NC Media Watch

Bee Hot House throws in the towel, global cooling on the horizon

Russ Steele,

After 141 posts and even fewer comments Stuart Levenworth is hanging up the Hot House towel at the Bee. I stopped commenting when Stuart refused to address the climate change issues, and only wanted to discuss the political issues.  With no factual scientific underpinning there was little politics to discuss. A house of cards is a house of cards.  Or, maybe the science is beginning to dawn on Stuart, the Pacific PDO was confirmed by NASA and it was time to fold the AGW tent and move on as California becomes cooler and dryer. Yes, dryer!  La Nina, which is the dominate weather pattern during a cool phase PDO, produces a dryer cooler weather pattern. 

NASA confirms the PDO has switched to cool a phase

Russ Steele

As I have been predicting for a while, the Pacific has switched to a cool phase.  Anthony Watt's has all the details at Watt Up With That, but here is the crux of the information. The climate shifts about every 30 years. Now it is time for it to shift again and it has.

In 1905, PDO switched to a warm phase.
In 1946, PDO switched to a cool phase.
In 1977, PDO switched to a warm phase.
In 2008, PDO switches to a cool phase. (added by rws)

California agriculture has ridden a wave of success on that PDO warm phase since 1977, experiencing unprecedented growth. Now that PDO is shifting to a cooler phase,
areas that supported crops during the warm phase may no longer be able to do so. (Emphasis added)

Not only has agriculture ridden the wave, so have the environmentalist and Al Gore ridden a warming wave that has now changed direction. The question at hand is how long will we have to wait before our political leaders recognize that change?  I estimate about ten years, after we have crop failure after crop failure.  Finally, someone will stand up and demand action! Just think about how many millions the Governor could save if he dismantled his greenhouse task force and accepted the science of global cooling.   

The Oceans are cooling, crops are freezing

Russ Steele

According to the global warming crowd, CO warming would show up first in the tropics. Now the satellite data shows the tropics are cooling.  It appears this is also where global cooling shows up also. According to Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit, as reported at ICECAP: "There have only been a few months in the past 30 years which have been as cold in the tropical troposphere as March 2008 four months in the 1988-1989 La Nina."

If we are seeing global cooling, what are we doing to prepare?  As the farmers of Nevada County discovered, some ocean cooling can have a big impact on their pocket book.  Long term cooling can have a manor impact on everyones pocket book, and our ability to feed our growing global population. This is especially true of we continue to turn food in to fuel with the foolish notion we are saving the planet from global warming. According this New York Sun article an "estimated 30% of America’s corn crop now goes to fuel, not food." With global cooling shortening growing seasons and we are converting more of our food to fuel, we are about to have a perfect storm that will starve millions.   

What happened in Nevada County this last week is only the beginning, and you all will be advised to prepare for more cooling, not the proclaimed global warming.

Another I told you so opportunity

Russ Steele

In November 2007 I wrote that grape growers should be worried about the a cold phase PDO here.
And, now this in the breaking news section of The Union today:

Nevada County's agricultural commisioner will seek disaster relief from the state after tens of thousands of dollars worth of crops were ruined from last week's freezing temperatures.

Orchard trees, wine grapes and pastures were hardest hit, Pylman said. The commissioner is compiling a report of damages that he will send to the state Office of Emergency Services in coming weeks.

“Growers don’t have anything to harvest. That’s a disaster in my mind,” Pylman said.
Any farmers who want to report damages can contact Pylman at 273-2648.

I wrote about the potential impact on our local wine industry again in December of 2007 here, when New Zealand lost 75% of their grape to a freeze.

Where is all the global warming that the Governor, Legislature and Al Gore are worried about?  My guess is the farmers and grape growers in Nevada County would like to see some of it. So, where is it?  Warming would not have damaged these crops. But cooling and cold destroy the food we eat, it is far more dangerous that a few degrees of warming. Soon we will all be praying for more warming.

Is it time to review the bidding on climate change?

Russ Steele

Peter Harris writes in AN URGENT SIGNAL FOR THE COMING ICE AGE
When paleoclimatologists met in 1972 to discuss how and when the present warm climate would end , termination of this warm climate we call the Holocene seemed imminent and it was expected that rapid cooling would lead to the coming ice age. These ideas were based on the 1M year analogue for climate transitions first proposed by Milankovitch over 60 years ago, which has been demonstrated to show the correlation of glacial and interglacial climate with solar insolation as it is modulated by our changing distance from the sun. These data sets may be used to serve as a signal for the coming ice age. Orbital geometry was approaching similar conditions to those of the previous transitions to ice.

You can down load the whole pdf discussion of the Milankovitch Cycles and the historical impact on our climate here. Harris is not discussing dodgy climate models, he presents read data to support his point of view. If he is right, we are in the early stages of a coming ice age. Lets hope it is no more sever than the Little Ice Age the earth experienced in the 1600-1700s, and not the next glaciation of the earth.  Read the Harris paper and then lets have your comments here.

