NC Media Watch

The Union Editor has communications problem, promotes increasing GHGs

Russ Steele

With all the angst about the supervisor spending, it seems some of this could have been resolve with a little better communication between the Board of Supervisors and our erstwhile newspaper editor. Here is a comment by him in the comments section of his column today.

Spend-Spend-Spend
Now the Supe's are renting conference rooms for their meetings! Money is no object. Fritter it away. After all, it's only tax dollars. UPDATE: This was a comment by "office" moved by Jeff P, so he could comment on it is this thread, which I took as his endorsement, see his comment below.

Care to respond to "office," "justthefacts" please. Why did you chose this space? How much did you pay? Why not use "free" public space? Why don't you listen to what some people in the community/constituents are trying to tell you? Address their concerns. UPDATE: This is Jeff P. comment, see his comment below and the graphic below.

MORE UPDATE: Here is a graphic showing the comment in question. Why ask the questions here when he could have picked up the phone can called the BOS Office? This why I said there was a communications problem. I got an e-mail from a reader who thinks that "office" is Jeff P by another name, answering his own question. What do you think. Please comment below.

Does CO2 cause global warming, new analysis (Update)

Russ Steele

Joseph D’Aleo, Executive Director at ICECAP did some analysis with the latest version of the Historical Climatology Network Version 2, looking at various correlations with the new data, here is his findings summary:

SUMMARY USHCN temperatures show a cyclical behavior over the past 112 years with peak warming about 1930 and 2000. The temperature trends correlate with a number of factors. We examined them here. We found the correlation strengths to be as follows:

Clearly the US annul temperatures over the last century have correlated far better with cycles in the sun and oceans than carbon dioxide. The correlation with carbon dioxide seems to have vanished or even reversed in the last decade.

Given the recent cooling of the Pacific and Atlantic and rapid decline in solar activity, we might anticipate given these correlations, temperatures to accelerate downwards shortly.

I have been following the Sun, Sunspots and shifts in the Pacific Ocean Oscillation with correlations to local temperatures changes.  Therefore,I found this correlation chart quite interesting.

Much of the rain and snow we are having right now is the result of a La Nina which may be an early indicator that the Pacific has shifted to a cool phase. This shift will bring us back to the weather we had between the 1940 and 1970s. It was a lot colder and wet in the winter and spring. I remember one year when it seemed to rain from December to May. 

You can down load the whole analysis here.

UPDATE: Anthony Watt's at Watts Up With That has a detailed analysis to this paper. Read the whole paper and this excellent analysis, with links to some supporting papers.

Is there a Global Warming Teach In in your child's school?

Russ Steele

Is you child's school participating in this Teach In sponsored by an organization called Focus on the Nation?

JANUARY 31: NATIONAL TEACH-IN DAY
Is your school ready to focus on the problem of global warming? If so, you are in luck because on January 31st you can be part of Focus the Nation, a national teach-in on global warming solutions for America - creating a dialogue at over a 1000 colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, places of worship, civic organizations and businesses. When your school joins Focus the Nation, you will have the opportunity to participate in a free, interactive webcast airing the evening of January 30th, featuring top scientists, sustainability experts and green jobs pioneers. The goal is to have 10,000 screenings and a determination TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING...”

I have calling our local schools offices with not much success.  The High School Superintendent was not aware of any school wide program, but individual teachers may be participating. He thought is sound like a good idea.  The Nevada County Superintendent of Schools Office is not aware of any programs at individual schools, who have control over what is taught. So my question is, are your children participating in this one sided Teach In? 

If so how do you know that your child is getting both sides of the story. Global warming and cooling are natural cycles, and it highly unlike that humans can control the climate. There is no proof that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are responsible for change in the climate, other than computer models riddled with assumptions on how the climate systems works and fudge factors to get the outcome desired  by the modelers. They throw away the model runs that show cooling and only keep the ones showing warming. This is distorting the truth about climate change. Is this what you want your children to learn?  Or, do you want them to learn both side of the issue and make up their own mind?   

More details here.

