Bravus prepares himself for the flood of retractions and apologies...

[Bravus]

While it may seem useful to plot arctic ice maxima and minima in an effort to urge people to freak out about the climate and submit to global energy thuggery, a little perspective is now in order.

It is estimated that if all the earth's ice were to melt, the seas would rise 230 feet.

We KNOW that if there is a significant loss of earth ice, such as global warming enthusiasts are claiming, the seas will rise. The seas are not rising.

Take a glass of water. Place an ice cube in it. Draw a line around it with a marker at the water level. Let the ice cube melt, then check the water level again. It will be exactly the same: the laws of buoyancy and the density of ice mean when floating ice melts, sea levels don't change. And it was arctic ice we were talking about, which is all floating.

No-one (except possibly Al Gore, which is one of my many points of disagreement with him) is seriously positing major loss of the large land ice fields you talk about *yet*.

I'm afraid this is an example of a different dishonest debating strategy, our old friend the strawman. Point to a prediction that climate scientists are not making, scream that the prediction is false and therefore the science is false.

[Bravus]

Australia's chief scientist apparently knows karl: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/cli...00701-zqlx.html

(definitely light, tongue-in-cheek teasing: if it feels like attacking let me know and I'll take it down immediately - the reference to karl, I mean: I think the linked article is interesting)

[karl]

I found out I was wrong about the monitoring of ozone starting in '79. That was just the first date on the NASA site. The Norwegians have been measuring ozone at least since the 40's. Interesting stuff below.

Two scientists, Kjell Henriksen from the University of Tromso in Norway and Valentin Roldugin from the Polar Geophysical Institute in Russia, analyzed one year of daily samples from six Soviet Middle Asian ozone measuring stations at two different altitudes.

They discovered that changes in the ozone layer were directly caused by the horizontal and vertical movement of air masses (that is, wind dynamics).

"The question of so-called "ozone depletion" has to be investigated from the point of view of long-term variation of general circulation in the atmosphere. Models of "the depletion," as summarized in [the World Meteorological Organization's] WMO Report, must realize that the meteorological conditions have significant effects on the ozone layer, being the main cause of seasonal as well as most of the shorter and apparently arbitrary density and thermal variations."

Other scientific papers have confirmed that the ozone depletion theory is wrong. The Norwegian science magazine From the World of Physics, for example, published a thorough review of ozone science by Thormod Henriksen from the Institute of Physics at the University of Oslo, which presents evidence that the ozone layer was thinner in the 1940s than today!

Norway has several of the ozone measuring stations that have been operating continuously for the longest periods of time, and these are managed by some of the most qualified scientists in the field. Thus, Norway has some of the best, consistent data for a historical analysis of ozone trends. Henriksen describes the history of ozone research in Norway, and analyzes the ozone data starting in the 1940s. Comparing data from two periods: 1940-1946 and 1978-1994 he shows that the ozone layer went through a thinning process in the 1940s similar to that occurring now, with the exception, as noted by Henriksen, that "the ozone layer over southern Norway was thinner in the period between 1940 to 1946 than it is today." Henriksen also points out that the level of ultraviolet (UV) radiation has hardly changed:

"[in] the last 50 years the ozone layer has not changed to such a degree that biological effects are to be expected. In other words, there have hardly been any changes in the levels of UV-radiation, and therefore it is a dead-end to connect the recent years' development of the ozone layer with the increase of skin cancer."

"We can safely state that the picture of a depletion of the ozone layer is far more complicated than the picture that the media often gives. Those who expect a depletion timed with the release of CFC gases, will look in vain in their measurement results. It looks like the amount of ozone did increase in the 1950s and 1960s and reached a maximum in the 1970s...

-----------------

KjeII Henriksen and Vahentin Roldugin, 1995. Geophysical Research Letters, Dec. 1, pp. 3219-3222.

Thormod Henriksen, 1994. "Ozone Layer and Ultraviolet Radiation," From the World of Physics, Vol. 4, pp. 108-114.

[Bravus]

Interesting stuff. Of course, the 'ozone hole' is over Antarctica, so Norwegian measurements are half a world away. Still important and interesting data, if true.

A search of World of Physics shows no such article by Thormod Henriksen. I can find no mention of that article anywhere on the web, except in the specific article karl copied and pasted above. If anyone can point me to the original chapter I'll be very grateful.

Same thing with the Henriksen and Rodulgin paper: lots of references on the web, but all links to that same article.

