Is the Earth still warming?

Christopher Pearson of The Australian discusses an interview between Michael Duffy, the co-host of ABC's Counterpoint and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. The short answer is one we keep hearing more and more frequently:

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Could the models be wrong?

Maybe all of the actual data pointing to the effects of the Sun and other natural inputs really are having a big effect.

Marohasy: "Well, the head of the IPCC has suggested natural factors are compensating for the increasing carbon dioxide levels and I guess, to some extent, that's what sceptics have been saying for some time: that, yes, carbon dioxide will give you some warming but there are a whole lot of other factors that may compensate or that may augment the warming from elevated levels of carbon dioxide.

"There's been a lot of talk about the impact of the sun and that maybe we're going to go through or are entering a period of less intense solar activity and this could be contributing to the current cooling."

Duffy: "Can you tell us about NASA's Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we're now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?"

Marohasy: "That's right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you've got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you're going to get a positive feedback. That's what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

Duffy: "The climate is actually, in one way anyway, more robust than was assumed in the climate models?"

Marohasy: "That's right ... These findings actually aren't being disputed by the meteorological community. They're having trouble digesting the findings, they're acknowledging the findings, they're acknowledging that the data from NASA's Aqua satellite is not how the models predict, and I think they're about to recognise that the models really do need to be overhauled and that when they are overhauled they will probably show greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide."

"The models need to be overhauled" ... And we have governments making public policy to control carbon dioxide content that will directly cause a destruction of economies. These policies will cause a loss of livelihoods for many and disaster for 3rd world countries whose progress is stifled by misguided fools jumping to the wrong conclusion because of an incomplete data set. And to what end?

• Al Gore should have his Nobel revoked.
• Governments should recognize that they cannot regulate a gas we exhale
• Alarmists need to recognize that their credibility is coming to a fast end

10:1 odds that none of the above happens even as we head into the next ice age (which has also been discussed several times).



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Weather Channel made a wrong turn

John Coleman, the founder of the Weather Channel, blasted the network yesterday saying that it has lost it's way.

“The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced – several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.”

The Weather Channel has been an outlet for global warming alarmism. In December 2006, The Weather Channel’s Heidi Cullen argued on her blog that weathercasters who had doubts about human influence on global warming should be punished with decertification by the American Meteorological Society.

If the Weather Channel wants to provide climate change information, then it should focus on the science - ALL the science. The fact that it disregards the effects of the Sun, discounts the warming periods and natural cycles that have occurred in the past and drives an alarmist message demonstrates that it is pushing a political agenda rather than a scientific one.

Anybody who sates that the debate is over is trying to drive an agenda. A true scientist would always be open to debate and would argue the data and the evidence and draw new conclusions as new information became available. What we have now is information that is being supressed and mocked to push a particular point.

Mr. Coleman even goes so far as to propose that Al Gore and others be sued in a court of law to prove their claims. This would force the skeptical view into the public and require that the complete data set be reviewed openly.

Coleman also told the audience his strategy for exposing what he called “the fraud of global warming.” He advocated suing those who sell carbon credits, which would force global warming alarmists to give a more honest account of the policies they propose.

“[I] have a feeling this is the opening,” Coleman said. “If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the media stand to testify, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.”

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20 year Anniversary

Twenty years ago I left New Jersey at the worldly age of 24 and headed for a new life in Orange, TX. I had no idea how different things would be in the swampy backwoods of Southeast Texas.

I knew no one in this strange new place. A land of Cajun food and cowboy country. Twenty years later I have a large extended family many good friends and a new place I call home.

I met my first wife at work, had two kids, and we divorced over the course of about 8 years. I met A early on but since we were already involved in other relationships, we never got to know each other until 10 years later after we were both single again. By that time we each had 2 kids. We wanted one kid together so we had 3 for a grand total of 7.

I went from NJ suburban living to small town America. After a few years in an apartment we bought a trailer and put it on land in the middle of a pine forest. Every day the pine smell made me feel as if I was camping.

A few years later we moved the trailer - 80 ft long by 18 ft single wide - on to 12 acre ranch, complete with cows, horses, and donkeys. The neighbors had ducks, chickens, pea hens and even ran a local rodeo every so often. We were a mile away from the oilfield, yes a real working oilfield with derricks and pumps still in service. Real Texas country living along the bayou. What a difference from Yankee suburbia where we could walk around the corner for just about anything we needed.

Something else I had to get used to also was the fact that in the country, people wave. I was actually taken aback the first few times I'd be walking along the road or even driving by and the people coming in the other direction would always wave in passing. If you drove by the neighbors, you honked. I had never seen friendliness like that before. I stayed out here in the country for 4 more years as Mr. Mom bringing up 2 kids, sailing and enjoying the country life.

In 1999 A and I got married, merged our families together and moved to a neighborhood in the north end of Orange County. Many of you may know Orange as the area where Hurricane Rita came ashore in 2005. For the past few years the area has suffered greatly. When we were there last week you can see the new growth. Money is being pumped into the area and as many as 2,000 new jobs are supposed to be coming to the area through a refinery expansion in Port Arthur and a new LPG terminal across the river in Sabine Pass.

In 2002, we moved out here to the Houston Area and back to city living. The pace is more rushed here, we have to battle traffic every day but we are in the shadow of NASA and a mile from the Kemah Boardwalk halfway between Houston and Galveston.

Today, the adventure of life continues. The 2 oldest are 17 and are anxious to drive and live their lives. The 15 year old lives in Round Rock (near Austin, TX) with his mother and gets home when he can. Our 12 year old is an aspiring professional skateboarder, while the 8 year old is so excited by reading that he will read as much as 100 pages in a single day and sees nothing wrong with reading the same book twice. And the two littlest are just having their fun.

Moving to Texas has been a great thing for me. I miss New Jersey and the New York metro area very much and I still consider that home. I also look at southeast Texas as my adopted home. I don't have a southern drawl and I don't tawk like I'm from joisey either.

Maybe I'm stuck in the middle somewhere, or more likely after 20 years, I've been home all along.

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