Ivory Dome

In light of recent record-breaking snowstorms, both in the United States and Europe, I think it’s time to re-visit one of my favorite topics:  global warming (or, as it’s been renamed in recent years, climate change).

The meteorological dogma of the Global Warm-ongers over the last several decades has been that man-made carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” have caused the Earth’s temperature to rise to dangerous levels, melting the icecaps and threatening life as we know it.  How then can this phenomenon explain the kind of weather we’ve been experiencing this winter?  That’s simple; the moisture added to the atmosphere by the melting icecaps manifests itself as precipitation in the form of snow.  Bottom line:  if there weren’t global warming, there wouldn’t be all this additional snow.

On the surface, this explanation has a certain amount of plausibility about it – until we examine what was being said about global warming and snow barely a decade ago.

On March 20, 2000, an article appeared in the UK Independent entitled “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past” (here’s a link to the article).  The author, Charles Onians, quotes Dr. David Viner, a research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (Note: CRU was later to be the source of the “Climategate” emails). Dr. Viner predicted that “within a few years, winter snowfall will become ‘a very rare and exciting event.’”

“‘Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,’ he said.”

In searching for articles about the recent snows in Great Britain, I discovered something very interesting.  Parts of the UK enjoyed a White Christmas in 2009 as well, and on January 7, 2010, NASA reported that “[s]now blanketed Great Britain.”  Here’s a link to NASA’s satellite imagery of the event, which “shows snow cover over the entire island of Great Britain.”

A “very rare and exciting event”? I think not.

But the British aren’t the only ones who predicted the end of snow as a result of climate change.  On September 24, 2008, environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in a Los Angeles Times op-ed entitled “Palin’s Big Oil infatuation” (here’s a link to the op-ed), reminisced about snow sledding in Virginia in his youth, blaming Sarah Palin and Big Oil for the demise of those wonderful times.  Just over a year later, from December 2009 to February 2010 , the DC/Virginia area experienced record amounts of snow.  And this December, snow reached as far south as Roanoke and Virginia Beach.

So what’s the answer:  Does man-made climate change cause snowless winters, or does it cause blizzards?  Another simple answer:  yes.

My sister-in-law once told me that her philosophy professor declared that a statement that answers every question actually answers no questions.  If anthropogenic global warming (AGW) can account for snow (as well as a lack of snow), for hurricanes (as well as a lack of hurricanes), for flooding (as well as droughts) – then it apparently answers all questions regarding climate. 

Which means it answers none.

On September 28, 1928, a scientist in the laboratory of St. Mary’s Hospital in London noticed that someone had left the lid off of a petri dish containing  Staphylococcus plate culture.  As a result of someone’s mistake, a  blue mould “contaminated” the petri dish, inhibiting the growth of the bacteria.

Had this scientist worked at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, where the ClimateGate emails and documents were recently hacked, he might have performed a “trick” (i.e. thrown away the petri dish) in order to “hide the decline” of Staphylococcus bacteria.  Fortunately for the human race, this scientist chose instead to investigate why this anomaly occurred, even though it didn’t fit into his preconceived understanding of microbiology.

The scientist was  Alexander Fleming.  The blue mould, Penicillium, was later developed into penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic.

But that’s not the end of the story.  By 1931, Fleming was convinced that penicillin couldn’t last in the human body long enough to kill pathogenic bacteria, and he stopped studying it.  Fortunately, two other scientists (Boris Chain and Walter Florey) continued to work on developing penicillin.

Did Fleming threaten the editors of the journals that published Chain and Florey’s work or try to “re-define what the peer-review literature is” (like CRU Director Phil Jones and others did to those whose research contradicted theirs)?  On the contrary, Fleming not only allowed the research of Chain and Florey to proceed, he was eventually won over by their findings and himself began working on penicillin again in 1934.  In the end, Fleming, Chain and Florey all won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1945.

Untold millions of lives have been saved from infections that would have previously been fatal, all because a British scientist dared to put pettiness, ego, and politics aside and follow the scientific evidence to where it ultimately led.

