"Oceans turning to acid from rise in CO2" - "A report issued by the Royal Society in the UK sounds the alarm about the world's oceans. While marine organisms need CO2 to survive, work by Caldeira and colleagues shows that too much CO2 in the ocean could lead to ecological disruption and extinctions in the marine environment." (Carnegie Institution) | Cuts in carbon dioxide emissions vital to stem rising acidity of oceans (Press Release) | Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide [.pdf 1069kb] (Royal Society) | CO2 emissions turn oceans to acid (The Guardian) | Marine crisis looms over acidifying oceans (NewScientist.com news service) | Oceans in trouble as acid levels rise (Nature)

Hmm... The Royal Society sure has a bee in its collective bonnet over anthropogenic greenhouse emissions lately.

Check out the Ordovician Mass Extinction. Note that fauna of the period included large diversity of corals, bryozoans, bivalves and gastropods (we know most about these because shells and skeletal remains fossilise best). In fact, reef builders took something of a hiding in Earth's second-most devastating mass extinction event.

Why is this significant? Well, all these shelled and reef building critters were apparently doing fine when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were an order of magnitude greater than current and anticipated levels. If these creatures, many of whose descendants are current denizens of the seas, managed to fashion calcium carbonate shells and skeletons then it would appear that atmospheric CO₂ levels are not a major determinant of the success of these marine creatures. Why would apparently insignificant levels be a problem now?

UPDATE: Readers have inquired about the headline on the feature piece: "Oceans turning to acid from rise in CO2" and wondered if seawater is literally becoming acidic. Yes and no, seawater is alkaline and expected to remain so. However, reducing pH is always termed acidification and so having a suspected change from ~8.25 to ~8.14 over some two and one-half centuries is acidification even though oceans are sliding slightly closer to neutrality (less alkaline) than they were before. It is simply the terminology and it is accurate.

For your amusement: "Heat" - "The Guardian's 34-page supplement on how global warming is changing our world." (The Guardian)

I admit not having bothered with what I assume to be their hand-wringer of the moment and include the link purely for entertainment - The Guardian is not one of our recommended information sources on climate (or any other) science.

Update: John Brignell (Number Watch) has apparently had a look at it.

"New product for US industry: 'manufactured doubt'" - "By generating and publicizing uncertainty about the scientific underpinnings of proposed action on air pollution, global warming, the health effects of tobacco and other subjects, industries have been able to ward off regulation and buy valuable time." (Austin American-Statesman)

Yeah, and these darn industry flacks have been around for ages - see:

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. -- Thomas H. Huxley

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. -- Gautama Buddha

In the virtual realm: "Future Climate Could be Hotter than Thought - Study" - "LONDON - Global temperatures in the future could be much hotter than scientists have predicted if new computer models on climate change are correct, researchers said on Wednesday." (Reuters) | Soot blamed for global warming underestimate (Fred Pearce, NewScientist.com news service)

Right... these are the aerosols that had to be included in calculations because they must be cooling the planet (because we couldn't find the warming that our dreamt up positive-feedback forcings insist should be produced). Just a small point guys, the vast majority of these aerosols occur in the northern hemisphere (where a slight warming trend is observed) and very little in the southern (where negligible warming is observed), no? So, since atmospheric carbon dioxide is really quite well mixed, with negligible difference between the hemispheres, and alleged aerosol cooling should be most prevalent in the northern hemisphere, why isn't the southern hemisphere apparently warming more quickly than the northern?

Actually, while we are on the topic, we thought it was supposed to be sulphate particulates that were allegedly causing the cooling while black carbon ("soot") was a major warming influence. Dr Jim Hansen published papers a few years ago that rather upset some of the global warming clergy by pointing to absorbing particulates, these same black carbon ("soot") particles and suggesting lowering their prevalence in the atmosphere would be a more effective means of avoiding catastrophic warming (from memory Tom Wigley was about the first to present a horrified counter article saying "No, no, we must work on CO₂"). Regardless, the "father" of global warming hysteria went so far as to classify black carbon particulates ("soot") as absorbing particles with a warming influence on the atmosphere (and who would argue black carbon particulates do not absorb IR?) yet here we have models suggesting "soot" cools the atmosphere.

Well? Are black carbon particulates to be treated as a net positive or net negative climate forcing? What work has been done to change the way in which they are viewed? Why have models been reworked to treat warming influences as cooling ones?

The more we learn about the production of these warming "forecasts" the less-well founded in empirical reality they appear to be. Not that we're too surprised, over the few decades of their iterative evolution, GCMs have become complex heaps of fudge factors, guesstimated parameters and wishful thinking, collectively run at breathtaking speeds on very expensive hardware, seemingly for the express purpose of taking perfectly good data and using it to generate absolute nonsense.

Surely now we have arrived at a point where we are absolutely dazzled by our ability to perform all these calculations on these lovely expensive machines while having overlooked inconvenient details - such as not knowing which calculations need to be performed.

How should we represent clouds, will increased evaporation be a positive or negative feedback? Will there be more or less precipitation on ice shields? What effect will there be on planetary albedo? Is shading more an influence than black carbon absorption? Is UHIE adequately compensated for in the near-surface amalgam? Why don't proxies (e.g. dendrochronology) show similar warming over the last few decades as does the near-surface amalgam? What temperature should be considered "normal"? What is the planet's temperature now? These are basic questions without satisfactory answers.

GCMs crank out warming scenarios? Well whoopee duck! That's what they're programmed to do. The possibility of one accidentally "predicting" the future is, however, vanishingly small. Gosh this is a silly game.

The EU's CO₂ emissions are rising, because of a booming economy, right? Nope: "Big European economies weak" - "PARIS - Continental Europe's two biggest economies showed little sign of vibrancy in unemployment reports released on Thursday, with a marginal dip in Germany and no real change in France, where household confidence unexpectedly slid. Britain, which has enjoyed stronger expansion than the main euro zone countries for years, announced that first-quarter growth was lower than it first thought, cutting its quarterly rise to 0.4 from 0.5 percent initially.

