Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Global Warming

Hurricane Alarmists — Wrong Again!

In spite of predictions of Global Warming alarmists that hurricanes in 2006 would again devastate the Nation, largely due to the Administration’s non-participation in the Kyoto accords, the weather patterns aren’t supporting their theories.

World Climate Report, one of our favorite blogs, published another very interesting article about this. Unlike the alarmists who cherry-pick their talking points without actually doing any serious research, the authors at World Climate Report use actual science and quote their references.

More Stormy Weather Ahead for Hurricane Doomsayers

The work of Bengtsson et al. provide yet another example that the present and future of tropical storms, and the potential human impact on their frequency and intensity, is far, far from being settled in the pages of scientific journals, despite what you may be reading in the pages of your favorite newspaper.

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Read about how the Sun is responsible for most of Earth’s climate fluctuations. Also visit our collection of articles on the topic of Global Warming.

19 Sep 2006 by Global Warming Science Whacko Politics

A Sudden Ocean Heat Loss

We are in the midst of global warming and yet the ocean temperatures are cooling? Is this correct? New data in a soon-to-be-published paper indicate the opposite of what might be expected during a period of increasing Earth surface temperatures: the top 2500 feet of the ocean lost a tremendous amount of heat between from 2003 through 2005—about 20% of all the heat gained in the last half-century. Considering the thermal inertia the oceans must have, this is astonishing! (Image: Global Ocean Surface Temperatures – courtesy NASA)

A good article on this topic may be found at World Climate Report: A Sea Change in Global Warming?

The sudden cooling may be related to Earth’s Ocean Conveyor Belt, the phenomenon popularized by the movie “The Day After Tomorrow.” Nobody really knows though.

Just when the global warming alarmists are making their case against evil mankind warming the Earth, this has to happen – tsk, tsk.

30 Aug 2006 by Environment Global Warming

Correlating Sunspots to Global Climate

Unfamiliar with Solar phenomena? Read what the Sun is and how it does what it does:

More about Why Solar fusion activity is the primary 
mechanism for climate change on Earth — not people!

This is a study in two observations made over the last 400 years: observed annual sunspot numbers and derived global temperatures. The sunspot numbers were recorded by various solar observers since Galileo‘s time. Temperatures have been derived from scientific evidence such as ice and earth cores, and several other valid methods. These were collected by various climate studies and were compiled by NASA scientists to produce an animation of Earth’s climate changes over 399 years between 1599 and 1998.

Climate Change

First look at the NASA video that chronicles global temperature since 1599 AD:

Red indicates warmer surface temperature while blue indicates cooler. The little year clock, although difficult to read, ticks off the years in rapid succession from 1599 through 1998.

You should notice two things as you watch the animation:

  1. The Earth has generally been getting warmer
  2. Extended periods of cooler temperatures have occurred

Annual Sunspot Count

Next, look at this graphic depicting solar cycles and the number of sunspots counted each year:

You should notice two things as you observe this graphic:

  1. The sunspot count per year has been getting generally larger
  2. Extended periods of low sunspot numbers have occurred

Correlating The Two Phenomena Together

And finally, look at this two-minute presentation that ties both observations together:


©2006 Cap’n Bob

A few additional conclusions:

  1. The media will print or broadcast sensationalized headlines to sell copy regardless of scientific value
  2. The media will print or broadcast manipulated science with half-truths and invalid conclusions to damage politicians with whom they do not agree
  3. Politicians seize on these unverified claims in order to blame their opponents
  4. Uneducated/uninformed people are as gullible as ever

References

Update: Read about how cosmic rays interact with solar flux to alter Earth’s climate in a subsequent article.

26 Aug 2006 by Environment Global Warming Science

Space Radiation Storm

During the years 1999 & 2000 the solar maximum occurred; the time of an 11-year cycle when the Sun exhibits greatest activity. This was the first chance for the Xray Camera on SOHO to observe solar activity at maximum. On July 14, 2000, the camera recorded one of the largest Xray flares to date. In review, this article from NASA recalls the ensuing storm and it’s effects on our planet.

Space Radiation Storm

July 14, 2000 — This morning NOAA satellites and the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) recorded one of the most powerful solar flares of the current solar cycle. Space weather forecasters had been predicting for days that an intense flare might erupt from the large sunspot group 9077, and today one did.

“Energetic protons from the flare arrived at Earth about 15 minutes after the eruption,” says Gary Heckman, a space weather forecaster at the NOAA Space Environment Center. “This triggered a category S3 radiation storm.”

Right: This SOHO animation of an X-class solar flare was recorded by the spacecraft’s Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope at 195 angstroms. This recording nicely shows a flare, followed by a torrent of energetic particles that arrived about 15 minutes later, creating snow on the images as the particles bombarded the camera’s electronic detectors. A second flare does not create as much noise. The duration of this sequence is almost a minute, so keep watching.

According to NOAA space weather prediction scales, an S3 storm can cause the following effects on satellites: single-event upsets, noise in imaging systems, permanent damage to exposed components/detectors, and decrease of solar panel currents. It can also expose air travelers at high latitudes to low levels of radiation, the equivalent of a brief chest x-ray.

