Scratch another one from the list….
Michigan Lake Levels Not Changed By Global Warming After All
Reposted from “The Blog Prof” by Chris J. Kobus, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan
So much for global warming causing the Great Lakes to dry up. Lake levels are back to normal (whatever researchers defines as “normal” I suppose, since the data doesn’t go back that far) after decreasing some for the better past of the last decade. Even though global warming zeolots were quick to point the finger at CO2, the cause for the decrease was in fact – ice dams!
From the Detroit News today: Study: Ice jam caused Great Lake water levels to drop. From the article:
A steady drop in water levels in Lake Michigan/Huron over the first half of this decade resulted from natural causes, not man-made ones, according to U.S. and Canadian researchers, noting that the past 18 months of rising waters could be an indication the lakes are headed back to normal levels.
Researchers working for the International Joint Commission this week released the findings of a two-year study on the St. Clair River and the amount of water running through it out of Lake Michigan/Huron. The study was launched to answer questions by lake shore residents who had watched the steady drop of water levels in recent years.
Critics are already up in arms! I kid you not! Get a load of this:
…that’s not sitting well with members of the Canadian environmental group GBA Foundation, which funded its own study in 2004 which put the blame on human activity.”The fact that (the report) completely dismisses such an enormous increase in outflow and recommends that nothing be done about it is very disturbing,” said Roy Schatz, GBA’s founding president, in a press release.
They sure do get angry when humans are not pegged as the culprits, eh? Lastly,
The joint commission looked at changes in the Great Lakes between 1962 and 2006, during which the difference in the water level between Lake Michigan/Huron and the lower-sitting Lake Erie has shrunk by nine inches.
Researchers suggest three contributing factors:
• A change in the St. Clair River’s capacity, or conveyance, most likely created during a monthlong freeze of the river in 1984 that resulted in scouring of the river bottom.
• Changing climate patterns, including greater rain and snowfall in Lakes Erie and Ontario than in the northern Great Lakes.
• Shifts in the Earth’s crust, called glacial isostatic adjustment, that are the result of the planet’s rebound from the melting of glaciers 10,000 years ago.
So we’re still experiencing effects from that ice age 10,000 years ago! Can’t wait for someone from the IPCC to call for the firing of these researchers. Kudos to the liberal Detroit News for even giving this research a fair shake, albeit the News ignores the whole global warming controversy with respect to lake level decreases altogether. As a matter of fact, just two months ago there was resaerch presented in the press hypothesizing that global warming was causing less ice on the Great Lakes, for which I had this response:
Why do I label this as strange? Well, because I just wrote a post not long ago about how 3 of the Great Lakes have completely frozen over this winter for the first time in many years. (MI adds to anti-global warming evidence) The freezing of the Great Lakes happens about once a decade. The last time was in 2003 and before that 1994, according to Ice Service records, and it was 1982 before that. Nothing in the article indicates how these scientists reached their conclusions, or how the measurements were taken. … As for the lake levels, they are back to whatever researchers have defined as “normal:” Global Warming? “Harsh winters push lake levels back to near normal”.
UPDATE: The freep has a corresponding article to the news. Pretty much the same, except that at the very, very end, the freep holds out some hope for the global warming alarmists:
The study is continuing, looking at the long-term effects of climate change. If the upper lakes drop steeply in the coming decades, then it might be time to make man-made changes in the St. Clair River…
UPDATE #2: Here’s an article from the Detroit News in 2008 about how global warming will lower lake levels: Global warming may drop Great Lakes water levels from Thu May 29, 2008. Here’s a snippet from that article:
The report draws on science about global warming to make predictions for the Great Lakes, such as:
• Climate change will boost daily high temperatures between 5.4 and 10.8 degrees.
• Warmer lakes will mean less ice cover and lower water levels of 1 to 3 feet in the next century.
• Biological “dead zones,” where plants and animals can’t live, will spread.
• Intense storms will swamp stressed sewage treatment plants, forcing them to release raw and partially treated sewage into the lakes.
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We are always hearing about ways that you can “save the planet” from the perils of global warming—from riding your bicycle to work, to supporting the latest national greenhouse gas restriction limitations, and everything in between.
But, alas, not one peep about how Industry X or Corporation Y is cutting back on energy consumption or conserving. Not one word about how “they” are doing thier part to use the energy “they” burn in the most efficient manner.
