than throwing $7 trillion at a problem you cannot in any way change and then when it happens anyway, coming back and demanding we now spend another $7 trillion to help the people - that is theft, that is dishonesty, that is fraud, that is illegal and immoral.
The other issue is sustainability and no, they are not the same, and no real scientist would suggest they are. They are separate issues entirely - different species if you will.
That we are using too many resources and nothing will remain.
Much of that is a lie. The rest, fear, prompted by people who profit off the fear and make a great deal of money (Al Gore establishing a company to buy and sell carbon credits).
In any way, shape, form - have I suggested there is no global warming. Nope. I have said it wouldn't make any difference what you do, it will happen anyway, and your role in the grand scheme is so infinitesimally insignificant as to border on invisible. I understand people want to believe they make a difference. It simply isn't true.
One example - the Mediterranean in the late 1960s and early 1970s versus 1982. Over the course of 10-12 years something happened.
The way this works is - I don't need to prove everything you believe is wrong, just enough to warrant reconsideration of unscientific fear mongering. On the other hand, you have to prove beyond a doubt that your theory IS more than a theory and is accurate and real, backed by more than 100 years of data. The issue - you can't. You have to prove why stealing $7 trillion is worth it, and not with mumble jumble about resources.
More geologists believe (than those who don't) that there are upwards of 100,000,000,000 barrels of oil in the Rocky mountains. Some geologists have suggested there are more than 4 trillion barrels of oil. More oil in the Rocky mountains than man has pumped and used in the entire history of oil. We cannot ever run out of oil. Some Russian scientists believe, wrongly I believe, that resources can never run out - they are constantly replenished. Whether the fact - there are more barrels of oil in the Rocky mountains than in all of the Middle East or the Russians - we are not in danger of running out of that resource. (The estimates range from 100 billion to over 3 trillion barrels)
Water - the answer is more complicated than we might first believe. We could construct huge pipelines to Northern Canada and no, we would not need to worry about water for 300-400 years. There is absolutely no shortage of rain or water north of Edmonton Alberta. None. Enough for as many people as need water. The issue will be getting to it.
The other part of the issue is - more people = more water use. Immigration will have to be reviewed.
What other resource?
Food? Busy thinkin' of food.
There are many issues with many resources, and like many resources we lacked in the past, technology will provide an answer. It is not a matter of saying - let's waste millions of gallons because we can get it from somewhere else. That is infantile thinking and shows a child's response to disagreement.
There is another issue - it may not be global warming, but rather a global ice age that is approaching. That will somewhat negate many claims today - and Gore will have his award taken back.
The issue is more complex than Gore's brain can possibly comprehend, and no one posting or article will address the issues - nor is there an intention to.
We are not on the verge of extinction, although there are times I wish some people were removed from the gene pool. Sadly, they will persist awhile longer.
science
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow ... in Abu Dhabi.
This is the frozen north ... of the UAE
Anna Zacharias
January 25. 2009 1:59PM GMT
The National.ae
Snow covered the Jebel Jais area for only the second time in recorded history yesterday.So rare was the event that one lifelong resident said the local dialect had no word for it.
According to the RAK Government, temperatures on Jebel Jais dropped to -3°C on Friday night. On Saturday, the area had reached 1°C.
Major Saeed Rashid al Yamahi, a helicopter pilot and the manager of the Air Wing of RAK Police, said the snow covered an area of five kilometres and was 10cm deep.“The sight up there this morning was totally unbelievable, with the snow-capped mountain and the entire area covered with fresh, dazzling white snow,” Major al Yamahi said.
“The snowfall started at 3pm Friday, and heavy snowing began at 8pm and continued till midnight, covering the entire area in a thick blanket of snow. Much of the snow was still there even when we flew back from the mountain this afternoon. It is still freezing cold up there and there are chances that it might snow again tonight.”
Aisha al Hebsy, a woman in her 50s who has lived in the mountains near Jebel Jais all her life, said snowfall in the area was so unheard of the local dialect does not even have a word for it.
Hail is known as bared, which literally translates as cold. “Twenty years ago we had lots of hail,” said Ms al Hebsy. “Last night was like this. At four in the morning we came out and the ground was white.”Jebel Jais was dusted in snow on Dec 28, 2004, the first snowfall in living memory for Ras al Khaimah residents.
