The 12 Days of Global Warming

Merry Christmas.

No Matter What Happens, Someone Will Blame Global Warming ?!?
Global warming was blamed for everything from beasts gone wild to anorexic whales to the complete breakdown of human society this year — showing that no matter what it is and where it happens, scientists, explorers, politicians and those who track the Loch Ness Monster are comfortable scapegoating the weather.
FOXNews.com takes a look back at 10 things that global warming allegedly caused — or will no doubt soon be responsible for — as reported in the news around the world in 2008.
1. Cannibalism
In April, media mogul Ted Turner told PBS’s Charlie Rose that global warming would make the world 8 degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years. “Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state, like Somalia or Sudan, and living conditions will be intolerable,” he said.
Turner blamed global warming on overpopulation, saying “too many people are using too much stuff.”
Crops won’t grow and “most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals,” Turner said.
2. The Death of the Loch Ness Monster
In February, Scotland’s Daily Mirror reported that 85-year-old American Robert Rines would be giving up his quest for Scotland’s most famous underwater denizen.
A World War II veteran, Rines has spent 37 years hunting for Nessie with sonar equipment. In 2008, “despite having hundreds of sonar contacts over the years, the trail has since gone cold and Rines believes that Nessie may be dead, a victim of global warming.”
3. Beer Gets More Expensive
In April, the Associated Press reported that global warming was going to hit beer drinkers in the wallet because the cost of barley would increase, driving up the price of a pint.
Jim Salinger, a climate scientist at New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said Australia would be particularly hard hit as droughts caused a decline in malting barley production in parts of New Zealand and Australia. “It will mean either there will be pubs without beer or the cost of beer will go up,” Salinger said at a beer brewer’s convention, the AP reported.
4. Pythons Take Over America
Giant Burmese pythons – big enough to eat alligators and deer in a single mouthful – will be capable of living in one-third of continental U.S. as global warming makes more of the country hospitable to the cold-blooded predators, according to an April report from USAToday.com.
The U.S. Geological Survey and the Fish and Wildlife Service investigated the spread of “invasive snakes,” like the pythons, brought to the U.S. as pets. The Burmese pythons’ potential American habitat would expand by 2100, according to global warming models, the paper reported.
“We were surprised by the map. It was bigger than we thought it was going to be,” says Gordon Rodda, zoologist and lead project researcher, told USAToday.com. “They are moving northward, there’s no question.”
5. Kidney Stones
A University of Texas study said global warming will cause an increase in kidney stones over the next 30 years, the Globe and Mail reported in July.
Scientists predict that higher temperatures will lead to more dehydration and therefore to more kidney stones. “This will come and get you in your home,” said Dr. Tom Brikowski, lead researcher and an associate professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. “It will make life just uncomfortable enough that maybe people will slow down and think what they’re doing to the climate.”
6. Skinny Whales
Japanese scientists, who have claimed that the country’s controversial whaling program is all in the name of science, said in August that if they hadn’t been going around killing whales, they never would have discovered that the creatures were significantly skinnier than whales killed in the late 1980s, the Guardian reported in August.
The researchers said the study was the first evidence that global warming was harming whales by restricting their food supplies. As water warmed around the Antarctic Peninsula, the krill population shrank by 80 percent as sea ice declined, eliminating much of the preferred food of the minke whale.
The whales studied had lost the same amount of blubber as they would have by starving for 36 days, but the global warming connection couldn’t be proven because no krill measurements are taken in different regions.
7. Shark Attacks
A surge in fatal shark attacks was the handiwork of global warming, according to a report in the Guardian in May.
George Burgess of Florida University, a shark expert that maintains an attack database, told the Guardian that shark attacks were caused by human activity. “As the population continues to rise, so does the number of people in the water for recreation. And as long as we have an increase in human hours in the water, we will have an increase in shark bites,” he said.
Shark attacks could also be the result of global warming and rising sea temperatures, the Guardian said. “You’ll find that some species will begin to appear in places they didn’t in the past with some regularity,” Burgess said.
8. Black Hawk Down
Although it happened in 1993, the crash of a U.S. military helicopter in Mogadishu that became the film “Black Hawk Down” was blamed on global warming by a Massachusetts congressman in 2008.
“In Somalia back in 1993, climate change, according to 11 three- and four-star generals, resulted in a drought which led to famine,” Rep. Edward Markey told a group of students who had come to the Capitol to discuss global warming, according to CNSNews.com. “That famine translated to international aid we sent in to Somalia, which then led to the U.S. having to send in forces to separate all the groups that were fighting over the aid, which led to Black Hawk Down.”
9. Frozen Penguin Babies
Penguin babies, whose water-repellant feathers had not grown in yet, froze to death after torrential rains, National Geographic reported in July.
“Many, many, many of them—thousands of them—were dying,” explorer Jon Bowermaster told National Geographic. Witnessing the mass penguin death “painted a clear and grim picture” of global warming.
“It’s not just melting ice,” Bowermaster said. “It’s actually killing these cute little birds that are so popular in the movies.”
10. Killer Stingray Invasion
Global warming is going to drive killer stingrays, like the one that killed Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, to the shores of Britain after a 5-foot -long marbled stingray was captured by fishermen, the Daily Mail reported in June.
A single touch can zap a man with enough electricity to kill, the Mail said, and global warming is bringing the Mediterranean killers north.
“Rising sea temperatures may well have brought an influx of warm water visitors,” sea life curator Alex Gerrard told the Mail. “Where there’s one electric ray, it’s quite likely that there are more.”

