Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

[GAP]

Whatever Happened to the Hole in the Ozone Layer?
Article Link

  Stuart Fox
Life's Little Mysteries Staff Writer
LiveScience.com Stuart Fox
life's Little Mysteries Staff Writer
livescience.com – Thu May 6, 8:50 am ET

Three British scientists shocked the world when they revealed on May 16th, 1985 - 25 years ago - that aerosol chemicals, among other factors, had torn a hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole. The ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from damaging solar radiation, became an overnight sensation. And the hole in the ozone layer became the poster-child for mankind's impact on the planet.

Today, the ozone hole - actually a region of thinned ozone, not actually a pure hole - doesn't make headlines like it used to. The size of the hole has stabilized, thanks to decades of aerosol-banning legislation. But, scientists warn, some danger still remains.

First, the good news: Since the 1989 Montreal Protocol banned the use of ozone-depleting chemicals worldwide, the ozone hole has stopped growing. Additionally, the ozone layer is blocking more cancer-causing radiation than any time in a decade because its average thickness has increased, according to a 2006 United Nations report. Atmospheric levels of ozone-depleting chemicals have reached their lowest levels since peaking in the 1990s, and the hole has begun to shrink.

Now the bad news: The ozone layer has also thinned over the North Pole. This thinning is predicted to continue for the next 15 years due to weather-related phenomena that scientists still cannot fully explain, according to the same UN report . And, repairing the ozone hole over the South Pole will take longer than previously expected, and won't finish until between 2060 and 2075. Scientists now understand that the size of the ozone hole varies dramatically from year to year, which complicates attempts to accurately predict the hole's future size.

Interestingly, recent studies have shown that the size of the ozone hole affects the global temperature. Closing the ozone hole actually speeds up the melting of the polar ice caps, according to a 2009 study from Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.

So even though environmentally friendly laws have successfully reversed the trend of ozone depletion, the lingering effects of aerosol use, and the link between the ozone hole and global warming, virtually ensure that this problem will persist until the end of the century.
end

 

[GAP]

Boy, talk about pushing agendas......this whole thing just gets stupider and stupider..................

Europe to examine case for bigger CO2 cuts
Article Link
  By Roger Harrabin  Environment analyst, BBC News 


Europe's climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard is to set out the case for a unilateral 30% EU cut in CO2.

At the end of May she will unveil research examining the consequences to Europe's economy of outdoing the current 20% target.

She said no position had been taken by Europe on a new unilateral target.

But she warned the fall in CO2 during the recession meant a 20% cut would not drive the clean energy innovation Europe needed.

She said China was investing almost 10 times as much as the EU in plans for a low-carbon economy.

"Europe risks being left behind," she said at a lecture in London organised by the International Institute for Environment and Development.

She said that due to the recession, it is now a third cheaper to achieve the 20% target than when it was agreed in 2007.

"For an extra 11bn Euros on the sum originally proposed, the EU can now make a 30% CO2 cut [by 2020, based on 1990 levels]" she said. Her paper will examine the costs and benefits of such a proposal.

"She said it would include benefits like cleaning up local air pollution and energy security - and, crucially, the stimulus it would give to low-carbon innovation in Europe.
More on link

 

[a_majoor]

What "renewable" really means:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-insane-myth-of-renewable-energy/?singlepage=true

The Insane Myth of ‘Renewable’ Energy

The nonsense from green energy lobbyists is nothing short of crazy talk. Why is Congress, or anyone else, buying it?
May 18, 2010
- by John Droz, Jr.
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“Renewable” electrical energy sources are not even remotely equivalent to conventional energy sources, and this is perhaps the most important reality of energy to understand.

Green lobbyists go to great lengths to disguise this. Everything they propagate is based on an “equivalency” between “renewables” and conventional power sources that does not exist in the real world. Even generally objective sources, like the Energy Information Administration (EIA), seriously err when they show levelized cost charts that have wind energy and nuclear power in contiguous columns.

