Steve Andrew dared to tickle the dragon’s tail and now he is paying for it. The dragon in this case, is Climate Denialists in the Right Wing Media.
Continue reading Climate Denialists Smear, Taunt Liberal Blogger
Tag Archives: Climate and weather
1969 Global Warming White House Memo
Anthropogenic global warming has been suspected for decades, and a simple one paragraph long characterization of the problem 40 years ago was substantially identical to any accurate characterization we might make today. One has to wonder why after 40 years of time we still see headlines telling us that it might, after all, turn out to be true that anthropogenic global warming is real. Indeed, it is a bit disconcerting when the inestimable climate blog RealClimate notes that this is the 35th “Anniversary of Global Warming” as a term in the peer reviewed scientific literature (though I suspect it is older). (See RealClimate’s post on the anniversary for very important details!)
The phenomenon of anthropogenic global warming as a point of policy discussion is older than 35 years. Below is a memo from one White House staffer to another both to eventually become quite famous in their own ways, regarding the “carbon dioxide problem.” You will find a link to a copy of the original, and some context notes for you youn’uns who may not remember the mid 20trh century. Below the fold.
Continue reading 1969 Global Warming White House Memo
Aircraft can cause precipitation by “seeding” clouds
In a paper that is about to be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, researchers Andrew Heymsfield, Patrick Kennedy, Steve Massie, Crl Schmitt, Zhien Wang, Samuel Haimov and Art Rangno make the claim that “The production of holes and channels in altocumulus clouds by two commercial turboprop aircraft is documented for the first time. … Holes and channels in supercooled altocumulus clouds can be the result of homogeneous ice nucleation induced by turboprop and jet aircraft at temperatures warmer than previously accepted for commercial aviation influences on clouds.”
Continue reading Aircraft can cause precipitation by “seeding” clouds
Outbreaks of H5N1 Bird Virus Infection in Wild Birds in time and space: Temperature matters (with cool video)
It has long been thought that there are linkages between certain viruses and the weather. The flu season is winter (in whichever hemisphere it happens to be winter in) for reasons having to do with the seasons. One early theory posited that the practices of East Asian farmers, as they tended their animals, caused waterfowl and swine and humans to share space closely enough that nasty new influenzas would emerge and spread around the world. Although that explanation for the annual seasonal flu has been dropped (if it ever really had wings… or hooves, or whatever) it is still possible that such a pattern could occur. One of the more likely places to look for this sort of thing is with bird flu, because there are large numbers of migratory birds that host the flu, and the interaction of wild and domestic birds is not an incredibly unlikely event.
Continue reading Outbreaks of H5N1 Bird Virus Infection in Wild Birds in time and space: Temperature matters (with cool video)
We need these climate change ads in the US.
Global warming and the Minnesota Moose. Part IIa
This is a continuation of a discussion on the role of Global Warming in the decline of moose populations in Minnesota. It is also a discussion of Global Warming denialism.
Continue reading Global warming and the Minnesota Moose. Part IIa
Global Warming, The Decline of the Moose, and “Minnesota Nice”
We have had a cool summer here in Minnesota, and this has brought out the miscreants who for their own reasons do not want to get on board with the simple, well demonstrated scientific fact that global temperatures have risen, that we humans are the primary cause, and that this climate change has negative consequences.
Continue reading Global Warming, The Decline of the Moose, and “Minnesota Nice”
Beck, Hannity: Global Warming Called Off
What they are referring to is a paper by Mojib Latif in which he notes that the media often misrepresent global warming as a continuous, year by year increase in temperature. The truth, of course, is that annual temperature varies up and down but the baseline for this variation has been going continuously up.
Like a road going up a mountain. Often the road goes up and down and up and down cross the complex terrain of the mountain side. If, while driving up this hypothetical mountain, the road dips down for a moment, one does not say “Oh, we’re going home now. This whole driving up the mountain thing is over. We just dipped down. No more up. That’s the end of it.” and then turn around and drive home.
I mean, really, this is pretty freakin’ simple.
If you’d like to view Latif’s power point (as a PDF file) click here. Slide three is the one these morons are talking about.