Didn't stop there, dug deeper and found the actual article through the university's library. We don't subscribe, so I couldn't get the full text, but here's the title and abstract:

Quote:

Total ozone variations in middle Asia and dynamic meteorological processes in the atmosphere

Kjell Henriksen

The Auroral Observatory, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway

Valentin Roldugin

Polar Geophysical Institute, Apatity, Murmansk region, Russia

The total ozone content over the former Soviet Middle Asia is compared with the heights and the temperatures at the 500 hPa and 100 hPa levels. There is a significant and negative correlation between the heights of the 100 hPa and 500 hPa levels and the total ozone content. The ozone column density is positively correlated with the temperature at 100 hPa and negatively correlated at 500 hPa. No observed time delay between ozone and temperature changes is found, indicating that the correlations are caused by dynamic processes. Ozone changes due to chemistry have time constants at least of the order of days, but correspondingly large time delays are not found. It is concluded that the horizontal advection is connected with ascending and descending air streams, and they are the main causes of decrease and increase of total ozone content with time constants of the order of one day.

It would be very interesting to read the whole paper, but from the abstract there are particular *short term* - on the order of one day - changes that they are explaining, and they ascribe these changes to weather factors. There's nothing at all here to suggest that they are commenting on the annual and decadal trends. Will see if I can find a way to get hold of the full text.

[karl]

THE SCIENCE IS IRON-CLAD!

Scientific American

August 8, 2001

Study Suggests Cosmic Rays May Destroy Ozone

By Geoff Brumfiel

High-energy radiation from deep space may be burning a hole in our ozone layer. A new study appearing in the August 13 Physical Review Letters finds a correlation between so-called cosmic rays and ozone depletion and shows with experiments how cosmic rays could destroy ozone. The results may help atmospheric scientists improve their models of ozone depletion.

For 20 years, scientists have recognized that active chlorine molecules from man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) destroy ozone. Conventional wisdom holds that ultraviolet light from the sun releases the active chlorine from the CFCs. That theory, however, has a problem: during the polar springtime, when ozone depletion is greatest, giant clouds of ice block the sun's ultraviolet light. In recent years, researchers have theorized that these clouds could house CFCs and that some process deep inside them breaks CFCs down into active chlorine. But how this process could happen without ultraviolet light has remained a mystery.

Now Leon Sanche and Qing-Bin Lu of the University of Sherbrooke in Canada think they know what's causing the release of active chlorine. The two believe that cosmic rays from deep space are penetrating the clouds and knocking loose electrons. The electrons interact with the CFCs to liberate the active chlorine molecules. Those molecules, according to Sanche and Lu, can reside inside an icy polar cloud until springtime, when it dissolves and releases them into the atmosphere.

[Bravus]

[karl]

So, you like the theorizing, Bravus? You don't see a problem with hypothesizing that cosmic rays bombard ice clouds and that the reactive chlorine atoms wait for spring to go to work? This is iron-clad science? This is the mechanism for which my asthma sufferers are going without their medicine?

It absolutely frightens me the way scientists have de-volved into liberal fellow travelers, insisting that radical steps be taken long before there is solid evidence that the worst-case situations they predict actually will occur. Environmental studies involving open-ended research provide ideal areas for social activism of this kind, but can we call these crusaders scientists? I'll admit there are big grants to be had, but isn't this a species of whoredom?

Yes, there are those who are honestly worried about the burden our species places upon our planet. But one hopes that they are less influenced by the media hype which surrounds the environmental causes du jour than by the fact that the average global temperature has remained steady for the past 15 years in spite of the rise in the use of fossil fuels, and the fact that the ozone layer, with significant fluctuations of only moderately well-understood origins, has undergone these fluctuations in ways totally unrelated to the useage of freons or halons.

There are some scientists who tend to work, not where some inner drive forces them to, but where the money is. Maintaining integrity in environmental research requires unusual courage these days since the cash registers controlled by the government and indeed most of the larger private foundations are strongly biased toward a form of political correctness.

There are those who have good scientific credentials but who have a mission that goes beyond trying to know the answer, either for its own sake or to clarify a complex situation. They would like to have it come out in accordance with their sociopolitical wishes and demand that society follow their cries for action, costly though that action may be. Unfortunately, much damage to our economy and social structure can and does occur before the truth is known as to whether they are right or wrong.

[Bravus]

Not theorising, experimental science. Do a little digging and you'll find that Lu has continued with that study.

The point is, though, the cosmic rays are activating the CFCs, and the CFCs are doing the damage to the ozone layer. No CFCs, and you can have all the cosmic rays you like, the ozone layer won't take damage.

