Above: Al’s high five on ice caps (gone in five years)
Guest post by Steven Goddard
In today’s
Guardian, Al Gore is quoted as saying:
Gore says he has also detected a shift in the view of many business leaders. “They’re seeing the writing on every wall they look at. They’re seeing the complete disappearance of the polar ice caps right before their eyes in just a few years,” .
He also acknowledged something important about his scientific limitations :
Responding to James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia theory, who said the European trading system for carbon was “disastrous”, Gore says: “James Lovelock has forgotten more about science than I will ever learn. “
Given that
sea ice area at the poles is right at the 30 year mean (
red line below,) one might conclude that Gore’s first comment is baseless and that his second comment about his own limited learning potential, is correct.
Dr. Vicki Pope at the UK Met Office warned about this on February 11, 2009 in an
article titled “
Stop Misleading Climate Claims“
“Recent headlines have proclaimed that Arctic summer sea ice has decreased so much in the past few years that it has reached a tipping point and will disappear very quickly. The truth is that there is little evidence to support this. Indeed, the record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer sea ice increasing again over the next few years.
The
Guardian published Dr. Pope’s article, but it seems that less than five weeks later they have forgotten her warning.
If the current trend continues, we can expect to have sea ice at the poles for a very long time. When
George Will brought this subject up, he was severely criticized because polar ice on that day was below the mean by about 1%. But apparently it is OK with the press for Gore to be off the mark by 100%. It seems that there is zero accountability or accuracy required for alarmists.
BTW – Before anyone starts claiming that the steadiness of the UIUC global sea ice anomaly graph above is irrelevant or coincidental, they might want to pause for a minute and think through if that position is scientifically tenable – or even vaguely rational.
In a WUWT reader’s poll earlier this month, 91% of respondents forecast that 2009 minimum ice extent will be greater than 2008 – apparently agreeing with Dr. Pope’s comment above. Perhaps Al Gore should swap his Nobel Prize with people who have a better aptitude for learning science.
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“rephelan (21:29:39) :
RE:
E.M.Smith (19:47:31) :
philw1776 (16:25:28) :
james griffin (12:50:36) :
CodeTech (11:35:55) :
Claude Harvey (10:30:17) :
Gentlemen:
My memory of Y2K seems to be a bit different than yours. As early as 1989 I was adding some rather convoluted programming to my date routines because no one was listening to my concerns that security checks and previous-year-to-date comparisons would crash at the end of the century. Functions like network security, product shelf-life, inventory, just-in-time delivery, raw material staging, production scheduling, order-processing, and material orders, not to mention any reporting function involving multi-year comparisons, absolutely would have failed. That they did not was a tribute to the time and effort many of us put in our products. In the 18 months prior to the millenium I worked on almost a dozen different installations with literally millions of lines of code that needed to be reviewed, reworked and tested. I never expected my truck to not work or my electricity to fail, but the companies I consulted for would have gone belly up without our Y2K efforts. Y2K may have been over-blown, but it was not a scam.”
Tell that to Afican and Romanian (In particular Nuclear plant operators, I work with one now…OK he worked computer systems remotetly 400Kms away from the reactors) computer users (Companies) who didn’t bother panicing and just worked as usual.
There was no scam as such, but in terms of “catastrophy”, it was all about money and who wouldn’t get paid (Govn’t, Banks etc).
No sweat, we’ll still got 100 months to save the world according to Englands Al Gore
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/4980347/Global-warming-has-reached-a-defining-moment-Prince-Charles-warns.html
I really wish we could, somehow, get this guy removed from media coverage. I guess that would be extremely difficult, after all, he did invent the internet, among other technologies *wink*.
I know that I have already made posts about Catlin Arctic Survey.
I think I’m getting fixated.
I know that it is a serious scientific survey but it is also a good laugh.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/We_are_not_alone!
Friday 13th they survived “chicken and dumplings” and the polar bears that did not get a sniff of the gourmet meal and come back and eat them.
Saturday 14th Martin, the chap with the blister and is holding the team back by having to stop every few hours, is described as being “utterly bombproof in a polar environment”.
Sounds like it.
Now why are they only making “3.5 nautical miles (4.03 actual miles)”?
