news and comment
ecology

site map
C O L O U R K E 'Y

will the eu go for 30% emissions reduction?

Always keep in mind that the EUSSR is exporting much of their emissions to the Far East. That, of course, increases emissions greatly. [1]

“The existing target of a 20 per cent cut is already due to cost £48 billion. The Commission will argue that the lower target has become much easier to meet because of the recession, which resulted in the EU’s emissions falling more than 10 per cent last year as thousands of factories closed or cut production. Emissions last year were already 14 per cent below 1990 levels.”
—
“The plan also says that the higher target would reduce air pollution from fossil fuels and improve the health of millions of people, generating up to £8 billion a year in economic benefits from having a healthier population.”

related material
replacing fossil fuels: the scale of the problem
nuclear power - is nuclear power really really dangerous?
fossil fuel disasters
energy economics and fossil fuels—how long do we have?

end note

1. Note: be cautious when reading the numbers and tables in the linked page. Such figures can often be unreliable or changeable, according to the assumptions made.

Share: What is this?

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/ecology122009.php#eu_emissions_250510

advertising
disclaimer

advertising
disclaimer

advertising
disclaimer

still more irresponsibility by filthy fossil fuel industry

Why no serious regulation of the filthy fossil fuel industry?

“Marfork Coal Co. has started work on the Bee Tree Surface Mine, and is blasting within 1,000 feet of the impoundment. The blasting threatens to decrease the stability of the Brushy Fork dam, which sits above a honeycomb of abandoned underground mines.”
—
“If the Brushy Fork impoundment breaks, a 38.49-foot wall of water will arrive in Sylvester, a town 4.8 miles downriver, within 36 minutes. By Massey Energy’s own estimates, the disaster would kill 998 people.” [Quoted from itsgettinghotinhere.org]

“Big rig oil spill on Highway 101 snarls traffic

“Southbound movement on Highway 101 will be a problem for motorists driving through South County for most of the day after a big rig overturned and spilled thousands of gallons of oil on the roadway.”
—
“All lanes of traffic were closed immediately after the wreck and traffic was diverted through city streets.One lane on each side of the highway reopened about 7:30 a.m. Officials believe that traffic will be limited through a single lane on each side of the highway for at least another 12 hours until the wreckage is cleared and the oil is removed.” [Quoted from montereyherald.com]

Ever heard of these incidents?

Meanwhile, traces of radioactivity were found at onsite at Vermont nuclear power site. So there are at least a thousand ‘news’ mentions so far, despite zero danger and nuclear power being the safest and cleanest mass energy system known.

related material
fossil fuel disasters

Share: What is this?

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/ecology122009.php#us_oil_spills_200210

glacial global warming roundup

global warming slowing down, caused by better data - moonbats blame ipcc and the sun

“How did the team from the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska estimate that the contribution of these glaciers to sea-level rise was 0.17 mm/year? In 1995, and then again in 2001, the researchers used an airborne laser to measure the surface elevation of 67 glaciers along longitudinal profiles. These elevations were then compared with those mapped in the 1950s and 1960s. From this, the researchers inferred elevation changes and then extrapolated this to other glaciers. Their results, published in Science (3), pointed to a major contribution to sea-level rise for the 1950-1995 period (0.14 mm/year sea-level rise), which then doubled in the recent period (after 1995).”

Special note for moonbats - the press release doesn’t mention bounceback.

It doesn’t even caution the seriously dim to remember that local weather is not global.

These releases really should be written in terms even dumbos can understand when repeated in the Daily Wail.

here is no global warming - see proof!

A collection of ten denuded mountains and glaciers.

Mount Kilimanjaro 1993 and 2000

Seven/fourteen photos, or even six/twelve photos - theory is always over-ridden by evidence.

But even six photos, or one snow storm is not ‘proof ’ of ‘global warming’, or even AGW.

I spend a fair amount of time watching the uninformed denialists making the standard, irrelevant ‘points’ as to why there ain’t no such thing as global warming, or that it has nothing to do with human activities, despite the well-established concensus that it is happening and human activity is the main reason. I also hear people of good will trying to argue with the moonbats, but having limited data at their finger tips.

