I agree…it is FUN finding those weather stations! Especially when big events like TS Hannah occur. Found one station with 9.14″ of rain in last 24 hours! WOW…

Agree with whom? Oh, you’re just hyping your site. Never mind. 0.1 brownie point
for being in Al Gore’s state.

You are right about the smoke, rather than dust, being the factor used by Sagan. I used the term dust in a generic sort of way, a cover all for all types of particulates put into the atmosphere.

Carl Sagan had a big impact on people’s thinking and when he postulated a nuclear winter, a lot of people bought into it as a possibility. This possibility became a forgone conclusion in many people’s thinking long after the models were discredited.

I share with you the skepticism regarding computer models. I’ve spent my whole professional life working with computers giving the wrong answers. Hours can be spent tracking down a small error in an accounting package, which is nothing more than a model of a company’s financial status. And accounting is a man made set of rules we supposedly understand.

I do see people violate the rules Sagan outlines for good critical thinking all the time in these warming versus cooling debates. And on both sides.

Carl Sagan was one who projected a nuclear winter as a result of the dust thrown up by a nuclear exchange.

It was actually smoke from burning cities and forests that was supposed to be the cause, as noted in your reference. His group started out with a computer model using dust and found it didn’t cause the expected effect. They kept upping the ante until they got “nuclear winter”. I remember watching a talk by Sagan gave on PBS and, since I was a fan of his, was very impressed. I became disillusioned when I started reading critiques of the work.

This was what has fueled my skepticism of catastrophic AGW once I found out it was based on computer models, even though they’re much more sophisticated than what Sagan was supposedly using. If you know what the answer is your model will eventually give it to you.

I have mixed feelings about GeoEye. I suspect those who wish this country ill are quite happy with the new satellite, as long as they can have access.

Ah! Great question! Obviously not, but:

(1) GeoEye is a US company
(2) Google is a US company
(3) Vandenberg is a federal US facility
(4) The satellite was built partially with US taxpayer funds

Back when the Russians were poor, they were selling high-res pics: it was the glorious ’90s. Was that the wedge that pried open public access to high-res imagery?

http://www.cookevilleweatherguy.com

“NASA to Explore “Secret Layer” of the Sun”

“Next April, for a grand total of 8 minutes, NASA astronomers are going to glimpse a secret layer of the sun thought to be the birthplace of space weather.”

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/05sep_sumi.htm

You remembered correctly. Or at least you remember one of the possible consequences of a nuclear war. It very well could have been one of the reasons for studying the climate.

Carl Sagan was one who projected a nuclear winter as a result of the dust thrown up by a nuclear exchange.

I always thought the idea was rather silly to bring up. After all, if the death of hundreds of millions of people was not reason enough to cancel a nuclear war, some chilly temps after the war would not be persuasive.

In any event, the following his from the Carl Sagan entry in Wikipedia:

^ Turco RP, Toon OB, Ackerman TP, Pollack JB, Sagan C. Climate and smoke: an appraisal of nuclear winter, Science, volume 247, pages 166-176 (1990). PubMed abstract JSTOR link to full text article. Carl Sagan discussed his involvement in the political nuclear winter debates and his erroneous global cooling prediction for the Gulf War fires in his book, The Demon-Haunted World.

Speaking of Carl Sagan, his portal website has some good points people should keep in mind about scientific debates and the improper use of logic in such debates.

From http://www.carlsagan.com:

Baloney Detection Kit

Warning signs that suggest deception. Based on the book by Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World. The following are suggested as tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent arguments:

Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts.

Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.

Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no “authorities”).

Spin more than one hypothesis – don’t simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.

Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours.

Quantify, wherever possible.

If there is a chain of argument every link in the chain must work.

Occam’s razor – if there are two hypotheses that explain the data equally well choose the simpler.

Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, it is testable? Can others duplicate the experiment and get the same result?

Additional issues are:

Conduct control experiments – especially “double blind” experiments where the person taking measurements is not aware of the test and control subjects.

Check for confounding factors – separate the variables.

Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric

Ad hominem – attacking the arguer and not the argument.

Argument from “authority”.

Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an “unfavorable” decision).

Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).

Special pleading (typically referring to god’s will).

Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased).

Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses).

Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes).

Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!)

Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not “proved”).

Non sequitur – “it does not follow” – the logic falls down.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc – “it happened after so it was caused by” – confusion of cause and effect.

Meaningless question (“what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?).

Excluded middle – considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the “other side” look worse than it really is).

Short-term v. long-term – a subset of excluded middle (“why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?”).

Slippery slope – a subset of excluded middle – unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).

Confusion of correlation and causation.

Caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack.

Suppressed evidence or half-truths.

Weasel words – for example, use of euphemisms for war such as “police action” to get around limitations on Presidential powers. “An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public”

(excerpted from The Planetary Society Australian Volunteer Coordinators Prepared by Michael Paine )

I could wrong, but I believe that I have read something to that effect.