I think I might know why.
They stop to take a photo of someone taking a photo.
They take a photo of someone, with a WWF symbol on their left shoulder, climbing an ice ridge. But the photo of the photo shows that they would be better walking around the ridge. Artistic licence!
In the time needed to set up this photograph I would imagine that they could have been 1 mile further “North”, rather than drifting back half a mile “South”.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/Utterly_bombproof
An earlier posting indicated that, at this rate, The Catlin Arctic Survey should reach the North Pole summer 2010. I still think they are going to be eaten by polar bears or will be airlifted off on All Fools Day.
Pierre Gosselin (02:16:15) :
GIS and HadCrut are in for Feb.
GIS at +0.41
HadCrut at 0.35 (below UAH 0.36),
All for centers are pretty much in line this month. Amazing.
No they’re not because they use different base periods. If you use a common base period, e.g. the satellite base period 1979-1997, GISS comes out much cooler than UAH. I reckon the 1979-97 adjusted figures come are as follows:
UAH +0.36
RSS +0.23
Hadley +0.20
GISS +0.15
Looks like GIS made an error in fudging their numbers!
I had expected 0.6something from them.
Which would be more consistent with the UAH anomaly. It seems the different base periods are still causing problems for some.
The Guardian today pushing the Maldives as an example of a country threatened by climate change and rising sea levels
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/15/carbon-emissions-climate-change
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/15/maldives-president-nasheed-carbon-neutral
However, sedimentation and increased precipitation has meant that sea levels have dropped by close to a foot in the last quarter of a century. Here is video evidence of dropping sea levels in the Maldives
If anything, the president of the Maldives is bending backwards to appease campaigners and journalists who always mention his country in the same breath as global warming. But it is easy for him to do so, the Maldives has less than 400,000 people with very little energy use per capita, they don’t have much industry, their income is mostly from tourism and they import all their oil. It would be very easy for such a country to cut carbon emissions, convert to renewables and continue on as normal.
Regarding sea levels, we see the same thing in Bangladesh where its land mass has grown and annual floods not as severe as they used to be. Yet the Bangladeshis recently complained that they face economic destruction and mass migration if rising sea levels continued and the West did not pay it to fight global warming. The British government immediately responded by offering a £95 million package to the Bangladeshis to fight climate change. This package at a time when Bangladesh’s economy has grown while Britain’s has plunged into deep recession.
Back in England they recently discovered the beach where the Romans first landed. That beach is now five miles inland. Sedimentation, plate tectonics and precipitation has meant that England’s land mass has increased during the last two millennia. So despite a global rise in sea level (not all of which is due to climate change), most nations just don’t feel the pinch and are unlikely to ever do so.
For some nations an increase in sea levels would be essential, especially if they can carve out new rivers (like our distant ancestors used to do) to allow the water to flow inland to towns, desalination plants, to increase water tables and to irrigate land. That is how nations can offset sea level rise to their advantage without cutting production. Cutting carbon emissions to prevent sea level rise would be more expensive, hurt their economies and give them nothing in return. They’ll still need to invest in supplying water!
Carston Arnholm has it exactly! What better way can they whip up a furore than if they fail? This sort of dishonest conniving on the part of supposed scientists is what caused me to start looking deeper into AGW. This is what the alarmists fear most. They are afraid of the light.
BTW, the only “writing on the wall” I can see from my front porch is another 4 inches of snow… Enough already!
Lubos Motl (22:48:20) :
“OK, I am getting bored by these Gore’s “.
Yes, I am too, like all of us, for sure, but he would be a fantastic “character” for a Broadway comedy play
The “Chu Effect” marches on. Northern California is forecast to get up to seven more inches of precipitation over the next two weeks.
http://wxmaps.org/pix/prec1.html
Perhaps he should start making apocalyptic projections about Texas – the farmers there could use his help.
‘when are people just going to stop listening to this dribble.’
The dribbling, presumably, will stop when the ice freezes solid. The driveling, on the other hand, will not.
are you lookin at me, pal? (02:31:23) :
“….100 months to save the world…”
Exactly. Less perhaps. They have exactly as long as it will take before lack of warming, even cooling becomes unequivocal, and the public no longer accepts the warming hypothesis. If the cooling is substantial and rapid and wipes out the warming gain over the last century, then we have hope for the end of this madness. If the cooling is very little, or very gradual, we have much longer to endure it and will face excuses (the sun?) why we have a ‘temporary reprieve’ before the warming will begin again.