[To read the rest of the article, click on the title link]
I know the position of the global warming alarmists ... warm in places that were cold and cold in places that were warm.
Except facts and reality seem to interfere with their position (however unstable their position).
Australia - one of the mildest and coolest summers in forty years, until the end of January and now it has become unbearably hot. Such fluctuations are more indicative of changes in weather, not changed in weather.
Chile - one of the mildest summers in recorded history
Afghanistan - one of the dryest and coldest winters in the last thirty years. Food/animal loss during winter due to freezing temperatures: 100,000 cattle and other livestock.
Petersburg, Russia - For only third time in the last 100 years, the port was frozen for several days.
Canada, Alberta - temperatures in northern Alberta, for two weeks straight, fell below -38 degrees. The previous record was one week, and that was held for the last 130 years.
Northwest Territories - one of the coldest and snowiest winters in recorded history (and they said that last year). -35 degrees - they reach as a high, and snow - feet of snow a day.
Those glaciers that were melting - apparently, they are refreezing at a rate not anticipated by the anti-capitalist Global Warming crowd - University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels. Even more than that - measurements of Antarctic ice now show that its accumulation is up 5 percent since 1980.
Anna Zacharias
January 25. 2009 1:59PM GMT
The National.ae
Snow covered the Jebel Jais area for only the second time in recorded history yesterday.So rare was the event that one lifelong resident said the local dialect had no word for it.
According to the RAK Government, temperatures on Jebel Jais dropped to -3°C on Friday night. On Saturday, the area had reached 1°C.
Major Saeed Rashid al Yamahi, a helicopter pilot and the manager of the Air Wing of RAK Police, said the snow covered an area of five kilometres and was 10cm deep.“The sight up there this morning was totally unbelievable, with the snow-capped mountain and the entire area covered with fresh, dazzling white snow,” Major al Yamahi said.
“The snowfall started at 3pm Friday, and heavy snowing began at 8pm and continued till midnight, covering the entire area in a thick blanket of snow. Much of the snow was still there even when we flew back from the mountain this afternoon. It is still freezing cold up there and there are chances that it might snow again tonight.”
Aisha al Hebsy, a woman in her 50s who has lived in the mountains near Jebel Jais all her life, said snowfall in the area was so unheard of the local dialect does not even have a word for it.
Hail is known as bared, which literally translates as cold. “Twenty years ago we had lots of hail,” said Ms al Hebsy. “Last night was like this. At four in the morning we came out and the ground was white.”Jebel Jais was dusted in snow on Dec 28, 2004, the first snowfall in living memory for Ras al Khaimah residents.
[To read the rest of the article, click on the title link]
I know the position of the global warming alarmists ... warm in places that were cold and cold in places that were warm.
Except facts and reality seem to interfere with their position (however unstable their position).
Australia - one of the mildest and coolest summers in forty years, until the end of January and now it has become unbearably hot. Such fluctuations are more indicative of changes in weather, not changed in weather.
Chile - one of the mildest summers in recorded history
Afghanistan - one of the dryest and coldest winters in the last thirty years. Food/animal loss during winter due to freezing temperatures: 100,000 cattle and other livestock.
Petersburg, Russia - For only third time in the last 100 years, the port was frozen for several days.
Canada, Alberta - temperatures in northern Alberta, for two weeks straight, fell below -38 degrees. The previous record was one week, and that was held for the last 130 years.
Northwest Territories - one of the coldest and snowiest winters in recorded history (and they said that last year). -35 degrees - they reach as a high, and snow - feet of snow a day.
Those glaciers that were melting - apparently, they are refreezing at a rate not anticipated by the anti-capitalist Global Warming crowd - University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels. Even more than that - measurements of Antarctic ice now show that its accumulation is up 5 percent since 1980.
Let's get it in perspective -
Colder in cold places, more ice where ice grows, and colder in warm areas.
Global Warming?
Ha.
