Feb. 20-22 MidAtl/NE Winter Storm

Well, lets start talking about this. The dynamics are pretty good and the temps should still be well in line to support. We shall see. Here's the GFS at for the 21st. Huge bomb potential Matt can post the image when he gets a chance as I am having trouble doing so.

Climate Models Flawed

Look how this title is positioned. It could have easily titled: New Research shows how climate models are worthless.
Instead it puts a very positive spin on Climate Modeling.

You almost need to be in the CIA to be able to sift through most of this spin.
Anyhow, very telling stuff here on how poorly climate models have done. Also of note is that NASA is partly funding this research. I wonder how Hansen feels about this? I have underlined some of the highlights of the research.


Forward step in forecasting global warming
Science magazine article details improvements needed for climate-change prediction
TEMPE, Ariz. – Arizona State University researchers have made a breakthrough in understanding the effect on climate change of a key component of urban pollution. The discovery could lead to more accurate forecasting of possible global-warming activity, say Peter Crozier and James Anderson.

Crozier is an associate professor in ASU's School of Materials, which is jointly administered by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering. Anderson is a senior research scientist in the engineering school's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

As a result of their studies of aerosols in the atmosphere, they assert that some measures used in atmospheric science are oversimplified and overlook important factors that relate to climatic warming and cooling.

The research findings are detailed in the Aug. 8 issue of Science magazine, in the article "Brown Carbon Spheres in East Asian Outflow and Their Optical Properties," co-authored by Crozier, Anderson and Duncan Alexander, a former postdoctoral fellow at ASU in the area of electron microscopy, and the paper's lead author.

So-called brown carbons – a nanoscale atmospheric aerosol species – are largely being ignored in broad-ranging climate computer models, Crozier and Anderson say.

Studies of the greenhouse effect that contribute directly to climate change have focused on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But there are other components in the atmosphere that can contribute to warming – or cooling – including carbonaceous and sulfate particles from combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, salts from oceans and dust from deserts. Brown carbons from combustion processes are the least understood of these aerosol components.

The parameter typically used to measure degrees of warming is radiative forcing, which is the difference in the incoming energy from sunlight and outgoing energy from heat and reflected sunlight. The variety of gasses and aerosols that compose the atmosphere will, under different conditions, lead to warming (positive radiative forcing) or cooling (negative radiative forcing).

The ASU researchers say the effect of brown carbon is complex because it both cools the Earth's surface and warms the atmosphere.

"Because of the large uncertainty we have in the radiative forcing of aerosols, there is a corresponding large uncertainty in the degree of radiative forcing overall," Crozier says. "This introduces a large uncertainty in the degree of warming predicted by climate change models."

A key to understanding the situation is the light-scattering and light-absorbing properties – called optical properties – of aerosols.

Crozier and Anderson are trying to directly measure the light-absorbing properties of carbonaceous aerosols, which are abundant in the atmosphere.

"If we know the optical properties and distribution of all the aerosols over the entire atmosphere, then we can produce climate change models that provide more accurate prediction," Anderson says.

Most of the techniques used to measure optical properties of aerosols involve shining a laser through columns of air.

"The problem with this approach is that it gives the average properties of all aerosol components, and at only a few wavelengths of light," Anderson says.

He and Crozier have instead used a novel technique based on a specialized type of electron microscope. This technique – monochromated electron energy-loss spectroscopy – can be used to directly determine the optical properties of individual brown carbon nanoparticles over the entire visible light spectrum as well as over the ultraviolet and infrared areas of the spectrum.

"We have used this approach to determine the complete optical properties of individual brown carbon nanoparticles sampled from above the Yellow Sea during a large international climate change experiment," Crozier says.

"This is the first time anyone has determined the complete optical properties of single nanoparticles from the atmosphere," Anderson says.

It's typical for climate modelers to approximate atmospheric carbon aerosols as either non-absorbing or strongly absorbing. "Our measurements show this approximation is too simple," Crozier says. "We show that many of the carbons in our sample have optical properties that are different from those usually assumed in climate models."

Adds Anderson: "When you hear about predictions of future warming or changes in precipitation globally, or in specific regions like the Southwestern United States, the predictions are based on computer model output that is ignoring brown carbon, so they are going to tend to be less accurate."


