Arctic scientist under investigation

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Santa Rosa, eh? Maybe I will go pound on his door later. Meanwhile, we are having one of our coolest summers ever and just had one of our wettest seasons in a lost time.

[luckytxn 2,265]

Santa Rosa, eh? Maybe I will go pound on his door later. Meanwhile, we are having one of our coolest summers ever and just had one of our wettest seasons in a lost time.

Tip a brewski for me.

[luckytxn 2,265]

Here is a story about the poor old Polar bears. The best part is the data showing the last cooling. (Yes the Earth has periodically undergone climate changes way before man has appeared.)

The Oasis nature channel is presenting a series of programs entitled Extinctions, about creatures threatened with extinction due to geological changes, including global warming. The first of the series was about polar bears, which have been called the canaries in the global-warming coal mine, even though polar bear numbers are actually the highest on record.

Surprisingly, since most programs like this offer misanthropic global warming propaganda (humans are evil carbon-spewers who are going to destroy the planet), the polar bear program was remarkably even-handed.

For a start, not once did the program suggest that humans were causing global warming, although we definitely areresponsible for some of the other evils afflicting Arctic populations, including toxic pollution and habitat loss, and we may be contributing, slightly, to warming that would otherwise be occurring anyway. That is, this documentary stayed away from sermonizing and tried to stick to the facts.

To that end, the program went out of its way (at least compared to most recent nature documentaries) to get some sort of balance. And so, along with scientists who believe the bears are severely threatened, the producers also interviewed Mitch Taylor, a Canadian expert on polar bears who doesn't believe the bears are endangered (he says only two of the 19 polar bear populations are in decline; the program itself said half are in decline) and doesn't believe global warming is primarily human-caused or potentially catastrophic.

The program also mentioned another fact that is almost always ignored by global warming catastrophists: during the last interglacial 125,000 years ago, called the Eemian, the Arctic also melted pretty much completely, as may be happening now. No humans were involved in that previous global warming; modern humans hadn't even evolved yet. This interglacial fact is usually ignored because it pretty much destroys the hypothesis that warming and sea-level rise are primarily human caused, rather than natural in an interglacial period.

Although this wasn't mentioned during the program, several interglacials before the Eemian were also 1-3 degrees Celsius, or perhaps even more, warmer than today's "unprecedented" temperatures. During the Eemian, according to the 2007 IPCC report itself, sea levels were 4-6 metres (14-20 feet) higher than today's, and in previous interglacials sea levels may have been 15 metres (50 feet) higher.

Again, no human influences caused these previous interglacial rises in temperatures and sea levels. So, why would we be foolish enough to believe that rising temperatures and sea levels in our interglacial, the Holocene, are anything but natural as well, although we may be accelerating warming slightly with our carbon emissions?

That is, sea levels may rise, say, two metres in 1,000 years rather than 1,100, due to human influence. Surely humans a thousand years from now can handle two metres of sea level increase, rather than the, say, 1.75 metres that would otherwise have occurred.

The program noted that polar bears evolved about 150,000 years ago out of brown (grizzly) bears. In other words, they evolved to exploit glacial, Arctic conditions just before the Eemian warming. So, how did they survive the lack of Arctic ice during the Eemian? And does their survival then offer clues to how the bears will survive low-ice conditions in our interglacial?

The Oasis program reported that polar bears are moving out of traditional territories (two bears swam 500 kilometres from Greenland to Iceland, for example) and increasingly exploiting non-traditional food sources, like blueberries and land animals, rather than relying almost totally on their favorite food, seals.

In short, polar bears are evolving to cope with the same conditions, warming, that have occurred at least once before since their appearance on the planet. Will they succeed?

Modern bears have strikes against them that polar bears in the previous interglacial didn't have, like high levels of mercury and other pollutants in the Arctic, brought in by sea and air currents. Even here, the program noted, the bears seem to be "shedding" mercury in their fur so it doesn't build up in their system.

Another strike is simply the human presence, although, as the program showed, humans are making extraordinary (and expensive) efforts to save polar bears from human-caused ills. For example, problem bears near towns are sometimes tranquillized and helicoptered to more remote areas. Helicopters cost several hundred dollars per hour to operate, so these missions of mercy aren't cheap.

While humans have to take the blame for some of the bears' problems—including pollution and habitat encroachment—global warming is an issue the bears have to face eventually, either now or a few hundred or thousand years in the future until our interglacial stops warming at its "tipping point" and returns us to glacial conditions. That is, because we are in an interglacial, the Arctic ice will melt, regardless of what we do or don't do.