The anti-capitalists will have to try again. A better choice - the world is freezing. Except that would require more burning of industry and fuel and that isn't anti-capitalist enough.
global warming
Monday, January 19, 2009
Global Warming (Ice Age) is a myth, so say scientists
It's time to pray for global warming, says Flint Journal columnist John Tomlinson
by John Foren Flint Journal Editor
Monday January 19, 2009, 4:20 AM
If you're wondering why North America is starting to resemble nuclear winter, then you missed the news.
At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"
I asked myself, why would such obviously smart guy say such a ridiculous thing? But it turns out he's right.
The earth's temperature peaked in 1998. It's been falling ever since; it dropped dramatically in 2007 and got worse in 2008, when temperatures touched 1980 levels.
Meanwhile, the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels. What's more, measurements of Antarctic ice now show that its accumulation is up 5 percent since 1980.
In other words, during what was supposed to be massive global warming, the biggest chunks of ice on earth grew larger. Just as an aside, do you remember when the hole in the ozone layer was going to melt Antarctica? But don't worry, we're safe now, that was the nineties.
Dr. Kunihiko, Chancellor of Japan's Institute of Science and Technology said this: "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or the other ... every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so." Now why would a learned man say such a crazy thing?
This is where the looney left gets lost. Their mantra is atmospheric CO2 levels are escalating and this is unquestionably causing earth's temperature rise. But ask yourself -- if global temperatures are experiencing the biggest sustained drop in decades, while CO2 levels continue to rise -- how can it be true?
Ironically, in spite of being shown false, we must now pray for it. Because a massive study, just released by the Russian Government, contains overwhelming evidence that earth is on the verge of another Ice Age.
Based on core samples from Russia's Vostok Station in Antarctica, we now know earth's atmosphere and temperature for the last 420,000 years. This evidence suggests that the 12,000 years of warmth we call the Holocene period is over.
Apparently, we're headed into an ice age of about 100,000 years -- give or take. As for CO2 levels, core samples show conclusively they follow the earth's temperature rise, not lead it.It turns out CO2 fluctuations follow the change in sea temperature. As water temperatures rise, oceans release additional dissolved CO2 -- like opening a warm brewsky.
To think, early last year, liberals suggested we spend 45 trillion dollars and give up five million jobs to fix global warming. But there is good news: now that we don't have to spend any of that money, we can give it all to the banks.
global warming
by John Foren Flint Journal Editor
Monday January 19, 2009, 4:20 AM
If you're wondering why North America is starting to resemble nuclear winter, then you missed the news.
At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"
I asked myself, why would such obviously smart guy say such a ridiculous thing? But it turns out he's right.
The earth's temperature peaked in 1998. It's been falling ever since; it dropped dramatically in 2007 and got worse in 2008, when temperatures touched 1980 levels.
Meanwhile, the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels. What's more, measurements of Antarctic ice now show that its accumulation is up 5 percent since 1980.
In other words, during what was supposed to be massive global warming, the biggest chunks of ice on earth grew larger. Just as an aside, do you remember when the hole in the ozone layer was going to melt Antarctica? But don't worry, we're safe now, that was the nineties.
Dr. Kunihiko, Chancellor of Japan's Institute of Science and Technology said this: "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or the other ... every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so." Now why would a learned man say such a crazy thing?
This is where the looney left gets lost. Their mantra is atmospheric CO2 levels are escalating and this is unquestionably causing earth's temperature rise. But ask yourself -- if global temperatures are experiencing the biggest sustained drop in decades, while CO2 levels continue to rise -- how can it be true?
Ironically, in spite of being shown false, we must now pray for it. Because a massive study, just released by the Russian Government, contains overwhelming evidence that earth is on the verge of another Ice Age.
Based on core samples from Russia's Vostok Station in Antarctica, we now know earth's atmosphere and temperature for the last 420,000 years. This evidence suggests that the 12,000 years of warmth we call the Holocene period is over.
Apparently, we're headed into an ice age of about 100,000 years -- give or take. As for CO2 levels, core samples show conclusively they follow the earth's temperature rise, not lead it.It turns out CO2 fluctuations follow the change in sea temperature. As water temperatures rise, oceans release additional dissolved CO2 -- like opening a warm brewsky.
