The American Spectator

home
ADVERTISEMENT
Print Email
Text Size

The Spectacle Blog

2011 Prediction: Media Hits New “Warming” Low

By on 1.1.11 @ 12:29PM

I was taken aback by this paragraph in a Politico story by someone a colleague of mine styles as the best reporter in DC on these issues. It reveals the media are not only telling us what to watch for this year, but getting an early jump:

Despite mounting evidence that the greenhouse gas buildup in the Earth’s atmosphere is causing runaway changes to the climate - NASA this month declared 2010 the hottest year on record - several pollsters say the American public isn’t listening. (emphases added)

Now, the reason no evidence — mounting, or otherwise — of runaway climate change was cited there is because there is no evidence of runaway climate change. Let alone man-made. There is as there always has been a continuing stream of evidence of changes in climate, because change is the sole constant in climate. But it takes an environmentalist or axe-grinding politician to say that whatever happens is evidence supporting his faith and/or agenda. The ‘runaway’ business is just absurdly hyperbolic. Which, again, is why no such evidence was actually cited.

Get this straight because once they agree on a talking point they beat it to death: their new one, of 2010 being the hottest year ‘on record’, would not rise to the level of evidence of man-made warming despite being touted as a self-evident example of cause-effect. This would remain true even if the cited source, NASA — meaning James Hansen’s runaway office, known as GISS — had not also done two things: adjust the historical record to make older years cooler (rewriting history) and ‘extrapolate’ data over vast stretches in the Arctic where they have none…but which happens to be where they find the warming (making history up).

None of which is secret, all of which then makes the above-cited paragraph an embarrassment.

Then the reporter discussed what the global warming industry plans to do about this, and includes the following predictable punch telegraphed.

…Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), co-author of several unsuccessful climate bills over the last decade, said he agrees with the need to make more local connections for the public. Hitting home for him are studies showing lobster and winter flounder moving north out of Long Island Sound.

“It’s not the end of the world, and yet it suggests the world is changing,” Lieberman said. “It’s one small example. The world is full of them.”

Lieberman said he thinks there’s a need for more TV and radio commercials that capture the most eye-catching images. “Just show people what’s happening,” he said. “Show them satellite pictures of the ice caps.”

Yes, the world changes and, of course, if something happens then you did it and their agenda would change it. Even if after billions of dollars and several decades they cannot make their case and are reduced to doing what they started with. Primitively pointing to the world around them and shrieking that the witch — now, the SUV — did it.

Expect the media to run with this. And in response I will show you pictures of, say, the World Trade Center collapsing. Why? Because that is their logic: show you something and say it is evidence that you did it. Example, invoked by a mindless fellow panelist on a tv show last week:

Man-made global warming is causing Mt. Kilimanjaro’s glacier to recede.

How do you know?

Mt. Kilimanjaro’s glacier is receding.

Oh. OK.

The CIA brought the World Trade Center down.

How do you know?

The World Trade Center came down.

Your ‘conclusion’ is actually an assumption. And that’s too stupid even for Washington to re-engineer the economy around. Here’s to an invigorating 2011.

View all comments (29) |

Beam Me Up Scotty | 1.1.11 @ 1:10PM

It's not runaway yet. But if guys like you have their way, it will be.
Why do you hate your children?

Wxcynic| 1.1.11 @ 1:34PM

Why did you waste your parents' money on an education?
There is lots of anecdotal evidence that suggests that this has been going on for thousands of years. Read the Russian's view of this. They are more thoughtful on this issue than we are.

Warrior | 1.1.11 @ 1:46PM

If you tree huggers want my support, please just answer the simple question. What should the temperature of the earth be? Should our normal temperatures be what is experienced during an ice age (mini or otherwise)? Was the warmth experienced in the medieval warming period of the 10th-11th century the proper climate? I am specifically using periods prior to when man could have affected the temperature (I would still like proof man is affecting it now).

Warrior | 1.1.11 @ 1:47PM

typo - meant to say periods where man could not have affected the temperature.

Chuck L| 1.1.11 @ 6:42PM

So please explain why, when atmospheric CO2 levels were 10 times the current levels in the past according to ice core samples taken from Antarctica, the Earth did not suffer "runaway global warming" and how ice ages have occured in the past when CO2 levels were equal to or higher than today's levels. As a follow up, please explain why CO2 changes LAG temperature changes by 800 years.