It’s you.
You are the problem. You caused all of this. It’s your fault.
You bought those bad products. You used them.
You worked for “us” and made those bad things.
You made us rich. You are destroying the planet.
You made the sun go to sleep.
Now, you must save the planet while we get rich.
We’re not doing anything, because it’s all your fault.
And just to show you we mean business, the price of that bicycle just went up 3 fold.
Repent, and we’ll give you a carbon credit with your new bicycle.
And we’ll report your carbon credit income to the IRS on Form 1099AGW.
Riiinnnnnggggg….riiiinnnggggg.
Honey, get up, it’s time to go to work.
Wally (18:26:50)
And that eclipse you observed, what was the temperature drop over that time span?
“rephelan (18:28:35) :
Wally (17:30:07)
Unfortunately due to the math involved it is very difficult to explain the so called “greenhouse” effect to laymen, in addition to the fact that even the mathematical derivations make a lot of assumptions that make things confusing to laymen.
If I were in a mood to be uncharitable I’d be inclined to read that as “Why don’t you ignorant prols stay in your place and mind your betters?””
Not at all. I am just saying that if you do not have the math background and the will to use it the papers involved (that provide detailed explanations) can be hard to follow. I have some background in math (graduate level) but seldom have the will to go to the trouble of reading a paper with lots equations close enough to tell if the author is making mistakes or not. It most cases you need to know, besides the math, the background of the methods used, what assumptions are made, how valid are those assumptions etc. so in the end either you have to do a lot of work to get acquainted with the body of work involved or you rely on the opinion of experts you trust. One can only advanced to the expert level in very few subjects. That does not mean the experts always get it right, and experts often disagree.
==========
AHA! Here is a learning example, Steve. Instead of provided , we must use AGW terminology:
X still equals 2
If we assume:
Y = 1
Q = 2
Z = 1
B = 12
However, careful measurements show:
Y = 2
Q = .707
Z = 4,000
B = 1
But, the robust models suggest these flimsy and unproven measurements must be wrong, so they are adjusted!
See how it works?
“Robert Bateman (18:44:35) :
Wally (18:26:50)
And that eclipse you observed, what was the temperature drop over that time span?”
Couldn’t really say. i did not have a thermometer with me, plus it was a cloudy day so I’m sure the effect was muted compared to observing one on a clear day but still really spooky.
Mike Bryant (18:40:51)
The common man knows it, too.
They know that if they even get a chance to work under the AGW plan, it’s going to be a most painful experience.
We used to laugh at condos being fancy cardboard boxes.
Bob Tisdale has put up his April SST update
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/05/april-2009-sst-anomaly-update.html
What is the difference between the map he uses and the one used by the NOAA, his map data shows the South Atlantic as off the charts warm, but the NOAA map shows a giant blue spot in the middle of it with a few little orange and red spots to the south of that. Which map is right?
Haven’t there already been substantial “man-made changes in the St. Clair River” by dredging it, thus contributing to anthropogenic lowering of lake levels (Huron, Michigan) above it? Or has my memory gone bad?
WARNING! The Dirigistes have decided to Change The Rhetoric. [This is getting more like a George Orwell novel every damned day.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/politics/02enviro.html
READ THIS ARTICLE. It’s the most frightenng I have read yet in the whole AGW morass. Apparently, the FACTS are not important; AGW has now transmogrified from a ‘scientific” issue into a pure unadulterated political and marketing issue.
Most of us knew this was inevitable, but now that it has seeped out into the open, I find myself shockingly incensed, livid, bilious, gen-you-inely pissed off.
I may have to carry this ine around in my wallet like some disgruntled old guy.
From the article above: “As a matter of fact, just two months ago there was resaerch presented in the press hypothesizing that global warming was causing less ice on the Great Lakes, for which I had this response:”
Well, I know where it went!
http://www.wnem.com/news/18885556/detail.html
0/T but interesting http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/politics/02enviro.html?_r=1
Wally,
you need a bit of English before you tell us about the math
Dr Roy Spencer has a new post up. “It’s Time for a Reality Check.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/category/blogarticle/
Nenana Ice Classic: May 1, 2009, 8:41 pm. About 32 of about 90 years or so. On the early, but not very early, side.