In other words, once again you've quoted science that strongly *supports* the case I was making.

[karl]

when floating ice melts, sea levels don't change. And it was arctic ice we were talking about, which is all floating.

No-one (except possibly Al Gore, which is one of my many points of disagreement with him) is seriously positing major loss of the large land ice fields you talk about *yet*.

[karl]

Not theorising, experimental science. Do a little digging and you'll find that Lu has continued with that study.

I know he has. Follow the wishful thinking: "We're convinced of this thing and we know it can't happen the way we said it did, so let's come up with something else. By the time our new mechanism plays out we'll be on to some other theory."

Ozone is a greenhouse gas. I thought you were trying to drive greenhouse gas levels down.

[Bravus]

Um, no, CFCs are greenhouse gases, so we want to reduce those.

Ozone in the ozone layer, up in the stratosphere, is not a significant greenhouse gas, but does protect us from UV. It's ozone in the troposphere that is a significant greenhouse gas, believed to have an effect about 25% that of carbon dioxide.

Guess how you get rid of that tropospheric ozone? Same way you get rid of excess carbon dioxide: less burning of fossil fuels. Isn't it nice how the solutions to so many of our problems line up?

Got to ride my (emitting!) motorbike home now, but I do want to get back to your question from a couple of pages back about possible solutions. Will post on that soonish.

(PS the idea that all the money in atmospheric research is with governments and private foundations is laughable: what do many of the richest multinational corporations on earth sell? if a scientist wants to sell out, he's barking up the wrong tree working for government or private foundations...)

[Bravus]

Quote:

Whatever happened to science? To just measuring things and testing hypotheses and not jumping on the bandwagon?

Um, what? I think the score is somewhere around 3-0 between the evidence and you in this thread so far...

[karl]

(PS the idea that all the money in atmospheric research is with governments and private foundations is laughable:

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which is funded by National Science Foundation. NSF is an independent US government agency responsible for promoting science and engineering through research programs and education projects.

I'd be interested in any significant corporate funding you can cite for atmospheric research.

[Bravus]

http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_13102786?IADID=Search-www.dailycamera.com-www.dailycamera.com

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/exxon-secrets (note: not the most classy and credible presentation, but their info is worth following up)

[phkrause]

Galileo would have just as tuff a time today as he did in his own time...it's all about attitudes and preconceptions.

[karl]

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/exxon-secrets (note: not the most classy and credible presentation, but their info is worth following up)

$76,000. Maybe.

Now THAT is significant funding! Impressive dirt they scraped up there.

Let's match it up against the $1 BILLION (up from $180 million only ten years ago) in funding to SUPPORT the push for global government, er... warming.

I won't deny that corporations might be tempted to ride both sides of the fence, but which dog in this fight are they really feeding and which one are they playing like feeding?

Check out the promotion of global warming by the Rockefeller Brothers' Fund.

http://www.rbf.org/close_ups/close_ups_show.htm?doc_id=473876

[phkrause]

Thanks for the link Karl. It was very interesting. Each side has the answer! Who do you believe? :)

[Bravus]

Finally got around to the promised post on energy solutions and futures.

First up, even if we leave aside the issue of climate change entirely, fossil fuels are finite resources.

(Barring a few fantasies about endless renewal from currently on-going natural processes (someone posted a link on that here a while ago and I emailed the scientist who did the original research and she was very definitive that its a tiny source and definitely not the source of the reserves we're using now)).

So whether we start cutting down on our use now or in a couple of decades, we will definitely have to cut down some time.

What I'm suggesting here is that we get a head start.

I'm absolutely, 100%, not talking about decimating economies and standards of living, anywhere in the world. The goal of this approach is humanitarian, definitely, but that goal is not zero-sum. It is to extend to those in the developing world the lifestyle and health benefits that those of us in the developed world have gained on the back of the massive gift of cheap energy we got from fossil fuels. At the same time, it is to guarantee our own lifestyles into the future, because without action they are unsustainable.

It was the world's inheritance, and we've spent most of it. I'm not about guilt for that, but I am about the responsibility to use that boost to now offer benefits to those who missed out in the first rush (which is really not much more than a century old).

So, karl, please leave aside your fantasies of the ravening socialist horde coming to force you to live in a cave. They're just that, dark fantasies.

First point: Any approach needs to be multifaceted. Fossil fuels, particularly oil, gave us 'magic-bullet' solutions to all sorts of problems from powering cars, planes and trains to lubricating their moving parts and generating electricity. We don't get it that easy again.