Meme Mine| 1.1.11 @ 1:40PM

So now we charge those responsible? Who is to be charged with treason for leading our country to a false war of climate change? You! the MEDIA
NEWS EDITORS are to journalism what nasty priests are to religion. Meanwhile, the UN had allowed carbon trading to trump 3rd world fresh water relief, starvation rescue and 3rd world education for just over 24 years of climate control instead of needed population control.

e cowan| 1.1.11 @ 1:42PM

'Why do you hate your children?'
Why do you hate yours?
If the AGW crowd has it's way - only the very wealthy (like Al Gore and Ted Turner and their friends) will be able to afford the energy which makes modern life possible. The rest of us will be living as our ancestors did in the 1600's.

Tony Raskoon| 1.1.11 @ 2:09PM

The eco-elites are up to their eyeballs in carbon credit losses. Apparently, someone committed integrity while they were on the way to the bank. Expect the media-elite to manufacture 'science' pieces in order to financially rescue the ruling class eco-elites.

Sea_Hunter| 1.1.11 @ 4:41PM

Suppose, just for sake of argument, that the world is not warming, but cooling. Now let us suppose that we put in place all these measures to keep the world cool. In doing so, are we speeding up another ice age? And in doing so, aren't we threatening mankind even more than hot weather? Before we jump head long into Global Warming, aka Climate Change, aka Climate Disruption, shouldn't we be absolutely positive that we aren't putting weights on our feet before jumping into the deep end of the pool.

From the looks of the argument it would seem that the issue of the world heating up is a far cry from settled. From the looks of that glacier that was once London a good argument might be made for cooling instead. In short, we don't have a bleading clue what is going on, what is going to happen, and how to deal with what ever happens when it does. So, perhaps we might not make matters worse by making attempts at trying to make them better.

I Survived Arlen Specter| 1.1.11 @ 6:36PM

1) Climate change is called weather.
2) GOD created weather.
3) GOD controls weather.
4) Nothing fallible humans could do or have done will alter or change the three facts above
5) AGW theories were coined by men who do not believe in GOD, do not trust GOD, & deny GOD's sovereignty & power at work in the universe.
6) For those who still do not understand, please return to #1.
Make no mistake, GOD knows exactly what He is doing & man cannot change GOD's will no matter how hard he may try.

Feeling is believing| 1.2.11 @ 2:52AM

Any chance you could have a word with GOD and get the warmist/carbon tax pushers around the world to sit on a volcano while he turns it on? Maybe he's (it's?) clean out of miracles.

J Kelley| 1.1.11 @ 9:28PM

Remember the ice age of the 1970's.There were front page stories of how to survive in the coming ice age. Perhaps this Winter or next, the story line will be a coming ice age. And the media and left wing kooks will change as if they never pushed the Global warming, Climate change and whatever else they called it.Weather changes, duh. And with the global cooling there will be a call for more taxes on engery. But if global warming causes cold weather, then gobal cooling would cause warm weather. We will have to wait and see.

Wayne | 1.1.11 @ 11:00PM

What we need to do is expose the radicals for who they are? They are not interested in "saving the earth". They are interested in power and control. They will use their unproven science and kill the economy, kill jobs and push dangerous programs, like replacing all lightbulbs with ones that contain mercury and cause migraines.

They manipulate what we call science - like climatology - though they don't follow the scientific method. They manufacture data, and create computer models, with biased functions that use the manufactured data and say they have objective results.

As a former chemistry teacher, I am sad about what they have done to science and urge all true scientist to speak out against the scam.

Ned the Red| 1.2.11 @ 10:13AM

I have a way of teaching my dogs that seems to work quite well. I wait until they are going to do something, then tell them to do it. (This tactic can work with small children also.)
If I see one is going to come to me, I call its name.
If I see one is going to shake I say shake.
If I see one is going to chase something, I say sic.
Get the idea.
Well that is what the Warmers do. What better vehicle to train their dogs than the weather or climate, it's always changing.
All they have to when training their dogs (do not mean to insult dogs) is wait for a change in the weather and say global warming, climate change, or I told you so. And like the compliant dogs these non-thinking minions are, they will even take the kick in the ribs for the bad outcome.
Again, I do not mean to insult dogs with the above post.