One often hears from global warming alarmists that the "unprecedented" pace of warming is the problem, and that earlier animal populations had "millions of years" to adapt to climate change. In fact, glacials and interglacials operate on a time scale of thousands of years, not millions: roughly 80,000 years of cold to 20,000 years of warmer temperatures over the past million years.

That is, the polar bears had only a few thousand years to adapt to the warming of the Eemian interglacial, and they obviously did or they wouldn't be here now. Similarly, as Holocene interglacial warming continues, the bears have only centuries or millennia to find strategies to cope. This is not enough time for major physical evolutionary change, like a complete change of fur color, although small physical adaptations may well occur.

Instead, as they did during the last interglacial, and as the documentary points out, the bears will have to change their behaviour, including food preferences and hunting styles. Bears are intelligent and very adaptable, due to, in part, being omnivorous. Polar bears survived the last interglacial. There's no reason to believe they won't survive this one. And in this interglacial, unlike the Eemian, they may even have some help—ironically, from humans.

So, while this film was very sympathetic to the bears, as it should be, it stuck to the facts and avoided the usual apocalyptic, people-are-evil moralizing that is so much a part of the human-made-warming religion. For that relief, much thanks.

[luckytxn 2,265]

Sure we all remember the Glacier falsification.

Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn't been verified

By DAVID ROSE

Last updated at 12:54 AM on 24th January 2010

• Comments (36)
• Add to My Stories
• Share

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’

Chilling error: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrongly asserted that glaciers in the Himalayas would melt by 2035

Dr Lal’s admission will only add to the mounting furore over the melting glaciers assertion, which the IPCC was last week forced to withdraw because it has no scientific foundation.

According to the IPCC’s statement of principles, its role is ‘to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis, scientific, technical and socio-economic information – IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy’.

The claim that Himalayan glaciers are set to disappear by 2035 rests on two 1999 magazine interviews with glaciologist Syed Hasnain, which were then recycled without any further investigation in a 2005 report by the environmental campaign group WWF.

It was this report that Dr Lal and his team cited as their source.

The WWF article also contained a basic error in its arithmetic. A claim that one glacier was retreating at the alarming rate of 134 metres a year should in fact have said 23 metres – the authors had divided the total loss measured over 121 years by 21, not 121.

Last Friday, the WWF website posted a humiliating statement recognising the claim as ‘unsound’, and saying it ‘regrets any confusion caused’.

Dr Lal said: ‘We knew the WWF report with the 2035 date was “grey literature” [material not published in a peer-reviewed journal]. But it was never picked up by any of the authors in our working group, nor by any of the more than 500 external reviewers, by the governments to which it was sent, or by the final IPCC review editors.’

In fact, the 2035 melting date seems to have been plucked from thin air.

Professor Graham Cogley, a glacier expert at Trent University in Canada, who began to raise doubts in scientific circles last year, said the claim multiplies the rate at which glaciers have been seen to melt by a factor of about 25.

‘My educated guess is that there will be somewhat less ice in 2035 than there is now,’ he said.

Forced to apologise: Chairman of the IPCC Raj Pachauri

‘But there is no way the glaciers will be close to disappearing. It doesn’t seem to me that exaggerating the problem’s seriousness is going to help solve it.’

One of the problems bedevilling Himalayan glacier research is a lack of reliable data. But an authoritative report published last November by the Indian government said: ‘Himalayan glaciers have not in any way exhibited, especially in recent years, an abnormal annual retreat.’

When this report was issued, Raj Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, denounced it as ‘voodoo science’.

Having been forced to apologise over the 2035 claim, Dr Pachauri blamed Dr Lal, saying his team had failed to apply IPCC procedures.

It was an accusation rebutted angrily by Dr Lal. ‘We as authors followed them to the letter,’ he said. ‘Had we received information that undermined the claim, we would have included it.’

However, an analysis of those 500-plus formal review comments, to be published tomorrow by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the new body founded by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, suggests that when reviewers did raise issues that called the claim into question, Dr Lal and his colleagues simply ignored them.

For example, Hayley Fowler of Newcastle University, suggested that their draft did not mention that Himalayan glaciers in the Karakoram range are growing rapidly, citing a paper published in the influential journal Nature.

In their response, the IPCC authors said, bizarrely, that they were ‘unable to get hold of the suggested references’, but would ‘consider’ this in their final version. They failed to do so.

The Japanese government commented that the draft did not clarify what it meant by stating that the likelihood of the glaciers disappearing by 2035 was ‘very high’. ‘What is the confidence level?’ it asked.

The authors’ response said ‘appropriate revisions and editing made’. But the final version was identical to their draft.

