Posts Made By: Dave Snope

http://www.flickr.com/photos/iowahawk_blog/3384699873/sizes/o/

JUST SOME MEASURED DATA. NOT A COMPUTER SIMULATION.


Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.

Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.

The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.

Each year, millions of square kilometers of sea ice melt and refreeze. However, the mean ice anomaly -- defined as the seasonally-adjusted difference between the current value and the average from 1979-2000, varies much more slowly. That anomaly now stands at just under zero, a value identical to one recorded at the end of 1979, the year satellite record-keeping began.
http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834

The rapid shrinking of glaciers in Greenland during recent years may stall, diminishing the Arctic island’s potential contribution to rising sea levels blamed on global warming, a U.K.-led research team found.

The study in the journal Nature Geoscience indicates the faster-than-normal ice loss observed in many of Greenland’s glaciers in the early 2000s won’t be sustained, said Andreas Vieli, a glaciologist at Durham University in northern England.

“Our modeling suggests that these very high rates of glacier retreat can’t be maintained for very long,” Vieli, a co-author of the paper, said in a telephone interview.

Scientists are improving their knowledge of glaciers so the data can be used to predict their longevity. Greenland contains enough ice to raise sea levels by about 7 meters (23 feet), threatening coastal villages around the world, if it melted.

A United Nations global warming panel said in 2007 that melting ice may contribute to rising oceans this century while acknowledging that uncertainty surrounds how much ice Greenland will lose. The latest findings may help calibrate UN models.

The Durham University-led scientists used a computer model to analyze changes in Helheim Glacier, in southeast Greenland.

They concluded the driver of the melting was a break at its snout in the sea that had a domino effect inland. They also found glaciers stabilize after an initial rapid retreat.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aXm16yRTS344&refer=latin_america

Alaskan glaciers have been gradually shrinking since the Little Ice Age peaked in the mid-1700's. This has not changed during the industrial age or during the 20th century's increased CO2 emmisions. Now for the first time in observed history, it has:

As Michael Asher reported October 16, 2008 in Daily Tech, Alaskan Glaciers Grow for First Time in 250 years: A bitterly cold Alaskan summer has had surprising results. For the first time in the area's recorded history, area glaciers have begun to expand, rather than shrink. Summer temperatures, which were some 3 degrees below average, allowed record levels of winter snow to remain much longer, leading to the increase in glacial mass.

http://www.dailytech.com/Alaskan+Glaciers+Grow+for+First+Time+in+250+years/article13215.htm

James Taylor a Senior Fellow from the Heartland Institute reported on the record ice cap growth.

James Taylor sent this link to The Cryosphere Today, a website run by the University of Illinois. The website shows images of the record ice cap growth this year in Antarctica.
The Cryosphere Today reported:

The Southern Hemisphere sea ice area narrowly surpassed the previous historic maximum of 16.03 million sq. km to 16.17 million sq. km. The observed sea ice record in the Southern Hemisphere (1979-present) is not as long as the Northern Hemisphere. (meaning it has not been tracked as long as the North Pole) Prior to the satellite era, direct observations of the Southern Hemisphere sea ice edge were sporadic.

http://bp3.blogger.com/_L6pDyjqqsvY/Rw5pGt9Z-VI/AAAAAAAAIKM/i3x8ztg0u4M/s1600-h/current_area_south.jpg

The purple shaded area shows the record ice cap growth this year in Antarctica:
http://bp0.blogger.com/_L6pDyjqqsvY/Rw5jC99Z-TI/AAAAAAAAIJ8/XwrrI11EbLo/s1600-h/antarctic.jpg

It takes a lot of faith to believe that man-made CO2 is heating up the atmosphere today, when the temperature has been going down for ten years while CO2 has been going up, a repeat of what happened from the 1940's to 1970's. What with the sun putting out more IR than visible wavelengths, the idea that the earth's atmosphere is trapping IR from within but reflecting from without in some sort of magical two-way IR mirror is pure metaphysics. These German physicists explain the physics and provide some nice common-sense examples (such as an automobile heated by the sun) to help the layman.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Falsification Of
The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects
Within The Frame Of Physics
Version 4.0 (January 6, 2009)

Gerhard Gerlich
Institut fur Mathematische Physik
Technische Universitat Carolo-Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig

Ralf D. Tscheuschner

Abstract:
The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to the
traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896), and which
is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in
which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is
radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. Ac-
cording to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist.
Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary
literature it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a rm sci-
entic foundation. In this paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying
physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws
between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric green-
house effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature
of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 C is a meaningless number
calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the
assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction
must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.