The first problem encountered is the term “renewables.” This word is treated like it is a scientific definition and a homogeneous group of energy sources. This is lobbyist sleight of hand, as neither is true. The definition is very subjective, and there are extraordinary differences between various “renewables.” (See here and here.)

The next hurdle is getting our heads around the fundamental difference between a “renewable” like wind energy, and nuclear power. Let’s look at two types of transportation (a parallel energy sector), using concepts we are all familiar with.

Take a business that repeatedly needs to get 50,000 pounds of goods from New York City to Denver in two days, and cost is quite important. (In the electricity business, this translates to satisfying a demand (load) through dispatchable energy, reliably and economically.)

So who do we subcontract this job to? A good option is to put this merchandise on an 18-wheeler and send it on its way. Will it always get there 100% of the time without fail? No, flukes do happen. However, if this experiment was repeated 100 times, the truck would arrive well over 90% of the time, on schedule and within budget. This is equivalent to using a conventional energy source, like nuclear power.

Now let’s introduce green into the equation, arbitrarily adding the requirement that no fossil fuel can be used: our options are now severely restricted. The parallel choice to using wind energy is to send the merchandise with golf carts (battery powered so no fossil fuel will be consumed during transport). How many golf carts will it take to dependably replicate the performance of one Mack truck?

Let’s say a golf cart can carry 500 pounds (two golfers with sticks). Transporting 50,000 pounds would require 100 golf carts, and as ludicrous as this option sounds, this is essentially the message wind lobbyists want you to buy: approximately 100 golf carts (wind turbines) will do the job of one 18-wheeler (conventional source: e.g., a coal facility).

They want you to blink and move on. Do not look behind the curtain!

But wait! Can the golf carts really get there in two days? Of course not. The lobbyist answer? Add more vehicles: use 1000 carts!

Does this “solution” really solve anything? No, but it further confuses politicians not used to critical thinking. What it also does is insure more profit for the cart industry — which is the only concern of the the lobbyists.

What if the load is a hundred 500-pound pianos? Even though (on paper) a golf cart can carry 500 pounds, can a golf cart transport a piano across the country?

The lobbyists’ answer: disassemble it.

What about the cost of the golf cart option compared to the truck? Just to begin with, you’re hiring 100-plus drivers vs. one — so I think you know the answer, right?

And what else will be needed to support this ”alternative” source of transportation? A lot: like battery recharging stations throughout the country. And who will pay for that? Duh.

And what is the source of the electricity used to charge the cart batteries? Mostly fossil fuels. Oops.

After the business says a resounding no to the golf cart option, the promoters come back with another appeal: just send part of the load with them. But try as they might, the owners don’t see sending any part of their merchandise on golf carts making sense, from reliability, economic, or environmental perspectives. Can you?

In the face of this evidence, the lobbyists and their academic co-conspirators distractingly wave their hands:

    Don’t worry about these details. Increase our subsidy and we’ll do a better job. Give us a huge subsidy and we’ll do a great job. Everything will make more sense mañana.

This isn’t how science works!

Before paying them to run this route, these promoters should tell us exactly how many golf carts it will take, and then prove it by actually running this route dozens of times. We would then have real-world evidence of the reliability and cost of their proposal.

This is exactly what we have not done with wind energy. We have skipped right over the proof stage.

It gets worse. The golf cart lobbyists turn to politicians, trying to convince them that businesses have been “resistive” to their product, so they need a law mandating that 20% of all goods from New York City to Denver go the golf cart route!

The claimed benefit of all of this? Economic recovery. There will be lots of new jobs in the golf cart business! What about the economic loss due to the higher shipping cost or the slower, much less dependable transportation?

Don’t worry about it. Come back mañana.

This is the insane path we are now on.

(For a more thorough discussion of this situation, see EnergyPresentation.Info.)

John Droz, Jr. is a physicist and environmental advocate.

 

[Haletown]

Neither wind or solar make any sense . . .  The Global Warming proponents lay on the eco-guilt so they can get their feed-in tariffs and get rich.

Ontario has just signed up for $billions of this nonsense.  The only question is will Dulton pay/hide the feed-in tariff payments in General revenues or will he put on the the Electric Bill where people can see how much they are paying.