Tazwtrdvl| 1.2.11 @ 12:32PM

While the AGW supporters push co2 reduction to save the world, the climate is driven by powers they can't control. But I'm still waiting for someone to point out the obvious. We need to develop as many ways to produce power as possible. This would allow the world to cope with whatever climate we end up with down the road. Instead we think we can control what happens by reducing one factor. I believe the reason co2 has been chosen as the vehicle to attack and tax everything, is it may be the one thing that is difficult if not impossible to fix. Unlike many pollution problems that we have eliminated, co2 is not easily reduced so they have a perfect problem for their agenda.

e cowan| 1.2.11 @ 1:10PM

'..Remember the ice age of the 1970's.There were front page stories of how to survive in the coming ice age...'
See Time Magazine covers here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/201.....more-30704

Dale Cord| 1.2.11 @ 3:34PM

The children of Lies and Inventive fantasy stories such as “Global Warming” are all tucked safely in their beds in Washington. With sugar plums of Anarchy and Chaos dancing in their heads. You see as with every scam to legitimize an unlawful act against the masses of any country. You have to create a crisis, and the bigger the Crisis, the bigger the criminals plan is, to fool the majority into accepting their deceptive crime, as an excuse for the good of the public’s welfare and safety. “Oh what tattered webs we Weave, when first we practice to Deceive”, is how the saying was penned. A few of the most resent and significant crisis (perpetrated on and orchestrated, by these vermin in Washington, who have slithered in through the back door to steal and claim a seat of political power), on the American people in the past decade are: the Waco tragedy, the Muriel Building tragedy, the Twin Towers tragedy. Just to name a few, which have claimed thousands of innocent victims in its goal to rob the American people of their freedoms and Liberties set forth in their Constitution. These atrocities and inhumane acts brought about and introduced the documents of treason called “The Homeland Security Act”(a false sense of security) TSA at all US Airports (a false sense of security)and others being rubber stamped and passed through Congress and the House. The same way these vermin have stolen the Social Security Funds, increased their bank accounts by illegitimate pay raises, Passed the Obama Health Care bill, Declared War on other nations without due process according to our Constitution. All done in closed session hearings in the dark of night, while their victims sleep. “Hitler” for those who are old enough to remember this monster, and his Gestapo of mentally unbalanced thugs. Confiscated all of the German people’s guns and weapons, with soft deceptive words, as those use by the snake in the Garden of Eden to lull Eve into a (false sense of security.) This Austrian born mental case as any psychiatrist could tell you, was responsible for the massive obliteration of millions in the Holocaust of Europe, BY WAY OF SKINNING ALIVE, AND LETHAL POISONING OF MEN,WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE GAS CHAMBERS OF HITLERS CONCENTRATION CAMPS. BUILT IN GERMANY IN THE DECADE OF WWII ,FOR THOSE WHO WERE THOUGHT TO BE OF JEWISH FAITH AND BACKGROUND, SICK, NOT IN COMPLIANCE WITH GESTAPO RULE OR JUST PLAIN ENTERTAINMENT FOR THESE DEGENERATE MINDS OF FILTH AND CORRUPTION . “Obama” same story different name and time frame. Will join the likes of (Hitler, Mussolini, Castro, Mao Zedong, Stalin, Paul Potts, etc) also being well documented in the future history books of another generation of sheep, ready and willing to believe the Lies and Absurdities of those holding the sheers.

Donny1| 1.2.11 @ 4:21PM

@Beam Me Up Scotty: You wouldn't happen to be Hugh Jidette would you...?

Beam Me Up Scotty | 1.3.11 @ 9:25AM

"Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That's all she is. You cannot sweet-talk her. You cannot spin her. You cannot tell her that the oil companies say climate change is a hoax. No, Mother Nature is going to do whatever chemistry, biology and physics dictate"

"Mother Nature always bats last, and she always bats 1.000"
-Rob Watson

You deniers will not be embarrassed when things really start falling apart (in the next decade or two). You'll be too busy fighting for you lives.

owyheewine| 1.3.11 @ 10:21AM

You are right about what mother nature is. Other than that it appears that you fall into that huge mass of warmers that believe in warming because some "scientist" said it is so. You probably haven't had a science class since junior high school, and can't understand much less explain the physics of global temperature.
Man caused global warming is a junk science hoax foisted on us by environmental extremists, and science whores just hanging on for a chance at their 15 minutes of fame. The most famous warming scientists are in fact sub par scholars if not outright frauds.

Dacron Mather | 1.3.11 @ 2:16AM

Will some charitable soul hire a fact checker for poor Chris?

2010 has just gone down in history as the hottest year since accurate thermometers were invented.

Karl Lucifer Marx| 1.3.11 @ 6:03AM

That's very odd. I just observed on the Weather Channel that December 2010 was the coldest on record.

PhilTheCapitalistPig | 1.3.11 @ 9:39AM

From the website of the original founder of the weather channel, Read em and weep libs, your gig is up!!!

