NC Media Watch

Dalton Minimum Returns Question

Russ Steele

A reader of Dalton Minimum Returns asked a question that prompted this question: What were the temperatures at the beginning of the Dalton Minimum prior to the official start in 1790?  I find this an interesting question as we maybe entering another climate phase similar to the Dalton Minimum real soon now.

Here is a plot of three sites in England from a paper by David Archibald:

Doing a little more research I found this paper published in the History of Meteorology.

Reconstruction of Late 18th Century Upper-air Circulation, Using Forensic Synoptic Analysis, Louis K. McNally, III

... the early 1780s in eastern Massachusetts, in general, exhibit shorter growing seasons, more winter days with fair-sky conditions, more summer days with thunderstorms, and more winter snowfall days than the remainder of the decade. Both shorter growing seasons and more winter days with fair-sky conditions indicate a prevalence of clearer Arctic or polar air masses in both summer and winter.

... in reconstruction of temperatures for Toronto, Ontario, Canada, found . . .  1783-1785 are all within 1° of the 50-year running mean.

... Tree ring chronologies for the western part of North America developed by Lough (1992)
show no large deviation from a long-term (1602-1960) mean.

... Ogilvie (1992) studied sea ice records for the area around Iceland and shows that on a
decadal scale the 1780s contained the greatest amount of sea ice on record. The series extends back to 1501.

... In the western United States, Fritts and Shao (1992) reconstructed temperature and
precipitation from a variety of spatial arrays of sites. These areas included the Columbia Basin, the California valleys, intermountain basins, southwest deserts, the northern high plains and the southern high plains. Throughout the entire area, temperature and precipitation data for the period from 1750 to 1800 show very little variation from the norm, with the exception of the temperature reconstruction for the high plains data set. There is a colder than normal period which stretches from 1770-1790 and it is found only in the high plains data set.

DANGER: Stupid Social Engineers at Work!

Russ Steele

Today California's lawmakers approved a first-in-the-nation bill that would require cities and counties to account for the effects of global warming in planning local housing developments. Their goal is to meet the emission mandates spelled out in AB-32 a wide ranging greenhouse gas reduction law passed two years ago. It requires local governments to submit regional development plans to state air regulators for approval. The only way they can meet AB-32 greenhouse gas emission requirements is to reduce automobile use.

The Senate sent the bill to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not yet taken a position on it. Unless you do not want to live cheek to cheek, jowl to jowl, and butt to butt with people you do not like with all with in  six blocks or a transit station and no place to park your car, call the Governor and tell him to veto this bill.

Global warming is not due greenhouse gases, it is due to natural variations in solar influences interacting with the oceans. Read the column below by Pat Michaels to see how you are being taken for political ride. And, then god god sake get MAD!! Do something! It is a computer model driven hoax!!

Please read this important climate change message.

Russ Steele

Patrick J. Michaels is senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and professor of environmental sciences at University of Virginia has an important message for us all. Therefore, I am including the whole article from the Washington Times.

Record low for climate science
Patrick Michaels

COMMENTARY:
Ever since Soviet and Western climate scientists published the first international compendium on global warming, back in 1985, we have known that scaring people to death is very good for the environmentalist business. Such documents appear once or twice a year under the aegis of sundry governmental and international agencies, such as the United States' Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).

Remember that acronym, CCSP. If its latest "Synthesis Report" on climate change sees the light of day, we may one day thank CCSP for policies that drive America into the poor house.

The problem is that our professional selfishness has a price: We have to agree the problem is so bad that it becomes, in Al Gore's words, "the central organizing principal for civilization." So we climate scientists wind up espousing policies are so drastic they will paralyze any economy.

Having been a climate scientist for about as long as these documents have been around, I have had the opportunity to review and comment on many documents that do this - not that my comments are listened to very much. I found two changes in the thousands of pages of the last (2007) IPCC report - after I sent in a 30,000-word point-by-point review.

