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Crazy indeed. This AP report (Crazy ideas to combat global warming) needs to be saved so that people can laugh even harder when they look back at how bonkos this country has become for global warming:

Crazy-sounding ideas for saving the planet are getting a serious look from top scientists, a sign of their fears about global warming and the desire for an insurance policy in case things get worse.

How crazy?

There’s the man-made “volcano” that shoots gigatons of sulfur high into the air. The space “sun shade” made of trillions of little reflectors between Earth and sun, slightly lowering the planet’s temperature.

The forest of ugly artificial “trees” that suck carbon dioxide out of the air. And the “Geritol solution” in which iron dust is dumped into the ocean.

“Of course it’s desperation,” said Stanford University professor Stephen Schneider. “It’s planetary methadone for our planetary heroin addiction. It does come out of the pessimism of any realist that says this planet can’t be trusted to do the right thing.”

This one is so good, you just have to read it all. Try to gloss over the dollar figures that have already been spent on these concepts or else you’re likely to get very sad or angry or both.

It appears as though solar variability is gaining some mainstream media attention in being cited as a likely impetus for terrestrial climate change. But for confirmation of this, scientists have now begun to look beyond the Earth to other areas of our solar system. Most recently, research on the climate of Mars has confirmed warming that appears to be mirroring that of the Earth. Is my SUV destroying the climate of Mars too? As published by National Geographic, (Mars melt hints at solar, not human, cause for warming, scientist says) recent work citing solar variability as a primary cause of climate change here on Earth is gaining traction:

“Man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance,” Abdussamatov said.

By studying fluctuations in the warmth of the sun, Abdussamatov believes he can see a pattern that fits with the ups and downs in climate we see on Earth and Mars.

Abdussamatov is not alone in citing solar variability - fluctuating energy output from the sun - as a major factor in the Earth’s climate. Just last month, research published by NewScientist explores evidence of a relationship between solar variability and the ice age cycles on Earth (Sun’s fickle heart may leave us cold). Work completed by George Ehrlich of Geoge Mason University concludes:

There’s a dimmer switch inside the sun that causes its brightness to rise and fall on timescales of around 100,000 years - exactly the same period as between ice ages on Earth. So says a physicist who has created a computer model of our star’s core…

The article discusses many of the oscillations that control the temperature of the sun’s surface:

Ehrlich’s model shows that whilst most of these oscillations cancel each other out, some reinforce one another and become long-lived temperature variations. The favoured frequencies allow the sun’s core temperature to oscillate around its average temperature of 13.6 million kelvin in cycles lasting either 100,000 or 41,000 years. Ehrlich says that random interactions within the sun’s magnetic field could flip the fluctuations from one cycle length to the other.

These two timescales are instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with Earth’s ice ages: for the past million years, ice ages have occurred roughly every 100,000 years. Before that, they occurred roughly every 41,000 years.

For details, check out the full text of Ehrlich’s research. While recent work has explored a correlation between solar variability and terrestrial climate cycles, none have explored the potential mechanism until now, writes Ehrlich in his abstract:

A theory is described based on resonant thermal diffusion waves in the sun that appears to explain many details of the paleotemperature record for the last 5.3 million years. These include the observed periodicities, the relative strengths of each observed cycle, and the sudden emergence in time for the 100 thousand year cycle. Other prior work suggesting a link between terrestrial paleoclimate and solar luminosity variations has not provided any specific mechanism. The particular mechanism described here has been demonstrated empirically, although not previously invoked in the solar context.

Work published in Science Magazine in 2001 (Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene) cites specific influences of solar variability on the climate of the North Atlantic:

Surface winds and surface ocean hydrography in the subpolar North Atlantic appear to have been influenced by variations in solar output through the entire Holocene.

Bond et al. confirm the likelyhood that the particular influence on the North Atlantic may have been transmitted globally:

The surface hydrographic changes may have affected production of North Atlantic Deep Water, potentially providing an additional mechanism for amplifying the solar signals and transmitting them globally.

Given that the sun has a profound impact on the climate of the globe, it naturally follows that any solar variability to influence the Earth’s climate in one location will have its affects felt throughout the globe.

As the economies of India and China boom at a much faster rate than that of the US (with more technology and higher populations than the US had during it’s industrialization), the pollution they are producing is unparalleled:

Silicon Valley, Mar 7: Pollution from China and India is affecting the weather in America, especially the west coast, according to a recent study.”During the past few decades, there has been a dramatic increase in atmospheric aerosols mostly sulfate and soot from coal burning especially in China and India,” explains Professor Renyi Zhang, lead author of the study conducted by Texas A&M University researchers.

Both countries have seen huge increases in their economies, which mean more large factories and power plants to sustain such growth.

All of these emit immense quantities of pollution much of it soot and sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere, which is carried by the prevailing winds over the Pacific Ocean and eventually worldwide, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read the full article at the Central Chronicle.

150 to 200-mph winds … snowfall accumulations measured in feet not inches … high temperatures below zero … all in a day’s work for meteorologists atop New Hampshire’s Mount Washington observatory. Peak’s extreme weather could blow you away is the headline of a recent wire story on the fascinating conditions encountered atop this peak that is well-known in meteorology circles. Hurricane force winds howl an average of 100 days per year with conditions that make even the heartiest observers take notice:

At 6,288 feet, Mount Washington is only one-third the size of Mount McKinley, North America’s highest peak. But Mount Washington sticks up like a big toe at a point where storms from the north, south and west collide. As a result, it has some of the most ferocious weather on Earth, with snow and ice even in the summer.