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Presently, the sun is between maxima. Although the sun is fairly quiet now, there can still be the occasional flare up.

14 Aug 2006 by Astronomy Environment Global Warming Rocket Science

Perspective

The following composite picture illustrates the significance of mankind’s contribution to global warming.

Photo courtesy of NASA/SOHO via Astronomy Picture of the Day

Try and picture all the tiny little critters on the surface of planet Earth trying to compete with a Solar Coronal Mass Ejection for climate effects. This sort of puts the relative significance of fossil fuel consumption in perspective, doesn’t it?

07 Aug 2006 by Astronomy Global Warming Science Whacko Politics

A 58 Year Old Inconvenient Truth

A truth inconvenient to Al Gore perhaps. And a truth inconvenient to ozone-obsessed greenbats, as well. Gore, producer of the over-represented global warming hype documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” doesn’t take the time to evaluate actual scientific observations, but rather jumps to the politically inept conclusions found by scientific consensus.

Notice that the conclusion made in the article quoted below by a Swedish scientist in 1948 is still the most likely reason for climate change — to wit: Solar fluctuations.

I found this on NRO’s The Corner:

Global warming, 1948 style [Iain Murray]

A scientist friend discovered an article from 1948 entitled “The Present Climatic Fluctuation.” Written by Professor Hans Ahlmann of the University of Stockholm, it begins:

“The present climatic fluctuation has been discussed since the 1920’s almost exclusively in scientific circles, although it has recently become a subject of more than academic interest…Ordinary people are beginning to realize that something has happened and is happening which is of great interest to themselves. The last dry summer, which transformed large parts of Western Europe into a virtual steppe, increased this interest and also caused anxiety, though this drought cannot be said with any certainty to belong to the present climatic fluctuation.”

Sound familiar? All that is missing is a documentary by [then presidential losing candidate] Thomas E Dewey on the subject. Anyway, Ahlmann documents rapidly rising temperatures, glaciers melting like crazy, atmospheric circulation changes, species shifting, sea level rise, and so on from all around the world. But he concludes:

“If we find in the Antarctic similar evidence of the present climatic fluctuation as has been found in other parts of the world, we shall be justified in concluding that the present fluctuation is a world-wide phenomenon and probably the result of variations in solar activity which, slow as they may be to take effect, are actually resulting in an improvement in the climate of our world.”

How times change!

Stare into this yellow ball for a while and tell me that it has lesser effect than some paltry greenhouse gasses (which amount to less than 1 percent of the entire volume of the atmosphere):

Please read about solar activity and climate in these articles:

Solar X-Flares and Hurricanes
Global Warming – A Hot Topic
Ultimate Global Warming – SPF 2 Million Won’t Be Enough
Solar and Terrestrial Conveyor Belts
Sizzling Solar Snapshot
Scientific Consensus

03 Aug 2006 by Environment Global Warming Science Whacko Politics

Scientific Consensus

Update – 04 August 2006 – GRIM, posting at Blackfive comes up with an interesting essay about the scientific community and various scientists’ persuasions about global warming and climate change.

Beware when the words scientific and consensus are used together.

It’s interesting how Newsweek Magazine, long known in conservative circles to be politically left, seems to have changed it’s mind about long-term climate change. They couldn’t be merely harping about the latest trends in junk science, could they?

Image (Courtesy NASA SOHO): A three-day movie of the Sun reveals why this seething monster is the main source of climate effects on Earth. After watching this for a few moments, the notion that mankind could have a more significant effect than the Sun seems patently ridiculous. Just look at the bubbling cauldron of the photosphere and the massive plasma ejections! Awesome!

Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee writes an interesting editorial about current climate junk science and the political outcroppings in California:

Global warming, whether theory or fact, spawns political heat

Thirty-one years ago, Newsweek magazine published an extensive account of what it described as a growing scientific consensus of global climate change.

“There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production,” Newsweek said, adding, “The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it” and “to scientists these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather.”

Global warming? Not quite. The Newsweek article about the emerging scientific consensus was about global cooling and the potential onset of a mini-ice age, akin to the one that chilled the Northern Hemisphere between 1600 and 1900. [See the facts about the Maunder Minimum and mini-ice-age — Ed.]

Now we are told, of course, that there’s a growing scientific consensus about global warming, with hydrocarbon emissions from humankind’s economic activities the chief culprit, although there’s a significant body of contrary opinion.

Whether global warming is a scientific fact or, alternatively, a theory being propagandized for ideological reasons is still an open question. But it clearly is a political fact and in politics, perceptions are always more powerful than reality, whatever it may be.

Walters goes on to write about how all this plays out in California politics.

Now, it’s no surprise to me that the politically-left Newsweek jumped all over the latest junk science in their October 1997 issue devoted to global warming. Shame on them for being junk science mongers.

The words scientific and consensus used together are always a sham. True science requires that proof be demonstrated — quad erat demonstratum — which is never the case with scientific consensus.

30 Jul 2006 by California Global Warming Whacko Politics

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