You may recall NBC’s Today show sending out their correspondents to all ends of the earth to highlight “climate change”.
‘Today’ host Matt Lauer reported from Jakobshavn Glacier in the Arctic last year.
Ann Curry headed to Antarctica for ‘Today Heads to the Ends of the Earth’
Well, they are at it again. From the New York Daily News:
“Today Goes to the Ends of the Earth,” kicking off on Nov. 17, will have anchors Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, Al Roker and Ann Curry headed to four different locations across the globe.
Each anchor’s location will not be revealed until the first day of the series, though Today show spokesman Jim Bell promises that anywhere is possible.
From my insider TV sources the TYSPY.com newsletter they tell me Ann Curry will be going to Mount Kilimanjaro:
Ann Curry, who spent much of Election Night traversing NBC’s “virtual rotunda,” will next climb Mount Kilimanjaro for a “Today” show sweeps stunt.
It’s an eight-day hike to the 19,340-foot summit, and according to NBC News, she’ll be there to report on the changing climate of Africa’s highest peak.
Place your bets now on if there will be mentions of these key words which actually are relevant to the true Kiliminjaro story: evapotranspiration, deforestation, sublimation.
Having done a number of TV weather live shots in remote places myself, including from atop the Sutter Buttes in the Sacramento Valley and from the fire tower at Sawmill Peak, I can tell you that preparation and backup equipment is everything. They may not actually be able to pull off the Kili stunt for technical reasons.
Alas, it will be spring there, so there will be plenty of “melting” to film, as there is every spring.
Eric, Kilimanjaro is not in Kenya, it’s in Tanzania. Use Google Earth to find it at around 3 degrees 44 minutes South, 37 degrees 39 minutes East.
However, I’m thinking the seasonal difference at 3 degrees might not be very significant.
Wow – can’t believe I messed that up so much. Try 3 degrees 4 minutes South, 37 degrees 21 minutes East.
Obama and his wife needed two jets to fly to Washington yesterday….when your above the peasant level, CO2 does not matter. Obama wants our electric bill to skyrocket, but he can do whatever he wants, he is like a god!
Sorry Mr. Obama, your not a god and you have double standards like many of your green friends.
Bill R (13:57:26). President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives is reported here in Australian newspapers as gathering his funds so as to buy property in Australia. He wishes to relocate his 350,000 people to Australia. Unbelievable! Has he not thought about asking us first? Is he also gathering his funds to build hospitals, towns, medical services, produce jobs etc? His monies might be better spent on levies in thee Maldives! (We have vast tracts of desert here though that he can probably have for nothing to set up camp, but he must bring his own water!).
Richard111 (11:48:47) :
Mt Kilimanjaro is ~ 3 degrees South of the equator so it is ‘spring’ there now (Surely there are only wet and dry seasons in the tropics, not spring, winter , autumn, summer?)
Sean (14:56:16) :
When Oxfam started raising the issue of expanded poverty and starvation caused by conversion of food crops into biofuels, it seemed to get a lot of discussion in Europe but I only saw one story in the NY Times and never saw any on TV.
I saw (wait for it) Dan Rather take on the biofuel/food situation on that cable channel he inhabits a couple months ago. Lots of shots of Dan standing in corn fields and starving children in wherever, but the story was told pretty straight, aside from blaming the farmers instead of the pols. Dan’s been out in the cold too long …
3 days if you walk it yourself, 8 days if you are so important you have to be carried in a sedan chair.
His monies might be better spent on levies in thee Maldives!
Or not.
According to Moerner, who did on-site surveys back around 2000, the Maldives are in absolutely no danger, whatever. It’s mentioned in Wiki.
Ann Curry and I go back to my days as an Airfreight Pilot.She was on a United flight that had to make a go-around due to wind shear-as they were going around,she looked out the window and saw my putt-putt Twin cessna
taxiing in-so she thought it was near miss-and reported it on the 11:00 clock
news in Medford Oregon.Withhout talking to United,Myself or the Control tower.
She got a phone call form the Chief Pilot of United Airlines.He was flying that
727! Oops.She did a retraction.So I have little in the way of expectations….
Since I currently reside in Tanzania, I can say that right now it is HOT! But what can you expect from a Tropical country a stone’s throw from the equator! It has been published many times that the glaciers of Kili are retreating/”melting” not because of global warming, but because of deforestation. The Chagga have been cutting down the forest and replanting with banana trees. The banana trees don’t have the same transpiration rates as the old trees. This has led to less snow on the mountain and less build up of the glaciers. The glaciers are above the freezing point and are melting due to sublimating from solar radiation, not high temps.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070501-kilimanjaro.html
I love how they say in the same article that the glacier’s will succumb to global “climate change” and then say that the main cause for the retreat is LESS SNOWFALL! And they mention that the glacier’s have been retreating since the 1800s, but is still somehow connected to AGW.
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:yiUEu39M0i0J:www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/kaser2004.pdf+kilimanjaro+glacier&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&client=firefox-a
OT – another article about how AGW does not affect most tropical glaciers.