... full report is here: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf

5 Physicist's Summary
A thorough discussion of the planetary heat transfer problem in the framework of theoretical
physics and engineering thermodynamics leads to the following results:
1. There are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses
and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effect, which explains the relevant physical
phenomena. The terms "greenhouse effect" and "greenhouse gases" are deliberate misnomers.
2. There are no calculations to determinate an average surface temperature of a planet
 with or without an atmosphere,
 with or without rotation,
 with or without infrared light absorbing gases.
The frequently mentioned difference of 33 C for the fictitious greenhouse effect of the
atmosphere is therefore a meaningless number.
3. Any radiation balance for the average radiant
flux is completely irrelevant for the determination
of the ground level air temperatures and thus for the average value as well.
4. Average temperature values cannot be identied with the fourth root of average values
of the absolute temperature's fourth power.
5. Radiation and heat
flows do not determine the temperature distributions and their
average values.
6. Re-emission is not re
flection and can in no way heat up the ground-level air against the
actual heat
flow without mechanical work.
7. The temperature rises in the climate model computations are made plausible by a perpetuum
mobile of the second kind. This is possible by setting the thermal conductivity
in the atmospheric models to zero, an unphysical assumption. It would be no longer
a perpetuum mobile of the second kind, if the "average" fictitious radiation balance,
which has no physical justication anyway, was given up.
8. After Schack 1972 water vapor is responsible for most of the absorption of the infrared
radiation in the Earth's atmosphere. The wavelength of the part of radiation, which is
absorbed by carbon dioxide is only a small part of the full infrared spectrum and does
not change considerably by raising its partial pressure.
Falsication Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects : : : 93
9. Infrared absorption does not imply "backwarming". Rather it may lead to a drop of
the temperature of the illuminated surface.
10. In radiation transport models with the assumption of local thermal equilibrium, it is
assumed that the absorbed radiation is transformed into the thermal movement of all
gas molecules. There is no increased selective re-emission of infrared radiation at the
low temperatures of the Earth's atmosphere.
11. In climate models, planetary or astrophysical mechanisms are not accounted for properly.
The time dependency of the gravity acceleration by the Moon and the Sun (high
tide and low tide) and the local geographic situation, which is important for the local
climate, cannot be taken into account.
12. Detection and attribution studies, predictions from computer models in chaotic systems,
and the concept of scenario analysis lie outside the framework of exact sciences, in
particular theoretical physics.
13. The choice of an appropriate discretization method and the definition of appropriate
dynamical constraints (
flux control) having become a part of computer modelling is
nothing but another form of data curve fitting. The mathematical physicist v. Neumann
once said to his young collaborators: "If you allow me four free parameters I can build a
mathematical model that describes exactly everything that an elephant can do. If you
allow me a fifth free parameter, the model I build will forecast that the elephant will
fly." (cf. Ref. [185].)
14. Higher derivative operators (e.g. the Laplacian) can never be represented on grids with
wide meshes. Therefore a description of heat conduction in global computer models is
impossible. The heat conduction equation is not and cannot properly be represented on
grids with wide meshes.
15. Computer models of higher dimensional chaotic systems, best described by non-linear
partial differential equations (i.e. Navier-Stokes equations), fundamentally differ from
calculations where perturbation theory is applicable and successive improvements of the
predictions - by raising the computing power - are possible. At best, these computer
models may be regarded as a heuristic game.
16. Climatology misinterprets unpredictability of chaos known as butterfly phenomenon as
another threat to the health of the Earth.
In other words: Already the natural greenhouse effect is a myth beyond physical reality. The
CO2-greenhouse eect, however is a "mirage" [205]. The horror visions of a risen sea level,
melting pole caps and developing deserts in North America and in Europe are fictitious consequences
of fictitious physical mechanisms as they cannot be seen even in the climate model
computations. The emergence of hurricanes and tornados cannot be predicted by climate models,
because all of these deviations are ruled out. The main strategy of modern CO2-greenhouse
gas defenders seems to hide themselves behind more and more pseudo-explanations, which are
not part of the academic education or even of the physics training. A good example are the
radiation transport calculations, which are probably not known by many. Another example
are the so-called feedback mechanisms, which are introduced to amplify an eect which is
not marginal but does not exist at all. Evidently, the defenders of the CO2-greenhouse thesis
refuse to accept any reproducible calculation as an explanation and have resorted to unreproducible
ones.

4.3.3 Conclusion
A statistical analysis, no matter how sophisticated it is, heavily relies on underlying models
and if the latter are plainly wrong then the analysis leads to nothing. One cannot detect and
attribute something that does not exist for reason of principle like the CO2 greenhouse eect.
There are so many unsolved and unsolvable problems in non-linearity and the climatologists
believe to beat them all by working with crude approximations leading to unphysical results
that have been corrected afterwards by mystic methods,
ux control in the past, obscure
ensemble averages over dierent climate institutes today, by excluding accidental global cooling
results by hand [154], continuing the greenhouse inspired global climatologic tradition
Falsication Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Eects : : : 91
of physically meaningless averages and physically meaningless applications of mathematical
statistics.

