Regulars at this blog know I have started posting a collection of links to interesting opinion pieces, interviews and newly published articles on some Saturdays under the heading ‘Weekend Reading’. This gives me the opportunity to quickly pass on information. But please note, the information is passed on, not endorsed.
I usually read every piece before I post the link. But this last week has been busier than usual and I’ve received more contributions for ‘Weekend Reading’ than usual. So, here’s a collection of links to pieces that I haven’t read, but will hopefully include much food for thought and discussion.
1. Environmentalism versus Constitutionalism
A paper ‘Environmentalism versus Constitutionalism: A Contest without Winners’ is now accessible in PDF at the New Zealand Business Roundtable website:
http://www.nzbr.org.nz/books_and_reports.asp?DocType=BooksandReports
This paper is based on the keynote address to the 2006 Conference of the Law and Economics Association of New Zealand by Professor Suri Ratnapala, Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law, TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland.
2. Skeptics in the US & A Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism
Professor Bob Carter from James Cook University, Townsville, has been in the US giving expert testimony to the Senate: http://epw.senate.gov/109th/Carter_Testimony.pdf
And I was sent a note from another colleague in the US … Senator James Inhofe has offered this download containing the treasure trove of info that is currently on his site, but will probably be erased by the pro-AGW Barbara Boxer who takes over after the first of the year. Here is the link:
http://epw.senate.gov/repwhitepapers/6341044%20Hot%20&%20Cold%20Media.pdf
3. Fifty-one Albatross Dead
Hi Jennifer, You might be interested in this article:
The New Zealand government is considering imposing a temporary ban on surface longline fishing in the Kermadec Islands after a fishing vessel was reported to have killed 51 albatrosses in a single trip…
http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2006/12/swordfish_ban.html
Regards, Ann Novak
4. Andrew Bolt on ‘Mine Your Own Business’
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20889770-25717,00.html
5. Largest US Corporations to Buy Green Power
Some of America's largest corporations pledged Monday to support green power, responding to a challenge posed by the Environmental Protection Agency. So-called green power is generated from renewable energy sources like the sun, wind and biomass such as plants or garbage and helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. The EPA is calling for Fortune 500 companies to double their green power purchases to more than 5 billion kilowatt hours by the end of next year - or enough electricity to run more than 400,000 homes in the U.S. a year.
Read the article here: http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/04/news/companies/green_challenge/index.htm
6. Deepak Lal on Foreign Aid in Africa and Democracy in Asia
Foreign aid's achieved very little in the past 50 years; it might have done more harm than good. Development economist Deepak Lal says it's time to ditch aid if we want to help the poor. … you can read or listen to this Michael Duffy interview at the Counterpoint website:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2006/1799918.htm
Well Sid if you're going to be gutless and decamp fine.
Andrew Bolt is funny but so lacking in credibility on AGW it's laughable. The big goose actually went with a story that the IPCC had changed it's position. HE WAS 100% WRONG - WHAT A DICKHEAD !! This guys checks no facts at all. He just runs anything that the denialist nitwits come up with. If you're going with him - you're very ill advised to see it as anything but comedy. Don't confuse paid attack dog satire with substance.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/12/telegraph_wrong_about_ipcc_rep.php#more
Sid - Mann got ticked off for his stats analysis - use the correct analysis and get the same answer. Drat. So result stands. Second - LIA and MWP are increasing seen to be local events - perhaps a thermohaline move.
Nature 444, 601-604 (30 November 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature05277; Received 14 March 2006; Accepted 19 September 2006
Gulf Stream density structure and transport during the past millennium
David C. Lund1,4, Jean Lynch-Stieglitz2 and William B. Curry3
Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, USA
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, USA
Present address: Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA.
Correspondence to: David C. Lund1,4 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to D.C.L. (Email: dlund@gps.caltech.edu).