He's a politician so he'll hide it . . . but Ontario taxpayers still will have to pay between 800% and 1200% more  to Green Power electrical producers than a Hydro or Thermal electrical producer.

So being in the Green Business is really about  $the $green rather than  The Green.

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

It's sad....I started out as a Global Warming believer long ago.....long before Al Gore's movie ever hit the scene. 

But with the release of so much information, it's obvious that it's one giant scam....money, prestige & travel for "climate scientists" who have manipulated most if not all the temperature records....kickbacks for UN leadership to promote the fake crisis....even more money for so-called "green companies" (most of which are based in Europe) to provide us a solution we don't really need....a new found source of tax revenue to fund unsustainable entitlement spending for left-leaning politicians.....and a new cause d'etre for those same left-leaning politicians to guarantee the votes of people who sign up for a cause because it's trendy, rather than because it's real.

The truly frustrating part for me is if we redirected even half this money to preserving important eco-systems, we could actually make a real difference.  Instead Europe calls Palm Oil "sustainable" and they end up incentivizing the bulldozing of massive swaths of Indonesian rain forest to make way for Palm plantations.

The whole thing makes me ill and I now see Global Warming Alarmists as the most un-green people on the planet as their policies are fundamentally doing more harm than good.....and they should be embarassed by that fact.

 

[Haletown]

Spain's socialist government jumped on the AGW bandwagon and it has been an economic disaster . .  a preview of the future for Ontario's economy.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/18/leaked-doc-proves-spain%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98green%E2%80%99-policies-an-economic-disaster/

Good summary.

Maybe Dulton will have to roll back civil service salaries in Ontario like the Spanish government did?

 

[KJK]

I was reading the Edmonton Journal this morning and it seems that Alberta narrowly dodged a serious brownout/blackout on Monday. The utilities had to ask major industrial customers to reduce power use after the Battle River power station went down unexpectedly. Since 2 other major power stations in Alberta were down for scheduled maintenance and there was no power available from SK or BC the spot rate hit $999 per kwh. Where were the much vaulted windmills? Apparently there was no wind with the heat in southern AB so not 1 wind farm was contributing power. How will this possibly work when we have 30% or more of our power from windmills? It sure isn't something I would want to bet my life on. It is bad enough in the summer but in the winter it could be deadly.

I couldn't find a link for the article but if I do I'll post it.

KJK

 

[GAP]

If I remember correctly, there are terrific transmission lines going North - South, but the grids East - West were never fully developed so that stuff like this needn`t happen.....I know Mb & Sk swap power through their grids, as does Ont - Mb, but I am under the impression that this goes South, then East, then North, through the US grids....

I will stand corrected by someone who actually knows....

 

[KJK]

Gap, that's likely true in most provinces but Alberta has only one light line tying us with Montana. We get most of our extra power requirements from BC or SK.

KJK

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Wind is 5% of capacity.  Our interconnections with other jusidictions are quite small.

http://www.energy.alberta.ca/Electricity/682.asp

 

[a_majoor]

This also has implications in the US "Election 2012" and "US Economy" threads:

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/  (21 May 2010)

I HATE TO SAY I TOLD YOU SO,” Christopher Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute writes at PJM, “but I revel in it:”

As predicted was inevitable, today the Spanish newspaper La Gaceta runs with a full-page article fessing up to the truth about Spain’s “green jobs” boondoggle, which happens to be the one naively cited by President Obama no less than eight times as his model for the United States. It is now out there as a bust, a costly disaster that has come undone in Spain to the point that even the Socialists admit it, with the media now in full pursuit.

Breaking the Spanish government’s admission here at Pajamas Media probably didn’t hurt their interest in finally reporting on the leaked admission. Obama’s obvious hope of rushing into place his “fundamental transformation” of America into something more like Europe’s social democracies — where even the most basic freedoms have been moved from individuals and families to the state — before the house of cards collapsed has suffered what we can only hope proves to be its fatal blow. At least on this front.