Thus, the ‘conversation’ goes back and forth like a Christmas pantomime. This will continue until at least three conditions are maintaind in the ‘debate’:

1. that known facts are given a higher attention than theories (empiricism);
2. that numbers are given precedence over adjectives. Far better a claim is made that our best estimate is that the general climate temperature has risen by 1°F since the beginning of the industrial revolution, rather than “we’re all going to boil by breakfast time”, or not according to taste;
3. stop quoting some ‘interesting’ fact such that there is snow in New York, or a particular glacier is advancing or retreating, while not forgetting item 1.

And one they missed!

The Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, Alaska, in 1937 Image credit: Bradford Washburn/ Courtesy Panopticon Gallery		The Mendenhall Glacier,Juneau, Alaska, in 2006 Image credit: David Arnold

our snow is disappearing because of agw - solution, produce more gwgs

“With warmer temperatures also comes less snow. Just ask the Mt. Baker Ski Area, which has had to close for periods this winter, or the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics organizers, who are being forced to truck in snow for some events at Vancouver’s Cyprus Mountain.”

related material
expending energy to counteract global warming

australia/antarctic

“Cool, dry air flows northwards to southwest Australia, which keeps rainfall amounts down, while warm, moist air flows into East Antarctica, providing abundant snow. This pattern is consistent with previous studies that tied the events to man-made factors that may have played a role in drought.”

Share: What is this?

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/ecology122009.php#global_warming_roundup_090210

agw denialist hysteria continues - on adjusting old weather station records

Saudi Arabia is entirely dependant on oil exports. They have now joined the dedicated denialists like Nigel Lawson in calling for an ‘independent’ enquiry. They must know, as does the filthy fossil fuel industry in general, that there is nothing seriously wrong with the anthropogenic global warming [AGW] data. But what they do know is that their dirty, unaccountable industry is now under serious threat. Hence, the dubious calls for independent enquiries as delaying mechanisms and as further attempts to confuse the unsophisticated.

I was amused to see yet another attempt to find a smoking gun, suggesting that temperature station data has been fiddled.

“One of the things that was revealed in the released CRU emails is that the CRU basically uses the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) dataset for its raw data. So I looked at the GHCN dataset.” [Quoted from wattsupwiththat.com]

As Mark Twain is supposed to have said, “A lie travels half way round the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

It is hard to understand why people with very little experience believe that they are going to discover some amazing ‘reason’ why something believed by the overwhelming majority of scientists practicing in the field, has somehow been, unaccountably, overlooked.

During discussion, DVH dug out these useful links on the subject:

“...the main temperature station moved to the radar station at the newly built Darwin airport in January 1941. The temperature station had previously been at the Darwin Post Office in the middle of the CBD, on the cliff above the port. Thus, there is a likely factor of removal of a slight urban heat island effect from 1941 onwards. However, the main factor appears to be a change in screening. The new station located at Darwin airport from January 1941 used a standard Stevenson screen. However, the previous station at Darwin PO did not have a Stevenson screen. Instead, the instrument was mounted on a horizontal enclosure without a back or sides. The postmaster had to move it during the day so that the direct tropical sun didn't strike it! Obviously, if he forgot or was too busy, the temperature readings were a hell of a lot hotter than it really was! I am sure that this factor accounts for almost the whole of the observed sudden cooling in 1939-41. [Quoted from john-daly.com]

And now for a list of corrections applied to old weather data station records:

“The data for each station in the USHCN are subjected to several quality control tests, homogeneity tests, and adjustment procedures. These steps are applied so as to sequentially produce six different types of data records, with each successive record type using the preceding record type as input. Each data record type is listed below with a description of the tests and/or adjustments that go into making each of them.

• Areal Edited (Raw)

A quality control procedure is performed that uses trimmed means and standard deviations in comparison with surrounding stations to identify suspects (> 3.5 standard deviations away from the mean) and outliers (> 5.0 standard deviations). Until recently these suspects and outliers were hand-verified with the original records. However, with the development of more sophisticated QC procedures at NCDC, this has been found to be unnecessary.

• TOBS (Time of Observation)

The temperature data are adjusted for the time-of-observation bias (Karl, et al. 1986), which occurs when observing times are changed from midnight to some time earlier in the day. The ending time of the 24-h climatological day varies from station to station and/or over a period of years at a given station. The time of observation (TOB) introduces a non-climatic bias into the monthly means. The TOB software is an empirical model used to estimate the TOB biases associated with different observation schedules and the routine computes the TOB with respect to daily readings taken at midnight.