Top of pageThe Gulf Stream transports approximately 31 Sv (1 Sv = 106 m3 s-1) of water1, 2 and 1.3 1015 W of heat3 into the North Atlantic ocean. The possibility of abrupt changes in Gulf Stream heat transport is one of the key uncertainties in predictions of climate change for the coming centuries. Given the limited length of the instrumental record, our knowledge of Gulf Stream behaviour on long timescales must rely heavily on information from geologic archives. Here we use foraminifera from a suite of high-resolution sediment cores in the Florida Straits to show that the cross-current density gradient and vertical current shear of the Gulf Stream were systematically lower during the Little Ice Age (ad 1200 to 1850). We also estimate that Little Ice Age volume transport was ten per cent weaker than today's. The timing of reduced flow is consistent with temperature minima in several palaeoclimate records4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, implying that diminished oceanic heat transport may have contributed to Little Ice Age cooling in the North Atlantic. The interval of low flow also coincides with anomalously high Gulf Stream surface salinity10, suggesting a tight linkage between the Atlantic Ocean circulation and hydrologic cycle during the past millennium.
So Sid I can't help it if you're getting old and set in your ways and you can't keep up. Indeed I have to nudge myself that you regard such sites as iceagenow as authoritative. Sid - you're clueless !
OK Sid - looking at the list - you are showing me there have been some record breaking cold events in the last few years. So what ? Do you think that extremes of weather are suddenly suspended because of increased atmospheric CO2. This belies your complete lack of understanding of climate and weather.
See http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=175
This incredibly boring and tedious review on record breaking events goes over this in some detail. What you need to make an argument is a statistical argument that record breaking cold events are increasing over time.
Also greenhouse warming is just getting going - wait till you get to double pre-industrial CO2 !
The global trend long term now is for overall warming - year to year variation and the occurrence of extreme events warmer and colder doesn't mean that much - it's the trend that is the issue.
I will agree the press pay more attention to extreme heat than cold - but recently ABC did post record high temperatures in western Queensland and frosts in Tasmania too ! What would your web list look like if you claimed all the record breaking high temperature stories too. You'd have another list.
Again I reiterate - it's the long term trend - if you don't get that point we're not at first base.
I encourage you to keep making a database of extreme events - but do hot and cold !!
Havn't decamped yet , so the above sites , but a miniscule few for you to tear apart.
During some time in the real world away from blogs, we enjoyed dinner with friends which was rather hilarious when someone produced a report by Andrew Bolt on the 'Big Switch Off', which he proceeded to read with a poker face while everyone half- killed themdelves laughing.. "Fry, green believer. Suffer for your faith." Thought, Luke couldn't be there, blog junkie that he is. Couldn't last 10 mins without the tube, let alone 48 hours.
Yes the Hockey Stick; "We've got to get rid of the MWP" thats what the emails flying around the AGW Club, at the time that Dr. Mann was getting to work , said. Only prob. was that one of the emails got out of the Club, and the beans were spilt.
Yep Luke, biggest scientific scam since 'Piltdown Man'; probably bigger. It even slipped through that excellent 'climate science peer revision process '(you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours). Opps, Dr Mann actually reviewed his own work for the IPCC, and in the twinkling of the eye, the MWP, and the LIA were wiped out of existance, and, ...replaced with the Hockey Stick! So be careful, if you continue to be a Denier, you may be forced to recant, or be locked up!
Well, I am going to decamp now, as I've been told that little Luke must have the last say....However when time permits, will be back at Jen's blog.
Sid - for heavens sake - the Bureau have a long established set of reference stations - Sydney would be the LAST station you'd use for global warming detection. There is a whole protocol around this. This is one thing they are very confident about and would LOVE you to pick a fight with on it. (I'll watch!) Jeez at least pick your targets ! Actually ring up David Jones the head of the section and give him a few pointers if you're sure of your facts !