Response to Eric (10:23)
Kenya is on the equator, Mount Kilimangaro is 3°4′33″S 37°21′12″E / -3.07583, 37.35333 according to Wikipedia. Note South of the equator = spring….just.
re Maldives
Didn’t Moerner ask some IPCC scientists at a conference, about the Maldives data a couple of years ago.
He stated words to the effect, I know this data (I think he had collected some of it) and have studied it in the past,
it did not show an upward trend that it now does.
The answer he recieved,
“If we had not of added a trend, there would not of been one.”
I think he also asked about Hong Kong, there are 6 sea level monitoring stations there, one of which is known to be sinking due to compaction of sediments (I think, certainly known geological reasons).
The IPCC only used one sea level station from Hong Kong.
Guess which one the IPCC used to show sea level is rising.
Hint – The other five showed no change.
Yup, the IPCC used the one that was sinking…
Moerner left the IPCC.
11 11 2008
L Nettles (15:02:42) :
Will she report the temperature?
“Temperature sensors that collect hourly data placed around Mount Kilimanjaro show that temperatures remain below freezing year-round, so it’s very unlikely that air temperature increase due to global warming is causing glaciers to retreat from the mountain. “
I where about to ask if temepratures are meassured up there and obviously thet are.
So the basic theory of global warming causing glaciers to retreat is that temparature raises and make the glacier to melt fast.
Ice starts melting at 0C(may be slightly different due to altitude?). So if the temperature is below this value there will be no melting.
If glacier is still retreating, what causes it then? Does AGW belivers really dare to thoughly examine this subject or are they just happy with that the glacier is retreating and then it must be global warming causing it?
We know that CO2 levels before 1950 where too low to cause any significant change in global temperatures even according to AGW theory.
If you belive in AGW theory, please explain to me:
– Why did the glaciers start to shrink around 1850-1900, 50-100 years before CO2 levels where high enough to cause significant global warming accroding to AGW?
– What natural process caused it to happen?
– When did this natural melting process stop and melting caused by anthropogene global warming replaced the natural process?
– Has cloudcover changed over the glacier during the last century?
– Has precipitation changed over the glacier the last century?
– Does the confiremd deforestation have any impact on temperatures, precipitation and cloud cover in the area?
On second thought, considering the level of competency in the craft of journalism that crew exhibits, perhaps when ‘Today Heads to the Ends of the Earth’ they should keep their talking heads stationed there permanently.
Sean,
I’m sorry, but you are making the classic mistake made by academics. That mistake is believing that issues like AGW are capable of being overcome by fact and logic. AGW (or at least the political aspects of it) is an emotional issue and every good salesman knows that emotion cannot be overcome by an argument based in fact, it can only be overcome by another emotional argument. Its just the way people are, you can explain that people were exposed to several orders of magnitude less radiation from Three Mile Island (in the tenths of millirems) than they receive from ‘normal’ background radiation from their homes and gardens, but that will not stop them from stampeding away from the area in fear of ‘radiation poisoning from Three Mile Island’. in fact, even today TMI is cited as a ‘danger’ of nuclear power, when, in fact, it really is the opposite. Its all about emotion, not fact or logic.
People will believe almost anything they read or see in the media. Check this story out about a small island country that believes it will be under water soon due to you guessed it, global warming: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/11/maldives.president/index.html
There is no such thing as Fall/Winter/Spring/Summer in the tropics. In Tanzania, the seasons are defined as:
Hot with occasional thunderstorms and monsoon (now)
Then we’ll have the really rainy season in about March
Then that will eventually turn into the cool but dry season
And finally we’ll have the short rain season.
I am looking forward to my usual four seasons with an actual winter of snow this year!
OT: What got me was the tag on the first page linking to this article
“While the Sun doesn’t cause global warming, solar activity seems to influence the flow of rivers and thus the rain that feeds them”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026814.100-does-rainfall-vary-with-sunspot-activity.html
So what say you? Is it possible for the Sun to cause global warming or not?
So you can nit-pick about little stuff, and therefore prove that global warming does not exist, and go back to your wasteful, consumtion-driven lives as if nothing is wrong. If you close your eyes, you can’t see the elephant in the room.
Worth keeping an eye out for all thoses media reports with the head line “Arctic Ice Area Exceeds 30 Year Average”
http://eva.nersc.no/vhost/arctic-roos.org/doc/observations/images/ssmi1_ice_area.png
Is any one taking bets?
What was the climate like at the locations NBC choses 100, 200, 300, 1000, 2000, 3000, etc. years ago? If AGW were to go away, what perpetual state of climate perfection would exist? What was the period of climate perfection before AGW? Obviousily if current climate flucuations are all caused by human activity, then the climate had to have been in a state of near perfection prior to human influence, and once humans stop mucking things up, it will go back to that near perfect state. How can it be any other way?
As Kilimanjaro is south of the equator the monsoon season has just started. Perhaps there will be some snow falling when Ann Curry and crew arrive. The crew won’t be dropping many cigarette butts on the way up. I had a smoke at 16,000 ft when I climbed Kilimanjaro and it was not a great idea. As for Ann’s hat it does not appear to be frosting up so it may be wolverine.
This is probably a good time for Donald Trump to purchase the Maldives.
And doesn’t that mean there is very little seasonal variation there?