I am sure most vocal proponents of AGW firmly believe in the science of warming, and probably do not even want to look at the critical science. I am also convinced that governments know the science is not settled but are happy to keep quiet about it. The whole AGW movement suits them as it allows all sorts of developments that could not otherwise happen and it is for this reason that Climate Change will be pushed and supported for a very long time to come. On one hand it can be used as means of control, on the other it can stimulate sustainable development and technological innovation, with, crucially, others paying for it (industry, taxes).
I would be nice to have the sustanability without imposing such control, but it has not been happening fast enough so AGW is a convenient driver. Skeptics like us have the potiential to spoil the well laid hopes and plans for change.
“B Kerr (03:08:45) :
I know that I have already made posts about Catlin Arctic Survey.
I think I’m getting fixated.”
I completely agree…I spend a lot of time on that site yesterday. Did you notice that the page has pics of one of the scientists being pulled out of an area of open water, like they’d fallen through the “too-thin/melting” ice, while the current weather info said it was -40c?
Another question, and not meaning to cast aspersions, but I guess it does anyway, is how reliable do we think this data is going to be?
And if this data is crucial, which I imagine it likely is, wouldn’t it be a lot cheaper to hire a heliocopter to fly out so you could take the measurements?
I know, I know…I’m not a scientist…
It is fun to follow though.
JimB
The inability to benefit from feedback appears to be the primary cause of
pseudoscience. Pseudoscientists retain their beliefs and ignore or distort
contradictory evidence rather than modify or reject a flawed theory. Because
of their strong biases, they seem to lack the self-correcting mechanisms
scientists must employ in their work.
— Thomas L. Creed, “The Skeptical Inquirer,” 1987
Sounds like a perfect description of Mr. Gore…
Smokey,
I wonder if you or anyone else has seen the first ten-year UN climate warning. I think it was a quote from a UN official published in a Florida newspaper. I lost it.
Mike
Al “The Bore” Gore is at it again. Furst he invests his Shell Oil dollars in alternative energy enterprises, then he tries to scare people into buying that stuff. At least Jesse James was up-front about what he did.
Ever notice how “FAT” aging Democrats get? Look at Gore, Alec Baldwin, Ed “Rhe Swimmer” Kennedy; Barney “I Never Had A Girl Friend” Frank; Chris “Angelo’s friend” Dodds. And, if you’ve seen any current photos of Bill “I Didn’t Have Sex Relations With That Woman” Clinton, he’s on a “Bloviating” streak.
Syl (19:31:50) :
“Obama stated he wants a federal plan to copy California’s plan. ”
So far the citizens haven’t rioted.
The Catlin page has an interesting statistic at the bottom.
At that rate, it will take more than a year to get to the pole. Has Lewis Pugh made it yet?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7588329.stm
Cartsen Arnholm quotes from a Norwegian newspaper:
” ‘- I would rather see the climate talks in Copenhagen fail, than that we get a deal based on the trading of greenhouse emissions that allow continuing with coal, “says Professor James Hansen of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies to Aftenposten.’
To me it looks like the alarmists are planning for “climate talk failures” as a back door out of the CO2 mess.”
No kidding on that one. Hansen is also admitting, through that statement, a way to MAKE MONEY ON IT…which is really what this has been about from the beginning….the $$$.
Well….money and power. And both goals are as antithetical to good science as they come.
I will say again: WHERE IS THE NASA THAT PUT MEN ON THE MOON?
Back to the Gore…(yawn, I know) sorry that some of you are bored of this topic…but this thread was established to discuss GORE THE BORE’S remarks, however idiotic.
Time, as business leaders, to put some “handwriting” on the billboard???
I have reserved global.goring.org
(AGG “Anthropogenic Global Goring”….and gutting of the public scientific trust).
Anyone care to help out on this?
If anything, TONYB…provide a historical account and refutation for every ridiculous quote, every broken hockey stick, etc.