Second point: Any solution for the foreseeable future will still have both coal and oil as components. That's one reason it's important to conserve them. (The other is petrochemicals like plastics: our descendants will be aghast that we burned something is incredibly useful as petroleum.) It's a fantasy from the green side to think we can wean ourselves off fossil fuels entirely in the near term.

But what we do need to do is make huge steps to replace them as the mainstays of our energy use. Here are several possible facets of a solution:

1. (this one is related to climate change, the rest are not) Coal reserves are huge - much greater than oil. There are dirty approaches to converting coal into gas or oil, but they are wasteful and expensive. A better approach is to use the coal to produce electricity, then the electricity to produce hydrogen for a hydrogen economy (see below). This all works and is all proven technology right now. The other piece of the picture is carbon sequestration: the benefit of burning coal in a power station versus burning it in a vehicle is that it's a lot easier to capture the emitted carbon dioxide and store it underground. That way we can keep using this valuable resource without completely trashing our environment. (Coal is also a very 'dirty' fuel in terms of things like the sulfur that causes acid rain: the sequestration process can capture these too.)

2. A hydrogen fuel cell economy. Hydrogen is an energy transport technology, not an energy production technology, but it's clean and powerful. In cars it would be adsorbed onto metal hydrides in tanks, with *less* explosion and fire risk than tanks of gasoline. Hydrogen itself would not need to be transported in tankers, because it could be made in fuel cells in filling stations, using electricity: and we already have electricity infrastructure. It's better than battery for cars because no charge cycle is required - you can just drive in and fill up as you do now - and also because it doesn't require heavy, environmentally costly batteries. To his credit, President G W Bush pushed hard for the hydrogen economy.

3. Nuclear fusion is the long term solution. It's probably 40 years away at the moment, but that could be shortened with increased research funding. Despite the word 'nuclear', fusion produces no radioactive waste, and the fuel supply is essentially limitless. Fusion would in many ways create an energy utopia, with enough for all our terrestrial needs many times over, and enough hydrogen for a dramatically expanded space program too.

4. Nuclear fission is an essential part of a short term solution. I know this is an issue on which I part company with many of my fellow 'greens', but I think it's unavoidable. Opposition to the waste and risk of fission was the principled position 20 and 30 years ago, but that was before (a) massive improvements in plant safety, ( dramatically better approaches for waste handling and storage and © before we knew about the real environmental costs of fossil fuels. I am really, truly actively suggesting the building of many more fission power plants all around the world. It's not a perfect technology, but it's a crucial part of the bridge to get us to fusion.

5. Renewables. All of these draw on solar power to some extent (except tidal, which draws on the gravitational force of the moon). A calculation I made recently for a textbook chapter I'm writing:

Quote:

The solar energy reaching the top layers of earth’s atmosphere is about 1400 W per square metre. Of that energy, only about 40% makes it down to the earth’s surface – the rest is reflected back to space (about 30%) or absorbed by the atmosphere, heating it directly (the remaining 30%).

So take the 40% that makes it to the surface: 560W/sqm. Imagine that's only over half the earth at a time, so make it 560W/sqm over half the earth's total land surface area (because collecting the solar energy over the oceans is tougher, although hydroelectricity actually does that) of 150 million square metres, and you get 42 billion watts - about 3 times all human energy use on earth. And that calculation is conservative at all levels.

a. Hydroelectricity: dams, lots of them. And yeah, greens tend to stop dams being built to protect environments and species. We can do some of that, but we have to build dams. They have the added effect of protecting fresh water reserves, another essential infrastructure for humanity.

b. Solar, both photovoltaic and concentration forms. Scalable, ubiquitous, and cheaper and more efficient all the time. New approaches are being developed all the time, and putting in the research will help to deal with the current problems. If every new house was, as a matter of course, roofed with solar panel material, that in itself would be an immense change. Creating huge solar farms in otherwise unusable land like areas of outback Australia and African deserts also has a lot of potential.

c. Wind. It's a myth that wind farms kill birds. They are noisy, but that's partly a technology issue, and there are plenty of uninhabited windy places.

d. Tidal. Only works in some places, but useful.

e. Wave - an immense untapped resource.

f. Geothermal - useful in some regions.

g. Ocean thermal - using cold deep water and warm surface water with a heat pump.

All of these can be used to generate electricity, feeding into a hydrogen economy. None of them is a magic bullet due to issues like day/night, windy/not windy and so on, but they don't need to be if we work toward a complementary set of solutions rather than rubbishing them individually because they don't provide a complete solution.