CANADIAN LONGSHOT WINS KENTUCKY DERBY – I BLAME GLOBAL WARMING
(had to get on-topic somehow))
Mine That Bird pulls off upset in Kentucky Derby
Long shot beats 50-1 odds
SportsTicker
Published: Saturday, May 02, 2009
Bob Baffert
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Calvin Borel was in a familiar place, along the rail and urging Mine That Bird to fly through the mud. Trainer Bennie Woolley Jr. was someplace he never imagined – the Kentucky Derby, with his horse in the lead.
Together they pulled off one of the greatest upsets in 135 years of America’s most famous horse race.
“It was a Street Sense move,” Borel said Saturday, referring to the same rail-hugging ride he gave that colt to win the Derby two years ago. “They can only go so fast, so far. When I hollered at him, he just went on.”
Sent off at 50-1 odds, Mine That Bird pulled away in the stretch to score a 6 3/4-length victory at Churchill Downs, the second-biggest upset in Derby history.
Mr Wally said: “if you do not have the math background and the will to use it the papers involved (that provide detailed explanations) can be hard to follow. I have some background in math (graduate level) but seldom have the will to go to the trouble of reading a paper with lots equations close enough to tell if the author is making mistakes or not. It most cases you need to know, besides the math, the background of the methods used, what assumptions are made, how valid are those assumptions etc. so in the end either you have to do a lot of work to get acquainted with the body of work involved or you rely on the opinion of experts you trust.”
To an extent I agree, but only to the extent that analysing mathematical papers sheds any light on the single issue arising in the whole debate.
There is only one issue.
We can happily concede that increased carbon dioxide production by naughty human beings increases the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (and you can define atmosphere any way you want).
We can happily concede that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is likely to increase surface temperatures somewhere across the globe, be it on land or at sea or both.
We can happily concede that naughty human beings are directly responsible for that increase, wherever and to whatever degree (no pun intended) it happens.
But none of that gets anywhere near what the alarmists claim. They claim there are magical qualities, to date unobserved in nature, that will cause an amplification of temperature increases beyond those calculable by established “greenhouse gas” analyses.
The single issue is whether that claim is sustainable. Unless they either confirm that claim or provide a credible challenge to it, no number of scare stories or debunking stories or mathematical analyses sheds any light on anything of relevance.
There is a great danger of being side-tracked into debate about whether there is or is not a warming trend and whether there is or is not evidence of a current rise in average sea levels. None of that matters because the question is not whether things are changing, the only thing that matters is whether there is evidence for the amplification theory. I stress “evidence”. Theory written on a piece of paper and then pumped into a sausage machine computer is worthless without evidence.
Evidence consistent with either warming or lack of warming tells us little, if anything, about the amplification theory. It is easy to think that evidence of lack of warming debunks the theory, but it doesn’t. Nor does evidence of warming support the theory unless it goes so far as to provide at least prima facie evidence of amplification, which even the most ardent warmists have not yet claimed.
As usual, FatBigot has zeroed in on the central question, and shown that the alarmists have come up short.
There is no real world evidence that increases in a minor trace gas will lead to runaway global warming. We are being asked to take it on faith.
Sagi (19:47:42) :
Haven’t there already been substantial “man-made changes in the St. Clair River” by dredging it, thus contributing to anthropogenic lowering of lake levels (Huron, Michigan) above it? Or has my memory gone bad?
You’re right, apparently the US Corps of Engineers believe that their efforts weren’t very effective.
This whole farce about drawing on science about global warming to make predictions is exactly what the new head of NOAA is all about.
Yeah Dr. Lubchenco will be busy forecasting daily higher temperatures, lower water levels, dead zones and intense storms near sewage treatment plants.
Jane Lubchenco, now head of NOAA, was a founding director of Climate Central, a Web site that went online last year with what she calls “credible and nonadvocacy” information on global warming.
Dr. Lubchenco said, one of her goals at NOAA is to establish a climate information service modeled on the National Weather Service, which is part of the agency. Dr. Lubchenco believes climate models are now sufficiently “robust” to help scientists start to do the same with climate, to help businesses, elected officials and regulators make good decisions on issues like where to put buildings or roads or wind farms.
“It is no longer enough to know what the wind patterns were for the last hundred years,” she said. “You want to know what they will be for the next hundred years — and they undoubtedly won’t be the same.”
Dr. Lubchenco makes things up. She made up a link between ocean dead zones and AGW where none exists even when her own research group cautioned that they were not certain of the extent of a link, if any.