Weather extremes such as droughts, floods, hurricane, tornadoes, and heat waves have become more common.


Scientists have studied this issue and come to the opposite conclusion: extreme events are becoming LESS common. Atlantic hurricanes were much more numerous from 1950 to 1975 than from 1975 to present. Hailstorms in the US are 35% less common than they were fifty years ago. Extreme rainfall in the US at the end of the 20th century is comparable to what it was at the beginning of the 20th century. Roger Pielke, Jr, in the journal Climatic Change (1999) said “it is essentially impossible to attribute any particular weather event to global warming.” For flooding, Pielke did list a number of important non-climatic factors that have the potential to influence flooding in the future, including deteriorating dams and levees, changes in land use, building in flood-prone areas, governmental policies, as well as other societal influences. Pielke, R.A., JR. 1999. Nine fallacies of floods. Climatic Change 42: 413-438.

In his recent movie, former Vice President Al Gore, said: “If you look at the ten hottest years ever measured, they all occurred in the last fourteen years, and the hottest of all was 2005.”


The ten hottest years ever measured happened thousands of years ago and 2005 was not one of them. Gore must be using only temperature readings from the 125 year thermometer set, a very short time to look at when one is trying to understand Global Warming, but this period of time suits the environmentalists because it is a time in which temperatures happened to be wandering up. Alarmists refuse to look at the big picture because it shows what they refuse to believe. For the US, the recently revised NASA GISS Annual Mean temperatures show 6 of the 10 warmest years were from the 1920s to the 1950s and only 4 since 1990.

The big picture is that for the last eleven thousand years, Global Temperatures have been going sideways while wandering up and down between 54 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit. In this eleven thousand years there have been five up-spikes hotter than the year 2005. The current rise in temperature is merely a medium size upward movement; of more importance, is the current high spike in CO2 levels, which is the real Hockey Stick of Global Warming.

Renowned climatologist Roger Pielke, Sr. has used IPCC’s estimates of climate forcing to calculate the contribution of CO2 to recent climate change. Pielke makes very conservative (worst-case) assumptions in considering the impacts of greenhouse gases, black carbon, tropospheric ozone, and solar radiation. This analysis ignores land use changes, which have been demonstrated to affect climate in a significant way, and cosmic rays, which affect cloud cover and thus can lead to significant climate changes.

Pielke’s estimate is that CO2 is responsible for 28% (at most) of the human-caused changes. If natural variations do occur (and it’s very hard to argue that they do not) then this value decreases. But even if one assumes that the entire 0.6 deg C increase since 1900 is due to human effects, Pielke’s estimate would suggest a CO2 contribution of only 0.17 deg C.

Modern temperatures remain lower than other periods within the Holocene (since the last Ice Age). Geologists and paleoclimatologists believe that the warmest conditions in the Holocene occurred several thousand years before Christ, and that several such episodes occurred. The most recent warm period occurred in medieval times 800-1200 years ago. Richard A. Muller and Gordon J. MacDonald, “Chapter 1: Brief Introduction to the History of Climate” Ice Ages and Astronomical Causes 2000)


Climate has been stable for a long time but now is getting increasingly extreme.


Climate swings are nothing new. Between 800 and 1300 AD, much of the world was several degrees warmer than today. People grew wine grapes in England, figs in Germany, assorted crops in Greenland. Then came the Little Ice Age, and temperatures considerably colder than today persisted until the climate warmed again around 1900. The likely cause? Changes in the sun’s energy output, or perhaps the Earth’s orbit, say Harvard-Smithsonian scientists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon.


CO2 is a pollutant.


CO2 is an essential nutrient for plants. Plants absorb CO2 and release oxygen, while animals inhale oxygen and exhale CO2. Researchers have proven that higher CO2 concentrations enable plants to grow faster and give them better drought tolerance.


CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas.


Not even close. Most of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor, which is about 100 times as abundant in the atmosphere as CO2 and thus has a much larger effect.


The greenhouse effect is a bad thing.


The greenhouse effect is necessary for life on earth as we know it, were it not for the greenhouse effect, temperatures on Earth would be about 60 degrees F (33°C) colder than they are at present. The global warming discussions center on the claims that human enhancement of the greenhouse will raise temperatures, and that these will be large compared with natural variations. (http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/ and Sherwood B. Idso, Craig D. Idso and Keith E. Idso, “The Specter of Species Extinction: Will Global Warming Decimate Earth’s Biosphere?,
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/150.pdf)


Modeling the earth’s climate is nearly an exact science.


