Reprinted here by request from Harold Ambler – Anthony
What follows is an open letter to the Salon writer Peter Dizikes, who recently published an article about a new book by NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt on climate change.
The water level of Lake Powell, like that of all reservoirs in the American West, has fluctuated since the day it was dammed.
Dear Mr. Dizikes:
I recently saw your overview of Gavin Schmidt’s new book as well as your interview with him on Salon.
I was surprised to see that you consider the effects of manmade global warming to be “oddly invisible.” Having studied the subject for a couple of years now, while performing my own research, it has been my observation that newspapers, magazines, and television news sources show images of supposed manmade climate change on a daily basis. Such images include: floods, polar bears, glacial calving, etc. If anything, images of global warming might be said to saturate western media.
As with so many other products generated by the AGW industry, Schmidt’s book Climate Change: Picturing the Science is part of an ongoing effort to frighten the credulous. Its messages include: weather will kill you, our moment on Earth is unique, climate did not used to change.
Had you wanted to fulfill the responsibilities of an objective and hard-hitting journalist, you might have asked Schmidt about the image of Lake Powell on his book’s cover book. Now, of course, we are all told never to judge a book by its cover – but this is a visual book that demands to be judged on visual terms. There are a lot of people, unfortunately, who don’t know enough about the facts to perform this kind of analysis themselves. Failing to do so for them is a pity.
Were you aware, may I ask, of the controversial nature of the damming of the Colorado River that led to Lake Powell? Environmentalists were and are appalled by this particular dam. It has changed an important piece of the American natural landscape. But, like all manmade dams on Earth, it has changing water levels. Dammed lakes in the American west are particularly prone to fluctuating water levels, within single years, year to year, and on the decadal level. Water use varies as well, although it can be counted on to slowly increase. Using an image of lowered water level on Lake Powell, which is a reservoir, sitting in a desert, to indicate anything about climate change is perverse. I would even go to far as to call it anti-science.
The assumption that industrial production of co2 has altered precipitation patterns is exactly that, an assumption. Further, what you are going to find, in the next decade, is that global temperatures are going to remain flat (as they have since 1998) and/or start to decline. What you are also going to find is that science writers in the American media establishment are going to peel off, one by one, from the AGW heterodoxy.
Group-think has affected many societies negatively, and it has not disappeared during our own time. The fact that neither Mr. Schmidt’s editor, nor his publisher, nor you, nor the photographer, nor Mr. Schmidt himself would stop to reflect on the oddity of this cover is enough to give one pause.
Sincerely yours,
Harold Ambler
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Here is the United States Drought Index through 2005.
http://drought.unl.edu/risk/us/%25droughtlg.gif
Also you can find a similar slide in the author of Climate of Extremes at the Heartland conference Thursday.
“I have been taking SA for something like 40 years; but I am likely to stop any time soon, because in recent years, SA editors have fully intoxicated themselves on the looney left coolade; and the Mag has tended to become more of a political rag, than a scientific mag.”
After my 40 years, I cancelled this year.
Here’s a climate picture that the IPCC might try to put a spin on (even though it’s a map and not a real pic. but has pretty colors)
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.6.4.2009.gif
Today’s map shows the cool PDO area is history, coincidentally it seems the horse-shoe shaped cool area only is very noticable when the ENSO region is cool as well as seen in other years.
I wonder if Roger Pielke, Sr will pick up on the Lake Powell story; it would seem to be right up his alley.
Oh look, the climate is changing! It must be from carbon dioxide emissions!
First of all, the fact that the climate is changing does not suggest nor does it prove what caused the change. More important is that fact the climate is supposed to change. From the moment the earth developed a climate, it has always changed and will always change.
This book does not offer any evidence that the observed changes are unnatural or out of the ordinary.
BTW: When is weather climate? When it supports the catastrophic man-made climate change hysteria belief. Otherwise, it’s just weather.
Hmm, but wait, maybe they can spin the whole PDO thing on that map, but what about on this map where it shows the PDO cool area is still there?
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
Why is the PDO area shown with the cool phase as gone in the NOAA map but still somewhat holding on this other map? I know the colors are different, but still…
I remember when some people sued to keep 2-cycle watercraft out of Lake Mead. The exhaust was destroying the natural environment, you see. But Lake Mead is a man-made lake.
Actually, Peter Zikes’ comment about the effects of manmade global warming being “oddly invisible” is pretty much correct, though not in the sense that he meant. 🙂
Does anyone else find it ironic that the dam at Lake Powell has the potential to generate 1.296 kw of EMISSIONS-FREE energy yet the very religious environmental zealots that post such misleading pictures also support elimination of the dam?
Just doesn’t make sense…
Mr. Moderator,
You needn’t post this message.
We would like to begin to advertise on your website: wattsupwiththat.com.