AND, ROB BATEMAN…. perhaps this domain could be used to serve as, a way to raise money for some adverstising (for billboards, etc)
It could even be a link to WUWT for easy access.
Just putting that out there….let me know folks.
sharkhearted@gmail.com
CHRIS
Norfolk, VA
Holy Moly!
A report about the ICCC in the American Thinker:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/the_clear_and_cohesive_message_1.html
WUWT gets mentioned.
This is for David C. Ball in Calgary … I have emailed back and forth with David S____ (Calgary meteorologist) and he thinks AGW is a crock, but you never hear him say a thing on the TV. He is muzzled … but has a family to feed and can’t lose his job over it. Pretty sad.
You are so correct … TWN is always forecasting the long range “above normal” .. Env Canada’s quarterly 3-month projections have been so bad that you’d be closer to take the opposite. And they tend to say “hotter and drier”.
The weather people make a lot of hay when it’s above average and so little when it’s -35°C. One record that gets broken in Alberta frequently and we hear nothing is the “record low daily high” i.e. just a cold day when the high is very low. Davis S______ has mentioned them, but they get little press.
Also FYI for David C. Ball .. the mean annual temp for Lethbridge has declined in the past 20 years…Calgary too if I recall. I plotted this using the EC archive weather data. I’ve told people and they don’t believe me because they have been brainwashed into believing it is warmer. Nuts.
Clive
JimB
I did not see the image of them falling through the -40C ice.
I’ll certainly look for it.
Perhaps they were using a gas stove to cook their “dumplings” and the ice melted. Being full of “dumplings” they may have cracked the ice.
You asked:
“And if this data is crucial, which I imagine it likely is, wouldn’t it be a lot cheaper to hire a helicopter to fly out so you could take the measurements?”
Crucial!!!
Of course it is crucial, even more crucial than crucial.
“Professor Maslowski is affiliated to the US Navy’s Department of Oceanography at the Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
He will synthesize the Catlin observations and the latest meteorological data with his high resolution Arctic ice model output. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7902766.stm
Crucial it is going to be SYNTHESIZED, now that is really crucial.
What is going to synthesize this this this … eh eh … “data?”.
His high resolution Arctic ice model.
You already know the findings.
And yes it would be a lot cheaper if they use a Russian helicopter to fly to the North Pole.
http://www.nathab.com/destinations/index.aspx?pageID=7&tripID=153&action=trip_overview
I’m planning to have the Victory Suite at a mere $32,390.
Perhaps the WWF will give me a discount.
John Finn (03:20:16) :
Pierre Gosselin (02:16:15) :
Pierre Gosselin was talking about the change in temperature with regard to last months temps, so the anomaly base line is irrelevant.
The anomaly base line is only important if you wish to calculate the absolute mean temperature of the globe.
Aron (00:46:35) :
Mean while cities will be putting off purchases of items to deal with cold weather like road salt,
This is exactly what happened in London this winter. For years they were told that cold winters would disappear because of global warming.
Not true .You cannot expect councils to keep specialist snow equipment on standby unless this is a frequent event .
Any way why didnt you simply put on snow chains/snow tyres and carry on as the rest of europe/Canada would. Perhaps it was simply not cost effective for you to have these on standby?
Ellie in Belfast (05:16:54) :
I’m with you on this. We need to gear up for a sustainable future. if Gw or Agw is the driving force it is immaterial
bill
Climate Science is now akin to economics; there are 2 camps, the Alarmists and the Skeptics. Just as economics can trace the divide between Marx and Adam Smith, there is a similar divide centering around Hansen and Gore on one side and a host of skeptics on the other.
Thanks to the efforts of the Alarmists (many with an array of PHDs), Climate Science will never again be a sleepy science where theoreticians can formulate ideas without worrying about being personally attacked, have thier livelyhood threateneded (climate scientists are human too -they have mortgages to worry about).
Clive
Found this on ICECAP.us ,The Edmonton Journal has a report today about the temperature records.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Global+warming+longer+happening/1391903/story.html
Records are usually broken fractions of degrees. The International’s was exceeded by 12 degrees.
How do i know already that the march temperature records for alberta will be unavailable or incomplete and have to be replaced by averages in James Hanse’s GISSTEMP calculations.