The news was not all bad, however. The European Commission said the business climate improved for the first time this year in June and there were signs of better morale in the industrial and service sectors, although a preliminary Commission readout on inflation showed a June rise to 2.1 percent from 1.9 in May. Germany's seasonally adjusted rate of unemployment fell to 11.7 percent in June from 11.8 percent, and the jobless total in adjusted terms fell 23,000 to 4.858 million, the Labour office said.

France's jobless rate remained at 10.2 percent for a third month running, the Labour Ministry announced in a report which coincided with news from the statistics office that household confidence slid slightly in June." (Reuters)

Annual European Community greenhouse gas inventory 1990-2003 and inventory report 2005

Surely misreported... "Oceans at risk from global warming-scientists" - "LONDON - Thousands of marine species are at risk from global warming because of acidification of the world's oceans, scientists said on Thursday. The Royal Society said in a report that the seas were currently absorbing one tonne of carbon dioxide -- the prime greenhouse gas -- per person per year and were simply running out of capacity to absorb it. It called on next week's summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations to take action." (Reuters)

Acidification, whether significant or not, is not a result of "global warming" but of carbon dioxide absorption, something that occurs continuously and did so even when there were no people or SUVs. As bizarre as emanations from the Royal Society have become it is difficult to believe they have become so slipshod as to confuse temperature with atmospheric gas constituents.

"Warmer air may cause increased Antarctic sea ice cover" - "Predicted increases in precipitation due to warmer air temperatures from greenhouse gas emissions may actually increase sea ice volume in the Antarctic's Southern Ocean. This may indicate that climate change processes may have varying impacts on different areas of the globe." (American Geophysical Union)

"U.S. Automobile, Factory Emissions Cut by More than Half Since 1970" - "Washington -- Emissions from factories and automobiles in the United States today are less than half of what they were in 1970, even though the U.S. economy grew by almost 200 percent over the same period, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official told participants during a June 29 Internet chat." (Washington File)

Still trying to take us to the Second Stone Age: "Maurice Strong: Our Man in Rio (and San Francisco, too)" - "World Environment Day was celebrated June 5 in San Francisco, the first time it was held in the U.S. The event commemorates the anniversary of the first World Conference on the Environment in Stockholm in 1972. The organizer of that meeting, Maurice Strong, has been an energy-sector CEO, an adviser to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the convener of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. He sees his new project, the Earth Council Alliance, which coalesced out of more than 100 Earth Councils around the world, as a vehicle for international cooperation and political pressure for the environment. Strong was interviewed June 3, 2005." (Michael Stoll, E Magazine)

"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialised civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?" -- Maurice Strong, Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Ronald Bailey produced some information on this rather appalling individual some years ago, see a copy here.

"“Full, True and Plain Disclosure” and Falsification" - "Full, true and plain disclosure" is a fundamental obligation in the offering of public securities. As someone with experience in this field, I’ve been reflecting for some time about the following questions:

Is there a duty of “full, true and plain disclosure” or its equivalent in science? If so, how is it expressed in journal policies and science codes of conduct? If not, should there be such a duty? (Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit)

Can't keep their stories straight for two weeks: "Conifer trees get the chop" - "Effort to restore traditional varieties of English woodland gives owners second subsidy to replace foreign species planted for timber" (The Guardian)

Oh dear! For a little background, see British tree species will make way for continental neighbours (Edie.net), which highlighted this event, where we had Elliot Morley's speech at the Trees in a Changing Climate conference.

So, if we read the scorecard correctly, British trees and traditional English woodland will not be able to survive looming climate change, so naturally landholders will be paid, from the public purse, to replace exotic timber with, um, traditional English woodland.

Must be expecting really big things from the G8 meeting, eh?

"Europe's Rising Emissions" - "How is Europe responding to the challenge of global warming? With more global warming. That may seem incongruous given all of the EU's Kyoto hype, but take a look at the latest report from the European Environmental Agency on EU greenhouse gas emissions.

In it we learn that between 2002 and 2003 emissions have increased by 53 million tons, i.e. 1.3 percent, in the EU-15 after having fallen for two years in a row. Basically all of the reductions achieved in 2001 and 2002 have been lost. According to the EEA, "The emission increase in 2003 was mainly caused by an increase in power production using coal. The colder weather in the first quarter in several EU countries, also contributed to an increased use of fossil fuels to heat homes and offices." This tells us two important things: on the one hand, despite their environmental rhetoric, European countries aren't able to promote non-carbon based fuels; on the other hand, a colder winter (are we talking about global warming?) drove emissions up, whereas in 2002 a warm summer resulted in less emissions." (Carlo Stagnaro, TCS)

"While acknowledging the global warming issue, the U.S. Senate joins President Bush in refusing to take substantial steps to begin solving it" - "The U.S. Senate voted to kill an amendment to energy legislation that would begin the process of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The decision dovetails with the Bush administration's policy of trying to halt global warming by wishing it away. By dumping the measure, backed by moderates such as John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., senators signaled that they were not ready to take economically restrictive steps to deal with the emissions that an expanding number of climatologists believe are steadily heating the Earth's atmosphere." (Houston Chronicle)

The Chronicle goes on to say "At some point, as the scientific evidence mounts, policy-makers must decide whether the price of our inaction will be too steep for future generations to pay." From the perspective of trusting souls who have allowed themselves to be stampeded by hyperbolic statements regarding global warming, this might seem a fair statement. Does their emotive appeal stand scrutiny - did they ask themselves appropriate questions first? Let's pose a few, with what answers seem most appropriate:

• Do we know anthropogenic global warming to be a serious hazard? No, we're decades to centuries short of really understanding climate and its myriad forcings.
• Assuming that it is, would Kyoto do any significant good? No, the estimated effect on global temperature will be immeasurably small and of no known benefit.
• Is there a downside to Kyoto? Yes, misdirecting public funds and resources has a negative effect and energy rationing certainly recessionary.
• Are there other possibly beneficial uses for said funds and effort? Of course.
• Could humans knowingly and predictably 'control' climate? Nope.
• Is it possible humans would be better off ignoring attempts to 'control' climate for the foreseeable future? Of course.

Houston Chronicle, you have a problem. We don't know whether we genuinely have a climate problem and we couldn't predictably adjust the climate even if we do. That leaves us with the situation where doing 'something' has an unknown possibility of doing good associated with a certainty of doing harm. Looks more like policy-makers must decide whether the price of our action will be too steep for future generations to pay.

