NC Media Watch

ClimateGate: 30 years in the making

JoNova (Guest Post from joannenova.com.au)

Mohib Ebrahim has created professional timelines for exhibitions, so it must have seemed only natural to him to want to visually piece together the full timeline of ClimateGate, laying out the analysis, graphs, emails and history of the scandal as revealed by dozens of researchers over the past weeks, months and years.

Download The PDF (788k)

There’s a gif version of the poster if you don’t like pdf’s (1.7Mb)

The PDF chart is available in different sizes, each also with the 10  pages of cited references. The full chart is over 2 meters wide (94″x34″, or 2 A0  landscape pages) and best viewed on screen where you can zoom in and out,  scroll vertically to see everything in a given time period or horizontally across time to see everything related to a particular theme.

From time to time the file will be updated and/or corrected as needed. This is its home, so check back here to download the latest file, and  please link to here so people will be able to access the updates. The PDF chart is available in different formats, each also with the 10 pages of cited references.

Think of it as a full poster that shows some key events which built up, year by year, the billion dollar enterprise that now promotes man-made CO2 global warming.

More details here.

Will Lake Tahoe soon reach boiling point? (Updated 12-27-09, 20:47:27)

Russ Steele

If that headline caught your attention so did this article in the Bee catch my attention reporting that the Lake Tahoe surface temperature have gone up 3.7 degrees F. in 16 years. This article was based on a study published by researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

"Tahoe's surface waters warmed 3.7 degrees Fahrenheit from 1992 to 2008 – a mean annual increase of 0.23 degrees."

 This last year I did some research on Lake Tahoe air temperatures, which was sparked by a UC Davis Tahoe: State of the Lake Report 2008. I recalled reading about lake surface temperatures in that report

Surface water temperatures have been recorded at the mid-lake station since
1968. Despite year-to-year variability, water temperatures show an increasing
trend. The average temperature in 1968 was 50.3 degrees F. For 2007, the
average surface water temperature was 51.9 degrees F. 

According to this report in 39 years the surface temperature only went up 1.6 degrees F. Here is the graphic from the study. (Updated graphic based on 2009 Report)


  So how did the surface temperatures go up 3.7 degrees in sixteen years?  These are measured temperatures vs the study satellite temperature?  Which is right?  As time allows I will be doing some more digging on this issue.Stay Tuned!

First Legal Action Filed Challenging EPA CO2 Endangerment Finding

Russ Steele

The Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) has filed a Petition for Reconsideration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), challenging the Endangerment Finding published by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on Dec. 15, 2009. Filing available here.

Earlier this year the SLF filed a comprehensive public comment during the Public Comment period with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), alleging that powerful scientific and legal information countered the prevailing United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports on human causation of climate change related to carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions.

After the Public Comment period closed, "Climategate" disclosures presented substantial evidence of data fraud in the very documents, reports and analyses relied on by Administrator Jackson in making the Endangerment Finding. Failure to investigate this new evidence that supports leading credible scientists' observations that "global warming"/climate change is not caused by humans (anthropogenic), but is natural, cyclical, and not as extreme as reported by the IPCC, creates significant legal problems for the EPA's regulatory effort.

"Representing a group of well-informed and concerned Americans, including leaders in Congress who have been intimately involved in climate change issues for more than a decade, SLF has brought the first of several administrative and court actions which will follow to enforce the rule of law and prevent this coming catastrophe," said Shannon L. Goessling, SLF Executive Director and Chief Legal Counsel. "The goal is to compel the federal government to follow the laws as enacted by Congress and to pursue legitimate public policy based on legitimate scientific data. The American people deserve no less, and the U.S. Constitution mandates it."

My emphasis added. Original story was posted at PR-Canada.net  H/T to a comment on Watts Up With That by Zorro.

Exit question:  CARB uses the same documents as the EPA to force AB32 on the citizens of California, why has CARB not been unchallenged in the courts?    

Over the e-mail transom - More Al Gore Lies

Russ Steele

This came over the e-mail transom this morning from Al Gore's Repower America. Not sure how I got on the Repower America mailing list, but the distortions and lies are always interesting.

Dear Russell,

"We have to come out of the gate in 2010 by sending a clear message -- that the vast majority of Americans are prepared to press our leaders for immediate action to solve the climate crisis."

Really Al?  According the latest Pew Research Poll in October, Fewer Americans See Solid Evidence of Global Warming, and even fewer think it was caused by human activity. I thought that jobs and the economy were the main concern of the vast majority of citizens.  

This Pew poll was taken before Climategate was revealed to the public.  According to Rasmussen Reports taken just  prior to Copenhagen: Public skepticism about the officially promoted cause of global warming has reached an all-time high among Americans. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 50% of likely voters now believe that global warming is caused primarily by long-term planetary trends. Just 34% say climate change is due primarily to human activity

And you thought only the CRU is hiding climate data?

Russ Steele

As many of the global warming skeptical blogger know, NASA has have been hiding from the Freedom of Information Act requests asking for the raw data and the computer code they have use to make adjustments to the US Temperature data. NASA is a government agency that needs to protect it's budget from a Congress,  who are striving to create carbon taxes. Without the NASA adjustments many surface stations do not show warming, thus destroying the CO2 warming myth.