General Circulation Models (GCMs) vary by a factor of 3 in their forecasts; they require arbitrary adjustments; and they cannot properly simulate clouds. Their forecasts of substantial warming depend on a positive feedback from atmospheric water vapor (WV). Many of the natural variations (sunlight, El Niño, volcanoes, and so on) cannot be predicted with any skill in the future. (George Taylor, “Science Wake Up Call: There is More Hype Than Truth,” National Association of Manufacturers, May 2004)


Summers will be extremely hot and dry.


According to greenhouse physics, the effects of increases in greenhouse gases will be much more significant in the driest air. This occurs in the coldest regions (cold air is able to hold much less water, in the form of water vapor, than warm air) ¯ the polar regions, in winter, at night. Temperature effects in tropical or mid-latitude regions and in summer are expected to be much less significant. (George Taylor, “Science Wake Up Call: There is More Hype Than Truth,” National Association of Manufacturers, May 2004). Also see how most all midwest summer heat records are still back in the 1930s 0r 1940shere and here.


The sun is a constant source of energy.


The sun’s radiation varies over many time scales, from short (11 year sunspot cycle, 20-27 year magnetic field) to medium (106- and 216 year cycles) to long (tens of thousands of years). Northern hemisphere temperature variations over the last 200 years closely match estimated solar intensity, as one would expect. (George Taylor, “Science Wake Up Call: There is More Hype Than Truth,” National Association of Manufacturers, May 2004)


Glaciers all over the world are shrinking because of global warming.


Braithwaite in 2002 in a paper “Glacier mass balance” in the Journal Progress in Physical Geography reveals “there are several regions with highly negative mass balances in agreement with a public perception of ‘the glaciers are melting,’ but there are also regions with positive balances.” Within Europe, for example, he notes that “Alpine glaciers are generally shrinking, Scandinavian glaciers are growing, and glaciers in the Caucasus are close to equilibrium for 1980-95.” And when results for the whole world are combined for this most recent period of time, Braithwaite notes “there is no obvious common or global trend of increasing glacier melt in recent years.”

Dr. Tim Patterson writes about Canadian glaciers that researchers from the University of Calgary and the University of Western Ontario have shown that glaciers in the Lake Louise area and at the Athabaska Icefields have receded far above their present limits in the past. We should consider the conditions that cause glaciers to advance and retreat. Obviously, climate warming will cause melt-back of the toe of a glacier (retreat). The cause for advance is primarily increased snowfall at the top of a glacier (the accretion zone). The pressure of the new glacial ice at the top of the glacier will cause the glacier to start flowing downhill more rapidly than the toe is melting; hence, the advance. Cooler temperatures without the increase in snowfall will probably not halt the retreat. It is possible to have a retreat with cool temperatures and low precipitation, and it is possible to have an advance with warm temperatures and heavy snowfall. It has been recorded in the literature that waxing and waning of glaciers all over the world is a common occurrence and that any reference to this being an abnormal thing, due to Global Warming depends on selectively gathered “evidence”. This has been remarkably well illustrated in New Zealand in 2004 with the rapid advance of glaciers in the South Island with the only climatic change being very heavy precipitation.

Gore claims that sea level rise could drown the Pacific islands, Florida, major cities the world over, and the 9/11 Memorial in New York City.


Sea level has been rising at a rate of 1.8 mm per year for the past 8,000 years. The IPCC notes that “No significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century has been detected.” Unless there is another Little Ice Age, they will continue rising at roughly this rate for centuries to come. As to open water in the Arctic, it happens every year in late summer—following weeks in the 40s and 50s.

It’s getting hot in here… In 2003 the hottest European summer on record caused more than 20,000 deaths. Extreme heat waves also caused more than 1500 deaths in India.


Many of the deaths reported in 2003 were not from the heat. J.R. Stedman, and air quality scientist, reported that 21-38% of the total excess deaths in the United Kingdom claimed to be due to high temperatures were actually the result of high levels of the pollutants ozone and PM10. P.H. Fischer determined that 33-50% of the deaths attributed to the same heat wave in the Netherlands were caused by the same two air pollutants.

In the Czech Republic, J. Kysely and R. Huth found that a large portion of the mortality increase that is often attributed to heat waves is actually due to a harvesting effect, which “can be estimated to account for about 50% of the total number of victims.” In other words, as they put it, “people who would have died in the short term even in the absence of oppressive weather conditions made up about half of the total number of deaths.”

