Polar Bear Practicing In Case Forecast Was True
The forecast is pretty much on track. Front comes through on Tuesday. Late Monday night with some rain showers and perhaps some rumbles of thunder but, generally, not much to write home about. Perhaps a quarter of an inch or so…its the first general rain we’ve had for some time and anything you get will be welcome and the last real chance for some time to come. The only real changes are that we feel like that an upper level disturbance rotating around the main storm center will bring some clouds on Wednesday and the clouds on Tuesday will erode in the afternoon before we get some cloud cover back on Wednesday with perhaps some light showers. Otherwise, we will go from above average temperatures to well below seasonal averages for the balance of the week before we warm up into the weekend.
August 2008 Climate Map
Global Warming Odds and Ends: Here are some items that I have been storing up for a day when it was rather boring in the weather department and boring on the history front. First is the global climate conditions for July. It was one of the rare occurences in many months that the global temperatures have been warmer than the 20 year average. Note that June was globally cooler than average and that La Nina was reported to have been waning. Here is a post regarding previous months. Here’s the July report:
Here’s the August preliminary global climate report. August was slightly colder globally. There was almost an equal split between the northern and southern hemispheres.
UAH August Global Climate Report
Arctic Ice Began Growing Again 09.12.08
If you recall, at the beginning of the summer, we had all sorts of articles warning of the polar ice caps melting away and the risk of Santa Claus having his home end up in the frigid ocean waters. We had visions of polar bears swimming endlessly. At the time, I pointed out that the writers trumpeted a headline that suggested such doom. Yet, if you read down many paragraphs into the article, then you find that the probability of the headline becoming fact was not as high as suggested. In fact, the amount of sea-ice was actually a little greater than at the same time the previous year. Late this summer, I found a similar article. This one said that the sea ice at the poles were the second smallest in recorded history, which goes back to those ancient days of 1979. That is one way to look at it. Another way to look at it was that the amount of sea ice had grown over the previous summer and then asked the open-ended question as to whether this was a trend or an anomaly. They could have had the headline “Arctic Sea Ice Increases by 9 Percent” Or they could have said “Arctic Sea Ice increases to 1.7 million square miles!” But no…instead it says that this years sea ice came close to the lowest total ever.
In any event, THIS ARTICLE shows a far cry from the fear of Santa swimming with his reindeer and certainly indicates a bit of editorializing on the part of the headline writer, if not the AP writer, who seems to be nameless.
IPCC Hockey Stick vs True Graph
Much has been made about the IPCC report and it is being used as gospel regarding the last word on Global Warming. Mr. Gore has suggested it means that the debate is over. However, I have been reading many articles by learned folks who take issue with the IPCC Report. One of the things that they question is the Hockey Stick Graph (see previous post), which the IPCC subsequently admitted was not correct and quietly changed it to something that at least is closer to what the data suggested, which was a big warm up back in the times of the Vikings living in Greenland. Also, it reflected somewhat the time that is commonly known as the mini-ice age which was partly resposible for the immigration of Europeans to North America.
Another problem is that they have with report is that they used work by people who did not go through peer-review. Typically, before data can be used as evidence in an academic work, it must go through a review process by other academians to test the views presented. Most of the time, the citations would have been previously published after which they would have gone through more peer review. Apparently, much of the key parts of the IPCC report did not go through the process. Further, the guys who were drawing the conclusions were also some of the same guys who wrote the evidence that was never reviewed by anyone. You might call that a stacked deck.
Here is a letter from members of the US House of Representatives questioning the IPCC Methodology and asking for explanations. Congressional Letter to IPCC Chairman Dr. Rajendra Pachauri asking for some explanation.
If that is not enough….
Here is a letter from scholars asking the same chairman, Dr. Pachauri, to “admit that there is no observational evidence in measured data going back 22,000 years or even millions of years that CO2 levels (whether from man or nature) have driven or are driving world temperatures.” Pretty tough.
Here is the letter calling on the IPCC to make yet another admission of error.
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Now. earlier this year the head of the Associated Press, Ron Fournier, said he wanted the writers to abandon the just-the-facts approach to writing news and instead encouraged first person accounts and to include the writer’s personal emotions.(Here’s a related opinion piece) In my journalism class, that would have gotten an “F”. Where are you Griff Singer when we need you? I’ve noticed a whole lot of editorializing of late, even more than usual, especially in the area of headlines and how stories are written. This is very true with the reporting of Global Warming. I’ve cited another example here on this post. I would also suggest that the open letters that I’ve included here questioning the IPCC report may have been reported, but were probably buried whereas the actual IPCC report was brought out at the top of newspapers and tv broadcasts. Yes, people have questioned the report that Mr. Gore claims is settled science, but not too many people know that its been questioned or by whom. I wonder how many people know that the infamous hockey stick graph was quietly replaced after enough people complained of its inaccuracy? I wonder how many Americans would be on board the current climate bandwagon if Mr. Gore’s movie had revealed that data that may not have been reviewed and that those writing the conclusions were the same people who wrote the non-reviewed data were the very same people? All I am advocating is pure, straight truth. I question whether or not that is possible to achieve when those orchestrating the report is a necessarily political body such as the United Nations. This subject needs to be put solely into the academic arena and out of the hands of politicians, or politician turned film-makers.