La Gaceta boldly exposes the failure of the Spanish renewable policy and how Obama has been following it. The headline screams: “Spain admits that the green economy as sold to Obama is a disaster.”

A scanned PDF file of the La Gaceta article, as well as an English translation are included in Horner’s post.

American legacy media should be cuing crickets about now, and I expect the usual suspects in Canada will also be sitting inside Tim Horton's rather than in full persuit of the story...

 

[a_majoor]

Another one of the usual suspects emerges:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/we-know-about-soros-%E2%80%94-but-who-is-maurice-strong/?singlepage=true

We Know About Soros — But Who Is Maurice Strong?

Canadian mogul and avowed socialist Maurice Strong manipulates governments to benefit his "green" portfolio and those of his friends: George Soros, Ted Turner, Al Gore, and China.
May 24, 2010
- by Ed Lasky
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Intercontinental Exchange has agreed to purchase the parent company of the Chicago Climate Exchange, the preeminent market for trading carbon credits. This is a market that exists solely to capitalize on possible federal legislation that would mandate reduced greenhouse gas emissions or the purchase of “pollution credits.”

Politicians created this market out of thin air by fiat, and not surprisingly, cronies of these politicians will be the beneficiaries. These climate change profiteers include Maurice Strong.

We know of the usual suspects who have invested, either directly or indirectly, in the Climate Exchange: Goldman Sachs, Al Gore, and Chicago’s Joyce Foundation (which made an investment when Barack Obama sat on its board), among others. Franklin Raines, while he headed Fannie Mae, purchased and patented the mechanism used for trading under the cap-and-trade system — an investment that could fare far better than the trillion dollars worth of bad mortgages he saddled Fannie Mae with.

But Maurice Strong … who is he?

Strong is Canada’s George Soros — a man of vast wealth who has parlayed his fortune into influence. Strong made his money in the Canadian energy markets and decades ago began a second career hobnobbing with diplomats and environmentalists.

Strong became a wheeler and dealer at the UN. He was close to several secretary generals, including, most recently, Kofi Annan. Strong found himself embroiled in the oil-for-food scandal when a check with his name on it, drawn on a Jordanian bank, was delivered to him by infamous South Korean businessman Tongsun Park (convicted of conspiring to bribe UN officials to rig the oil-for-food program for Saddam Hussein).

Strong made for the exits when Annan lost his post. But before his departure (Strong now resides in Beijing), he had left his mark at the UN by encouraging that body to promote the view that climate change is a crisis requiring governmental intervention. Strong, like Soros, has leveraged his wealth and connections to influence governmental policies around the world.

Strong was appointed secretary general of the UN Conference on Environment and Development — better known as the Earth Summit. But that was, bad pun intended, just the tip of the iceberg. He rapidly became a key player in a raft of groups that have perpetrated the climate change fraud. He helped create a byzantine structure for Ted Turner’s billion dollar gift to the UN, which Turner has been dishing out periodically from his UN Foundation (little known, or appreciated, is that Turner also funds purportedly independent environmental groups whose agendas benefit his own privately owned investments).

Strong is reportedly close to Al Gore, who may become the world’s first “green” billionaire. Strong has been called the godfather of the environmental movement — if so, Al Gore must be his godson and unworthy heir (Strong is 81).

While Strong was at the UN, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed. Reports issued under their imprimatur have been used to justify all types of political and industrial changes — all fruits of a poisonous tree. Those reports have only recently been publicized as being of questionable validity, but the damage has been done. And like most frauds, this has benefited the perpetrators at the expense of the people.

Joe Lieberman and John Kerry have introduced the latest version of a cap-and-trade bill. It will impose strict limits on carbon emissions and establish a complex regulatory scheme. If a business exceeds its limits, it will have to purchase additional credits from an exchange where the credits will be traded like a commodity.

It is telling that the Climate Exchange is headquartered in Chicago, one of the world centers of commodity trading.

Therefore, I found it quite intriguing that Maurice Strong is listed a member of the Climate Exchange board and will presumably benefit from the sale to the Intercontinental Exchange.