This could get interesting... "Letters Requesting Information Regarding Global Warming Studies" -  "The Committee on Energy and Commerce has written to IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri; National Science Foundation Director Arden Bement; Dr. Michael Mann; Dr. Malcolm K. Hughes and Dr. Raymond S. Bradley, requesting information regarding global warming studies." (The Committee on Energy and Commerce)

... as far as JunkScience.com is concerned, with obvious exclusions such as patient privacy, data produced during publicly funded studies is public data. Apparently this is not the universal view.

"A Man on a Mission" - "Dr. Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has been assigned the position of Lead Author of the “observations” chapter of the upcoming (due out in 2007) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). As such, he is responsible for heading the effort to gather together and summarize the current state of scientific understanding concerning observed climate variability and change. However, based upon some recent statements that have been attributed to him, it is not clear that he can be trusted to fulfill that role." (World Climate Report)

Apparently not the kind you look up: "FEATURE-Kyoto protocol: waste of cash or green lifeline?" - "BONN, Germany, June 27 - A waste of more than $1,300 a year for every American, undermining economic growth and jobs? Or a lifeline for the planet costing just an annual $20 for each European? The U.N.'s Kyoto protocol on curbing global warming looks utterly different when viewed from Washington, which opposes the 150-nation pact, or from its main backers in the European Union, Japan or Canada. So who is right?" (Reuters)

So, if it's only an annual cost of $20/European why do the figures look like this following a period of, well, pitiful growth (at least in the EU):

• Canada: 1990-levels +20%
• Denmark: 1990-levels +6% (2010 target +27%)
• Greece: (projected) 1990-levels +38.6% by 2010
• Ireland: (projected) 1990-levels +29.4% by 2010
• Japan: variously described as 1990-levels +8% - 1990-levels +12.1%
• Portugal: (projected) 1990-levels +53.1% by 2010
• Spain: (projected) 1990-levels +48.3% by 2010 (numbers curtesy EnviroSpin Watch)

Sounds like a bargain for Europeans since slashing their energy use by one-third only upsetting productivity by $20/European/year suggests they don't do much productive work with all that energy anyway.

Uh-oh! Someone's off-message... "Climate change: not a global threat" - "MOSCOW -- One issue on the table at the G8 summit at Gleneagles in early July is global climate change. As I see it, this problem is overshadowed by many fallacies and misconceptions that often form the basis for important political decisions. G8 leaders should pay attention to them. There is no proven link between human activity and global warming." (Yury Izrael, Director, Global Climate and Ecology Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences and IPCC Vice President, for RIA Novosti)

"Kyoto and the Art of Political Backtracking" - "Why should the Kyoto Protocol (the UN agreement to reduce man-made emissions of CO2 in order to counter global warming) be canceled as soon as possible? The answer is that its underlying science is fatally flawed; it costs a fortune; it will have almost no cooling effect (0.02 degree Celsius in 2050); and, finally, it will play havoc with our economic system, with dire implications for our prosperity and freedom." (Hans Labohm, TCS)

"Charles Secrett: 'We are killing the planet. That is not an exaggeration'" - "The statistics released yesterday are a wake-up call to individuals and families that we're all responsible for climate change. Too many people think: "Climate change has nothing to do with me - it's the fault of government and industry." But statistics like this show the cumulative effect of millions of people doing the wrong thing." (London Independent)

You know Charlie, you're right! It's not an "exaggeration" - it's a complete fabrication! There's been life on this Solar-orbiting mote for hundreds of millions of years, it's been irradiated, cooked, chilled and walloped by whopping chunks of space trash and still it persists. Silly thing is, the "worst" case scenario postulated involves the "catastrophic" warming of the planet from current temperatures to about half-way nearer where they were when the biosphere really boomed (we think it's about 14 °C now and was about 22 °C when giants trod the Earth). The chance of any IPCC storyline leading to >2 °C warming ever playing out in the real world is roughly zero so, sadly, we will not see a return to the Utopian world where the tropics extend to about 45° North and South latitudes and the temperate zones extend to the poles. Oh well...

Oh my! "'Earthy evangelist' changes US climate" - "Europe's environmental activists are not renowned for their faith in the power of prayer. But in the run-up to the G8 summit they should put their hands together for the Rev Richard Cizik. One of America's senior evangelical leaders, the lanky Virginian preacher is an unlikely ally of the Greens given the Christian Right's reputation for being in lockstep with the White House. The Bush administration is famously sceptical over global warming and greenhouse gas emissions and notoriously cosy with big business, especially the oil companies. Mr Cizik is, however, in the vanguard of a striking new movement: evangelicals prodding President George W Bush to take action on global warming. And his stance cannot easily be dismissed as radical nonsense, as the Green cause is traditionally mocked by the Right." (London Daily Telegraph)

So, uh, Reverend, can you tell us how you feel about the increase in global crop yields, variously estimated at 15% and above, attributed to increase in global atmospheric carbon dioxide acting as an aerial fertiliser? The US is "accused" of contributing about one-fourth of that increased aerial fertiliser to the world free, no strings attached.

Then there's all that food aid donated by the US, some available because of the aerial fertilisation and more due to extensive use of fossil fuels that also liberates said aerial fertiliser, free for anyone in the world to use.

And what about the wealth generated by the US utilising said fossil fuels that liberate the plant food that ultimately supports just about all God's creatures, which the US uses to underwrite donations of food and other aid and which finances the protectors of democracy and liberators of the oppressed that they might worship the God(s) of their choosing?

Without even bothering to get into research funding, health and development aid and little things like being the engine of growth that has so lifted standards of living for so much of the world, could you tell us Reverend, do you view the world as better or worse off for the efforts of the United States of America?

Could you explain to us please Reverend, just how the world might be better off if the US cripples the engine of the world's wealth? To whom will developing economies sell their goods if we plunge the world into recession? The EU already discriminates heavily against developing nations' crops and products, they will not champion development-enabling free trade. Who will prosper if the US rations energy as the EU claims is necessary but will not do?

Reverend?