The real killer in Europe is not heat but cold. According to the UK Department of Health, average winter excess mortality in a normal year in the UK alone is approximately 35,000. There is strong scientific evidence that normal cold temperatures kill far more people than summer heat waves, even severe ones, almost everywhere in the world. And since the primary effect of global warming is expected to be an increase in the coldest winter temperatures, moderate global warming may actually SAVE lives. (George Taylor, “Science Wake Up Call: There is More Hype Than Truth,” National Association of Manufacturers, May 2004)


Gore lists ways the United States could reduce emissions of greenhouse gases back to the levels of 1970.


Even if the US reduced greenhouse gas emissions to zero it would have no immediate impact on climate. China, India and many other countries are significantly increasing their emission levels, and global concentrations of CO2 may double this century. Even if the Kyoto Protocol could be fully implemented the globe would be spared no more than a few hundredths of a degree of warming.


The number of category 4 and 5 storms has greatly increased over the past 35 years, along with ocean temperature. Warmer water in the oceans pumps more energy into tropical storms, making them more intense and potentially more destructive.


The 1940s were rather busy, the 70s the quietest, and the 1990s pretty close to the long-term average. A simple linear fit suggests a decrease over time. This is a result echoed by Easterling, et al (2000), who said, “the number of intense and landfalling Atlantic hurricanes has declined.” In the Gulf of Mexico there is “no sign of an increase in hurricane frequency or intensity,” according to Bove, et al (1998). For the North Atlantic as a whole, according to the United Nations Environment Programme of the World Meteorological Organization, “Reliable data ... since the 1940s indicate that the peak strength of the strongest hurricanes has not changed, and the mean maximum intensity of all hurricanes has decreased.”

Granted, there has been an upswing in the Atlantic since 1995, and since 2004, the bumper crop of storms has struck Florida in numbers and intensities seldom occurring before. A sign of things to come, especially in a warmer world? Not according to Bill Gray’s Tropical Forecast group at Colorado State University. Gray, who has developed successful methods for predicting hurricane activity, said, “Various groups and individuals have suggested that the recent large upswing in Atlantic hurricane activity (since 1995) may be in some way related to the effects of increased man-made greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2). There is no reasonable scientific way that such an interpretation of this recent upward shift in Atlantic hurricane activity can be made.”

And there is no reason to expect increases in hurricanes due to greenhouse warming. Climate models, for all their problems, are unanimous in at least one respect: they predict that most of the future warming will be in high latitudes, in the polar regions. This will reduce the north-south temperature gradient and make poleward transfer of heat less vigorous—a task in which tropical storms play a major role. All other things being equal, a warmer world should have fewer, not more, hurricanes.

Zhang, et al (2000) examined storm activity along the US East Coast over the twentieth century. After stating, “it has been speculated that future global warming will change the frequency and severity of tropical and extratropical storms,” the authors used historical data in an attempt to help predict future trends. Using a variety of indices, including storm surge water levels, the authors found “no significant trend in storm activity during this century along the East Coast.” The real problem along the coastline, they say, is not changing climate but changing land use, as more and more development occurs along the shorelines, creating greater susceptibility to storm damage.

Gulev, et al (2000) employed NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data since 1958 to study the occurrence of winter storms over the northern hemisphere. They found a statistically significant (at the 95% level) decline of 1.2 cyclones per year for the period, during which temperatures reportedly rose in much of the hemisphere.


Warmer temperatures could also increase the probability of drought. Greater evaporation, particularly during summer and fall, could exacerbate drought conditions and increase the risk of wildfires.


Kunkel et al. (1999) concluded, they saw “no apparent trend in climatic drought frequency” and “no evidence of changes in the frequency of intense heat or cold.” Climate change is not a major factor because “trends in most related weather and climate extremes do not show comparable increases with time.”


More frequent and more intensive heat waves could result in more heat-related deaths. These conditions could also aggravate local air quality problems, already afflicting more than 80 million Americans. Global warming is expected to increase the potential geographic range and virulence of tropical diseases as well.


Malaria, yellow and dengue fever are related to the absence of vaccines, pesticides, screens and other health care measures, not to temperatures, tropical disease expert Dr. Paul Reiter points out. Wisconsin had malaria outbreaks in the 1880s; yellow fever claimed 19,000 lives in Memphis in 1878; and 2,000 people got dengue fever in one Mexican border town in 1995, while Texas reported only seven cases.


Is global warming really impacting polar bears?