I'll be lucky to get even that much attention after my equally long critique of a new CCSP report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. The sum of my analysis: This is the worst document in this genre I have ever seen. By comparison, it makes the 1962 Mets (or, for that matter, 2008's Washington Nationals) paragons of professional excellence.

Virtually every sentence can be contested or simply ignores published science that disagrees with CCSP's preconceived message. In its own words: "Aggressive near-term actions would be required to alter the future path of human-induced warming... future generations will inherit the legacy of our decisions."

Governor Sarah Palin on energy policy before VP selection

Russ Steele

CNBC's Maria Bartiromo interviewed Sarah Palin before her selection as McCain's VP was announced. Video here. The interview focuses on energy exploration in Alaska, and demonstrates that Sarah Palin has a firm grasp of the need for a comprehensive energy policy in the US. She also gets in a jab or two against Obama and Biden, and their failure to understand that a transition to alternative sources will take some time. It's an impressive performance! Palin has something more important to offer Senator McCain, other than her youth and beauty.

h/t to PowerLine

UPDATE #1: American Thinker's Bruce Walker has some thoughts on why Sarah Works.

Why our Sun is in a blue funk

Russ Steele

Anthony Watts has an easy to understand explanation of why our Sun is with out spots up at Watts Up With That. Note the drop in magnetic activity that started in 2005. It has been estimated that is takes the oceans about three years before scientist see much change due to the vast expanse of water, which take time to warm and time to cool. Interesting times are ahead as the run remains quiet. We could be in for some long term cold spells. Stay tuned.   

Cross posted at Dalton Minimum Returns

GOP global warming platform plank gets a redo

Russ Steele

According to a first hand report by Stephen Spruiell in National Review Online the global warming plank in the Republican platform got a good scrubbing:

The new version dropped the sentence that attributed warming to human activity. It also added a line after “measured and reasonable steps” that stated, “Any policies should be global in nature, based on sound science and technology, and should not harm the economy.”

These changes fit with the views of Sarah Palin, McCain's VP candidate, who wants to rely on the science. Plus, these language changes give McCain some wiggle room for his cap and trade program.

The subcommittee improved the working draft by specifying that any proposals “should not harm the economy,” but it did not add anything that explicitly precludes McCain from supporting cap-and-trade. McCain is still free to argue that a cap-and-trade regime wouldn’t inhibit economic growth, and conservatives are still free to disagree.

It appears there is some climate change sanity at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis after all. Stay tuned, things could change.

Palin: Global Warming Not Man-Made

Russ Steele

In an interview for the September issue of the conservative magazine Newsmax, Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, said she does not believe climate change is caused by human behavior.

“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made,” Palin said in the interview, which was posted online Friday

Palin’s quote about global warming not being man made is also at odds with the freshly approved GOP platform for 2008 according to an ABC News article.

That language -- adopted by the party this week -- marks the first time the Republican Party’s policy document addresses climate change.

"The same human activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere," the document reads. "Increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the earth."

OK, the above is true, CO2 can increase warming, but less than 1 percent. The real issue is how much warming, and is it significant? It is certainly not the run away warming claimed by Al Gore or some his Democratic fellow travelers claim. While the ABC Article claims that Sarah Palin is on the same page with John McCain, she has shown that she understand the economic impact of any measures taken to curbing greenhouse gases. She understands the need to use valid science in making rational decisions about the impact of global warming. This was demonstrated when she filed a suit against the Federal Government to stop the protection for polar bears, citing the need for valid scientific verification they are truly endangered. As such a designation would have major impact of Alaska's economy and future oil exploration.

We will have to see if Sarah Palin changes here views in the coming weeks. She does not seem to be a push over to me. Let's hope she sticks to the science and does not cave into the politics of the issue.

 

Powers is out on Upper Banner Lava Cap

Russ Steele

The power went off about dinner time, we hear it was a blown transformer some where in Nevada City. We are on the Kabota generator, similar to the one in the picture, except ours is stationary. No wheels.