In conclusion, the derivation of statements on the CO2 induced anthropogenic global
warming out of the computer simulations lies outside any science.

Jennifer Marohasy, Ph.D, Australian Environment Foundation
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/03/open-letter-to-president-obama-from-climate-sceptics/

“Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change.The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.” President-elect Barack Obama, November 19, 2008

With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.

We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.1,2 After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events.3 The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.4 Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.

• Yun Akusofu, Ph.D University Of Alaska
• Arthur G. Anderson, Ph.D, Director Of Research, IBM (retired)
• Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D Anderson Materials Evaluation
• J. Scott Armstrong, Ph.D, University Of Pennsylvania
• Robert Ashworth, Clearstack LLC
• Ismail Baht, Ph.D, University Of Kashmir
• Colin Barton Csiro (retired)
• David J. Bellamy, OBE, The British Natural Association
• John Blaylock, Los Alamos National Laboratory (retired)
• Edward F. Blick, Ph.D, University Of Oklahoma (emeritus)
• Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, Ph.D, University Of Hull
• Bob Breck Ams, Broadcaster Of The Year 2008
• John Brignell, University Of Southampton (emeritus)
• Mark Campbell, Ph.D, U.S. Naval Academy
• Robert M. Carter, Ph.D, James Cook University
• Ian Clark, Ph.D, Professor, Earth Sciences University Of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
• Roger Cohen, Ph.D Fellow, American Physical Society
• Paul Copper, Ph.D, Laurentian University (emeritus)
• Piers Corbyn, MS, Weather Action
• Richard S. Courtney, Ph.D, Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
• Uberto Crescenti, Ph.D Past-President, Italian Geological Society
• Susan Crockford, Ph.D University Of Victoria
• Joseph S. D’aleo, Fellow, American Meteorological Society
• James Demeo, Ph.D, University Of Kansas (retired)
• David Deming, Ph.D, University Of Oklahoma
• Diane Douglas, Ph.D, Paleoclimatologist
• David Douglass, Ph.D, University Of Rochester
• Robert H. Essenhigh, E.G. Bailey Emeritus, Professor Of Energy Conversion The Ohio State University
• Christopher Essex, Ph.D, University Of Western Ontario
• John Ferguson, Ph.D, University Of Newcastle
• Upon Tyne (retired)
• Eduardo Ferreyra, Argentinian Foundation For A Scientific Ecology
• Michael Fox, Ph.D, American Nuclear Society
• Gordon Fulks, Ph.D, Gordon Fulks And Associates
• Lee Gerhard, Ph.D, State Geologist, Kansas (retired)
• Gerhard Gerlich, Ph.D, Technische Universitat Braunschweig
• Ivar Giaever, Ph.D, Nobel Laureate, Physics
• Albrecht Glatzle, Ph.D, Scientific Director, Inttas (Paraguay)
• Wayne Goodfellow, Ph.D, University Of Ottawa
• James Goodridge, California State Climatologist (retired)
• Laurence Gould, Ph.D, University Of Hartford
• Vincent Gray, Ph.D, New Zealand=2 0Climate Coalition
• William M. Gray, Ph.D, Colorado State University
• Kenneth E. Green, D.Env., American Enterprise Institute
• Kesten Green, Ph.D, Monash University
• Will Happer, Ph.D, Princeton University
• Howard C. Hayden, Ph.D, University Of Connecticut (emeritus)
• Ben Herman, Ph.D, University Of Arizona (emeritus)
• Martin Hertzberg, Ph.D, U.S. Navy (retired)
• Doug Hoffman, Ph.D, Author, The Resilient Earth
• Bernd Huettner, Ph.D
• Ole Humlum, Ph.D, University Of Oslo
• A. Neil Hutton, Past President, Canadian Society Of Petroleum Geologists
• Craig D. Idso, Ph.D, Center For The Study Of Carbon Dioxide And Global Change
• Sherwood B. Idso, Ph.D, U.S. Department Of Agriculture (retired)
• Kiminori Itoh, Ph.D, Yokohama National University
• Steve Japar, Ph.D, Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
• Sten Kaijser, Ph.D, Uppsala University (emeritus)
• Wibjorn Karlen, Ph.D, University Of Stockholm20(emeritus)
• Joel Kauffman, Ph.D, University Of The Sciences, Philadelphia (emeritus)
• David Kear, Ph.D, Former Director-General, Nz Dept. Scientific And Industrial Research
• Richard Keen, Ph.D, University Of Colorado
• Dr. Kelvin Kemm, Ph.D, Lifetime Achievers Award, National ScienceTechnology Forum, South Africa
• Madhav Khandekar, Ph.D, Former Editor, Climate Research
• Robert S. Knox, Ph.D, University Of Rochester (emeritus)
• James P. Koermer, Ph.D, Plymouth State University