###
The research was funded for a six-year period with grants to ASU from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Chemistry Program ($319,000) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Radiation Science Program ($327,000).

The work is part of the Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE) program, which encompasses three projects to date carried out by hundreds of researchers from multiple countries.

Crozier and Anderson have been involved in the U.S. component of the ACE-Asia experiment, a large-scale, multi-agency effort to characterize aerosols from East Asia, involving the NSF, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy and others.

SOURCES:

Peter Crozier, crozier@asu.edu
Associate Professor
School of Materials
(480)965-2934

James Anderson, james.anderson@asu.edu
Research Scientist
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
(480)965-7139

Hansens 1988 Projections vs Observations

At the request of a fellow poster, I have decided to start a thread discussing James Hansen's 1988 testimony and, more specifically, he's projections of future warming. The only way to see how is predictions have panned out is to look at the observed data from the various reading instruments.
There are 4 Measurement sets that we can use: GISS, HadCrut, UAH, and RSS. UAH and RSS are the satellite measuring tools and GISS and HadCrut are land/ocean measurements. It is generally agreed upon that the satellites do a much better job of getting more accurate measurements.
The point of this excercise is to be able to 'prove' or 'disprove' a theory that was brought out by Hansen in 1988. While we are unable to 'prove' or 'disprove' anything like this within a 100% certainty, we are able to get statistically close one way or the other. Keep in mind that the IPCC uses much of the same data and information, both directly and indirectly, of Hansens. This movement rests on the foundation of Hansens projections and of the IPCC's. If Hansen is correct, than we all have some serious problems ahead and should develope a strategy to address the problem. If he is wrong, than we need to come to terms with the fact that we have invested billions of dollars into something that doesnt exist and that international policies addressing AGW need to be stopped and reversed.
The best way to find out which way the wind blows is to look at the data.
Here is Hansens projections:



Here are the actual observations:



It is here that we are able to see how Hansen did. We are below his best case scenario.
In previous posts we have talked about confidence intervals. I have picked up a great deal of insight into determining how likely we are to achieve any of Hansen's projections based on simple statistical equations. Lucia Liljegren has done a fabulous job of doing these analysis's and has clearly shown how Hansen's projections, and more importantly the IPCC's, have completely missed the boat.
Is it right to base policy from real world data/observations or projections that have a known flaw?
As a society, we are currently choosing the second. That is scarey stuff.

****updated with images below. Hansen's first. Observations second.





As we can see, he bombed. The closest he got was with his scenario C option. Scenario C concluded that CO2 levels would undergo a rapid reduction.
More details will follow in my next post.

Alarming Censorship happening in England

This is a very disturbing development with our friends in England. How is it possible for there to be any sense of honesty coming from our press and mass media when this kind of thing is allowed to happen. The mass population is bombarded by a dissinformation campaign on a DAILY basis from the AGW movement. The 'Dis-information' that comes out to us is so far over the top that its a joke that something like this is even possible. How naive is our society that we could be so blind as to not see the hypocricy here. Seriously, we handed out Nobel Peace prizes to people that, quite literally, have peddled out wrong information to the world. Nobel Peace prize!!
So if you fit the agenda you are awarded and praised. If you counter that agenda you get censured. Huh?!?!
After you read this, think about who/what/why this happened. Focus on trying to think about the 'who'. Someone with some pretty big pockets is controlling this.
I hate to sound like a conspiracy fanatic but I dont know how else to express my disbelief. Here's the report.


Channel 4 to be censured for controversial global warming film
By Laura Clout
Last updated: 9:35 AM BST 19/07/2008
The makers of a Channel 4 documentary which claimed that global warming is a swindle misrepresented the views of some of the world's leading climate scientists, the media watchdog is expected to rule next week.
In a judgment at the end of a 15-month enquiry, Ofcom is expected to censure the channel over The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast in March last year.

The film sparked outcry from environmentalists and led to a complaint from a group of senior scientists about apparent errors, distortions and misrepresentations.

It is thought that complaints about privacy and fairness from the Government's former chief scientist, Sir David King, and the Nobel peace prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be upheld on almost all counts.