6. Ones I've forgotten. Please feel free to add your own!

7. Ones that haven't even been invented yet, but could be if the basic research was done. Computers have revolutionised our lives, but were really invented within the lifetimes of some of those who post here. The next big thing may be hiding just around the corner. That'd be great, but we shouldn't and don't need to rely on it, because we already have all of the proven technologies outlined above that, if combined, could solve this thing.

[phkrause]

Finally got around to the promised post on energy solutions and futures.

First up, even if we leave aside the issue of climate change entirely, fossil fuels are finite resources.

(Barring a few fantasies about endless renewal from currently on-going natural processes (someone posted a link on that here a while ago and I emailed the scientist who did the original research and she was very definitive that its a tiny source and definitely *not* the source of the reserves we're using now)).

So whether we start cutting down on our use now or in a couple of decades, we will definitely have to cut down some time.

What I'm suggesting here is that we get a head start.

I'm absolutely, 100%, *not* talking about decimating economies and standards of living, anywhere in the world. The goal of this approach is humanitarian, definitely, but that goal is not zero-sum. It is to extend to those in the developing world the lifestyle and health benefits that those of us in the developed world have gained on the back of the massive gift of cheap energy we got from fossil fuels.

It was the world's inheritance, and we've spent most of it. I'm not about guilt for that, but I am about the responsibility to use that boost to now offer benefits to those who missed out in the first rush (which is really not much more than a century old).

So, karl, please leave aside your fantasies of the ravening socialist horde coming to force you to live in a cave. They're just that, dark fantasies.

So. Any approach needs to be multifaceted. Fossil fuels, particularly oil, gave us 'magic-bullet' solutions to all sorts of problems from powering cars, planes and trains to lubricating their moving parts and generating electricity. We don't get it that easy again.

Second point: any solution for the foreseeable future will still have both coal and oil as components. That's one reason it's important to conserve them. (The other is petrochemicals like plastics: our descendants will be aghast that we burned something is incredibly useful as petroleum.) It's a fantasy from the green side to think we can wean ourselves off fossil fuels entirely in the near term.

But what we do need to do is make huge steps to replace them as the mainstays of our energy use. Here are several possible facets of a solution:

[saved here in case of computer crash: don't want to lose it - more to come]

I agree Bravus, and not only that I've head this for most of my life! Imagine if we had started changing over years ago were would we be now? Ahead of the game that's for sure. The reason were not there is because the same people that are for big OIL are still for big OIL today.

[Bravus]

http://www.salon.com/news/global_warming/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/07/08/climate

[BobRyan]

The actual detail for this entire thread is buried here someplace -- anyone know where?

On the OP we have a link to a link that gives us this supposed "explains all" smoking gun

Quote:

Via a Newsweek post by Sharon Begley, enjoy this description of how the Times ended up viciously misquoting a climate scientist:

A version of our article that had been checked with Dr Lewis underwent significant late editing and so did not give a fair or accurate account of his views on these points. We apologise for this.

The best editing errors are the ones that end up making stories support a predetermined conclusion, right?

Anyway now that The Times has corrected the record, everyone will agree to do something about carbon emissions, right?

The objective unbiased reader with at least a minimum degree of critical thinking skill would still be asking

1. What of the initial report was actually in error? Just the "account of Dr Lewis' views??

2. Readers are usually more interested in facts than "views". What facts were in error? All of them? some of them?

3. How would the initial reports be changed if they were updated with a more meticulous focus on "Dr Lewis' views"?? Are we simpy supposed to "imagine success" for one side or the other based on such a vague statement?

Where is the beef!

That "less than accurate views of Dr Lewis" statement sounds like political jargon you might expect from the Vatican. Enough marketing - what are the actual facts.

in Christ,

Bob

[Bravus]

[there buster]

"You can't find anything wrong if you're not actually looking."

the Climategate Whitewash Continues

wonder of wonders, this one is written by a scientist, not journalist Joe Conason

[there buster]

Quote:

Certainly in the minority.

We're continually told science is not about majorities or minorities, only about observable phenomena.

One thing that is repeatedly observable-- those who promote the Anthroprogenic Global Warming repeatedly cook the data. Or as Bravuss' poster would have it, they're not doing science.

[karl]

We're to the point that, no matter what happens climate-wise, it is claimed to be due to global warming. Whether it is cool or hot, stormy or fair, it is all because of global warming.

How convenient.