Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Quote:

Spring is arriving earlier each year as a result of climate change, the first "conclusive proof" that global warming is altering the timing of the seasons, scientists announced yesterday.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1858859,00.html

blatham wrote:

Quote:

Spring is arriving earlier each year as a result of climate change, the first "conclusive proof" that global warming is altering the timing of the seasons, scientists announced yesterday.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1858859,00.html

Blatham,
Thank you for the Guardian report. The end of the article warns about "likely" adaptation problems with rare birds in England in fthe future. I don't know what the real situation is there NOW but in France, a recent report from the Ligue de Protection des Oiseaux found the situation has been improving in the last decades.

As to seasonal changes, it would be a big surprise if it were otherwise with a climate warming... or colding.
"In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant over-all loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually". Source The Cooling World, Newsweek 1975

The other surprising thing would be the Guardian (or the BBC) reports this kind of non-event in a non-alarmist tone

JunkScience.com
From SourceWatch
JunkScience.com is a website maintained by Steven J. Milloy, an adjunct scholar the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute - right wing think tanks with long histories of denying environmental problems at the behest of the corporations which fund them. Milloy is also a columnist for FoxNews.com.

Milloy defines "junk science" as "bad science used by lawsuit-happy trial lawyers, the 'food police,' environmental Chicken Littles, power-drunk regulators, and unethical-to-dishonest scientists to fuel specious lawsuits, wacky social and political agendas, and the quest for personal fame and fortune." He regularly attacks environmentalists and scientists who support environmentalism, claiming that dioxin, pesticides in foods, environmental lead, asbestos, secondhand tobacco smoke and global warming are all "scares" and "scams."

Milloy's attacks are often notable for their vicious tone, which appears calculated to lower rather than elevate scientific discourse. That tone is noticeable, for example, in his extended attack on Our Stolen Future, the book about endocrine-disrupting chemicals by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and Peter Myers. Milloy's on-line parody, titled "Our Swollen Future," includes a cartoon depiction of Colborn hauling a wheelbarrow of money to the bank [1] (http://www.junkscience.com/news/swollen1.html) (her implied motive for writing the book), and refers to Dianne Dumanoski as "Dianne Dumb-as-an-oxski." [2] (http://www.junkscience.com/news/swollen2.html)

Prior to launching the JunkScience.com, Milloy worked for Jim Tozzi's Multinational Business Services, the Philip Morris tobacco company's primary lobbyist in Washington with respect to the issue of secondhand cigarette smoke. He subsequently went to work for The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), a Philip Morris front group created by the PR firm of APCO Worldwide. [3] (http://prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/junkman.html)

Uh...reference to a thirty year old document leaves something to be desired as regards climate science debate, n'est pas?

And, are you sure you want to be utilizing links to Steve Milloy and junkscience.com?

2006 Tropical Storm Season Now Below Normal

Reason for the Season?: Cooler Sea Surface Temperatures

Part of the reason for the slow season is that tropical western Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are running about normal, if not slightly below normal (see graphic below, which shows SST departures from normal).

In contrast, at the same time last year SSTs in the same region were running well above normal.

The cooler SSTs in the Atlantic are not an isolated anomaly. In a research paper being published next month in Geophysical Research Letters, scientists will show that between 2003 and 2005, globally averaged temperatures in the upper ocean cooled rather dramatically, effectively erasing 20% of the warming that occurred over the previous 48 years.

http://www.weatherstreet.com/hurricane/2006/hurricane-atlantic-2006-below-normal-season.htm

The cooler SSTs in the Atlantic are not an isolated anomaly. In a research paper being published next month in Geophysical Research Letters, scientists will show that between 2003 and 2005, globally averaged temperatures in the upper ocean cooled rather dramatically, effectively erasing 20% of the warming that occurred over the previous 48 years.

blatham wrote:

Uh...reference to a thirty year old document leaves something to be desired as regards climate science debate, n'est pas?

I'm not sure you got my point, but fine, never mind
And I'm not sure the seasonal changes you cited from the Guardian is real "science", but again, never mind.

blatham wrote:

And, are you sure you want to be utilizing links to Steve Milloy and junkscience.com?

Why not? As always, just need to think by yourself after reading ALL viewpoints. Are you sure you would like to do otherwise ?

All viewpoints, as a general principle, is clearly the way to procede. On the other hand, how do you weight "viewpoints" on lung cancer originating from tobacco industry-funded or created laboratories?