What do Russian Scientist know that Al Gore doesn't

Russ Steele

This week we have another Russian scientist proclaiming we are headed toward another Little Ice Age, a Maunder Minimum when the sun spots disappeared and the earth got really cold. See more details at Dalton Minimum Returns. Oh, yes the sun remains quiet, no spots for the last two weeks. More details here.

GHG Policy is being made with data known to be biased.

Russ Steele

Using the governments own documents, Anthony Watts shows they know that some of the historical climate data is biased on the warm side, yet they are using the data to justify greenhouse gas reduction regulations. Read the whole sordid story at Anthony's post on Watts Up With That.

UPDATE: Anthony has cross posted on Climate Audit here.   There are multiple comments by the peer group of auditors. 

Was California warming due to too much Tmin or Tmax? Or, something else?

Russ Steele

-

California is warming according to recent studies, but there seems to be some disagreement if the warming is because there is a stronger increase in the maximum daily temperature, or in the minimum daily temperature that is increasing. I have reported on a study, Recent California climate variability: spatial and  temporal patterns in temperature trends  by Steve LaDochy, Department of Geography & Urban Analysis, California State University, Los Angeles, in earlier posts here. From the LaDochy study Abstract:

We investigated air temperature patterns in California from 1950 to 2000. Statistical analysis were used to test the significance of temperature trends in California subregions in an attempt to clarify the spatial and temporal patterns of the occurrence and intensities of warming. Most regions showed a stronger increase in minimum temperatures than with mean and maximum temperatures.

And now this week I got a press release on yet another study of California global warming,
Human activities reshape California climate, This one led by Celine Bonfils, currently at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

On the shorter (50-year) timescale, results are sensitive to the choice of observational dataset. For both timescales, the most robust results are large positive trends in mean and maximum daily temperatures in late winter/early spring, as well as increases in minimum daily temperatures from January to September.

However, the Bonfils team did not find any increase is summer maximum temperatures.

We hypothesize that the lack of a detectable increase in summertime maximum temperature arises from a cooling associated with large-scale irrigation.

Joining the Bastiat Triangle Alliance

Russ Steele

Concerned about the direction our political leaders are taking the county, and to help frame vital local issues, several local bloggers have formed the Bastiat Triangle Alliance. All participants in the Alliance will display the emblem in the banner above. You can click on the link to the right to download a pdf describing the Bastiat Triangle Alliance and the philosophy that will guide current and future participants.

To celebrate joining the Alliance, I have upgraded the blog's image.  Your comments are most welcome on the new design and the Bastiat Triangle Alliance.   

The Internet and Newspapers

Russ Steele

The Annual Internet Survey by the Annenberg School for Communication's Center for the Digital Future is out and has some interesting information for our local newspaper. They often disagree with my posts on the viability of newspapers so you will not see this information in your local newspaper, only here. You decide if this information is important.  Full summary of the report here. I have posted a link to Consumer Behavior discussed in the Digital Future report on the ERC Blog.

Media Online:

New Users And Very Experienced Users -- New users and very experienced users report wide differences in use of a variety of online media. New users spend considerably more time online playing computer games -- an average of 1.2 hours per week more than very experienced users. Very experienced users spend more time than new users reading online newspapers, books, and magazines, and listening to online radio.

Would You Miss The Print Edition Of Your Newspaper? -- In a new question, respondents who read print editions of newspapers were asked if they would miss the offline edition if it was no longer available. While more than half of respondents (52 percent) expressed some level of agreement with this question, 27 percent disagreed.

Does Online Content Lead To Cancelled Print Subscriptions? -- Twenty-one percent of Internet users agreed that they have stopped a subscription for a newspaper or magazine because they now get the same or related content online.

Posting Information Online -- Distributing original content created by Internet users -- whether through a blog, display of photos, or maintaining a personal Web page -- continued to increase. In the current Digital Future Project, 41 percent of Internet users said they post photos online -- an almost fourfold increase in only four years. Smaller but steadily growing percentages of users said they maintain their own Web site or keep a personal blog.