To think, early last year, liberals suggested we spend 45 trillion dollars and give up five million jobs to fix global warming. But there is good news: now that we don't have to spend any of that money, we can give it all to the banks.
global warming
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Global Warming or an Ice Age
Paging Mr. Gore. Not that I believe much the Russians have to say about anything, but given the alternative (Gore/Warming) - we should consider their opinions.
Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age
January 11, 2009
The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.
Ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.
[to read the rest of the article, click on the title link]
global warming
Ruissia
Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age
January 11, 2009
The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.
Ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.
[to read the rest of the article, click on the title link]
global warming
Ruissia
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Global Warming: 2008 - The Year We Turned the Corner on the Lies
2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved
Looking back over my columns of the past 12 months, one of their major themes was neatly encapsulated by two recent items from The Daily Telegraph.
By Christopher Booker
28 Dec 2008
The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".
Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.
First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.
Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.
Even the more cautious scientific acolytes of the official orthodoxy now admit that, thanks to "natural factors" such as ocean currents, temperatures have failed to rise as predicted (although they plaintively assure us that this cooling effect is merely "masking the underlying warming trend", and that the temperature rise will resume worse than ever by the middle of the next decade).
Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.
Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.
Suddenly it has become rather less appealing that we should divert trillions of dollars, pounds and euros into the fantasy that we could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 per cent. All those grandiose projects for "emissions trading", "carbon capture", building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to "biofuels", are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.
As 2009 dawns, it is time we in Britain faced up to the genuine crisis now fast approaching from the fact that – unless we get on very soon with building enough proper power stations to fill our looming "energy gap" - within a few years our lights will go out and what remains of our economy will judder to a halt. After years of infantile displacement activity, it is high time our politicians – along with those of the EU and President Obama's US – were brought back with a mighty jolt into contact with the real world.
global warming
Looking back over my columns of the past 12 months, one of their major themes was neatly encapsulated by two recent items from The Daily Telegraph.
By Christopher Booker
28 Dec 2008
The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".
Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.
First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.
Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.
Even the more cautious scientific acolytes of the official orthodoxy now admit that, thanks to "natural factors" such as ocean currents, temperatures have failed to rise as predicted (although they plaintively assure us that this cooling effect is merely "masking the underlying warming trend", and that the temperature rise will resume worse than ever by the middle of the next decade).
Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.
Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.
Suddenly it has become rather less appealing that we should divert trillions of dollars, pounds and euros into the fantasy that we could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 per cent. All those grandiose projects for "emissions trading", "carbon capture", building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to "biofuels", are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.
As 2009 dawns, it is time we in Britain faced up to the genuine crisis now fast approaching from the fact that – unless we get on very soon with building enough proper power stations to fill our looming "energy gap" - within a few years our lights will go out and what remains of our economy will judder to a halt. After years of infantile displacement activity, it is high time our politicians – along with those of the EU and President Obama's US – were brought back with a mighty jolt into contact with the real world.
global warming
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Mankind - Arrogant to the Core
and wrong
CNN Meteorologist: Manmade Global Warming Theory 'Arrogant'
Network's second meteorologist to challenge notion man can alter climate.
By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute12/18/2008
Unprecedented snow in Las Vegas has some scratching their heads – how can there be global warming with this unusual cold and snowy weather?
CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers had never bought into the notion that man can alter the climate and the Vegas snowstorm didn’t impact his opinion. Myers, an American Meteorological Society certified meteorologist, explained on CNN’s Dec. 18 “Lou Dobbs Tonight” that the whole idea is arrogant and mankind was in danger of dying from other natural events more so than global warming.
“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.”
Myers is the second CNN meteorologist to challenge the global warming conventions common in the media. He also said trying to determine patterns occurring in the climate would be difficult based on such a short span.
“But this is like, you know you said – in your career – my career has been 22 years long,” Myers said. “That’s a good career in TV, but talking about climate – it’s like having a car for three days and saying, ‘This is a great car.’ Well, yeah – it was for three days, but maybe in days five, six and seven it won’t be so good. And that’s what we’re doing here.”
“We have 100 years worth of data, not millions of years that the world’s been around,” Myers continued.
Dr. Jay Lehr, an expert on environmental policy, told “Lou Dobbs Tonight” viewers you can detect subtle patterns over recorded history, but that dates back to the 13th Century.