Could the global temperature records be magnetic north pole drift?.
For this interesting and unusual correlation see:
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk
follow link GTvsMNP
HAPPY Xmas to all

Big glass. Large slug of tequila then another one, one more and then fill to the brim with ice. Watch the ice melt. All the liquor that spills over as a result of the ice melting is called the Al Gore cocktail.
Take a turkey, marinade it overnight with 2 bottles Scotch and 1 bottle Brandy.
Cook the turkey, throw the turkey away, drink the gravy!
Happy Christmas!

For Christmas, my wife gave me “Red Hot Lies” by Christopher Horner (I already have his “Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming”), plus “Unstoppable Global Warming” by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, and Michael Chrichton’s “State of Fear”.
Global warming, or climate change is a taboo subject in my family, as it probably is in many other skeptic or climate realist families, as we are at the very least misguided and misinformed. Of course, they are the ones who are sadly misguided and misinformed. They do not realize that they have been brainwashed, and will fiercely defend their Belief. But, I love them anyway.
Merry X-mass all, and, echoing Ric, many thanks to Anthony and his elves.

How to obtain the perfect 100% energy saving light bulb:
1.) climb up local Street Light
2.) remove bulb and splice in wire.
3.) run new wire to your house.
4.) attach it to your battery charger
5.) Enjoy the free lighting you have always been paying for but was wasted on crickets and fireflys at 2 am or some other ungodly hour when the only thing moving was Otis the town drunk singing to the park bench.

Good show.
And a Merry Christmas to all.

Merry Christmas!
Warm is good, cold is bad. [snip] Their obvious contribution with a big amount of GHGs it is a matter of real scientific interest because these not only are the origin of “heat islands” temperature but because they increase vegetation.

Merry, merry Christmas, Anthony!
May the New Year be filled with all good things for you and your family.

Ric,
No cause for apologies in using some of the bleeding edge “power” technologies out today. The only good thing about the AGW craze is research into energy alternatives. Many of these (small windmills, solar panels and the like) are well suited to small, low power applications. They still just don’t scale up well for utility use.
In addition, you didn’t seek a government subsidy for putting it on your get-away, so it didn’t cost me anything.
Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!
Mike

I love the picture of Charleton Heston holding up the incandescent light bulb!

Actually, if all AGW happens to accomplish is that we stop wasting energy as if tomorrow will never come, I’d be happy with that.

That’s better than the video, Dr.
Reality strikes deep.