In An Inconvenient Truth, the polar bear drowning on a sole melting piece of ice moved a lot of people and public and political pressure encouraged the US Fish and Wildlife Service to add polar bears as “threatened” animals to the endangered species list.

In 2002, the US Geological Survey in the Arctic Refuge Coastal plain reported the polar bear population was near historic highs. Biologist Mitchell Taylor of the Arctic community of Nunavit who tracks 13 of those colonies, says 11 are stable or thriving with populations that have increased 25%.

There are approximately 19 worldwide polar bear populations, the Fish and Wildlife action was based solely on reviewing data for only one of those populations in western Hudson Bay which has declined by 259 bears in last 17 years. The decline is due to hunting to prevent overpopulation and ironically the Canadian government is looking to increase the quota. (US Geological Survey in Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain 2002, and Dr. Mitchell Taylor, Polar Bear Biologist, Department of Environment, Government of Nunavut , Igloolik , Nunavut , Canada “Last Stand of our wild polar bears” 5/1/06)


Conclusions


The CO2-induced global warming extinction hypothesis claims that as the world warms in response to the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content, many species of plants and animals will not be able to migrate either poleward in latitude or upward in elevation fast enough to avoid extinction as they try to escape the stress imposed by the rising temperature. With respect to plants, however, we have shown that as long as the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration rises in tandem with its temperature, most of them will not “feel the heat,” as their physiology will change in ways that make them better adapted to warmer conditions. Hence, although earth’s plants will likely spread poleward and upward at the cold-limited boundaries of their ranges in response to a warming-induced opportunity to do so, their heat-limited boundaries will probably remain pretty much as they are now or shift only slightly.

Consequently, in a world of rising atmospheric CO2 concentration, the ranges of most of earth’s plants will likely expand if the planet continues to warm, making plant extinctions even less likely than they are currently.

Animals should react much the same way. In response to concurrent increases in atmospheric temperature and CO2 concentration, they will likely migrate poleward and upward, where cold temperatures prevented them from going in the past, as they follow earth’s plants. Also as with earth’s plants, the heat-limited boundaries of their ranges should in many cases be little affected, as has been observed in several of the real-world studies that have been wrongly cited as providing evidence for impending species extinctions, or their entire ranges may simply shift with the rising temperature, as has been observed in many real-world studies of marine ecosystems.

To summarize, both theory and observation paint the same picture. A goodly portion of earth’s plants and animals should actually expand their ranges and gain a stronger foothold on the planet as the atmosphere’s temperature and CO2 concentration continue to rise. If the air’s CO2 content were suddenly to stop increasing, however, the biosphere could find itself facing a significant challenge, as the world’s plants would cease acquiring the extra physiological protection against heat stress that is afforded them by rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Consequently, the end result of curtailing anthropogenic CO2 emissions might well be just the opposite of what many people are hoping to accomplish by encouraging that policy, i.e., many species might actually be driven to extinction, rather than being saved from such a fate.

AndaO| 1.3.11 @ 11:22AM

Nicely done!

tonypal| 1.3.11 @ 12:32PM

Tremendous job, but a complete waste of time if you're trying to reach a true believer.

PhilTheCapitalistPig| 1.3.11 @ 9:40AM

See the credentials yourself at www.icecap.us

Heywood| 1.3.11 @ 1:44PM

Here's another scam-job ---

Original Link:
http://fullcomment.nationalpos.....l-warming/

How do we know there’s a scientific consensus on climate change? Pundits and the press tell us so. And how do the pundits and the press know? Until recently, they typically pointed to the number 2500 – that’s the number of scientists associated with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those 2500, the pundits and the press believed, had endorsed the IPCC position. [1]

To their embarrassment, most of the pundits and press discovered that they were mistaken – those 2500 scientists hadn’t endorsed the IPCC’s conclusions, they had merely reviewed some part or other of the IPCC’s mammoth studies. To add to their embarrassment, many of those reviewers from within the IPCC establishment actually disagreed with the IPCC’s conclusions, sometimes vehemently.

The upshot? The punditry looked for and recently found an alternate number to tout — “97% of the world’s climate scientists” accept the consensus, articles in the Washington Post and elsewhere have begun to claim.

This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2009 online survey of 10,257 earth scientists, conducted by two researchers at the University of Illinois. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers – in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.