Last week, Professor Georg Kaser, a glacier expert from Austria, who was lead author of a different chapter in the IPCC report, said when he became aware of the 2035 claim a few months before the report was published, he wrote to Dr Lal, urging him to withdraw it as patently untrue.

Dr Lal claimed he never received this letter. ‘He didn’t contact me or any of the other authors of the chapter,’ he said.

The damage to the IPCC’s reputation, already tarnished by last year’s ‘Warmergate’ leaked email scandal, is likely to be considerable.

Benny Peiser, the GWPF’s director, said the affair suggested the IPCC review process was ‘skewed by a bias towards alarmist assessments’.

Environmentalist Alton Byers said the panel’s credibility had been damaged. ‘They’ve done sloppy work,’ he said. ‘We need better research on the ground, not unreliable predictions derived from computer models.’

Last night, Dr Pachauri defended the IPCC, saying it was wrong to generalise based on a single mistake. ‘Our procedure is robust,’ he added.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html#ixzz1TRf66kSe

[luckytxn 2,265]

I am positive that we all remember Climategate.

Global warming hypothesis falsified by data: "Climategate" e-mails expose carbon tax rip-off

• Add a comment

Carl Herman

, LA County Nonpartisan ExaminerNovember 27, 2009 - Like this? Subscribe to get instant updates.

• Share
• Print
• Email

We hold these Truths to be self-evident...Global temperatures have declined since 1998 (and here) while carbon emissions have risen, undermining the scientific argument for global warming. Now, the public release of thousands of internal e-mails hacked from University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) reveal data was changed in order to fit the model of global warming and support a global carbon tax and trade. This, suspiciously after CRU claimed to have lost or destroyed the data that would allow independent verification of CRU's claims.

Initial planning of the tax would cost Americans ~$100 billion every year, an average of ~$1,000 per each household's $50,000 annual income.

CRU supplied climate data that was the leading foundation of the UN’s IPCC report concluding "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal." The IPCC report is the foundation of the Copenhagen Climate Conference, where nations will discuss reduction and taxing of carbon emissions in order to slow the alleged unequivocal warming.

Opponents assert the hypothesis of global warming is falsified from declining earth temperatures since 1998, sun activity as the driving cause of temperature change confirmed with temperature increases on our solar system’s other planets, a medieval warm period of 500 years that became a little ice age independent of human activity, that human causes of carbon dioxide emissions account for far less than 1% of the total, and that arctic sea ice has grown from 2007 (and here). Carbon dioxide is the gas most contributing to reflecting heat within earth’s atmosphere (information, documentation and data here, here, here, and here).

The following 12-minute interview of Alex Jones explains and shows that independent university measurements were accurate and “official” data was fraudulent (and here). The hacked e-mails reveal the data was contrived. The global carbon tax would also be a new exotic derivative that would increase consumer prices. People within the US government are complicit in possible criminal fraud; members of Congress are initiating investigation. Other counties' legislators are also responding; Australia here. The revealed e-mails show that a primary author of the IPCC report calling for human-cause carbon reduction, Kevin Trenberth, states clearly to his colleague Tom Wigley (e-mail Oct. 14, 2009) that he doesn’t know what the role of human carbon emissions is, in stark contrast to his official report of certainty to reduce them or face global disaster:

How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!

An example of data that was egregiously changed:

At the insistence of editors of the Royal Society's

Philosophical Transactions B

the data has leaked into the open - and Yamal's mystery is no more.

From this we know that the Yamal data set uses just 12 trees from a larger set to produce its dramatic recent trend. Yet many more were cored, and a larger data set (of 34) from the vicinity shows no dramatic recent warming, and warmer temperatures in the middle ages.

In all there are 252 cores in the CRU Yamal data set, of which ten were alive 1990. All 12 cores selected show strong growth since the mid-19th century. The implication is clear: the dozen were cherry-picked.

More damning e-mail content is here.

CRU head of research, Dr. Phil Jones, confirmed the leaked e-mails are authentic. E-mail discussions included how to discredit scientists whose data challenged CRU’s conclusions, hiding the decline in global temperatures over the last 11 years, blocking research other than in agreement with their conclusions from of peer-reviewed journals, and the actual programming codes to fraudulently change data to show temperatures higher than actual readings.

In short, CRU’s e-mails show that they were lying in every way necessary to sell their conclusion in support of a global carbon tax.

For analysis from Ian Plimer, best-selling author countering alleged global warming data, go here. Climatologist Dr. Tim Ball explains the fraudulent manipulation of data here. New Zealand's Science Climate Coalition, here. Cost of proposed carbon tax in Japan, here.