Among Strong’s peregrinations around international bodies has been a stint at the World Bank, where he was a senior adviser to then-president James Wolfensohn. While there, one of his colleagues was Mark Malloch Brown — a Brit with his own intriguing background. Brown was Annan’s right-hand man, but had to look for a new line of work after the oil-for food scandal hit too close to home.

Coincidentally, attacks later mounted on Wolfensohn’s successor, Paul Wolfowitz. These attacks came from left-wing partisans who targeted Wolfowitz for being too involved in the Iraq war and for being a George Bush appointee. There were reports that these attacks were being orchestrated by Soros, who was attempting to install Brown as president of the World Bank (see “Axis of Soros“).

Soros and Brown are ideologically compatible: they both despise Republicans and have a disdainful view towards American power. They are modern-day “progressives” who look upon the public purse as their own. Soros, the sugar daddy of the Democratic Party, clearly sees Democrats as his comrades-in-arms. (After all, they are the ones pushing the climate change fraud and the cap-and-trade scheme.) Soros buys additional influence by founding and funding influential think tanks like the Center for American Progress, which issue streams of reports stoking climate change hysteria and promoting green energy. Green indeed, for the climate change profiteers.

Wolfowitz was deposed, but Brown lost out in his bid to assume the presidency. Had Brown become president, he would have been ideally positioned to help Strong and Soros reap further government subsidies for pie-in-the-sky renewable energy ventures that could not survive without massive transfusions of taxpayer cash. Meanwhile, proven, cheap, and plentiful domestic supplies of clean-burning shale gas lie untouched, with Barack Obama and left-wing Democrats in Congress looking to derail tapping that energy.

The World Bank is already deeply involved in developing carbon trading schemes and is a member of the Climate Exchange. One can only imagine what more they would have been able to do had Brown’s efforts to worm his way into the presidency been successful.

What was Brown’s consolation prize? He lived at an estate — owned by Soros — while he waited in the wings for the World Bank post. When that plan went awry, Soros named Brown vice chairman of his hedge fund (despite no previous experience in the field) and of Soros’s Open Society Institute — an organization that can best be described as another Soros tool to bring about vast changes in societies around the world. These might be sinecures, as Brown awaits other opportunities to become a player in the world of geopolitics to benefit his friends.

What is Maurice Strong doing these days in China? He has a lot “going on” there, we have been told. Per Claudia Rosett and George Russell (“At The United Nations, The Curious Career of Maurice Strong“):

    China is a special place for Strong, a self-declared, life-long socialist. It is the burial place of a woman said to be one of his relatives, the famous pro-communist American journalist Anna Louise Strong, a vociferous supporter of Lenin and Stalin until the mid-‘30s, and a strong booster of Mao Zedong’s China. Maurice Strong’s presence in Beijing, however, raises awkward questions: For one thing, China, while one of the world’s biggest producers of industrial pollution, has been profiting from the trading of carbon emissions credits — thanks to heavily politicized U.N.-backed environmental deals engineered by Strong in the 1990s.

    Strong has refused to answer questions from FOX News about the nature of his business in China, though he has been linked in press reports to planned attempts to market Chinese-made automobiles in North America, and a spokesman for the U.S.-based firm that had invited him to speak in San Francisco, Cleantech Venture Network, says he has recently been “instrumental” in helping them set up a joint venture in Beijing. Strong’s assistant in Beijing did confirm by e-mail that he has an office in a Chinese government-hosted diplomatic compound, thanks to “many continuing relationships arising from his career including 40 years of active relationships in China.

China is also a special place when it comes to the environment. When the international community focuses on climate change, China, as a “developing nation,” often seems to get a pass. Instead, the focus has been on penalizing Western factories and businesses. This disparity would redound to the benefit of China. Even if China did agree to some measures to control its own massive pollution (it burns a great deal of dirty coal to power its growth), some incredulity would be warranted that China would ever abide by them.

Of course, China has benefited in other ways from the rush towards “green energy.” It is a major producer of windmills and is becoming a force in electric cars.