Disconnected in Big Bend

Russ Steele

We are in Big Bend National Park, which is a long way from the world of connectivity. The cellphone works, but none of the data services that we are used to having at our fingertips. The WiFi in the campground has a schizophrenic nature, on one minute on the next off. We planned to stay four days, but are now looking at three days max.  Moving east looking for more connectivity.  Blogging may be erratic for few days, please stay tuned. (Photo from Wikipedia  until we can get some of our own)

Trying to survey the Roswell surface station

Russ Steele

Ellen and I spent two hours looking of an access road that would allow us to take some up close pictures of the Roswell FAA ASOS. It was Saturday and many of the access gates were locked. The Roswell Industrial Air Park is the old Walker AFB converted to commercial use. I took some of my B-52 flight training at Walker AFB, which is long story which ends in our wedding.

Today it looks like the biggest use of the old Walker Air Force Base is storing old airplanes. We drove the perimeter of the old base, looking for an access road that showed up on Google Maps, which would allow us to get some pictures. But Google does not show the the lock gates on the access roads, only that there is a road.

Here is a long view of the surface station.  Note the tinge of green, and it looks like a tree may be sprouting nearby.

Here is a Google earth view of the ASOS taken in 2003.  Note all the brown earth that seem to have sprouted some grass in the picture above.

 

Sustainability in a time of climate change (updated)

Russ Steele

George Rebane has written an interesting account of our visit to Bandelier National Monument to examine the lifestyles of the Anasazi Indians who settled in the canyon for about 600 years and then moved on. No one is sure why they left this beautiful canyon, other than they could no longer sustain the population on the land and available water. 

I am currently reading The Great Warming: Climate change and the rise and fall of civilizations by Brian Fagan.  Part of my on going research on the climate change driven by solar cycles. I wondered if a major change in the sun could have influenced the Anasazi departure from the Frijoles Canyon.  Preceding the Anasazi departure was a long period of low solar activity called the Spörer Minimum.

According to Wikipediea:

The Spörer Minimum was a period of low solar activity which lasted from about 1420 to 1570 (some say 1450 to 1550). It occurred before sunspots had been directly observed, and was discovered instead by analysis of the proportion of carbon-14 in tree rings, which is strongly correlated with solar activity. It is named for the German astronomer Gustav Spörer.

Like the subsequent Maunder Minimum, the Spörer Minimum coincided with a time when Earth's climate was colder than average. This correlation has generated hypotheses that low solar activity produces cooler than average global temperatures, though a specific mechanism by which solar activity results in climate change is not know.

Above graphic is also from Wikipedia.

I do not have time this morning to go in to a more detailed analysis as we are off to Roswell, New Mexico.  When we stop rolling again, I will expand on the impact cooler temperatures might have had on life in the Frijoles Canyon, influenced the Anasazi migration out of the canyon.   

Good idea needs a visionary leader

Russ Steele

In The Union this morning Steve Enos writes:

We desperately need a shared vision for our community and we have the resources available to develop and implement a shared vision. This effort should be viewed as an investment in our community, its health and its welfare.

So which organization is going to take the lead?  Who is going to lead the this critical effort?

The Union?

Downtown Associations?

Chambers of Commerce?

Board of Supervisors?

Neighborhood organizations?

Business Associations?

Economic Resource  Council? 

How about the NC Community Leadership Institute Alumni Association? 

Maybe the next class of the NCCLI will take up the challenge?

Without some shared vision we will continue our tribal warfare and the main victim will be our community. 

Road Trip Update: A dream come true

Russ Steele

The Santa Fe Institute was founded in 1984 by George Cowan, David Pines, Stirling Colgate, Murray Gell-Mann, Nick Metropolis, Herb Anderson, Peter A. Carruthers, and Richard Slansky to disseminate interdisciplinary research on complexity theory, "complexity science" in SFI terms. 

In the early 1990s I read a  book on complexity and chaos, and I remember the authors description of the Santa Fe Institute and the intellectual environment that promoted the open discussion of issues and ideas.

Deep down I wanted to be accomplished enough to be a fellow at SFI. I wanted to be involved in the discussions, to be a contributor to arguments over coffee in the court yard, and read papers on the big leather couches in the library. Given that my academic credentials were not up to par, and I lived in Nevada County, the probability of that happening was quite small. Yet, I was determined someday to visit the Santa Fe Institute and maybe have some coffee in the court yard.

Today that dream became a reality, as the Rebane's and the Steele's visited SFI. We were greeted with the warmest hospitality, served excellent coffee in the court yard, given free access to the library including copies of current research papers, and provided an insightful presentation of the SFI's mission and research projects by Dr. Chris Wood, SFI Vice President. We came away with an arm load of papers and some ideas about how ongoing research at SFI might be applied to the social and economic problems plaguing Nevada County. 

George's thought on our visit can be found at Rebane's Ruminations.