Archive for the ‘Weather’ Category
Bias
No, we’re not talking about media bias this time. This has to do with temperature bias, and the discovery that most reporting stations in the U.S. have a warm bias due to inaccurate siting.
Anthony Watts and his volunteer army numbering 650 performed yeoman’s work in amassing this data. The results are chronicled at Watts’ website at SurfaceStations.org. The project was funded entirely by volunteers without corporate or government assistance.
While there is little dispute that the world had seen a small amount of warming over the last century, the question is whether the rise will accelerate due to greenhouse gases or whether the rise is just part of the natural variation in climate. In the past 10 years, it appears we are in a cooling phase. If the surface temperature record is biased on the high side, perhaps some of the observed warming is overstated.
These results also provide additional evidence that the science of global warming is not settled, and that we should not embark on a costly efforts to control CO<sub>2</sub> emissions when the underlying data is faulty.
But the real question is why it took a dedicated group of volunteers to find the numerous faults in our temperature record rather than the heavily funded governmental and educational institutions which are continually warning us about global warming.
American Thinker Blog: US Temperature Records Biased on High Side.
Give it up, greenies
How much colder to the Democrats want us to be?
Henry Waxman is promising swift action on global warming legislation.
The chairman of a key House committee said Thursday he will move “quickly and decisively” to push legislation curbing greenhouse gases with a goal of passing climate legislation out of his committee before Memorial Day.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., opening the new Congress first hearing on the threats from global warming, said inaction on the climate issue is causing uncertainties that make it more difficult to emerge from the recession.
“Our environment and our economy depend on congressional action to confront the threat of climate change and secure our energy independence,” said Waxman. “U.S. industries want to invest in a clean energy future, but uncertainties about whether, when and how greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced is deterring these vital investments.”
Now, you’ve all seen the headlines the past couple of days about the record cold and record snow across parts of the U.S. Chicago has had its most consecutive days with snow. Some places up north have reported temperatures of -40F. Even here in the Nashville area, we were close to 0F this morning. For the sake of argument, let’s accept the false premise that human activity can and does modify the atmosphere. Democrats want us to cut back on our greenhouse emissions in order to stop global warming. In other words, Democrats want to make it colder. Given how cold it is right now, how much colder do they want it to get before they’ll be content?
Waxman promises quick action on climate.
UPDATE: I decided to go digging for information on cold-related deaths in the U.S., and found this information from a study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley, so we know there’s no danger of conservative bias here.
Deaths linked to extreme cold account for 0.8 percent of the nation’s annual death rate and outnumber those attributed to leukemia, murder and chronic liver disease combined, the study reports. Cold-related deaths also reduce the average life expectancy of Americans by at least a decade, it says.
…
The study also says that demographic shifts from colder climes to warmer ones — for reasons such as better jobs, cheaper housing and sunshine — appear to delay an estimated 4,600 deaths a year. The researchers also said that over the past 30 years, longevity gains associated with geographic mobility accounted for between 4 and 7 percent of the increases in life expectancy in the United States.
In a nutshell, extreme cold kills, warmer weather saves. (Jesus saves, too, but we’re just talking weather here.) So, I guess an equally relevant question would be, “How many more Americans must die from cold weather before Democrats are content?”
2008 was the coldest year since 1997
Once again, we have a story that should lead the media to question global warming hucksters. Last year was near normal, and was the coldest in 11 years. So if the planet is warming, how come it isn’t warming?
How come stories like this are never used to question global warming?
A cold wave is spreading across much of the U.S., even casting a chill across Tennessee, with the temperature in one Minnesota town dropping to an amazing -38F. So why don’t stories like this ever provide an impetus for the media to question global warming? Oh, I forgot, ALL extreme weather is the result of global warming — even the extreme cold. That’s the amazing thing about man-made “climate change.” Extreme weather conditions are only a product of the past two decades or so. Before that, the weather was the same all the time with no extremes either way.
Shocking cold wave drops temps to 40 below zero – Yahoo News.
I get by with a little help from Al Gore
Climate Audit has a hilarious spoof on Al Gore, which actually lends credibility to ”The Gore Effect,” where he brings with him record cold weather wherever he visits.
Long ago 2006, in the bad old days before IPCC AR4, Toronto got its lowest snowfall in a century. Lake level declines were sure to follow. Would water supplies for lattes be threatened? Even the unthinkable now seemed possible and even likely.
Nobody knew what do. Except for one little girl. Hey, its a story. She wrote to a famous ju-ju man in the South asking him to come north and cast a magic spell and make the snow return.
The ju-ju man heard the plea of the little girl. He quickly decided that the situation was far worse than even the little girl thought. This needed his most powerful magic and, so in 2007, he visited Toronto not just once, not just twice but three times.
The magic worked Soon Toronto was covered up in winter snow. The ju-ju man could only save part of the 2007 winter, but by 2008, his magic was in full force. Yesterday’s snow made 2008 snowfall the highest since 1883, with a few days still on the clock.
And it was all due to that one little girl.
As for me, my arms ache from shoveling snow. I think that the ju-ju man might overdid his spell a little. Id have been OK with just one incantation.
New Orleans dodges a bullet
Hurricane Gustav has delivered the Big Easy only a glancing blow and weakened considerably since coming ashore earlier today. This is terrible news for the Democrats, good news for everybody else. The price of oil also dropped $4 a barrel in the wake of the averted disaster, falling all the way to $110.95, its lowest price in quite some time.
Where’s FEMA? Where’s Jesse Jackson?
Tropical Storm Fay has wreaked havoc on the citizens of Florida, spawning massive flooding. So where’s FEMA? Where are all the helpless Democrat voters waiting on the government to save them? Where’s Jesse Jackson and the race industry? And since the Demcrats can alter the weather via legislation, why didn’t they halt their August recess and pass a bill to outlaw all the rain?