"Time for Action on Global Warming!" - "I've decided it's time to get serious about Global Warming. The national academies of science of eleven nations recently united to warn us of impeding climatic doom resulting from our careless inflation of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from its God-ordained 19^th century value of 0.00029 to the current astronomical magnitude of 0.00038. With increasing fears that this extra plant food will cause a choking of our cities and highways with unwanted greenery, and the Russians' concern that winter temperatures will warm above -40 deg. F, thus changing the hibernation habits of the endangered Siberian snow snake, I must now join the chorus of voices calling for action." (Roy Spencer, TCS)

Oh boy... "Leader: Global warming - The message hits home" - "Summer heat and sudden floods are a reminder that even the British climate has its extremes. But if the rock-solid scientific consensus on global warming is proved to be right over the coming century, heatwaves, storms, droughts and flooding will cease to be a surprise." (The Guardian)

See "The Not So Clear Consensus on Climate Change" [.pdf]

"Stepping up the Pressure" - "As the G8 summit to be held in Gleneagles, Scotland nears, the Bush Administration finds itself coming under increasing pressure to alter its course on climate change. A couple of weeks ago, British Prime Minister and acting G8 head Tony Blair came to Washington to persuade President Bush to see global warming as a looming threat necessitating dramatic measures to abate it -- measures that could be hammered out at the upcoming G-8 summit. All indications are that Blair was unsuccessful. Now, several leading U.S. newspapers have tried their hand at the issue by applying a different tactic -- running stories which give the appearance of "exposing" an Administration conspiracy to suppress the true nature of the global warming problem." (Pat Michaels, TCS)

Planetary Temperature and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO₂): One point apparently causing confusion among our readers is the relative abundance of CO₂ in the atmosphere today as compared with Earth's historical levels. Most people seem surprised when we say current levels are relatively low, at least from a long-term perspective - understandable considering the constant media/activist bleat about current levels being allegedly "catastrophically high." Even more express surprise that Earth is currently suffering one of its chilliest episodes in about six hundred million (600,000,000) years.

Given that the late Ordovician suffered an ice age (with associated mass extinction) while atmospheric CO₂ levels were more than 4,000ppm higher than those of today (yes, that's a full order of magnitude higher), levels at which current 'guesstimations' of climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO₂ suggest every last skerrick of ice should have been melted off the planet, we admit significant scepticism over simplistic claims of small increment in atmospheric CO₂ equating to toasted planet. Granted, continental configuration now is nothing like it was then, Sol's irradiance differs, as do orbits, obliquity, etc., etc. but there is no obvious correlation between atmospheric CO₂ and planetary temperature over the last 600 million years, so why would such relatively tiny amounts suddenly become a critical factor now?

Adjacent graphic 'Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time' from Climate and the Carboniferous Period (Monte Hieb, with paleomaps by Christopher R. Scotese). Why not drop by and have a look around?

"Deepak Lal: Hot air over Gleneagles" - "Theories about global warming fail to stand the test of history." (Business-Standard)

"Arctic's season of dread" - "Canada's eastern Arctic, one of the last places on the planet to resist global warming, is finally succumbing to the greenhouse effect." (Ottawa Sun)

Some bizarre anecdotal "evidence" in this one. Who could fail to be moved at the recounting of the hunter losing his legs after a fall through rotten ice? Surely the tragic human face of catastrophic global warming - except the surface air temperature is cited as -33 °C for that February day, hardly marginal ice conditions. What else besides "global warming" could account for his accident? We'll never know but there are active submarine volcanoes in the Arctic, perhaps the ice was subjected to a warm water lavage and eroded from below (polynya occur for various reasons, ranging from small to truly enormous), perhaps it's as simple as a snow covered seal breathing hole, enlarged by a hunting bear - meltdown at -33 °C, however, seems somewhat unlikely. That and the fact the Arctic has seen no net warming since 1938.

Because people regularly request it: "The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea" - "Sea surface temperature (SST), salinity, and flux of terrigenous material oscillated on millennial time scales in the Pleistocene North Atlantic, but there are few records of Holocene variability. Because of high rates of sediment accumulation, Holocene oscillations are well documented in the northern Sargasso Sea. Results from a radiocarbon-dated box core show that SST was ~1 °C cooler than today ~400 years ago (the Little Ice Age) and 1700 years ago, and ~1 °C warmer than today 1000 years ago (the Medieval Warm Period). Thus, at least some of the warming since the Little Ice Age appears to be part of a natural oscillation." (Lloyd D. Keigwin, Science, 274: 1503-1508)

or here: "Sedimentary Record Yields Several Centuries of Data" - "The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea

These results are exciting for a few reasons. First, events as young and as brief as the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period have never before been resolved in deep sea sediments from the open ocean. Because the Sargasso Sea has a rather uniform temperature and salinity distribution near the surface, it seems that these events must have had widespread climatic significance. The Sargasso Sea data indicate that the Medieval Warm Period may have actually been two events separated by 500 years, perhaps explaining why its timing and extent have been so controversial. Second, it is evident that the climate system has been warming for a few hundred years, and that it warmed even more from 1,700 years ago to 1,000 years ago. There is considerable discussion in the scientific literature and the popular press about the cause of warming during the present century. Warming of about half a degree this century has been attributed to the human-induced "greenhouse effect." Although this is not universally accepted, it is widely accepted that eventually changes to Earth's atmosphere will cause climate warming. The message from the Bermuda Rise is that human-induced warming may be occurring at the same time as natural warming—not an ideal situation. Finally, building on the studies of physical oceanographers and climatologists, marine geologists and paleoclimatologists may use the North Atlantic Oscillation as a model for understanding North Atlantic climate change on longer, century and millennial time scales." (Lloyd D. Keigwin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

and, for something from 'the other side' of the world: "General characteristics of temperature variation in China during the last two millennia" - "ABSTRACT: Three alternate China-wide temperature composites covering the last 2000 years were established by combining multiple paleoclimate proxy records obtained from ice cores, tree rings, lake sediments and historical documents. Five periods of temperature variation can be identified: a warm stage in AD 0-240, a cold interval between AD 240 and 800, a return to warm conditions from AD 800-1400, including the Medieval Warm Period between AD 800-1100, the cool Little Ice Age period between 1400-1920, and the present warm stage since 1920. Regional temperature variation is found during AD 800-1100, when warm conditions occurred in Eastern China and in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau and in AD 1150-1380, when the southern Tibetan Plateau experienced a warm interval. In contrast, evidence for cool conditions during the LIA is more consistent among the proxy records. The temperature reconstructions for China and the Northern Hemisphere show good agreement over the past millennium." (Geophysical Research Letters, 10.1029/2001GL014485)

