29 | January | 2012 | Greg Laden's Blog

After a surprising showing in South Carolina, New Gingrich pulled way ahead of Mitt Romney, in pre-Florida Primary polling. But that sudden increase in numbers quickly eased off and Gingrich and Romney remained very close for a few days, with Romney a few points ahead. Over the last 36 hours, Romney has put significant distance between his candidacy and Gingrich’s, with Romney polling consistently above 40% and Gingrich consistanly double digits behind. Santorum is holding steady at 12-14%, and nobody cares about Ron Paul.

However, in comparing all of the candidates in polls asking people across the country which Republican they would vote for, Romney is NOT a clear winner. In fact, Gingrich tends to score a couple of points ahead of Romney. In one recent poll (NBC/Wall Street Journal) Gingrich was 9 points ahead. In the most recent poll (Gallup Tracking) Gingrich was just 2 points ahead.

But the preference for Gingrich does not align with national polls comparing the various republican candidates with Obama. In these polls, Romney tends to come closer to Obama’s lead than does Gingrich, who tends to get his ass whupped by the President, with Barack Obama showing a double-digit lead over the hapless and blithering ex-speaker.

But a lot can change in two days. Gingrich is on the attack against Romney, and his main point of attack seems to be to point out how Romney is on the attack against Gingrich. I don’t expect this to change the outcome of the Florida Primary. Romney will win there, although is it always possible that he will win by less than the current polls suggest. But what may happen over the longer term is a shift in the overall view of Gingrich and Romney by Republican voters in general. I expect there to be a downgrading of support for both “Front Runners” as they continue to slam each other. Santorum will come out a minor winner over the medium term, possibly even taking a state or two if his strategy is managed effectively and his money holds out.

Just for fun here’s Ron Paul’s attack ad ad d d attack attack ack ack ad d against Gingrich:
Continue reading The Topsy Turvy World of the Republican Primary Process. And a dancing otter. →

Since the Daily Mail is a British thing and the latest form of entertainment in Britain is Libel Tourism, I won’t say to you that the Daily Mail is a rag full of lies and deceit. Instead, I’ll let you be the judge.

These studies:

Decline in solar output unlikely to offset global warming

23 January 2012 – New research has found that solar output is likely to reduce over the next 90 years but that will not substantially delay expected increases in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases.

Carried out by the Met Office and the University of Reading, the study establishes the most likely changes in the Sun’s activity and looks at how this could affect near-surface temperatures on Earth.

It found that the most likely outcome was that the Sun’s output would decrease up to 2100, but this would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08 Â°C. This compares to an expected warming of about 2.5 Â°C over the same period due to greenhouse gases (according to the IPCC’s B2 scenario for greenhouse gas emissions that does not involve efforts to mitigate emissions).

Gareth Jones, a climate change detection scientist with the Met Office, said: “This research shows that the most likely change in the Sun’s output will not have a big impact on global temperatures or do much to slow the warming we expect from greenhouse gases.

Continued here

and

4 January 2012 – 2012 is expected to be around 0.48 Â°C warmer than the long-term (1961-1990) global average of 14.0 Â°C, with a predicted likely range of between 0.34 Â°C and 0.62 Â°C, according to the Met Office annual global temperature forecast.

The middle of this range would place 2012 within the top 10 warmest years in a series which goes back to 1850.

The prediction follows provisional figures published by the Met Office and University of East Anglia last month which showed that 2011 saw temperatures 0.36 Â°C above the long term average and is currently ranked the 11th warmest year on record in the HadCRUT3 temperature dataset.

At the same time the World Meteorological Organization published a global average temperature anomaly of 0.41 deg C based on an average of the three international global average temperature datasets1.

Both the global average temperature value from HadCRUT3 and the WMO falls within the range predicted by the Met Office for 2011 of between 0.28 Â°C and 0.60 Â°C, with a most likely value of 0.44 Â°C above the long term average. This is consistent with the Met Office forecast which indicated that 2011 was unlikely to be a record year.

source

What the Daily Mail said:

Continue reading New British Studies Confirms Climate Change Consensus, Daily Mail Gets It Totally Wrong →