Paul

In December I mentioned that global warming may not be the only thing melting Greenland. Scientists have found at least one natural magma hotspot under the Arctic island that could be pitching in.

Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic may also contain active volcanoes.

Now we have reports relating to an article in Nature Geoscience:

Herald Tribune: ‘Antarctic volcanoes identified as a possible culprit in glacier melting’

Excerpt: Volcanically, Antarctica is a fairly quiet place. But sometime around 325 B.C., the researchers said, a hidden and still active volcano erupted, puncturing several hundred yards of ice above it.

The Nature Geoscience article:

Published online: 20 January 2008 | doi:10.1038/ngeo106

A recent volcanic eruption beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet

Hugh F. J. Corr & David G. Vaughan

Indirect evidence suggests that volcanic activity occurring beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet influences ice flow and sheet stability. However, only volcanoes that protrude through the ice sheet and those inferred from geophysical techniques have been mapped so far. Here we analyse radar data from the Hudson Mountains, West Antarctica, that contain reflections from within the ice that had previously been interpreted erroneously as the ice-sheet bed. We show that the reflections are present within an elliptical area of about 23,000 km2 that contains tephra from an explosive volcanic eruption. The tephra layer is thickest at a subglacial topographic high, which we term the Hudson Mountains Subglacial Volcano. The layer depth dates the eruption at 207 BC (+/-240 years), which matches exceptionally strong but previously unattributed conductivity signals in nearby ice cores. The layer contains 0.019–0.31 km3 of tephra, which implies a volcanic explosive index of 3–4. Production and episodic release of water from the volcano probably affected ice flow at the time of the eruption. Ongoing volcanic heat production may have implications for contemporary ice dynamics in this glacial system.

British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK

Recently I have encountered a couple of prominent believers in a carbon dioxide driven climate catastrophe, who see democracy as an obstacle to reducing emissions.

Mayer Hillman is 76 years old and he is still senior fellow emeritus at the left-leaning Policy Studies Institute ‘think tank.’ For 40 years he has campaigned against road transport. He recently persuaded the editor of Local Transport Today (LTT) to interview him. The result was a revealing 3-page interview in the 6th December 2007 issue entitled, ‘Plan to save the planet, but is anyone willing to pay the price?’ Perhaps it is no surprise that he has latched onto climate change as a means to his end. To be fair though, this is a position he adopted in 1990, long before carbon dioxide emissions impacted on transport policy. Hillman takes the familiar line of scientific consensus about a forthcoming climate catastrophe. He sees carbon rationing, with an allowance of one tonne of CO2 emissions per year, per person, bringing an end to long distance travel by air, rail or car. Hillman goes on to say, “When the chips are down I think democracy is a less important goal than is the protection of the planet from the death of life. Rationing has to be imposed on people whether they like it or not.” The interview can be accessed via a simple registration for a week’s free trial of LTT. My edited response was published in the 20th December issue. The unedited version written with much input from John McLean is reproduced in full below:

Mayer Hillman (interview, LTT 6th December) makes Al Gore look like a climate sceptic. Hillman wants to abolish democracy in favour of a carbon dictatorship and introduce carbon rationing/personal carbon trading in order to achieve wealth redistribution. The rationing of carbon emissions is a throwback to the communist era of dictating how an individual’s life should be lived. One can almost imagine the carbon police rounding up transgressors and throwing them in a carbon Gulag. His statements that democracy should give way to an authoritarian government are ludicrous. When challenged, he modified that to saying that all political parties should take an identical position on climate so that the voting public have no choice. Unfortunately, this is already happening with the 3 main parties; consensus is a tool of dictatorship rather than democracy. He also wants to end travel by car and air. The economy would be destroyed simply because the UK produces 2% of global man-made carbon dioxide emissions, with transport being responsible for just 20% of the 2%. Drivers already pay fuel tax in excess of £240 per tonne of CO2 emitted. In reference to talking to a future generation Hillman repeats his assertion about the evidence for man-made warming being clear, but he fails to produce any meaningful evidence. I suppose that’s no surprise when the IPCC couldn’t produce much either (see http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC_evidence.pdf).

