I’m off this weekend – talk quietly and politely amongst yourselves. Don’t make me come back here.
If you have something worth posting on the front page, flag a moderator. In the meantime I have a couple of stories that will post using the WordPress scheduler. – Anthony
For those who are interested, Northern Hemisphere snow cover may be found at the link shown below. This is a (US) National Weather Service – NOAA product, so is more focused on the North American continent, but also gives a polar view that shows Eurasia.
http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nh_snowcover/
A lot of eyes are on the Phillies, where I am from, the world series champions last year.
Michael (10:26:30) :
When science nerds (geeks) attack
I like the photo with the story :
http://www.9news.com/genthumb/genthumb.ashx?e=3&h=204&w=320&i=/assetpool/images/091010093631_Coors-field.jpg
Michael (10:43:13) :
Denver shattered a 100 year old record low after dropping to 17 degrees Saturday morning. The old record was 25 degrees dating back to 1905.
It leaves everyone asking, “Where is global warming?”.
As to believing in global warming, I would believe if the arctic ocean ice free each year and the antarctic winter ice below average each year. These are large, hard to fake data.
As to the arctic, it looks like to me, the winds are generally from siberia to canada, the is open water between siberia and canada. This is keeping the temperature up.
Also, the sibernian snow cover looks a few weeks late to me.
Have a good one.
Cap N Trade not called Cap N Trade anymore :
John Kerry now calls it :
“The Pollution Reduction and Investment Incentive Mechanism”.
You can see Barbara Boxer call it that in this 4 min video :
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-5-2009/carbon-copout
Sasha (09:14:26) :
I think you are confuising Mann and Briffa. It was the latter who made the mistake of publishing in the RPS.
Is it a sunspot or just a big flare? Check out the thing coming round the bend on the Sun at http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/beacon/beacon_secchi.shtml
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (10:47:43),
I just heard that the Nobel committee had voted by secret ballot for 0bama last February — only eleven days after 0bama was elected.
At that time 0bama had no governing experience, no military experience, no foreign policy experience, no economic experience, no business experience, no medical experience, no trade experience, no energy experience, etc. He was 100% experience challenged.
Since you’re more familiar than I am with the process, can you explain how awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to someone who had done nothing, and had zero experience, was justified?
Even if the prize was voted on today, the only ‘success’ 0bama has had is in enormously raising our national debt by shoveling money to cronies, rather than returning it to taxpayers where it would have directly helped the economy, and by having the government start to run car companies.
The folks who elected this incompetent know-nothing as their own personal apology for slavery have let their emotions rule their thinking. They will surely regret it as time goes by.
I second what Geoff has written: “Except that in Europe it’s ALL the mainstream parties who are wearing green”. Here in the UK, this is definitely the case, with little difference between Conservative, Labour and LibDem policies. The only political party openly sceptical about AGW is, as far as I know, UKIP (not mainstream yet, but gaining ground.)
I don’t think there’s a lack of scepticism here about AGW, just a lack of a focal point to rally round. People have tended to go along with “green” measures as long as they were innocuous and money-saving. For instance, I took advantage of a government discount on loft insulation. To save the planet? No, because it was cheap and to reduce my energy bills. It’s when people become aware that the “greener” way is going to cost them dearly, that they will sit up and take notice.
P Gosselin (02:11:30) : “I don’t see any tea parties in Britain, except the kind you have at 4 p.m.”
We’re a little slow to get going, Pierre, I’ll allow, over here. But when we do get going, it’s certainly a sight to see. Watch this space.
Ha-ha, when the cat’s away…
The BBC story has made the front page of Drudge :
right column, top
http://www.drudgereport.com/
Drudge gets approximately 25 millions hits a day.
Eric (skeptic) (06:52:23) :
tallbloke
Without the calculations, is there some way to physically explain ocean heat release mode? My only knowledge as a starting point is that solar heating of the oceans is and should still be decreasing. Also since everything is nonuniform, there will be places with more and less solar heating and places with more and less heat release which should also affect ocean currents and winds.
Eric, firstly, my findings are forming a hypothesis, which is open to falsification, others will probably disagree with my analysis of the situation. With that caveat, here goes.
According to the numbers I’ve been working on, which include calculations involving the sea level rise attributed to thermal expansion, the lapse rate between the sea surface and thermocline, and the sunspot number added as a cumulative series, the oceans have an equilibrium point at which they neither gain nor lose heat.
By my current reckoning, this is around 40 sunspots/month.
For the last few years, the sunspot count has been well below that, and sure enough, the ocean heat content, according to the custodian of the ARGO data, there has been a ‘slight cooling’.
