climate change

Two years ago, Wattsupwiththat demolished a crackpot story published on CBS (here and here). As stated in the second article, CBS wrongly attributed the story to Associated Press and then killed it without publishing a retraction.

At some time since, that story has been restored on the CBS site, and here is today's screenshot with a bit of surrounding material to prove the date of the screenshot:

Wattsupwiththat brings us the story of the curving line. Just when the Arctic ice seemed about to break through the long-term average, it made a sudden downturn. Anthony Watts' reader Anthony Scalzi prepared this animation:

The shape of the curve for each day actually changes (goes lower) on the subsequent day. As someone with expertise in computer science, I cannot see any way this can be an outcome of an automated algorithm of any reasonable design. To make the shape clear, I interspersed the four days' images with an image showing all four shapes:

Here's a wind farm striking down a bird. The global warming panic has people erecting murder machines without regard for the welfare of animals. And the tragedy is it's all pointless because CO2 is plant food and a boon for the planet, for humanity trying to feed itself, and for wildlife.

I created this website to explore options for peace, so why do I find myself writing so much about global warming? Well, if there's disharmony in the home and you want the family to talk it through, if you find the house is on fire, you have to do something about the fire first. And the loss of truth in science to push a very bad political 'solution' to a non-problem is a worldwide fire threatening civilisation itself.

Case in point: the lost island in the Bay of Bengal. Here's the BBC, covering itself in inglory pushing political antiscience instead of truth:

A tiny island claimed for years by India and Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal has disappeared beneath the rising seas, scientists in India say.

The uninhabited territory south of the Hariabhanga river was known as New Moore Island to the Indians and South Talpatti Island to the Bangladeshis.

Recent satellites images show the whole island under water, says the School of Oceanographic Studies in Calcutta.

Its scientists say other nearby islands could also vanish as sea levels rise.

Beneath the waves

The BBC's Chris Morris in Delhi says there has never been a permanent settlement on the now-vanished island, which even in its heyday was never more than two metres (about six feet) above sea level.

In the past, however, the territorial dispute led to visits by Indian naval vessels and the temporary deployment of a contingent from the country's Border Security Force.

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Professor Sugata Hazra of the School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University in Calcutta.

Anyone wishing to visit now, he observed, would have to think of travelling by submarine.

Very tragic, the loss of that island. Let's see, the sea rose, how much? They were two metres above sea level and now require a visit by submarine? Would that be at the very least, say, three metres, would you think? And in how long a time? India didn't have a navy until after independence in 1947, which is 62 years, or a rise of about five metres per century, which is drivel pure and simple. So much for sea level rise, and so much for the BBC's journalistic skills and/or integrity in reprinting the drivel. But we can actually do much better then this. Here's The Independent's almost as uncritical take on the same story:

It particularly irritates me when people make strident claims and then, when the claims are found to be untrue, someone says "Oh well, maybe a few people said that, but not any of us level-headed chaps." In other words, they get the mileage from the absurd claim, but when the claim is caught out, it is downplayed and disowned.

Which brings me to this 2006 article (index.php/ archives/ 2006/ 03/ bush-on-the-debate) from realclimate dot org, the website that proclaims itself "climate science from climate scientists." The site seems to be funded out of the taxes of those of you in America, so it must be reliable (wink wink):

"...warming yes, but is it caused by humans? This position is equally out of step with science, where the debate over this question has also now been settled."

In my last post I took apart the frivolous claim by scientists at the Hadley Centre, the University of Edinburgh, Melbourne University and Victoria University in Canada, that global warming was increasing the salinity of the oceans. They claimed, remember, that they had 'studied' 100 scientific papers:

The panel assessed more than 100 recent peer-reviewed scientific papers and found that the overwhelming majority had detected clear evidence of human influence on the climate.

Apparently they forgot to 'study' this one by NASA's Earth Observatory: 

Researchers Link Ice Age Climate Change Records to Ocean Salinity

October 4, 2006

Sudden decreases in temperature over Greenland and tropical rainfall patterns during the last Ice Age have been linked for the first time to rapid changes in the salinity of the North Atlantic Ocean, according to research published Oct. 5, 2006, in the journal Nature. The results provide further evidence that ocean circulation and chemistry respond to changes in climate.

The Australian gives us this precious piece, reprinted from The Times:

Man-made climate change evidence stronger: study

EVIDENCE that human activity is causing global warming is much stronger than previously stated and is found in all parts of the world, according to a study that attempts to refute claims from sceptics.

I'll get to the bit that shows this "study" for what it really is in just a mo', but in passing, I note that real scientific work doesn't have an agenda, it attempts to find the truth. Yes, scientists do set up "devil's advocate" experiments in which they attempt to disprove theories, but the purpose is to test the strength of the theory: if it passes, it gains credibility. Or, of course, if it fails, it is disconfirmed. But one shouldn't set up 'studies' whose goal and methodology is designed to confirm what you already claim; science is tested by passing hard tests, not by being confirmed in 'studies' designed to be helpful. Moving on...

The "fingerprints" of human influence on the climate can be detected not just in rising temperatures but in the saltiness of the oceans, rising humidity, changes in rainfall and the shrinking of Arctic Sea ice at the rate of 600,000sq km a decade.

Now let's just stop and think for a moment about this, and let's overlook the detail that Arctic sea ice has risen every year since 2007, because I just can't get my eyes off that "saltiness of the oceans" bit. For all intents and purposes the amount of water on Earth is constant. Yes, meteorites may deliver some, and some may be broken up by radiation in the atmosphere, some hydrogen atoms escape the Earth's gravity, and so on. But compared with the total quantity of water, these changes are, on the scale of hundreds or even thousands of years, minuscule. So much for two countries' erstwhile best newspapers.

I attended the Brisbane leg of Lord Monckton's Australian tour last week. The Irish Club was packed. I tried to estimate capacity and got up to around 400, but as the talk started crowds poured in and a standing crowd filled the space between the seats and the back wall. While the crowd swelled, Lord Monckton took the opportunity to introduce himself to attendees.

In "1984", George Orwell warns us of the dangers of allowing central control of language. Here's an example: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), defines “climate change” as: “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”

So now, the question: do you believe in "climate change"?

Hmm... Let's say "yes":

Ah ha! So you admit that emissions due to human activity are changing the atmosphere! Clearly we need to DO SOMETHING!!!! (Emissions trading scheme, global world government, shut down the western economies, bankrupt the only viable sources of power generation, you name it, it has actually been both proposed and attempted - whether successfully or not is yet to be seen.)

Okay then, let's say "no":

You are a DENIER! How can you POSSIBLY SAY that humans make NO difference to the atmosphere?

And, of course, that is correct - even an ant exhaling makes a change to the atmosphere, let alone all of human industry; but is it significant and dangerous (or even measurable)? The problem is, of course, that the choice of language definitions makes it impossible to think a simple thought: that human emissions of CO2 are not dangerous (and possibly even beneficial). It relies on a term (in this case "climate change") sounding like one thing (changing climate) and being defined as another (human-caused atmospheric changes). The game is to switch from one meaning to another as necessary to manipulate the argument in your favour. And that is the exact reason why this term is used in the first place.

While the ideologues and ethics-free financiers gather in Copenhagen to set up an unelected socialist world government (suits the former) that runs a scam "market" in an invisible and unaccountable "product" - carbon offsets (certainly suits the latter, who will find lots of opportunities there for mtaking money -ours!), we repeatedly hear the allegation that the "deniers" (meaning the ones who say the climate always changes and always will) are well financed by "Big Coal" whilst the ones who believe in "climate change" (i.e. who assert the climate was magically constant for two thousand years) are strapped for cash and always fighting against overwhelming odds.

Yes, the odds are overwhelming in one sense, because the "deniers" - meaning the realists - have truth on their side, whilst the "good guys" - meaning the ones trying to starve the planet of CO2 plant food and thereby send a billion people into starvation - don't.

But as for money, no, sorry. "Big Coal" finances the alarmists, not the realists. Here is part of a press release from Australian "Big Coal" (The Australian Coal Association):