His name is Ian “Harry” Harris, and he’s a research staffer involved with dendroclimatology, climate scenario development, data manipulation and visualisation, programming at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.  The CRU is one of the leading institutes in the world advocating Anthropogenic [i.e. man-made] Global Warming (AGW).  The recent leaking of about 1,000 emails and 3,000 documents from the CRU has raised serious questions about the credibility of this institution’s research.

Much has been made about the emails sent among leading AGW scientists, many of which imply that there have been “tricks” played with the data to “hide the decline” of global temperatures, as well as a hickjacking of the entire peer review process to shut out all opposing theories.  Many of these emails have been explained away by claiming that they have either been taken out of context or the somewhat cryptic use of words like “trick” have a much less sinister meaning than what global warming skeptics.

But there are two things that are far less open to broad interpretation:  the raw data and the software used to “prove” that global warming exists and is man-made.  If either the data or the software are less than 100% objective, the entire premise of AGW is called into question.

Enter Harry Harris.  One of the most revealing CRU documents, which is only now gaining widespread attention, is harry_read_me.txt

Harry_read_me.txt is a 3-year commentary (2006-2009) by a programmer named “Harry” (most likely Ian “Harry” Harris) documenting his frustrations in trying to make the software do what it’s supposed to.  I’m no computer geek, but programmers who don’t have an axe to grind in the AGW debate are saying that  the software is hopelessly flawed.

In one of the best articles to date on this subject, Congress May Probe Leaked Global Warming E-Mails, CBS News blogger Declan McCullagh recounts some additional clues regarding serious flaws in the CRU software:

Programmer-written comments inserted into CRU’s Fortran code have drawn fire as well. The file briffa_sep98_d.pro says: “Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!” and “APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION.” Another, quantify_tsdcal.pro, says: “Low pass filtering at century and longer time scales never gets rid of the trend – so eventually I start to scale down the 120-yr low pass time series to mimic the effect of removing/adding longer time scales!” 

On April 5, 2007, in a post entitled “Global Warming’ or “Climate Change”?, I wrote, “Some day, we may look back on this debate with as much nostalgia as the epicircles [sic] of the geocentric universe theory.” (Actually, the term of art is “epicycles.”)

Back in the days when everyone thought that the Earth was the center of the universe, as the data became clearer and clearer that this couldn’t be the case, epicycles were geometric models that were used to explain away the variations in speed, direction and motion of the Sun, Moon and planets. Apparently, the code used to model global warming is the 21st Century equivalent of “epicycles,” which is basically what I predicted more than two and a half years ago. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect it to be exposed so soon.

I firmly believe that once someone with sufficient expertise in computer programming thoroughly interrogates “Harry,” the computer code is going to be the smoking gun of this whole fraud. Snarky emails can be explained away, the significance of “hiding” the data through various “tricks” depends on what the meaning of the words “hide” and “trick” are, but if the tool they used to reach their conclusions was hopelessly flawed, then all bets are off.

My statistics professor had a name for this kind of cooking of the books: “strangling the data until it confesses.” If I understand this correctly, what we’re witnessing here is the cyber-version of water boarding.

(Before I get started, let me remind everyone that “Exposed:  the Climate of Fear” will be shown on the Glenn Beck Show tonight [May 2, 2007] at 6:00, 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. Central.  I plan on taping it and showing it to my stepdaughter, who was forced to watch “An Inconvenient Truth” in her art class at Cal State Fresno.) 

 Back last July, I wrote a post entitled “Global Warming and Faith in Science” in which I used the religion metaphor to describe the uncompromising faith some people have in the dogma of anthropogenic Global Warming:

http://www.ivorydome.us/2006/07/25/global-warming-and-faith-in-science/

In recent weeks, I’ve read criticisms of this point of view.  Global Warming, they argue, is scientific fact and nothing more – no religious fervor here!

Tell that to the proprietors of the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa in American Canyon, California.  They’ve actually replaced the Gideon bibles in the guest rooms with copies of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601093&refer=home&sid=afIESX3LdgnQ

Being a strong advocate for freedom of religion, I’m not complaining.  Any hotel proprietor is free to place any sacred scripture in their rooms they choose (or no sacred scripture, if that’s their preference).  I once stayed in a motel in Monterey, California where I found a copy “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy (the founder of the Church of Christian Science).  If a Muslim proprietor wants to place the Koran in each room, that’s fine with me, too.

But please don’t try to tell me that Global Warming, as espoused by Al Gore et al., isn’t a religion.

Back on December 3 of last year, I stuck my neck out.  In a post entitled, “False Prophecy?” I made the following prediction:

 If the term “climate change” continues its ascendency to the exlusion of “global warming,” we can assume that the “experts” are hedging their bets.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that barely four months later, our local “expert” on the subject would be advocating for this very same change in terminology (albeit for very different reasons).  Here’s his latest post: 

 http://panhandletruthsquad.blogspot.com/2007/04/its-also-getting-cold-in-herre.html

As you consider Spacedark’s arguments, pay very close attention to two things:  1)  the condescending attitude (“And, once again, we’ll have to patiently try to explain science to the willfully misunderstanding.”); and 2) the totally one-sided method for explaining that science.  Check out the first “fact” listed in the site he links to:

FACT: There is no debate among scientists about the basic facts of global warming.

Well, I guess that settles it. 

Except for one very ”inconvenient truth”:  Science is not governed by consensus, but rather by evidence.  In the 1910’s and 1920’s, the consensus among scientists was in favor of eugenics, but you’d be hard pressed to find a serious scientist today that would adhere to that position. (For an interesting comparison between these two movements, see this 1995 article by Richard S. Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology at MIT.)

http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/180_Eugenics.pdf

Spacedark’s “fact sheet” appears to be somewhat dated, because it goes on to say that “[s]cientists have considered and ruled out other, natural explanations such as sunlight, volcanic eruptions and cosmic rays. (IPCC 2001).”  In 2001, the IPCC obviously couldn’t have ”ruled out” the findings of Danish astrophysicist Henrik Svensmark (published in November 2006) showing how the complex relationship between cosmic rays and cloud formation affects atmospheric temperature.  Once again, more pesky evidence.

Do I believe that climate change is happening?  Absolutely.  That’s what climate does.  Do I believe, as Spacedark’s friend from Greenpeace predicted, that “adding energy to the system wouldn’t just make it get hotter and hotter. Instead, it would get wilder and weirder” ?  I suppose that’s plausible. 

But both of these questions miss the larger issue:  What’s causing the climate to change?  How is energy being added to the system? 

Far from being “willfully misunderstanding,”  I’m trying hard to understand all sides of a very complex issue, not just quoting from a single catechism of global warming dogma.  If you’re new to this site, you might want to read my earlier posts on global warming:

http://www.ivorydome.us/category/global-warming/

All I ask is that you consider the evidence with an open mind.

When the evidence for “global warming” appears to be changing (and I personally think a few snowstorms in April don’t prove anything), the answer is not to simply call it something else, alter the prediction to fit the new evidence, and continue to stubbornly blame it on the same human activity that’s increasing rather than decreasing. 

Some day, we may look back on this debate with as much nostalgia as the epicircles of the geocentric universe theory.

At Trail Ridge Middle School in Longmont, Colorado recently, a sixth grade science class took up the topic of global warming using a method that even Al Gore refuses to try – they debated the issue from two points of view and a jury of their peers made a decision based on the evidence presented.  The verdict:  by a vote of seven to four, they concluded that humans don’t cause global warming.  I was amazed at the depth of analysis these young people displayed.  See for yourself:

http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?ID=15357

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with their conclusion, the exercise of examining the evidence from both sides is certainly preferable to merely turning on a DVD of An Inconvenient Truth a pouring one point of view into their brains. 

Having been a substitute teacher for about four years back in the 90’s, I can’t tell you the number of kids I ran into even at the high school level who were incapable of any thinking skills higher than copying a word from the textbook into a space on the worksheet.  It’s encouraging to see that middle schoolers are learning how to present different arguments, evaluate the pros and cons, and come to their own conclusion.

It’s been my experience that kids this age have an innate ability to think outside of the box; their minds still haven’t been programed into groupthink.  

Which reminds me of the story about a large truck that got stuck in an underpass with a clearance that was just a little too low for the truck to make it all the way through.  The driver tried gunning the engine, but the truck would move neither forward nor backward.  Others tried prying the truck out with crowbars, but to no avail. 

Finally, a young boy (probably about the same age as our Longmont middle schoolers) happened to walk by the scene.  He assessed the situation for a moment, and then made a suggestion that hadn’t occurred to any of the adults:

“Why don’t you just let some air out of the tires?”

From the mouths of babes …

Last month, I wrote about the phenomenon among some in the scientific community to strip anthropogenic global warming heretics of their professional titles (see http://www.ivorydome.us/2007/01/20/global-warming-dogma-and-heresy/).  Now there’s a similar move to divest Oregon’s State Climatologist of his honorific for similar acts of heresy:

http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_020607_news_taylor_title.59f5d04a.html

This is happening at the same time that Dr. Timothy Ball, Canadian climiatologist, is joining the voices of scientists who are seriously questioning the “inconvenient truth” espoused by Oscar nominee Al Gore:

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm

Another interesting explanation of global warming is the book, “Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years” by Dennis T. Avery and S. Fred Singer:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0742551172/ref=cm_rev_next/105-7979967-5086817?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155&s=books&customer-reviews.start=11

Dr. Singer has been excoriated by the Kyoto supporters for having been on the payroll of “big oil” (Is there such a thing as “small oil”?) and the tobacco industry.  But what about the others (James Spann, George Taylor, Timothy Ball, et al.)?  According to Al Gore, they’re being bought off by the Bush Administration:

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/02/gore-says-bush-administration-paying.html

Any evidence for this, Mr. Gore?

Those who believe that global warming is caused primarily by natural (rather than human) activity are providing historical and scientific evidence to support their case.  Those who continue to believe that the problem is anthropogenic are attacking the messengers, not the evidence.

As I sit at my computer watching the gently falling snow (which is expected to reach about a foot here in Amarillo), the debate about the causes of global warming (aka climate change) has been heating up yet again. 

James Spann, meteorologist with ABC 33/40 in Birmingham, Alabama, has gotten into with Heidi Cullen from the Weather Channel on the topic of whether global warming is cyclical or driven by human behavior.  Mr. Spann, one of the first meteorologists to be certified by the American Meteorological Society as a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist, takes the position that global warming is cyclical in nature.  Ms. Cullen blames it on human activity.

Apparently not satisfied to argue this topic on the merits of the evidence, Ms. Cullen has suggested that if an AMS certified meteorologist does not take the party line on global warming, perhaps the AMS ought to  consider withdrawing that meteorologist’s certification.  Mr. Spann has taken the debate to his blog at http://www.jamesspann.com/wordpress/?p=650

Such calls for the defrocking of the scientific clergy for heresy is often heard in the evolution-intelligent design debate, but with a very big difference.  Global warming is not a science vs. religion issue; I know of no biblical argument that global warming is cyclical rather than human caused. 

Mr. Spann makes a very important point that the livelihood of many in the scientific community is dependent on continuted funding (both private and public) of research into how we can slow down or reverse global warming.  If the phenomenon of global warming is cyclical rather than human caused, we have little or no control over it and all such research is moot.  Put in theological terms, this is the equivalent of Martin Luther proving that salvation is based on grace through faith, rather than the selling of indulgences to fill the coffers of the clergy.

As a non-scientist, I can’t claim to have the definitive answer on global warming.  But as a reasonably logical person and student of human nature, I wouldn’t place my bets on the side that wants to cut off debate.