Follow up to CBS Global Warming Hysteria

Russ Steele

I watched Scott Pelley on the CBS Global Warming Special and gritted my teeth as he misled the viewers. There is not enough space to go over all the problems I found, but the implication that Antarctica is melting was just too much. It is not melting, there is some warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, a small portion of the Antarctic which reaches above the Antarctic Circle. It has warmed 4 degrees in the region over the last 30 years. Since 2004 there have been several undersea volcano discovered in the area, that could be contributing to the warming. Or, it could be due to changing wind patterns, when the Pacific Ocean switched to a warm phase. 

Pelley was at the Henryk Arctowski Polish Antarctic Station, a research station on King George Island, off the coast of Antarctica. King George Island is the largest of the South Shetland Islands, situated at 62°23′S, 58°27′W, 120 kilometers off the coast of Antarctica in the Southern Ocean according to Wikipedia.  Pelley claimed he was in Antarctica, when he was over 120 kilometers to the North in the Shetland Islands. The Chinstrap Penguins are found hear the Arctowski Research Station, and the glacier he climbed with the help of the staff at the Research Station was most likely near the station. We were not looking at a melting Antarctic glacier, but a Shetland Islands glacier well above the Antarctic Circle. 

From the CBS Web site:

60 Minutes wanted to see the evidence of warming nearer the bottom of the world. So Pelley and the team set sail from the last city south, Ushuaia, Argentina, on a two-day voyage to Antarctica.

Here, 60 Minutes found there’s green where the white used to be; on the coast, in summer, there’s grass where the scientists used to ski. The area is called "Paradise Cove," and it is home to fur seals, lazy elephant seals and the Chinstrap penguin.

Paradise Cove is close to Demay Point on the map. Note all the ice free area on this map. This is are not the result of global warming as implied by 60 Minutes. Also, Wayne Trivelpiece said they lose 40 percent of the Chinstrap Penguins every years, most likely due to global warming  driving away the krill which the Penguins eat. However, the Chinstrap's diet consists of krill and small shoaling animals, small fish and other roaming marine crustaceans. No mention they had other food to eat. It could be the volcano's warming the water that are driving off the krill, or changing wind patterns.

UPDATE: Article in the International edition of the Herald Tribune: Antarctic volcanoes identified as a possible culprit in glacier melting. Ooops, Pelley said it was AGW.

Although population changes have been detected among colonies on the Antarctic Peninsula, the overall Chinstraps population seems stable, according to the Antarctic Connection.  If you listened to Scott Pelley and Wayne Trivelpiece they were about to be wiped out by human caused global warming. All those cute penguins killed by humans neglecting to control green house gases. No worry, they make up 70 percent of the penguin population in the world and most populations are stable.

Climate Change forecasts at the Bee

Russ Steele

Stuart Leavenworth is an Editor at the Sacramento Bee and blogs on the Bee's Hot House a global warming blog. Stuart has banned any discussion of global warming on the Hot House blog that questions the belief  humans are responsible for global warming. Counter arguments showing global warming has stopped while CO2 continues to increase, that arctic ice melted is a natural cycle, hurricane intensity or numbers are not increasing, and more droughts are cause by the lack of precipitation not increased temperatures which increase atmospheric moisture are not welcome. Stuart is tired of answering all the blog post that went against his religious preferences, so he banned all technical discussion of global warming from the Hot House. I guess it became to hot in the Hot House.

Today Stuart writes about climate changes in a column on where the presidential candidates stand on issues here, including climate change:

While global warming isn't the only environmental challenge that deserves attention in the 2008 primary, this issue says much about a candidate's philosophy and general approach to science and policy.

Over the past year, the scientific consensus has continued to grow: The buildup of greenhouse gases – largely from burning coal, gasoline and other fossil fuels – is warming the Earth's atmosphere. Leading scientists advocate at least an 80 percent reduction in emissions by 2050 to avoid the worst effects, including melting ice caps, rising sea levels, more intense storms, droughts and loss of biodiversity.

Since I cannot discuss any technical issues over the Hot House, here are my comments on the above.