The two researchers started by altogether excluding from their survey the thousands of scientists most likely to think that the Sun, or planetary movements, might have something to do with climate on Earth – out were the solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, meteorologists and astronomers. That left the 10,257 scientists in disciplines like geology, oceanography, paleontology, and geochemistry that were somehow deemed more worthy of being included in the consensus. The two researchers also decided that scientific accomplishment should not be a factor in who could answer – those surveyed were determined by their place of employment (an academic or a governmental institution). Neither was academic qualification a factor – about 1,000 of those surveyed did not have a PhD, some didn’t even have a master’s diploma.

To encourage a high participation among these remaining disciplines, the two researchers decided on a quickie survey that would take less than two minutes to complete, and would be done online, saving the respondents the hassle of mailing a reply. Nevertheless, most didn’t consider the quickie survey worthy of response –just 3146, or 30.7%, answered the two questions on the survey:

1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?

2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

The questions were actually non-questions. From my discussions with literally hundreds of skeptical scientists over the past few years, I know of none who claims that the planet hasn’t warmed since the 1700s, and almost none who think that humans haven’t contributed in some way to the recent warming – quite apart from carbon dioxide emissions, few would doubt that the creation of cities and the clearing of forests for agricultural lands have affected the climate. When pressed for a figure, global warming skeptics might say that human are responsible for 10% or 15% of the warming; some skeptics place the upper bound of man’s contribution at 35%. The skeptics only deny that humans played a dominant role in Earth’s warming.

Surprisingly, just 90% of those who responded to the first question believed that temperatures had risen – I would have expected a figure closer to 100%, since Earth was in the Little Ice Age in the centuries immediately preceding 1800. But perhaps some of the responders interpreted the question to include the past 1000 years, when Earth was in the Medieval Warm Period, generally thought to be warmer than today.

As for the second question, 82% of the earth scientists replied that that human activity had significantly contributed to the warming. Here the vagueness of the question comes into play. Since skeptics believe that human activity been a contributing factor, their answer would have turned on whether they consider a 10% or 15% or 35% increase to be a significant contributing factor. Some would, some wouldn’t.

In any case, the two researchers must have feared that an 82% figure would fall short of a convincing consensus – almost one in five wasn’t blaming humans for global warming — so they looked for subsets that would yield a higher percentage. They found it – almost — in those whose recent published peer-reviewed research fell primarily in the climate change field. But the percentage still fell short of the researchers’ ideal. So they made another cut, allowing only the research conducted by those earth scientists who identified themselves as climate scientists.

Once all these cuts were made, 75 out of 77 scientists of unknown qualifications were left endorsing the global warming orthodoxy. The two researchers were then satisfied with their findings [2]. Are you?

LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and the author of The Deniers.

More Blog Posts by Chris Horner

http://spectator.org/blog/2011/01/01/2011-prediction-media-hits-new

ADVERTISEMENT

The Spectacle Blog

The #FreeKate Narrative Melts Down: Lies Exposed in Florida Teen Sex Case

Robert Stacy McCain | 5.25.13

Jimmy Wray, R.I.P.

Aaron Goldstein | 5.25.13

The Spectator’s Spectacular: May 18-May 25

Patrick Ryan | 5.25.13

Updated: NBC News: Holder Personally Approved Fox Reporter Warrant

Ross Kaminsky | 5.24.13

Felonious Attorney General?

Kaylin Bugos | 5.24.13

Did the Boy Scouts Cave to Pressure?

Claire Healey | 5.24.13

BBC World Survey Ranks Israel Near Bottom in Global Popularity

Aaron Goldstein | 5.24.13

Obamacare is a Big and Growing Problem for Democrats

Ross Kaminsky | 5.24.13

Latest Headlines

We Will Remember

Roger Kaplan|27 comments

Real Immigration Reform Requires Free Markets

Ross Kaminsky|80 comments

Enough With the Bipartisanship

Matt Purple|45 comments

The United States of El Norte

Larry Thornberry|60 comments

Vodka = Vodka = Vodka

Daniel J. Flynn|94 comments

Laying Down My Pen

Quin Hillyer

Tornado Chasers

Claire Healey|35 comments

The Chinese Waltz

George H. Wittman|2 comments

SPONSORED LINKS

FLASHBACK TO: 1995

Clip of the Day

H/T to National Review Online

ADVERTISEMENT

Home |About |Contributors |Advertise |Donate |Privacy Policy |Contact

The American Spectator Foundation is the 501(c)(3) organization responsible for publishing The American Spectator magazine and training aspiring journalists who espouse traditional American values. Your contributions are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. Each donor receives a year-end summary of their giving for tax purposes.

Copyright 2013, The American Spectator. All rights reserved.