For more on broad/globally distributed evidence of the the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age try: Mayewski et al. Quaternary Research 62: 243-255; Loehle, Ecological Modelling 171: 433-450; Holmgren et al. The Holocene 9: 295-309; Bard et al. Tellus 52B: 985-992; Krenke and Chernavskaya Isvestiya, Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics 38: S59-S79; Soon and Baliunas Climate Research 23: 89-110; Bond et al. Science 294: 2130-2136; Broecker Natural History 110 (8): 60-69; Huang and Pollack Geophysical Research Letters 24: 1947-1950 and so on...

Curious, isn't it, that with mention of evidence of these events discovered around the world being almost common in the literature, (or at least not difficult to find), that the IPCC so thoroughly adopted Mann and that hokey hockey stick graph, virtually airbrushing out two of the most important events in a millennium of human history. People and cultures have prospered or suffered in accord with these climatic cues, history did not imagine them.

Bizarrely, the graph depicts proxies to 1980 with an "instrument record" appended for dramatic effect, despite there being an abundance of proxies available to continue a like record. Perhaps the failure of proxies to emulate that appendage disqualifies them or perhaps, just perhaps, failure of proxy and instruments to concur on recent temps and trends so breaks the association that "alarming warming" disappears.

This leads to a number of possibilities: the simplest, Mann disagrees with a multitude of studies and recorded history - Mann's graph is broken or; Mann is right - history and a wealth of other researchers are wrong or; Mann's method of dealing with proxies is correct - continuation of the proxies show that the "instrument record" is purely an artefact of UHIE. Since options 1 and 3 suggest nothing abnormal and so no problem and option 2 suggests there's only a problem if history is wrong, all we need to do is decide whether Mann is wrong, or history is.

Twaddle: "While the G8 waters down its plans to combat climate change, the Antarctic ice sheet is melting far faster than we thought. The consequences could be devastating" - "‘This is definitely not science fiction ... it could happen’" (Rob Edwards, Environment Editor, Sunday Herald) | Melting polar ice caps are scientific fact, yet the G8 leaders won’t act (Sunday Herald)

Uh, Rob? The Antarctic is gaining ice mass, not losing it and the bulk of Antarctica is cooling. The portion of the Antarctic Peninsula where recent warming has been observed and where some relatively tiny and insignificant ice shelves have collapsed is actually not within the Antarctic but protrudes north of the region towards South America. The 'consequences' of this will never be known because the effect is immeasurably small on a global scale.

"Global Warming Heats Up in Senate" - "Global warming is a hot issue in Congress right now, but not just because of pressure from the usual suspects in the radical eco-activist movement. Instead, a few businesses are leading the charge — which happens to be calculated to fill their coffers at the public's expense." (Steven Milloy, FoxNews.com)

Aha! Greenhouse warming... "How much excess fresh water was added to the North Atlantic in recent decades?" - "Large regions of the North Atlantic Ocean have been growing fresher since the late 1960s as melting glaciers and increased precipitation, both associated with greenhouse warming, have enhanced continental runoff into the Arctic and sub-Arctic seas. Over the same time period, salinity records show that large pulses of extra sea ice and fresh water from the Arctic have flowed into the North Atlantic. But, until now, the actual amounts and rates of fresh water accumulation have not been explicitly known." (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

... or not. Turns out fully half the "excess" fresh water flow 1965-1995 entered the North Atlantic in the late 1960s - when global cooling was the alarm du jour.

Meanwhile, in Trenberth's virtual world: "NCAR climate expert: Hurricanes to intensify as Earth warms" - "Warmer oceans, more moisture in the atmosphere, and other factors suggest that human-induced climate change will increase hurricane intensity and rainfall, according to climate expert Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. His paper, "Uncertainty in Hurricanes and Global Warming," appears in the June 17 issue of Science." (NCAR/UCAR) | Uncertainty in Hurricanes and Global Warming (Science, Vol 308, Issue 5729, 1753-1754) | Debating whether global warming will trigger nastier hurricanes (Scripps Howard News Service)

Flashback: Scientist resigns from UN global warming body saying IPCC has a pre-conceived agenda - "After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns...

I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound. As the IPCC leadership has seen no wrong in Dr. Trenberth's actions and have retained him as a Lead Author for the AR4, I have decided to no longer participate in the IPCC AR4." (Chris Landsea, Open letter)

Climate models to face the music? Meet Ensemble: "RESEARCH: More accurate climate change predictions" - "They say ‘great minds think alike’ but the essence of large-scale integrated projects is to put the best minds – frequently from different disciplines – towards solving major scientific problems. One European project, called Ensemble, takes this grouping principle to the next level, assembling partners from all over the world to come up with more accurate predictions for climate change. Predicting climate change – whether from natural or man-made causes – is notoriously difficult because of uncertainties in weather forecasting and problems with data reliability and key processes used, lament scientists. For the first time, thanks to European Union funding, a group of research teams spanning the globe will develop a common aggregated climate forecasting system covering various timescales and spatial spreads – i.e. regional, local, national." (European Commission) | Ensemble

We've heard of 'sexing up' climate predictions but this is the first (potential) model we know of with its own gender committee.

Another surprise for those who believe we have this climate thing sorted, we're beginning to work out [dramatic drum roll please]... Seasonal Cues: "Scientists gain insight into spring onset, better forecasting expected" - "Scientists have discovered that the interplay between two layers of the atmosphere plays a major role in the arrival of spring -- a finding that could lead to improved weather and climate forecasting." (Georgia Institute of Technology Research News)

"First test of predictions of climate change impacts on biodiversity: Reliance on just one model no better than flipping a coin!" - "In a fascinating new study published this week in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, a group of Oxford Scientists have tested the ability of environmental science to predict the future. Dr Miguel Araújo and his colleagues tested 16 commonly used climate-envelope models against real data from 1991. "The accuracy of the predictions can be drastically increased if a set of alternative models are compared and used together to create a 'consensus' projection." (Blackwell Publishing Ltd.)