OT – Dr. Roy Spencer has a new website up;
http://www.drroyspencer.com/index.php

For Leif:
Leif, there are some expiriences from Denmark from 78/79, too:
Nytårssnestormen 1978-1979:
http://www.dbhome.dk/snestorm/
Snestormen omkring nytår 1978/1979, “Århundredes snestorm”.
http://home20.inet.tele.dk/eriklind/snestormen78.htm
Denmark had got it much and hard, too.
But the guys just north of Flensbourg always amaze me with their dry sense
of humor:
A guy in our village here, cental Germany, comes from Åbenrå, (deutsch Apenrade),
has a house there still.
After a severe storm in the mid-nineties, he phoned his father, father still living
near Åbenrå:
“Dad, how’s the house looking?” … “Fine, son, somehow littla bitta wet, after storm and rain” … “And how’s the roof ? … “Hummm, don’t know, son, was blown away…. We didn’t find it yet”

Dr Alanna Simpson
1997-2000: Bachelor of science, University of Auckland, New Zealand
2000-2002: Master of science for studies in geology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
2002-2006: PhD studies in Earth sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane
2007: PhD awarded
2007-present: Vulcanologist, Geoscience Australia
AUSTRALIA’S neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region face an era of “mega-disasters” affecting hundreds of thousands of people as urbanisation, climate change and food shortages amplify the impact of natural catastrophes such as earthquakes and cyclones in coming years, scientific research has shown.
Alanna Simpson, a scientist at Geoscience Australia, said the risk assessments used data for the Asia-Pacific from the past 400 years and modelling to predict the frequency of natural hazards.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/disasters-warning-for-asiapacific/2008/12/25/1229998661989.html

Today, here, It just looks like Christmas, you would burn more energy shoveling snow off a solar panel than it would produce once cleared. Pretty sure I am snowed in again.
Merry Merry Ho Ho

@Janama,
yep, there are allways waiting bad things in future…
but, but, the expected – nearly allways – didn’t happen.
The occurences which did happen – were nearly allways – rather not expected.
So what? Shall we be scared about that expected
or shall we face what really will come?
In my whole life – now nearly 55 years – I never had such sum of scaremongering about our future – and personally, I place myself allready among the rather sceptics!
Our future won’t be the black, black NoFuture.
Too, it won’t be “The future is allways bright”.
It will be same kind of gray abyss we know from last umpteeeht centuries.
To fear future, implicts to achieve nothing.
To live through fear and limit it, may not change it,
but it gives a chance, at least.
Better to die for a chance than to survive with the fear.
Fear itself is the way to die “The way of endlessly dying,
the way of thousand deaths”.
To me, one is allready sufficient:
KlausB
I wish all here the very best and a pretty good ’09.

Manmade Global Warming: A Dangerous Urban Legend? http://www.drroyspencer.com/roys-blog.php

As one who should not be walking this snowy earth this Christmas,-count your blessings.Merry Christmas to one and all…

charles the moderator
The {snip} was not my contribution, it was from the web site.
[I know, however, it was easily interpreted differently and we have been lax in enforcement] ~ charles the moderator

I just finished talking with my son, who manages the race department at Beaver Creek, Co. They have 12 feet of snow on the ground. This fact dramatizes the absurdity of 12/24 posting on ICECAP, “Study: Global Warming Will Challenge Ski Industry”. The authors should be sued for damages caused by their malpractice, fraud and terminal stupidity.
Merry Christmas.

Ed Scott (15:20:28) :
Thom Hartman is pretty sure of himself that the snow in Oregon is consistent with Global warming because the large scale melting of ice puts more moisture in the air which can then fall as snow.
It’s amazing how he can make such a leap of certainty within a complex system.

I can’t get 1998, 1999, and 2000 out of my head. The CO2 content of the atmosphere increased a whopping 2.90 ppm, or so (depending on how you measure it,) in 1998.
In 1999 the La Nina started up and it got considerably cooler. The CO2 component only increased about 110 ppm.
Now comes Jan 2000 thru Jan 2001, an even Cooler year, and the CO2 addition to the atmosphere Increased to the tune of 2.24 ppm. This is above the average of the last ten years of about 1.90 ppm.
This bounce-back phenomenon plays out consistently over the period that’s covered by satellite data. The first year gets a Big Decrease in the rate of growth, and the following year gets a make-up bounce (even if it’s a cooler year). The three years averaged, together, come close to the overall trend.
This seems like it almost has to be a factor of how fast the Oceans can “absorb”/reabsorb CO2. BUT, that action where the CO2 in the atmosphere makes an Above-Average jump on the Coolest year is fascinating. Any Ideas?

Oh, here’s the Mauna Loa Data
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt

Happy holidays!