We apologize for our ineptness concerning internet protocols. We do not know where to direct such a proposal. Could you advise us?
Thank you.
David K. Wherry
dkw@physicsxxi.com
Physics XXI
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Lake Powel will be silted in long before the climate changes enough (naturally or anthropogenically) to be a concern. Rapid silting has been an ongoing problem for the chain of dams along the Colorado and one reason they do sustained releases of water – further lowering the lake water levels. Lee Kington (11:21:09) points out the environmental objectives which are served.
I had the opportunity to hike out to St. Thomas, a small town that went under water when Lake Mead was filled. Due to lower water levels, St. Thomas was above water and accessable by foot a few years back. What amazed me the most is how much silt built up around foundations and filled the concrete structures.
Here is a photo that I took that illustrates the silting: Click
Now watch this photo show up completely out of context in some scare story about AGW.
George E. Smith (11:19:06) : . . .
I have been taking SA for something like 40 years; but I am likely to stop any time soon, because in recent years, SA editors have fully intoxicated themselves on the looney left coolade; and the Mag has tended to become more of a political rag, than a scientific mag.
Scientific American has long been in the loony left, “nuke bomb = evil = nuke power” camp. Back in ’84 or ’85 they had an article by Herbert Lin proving that anti-ballistic missiles would never work because computers would never be fast enough to calculate all the trajectories in a full scale attack. I think they were also fretting about how computers would soon be burning up a huge percentage of the world’s electric power.
It’s unfortunate that its editors are letting Politics burn up a huge percentage of SA’s page count.
Where’s the cow? Where’s the dyke?
Oops, wrong SF illustration… 🙂
Best,
Frank
It is a shame that almost all occidental climate data/science sources seem adulterated, nobel prize included.
Good work!
This article from The Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology is from a study started in 1996 and uses ‘paleoclimatological and paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the environment’…
“Cantabrian cornice has experienced 7 cooling and warming phases over past 41,000 years”
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/f-sf-cch060309.php
Nice Book to fix the short leg on the coffee table. I starting reading the salon piece and stop and commented on it under my real name regarding the misinformation on the Pine Bark Beetle.
I hate reading the recycled mantras that the Forestry Services in the USA and Canada adopted to hide their incompetence in managing the threat.
Anthony,
You’re gonna love this!
The following was from 1997 — in the case you may have missed it:
http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/092897/study.htm
Excerpt:
Study says sun getting hotter
WASHINGTON (AP) – The sun is getting hotter, adding heat to an Earth already thought to be warming from greenhouse gases.
Solar radiation reaching the Earth is 0.036 percent warmer than it was in 1986, when the current solar cycle was beginning, a researcher reports in a study to be published Friday in the journal Science. The finding is based on an analysis of satellites that measure the temperature of sunlight.
Blah, blah, blah and then they talk about AGW. BUT the THRUST IS: THE SUN!
Harold
Nice succinct letter. Well done.
TonyB
dhogaza: don’t appeal to authority… actually check the data.
That “authoritative” piece you linked to was actually published in 2003. And, yes, lake water levels HAD decreased compared to the previous few years. But, if the changes in lake water levels were actually due to additional human release of CO2, one would expect to see steadily declining water levels over time. That is NOT what has been observed. Water levels have increased from 2004 to the present. And, values from 2005 to the present are ALL greater than the values that existed throughout ALL of the 1960s.
Bruce
Just remove the c, m and d from the author’s name for a clearer picture of the quality of the science.
Visual propaganda like this is absolutely outrageous. I recall a recent image, of a wallaby in snow, being used to misdirect in this way.
And don’t even mention the prolonged drought in NE Georgia caused by man made climate change. If we don’t enact laws immediately there will be a drought over the region for a long long time and…
June 2nd 2009
http://drought.unl.edu/DM/DM_southeast.htm
Er, uh, never mind.
Yep, that picture of Lake Powell goes in the same collection of the picture of those two polar bears clinging to that melting iceberg that was photographed by that student… because she was just passing by and thought it was cute.
If a picture can tell a thousand words, a deceptive picture can tell a thousand lies.
dhogaza may site what claims to be an authoritive article about extended drought being the cause of lower water levels at Lake Powell, but anyone who was familiar with the draw down of Lake Powell as I was (I have a second home at Lake Powell), knows that the power shortages in Cailifornia several years ago was the real cause. Because California would not allow new power generating plants to be built, they were trying to buy power from anywhere. So, the operators of Lake Powell were releasing more water than they should for several years to sell the generated electricity to California.
That is why Lake Powell went from 90 percent full to 35 percent in a few years. Lake Powell receives most of its water from the snow melt on Colorado, and snow pack in Colorado was only slightly below normal during those years.
The blame for low water levels in Lake Powell can be attributed to the California legislature and their refusal to allow power plants to be built.
cotwome (12:51:58) :
Interesting link, thank you