This shouldn't be but probably is revelatory for many even though news has long been in the public domain that the "swarm" (multiple model) projection utilising realistic CO₂ trends barely differs from a lineal projection of the last century's gentle recovery from the Little Ice Age. How much warming from 1880-2100? About 1 °C - 1.5 °C, with about half that amount having already occurred (ie, if the trend continues we could see another 0.5 °C - 0.75 °C increase this century). Sadly, this "consensus position" (of climate models) was almost immediately buried by a deluge of "Big Carbon Propaganda!" claims and promptly ignored.

"To avoid further accusations of crystal ball gazing, environmentalists and scientists now need to find further ways of improving the accuracy of models to provide more meaningful inputs into environmental policy making." That would be good.

"'If we don't improve our forecasting soon then not only will the climate skeptics find it easy to criticize climate change research, but we will be left making decisions about the future of the planet based on guesswork' says Dr Ladle." We do and we are, which is why nasty sceptics vehemently object to diverting vast sums from potentially useful availability and squandering them on panicked 'do something' protocols having at least as much chance of doing harm as doing good.

"Global warming cyclical, says climate expert" - "Carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas and has helped produce the "green" world agricultural revolution, according to an Australian climate expert. Rob Carter, from James Cook University in Townsville, said the rising level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in recent decades had boosted agricultural crop yields. "Carbon dioxide is the best aerial fertiliser we know about," he told the Victorian Farmers Federation in Morwell late last week. Professor Carter, a marine geologist, is research professor in the university's Marine Geophysical Laboratory. He said the Kyoto Protocol would cost billions, even trillions, of dollars and would have a devastating effect on the economies of countries that signed it. "It will deliver no significant cooling - less than 0.02 degrees Celsius by 2050," he said. "The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been the main scaremonger for the global warming lobby . . . Fatally, the IPCC is a political, not a scientific body." (The Age, Melbourne)

An interesting problem: "Betting on Climate Change: It's time to put up or shut up" - "Reporting on the climate change debate is not for sissies. For example, one line in an article I wrote back in November discussing the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment triggered a furor among climate change bloggers. I reported a bet by MIT climatologist Richard Lindzen that in 20 years global average temperatures would be lower than they are now. This "bet" circulated as blogfodder in climatological circles." (Ronald Bailey, Reason)

Hmm... how could such a wager be fairly structured? What positions could advocate and "contrarian" take? How would we determine the winner? What metrics could we use? Let's see what we can come up with:

Representing industrial-strength Anthropogenic Global-warming in the blue corner, let's call them AG (please, no blind Patagonian Sheep jokes) and, in the red corner, we'll have Usual Situation (US).

So, we would have to assume AG would take the position of at least the median IPCC estimate of +1 °C over the 1990 figure by 2025 (our 20-year bet) and we've already hit a problem. The GISS Global Surface Air Temperature Anomaly (C) (Base: 1951-1980) suggests 1990 was a tad warm so we may be unfairly biasing against AG by using this figure. Let's try the 5-year mean from that same record and make the bet on the 5-year mean for 2025 (not available until after 2027 because it averages 2 forward and 2 back from the target year). This looks a better proposition (ooh! sorry) since it will reduce El Niño and other transient effects.

Now, we don't have quite the number of records we'd like but -0.14 °C is the mean of the first 5 years of the record and is probably close enough for our requirements. US contends +0.5 °C over 11 decades is none too exciting and a continuation of that gentle recovery from the chill conditions of the Little Ice Age could lead to near enough +0.6 °C over 13.5 decades (to 2025, in other words) so 1990's 5-year mean +0.11 °C.

Defining our figures then we have AG punting for a target global mean temperature of 1951-1980 mean (14 °C*) + 1990 5-year mean of +0.36 + 1 °C for an aggregate of 15.36 °C and US tipping 1951-1980 mean (14 °C*) + 1990 5-year mean of +0.36 + 0.11 °C for an aggregate of 14.47 °C (rounded to 15.4 °C vs 14.5 °C here for convenience).

Now we come to the problem of that darn "*" seen above. The estimated global mean absolute surface temperature 1951-1980 is 14 °C ± 0.7 °C. It's like that because we're really not that flash when it comes to determining the actual temperature of the planet yet and we could even be getting worse due to urban heat island effect (UHIE) corrupting the near-surface temperature amalgam (records such as GISTEMP are beginning to race ahead of atmospheric measures and the discrepancy appears to be worsening).

Our situation then would appear to be AG punting a range of about 14.7 °C through 16.1 °C versus US with 13.8 °C through 15.2 °C and a mutually-claimed zone of 14.7 °C through 15.2 °C.

What to do?

We could declare the overlap a "no joy" zone, I suppose (should the house win or all bets off?). Then there's unforeseen transients like explosive volcanic events in the preceding year or two - might need to declare such things as bet invalidators too...

Climate's not really a binary situation is it, rather more nuanced than usually presented and, given our precision difficulties, trying to work out just what is happening turns out to be looking through a glass darkly.

What do you think? If you believe you can work out a fair wager for climate over 20 years, drop us a line. Workable entries may be published.

Wow! This will not suit Big Warming: "Warmer, wetter and better (or the good news that the climate change lobby doesn't want you to hear)" - "Just when it seemed that the dark clouds had lifted, they all came back again. Not Britain's on-again, off-again summer, but climate scientists calling for action to prevent global catastrophe.

... Yet, just as the clamour for action grows in anticipation of next month's G8 meeting in Scotland, another group of academics has begun fighting to have its voice heard. It includes experts in fields ranging from agriculture to medicine, and most of them agree that something strange is happening to the Earth's climate.

Where they part company with Lord May is in their assessment of the threat it poses. After studying the likely consequences for everything from crop yields to human health, their results are anything but apocalyptic. They have found that a hotter planet brings with it many benefits, and that humans can adapt perfectly well to it.

Indeed, far from joining the calls for action, some now warn that trying to prevent climate change could prove far more catastrophic than learning to live with it. Nor is this cheery vision based solely on questionable computer models. Analysis of past episodes of dramatic - but entirely natural - climate change repeatedly shows the benefits of a warmer world." (London Telegraph)

"Inhofe Introduces Ratepayers Protection Act of 2005" - "WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee, introduced legislation today that will ensure the costs associated with actions taken by utilities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are not transferred to disadvantaged Americans. As the need for those reductions is not grounded in science, it is important that those costs are not passed on to electricity consumers. The Ratepayers Protection Act of 2005 is prompted by research that has shown poor and disadvantaged individuals are negatively impacted by energy rate increases due to climate change-related costs." (Environment and Public Works)

"Remember (the) Maine!" - "The search for a sustainable climate change policy took small steps in the right direction in Maine this year." (Jon Reisman, TCS)

Good! "Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming" - "A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents." (New York Times)

If only a lot more government aides and bureaucrats were as diligent in damping unfounded hysteria and ridiculous overstatement the world just might be focussed on real issues rather than this ridiculous sideshow.

At least a couple of times a week people write to me on the topic of global warming, either abusing me as some kind of Earth-toasting global conspirator (usually following some slur and innuendo laden article by advocates of Big Warming) or wondering why I'm less than excited by claims of looming heated catastrophe. Let me see if I can very briefly explain:

1. We think we can figure out the global mean temperature to within a range of about 1.5 °C (about 2.5 °F)
2. We think Earth may have warmed between one-third and one-half that range over the last century or so
3. We think there might be a recent warming trend in near-surface measures but don't know if that's purely an artefact of sampling in and around cities and urban environs
4. Neither balloon-sonde nor satellite-mounted MSU measures of the lower troposphere indicate alarming warming
5. Our ability to model the complex, chaotic, coupled, non-linear system we call the atmosphere is in its infancy and our understanding of climate woefully insufficient to make predictions. Of 9 broad inputs the IPCC classifies our level of scientific understanding as "Very Low" for 5 of them, incredibly including solar and land use (albedo) [don't take my word for it, see table 6.12 of the Third Assessment Report]. You'd expect, given Sol is the source of planetary warmth, that very low understanding of Sol's role in driving the planet's climate, coupled with equally poor understanding of albedo (that is how much solar radiation is reflected and how much actually absorbed by the planet), would give people pause before pontificating on climatic trends - at least I so expect.
6. Climate change is inevitable, that's what it does.
7. We should hope that said inevitable change is for the warmer - cold is very hard on humanity and the biosphere.

So, we don't know the planet's temperature, we think it's likely warming but not by very much, we have no useful agreement between methods of deriving the planet's temperature except those that show no significant warming and we don't understand the system well enough to make useful predictions. Oh, and on the strength of this we are supposed to spend trillions of (1990 US) dollars to 'fix' it (see IPCC's 'correcting figure 73' down-revising cost estimates by two orders of magnitude).

I think that about covers it.

Inevitably someone will want to argue about the above so here's the address again (that's editor 'at' junkscience.com). There's no guarantee I'll continue to reply to the same tired nonsense though. Here's a tip on how not to approach such discussion: claims that 'contrarians' are paid agents of big something-or-other while enhanced greenhouse advocates act out of pure altruism just don't cut it - to begin with this telegraphs that you know nothing of academia and publish-or-die pressures and secondly paints you as extremely naive believing researchers don't frame their grant applications and results in an effort to grab some of the billions of dollars annually hosed over shrill claims of looming climate disaster (see, for example, livestock researchers trying to develop vaccines to increase the feed conversion efficiency of ruminants applying for global warming mitigation research funds on the grounds of reducing livestock methane emissions (despite the rate of atmospheric methane increase having fallen below zero)).

Too silly for words: "Nations told 'curb greenhouse gas to fight warming'" - "THE national science academies of all the G8 countries issued an unprecedented challenge to their governments yesterday, urging immediate action to curb greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming. Scientific evidence about the causes and impacts of climate change is now so clear that effective measures to address them can no longer be delayed, the elite institutions said." (Mark Henderson, London Times) | Read the scientists' statement in full

We have to wonder whether any of these guys actually read any of the IPCC Third Assessment Report or simply went on the fanciful "Summary for Policymakers" (which seemingly bears little relation to the TAR). Even then they should have noted such inconstancies as: "Since the start of the satellite record in 1979, both satellite and weather balloon measurements show that the global average temperature of the lowest 8 kilometres of the atmosphere has changed by +0.05 ± 0.10°C per decade, but the global average surface temperature has increased significantly by +0.15 ± 0.05°C per decade. The difference in the warming rates is statistically significant." (WG1 - Summary for Policymakers) In fact, even that document goes so far as to state: "The record shows a great deal of variability; for example, most of the warming occurred during the 20th century, during two periods, 1910 to 1945 and 1976 to 2000." OK, so the first warming period was prior to most of the increase in atmospheric GHGs (they omit mention of the cooling 1950s through 1970s but I guess mention of the looming ice age scare is a tad embarrassing) and then we had both a cooling and recovery during the period of most significant GHG increase.

We just have to point this out guys, a warming without and both cooling and warming with significant GHG increase do not causation make.

And that rising sea level thing? The same IPCC document suggests a possible 0.1m to 0.2m rise over the entire 20^th Century (plausible, as far as we know we're still emerging from the last great glaciation) so, at that rate, it'll take 500 to 1,000 years to rise 1m (about 3 feet), suggesting we might have time to get out of the way.