Flight 447 and the ITCZ
I had never felt airsick before, or since. But now I was a nauseated rag doll flopping around in the middle row of a six seater prop plane and I was ready to hurl at any moment.
BBC depiction of the path of Flight 447. I find it astonishing that the most important weather related feature on the planet is a “place where there are a lot of thunderstorms” or often not even identified at all. This is equivalent to a plane crashing into the Cascades and the news reporting that the aircraft went down in a “place with some hills” or not even noting the existence of the mountain range at all, as though it did not matter. (Note: We still do not know the cause of this crash. See text.)
The turbulence was epic, both of the plane and of my stomach, which fortunately was totally empty at the time. They told me that we’d stop in Uganda for lunch, and we were just now heading for Entebbe airport near Kampala, Uganda’s capitol. But I wasn’t sure I wanted lunch.
I was flying out of the Congo (then known as Zaire) for the first time, and since my route in had taken me to the capitol, Kinshasa, this was my first time flying over or into East Africa. There was just me … the passenger … and a pilot and copilot. That seemed strange, but this was a semi-regular international flight that would usually have five or six passengers on board, connecting Beni, Zaire to Nairobi, Kenya. But, for some reason, I was the only passenger on this particular day. Which is a good thing because it seemed pretty likely that I would throw up on someone any second now …
Continue reading Flight 447 and the ITCZ
New Global Warming Predictions: Bad news and really bad news.
One item is just published in the Journal of Climate. Simply put, the use of some very sophisticated and probably quite trustworthy models suggests that extratropical cyclones (so this means winter storms and such, mainly) will have a good deal more precipitation in them.
In the model …
… There is a small reduction in the number of cyclones but no significant changes in the extremes of wind and vorticity in both hemispheres. … The largest changes are in the total precipitation, where a significant increase is seen. Cumulative precipitation along the tracks of the cyclones increases by some 11% per track … while the extreme precipitation is close to … (some 27%).
In another study not available to me but coming out in the same journal in a few days, the overall effects of climate change are predicted to be much worse than previously thought.
This is based on MIT’s Integrated Global Systems Model, which is a computer simulation of both global economic activity and climatic systems. This mega-simulation was run 400 times using slight variations in input parameters. According to a press release:
The new projections… indicate a median probability of surface warming of 5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100, with a 90% probability range of 3.5 to 7.4 degrees. This can be compared to a median projected increase in the [previous major study, conducted in] 2003 … of just 2.4 degrees. The difference is caused by several factors rather than any single big change. Among these are improved economic modeling and newer economic data showing less chance of low emissions than had been projected in the earlier scenarios. Other changes include accounting for the past masking of underlying warming by the cooling induced by 20th century volcanoes, and for emissions of soot, which can add to the warming effect. In addition, measurements of deep ocean temperature rises, which enable estimates of how fast heat and carbon dioxide are removed from the atmosphere and transferred to the ocean depths, imply lower transfer rates than previously estimated.
Continue reading New Global Warming Predictions: Bad news and really bad news.
Global Warming: Not a Problem!
According to Texas Education Expert!
She knows because she looked at some web sites!!!!!!!!! Holy Crap!!!!
Carbon Dioxide Totally Harmless????
Educator alert: The best example of the Naturalistic Fallacy EVAH!!!! The money quote is….
“Carbon Dioxide is Natural. It is not harmful. It is part of earth’s life cycle. And yet we are being told we have to reduce this natural substance, and reduce the american standard of living, to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is a naturally occurring in the Earth.”
Here it is… Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann:
Wither The Water, Fox News?
Monica sent me a link to a Faux News story on global warming, which makes the claim that global warming is not real because ice is expanding, and not contracting, in Antarctica. It also makes the claim that 90 percent of the earth’s ice and 80 percent of the earth’s fresh water is in Antarctica, which I assume is mentioned because it would make Antarctica seem more important than other parts of the world, and thus the “fact” that global warming is not happening there is proof of … whatever.
I’d like to clarify.