However this data hiding has not gone unnoticed in Congress:



Climate change is all about politics, and NASA is not about to blow the whistle on the Democratic majority who are believes in AGW,  and will continue to stonewall the skeptics, unless all citizens demand an answer. Contact for California political leaders is on the left side of this post. Please assert your power as citizen and let them know how you feel about NASA hiding the climate data.

H/T to Roger L. Simon at Pajamas Media for the video.

Nanny government

Russ Steele

The Sacramento Bee has a long list of laws that go into effect on 1 January 2010. It is a clear indication how our political nannies have been spending you hard earned money.  Of the 26 laws listed which one did you find the most valuable and the most offensive. Please post in the comments.  Sac Bee

Here's an alphabet soup look at some bills that become law on Jan. 1, whether we like them or not:

A is for alligator. SB 609 will extend from 2010 until 2015 a law that allows the importation of products made with alligator and crocodile parts.

B is for bicycles. SB 527 allows the operation of bikes without seats on state roads, as long as the bike was built that way on purpose.

C is for cows. SB 135 makes it a misdemeanor to chop off a cow's tail, except for when it's medically necessary.

D is for dental assistants. AB 667 authorizes dental assistants to apply fluoride to the teeth of school kids, under the "general direction" of a dentist.

E is for elevators. SB 478 allows non-state-certified mechanics to provide "routine" inspection and maintenance services to elevators at agricultural complexes.

F is for fruits and nuts. AB 945 continues a 95-year-old program that sets minimum standards for fruits, nuts and vegetables sold in the state. The program had been set to expire at the end of the year.

G is for graffiti. AB 576 legally defines local agencies as "victims" when it comes to graffiti vandalism. That will allow the agencies to seek restitution for cleanup from convicted vandals.

Merry Christmas

To all my readers and contributors I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday! We will return to regular posting later this evening.

Humans caused 120% Arctic warming without CO2.

Russ Steele

I was wondering about this non CO2 warming, but did not get around to posting with all the Christmas prep and grand kids coming for a visit. Thanks to Tom Nelson's Blog for this post. 

Settled science?: If dark carbon causes 94 percent of Arctic warming, and if contrails account for another 15-20%, how much is caused by natural variability and trace amounts of CO2?

Yet Another Human Climate Warming Effect In The Arctic – Aircraft Contrails « Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr.

...an article in Scientific American by David Biello based on a study by Charlie Zender, a climate physicist at the University of California, Irvine stated

““…. on snow—even at concentrations below five parts per billion—such dark carbon triggers melting, and may be responsible for as much as 94 percent of Arctic warming”.

Now we have yet another human climate forcing that was reported by Rex Dalton of Nature News in the article how aircraft emissions contribute to warming – Aviation contributes up to one-fifth of warming in some areas of the Arctic.

The article includes the text

“The first analysis of emissions from commercial airline flights shows that they are responsible for 4–8% of surface global warming since surface air temperature records began in 1850 — equivalent to a temperature increase of 0.03–0.06 °C overall.

The analysis, by atmospheric scientists at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, also shows that in the Arctic, aircraft vapour trails produced 15–20% of warming.”

Addition to Blog Links - Sierra Commons

Russ Steele

I have added the Sierra Commons business ignitor to the links on the right side of the page. This is Nevada County's Business Incubator.

According to the Former Union Editor (FUE) this has better business and economic development in formation than on this blog and George Rebane's Ruminations.

"The ED topics discussed at Sierra Commons often are more relevant than the ideological “crapola” you get over at Russ Steele’s and George Rebane’s blog. (That’s a word they like to use regularly over there)."

For the record I use the word crap, not "crapola"

Definition of the word crap as I use it: noun

1) something that is of extremely poor quality.
• nonsense.
• rubbish; junk

Just in case you wondered what I mean when writing about "crap." I have explained this to the FUE, but he is not listening.

Schwarzenegger - California needs an $8 billion Federal bail out

Russ Steele

Schwarzenegger wants $8 billion federal bailout. Details at HotAir

California got $7 billion in state grants from Porkulus, and an opportunity to catch their breath while they attacked a monstrous state budget that desperately needs pruning.  Congress has now begun to consider Porkulus II, with even more block grants for states, enabling them to paper over serious budget gaps.  But that’s not enough for Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wants an additional $8 billion from the feds in order to bail out a state that seems incapable of governing itself.

The questions are:

Is this bailout request an insult to the federalist model of state sovereignty?

Or, a political ploy better known as a Briar Patch Strategy. In a replay of Br’er Rabbit, Schwarzenegger wants Obama to throw him into the budget-cut briar patch rather than going there himself.

HotAir Bottom Line:

Whether by design or desperation, California’s political class is not likely to get another reprieve from doing its job properly.  Schwarzenegger can blame that on Obama or Congress, but either way, he’s going to have to make big cuts in the budget and quit using accounting tricks to hide the red ink.