I also discovered that there is something else affecting global temperature. I’m not sure which of several variables it is, but it seems that a couple of time series are a reasonably good proxy for it. One of them is the changes in Length of Day, the other is the geomagnetic record.
As you correctly point out, there will be localities where the trend is opposite, but as an overall global average thing, my data and method is ablle to reproduce the history of global temperature over the last 100 years with surprising accuracy.
Because the sunspot number is a dimensionless thing (though it relates to TSI which can be quantified, and because the clouds seem to be an amplifier of solar influence (probably via the Svensmark effect), I cannot state with any certainty that the parameters I work with can provide a full explanation for temperature change. However, the plus side of this is that my model is flexible, and can accommodate new data and other factors.
You have to start somewhere.
Lucy Skywalker (03:09:48) “Excellent BBC article – at last. “What Happened to Global Warming?”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
“Professor Easterbrook says: “The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling.””
I wouldn’t call the underlying wave a 30 year wave. Here’s a look at the phasing in units of pi radians:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/MorletPi_PhaseJN-r…png
Some of you will easily realize the sideband-envelopes are not centred on a 30 year wave. (See Sidorenkov & Barkin for more insight.)
“Mike Jonas (06:00:03) :
“If you have something worth posting on the front page, flag a moderator.”
How do I flag a moderator? I’ve done an analysis of all monthly maximum temperatures at all (29) Australian weather stations with a 100+ year record. (Like the one Anthony(?) did a while ago on the US ones.)
Prompted by what I found, the following letter is going in the mail tomorrow, to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (”BOM”). (The contact details on their website appear not to include email addresses)”
You will have a more receptive audience here than with the BOM. I hope the mods pick up on this.
[Reply: Anthony always reads Tips ‘n’ Notes. ~dbs, mod.]
Watts — You’re RSS feed is broke …. ^_^
Smokey (11:00:05) :
Without a reference it is impossible to know where that rumor came from. It sounds very unlikely to me.
http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/nomination_committee/who-can-nominate/
“The Committee does not itself announce the names of nominees. In so far as certain names crop up in the advance speculations as to who will receive the year’s Prize, this is either sheer guesswork or information put out by the person or persons behind the nomination. Information in the Nobel Committee’s nominations data base is not made public until after fifty years.”
To say I am “familiar with the process” is an overstatement, I just happen to live the the same country as the committee.
This is their announcement for this year’s prize:
http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/home/announce-2009/
In addition to what is written there, I can only speculate that they wanted to somehow give him a “flying start”. If so, I think it is not a very good idea as it waters down the value of the prize.
They say: “Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”
Ahem…. given what we know about climate science, that isn’t something I support (an understatement).
In summary, this prize was premature, as a minimum.
A RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE OF 10 DEGREES WAS SET AT MISSOULA MT TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 20 SET IN 1973
A RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE OF 5 DEGREES WAS SET AT KALISPELL MT TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 16 SET IN 1987.
A RECORD SNOWFALL OF 1 INCH WAS SET AT MISSOULA MT YESTERDAY. THIS
TIES THE OLD RECORD OF 1 SET IN 1905.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/view/validProds.php?prod=RER&node=KMSO
…RECORD LOW MINIMUM TEMPERATURES REPORTED IN UTAH FOR OCTOBER 7TH…
STATION NEW RECORD OLD RECORD YEAR
ALPINE 30 TIED 30 1976
BOUNTIFUL-VAL VERDA 31 35 2007
BRIGHAM CITY 26 TIED 26 1969
BRYCE CANYON AIRPORT 18 TIED 18 1969
DELTA 19 26 1948
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/view/validProds.php?prod=RER&node=KSLC
Folks need to consider that it is unconstitutional for an elected official to accept titles or emoluments from foreign powers without congressional approval. If Obama accepts the Nobel while in office he commits treason (as has any other president who accepted it while in office) unless congress passes an act permitting him to do so.
Then again, considering historians have now documented that the Titles of Nobility amendment (what would have been the 13th Amendment had the British not destroyed federal records when they invaded DC during the War of 1812) was properly passed by enough states to become part of the US Constitution. This would strip the citizenship from any person accepting a title (including a mere “Esquire” or “Nobel Laureate) or other emolument from a foreign prince or power (the American Bar Association is a franchise of the International Bar Association, chartered by the Queen of England).
Carsten, you did notice the date on this ‘story’ (2011)?
Humor; a parody on the recent (comedic tragedy) event …
.
.
The cold reaches all the way down to Arizona :
…RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES FOR NORTHERN ARIZONA ON OCT 08 2009…
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/view/validProds.php?prod=RER&node=KFGZ
_Jim (11:26:22) :
They got me 🙂 Thanks for the reading aid 🙂
For those who don’t knw how to contact your congressman or senator
CONGRESS
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html
SENATORS
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm