Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

First Open Thread

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How far can the average, white, male, polar bear swim? 

PS  This is an open thread, as requested by El Gordo.

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Comments

  2. WW says

    Worth reading –

    1. Global warming ‘unquestionably’ linked to humans: France
    By Claire Snegaroff, APF, Oct 28, 2010
    http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j9oNuf2f5wJV22Rs_YEqvRGcLHig?docId=CNG.bbdd6801f80cdbf0612fea94e8414607.3e1

    2. What Have Climate Activists Learned
    By Bjorn Lomborg, Project Syndicate, Oct 12, 2010 [H/t Berol Robinson]
    http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/lomborg65/English

    3. Huge Solar-Plant Project Approved
    By Cassandra Sweet and Siobhan Hughes, WSJ, Oct 26, 2010
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303467004575574392614626562.html?mod=ITP_pageone_1

    4. Disputing The Skeptical Environmentalist
    By Willie Soon, Robert Carter, and David Legates, IBD, Oct 29, 2010
    http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/ArticlePrint.aspx?id=552190

    More at –
    http://www.haapala.com/sepp/the-week-that-was.cfm

  4. Schiller Thurkettle says

    It’s unknown how far the average, white, male, polar bear can swim because they’re always cheating, by hitching rides on passing ice floes.

  5. Luke says

    For those who think “it’s over” LOL !

    GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 37, L19704, 6 PP., 2010
    doi:10.1029/2010GL044865

    Record warming in the South Pacific and western Antarctica associated with the strong central-Pacific El Niño in 2009–10

    Tong Lee
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    William R. Hobbs
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    Joshua K. Willis
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    Daria Halkides
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    Ichiro Fukumori
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    Edward M. Armstrong
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    Akiko K. Hayashi
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    W. Timothy Liu
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    William Patzert
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    Ou Wang
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    Satellite data for the past three decades reveal a record-high sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly within a large mid-latitude region of the south-central Pacific (SCP) during the mature phase of the 2009–10 El Niño, with a peak magnitude that is 5 times the standard deviation of local SST anomaly and is warmer than the concurrent tropical-Pacific SST anomaly. The SCP oceanic warming was confined to the upper 50 meters and is associated with an extreme and persistent anticyclone. Wind changes associated with the anticyclone caused the oceanic warming with surface heat flux and ocean processes playing equally important roles. The anticyclone diverted circumpolar westerlies and warm air towards Antarctica. Austral-summer SST in the Bellingshausen Sea also reached a three-decade high. The extreme atmospheric and oceanic anomalies in the South Pacific may have been fueled by the 2009–10 El Niño because of its record-high SST anomaly in the central-equatorial Pacific.

  7. Schiller Thurkettle says

    Typical Luke quote-mining. And he doesn’t even understand what he’s quoting about.

  8. Luke says

    Gee El Gordo – a datum point in a time series in a La Nina. You’re a rocket scientist mate. Hey El Gordo it was hot/cold yesterday.

    Schiller really means – “I haven’t got a clue”.

  9. Neville says

    Let’s hope the Dems get the belting they deserve in the next 24 hours and I hope they lose the Senate as well as the Reps, then we may get some leadership on this CAGW nonsense.

    Roy Spencer has written a very good article on the elitism of the left and how we now need a change to counter this so we can allow proper development so that eventually we can NATURALLY control population growth through better education and wealth creation in poor countries.

    A very good article from a top scientist and a man who has plain common sense.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/01/spencer-on-global-warming-elitism-tomorrow%e2%80%99s-election-and-the-future/#more-27283

  10. el gordo says

    Thanks Luke Desk, we have been coming to this shed for quite awhile and I thought….next time I’ll raise the sarc/ flag.

  11. el gordo says

    Looking ahead we can safely say the next 20 years will be wet and cool.

    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gRuPC7OQdxc/SrDS4nEAKFI/AAAAAAAAAY4/-axo5eGoUts/s1600-h/PDO2.png

    The journalists, politicians and scientists involved in this non-conspiracy should be discussing Carter’s Plan B. There will be more cyclones and floods, unfortunately the scientific socialists have taken the green pill and are unaware of anything but gorebull worming.

    The media will be the first to change their tune when the weather changes.

  13. Len says

    Luke’s usual long list of references organised by his helpers reflects how many have and are living off the gravy train.

  14. Schiller Thurkettle says

    Climatologists who receive government funding should declare ‘a competing interest’ in the articles they publish.

    In this entire debate, the bloggers tend to be the most independent voices. With glaring exceptions, of course.

  16. Luke says

    Schiller – Except bloggers often sprout any old un-peer reviewed nonsense for a willing market. Hardly science is it?

  17. el gordo says

    Talking of peer review, the Quaking Aspen is under the spotlight and proves increased CO2 is not so bad. McGrath et al explains.

    “Aspen growth has increased an average of 53% over the past five decades, primarily in response to the 19.2% rise in ambient CO2 levels. CO2-induced growth is particularly enhanced during periods of high moisture availability. The analysis accounts for the highly nonlinear changes in growth rate with age, and is unaffected by sex or location sampled.”

    Full story at World Climate Report.

  19. el gordo says

    ‘This FACE experiment provides strong rationale and process understanding for incorporating N limitation and N feedback effects in ecosystem and global models used in climate change assessments.’