Atmospheric Methane levels are stable or falling, and Methane has a ‘half-life’ of only 7 years in the atmosphere. CO2 stays in the atmosphere for 50 to 200 years according to DEFRA, and has not been shown to cause catastrophic global warming. The claims about climate scientists saying that 400 or 430 ppmv is a “point of no return” are baseless. We do not have only a few years before the planet reaches its capacity to absorb CO2. If we look at the estimated anthropogenic emissions and the measured increases in CO2 we find that about 50% of emissions are absorbed. The claim that 430ppmv is the “maximum which should be considered safe” to prevent “uncontrollable positive feedback” is unsupported by any evidence. Rises in CO2 have lagged behind temperature rises during the earth’s geological history. For 27 of the past 50 years there has been no correlation between CO2 and global temperatures. Despite atmospheric CO2 levels being many times higher in the past, there has been no ‘runaway warming,’ suggesting that there are strong ‘negative feedbacks’ that operate as a ‘planetary thermostat’ to offset any ‘positive feedbacks’ via increased water vapour. More evidence for negative feedback due to the thinning of heat-trapping cirrus clouds comes from a recent publication by Spencer et al (2007) that was ignored by the media.

A new study just published in December by Douglass et al concludes that, “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming. Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that Greenhouse models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapour, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”

The ultimate test of the mythical warming power of CO2 is about to begin as solar activity is expected to show a big fall in the coming decades. The flawed metric of a ‘global average surface temperature,’ which contains a warm bias, reached an El Nino driven peak in 1998. According to Roger Pielke Sr, “a change in heat in Joules that is the proper metric, not the surface temperature, and any accumulation of Joules since 2004 has been quite small, such that global warming has essentially stopped, at least for now. This lack of warming is consistent with the absence of lower tropospheric warming in the atmosphere since about 2003.“

We can also put other alarmist claims into perspective. The recent record low levels of Arctic Sea Ice (since satellite records began in 1979) can’t be explained by temperature change alone. Arctic wind anomolies are also implicated as part of a global pattern of exceptional summer circulation. Also, the media didn’t report the simultaneous record high levels of Antarctic Sea Ice. Wöppelmann et al claim a mean sea level rise of about 1.3mm per year in the last 100 years, and that the rise for 1993 to 2003 is “well within normal fluctuations.” The attempts to link hurricanes and global warming, which resulted in hurricane expert Chris Landsea resigning from the IPCC, have fizzled out following two quiet seasons. Most European glaciers have been in retreat from about 1870 and the majority of global glaciers have little or no monitoring record. Hillman makes very non-specific assertions about these situations. Millions of people being steadily displaced and dying of drought? I am unaware of any people who have been displaced. What drought is he referring to? El Nino and La Nina events cause a shift in rainfall patterns and that might be the entire cause.

Hillman seems very focused on the negative effects of global warming. Who is he to dictate that a certain temperature is acceptable? Contrast the claimed 2000 UK deaths due to the heat wave of 2003, with the yearly excess winter deaths of 25,000 to 45,000.

Hillman trots out the hoary old claim that sceptics are in the pay of oil companies but seems unaware of the implications of that comment. Firstly he is saying that scientists can be bought and their research findings somehow dictated for their “employers”. Secondly he conveniently forgets the trough of money that pro-man-made global warming scientists fight over. It is a trough that runs to billions of pounds every year, but admitted competition for the money is tough because the IPCC have dictated the direction of climate research. Climate scientists who wish to ensure future access to that funding pool know that they must produce papers, which are “acceptable” to the man-made global warming fraternity.

Pielke’s comments about a conflict of interest are correct (see http://mclean.ch/climate/SPPI-disband_the_IPCC.pdf ) and this apparently makes Hillman slightly subdued prior to showing his acceptance of one of the most blatant situations of a conflict of interest in the IPCC’s history – the lead author of a chapter of an IPCC report vigorously promoting his own “hockey stick” temperature graph.

The “hockey stick” has been soundly discredited and is absent from the IPCC 4th Assessment Report – so much for it being evidence. It is surely up to those who propose a hypothesis to produce evidence to support their claims; those who question the hypothesis are not required to prove their case. Hillman, like many others, has tried to replace the “innocent until proven guilty” dogma with a “guilty until proven innocent”. It’s a common ploy when one’s own evidence is pitifully weak. His knowledge of matters such as the hockey stick is sadly dated but his inability to recognise the play of vested interests is even worse.

Hillman also attacks Bjorn Lomborg as being “dangerous” for his belief that Kyoto style policies are futile, yet a recent article published in the journal Nature by Prins and Rayner arrives at the same conclusion. The development of secure energy sources and the adaptation to inevitable climate change is the way forward. The huge economic and social price that Hillman demands is not worth paying, as it is unlikely to make any detectable difference to the Earth’s constantly changing climate. As Czech president Vaclav Klaus says, freedom, not climate, is under threat

Regards,

Paul Biggs

David Shearman is Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Hon Visiting Fellow, Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide and Hon Secretary, Doctors for the Environment Australia. He is co-author, with Joseph Wayne Smith, of the book: The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy.