Below is House Committee testimony of Al Gore denying any data that contradicted the basis for a global carbon tax that would cost Americans hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes. His deceptive rhetoric speaks for itself. Another great summary video follows.

Expect heavy spin for damage control from the "mainstream" media that so brutally lied to justify and cover US Wars of Aggression. Expect the same confusion of reporting and political rhetoric you experienced from the so-called "bailout" that transfers TRILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to financial elite. The last video shows the type of reporting you can expect.

This is another example of the need for Truth and Reconciliation to peel-off those involved to break-open all areas of criminal and harmful actions of our government. Those involved willing to have a “Scrooge conversion” can provide powerful information to disclose and end these actions harmful to humanity. Until such time, I encourage men and women in military, government, and law enforcement to use all their legal authority to lawfully refuse and stop illegal orders and acts.

[luckytxn 2,265]

There is a lot more on Climategate also and will post more later. In fact I have found a ton of falsifications that I can post. I must run again but will be done for the day in an couple of hours and will post much more. I also found a few very interesting things maybe we have never heard of.

One thing to remember before I go. No science has ever been brought into being with falsification, ignoring any data that does not support, character assassinations of any and all scientists that disagree. Any new theory that comes out has always answered to the scientific community at large and all of them has had a say. Every critic has always been able in the past till now to voice their concerns. These concerns must be laid to rest and a true consensus is formed for a new science to take hold. As it stands now many more scientists DISAGREE with this theory than agree.

[웃 910]

[luckytxn 2,265]

A tad harsh but understandable,

[Zero Sum 305]

I am not a scientist of a pseudo science that has to fake and ignore data for my livelihood.

No matter what I post will be ignored by any that sucks at the teats of a science that is nothing but predictions. The science of climatology is equated with palmistry, fortune telling and reading bumps on the head.

You can try posting actual science and at least personally, I promise to at least review the material with the same objective lens that you say you view scientific material. Deal? This means you should be well prepared to discuss the methodology and the significance of certain modalities within. To this point all I see is opinion piece after opinion piece centered on dissenting science at times, and irrelevant pseudoscientific rants on another. You can choose how you present the evidence in favor of your perspective.

[Zero Sum 305]

The reality is that the gravy train has been derailed. The damage done by this is not the damage to "science" or scientists, but to the public opinion that drives the votes that drives the funds that pays for the $50 million this guy got.

I say "reinstate him to his job and cut off all his funds" How is that?

Turn off the money and MM-GW ceases to exist. What ever happened to AlGore?

Don't know chief... but you sure seem to be stuck on US scientists while ignoring the rest of the world. As to your particular distaste for actually discussing the science, its your problem.

[bigdog 377]

And again as usual they were scamming us. Look at the amount that this thief had to dole out. Science is being bought and paid for and with our tax dollars. This happens every time with anything coming out about this fake science.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A federal wildlife biologist whose observation in 2004 of presumably drowned polar bears in the Arctic helped to galvanize the global warming movement has been placed on administrative leave and is being investigated for scientific misconduct, possibly over the veracity of that article.Charles Monnett, an Anchorage-based scientist with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, or BOEMRE, was told July 18 that he was being put on leave, pending results of an investigation into "integrity issues." But he has not yet been informed by the inspector general's office of specific charges or questions related to the scientific integrity of his work, said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

On Thursday, Ruch's watchdog group plans to file a complaint with the agency on Monnett's behalf, asserting that Obama administration officials have "actively persecuted" him in violation of policy intended to protect scientists from political interference.

Monnett, who has coordinated much of the agency's research on Arctic wildlife and ecology, has duties that include managing about $50 million worth of studies, according to the complaint, a copy of which was provided to The Associated Press.

The complaint seeks Monnett's reinstatement along with a public apology from the agency andinspector general. It also seeks to have the investigation dropped or to have the charges specified and the matter carried out in accordance with policy. The complaint also says that investigators took Monnett's computer hard drive, notebooks and other unspecified items from him, which have not been returned.

A BOEMRE spokeswoman declined to comment on an "ongoing internal investigation." Ruch said BOEMRE has barred Monnett from talking to reporters.

Documents provided by Ruch's group indicate questioning by investigators has centered on observations that Monnett and fellow researcher Jeffrey Gleason made in 2004, while conducting an aerial survey of bowhead whales, of four dead polar bears floating in the water after a storm. They detailed their observations in an article published two years later in the journal Polar Biology; presentations also were given at scientific gatherings.