If you live in the woods a generator is an essential part of life in Nevada County, CA. The snow takes down the power lines in winter and power over loads take out transformers in the summers. And, then there is the drunken idiot that takes out a power pole or two on there way home from the bar any time of the year.  We keep our generator fueled and ready to go year round.

What was missing from the Obama acceptance speech ?

Russ Steele

If the warmers were waiting to learn how Barack Obama was going to save the Planet from global warming tonight in Denver,  they were disappointed. There was no mention of global warming, CO2 or greenhouse gases in the whole speech. Could it be that Obama has been listening to his science advisor's who is aware the global warming stopped increasing ten years ago, and the climate started cooling in 2003.

Rumor is that the Republican are putting a global warming plank in their platform. It is hard to tell if McCain is listening this science advisor's and ignoring them, or they are feeding him a lot of global warming crap.  Could it be that Obama is smarter than McCain, at least about global warming.

Yes, I know he talked he talked about energy independence, bio-fuels and wind energy, but no mention of the dreaded global warming, and the need to save the planet. Hummmm.

Update #2:  It is not Pawlenty, it is Alaska Gov. Sara Palin and she does not believe the global warming hysteria, fighting the listing of the Polar Bear as a threatened species Gov. Sarah Palin said climate models that predict continued loss of sea ice, the main habitat of polar bears, during summers are unreliable. We will have more on Palin's global warming views in a future post.

Update #1:What will be in McCain's acceptance speech?  Rumors are circulating that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is the  GOP candidate Senator John McCain plans to select as his vice presidential running mate on Friday.  Ooops we are shafted! There is little hope the second guy on the ticket is going to turn McCain around, as Pawlenty is already in the tank on global warming. ICECAP has the details:

In May of 2007, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty signed the “Next Generation Energy Act of 2007” which includes targets for statewide reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The Act requires Minnesotans to reduce emissions to a level of 15% below 2005 levels by 2015, to a level at least 30% below 2005 levels by 2025, and to a level at least 80% below 2005 levels by 2050. To help advise him on how these restrictive goals could be reached, the Governor established the Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group to develop a Climate Change Mitigation Action Plan.

Conspicuously missing from the Advisory Group’s objectives, however, are three other major areas of importance: 1) a careful review of the state’s climate history and its impacts with regard to how the state’s climate has changed and whether or not the changes bear any resemblance of changes expected from human-caused “global warming,” 2) a quantification of the impacts of the state’s emissions reductions efforts on the course of future climate change, either globally, regionally, or locally, and 3) an assessment of the impacts of any proposed greenhouse gas reduction measures on the state’s economy.

Does this all sound familiar? Sounds to me like some of the global warming, green house reduction crap coming from Sacramento.  You can read more of the Minnesota Plan analysis, and the economic impacts at ICECAP and download the SPPI pdf with all the details here.

New schemes to reduce driving has unintended consequences.

Russ Steele

We live in a community that relies on tourists to visit the area on weekends and thousands commute to the valley to work on weekdays. Now our good Republican Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is calling for "pay-as-you-drive" insurance. Insurance that will base premiums on actually mileage driven, an in incentive to get people to drive fewer miles. He thinks "pay-as-you-drive" will help reduce greenhouse gases and accidents. Poizner wants you to take transit, bike, or walk to work.   

The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that if California reduces their mileage by 30 percent the state could avoid 55 million tons of CO2 between 2009 and 2020, which is the equivalent of taking 10 million cars off the road.

My question is how may tourist would it encourage to stay home to reduce their insurance bill. How much would this increase commuting cost for the 8-10 thousand commuter that drive to the valley every weekday to work?  Will this encourage more working people to move to the valley, putting more homes on the market, encourage more retried folks to come to Nevada County?  Will Nevada County become a retirement refuge, as was suggested at a recent County Economic Summit, void of young people and service staff. With our high housing costs many service workers commute in from other areas with affordable housing. Under this program it will pay them to find a job closer to where they live, and that will not be in the County.