Monday, January 25, 2010

If Global Warming Is Real Then Why Is It Cold?

Carbon Dioxide. The science isn't easy

Sources of CO2 and how much stays in the atmosphere, how and where it is measured, it isn't as simple as it sounds.

How much is man made?
Different sites say different things.
Why does it rise?
There are mysteries still.
Skeptical Science has a page
How much is from volcanoes is a real mystery.
How do volcanoes effect climate?
More mystery.
Many interesting things are online. Some people are skeptical.
I can't blame them, I mean,

Why an active volcano to measure CO2?
Lots of interesting information on that blog.
Monitoring CO2 elsewhere.
Greenhouse Background

This entry is mostly saving links so I can look into this later.





Saturday, January 23, 2010

Sahara Desert Greening Due to Climate Change?

From National Geographic no less


Desertification, drought, and despair—that's what global warming has in store for much of Africa. Or so we hear.

Emerging evidence is painting a very different scenario, one in which rising temperatures could benefit millions of Africans in the driest parts of the continent.

Scientists are now seeing signals that the Sahara desert and surrounding regions are greening due to increasing rainfall.

An explosion in plant growth has been predicted by some climate models.

For instance, in 2005 a team led by Reindert Haarsma of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute in De Bilt, the Netherlands, forecast significantly more future rainfall in the Sahel.

The study in Geophysical Research Letters predicted that rainfall in the July to September wet season would rise by up to two millimeters a day by 2080.

Satellite data shows "that indeed during the last decade, the Sahel is becoming more green," Haarsma said.

Even so, climate scientists don't agree on how future climate change will affect the Sahel: Some studies simulate a decrease in rainfall.

"This issue is still rather uncertain," Haarsma said.

Max Planck's Claussen said North Africa is the area of greatest disagreement among climate change modelers.

Forecasting how global warming will affect the region is complicated by its vast size and the unpredictable influence of high-altitude winds that disperse monsoon rains, Claussen added.

"Half the models follow a wetter trend, and half a drier trend."


One reason I am skeptical of Climate Science. 

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Surprising discovery? Or just good science?

... taking into account the data recorded for the level of solar radiation, the scientists made a surprising discovery: in the 1940s and in the summer of 1947 especially, the glaciers lost the most ice since measurements commenced in 1914. This is in spite of the fact that temperatures were lower than in the past two decades. "The surprising thing is that this paradox can be explained relatively easily with radiation," says Huss, who was recently appointed to the post of senior lecturer at the Department of Geosciences at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.

On the basis of their calculations, the researchers have concluded that the high level of short-wave radiation in the summer months is responsible for the fast pace of glacier melt. In the 1940s, the level was 8% higher than the long-term average and 18 Watts per square metres above the levels of the past ten years. Calculated over the entire decade of the 1940s, this resulted in 4% more snow and ice melt compared with the past ten years.

Furthermore, the below-average melt rates at the measurement points during periods in which the glacier snouts were even advancing correlate with a phase of global dimming, between the 1950s and the 1980s.




When Science makes assumptions, they are often huge assumptions

Planetary Boundaries: A Safe Operating Space for Humanity

Stockholm, September 23, 2009
The scientists emphasize that the rapid expansion of human activities since the industrial revolution has now generated a global geophysical force equivalent to some of the great forces of nature.
"We are entering the Anthropocene, a new geological era in which our activities are threatening the Earth’s capacity to regulate itself. We are beginning to push the planet out of its current stable Holocene state, the warm period that began about 10,000 years ago and during which agriculture and complex societies, including our own, have developed and flourished," says co-author Professor Will Steffen, Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute at The Australian National University. "The expanding human enterprise could undermine the resilience of the Holocene state, which would otherwise continue for thousands of years into the future."
 First assumption, the Earth regulates itself.

Second assumption, that the author of this piece knows what the future holds.


Neither are presented with evidence, theory and the peer reviewed process normally required for scientific knowledge to be accepted.


This isn't science, it is religion.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Data strongly suggests that these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity

Int J Biol Sci 2009; 5:706-726 ©Ivyspring International Publisher

Research Paper

Effects were mostly concentrated in kidney and liver function, the two major diet detoxification organs, but in detail differed with each GM type. In addition, some effects on heart, adrenal, spleen and blood cells were also frequently noted. As there normally exists sex differences in liver and kidney metabolism, the highly statistically significant disturbances in the function of these organs, seen between male and female rats, cannot be dismissed as biologically insignificant as has been proposed by others..

We therefore conclude that our data strongly suggests that these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity. This can be due to the new pesticides (herbicide or insecticide) present specifically in each type of GM maize, although unintended metabolic effects due to the mutagenic properties of the GM transformation process cannot be excluded.

de Vendômois JS, Roullier F, Cellier D, Séralini GE. A Comparison of the Effects of Three GM Corn Varieties on Mammalian Health. Int J Biol Sci 2009; 5:706-726.

Global Warming, Climate Change






The data, it does not match