Dr. Lubchenco has made up the robust climate models that can predict wind patterns 100 years out.
Stay tuned, she’ll now be making up many more things as the head of NOAA. Including predictions of lake levels.
I agree with Mr. FatBigot, that there is no evidence as yet. But, the AGWers have cleverly conditioned their claims around imminent tipping points, and dire predictions of doom and drowning. Mr. FatBigot, as a lawyer, will know that imminent harm is a legal basis for demanding relief.
Their tactic is, as some have described it, to use the Precautionary Principle to provoke action. The harm they predict is so great, that modern mankind is urged, no, required, to act not only now, but in massive ways to greatly alter our ways of life.
To not act in the way and at the time they prescribe is to subject this generation and all future generations to living in an unbearable world.
The EPA adopted similar language in their recent Proposed Finding on CO2 as harmful to humans.
Robert Bateman,
Here is one company, Du Pont, that claims to have made 70 percent reduction in GHG emissions.
“. . . let me note that DuPont has been a global leader in greenhouse gas emission reduction, having begun systematic reduction of emissions from our operations in 1991, and accomplishing over a 70% reduction on a global basis by 2004. We are proud of that record, but aware that such reductions
reflect a unique mix of process and energy emissions that cannot be readily replicated by most companies or institutions.”
The quote above is an excerpt from their letter in support of AB 32 in California. Link below.
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/comments/dupont1_15_08.pdf
There’s one more key piece to add to FB’s post. Mann’s hockey stick is -the- crucial piece allowing the implication of carbon dioxide. The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period are fatal to that process – since they don’t show up as expected in the carbon dioxide records. So the hockey stick marginalizes them as ‘regional’ and flattens them out of the record. And the math and methods for the hockey stick are eminently understandable. And bogus.
Historians have articles discussing the breadth and depth of the LIA & MWP over easily half the globe. But they don’t provide the actual numbers, and they’re focused on their own regions.
But you can back your way through Mann’s math.
astronmr20 (11:28:10) :
“He’s using this chart:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20090406_Figure3”
The chart shows March extent, usually when the sea ice extent is maximum. So, the AWGers point to this as proof that the Arctic ice is declining. What they also claim is that during the same time frame, CO2 kept rising. This is a classic example of correlation but no causation.
What should be stated is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation was in its warm phase during all that period. If we had earlier data, for example back to 1940, the sea ice extent would likely show a growing trend. The next few years will likely show a growing trend as the PDO shifts back into a cool phase.
This is my understanding of the state of affairs.
Probably won’t read any of this on an AGWer page.
Re the imminent tipping points, what is it, 800 ppm CO2? Roughly a doubling of the 385 ppm now? (I rounded off to one significant digit).
I would like an AGW proponent to please explain why we should be concerned with 800 ppm, when in the past the atmosphere had more than 1000 ppm CO2. No tipping point.
And please explain how the Earth made it through the 2000 ppm period, without a tipping point.
And the 4000 ppm period, again with no tipping point.
How exactly did the ice ages occur after all those CO2 concentrations measured in the thousands? I am led to believe by the AGWers that a mere 800 ppm will cause an irreversible and inevitable runaway in global temperatures, in an increasing manner. What is different this time, that only 800 ppm will cause the tipping point?
John Reynolds,
Although it’s not about Lake Michigan, the Mountain Pine Beetle ( MPB) story is another instance of a phenomenon incorrectly attributed to global warming.
MPB (dendoctronus ponderosae) is to be found in forests from Belize to Alaska.
There have been, in the last couple of decades, very striking infestations in many of the pine stands in western North America.
Just about every article you can read will tell you that winter temperatures of -35C for several days are required to keep the beetle in check. It has never been -35C in Belize and, historically, in many parts of British Columbia that have lost all their pine it has rarely been -35C.
It’s also worth noting that the beetle plague has not progressed from south to north, following a climate gradient. In BC it has tended to move somewhat south and east, from areas with colder winters and cooler summers towards milder winters and hotter summers.
In Alaska, the infestation by MPB and his buddy, dendroctonus rufipennis (spruce bark beetle), is often attributed to milder summers.
There is plenty of evidence of previous outbreaks over the last couple of centuries.
I don’t buy the GW explanation, but I wouldn’t rush to embrace the forest fire story, either; it might just be more complicated than that.