• Gerhard Kramm, Ph.D, University Of Alaska Fairbanks
• Wayne Kraus, Ph.D, Kraus Consulting
• Olav M. Kvalheim, Ph.D, Univ. Of Bergen
• Roar Larson, Ph.D, Norwegia n University Of Science And Technology
• James F. Lea, Ph.D
• Douglas Leahy, Ph.D, Meteorologist
• Peter R. Leavitt, Certified Consulting Meteorologist
• David R. Legates, Ph.D, University of Delaware
• Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D, Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
• Harry F. Lins, Ph.D. Co-Chair, IPCC Hydrology and Water Resources Working Group
• Anthony R. Lupo, Ph.D, University Of Missouri
• Howard Maccabee, Ph.D, MD Clinical Faculty, Stanford Medical School
• Horst Malberg, Ph.D, Free University of Berlin
• Bjorn Malmgren, Ph.D, Goteburg University (emeritus)
• Jennifer Marohasy, Ph.D, Australian Environment Foundation
• James A Marusek, U.S. Navy (retired)
• Ross Mckitrick, Ph.D, University Of Guelph
• Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D, University Of Virginia
• Timmothy R. Minnich, MS, Minnich And Scotto, Inc.
• Asmunn Moene, Ph.D, Former Head, Forecasting Center, Meteorological Institute, Norway
• Michael Monce, Ph.D, Connecticut College
• Dick Morgan, Ph.D, Exeter University (emeritus)
• Nils-axel Morner, Ph.D, Stockholm University (emeritus)
• David Nowell, D.I.C., Former Chairman, Nato Meteorology Canada
• Cliff Ollier, D.Sc., University Of Western Australia
• Garth W. Paltridge, Ph.D, University Of Tasmania
• Alfred Peckare k, Ph.D, St. Cloud State University
• Dr. Robert A. Perkins, P.E. University Of Alaska
• Ian Pilmer, Ph.D, University Of Melbourne (emeritus)
• Brian R. Pratt, Ph.D, University Of Saskatchewan
• John Reinhard, Ph.D, Ore Pharmaceuticals
• Peter Ridd, Ph.D, James Cook University
• Curt Rose, Ph.D, Bishop’s University (emeritus)
• Peter Salonius, M.Sc., Canadian Forest Service
• Gary Sharp, Ph.D, Center For Climate/Ocean Resources Study
• Thomas P. Sheahan, Ph.D, Western Technologies, Inc.
• Alan Simmons, Author, The Resilient Earth
• Roy N. Spencer, Ph.D, University Of Alabama-Huntsville
• Arlin Super, Ph.D, Retired Research Meteorologist, U.S. Dept. Of Reclamation
• George H. Taylor,MS, Applied Climate Services
• Eduardo P. Tonni, Ph.D, Museo De La Plata (Argentina)
• Ralf D. Tscheuschner, Ph.D
• Dr. Anton Uriarte,Ph.D, Universidad Del Pais Vasco
• Brian Valentine, Ph.D, U.S. Department Of Energy
• Gosta Walin, Ph.D, University Of Gothenburg (emeritus)
• Gerd-Rainer Weber,Ph.D, Reviewer, Intergovernmenal Panel On Climate Change
• Forese-Carlo Wezel, Ph.D, Urbino University
• Edward T. Wimberley, Ph.D, Florida Gulf Coast University
• Miklos Zagoni,Ph.D Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
• Antonio Zichichi,Ph.D President, World Federation Of Scientists

Footnotes
1. Swanson, K.L., and A. A. Tsonis. Geophysical Research Letters, in press: DOI:10.1029/2008GL037022.
2. Brohan, P., et al. Journal of Geophysical Research, 2006: DOI: 10.1029/2005JD006548.
3. Pielke, R. A. Jr., et al. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2005: DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-86-10-1481.
4. Douglass, D. H., et al. International Journal of Climatology, 2007: DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651.

... ever, say, in the Refractor category? Is there any data.

Seems high this week with over 100 ads. I'd guess 80 is more typical, or from 65 - 85.

ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

...

Ice core drilling in the fast ice off Australia's Davis Station in East Antarctica by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Centre shows that last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years. The average thickness of the ice at Davis since the 1950s is 1.67m.

A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25349683-601,00.html

LONDON – Stephen Hawking, the British mathematician and physicist famed for his work on black holes, was rushed to a hospital Monday and was seriously ill, Cambridge University said. Hawking has been fighting a chest infection for several weeks and was being treated at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, the university city northeast of London, the university said.

"Professor Hawking is very ill," said Gregory Hayman, the university's head of communications. "He is undergoing tests. He has been unwell for a couple of weeks."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090420/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_hawking