Cool (no pun). So we'll wait for the letter to be published and then gain peer review (apparently articles/letters published here only have to meet the requirement of pleasing a single editor).

Two worthy ad hoc rules:

Plurality good.

Vested interest-funded sources deserve an asterisk, for good reason.

blatham wrote:

Two worthy ad hoc rules:

Plurality good.

Vested interest-funded sources deserve an asterisk, for good reason.

No problem with these two rules.
As an aside, the second rule is not always so clear in reality. We France are a nuclear nation, with a vested interest in this industry which is supposed to be a good way to help solve the problem of energy dependance and CO2 emission. We are also the nation of rapid trains which devours more than 10 billions euros/year of taxpayer's money.
You bet these two paramount public sectors have powerfull lobbies to favor an alarmist viewpoint about GW to sell their stuff, the culprit being oil and cars. And true, this alarmist point is institutionalised and dissent view is quasi absent in France.
In this case, how would you detect "vested interested" sources ? Big question n'est ce pas ?

SierraSong wrote:

2006 Tropical Storm Season Now Below Normal

Reason for the Season?: Cooler Sea Surface Temperatures

Part of the reason for the slow season is that tropical western Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are running about normal, if not slightly below normal (see graphic below, which shows SST departures from normal).

In contrast, at the same time last year SSTs in the same region were running well above normal.

The cooler SSTs in the Atlantic are not an isolated anomaly. In a research paper being published next month in Geophysical Research Letters, scientists will show that between 2003 and 2005, globally averaged temperatures in the upper ocean cooled rather dramatically, effectively erasing 20% of the warming that occurred over the previous 48 years.

http://www.weatherstreet.com/hurricane/2006/hurricane-atlantic-2006-below-normal-season.htm

Cool (no pun). So we'll wait for the letter to be published and then gain peer review (apparently articles/letters published here only have to meet the requirement of pleasing a single editor).

The more good scientific observation and data, the better.

The cooler SSTs in the Atlantic are not an isolated anomaly. In a research paper being published next month in Geophysical Research Letters, scientists will show that between 2003 and 2005, globally averaged temperatures in the upper ocean cooled rather dramatically, effectively erasing 20% of the warming that occurred over the previous 48 years.

Geophysical Research Letters publishes short, concise research letters that present scientific advances that are likely to have immediate influence on the research of other investigators. GRL letters can focus on a specific discipline or apply broadly to the geophysical science community.

GRL is a Letters journal; limiting manuscript size expedites the review and publication process. A magazine-sized GRL can reach and be of interest to the largest AGU audience. With this goal, the Editorial Board evaluates manuscripts submitted to GRL according to the following criteria:



- Is it a short, concise research letter?
- Does it contain important scientific advances?
- Would it have immediate impact on the research of others?

I understand your point. One does have to wade through and attempt to discern where financial interest may be influencing positions. We have a bright fellow here (georgeob) who frequently suggests a financial incentive behind university departments and scientists studying global warming issues. It's not a good argument for him though as the same dynamic applies to the petroleum industry but by an increased magnitude of thousands.

blatham wrote:

I understand your point. One does have to wade through and attempt to discern where financial interest may be influencing positions. We have a bright fellow here (georgeob) who frequently suggests a financial incentive behind university departments and scientists studying global warming issues. It's not a good argument for him though as the same dynamic applies to the petroleum industry but by an increased magnitude of thousands.

It doesn't require much perception to detect the waves of fashion that occur in academia and, more to the point, the effects on the grantors of research money for favored projects and the opportunities created by all this for fame and other forms of acadmic notoriety, status and wealth.

These motivations are, at a psychological level hardly, different from those that drive decision-makers in industry, whether U.S. auto manufacturers or French TGV operators. Blatham merely postulates that the greed and self interest of industrialists is worse and more intense than that of academics, self=appointed political activists and the like. This suggests to me that he has (for this purpose at least) susopended his understanding of human nature.

It doesn't require much perception to detect the waves of fashion that occur in academia

and, more to the point, the effects on the grantors of research money for favored projects and the opportunities created by all this for fame and other forms of acadmic notoriety, status and wealth.

These motivations are, at a psychological level hardly, different from those that drive decision-makers in industry, whether U.S. auto manufacturers or French TGV operators. Blatham merely postulates that the greed and self interest of industrialists is worse and more intense than that of academics, self=appointed political activists and the like. This suggests to me that he has (for this purpose at least) susopended his understanding of human nature.