Has Strong, who has played such a large role in creating the environmental movement, figured out yet another way to gild his own lily and enrich climate change hucksters such as Al Gore, Ted Turner, and George Soros?

Ed Lasky is news editor of the American Thinker.

 

[a_majoor]

Global cooling is to be feared. The onset of hard winters and poor harvests will stress societies in ways far harder than the current economic crisis is doing:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/global-cold-wave-may-be-looming-%e2%80%94-this-time-the-science-is-good

Global Cold Wave May Be Looming — This Time, the Science Is Good

Posted By Art Horn On May 31, 2010 @ 12:02 am In Column 1, Science, Science & Technology | 8 Comments

In a cosmically ironic twist of fate and timing, nature may be set to empirically freeze any and all anthropogenic global warming talk: a blast of Arctic cold may encase the earth in an icy grip not seen for 200 years.

This is not alarmist fantasy or 2012 babble — several natural forces that are known to cause cooling are awakening simultaneously, raising speculation of a “perfect storm” of downward pressures on global temperature. These forces let loose one at a time can cause the Earth to cool and can bring about harsh winter conditions. If they all break free at once, the effects could be felt not just in the coming winter, but year-round, and for several years to come.

On March 20, a volcano erupted [1] on the island of Iceland. The eruption has continued at varying intensity to this day. A volcano erupting on Iceland is not an uncommon event — the island is one of the few spots where the mid-oceanic ridge rears up out of the water, revealing its violent personality. However, this particular volcano is different — it has acted as a reliable predictor of future much more explosive and consequential activity.

This volcano has only erupted three times since the 9th century, the last eruption occurring in the early 1820s. In the past, it has been followed by a much larger eruption by the nearby Katla volcano [2]. Katla has erupted many times on its own, usually every 60 to 80 years, and last blew in 1918. It’s overdue.

Magnus Tomi Gudmundson [3] is a geophysicist at the University of Iceland, and an expert on volcanic ice eruptions:

There is an increasing likelihood we’ll see a Katla eruption in the coming months or a year or two, but there’s no way that’s certain. …

From records we know that every time Eyjafjallajokull has erupted, Katla has also erupted.

The reason this is ominously significant is that these giant eruptions can change the weather on a planetary scale for years. Mount Laki, another large volcano in Iceland, has a history of producing climate changing eruptions. In the early summer of 1783, Laki erupted [4], releasing vast rivers of lava. The explosive volcano also ejected a massive amount of volcanic ash and sulfur dioxide into the air — the eruption was so violent that the ash and sulfur dioxide were injected into the stratosphere, some 8 miles up. This cloud was then swept around the world by the stratospheric winds. The result was a significant decrease in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface for several years.

That reduction in sunlight brought about bitter cold weather [5] across the northern hemisphere. The winter of 1784 was the coldest ever seen in New England and in Europe. New Jersey was buried under feet of snow. The Mississippi River froze all the way down to New Orleans! Ice was reported in the Gulf of Mexico. Historical records show that similar conditions existed during the following winter.

Other eruptions have caused similar consequences. Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted with cataclysmic force in April of 1815, the largest eruption in over 1,600 years. It also came during a time of very low solar activity, known as the “Dalton Minimum [6].” The following year was called “The Year Without a Summer [7].” During early June of 1815, a foot of snow fell on Quebec City. In July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as Pennsylvania. Frost killed crops across New England with a resulting famine. During the brutal winter of 1816/17, the temperature fell to -32 in New York City.

Mount Pinatubo exploded in June of 1991, after four centuries of sleep. The resultant cloud of volcanic ash in the stratosphere pounded the global temperature down a full one degree Fahrenheit by 1993. Record snowfall buried the Mid-Atlantic states and southern New England during the winter of 1993/94. Those same records were shattered just two years later in the winter of 1995/96 from the effects of the reduced sunlight.

If Eyjafjallajokull induces an eruption of Katla, that event alone could force global temperatures down for 3 to 5 years. But there is much more at work here.