Rightly: "Bush seeks 'to know more' about global warming" - "President George W. Bush on Tuesday promised to take action on US greenhouse gas emissions, but said the US first needed to know more about the phenomenon of global warming. At the White House after talks with Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, Mr Bush said the US would continue to lead the world on investment in technology to diversify away from the use of fossil fuels. However, in remarks that will disappoint environmentalists, Mr Bush appeared to suggest he still had doubts about the scientific evidence behind global warning. “We need to know more about it,” he said. “It's a lot easier to solve when you know more about it.” (Financial Times)

"A New Alpine Melt Theory" - "The Alpine glaciers are shrinking, that much we know. But new research suggests that in the time of the Roman Empire, they were smaller than today. And 7,000 years ago they probably weren't around at all. A group of climatologists have come up with a controversial new theory on how the Alps must have looked over the ages." (Hilmar Schmundt, Der Spiegel)

Oh dear... "And what if the sceptics are wrong?" - "Climate change is one of mankind's greatest challenges. In the past 30 years world temperatures have increased by almost 0.5C. We cannot predict with certainty what will happen now, but the risk of abrupt climate change certainly exists. Human activity is increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to levels unprecedented in human history. If we do nothing, or next to nothing, those levels will continue to rise, progressively increasing the risk of runaway global warming." (Michael Howard, The Guardian)

Um, Michael? Kyoto isn't a small, short-term cost whose only consequences are 'the reward of greener, cleaner technologies for saving and generating energy.' Such naivety is frightening. Signing on to the 'catastrophic global warming' scare involves massive misdirection of funds, even a small portion of which could and would save lives if applied to third world development. And the 'reward' for such misdirection? No measurable difference in global mean temperature, even after 50 years.

It's long past due that we bury the illusion panicked acceptance of silly protocols is a low-cost option with broad upsides and made plain that such cavalier disregard for empirical science and human needs comes complete with associated third world body count and untold human misery.

In answer to the question posed in the item title the answer is "Nothing." Why? Because even if Kyoto were to be completely implemented, which it most certainly will not be, a 'saving' of a paltry few hundredths of a degree will make no perceptible difference - making all expenditure on it a complete waste. If sceptics are right we're not going to know with any certainty for quite some decades but at least we will have used available finance and effort significantly more rationally. If sceptics are wrong the world will be in a better (more affordable) position to adapt. Either way the human condition will be significantly enhanced over where it would be if we did sacrifice the engines of wealth creation to the superstition firstly that inevitable change must be bad and secondly that we could knowingly control and adjust it. For goodness sake think rather than simply regurgitating Green myths.

Weekly Whipple: "Ocean Warming Supports Models" - "Clear evidence of human-produced warming in the oceans verifies some of the most important predictions of climate models, suggesting it is time for action instead of argument about the existence of greenhouse warming, according to a paper by Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientists." (Dan Whipple, UPI)

Is it me or are these claims becoming increasingly desperate? What we know about ocean temperatures is limited, to say the least and our database of historical baseline measures is, to all intent and purpose, empty. We end up with a 'trend analysis' with error margins significantly greater than the surmised trend and then claim that models, programmed to produce such a figure in response to fed parameter values, actually 'prove' the veracity of the figure they are programmed to produce. Supplementing this we have the recycled 'smoking gun' claim of Earth's radiative imbalance - using immeasurably small figures that are but a fraction of the error margin. This is not a clear signal but a hopeful mislabelling of noise.

"William Kininmonth: Climate change is a natural phenomenon" - "AS Australia develops policies for its diverse energy resources there is a need to ensure that the policies are based on sound economics, technologies and science. Unfortunately, it is representation of the science of climate change where there is most uncertainty, including a fair degree of misrepresentation." (The Australian)

"Senator Inhofe delivers final "four pillars" climate change speech" - "WASHINGTON (05/26/05) -- Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee has delivered the final of four major speeches on the issue of climate change.

Inhofe is a prominent skeptic of the science behind global warming and has delivered four speeches over the last several weeks in an effort to debunk what he describes as the "four pillars of climate change alarmism." The fourth speech, given on the floor of the United States Senate this week, addressed the data produced by climate models, which proponents claim supposedly provide irrefutable evidence of global warming consensus." (Capitol Reports) | The full text of Inhofe's four speeches is available online

Speaking of models: "India Rings Alarm Bells on Monsoon Prediction" - "NEW DELHI - An Indian government research body on Thursday forecast dismal rains in the first half of the four-month monsoon season, creating uncertainty about farm growth and crop yields in the farm-dependent economy. Painting a grim picture, the Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation forecast monsoon rains in June to be 34 percent below normal, reversing its earlier forecast of 22 percent excess rainfall in the month." (Reuters) [Em added]

Don't misunderstand - it is of tremendous importance that we gain understanding of and (hopefully) ability to predict Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR), in fact very many people's lives and livelihoods depend on it. You can see our concern regarding models though - here we have an intensely studied, critical phenomenon (ISMR), one of relatively minor complexity compared with long-term global climate and yet consecutive attempts to forecast this month's rainfall range from norm+34% to norm-22%. It is somewhat difficult to gather great enthusiasm for GCMs when we demonstrate such difficulty replicating even small parts of the puzzle.

and model imaginings: "Scripps-Led Global Ocean Warming Research Paper Published" - "Research led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, that describes the first clear evidence of human-produced warming in the world’s oceans will be published June 2, 2005, in the peer-reviewed journal Science. The research was first announced publicly and widely publicized in February at a news briefing at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. (For details, see http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/article_detail.cfm?article_num=666)" (Newswise)

Oh my... "New probe may silence climate sceptics" - "THOSE who deny global warming is happening often rely on somewhat error-prone satellite information about our planet. But a proposed probe could dramatically improve the accuracy of such readings and put an end to the climate change debate - at least as far as satellite evidence is concerned." (New Scientist) | The trusty sword of Truth (The Guardian)

If it "proves" catastrophic enhanced greenhouse it's correct, otherwise it's 'error-prone,' right? It's also not where real contention lies. It seems ridiculous to have to reiterate it but there is no argument that Earth is warmer than when it was cooler, the interesting bit is what is driving the change and to what degree, if any, anthropogenic GHG emissions are affecting it. Once that is established (if ever) then we would need to work out whether we could knowingly and predictably make adjustments to that effect.

"Tornado numbers far below normal in '05" - "No one died in a tornado in April or May, normally two of the three busiest months for the storms. The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center reported Wednesday that only 129 tornadoes struck the USA last month. There were more than 500 in May of both last year and 2003. Over the past decade, an average of 1,274 tornadoes a year struck the nation. For the first five months of this year, the count is 365, far below normal. In another twist, Oklahoma, in the heart of “Tornado Alley” and home to the prediction center, had zero tornadoes in May, a new record." (USA TODAY)

No, sadly, this can't be attributed to 'global warming' either.