Kum Dollison (20:24:26) :
This seems like it almost has to be a factor of how fast the Oceans can “absorb”/reabsorb CO2. BUT, that action where the CO2 in the atmosphere makes an Above-Average jump on the Coolest year is fascinating. Any Ideas?
We’ve been through this in the thread http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/17/the-co2-temperature-link/ , the CO2 Temperature link.
See the second figure.
What you say is there, but do not forget that Mauna Loa is sitting in a volcano, and from what I have heard they have a “volcano adjustement”, subtract what they think the volcano is contributing. Since it also is on in a wider region/arch of a lot of volcanic activity, maybe they did not correct enough, they did not learn that downwind or upwind some vent vented. There is very bad policing of CO2 sources and sinks. The new satellite will solve this I am sure, as AIRS only measures CO2 from 5000 meters and anyway starts after september 2002.
The specific jump may be statistical variation.
Speculations:
It may also reflect what a lot of people are saying: that temperature globally averaged has no meaning, One would need the local to Mauna Loa average temperature to make any real sense. Maybe for that year undersea vents heated the water and also sent up CO2 locally and thus the variation you observe is not statistical but systematic, of using two different types of data sets, global on the temperature side and local on the Mauna Loa CO2 side. In other words, if we had a corresponding globally averaged CO2 value there might be much less of a jump.

Patricia. About the word insane. That’s fair to say about those who blame mankind for temperature change if we now have temperature fluctuations in the same way or less dramatic than we had before.
I would use the word swindlers or deceivers, but that isn’t more nice to the AGW “scientists” who do promote the AGW than to say they are insane.

Any naughty person who gets a lump of coal in their stocking next Christmas, will also receive an Obama TAX on that lump of coal.
Better be good… for the planets sake!

Appeal for a map of the Magnetic North Pole drift
with higher resolution and more details than the one shown on
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/GTvsMNP.gif
Please either post a web location or email to: vukcevicuATyahoo.com

http://ericlightborn.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/global-warming-politi-science-or-fact/
I am with you but this blog here is about addressing the fact that some STILL think climate change is not real or a hoax or liberal agenda. We have a lot of work to do if you are serious about cleaning up the environment and part of the clean up job is an information clean up job.

I sent an e-mail today to the Editor of the Seattle Times Newspaper after reading their “Earthweek” article that was published in todays edition.
To “Whom it May Concern” or to those, who it may “Be of Interest”.
After reading the 12/26/08, Article “Earthweek” section in the Seattle Times Newspaper; I question the sanity of the author of the “Climate change now” subparagraph, text Quoted as Follows:
(Scientists gathering in San Francisco were told that the United States could suffer the effects of abrupt climate change within decades–far sooner than warnings issued just a year ago. Using data not available to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey, Columbia University and other institutions factored in faster than-expected loss of sea ice, rising sea levels and near permanent drought developing in the American Southwest. “It appears this has already begun,” the researchers told the American Geophysical Union. They pointed out that some projections of the impact of climate change issued by the IPCC in November 2007 have proved to be too conservative.)
What a bunch of CRAP!!!!!!!
I guess the real question should be: “How can anyone with “half a mind” be ignorant enough to believe it????”
Later on in, the same article out of nowhere; the author “Highlighted” the fact, that yesterday it was +111F. Degree’s temp. in Nullagine, W. Australia. (Not the record for Australia, but of course, it is summer down there and it does get hot in the “Outback”. I have been there!)
WHO MAKE’s THIS CRAP UP?????
The hottest day in Australia was 128F Degree’s in Cloncurry, Queensland on Jan 16th, “1889”, a 110 years ago!!!!
(SEE “LINKS” A & B BELOW for “World” and US “States” Record Temps and Dates) “Note” the by State year of record temps for each state. Any questions come to your mind? “Please note the years of record!”
Question for all: Does the “The World’s highest recorded Temperatures” and the “dates/locations” they occurred, raise any Questions” in any ones “mind”, but “mine”?
A.) Worlds recorded Highest Temperatures: (Location/”DATE”/Temperature) “Please check the year of record!”
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001375.html
B.) US, by STATE recorded High Temperatures: (By State/Temperature/”DATE”) “Please check the year of record!”
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001416.html
“Do the years raise any questions of doubt”, anyone????
A Global Warming Skeptic!!!!!
(Name and Address included in e-mail)