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/listing.shtml
will ponder the other links in next 24 hours
://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
(if you can find your way round and plug in Sydney and all other long Aust stations , you will clearly see that BoM's claim that 2005 was hottest year ever is just not true)
.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/news/18062006news.shtml
.australianweathernews.com/news/2006/060614.shtml
.smh.com.au/news/world/gales-snow-tornado-chaotic-weather-in-nz/2006/0 6/12/1149964463334.html
.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/news/16062006news.shtml
.nzherald.co.nz/section/7/story.cfm?c_id-7&objectid-10363304
.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/mr/archive/2005-08-30-1
.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/12/D8FNSF7G0.html
.steamboatpilot.com/section/archive/story/35258
://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_wave
and ditto ad/in. I was going to give the excell Earth Orb site which Jim posted.
Looks like Sid has decamped. I just remembered his glacial sources too - iceagenow !! yech..
Sid - actually I think you're full of it and about as reputable as CEI.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850
http://www.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/mr/archive/2005-08-30-1
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=157
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=129
Science: March 3, 2005
Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records
Johannes Hans Oerlemans 1*
1 Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC Utrecht, Netherlands.
A temperature history for different parts of the world has been constructed from 169 glacier length records. Using a first-order theory of glacier dynamics, changes in glacier length were related to changes in temperature. The derived temperature histories are fully independent of proxy and instrumental data used in earlier reconstructions. Moderate global warming started in the middle of the 19th century. The reconstructed warming in the first half of the 20th century is 0.5 K. This warming was remarkably coherent over the globe. The warming signals from glaciers at low and high elevations appear to be very similar.
No Sid - you should know better than that. I'm still here waiting.
What's wrong with the Hockey Stick Sid - tell us, or are you just parroting what CEI tells you.
No comment on Jim's post above and why it's happening.
How many glaciers in the NH are advancing Sid? How many out of how many?
And yes you should post your sources listed if you're interested in scholarly debate.
List them and save us the trouble of chasing them down.
We're not discussing "virtual reality climate models" here - we're discussing observations. I can see therefore you know very little about what you're criticising.
So tell us Sid - do you have a cooling trend to publish?
If you post more than two http://'s though Jen's software will block so workaround is to post the web addresses without the http:// bit.
Have just come in from a hard days work and looked at this blog again.Oh for the time to sit in front of the screen all day, developing square eyes! Guess all the bloggers have now fled to Jen's new postings, but a few comments on above.
Luke, not only the Antarctic, but record lows and big freezes in many areas of the world. Would take pages to quote a small percentage ,but here are a few examples, (in no particular order.)
12/6/06 Heaviest snow in NZ in 50 yrs. Various websites, I'm not going to quote them all, being computer literate, you can find them. If not I'll supply them.
30/8/05 All NZ's 50 recorded glaciers again advancing.
25/5/06 Record cold in Australia.
16/6/06 Many all time record low temps. across Australia.
18/6/06 Ditto. Perth never recorded such low temps.
16/6/06 More heavy snow and all time lows in NZ with buildings collapsing under heavy snow, etc etc.
12/2/06 Heaviest snow in New York city since 1869, with many record lows across the NE.
Last northern winter, hundreds of reports across Europe of all time record lows, huge snow falls , thousands dying in collapsing buildings, and from freezing to death. Ditto Japan, ditto China, ditto Asia, and ditto North America . Glaciers advancing in NH too. And on and on. All one has to do is turn away from virtual reality climate models and look at recorded facts.
Hockey Stick, 'what's wrong with it' It's a fraud mate, that's what's wrong with it.
Medicine, it was thalidomide and such that tightened up the review process there, just as the Hockey Stick and similar scams are tightening up the climate science review process. As I said before, to the discomfort of the AGW Club.
Thanks Jim - a succinct summary of where we have been on the Antarctica issue. You could easily interpret it as what you might expect if you work back from the observed meteorology. A note of caution - that pattern doesn't have to go on forever.