• MMTS (Maximum/Minimum Temperature System)

Temperature data at stations that have the Maximum/Minimum Temperature System (MMTS) are adjusted for the bias introduced when the liquid-in-glass thermometers were replaced with the MMTS (Quayle et al. 1991). The MMTS program debiases the data obtained from stations with MMTS sensors. The NWS has replaced a majority of the liquid-in-glass thermometers in wooden Cotton-Region shelters with thermistor based maximum-minimum temperature systems (MMTS) housed in smaller plastic shelters. This adjustment removes the MMTS bias for stations so equipped with this type of sensor. The adjustment factors are most appropriate for use when time series of states or larger areas are required.

• SHAP (Station History Adjustment Program)

The homogeneity adjustment scheme described in Karl and Williams (1987) is performed using the station history metadata file to account for time series discontinuities due to random station moves and other station changes. The debiased data from the MMTS adjustment are then entered into the Station History Adjustment Program or SHAP. The SHAP allows a climatological time series of temperature and precipitation adjustment for station inhomogeneities using station history information. The adjusted data retain their original scale and are not anomaly series. The methodology uses the concepts of relative homogeneity and standard parametric (temperature) and non parametric (precipitation) statistics to adjust the data. In addition, this technique provides an estimate of the confidence interval associated with each adjustment. The SHAP program debiases the data with respect to changes other than the MMTS conversion to produced the “adjusted data”. Specific details on the procedures used are given by Karl and Williams (1987).

• FILNET (Fill Missing Original Data in the Network)

Estimates for missing data are provided using a procedure similar to that used in SHAP. This adjustment uses the debiased data from the SHAP and fills in missing original data when needed (i.e. calculates estimated data) based on a “network” of the best correlated nearby stations. The FILNET program also completed the data adjustment process for stations that moved too often for SHAP to estimate the adjustments needed to debias the data.

• Urban (Urban Warming Adjustment)

The final adjustment is for an urban warming bias which uses the regression approach outlined in Karl et al. (1988). The result of this adjustment is the “final” version of the data. [Quoted from cdiac.ornl.gov]

The amazing hoohaa generated by the ‘leak’ of UEA e-mails has, in fact, not yet turned up even a shadow of error, let alone fraud, despite all the usual suspects pouncing on the ‘leak’ like a pack of hyenas.

I am following this frenzy with bemusement, amusement and some degree of sadness that the combination of venality among those who should know better, and the gullible ignorance of the general population. But it is a useful situation for watching the deniers closely in action.

other documents related to this on-going mass hysteria
tree growth and agw
the present stage of global temperature measurement
on tree-ring data and peer-reviewed studies

global warming
anthropogenic global warming, and ocean acidity

Share: What is this?

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/ecology122009.php#agw_denialist_hysteria_091209

tree growth and agw

“Scientists already know that carbon dioxide acts like a fertilizer, stimulating plant growth, while ozone harms plants. But they didn't know what would happen with both gases in a realistic, long-term study.

“ "Our results have been remarkably consistent," says Kruger. "They show that high carbon dioxide increases the growth of young aspen and birch, high ozone decreases their growth, and the gas's effects on growth cancel each other out when both are elevated." ” [Quoted from earthobservatory.nasa.gov]

“ "If our hypothesis that tropical tree growth rates are decreasing in response to higher temperatures is correct, this creates the danger of positive feedbacks: higher temperatures cause reduced tree growth which in turn results in slower rates of carbon uptake and more deforestation/land conversion, which then results in accelerated increases of atmospheric CO2 and global warming, causing further reductions in growth and so on and so on," said Feeley.” [Quoted from mongabay.com]

“The changes in precipitation patterns and rainfall were one of the more significant elements of the fourth IPCC report, she said. Scientists, policy makers and the public are looking at more than just temperature changes when it comes to global warming. Instead, they are examining the Earth as an entire system and studying the consequences of what happens when the planet warms.” [Quoted from cnet.com]

related material
the present stage of global temperature measurement
on tree-ring data and peer-reviewed studies

global warming
anthropogenic global warming, and ocean acidity

Share: What is this?

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/ecology122009.php#tree_growth_agw_051209

email email_abelard [at] abelard.org

© abelard, 2009, 5 december
all rights reserved

variable words
prints as increasing A4 pages (on my printer and set-up)