Monday 30 July 2012

New Surface Temperature analysis for North America shows a doubling due to NOAA station siting problems and post measurement adjustments.

                     A new paper just released on 29 July  titled  " An area and distance weighted analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the US Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends" is co-authored by Anthony Watts of California, Evan Jones of New York, Stephen McIntyre of Toronto, Canada and Dr John R Christy former lead author of the IPCC and now from Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama Huntsville.   It is a reanalysis of US surface station temperatures and has been performed using the recently WMO(World Meteorlogical Organisation) approved Siting Classifaction System devised by METEO.   The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 US temperature trends are spuriously doubled,with a massive 92 percent of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration US) adjustments of well sited stations upward.  The issue of station siting quality is expected to be an issue with respect to the monitoring of land surface temperature throughout the Global Historical Climate Network.  The Watts team of 2012 has employed a new methodology for station siting, pioneered by Michel Leroy of METEO France in 2010 and endorsed by the World Meteorological Organisation Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation(CIMO-XV, 2010) fifteenth session , in September 2010 as a WMO-ISO standard ,making it suitable for reevaluating previous studies on the issue of station siting.  The Watts team found that well sited rural stations show a warming nearly three times greater after NOAA adjustment is applied!!  They found that poorly sited station trends are adjusted sharply upward, well sited stations are adjusted upward to match the already adjusted poor stations.  (see the Watts blog http://wattsupwiththat.com)

Sunday 15 July 2012

Dr Patrick Moore cofounder of Greenpeace says humans have reversed the 150 million year decline of CO2 in earth atmosphere

    Dr Patrick Moore has criticised a new study reported in the New Zealand Herald on 11 July which said that global warming has been slowed by an increase in CO2 absorption by plants.     The new study headed by Dr Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research claimed that  because of this unexpected absorption the earth would have warmed faster.  However Dr Moore commented to ClimateDepot.  " these people are either completely naive about the relationship between CO2 and plants or they are making this up as a way of deflecting attention from the lack of warming for the past 15 years"   He goes on to say " plants grow much faster when CO2 is higher, the optimum concentration is between 1500-2000 ppm so there is a long way to go before plants are happy.   CO2 levels in the atmosphere have continued to rise despite plants absorbing more CO2.  So what is the scientist`s point?   It is to obfuscate, confuse, and otherwise muddy the waters with disinformation."   He continued "we should challenge them to admit that CO2 is the most important nutrient for all life on earth and to admit that it is proven in laboratory and field experiments that plants would grow much faster if CO2 is the most important nutrient for all life on earth and to admit that it is proven in lab and fields experiments that plants would grow much faster if CO2 levels were 4-5 times higher in the atmosphere than they are today.  Greenhouse growers pipe the exhaust from their gas and wood heaters back into the greenhouse to increase CO2 levels 3-5 times the level in the atmosphere, resulting in 50-100% increase in growth of their crops.   And they should recognize that CO2 is lower today than it has been through most of the history of life on earth.  There is no abrupt increase in CO2 absorption, it is gradual as CO2 levels rise and plants become less stressed by low CO2 levels.  At 150 ppm CO2 all plants would die, resulting in the virtual end of life on earth".   Referring to humans he said" thank goodness we came along and reversed the 150 million year trend of reduced CO2 levels in the global atmosphere."

Thursday 5 July 2012

Nobel prize winner ---physicist Ivar Giaever--says climate change is pseudoscience!

    Joanne Nova reports on a recent meeting on climate change in which physicist Ivar Giaever was one of the speakers.   Ivar Giaever won the Nobel prize in 1972 for tunneling in superconductors.  In his speech he said that the results were too small to mean anything and called climate change science "pseudoscience".   He derided the Nobel committee for awarding the peace prize to Al Gore and R.K. Pachsuri, and called the human climate change  movement as a "religion"..  He found the measurement of the global average temperature rise of 0.8 degrees over 150 years to be meaningless and unlikely to be accurate because of the difficulties of measurement.   He showed several charts that showed the earth had cooled overall.   He disagreed that carbon dioxide was the driver of climate change.  (note: it is now recognised widely in the scientific community that the drivers of climate change are not humans but the sun and ocean cycles).
     see joannenova.com.au/2012/07/nobel-prize-winner-ivar-giaever-climate-change-is-pseudoscience/)

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering new report supports fracking in the UK.

                A new report from the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering says that fracking to release shale gas should go ahead in the UK subject to tight regulations and continuous monitoring of drilling sites. The report says that despite evidence that fracking can trigger small earthquakes, the tremors felt would be about the same as those caused by a lorry driving past a house.   It said that the chances of any contaminated water escaping into supplies were very low.  Professor Robert Mair chair of the panel said " the risks associated with fracking can be managed effectively in the UK provided operational best practises and enforced through effective regulation"  In the US the Energy Information Administration in their latest monthly energy review said that the shale gas revolution in the US has meant that it is expected that carbon emissions will soon be back down to 1990 levels.  In addition US consumers will have saved $100 billion per year!   The low priced shale gas is the key driver of falling carbon emissions.  Gas and electricity prices in the US are now half what they are in the UK.