    Comrade Luke, its a gravy train.

  20. el gordo says

    Luke

    The Geological Society said in their conclusion that the ‘evidence from the 55 million year event and from earlier warming episodes suggests that such an addition is likely to raise average global temperatures by at least 5-6ºC, and possibly more, and that recovery of the Earth’s climate in the absence of any mitigation measures could take 100,000 years or more. Numerical models of the climate system support such an interpretation.’

    This is ludicrous, pure poppycock covered in gravy.

  22. Luke says

    El Gordo – (1) find out out about Liebig’s Law of the Minimum (2) Now golly gee – I wonder why farmers apply expensive nitrogen fertiliser. Stop being such a zealot eh?

  23. el gordo says

    “The availability of the most abundant nutrient in the soil is as available as the availability of the least abundant nutrient in the soil.”

    Liebig’s Law of the Minimum

    Damn cool on the Central Tablelands, can’t seem to shake off winter, which is entirely appropriate because a Flannery Centre is being constructed in my town. You may remember his rants about the country running out of water and the world heating up like hell, so after an appropriate time has elapsed they will rename the building after someone of substance.

    Bob Carter is an outstanding scientist and geologist who, in the fullness of time, will receive international accolades for his Plan B.

  25. Malcolm Hill says

    http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2010/11/no-disagreement-whatsoever.html

    Dont you just love the hypocrisy of the scaremongering climate science drones.

    They just love to draw idiot analogies between AGW scepticism and tobacco smoking lobbyists, but if someone points the similarity between economic predictions and modeling, with their own pathetic efforts in modelling climate, the poor dears cry foul.

    BTW Lewandowsky has another piece of tripe along the same lines over at the ABC’s The Drum

    …never a dull moment in the rarified atmosphere of climate science particularly when those academics writing about it fail their own test of being PR published.

    … but then I guess thats OK, its one rule of course for the Inner Sanctum Members of Shonkademia, and another for those who pay their bills.

    Nothings changed

    They are no different to the bloody banks in ripping people off and covering it with spin.

  26. Malcolm Hill says

    http://www.climatechange.gov.au/en/media/~/media/publications/media/stategic-brief-incoming-government-brief.ashx

    This first post by Dennis Webb is very revealing.

    The momentum that has already built up around the absolute certainty of the IPCC so called science is staggering, as well as their absolute certainty that SE Australia is in serious trouble is quite amazing.

    Obviously was written despite the recent drought breaking rains and extemely cold temperatures as well as the OHC and sea temperatures falling…and took no notice successive Climategate revelations as to the extent of the chicanery involved…nor the BOM’s dubious manipulation of Australias temperature records.

    The amount of material that has been blacked out is also revealing, as is the fact that the bulk of the hierarchy are ex Treasury officials and ex Diplomats…who wouldnt know a bee from bulls foot..but would know the inside of aeroplanes.

    Obviously they subcontracted a lot of the work to the CSIRO/CMAR and BOM

    The budget and head count is also humungous $144m for 1000 people

  28. el gordo says

    ‘Sunspot-correlated variability in the southern mid-latitudes is likely to have substantial effects on temperate climate and ecology and is consistent with recent models of solar effects on upper atmospheric climate, though the mechanisms that link these to winds and rainfall at sea level remain obscure.’

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.768/abstract

    Solar variability leaves us vulnerable.

  29. Malcolm Hill says

    Unless it is me, it does appear that the Department of Climate Change may have broken the link that accesses the document released under a FOI request, and brought to our attention by the first poster Dennis Webb.

    If that is the case, I took the precaution of downloading and saving the most contentious one the:

    “”Incoming Government Brief” —“Strategic Brief —The Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Portfolio”…. dated September 2010

    Makes for fascinating reading…and highlights the point that we are truly run by globe trotting idiots, and further that the climate alarmist brigade have thoroughly brain washed the Department with an extreme form of assessment, that goes beyond even what the IPCC was willing to declare … and as we all know most of that was unsubstantiated non peer reviewed tosh based upon WWF marketing material.

    If it remains broken and if anyone still wants a copy, email Jennifer and I will pass it through.

  30. Huh? says

    Can someone please direct me to reliable measurements of both the thickness and the area of the Arctic icecap. I know about the doubts relating to the conventionally accepted idea that the ice is retreating and getting thinner, but pointing out flaws is not enough. Who has taken actual measurements showing that the ice is in fact getting thicker and/or more extensive?

  32. el gordo says

    ‘The recent long drawn out raised SST’s following the 2010 El Nino will be matched by long drawn out lowered SST’s following the current La Nina. The ocean is in big bounce mode because large amounts of decades long trapped energy is making it’s way to the surface in stratified layers.’

    Rog Tallbloke

  34. el gordo says

    From the SMH of Nov 9.

    ‘After an uncommonly cold start to the month – the first seven days of November were the coolest in 32 years – a Weatherzone meteorologist, Brett Dutschke, said yesterday was a return to more normal weather.’

  35. spangled drongo says

    “What a load of rubbish. Jack’s beanstalk again – don’t forget the system will run out of N.”

    Luke, I would have thought you knew about acacias with their great N fixing properties and symbiotic micro organisms. They solve that problem.

    Australian acacias have been planted all around the world, and not just for firewood.

    There probably weren’t any near those liquidambars.