“If we go back really, in recorded human history, in the 13th Century, we were probably 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than we are now and it was a very prosperous time for mankind,” Lehr said. “If go back to the Revolutionary War 300 years ago, it was very, very cold. We’ve been warming out of that cold spell from the Revolutionary War period and now we’re back into a cooling cycle.”
Lehr suggested the earth is presently entering a cooling cycle – a result of nature, not man.
“The last 10 years have been quite cool,” Lehr continued. “And right now, I think we’re going into cooling rather than warming and that should be a much greater concern for humankind. But, all we can do is adapt. It is the sun that does it, not man.”
Lehr is a senior fellow and science director of The Heartland Institute, an organization that will be holding the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change in New York March 8-10.
Another CNN meteorologist attacked the concept that man is somehow responsible for changes in climate last year. Rob Marciano charged Al Gore’s 2006 movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” had some inaccuracies.
“There are definitely some inaccuracies,” Marciano said during the Oct. 4, 2007 broadcast of CNN’s “American Morning.” “The biggest thing I have a problem with is this implication that Katrina was caused by global warming.”
Marciano also said that, “global warming does not conclusively cause stronger hurricanes like we’ve seen,” pointing out that “by the end of this century we might get about a 5 percent increase.”
His comments drew a strong response and he recanted the next day saying “the globe is getting warmer and humans are the likely the main cause of it.”
Climate of Bias: BMI's page devoted entirely to global warming and climate change in the media.
global warming
CNN Meteorologist: Manmade Global Warming Theory 'Arrogant'
Network's second meteorologist to challenge notion man can alter climate.
By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute12/18/2008
Unprecedented snow in Las Vegas has some scratching their heads – how can there be global warming with this unusual cold and snowy weather?
CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers had never bought into the notion that man can alter the climate and the Vegas snowstorm didn’t impact his opinion. Myers, an American Meteorological Society certified meteorologist, explained on CNN’s Dec. 18 “Lou Dobbs Tonight” that the whole idea is arrogant and mankind was in danger of dying from other natural events more so than global warming.
“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.”
Myers is the second CNN meteorologist to challenge the global warming conventions common in the media. He also said trying to determine patterns occurring in the climate would be difficult based on such a short span.
“But this is like, you know you said – in your career – my career has been 22 years long,” Myers said. “That’s a good career in TV, but talking about climate – it’s like having a car for three days and saying, ‘This is a great car.’ Well, yeah – it was for three days, but maybe in days five, six and seven it won’t be so good. And that’s what we’re doing here.”
“We have 100 years worth of data, not millions of years that the world’s been around,” Myers continued.
Dr. Jay Lehr, an expert on environmental policy, told “Lou Dobbs Tonight” viewers you can detect subtle patterns over recorded history, but that dates back to the 13th Century.
“If we go back really, in recorded human history, in the 13th Century, we were probably 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than we are now and it was a very prosperous time for mankind,” Lehr said. “If go back to the Revolutionary War 300 years ago, it was very, very cold. We’ve been warming out of that cold spell from the Revolutionary War period and now we’re back into a cooling cycle.”
Lehr suggested the earth is presently entering a cooling cycle – a result of nature, not man.
“The last 10 years have been quite cool,” Lehr continued. “And right now, I think we’re going into cooling rather than warming and that should be a much greater concern for humankind. But, all we can do is adapt. It is the sun that does it, not man.”
Lehr is a senior fellow and science director of The Heartland Institute, an organization that will be holding the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change in New York March 8-10.
Another CNN meteorologist attacked the concept that man is somehow responsible for changes in climate last year. Rob Marciano charged Al Gore’s 2006 movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” had some inaccuracies.
“There are definitely some inaccuracies,” Marciano said during the Oct. 4, 2007 broadcast of CNN’s “American Morning.” “The biggest thing I have a problem with is this implication that Katrina was caused by global warming.”
Marciano also said that, “global warming does not conclusively cause stronger hurricanes like we’ve seen,” pointing out that “by the end of this century we might get about a 5 percent increase.”
His comments drew a strong response and he recanted the next day saying “the globe is getting warmer and humans are the likely the main cause of it.”
Climate of Bias: BMI's page devoted entirely to global warming and climate change in the media.
global warming
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