We have just exited the longest and deepest solar minimum in nearly 100 years. During this minimum, the Sun had the greatest number of spotless days (days where there were no sunspots on the face of the sun) since the early 1800s. The solar cycle is usually about 11 years from minimum to minimum — this past cycle 23 lasted 12.7 years. The long length of a solar cycle has been shown to have significant short term climate significance. Australian solar researcher Dr. David Archibald has shown that for every one year increase in the solar cycle length, there is a half-degree Celsius drop in the global temperature in the next cycle.

Using that relationship, we could expect a global temperature drop of one degree Fahrenheit by 2020. That alone would wipe out all of the warming of the last 150 years.

And there is yet a third player in this potential global temperature plunge.

Since autumn of 2009, we have been under the influence of a moderately strong El Nino. El Nino is a warming of the water in the Pacific Ocean along the equator from South America to the international dateline. El Nino’s warm water adds vast amounts of heat and humidity to the atmosphere. The result is a warmer Earth and greatly altered weather patterns around the world. The current El Nino is predicted to fade out this summer, and frequently after an El Nino we see the development of La Nina, the colder sister of El Nino. La Nina’s cooler waters along the equatorial Pacific act to cool the Earth’s temperature.

The stage could soon be set for a confluence of cold-inducing forces. A La Nina, a weaker sun, and a possible major eruption in Iceland could plunge the Earth into a period of bitter cold not seen for two hundred years.

Forecasts of natural phenomena are notoriously difficult. However, a unique set of natural circumstances have a chance to unify into a formidable triad. All eyes will be on Iceland to see if Katla awakens from its long sleep, and if it does, the theory of man-made global warming will be handed yet another crushing blow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/global-cold-wave-may-be-looming-%e2%80%94-this-time-the-science-is-good/

URLs in this post:

[1] volcano erupted: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/world/europe/16iht-scene.html

[2] Katla volcano: http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/en/volcanoes/europe/iceland/katla/

[3] Magnus Tomi Gudmundson: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/iceland/7601178/Iceland-volcano-an-eyeful-of-Eyjafjallajokull.html

[4] erupted: http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/education/gases/laki.html

[5] bitter cold weather: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/15/iceland-volcano-weather-french-revolution

[6] Dalton Minimum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum

[7] The Year Without a Summer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

 

[GAP]

Legal verdict: Manmade global warming science doesn’t withstand scrutiny
Article Link

By Lawrence Solomon  June 6, 2010 – 10:47 pm

A cross examination of global warming science conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Law and Economics has concluded that virtually every claim advanced by global warming proponents fail to stand up to scrutiny.

The cross-examination, carried out by Jason Scott Johnston, Professor and Director of the Program on Law, Environment and Economy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, found that “on virtually every major issue in climate change science, the [reports of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and other summarizing work by leading climate establishment scientists have adopted various rhetorical strategies that seem to systematically conceal or minimize what appear to be fundamental scientific uncertainties or even disagreements.”

Professor Johnson, who expressed surprise that the case for global warming was so weak, systematically examined the claims made in IPCC publications and other similar work by leading climate establishment scientists and compared them with what is found in the peer-edited climate science literature. He found that the climate establishment does not follow the scientific method. Instead, it “seems overall to comprise an effort to marshal evidence in favor of a predetermined policy preference.”

The 79-page document, which effectively eviscerates the case for man-made global warming, can be found  here.

Financial Post
End

 

[Journeyman]

My tree-hugging g/f hates you guys for bringing these articles to my attention



......thank you  ;D

 

[GAP]

My tree-hugging g/f hates you guys for bringing these articles to my attention
......thank you  ;D

If you give her enough of these articles, she might change from hugging trees to........you?  ;D

 

[Kat Stevens]

June 8th, high today of 16C.... Global-what-was-it again?

 

[Kirkhill]

Skiing anyone?

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Skiing anyone?

No but I went to a wedding in Edmonton the last weekend in May and it snowed all day.  Not unexpected because there was a blizzard in northern Alberta the weekend before. 

 

[Kirkhill]

I know.

We had the same storm in Lethbridge,  the garden spot of Alberta.