To start with, let’s get the fresh water thing straight. Most of the fresh water that matters to the average person on the average day is not in Antarctica. It is in the sky. From where I sit right now, I can see this lake, and the lake is charged from groundwater, and most of this groundwater comes from another lake uphill from this lake, etc. etc. But all of this … the local lakes and groundwater … is charged from rain, and this rain comes from the sky, and the clouds in the sky picked up most of this moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific. Around the world, a huge percentage of the rainwater comes from either the ocean or from continental sources which in turn came from the ocean.
In other words, the vast majority of immediately relevant fresh water comes from salt water. Most of the fresh water that matters comes from the huge reservoirs of salt water known as the oceans and seas, and beyond this, knowing the percentage of fresh water that is either here or there is neither here nor there. What matters is the process.
But even so, Fox has it wrong. It is true that about 90 percent of the world’s ice is in Antarctica. I’m not sure why that matters to Fox news. If ten percent of that ice melted, sea levels would rise catastrophically. It is not true that 80 percent of the worlds’ fresh water is in Antarctica. Just under 70% of the world’s fresh water is distributed among the frozen reservoirs (Antarctica, the northern ice fields, and mountain glaciers); Just over 30% is in the form of ground water, and just under one percent is evenly distributed between water that is in the air and about to fall on us, and water that is on the surface (lakes, rivers, etc.) most of which is on it’s way back into the ocean.
So, let’s characterize the whole water situation on the earth like this: Most of the water is in the ocean. Over time, a small percentage of this water evaporates and falls as rain back on the ocean. Of this, a small percentage falls temporarily on land and re-joins the ocean in a matter of days or months.
As this is happening, two great reservoirs are formed and grow or shrink over time, one in ice and one in groundwater.
Regarding the seeming inability of Antarctica to cooperate with the conspiratorial liberal agenda to make up this whole “Global Warming” thing; There is nothing going on here. Globally, averaging out the entire planet, there is warming. This warming is severe in the Arctic, and less severe in the Antarctic, and there are even regions in the Antarctic that are cooler and/or have more ice forming. However, there are also parts of the Antarctic where there are ice masses that are melting down and/or falling into the ocean.
So this is Fox News as an Insurance Appraiser:
“So, this is your car, and you claim it was in an accident?”
“Yes, see how the front is all mashed up?”
“Hey, what I’m looking at is the trunk, and it’s fine. I see no evidence of an accident.”
“But look, the engine is sitting in the front seat and the windshield is busted up, and the fenders are all crumple…..”
“No, no, no … look here. The gas tank … which holds the gas which could blow up in an accident … is fine. The gas tank is totally intact.”
“But wait, the front half of the car is crumpled and in pieces because that is where the accident happened….”
“The back half of the car, where the trunk is where we keep the spare tire, and the gas tank which could explode, are just fine. No accident. No insurance payment. ….”
Whack!!!
(That was the sound of the car’s owner slapping the Fox Insurance Appraiser upside the head.)
So instead of reading some stupid-ass article from Fox News, check out this alarming Liberal Agenda Scare Tactic piece from the BBC
Marc Moran. Oh.
Marc Morano does not think global warming is anything to worry about, and he brags about his confrontations with those who do.
For example, Mr. Morano said he once spotted former Vice President Al Gore on an airplane returning from a climate conference in Bali. Mr. Gore was posing for photos with well-wishers, and Mr. Morano said he had asked if he, too, could have his picture taken with Mr. Gore.
He refused, Mr. Morano said.
“You attack me all the time,” Mr. Gore said, according to Mr. Morano.
“Yes, we do,” Mr. Morano said he had replied.
Mr. Gore’s office said Mr. Gore had no memory of the encounter. Mr. Morano does not care. He tells the story anyway.
Welcome Spring Storm Season
This picture, from a current (as of this writing) accuweather forecast page, is an excellent illustration of what happens here in the upper Midwest the spring.
The overall pattern of movement of air masses at the continental scale is west to east, with extra moist and extra warm air secondarily moving north from the Gulf of Mexico, and cool and usually dry air coming form the Northwest (not shown here but note the “blizzard” part) and with dry Pacific/Rocky Mountain air coming from the west. The main energy flow to keep an eye on is that coming from the Gulf.
There is a rule of thumb you can apply here….