Weather records have been maintained from this mountaintop station for over a century and continuously for more than 70 years. It is open to vehicle traffic in the summer, but even then, the conditions are trecherous. Winter treks to the summit of Mount Washington are limited to those who can meet rigorous physical conditioning requirements…and there is a waiting list. To label the weather as ferocious is probably an understatement. Among many other records, Mount Washington still holds the world record for the fastest measured wind speed anywhere on Earth, as measured in 1934:

During a wild April storm in 1934, a wind gust of 231 miles per hour (372 kilometers per hour) pushed across the summit of Mount Washington. This wind speed still stands as the all-time surface wind speed record.

Be sure to read the full story, including the observer’s first hand account of that historic day. By comparison check out the Current Weather Conditions atop Mount Washington - downright balmy at 6 degrees with a 30mph wind today!

For more on Mount Washington, check out the wealth of information available via the Official Homepage of the Mount Washington Observatory. Image Source: New Hampshire State Parks

With last week’s announced “end” to El Nino, it appears as though the cooling trend pendulum is set to swing right across the midpoint over to La Nina:

Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the official end of a brief and mild El Nino that started last year. That El Nino was credited with partially shutting down last summer’s Atlantic hurricane activity in the midst of what was supposed to be a busy season.

“We’re seeing a shift to the La Nina, it’s clearly in the data,” NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher said. La Nina, a cooling of the mid-Pacific equatorial region, has not officially begun because it’s a process with several months with specific temperature thresholds, but the trend is obvious based on satellite and ocean measurement data, he said.

This is sure to spark a flurry of media reports about a disasterous hurricane season in the offing. I wonder if this seasons’ reports will reach the fever pitch of doom heard prior to last year’s hurricane season…the season during which not a single hurricane made landfall on the US.

What do we know about global warming - about the state of our climate? When it comes down to it, we don’t know that much. Attempting to simulate the behavior of our atmosphere via quantitative (computer) models has proven an incredibly challenging endeavour. The complexities involved in such a task are only now beginning to be appreciated by some, as noted in a great NYPost piece (Not that Simple) by Roy W. Spencer, a research scientist with the National Space Science and Technology Center:

Contrary to popular accounts, very few scientists in the world - possibly none - have a sufficiently thorough, “big picture” understanding of the climate system to be relied upon for a prediction of the magnitude of global warming. To the public, we all might seem like experts, but the vast majority of us work on only a small portion of the problem.

Mr. Spencer summarizes the current state of climate research very concisely:

I believe that when the stabilizing effects of precipitation systems are better understood and included into the models, predictions of global warming will be scaled back. Despite current inadequacies, climate models are still our best tools for forecasting global warming. Those tools just aren’t sharp enough yet.

So what gives - Spencer must be some shill for big oil, right? Well, ExxonSecrets - a site devoted to ” Documenting Exxon-Mobil’s funding of climate change skeptics” has a page devoted to him…but it simply displays his valid qualifications. Can anyone indicate where any of his research is flawed, or is this yet another ad hominem attack because Spencer doesn’t toe the line on athropogenic climate change? Roy Spencer is certainly qualified when it comes to speaking about climate change (per the NYPost article):

Roy W. Spencer is principal research scientist at the Global Hydrology and Climate Center of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Ala. He is also U.S. team leader for the AMSR-E instrument flying on NASA’s Terra satellite.

More on Spencer’s qualifications:

Dr. Roy Spencer is a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. In the past, he has served as Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Dr. Spencer is the recipient of NASA’s Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and the American Meteorological Society’s Special Award for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work. He is the author of numerous scientific articles that have appeared in Science, Nature, Journal of Climate, Monthly Weather Review, Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology, Remote Sensing Reviews, Advances in Space Research, and Climatic Change.

Dr. Spencer received his Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin in 1981.

Rather than attack the man, can anyone attack the arguement he puts forth?

The state of Delaware has rebuked their state climatologist, attempting to distance themselves (or at least the Governor is) from their “state climatologist” over disagreements in the state’s official stance on global warming.

WILMINGTON, Del. — Gov. Ruth Ann Minner has directed Delaware’s state climatologist to stop using his title in public statements on climate change, citing a clash of views on global warming and confusion over the position’s ties to the administration.

Minner, who made the directive in a letter, described the move as a way to “clarify” the role of David R. Legates, a prominent skeptic of views that human activities are warming the planet and triggering climate shifts. “Your views on climate change, as I understand them, are not aligned with those of my administration,” Minner wrote.

The governor attempts to place blame on the “confusion” of the title and rather than simply making the title more official, the decision was made to drop the title all together (emphasis mine):

“In light of my position and due to the confusion surrounding your role with the state, I am directing you to offer any future statements on this or other public policy matters only on behalf of yourself or the University of Delaware,” Minner wrote, “and not as state climatologist.”

Legates, who could not be reached Wednesday, has not returned phone calls since The News Journal published articles about his position on climate change. His title was accepted by the American Association of State Climatologists and the National Climatic Data Center, and acknowledged by Minner and the university’s provost in 2005. But Legates received no appointment or state money to support his office at the University of Delaware, where he is also a professor of geography. His position as climatologist carries no state authority.

Legates also served as an unpaid “adjunct scholar” with the National Center for Policy Analysis, and had a paper published by that group arguing that science “does not support” claims of drastic warming or human influence on weather or climate shifts. He has previously referred to global warming arguments as “climate alarmism.”

So in summary, the state climatologist - the one with the science degree(s) - has been rebuked for his views on science. This is porbably beginning to sound a little familiar. This is now the second of such occurances following the January dismissal of Oregon’s state climatologist who also disagreed with the governor on climate change issues, stating simply:

“There are a lot of people saying the bulk of the warming of the last 50 years is due to human activities and I don’t believe that’s true.” He believes natural cycles explain most of the changes the earth has seen.“

Which of these governors has formal education in meteorology or climatology?

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