Tag Archives: Carbon Emissions

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NASA data shows that atmosphere will trap far less heat than UN predicted

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From Forbes magazine. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxidetrap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA’s Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.

“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”

In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.

The new findings are extremely important and should dramatically alter the global warming debate.

There’s a conflict between the theoretical predictions of the government-funded alarmists and the actual experimental results. So who are you going to believe? The people who are taking money from the government, to argue for more government control? Or the actual experimental results?

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Former alarmist scientist admits global warming is a “fiction”

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David Evans consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modelling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. And then he stopped working for them. Now that he is no longer obligated to toe the party line, he explains what global warming really is about. (H/T Neil Simpson)

Excerpt:

The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. Watching this issue unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools out of our politicians.

Let’s set a few things straight.

The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.

The evidence that was ignored by the global warming alarmists:

Most scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet’s temperature, if just the extra carbon dioxide is considered. These calculations come from laboratory experiments; the basic physics have been well known for a century.

The disagreement comes about what happens next.

The planet reacts to that extra carbon dioxide, which changes everything. Most critically, the extra warmth causes more water to evaporate from the oceans. But does the water hang around and increase the height of moist air in the atmosphere, or does it simply create more clouds and rain? Back in 1980, when the carbon dioxide theory started, no one knew. The alarmists guessed that it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moist air is also a greenhouse gas.

This is the core idea of every official climate model: For each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three — so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors); only one-third is due to extra carbon dioxide.

That’s the core of the issue. All the disagreements and misunderstandings spring from this. The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism.

Weather balloons had been measuring the atmosphere since the 1960s, many thousands of them every year. The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10 kilometres up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above. During the warming of the late 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, the weather balloons found no hot spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide.

This evidence first became clear around the mid-1990s.

At this point, official “climate science” stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory — that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters.

Read the whole thing.

The Blog Prof also linked this useful video in which a Physics professor from the University of California at Berkeley explains the Climategate scandal.

These revelations should mark the end of global warming alarmism, but they won’t, because global warming is such a useful fiction for so many people. As the article noted, it’s a source of endless research grants and prestigious travel budgets for researchers in academia who must apply for government money before they can prove what the governments wants them t0 prove – namely, that government needs to control individuals and corporations. It provides those who reject traditional morality with a way of feeling better about themselves by being “moral” about recycling, turning of their lights and not having any children. It gives people a feeling of pride, because they are better than those greedy oil companies that pay a 40% tax rate, much higher than the 0% paid by companies that are favored by the Democrat Party, like GE. It also provides a useful fiction for the socialists to mislead the public into voting for them to “solve” the “crisis” with bigger government, higher taxes and less individual liberty.

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EPA to stop global warming by killing jobs and raising energy prices

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First, the Environmental Protection Agency is set to impose a de-facto carbon tax by raising the cost of energy on American consumers.

Excerpt:

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it would regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and oil refineries next year, targeting the nation’s two biggest sources of carbon dioxide.

The move, which comes as part of a legal settlement with several states, local governments and environmental groups which have sued EPA under the Bush administration for failing to act, highlights the Obama administration’s intent to press ahead with curbs on carbon despite congressional resistance.

Collectively, electric utilities and oil refineries account for almost 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions: Under the agreement, EPA will propose new performance standards for power plants in July 2011 and for refineries in December 2011 and will issue final standards in May 2012 and November 2012, respectively.

[…]Charles T. Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, said his industry will urge lawmakers to block EPA’s move.

“EPA’s proposals would carry tremendous costs but no benefits for the American people – all pain and no gain,” Drevna said in a statement. “Regulations can’t create technology that doesn’t exist or change the laws of physics and economics, so the only way to comply with EPA’s proposals would be to inflict massive increases in energy costs and massive increases in unemployment on families across our nation. This is exactly the opposite of what President Obama rightly called for when he said economic recovery and job creation should be our nation’s top priorities.”

Some key lawmakers such as Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who is in line to chair the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee next year, seemed open to such suggestions.

“Rep. Issa is disappointed by EPA’s refusal to appropriately and thoroughly consider regulations that will undoubtedly kill more jobs in an already struggling economy,” said Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella in an e-mailed statement. “The fact is there are serious questions about EPA’s decision to move forward with these job-killing regulations that will usurp power from states — violating the principals of federalism that are the backbone of the clean air act. EPA’s actions will also impose a de facto building moratorium that comes at the expense of thousands of jobs.”

If you raise the cost of producing energy made by coal plants, it raises energy costs on consumers and businesses. If you raise costs on consumers, then you make ordinary people poorer. If you raise costs on businesses then you get fewer jobs. This is why we have had an unemployment rate of near 10% under the Democrats for nearly two years since Obama took office. And why the unemployment rate has been increasing since the Democrats took over the House and Senate in January of 2007. Because they know less about economics than my keyboard. They probably think that raising gas and utility prices will create jobs and increase disposable income of consumers.

I guess they think that a carbon tax is needed right now to stop the global warming monster. What global warming monster?

This one. From the horribly unreliable leftist CNN of all places.

Excerpt:

Snow fell in parts of the southeast Saturday, the leading edge of a powerful storm system that has prompted blizzard warnings in New York City and Boston and threatened to cause major travel headaches at the tail end of the holiday week.

The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning for the New York City metropolitan area, from northeast New Jersey through Newark and New York, and including the entirety of both the Long Island and Connecticut coasts of the Long Island Sound. That warning is in effect between 6 a.m. Sunday and 6 p.m. Monday.

Forecasters predict between 11 to 16 inches of blowing snow in much of that region, bringing visibility to near zero at times. Sustained winds as strong as 30 miles per hour could hit Sunday night, with gusts up to 55 mph in parts of central and eastern Long Island.

And, starting at noon Sunday and extending through 6 p.m. Monday, a similar warning is out for all of Rhode Island and most of eastern Massachusetts. Parts of that region could see as much as 20 inches of snow, with strong winds contributing to near blinding travel conditions and likely significant power outages.

The weather service also put out a blizzard watch from Sunday evening through Monday afternoon for coastal New Hampshire and Maine, up to the Canadian border.

I think Obama better hurry up the socialism before global warming fries us all!