In the peer-reviewed article, the researchers said they were reporting, to the best of their knowledge, the first observations of polar bears floating dead offshore and presumed drowned while apparently swimming long distances in open water. Polar bears are considered strong swimmers, they wrote, but long-distance swims may exact a greater metabolic toll than standing or walking on ice in better weather.

They said their observations suggested the bears drowned in rough seas and high winds and "suggest that drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues."

The article and presentations drew national attention and helped make the polar bear something of a poster child for the global warming movement. Al Gore's mention of the polar bear in his documentary on climate change, "An Inconvenient Truth," came up during investigators' questioning of Gleason in January.

In May 2008, the U.S. classified the polar bear as a threatened species, the first with its survival at risk due to global warming.

According to a transcript, investigator Eric May asked Gleason his thoughts on Gore referencing the dead polar bears. Gleason said none of the polar bear papers he has written or co-authored has said "anything really" about global warming.

"It's something along the lines of the changing environment in the Arctic," he said.

Gleason said others put their own spin on research or observations.

The complaint alleges Gleason and Monnett were harassed by agency officials and received negative comments from them after the article was published. Gleason eventually took another Interior Department job; he didn't respond to an email and a BOEMRE spokeswoman said he wouldn't be available for comment.

Ruch also claimed the investigation is being done by criminal investigators with no scientific background, even though the case is an administrative matter.

http://news.yahoo.co...-082217993.htmlLink:

Is this related to Global warming, ask Al Gore?

[luckytxn 2,265]

You can try posting actual science and at least personally, I promise to at least review the material with the same objective lens that you say you view scientific material. Deal? This means you should be well prepared to discuss the methodology and the significance of certain modalities within. To this point all I see is opinion piece after opinion piece centered on dissenting science at times, and irrelevant pseudoscientific rants on another. You can choose how you present the evidence in favor of your perspective.

Well if other scientists reviewing the data and even the couple of pieces that showed they lied and manipulated their own data, ignored other data that showed differences, and even the email to each other that showed they were going to discredit the scientists in any way possible is irrelevant pseudoscience than I guess you are right.

I will be glad to discuss any science, methods you want. Remember I am just a truck driver so take it easy on me.

I promise to look up anything you want to discuss and bring into this and make it a good debate.

[luckytxn 2,265]

Is this related to Global warming, ask Al Gore?

The scientists that came up with the study tied it into GW by saying it was GW that was lessening the ice and thus making it where the bears had to travel longer distances to get to the next ice so they could look for food.

I personally think the bears were the stupid ones. The smart ones said to themselves, "hey I will just mosey on further up this way." Survival of the fittest.

[Zero Sum 305]

Well if other scientists reviewing the data and even the couple of pieces that showed they lied and manipulated their own data, ignored other data that showed differences, and even the email to each other that showed they were going to discredit the scientists in any way possible is irrelevant pseudoscience than I guess you are right.

I will be glad to discuss any science, methods you want. Remember I am just a truck driver so take it easy on me.

I promise to look up anything you want to discuss and bring into this and make it a good debate.

Sounds like a cool challenge for a change. Make sure you go over the points of the paper you posted in today's other thread. I went over it and highlighted its major points according to their own arguments.

Be mindful, however, that if you're referring to the CRU debacle, no significant amount of unethical behavior was shown to be related to the overblown 'tricks' emails. It is unfortunate the science and the scientists involved were the focus of a very nefarious campaign that had absolutely no basis to do what it did other than a very clear political agenda to discredit what it could not using the scientific method.

Do I excuse scientists as a mass community as a group incapable of unethical manipulation of data? Of course I do not. With my own eyes I have borne witness to flagrant violations of the scientific trust and I can assure you those very rare cases are very seriously dealt with as an affront to the entire discipline of science. If anything characterizes the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, its the opposite of what the politically-tinged attack squadron is attempting to do, using (ironically) very unethical and completely unscientific (not even pseudoscientific) approaches to somehow disprove what is accepted by a community of ethically-bound scientists.

Given the political behavior that is often classified as unethical by most observers of politicians and their fans, is it not ringing any bells that this same attitude is suspect when confronting scientific findings and methods?

[Zero Sum 305]

The scientists that came up with the study tied it into GW by saying it was GW that was lessening the ice and thus making it where the bears had to travel longer distances to get to the next ice so they could look for food.

I personally think the bears were the stupid ones. The smart ones said to themselves, "hey I will just mosey on further up this way." Survival of the fittest.

Funny.

The GW was hypothesized to be a major factor in that observation, yes- and should not be assumed to be unrelated, especially when the nature of the investigation is still hidden from plain view- although quite easily sensationalized for the consumption of the gullible.