But the Guardian reported that a separate complaint about accuracy will find that Channel 4 did not breach the regulator's broadcasting code and did not materially mislead viewers.

The controversy over the film, made by director Martin Durkin, has continued to rage in newspapers and online.

Critics argued that it had misused and fabricated data, relied on out-of-date research and employed misleading arguments.

At the time Channel 4 defended the programme, saying it was a useful contribution to a well-timed debate and that it had also aired programmes supporting the opposite side of the argument.

A spokesman for the network refused to comment before the ruling was published.

Story from Telegraph News:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/230...rming-film.html

Massive Underwater Volcanic Eruption in Greenland

There has been an astonishing discovery that will go unnoticed in the mass media for reason we already know. This blog serves almost like a public service announcement for people who are interested in whats really happening with the AGW movement.
The first cut and past is from the June 26 edition of American Thinker. The second comes directly from the AFP and doesnt even mention a link. Suprising really that they took a chance to even run this story. I am also going to include the chart of sea-ice melt so we have everything in front of us.


Arctic ice melt may be due to undersea volcanoes
Thomas Lifson
The Arctic ice that is supposedly melting, stranding those cuddly looking polar bears, just might be affected by a wave of volcanic eruptions on the ocean floor under the Arctic ice cap. AFP reports on the recently-documented volcanoes, but oddly makes no mention of the possible effect on apocalyptic predictions of global warming.


Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday.


The eruptions - as big as the one that buried Pompei - took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia.


Scientists suspected even at the time that a simultaneous series of earthquakes were linked to these volcanic spasms.


But when a team led of scientists led by Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts finally got a first-ever glimpse of the ocean floor 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) beneath the Arctic pack ice, they were astonished.


What they saw was unmistakable evidence of explosive eruptions rather than the gradual secretion of lava bubbling up from Earth's mantle onto the ocean floor...


Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light draws our attention to the report, and makes all the connections AFP studiously ignores:


Er, is it not possible that these volcanic eruptions - going back to at least 1999 - may have played a part in whatever melting there has been of the Greenland and Arctic ice sheets?


If there has even been any




For according to the global warming cultists scientists at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, the decline seems to have begun in earnest around 1999.


But isn't it funny how not one word of this possibility was ever mentioned in the original article?


Why is that?

Do not hold your breath waiting for the major media to trumpet this dramatic new discovery and the implication that anthropogenic global warming theory has nothign to do with polar bears.







Volcanic eruptions reshape Arctic ocean floor: study Wed Jun 25, 4:13 PM ET



Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday.

The eruptions -- as big as the one that buried Pompei -- took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia.

Scientists suspected even at the time that a simultaneous series of earthquakes were linked to these volcanic spasms.

But when a team led of scientists led by Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts finally got a first-ever glimpse of the ocean floor 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) beneath the Arctic pack ice, they were astonished.

What they saw was unmistakable evidence of explosive eruptions rather than the gradual secretion of lava bubbling up from Earth's mantle onto the ocean floor.

Previous research had concluded that this kind of so-called pyroclastic eruption could not happen at such depths due to the crushing pressure of the water.

"On land, explosive volcanic eruptions are nothing exceptional, although they present a major threat," said Vera Schlindwein, a geologist with Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Sea and Polar Research, which took part in the study.

But the new findings, published in Nature, showed that "large-scale pyroclastic activity is possible along even the deepest portions of the global mid-ocean ridge volcanic system."

The mid-ocean ridge runs 84,000 kilometres (52,000 miles) beneath all the world's major seas except the Southern Ocean, and marks the boundary between many of the tectonic plates that make up the surface of the Earth.

When continental plates collide into each other, they can thrust up mountain ranges such as the Himalayas.

But along most of the mid-ocean ridge -- including the Gakkal Ridge -- the plates are pulling apart, allowing molten magna and gases trapped beneath the crust to escape.

Sohn and his colleagues gathered their data in July last year aboard the ice breaker Oden, using state-of-the-art instruments including a mutlibeam echo sounder, two autonomous underwater vehicles and a sub-ice camera designed for the mission.

Both sonar and visual images showed an ocean valley filled with flat-topped volcanos up to two kilometres (1.2 miles) wide and several hundred metres high.