Shearman has written an article for Online Opinion (OLO), Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate, entitled: ‘Climate change, is democracy enough?’ He seems to be thinking much along the same lines as Mayer Hillman. In extracts from his article he writes:

“In Australia, a surfeit of democracy carries much responsibility for the demise of the Murray Darling River, where debate has replaced action.” One for Jen to respond to perhaps!

On China’s plan to ban plastic shopping bags, he says:

“The Chinese decision on shopping bags is authoritarian and contrasts with the voluntary non-effective solutions put forward in most Western democracies. We are going to have to look how authoritarian decisions based on consensus science can be implemented to contain greenhouse emissions. It is not that we do not tolerate such decisions in the very heart of our society, in wide range of enterprises from corporate empires to emergency and intensive care units. If we do not act urgently we may find we have chosen total liberty rather than life.”

Read the entire article here.

Yes, it’s summmer in the Southern Hemisphere again. Last year I complained to the UK’s ITN News about a series of climate alarmist reports including one showing glaciers melting in the Antarctic, without mentioning the ‘S’ word. 2007 was the year that Antarctic Sea Ice reached a record high since satellite measurements began, around 1979. Yes, I know that Arctic Sea Ice was at a record low and I have blogged about several peer reviewed papers that cite unusual natural contributory factors to the record low (since satellite measurements began).

Anyway, back to the Antarctic. There are reports that the ice sheet is shrinking at a faster rate, based on research led by Eric Rignot, of the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Dr. Rignot attributed the shrinkage in the ice sheet to an upwelling of warm waters along the Antarctic coast, which is causing some glaciers to flow more rapidly into the ocean. Of course, this must be due to global warming, which must be caused by man. Meanwhile, mid-summer in the Southern Hemisphere Ice extent remains well (one million square kilometers) above the 28 year average and an impressive 3 million square kilometers above last year at this time!

There is clearly a lot of year to year variability in the record but the demise of the Antarctic icecap seems to be anything but imminent. Most of the warming and melt in recent years has been in the vicinity of the Antarctic Peninsula, a small portion of the Antarctic which reaches above the Antarctic Circle and is a choke-point for the circumpolar ocean currents, and is more susceptible to variations. There’s also an active subsea volcano in the area, perhaps leading to the warm water upwelling in the study. Who knows!?

Thanks to Joseph D’Aleo of ICECAP NSIDC graphs for southern hemispheric ice extent are here and here.

I have previously blogged about the UK High Court finding 9 errors in Gore’s movie AIT, which resulted in the High Court ruling that: Schools Must Warn of AIT Film Bias.

Now we have an admission over at Climate Audit:

Sticking Thermometers In Places They Don’t Belong

In earlier posts, we observed that Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth claimed that “Dr Thompson’s thermometer” confirmed Michael Mann’s hockey stick, but, when analysed, what Gore described as “Dr Thompson’s thermometer” merely proved to be Michael Mann’s hockey stick mis-identified. No wonder it resembled Mann’s hockey stick – or, to use the phrase more common in climate science, no wonder there was a “remarkable” resemblance.

Hu McCulloch of Ohio State University now writes about a recent encounter with Lonnie Thompson, the serial ice core non-archiver and male nurse for the thermometer:

“On January 11, Lonnie Thompson gave a talk on Climate change at Ohio State. After his talk, I asked him if the graph identified by Al Gore as “Dr. Thompson’s Thermometer” in his book and film was really based on his ice core research.

Thompson admitted that an error had been made, and even had a slide ready that showed the data of the Mann Hockey Stick plus Jones instrumental data that Gore’s figure was based on, alongside an average of dO18 z-scores from 6 of his Andean and Himalayan ice cores, similar to the 7-series graph that appeared in his 2006 PNAS article. He stated that he recognized the error right away, and even sent Gore (and Mann, as I recall) an e-mail pointing out the mistake.

When I pressed him if it wouldn’t be appropriate to make a more public announcement, given the high-profile nature of the error, Ellen Mosley-Thompson, his wife and co-author, stood up and offered that it was Gore’s error, not theirs, so that they had no responsibility for it, and that in any event there was no forum in which to make a correction.

I suggested that since OSU’s Byrd Polar Research Center has a website with a News page, it would be trivial and virtually costless to post a press release clarifying the matter for the millions of readers and viewers of Gore’s book and film who are not on Thompson’s e-mail list. ”

“No forum”. “No responsibility.” No shame.