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

And why is it important for you to say things like that Walter when you know they aren't true?

Climate change negotiations are complicated work, Denmark says
Posted : Wed, 06 May 2009 16:35:49 GMT
Author : DPA

New York - Denmark said Wednesday the world's governments are facing complicated negotiations ahead of a final meeting in Copenhagen in December to reach an international climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister for climate and energy who will preside over the Copenhagen conference, was at UN headquarters in New York to discuss the difficult negotiations for an agreement to replace the current agreement that expires in 2012.

The coming months are crucial to nail down all the details in the new document after a conference in Bonn, Germany, and upcoming meetings in Greenland, the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Italy and the September 22 climate change meeting in New York, where heads of state and government are to meet in the UN General Assembly.

"It is the most complicated piece of negotiations involving all the ministers in the world," Hedegaard said between meetings at UN headquarters, adding a note of optimism that progress has been made through several rounds of talks in various capitals.

Hedegaard was recently named by Time Magazine as one of 100 most influential people in the world for her role in fighting climate change.
"Lately the political atmosphere has improved significantly," she said. "The willingness and awareness that we are all going to deliver in Copenhagen have increased a lot."

She said the new US government under President Barack Obama has contributed to the momentum by pledging to support the Copenhagen summit, which will take place December 7 to 18.

Hedegaard said negotiators for the new Kyoto Protocol have to agree on what she called "crunch issues" before December, which cover such diverse issues as financing, forestry and building codes, all of which are designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

She said one significant conference will take place at the end of June in Greenland to be attended by 30 top-ranking ministers to work out the political declaration supporting the new protocol. The ministers will be accompanied by only one assistant each and they will be asked to produce the document in the confined space in Greenland.

The Greenland meeting will precede the G8 summit in Italy in July. The pre-final push for governments to support the Copenhagen conference will be held in New York on September 22 at the United Nations.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report
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Anthony Watts, former meteorologist for KHSL-TV, a CBS-TV affiliate in Redding, California, has examined 460 of the 1221 official climatic weather stations in the 48 lower states, and discovered multiple irregularities that are causing temperature data to skew higher than it should. Watts, who publishes a website devoted to investigating surface stations, (LINK) believes his research casts doubt on NOAA's current and historical temperature data reports. "I believe we will be able to demonstrate that some of the global warming increase is not from CO2 but from localized changes in the temperature-measurement environment," Watts told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on June 17, 2007. Watts examined temperature stations that the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) uses as part of its National Climatic Data Center. The NCDC has about 1,221 mostly rural weather observation stations around the country. Watts, who founded the web site surfacestations.org, has made it his mission to quality check weather stations to see if the data is being accurately captured. (LINK) Watts noted one such weather station in California was "surrounded by asphalt and concrete, its also within 10 feet of buildings, and within 8 feet of a large metal cell tower that could be felt reflecting sunlight/heat. And worst of all, air conditioning units on the cell tower electronics buildings vent warm air within 10 feet of the sensor." Watts concluded, "I can tell you with certainty, the temperature data from this station is useless." Watt's extensive data research was noted by Meteorologist Joseph Conklin on August 10, 2007: (LINK) "The (U.S.) National Climate Data Center (NCDC) is in the middle of a scandal. Their global observing network, the heart and soul of surface weather measurement, is a disaster. Urbanization has placed many sites in unsuitable locations - on hot black asphalt, next to trash burn barrels, beside heat exhaust vents, even attached to hot chimneys and above outdoor grills! The data and approach taken by many global warming alarmists is seriously flawed. If the global data were properly adjusted for urbanization and station siting, and land use change issues were addressed, what would emerge is a cyclical pattern of rises and falls with much less of any background trend." (LINK)

http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=polemic&x=26&y=9
Main Entry: 1po·lem·ic Pronunciation Guide
Pronunciation: plemik, p-, -mk
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: French polémique, from Middle French polemique, from polemique, adjective
1 a : a controversial discussion or argument : an aggressive attack on or the refutation of the opinions or principles of another <the premises of our polemic against totalitarianism -- J.M.Cameron> <dismiss these books as cold-war polemics -- Karl Meyer> <repeating old and weary polemics -- Irving Howe> b : the art or practice of disputation or controversy <neither descended to crude polemic -- Richard Hoggart> <his active polemic against ... liberals -- A.C.McGiffert> <the style too frequently descends to the level of polemics -- M.S.Handler> -- usually used in plural but usually sing. in constr. <the book ... is a little masterpiece of polemics -- Martin Gardner>
2 : one that controverts an opinion, doctrine, or system : an aggressive controversialist : DISPUTANT <the sarcasms and invectives of the young polemic -- T.B.Macaulay>
3 polemics plural but singular in construction : the branch of Christian theology devoted to the refutation of errors -- compare APOLOGETICS, IRENICS

I haver given you the reasons repeatedly, ican, and you have never come up with a convincing rebuttal. That's not polemics.

MJ seemed to scorn the fact that I hadn't read the release targeted at what he refers to as "policy makers" that he says is in a form easier to digest for the non-technies. I wonder if anybody here has seen such a document? I have asked MJ to post it, but so far he has ignored the request.

* Summary for Policymakers

The IPCC involves numerous experts in the preparation of its reports. However, chapter authors are frequently asked to summarize current controversies and disputes in which they themselves are professionally involved, which invites bias. Related to this is the problem that chapter authors may tend to favor their own published work by presenting it in a
prominent or flattering light. Nonetheless the resulting reports tend to be reasonably comprehensive and informative.

Some research that contradicts the hypothesis of greenhouse gas-induced warming is under-represented, and some controversies are treated in a
one-sided way, but the reports still merit close attention.

A more compelling problem is that the Summary for Policymakers, attached to the IPCC Report, is produced, not by the scientific writers and reviewers, but by a process of negotiation among unnamed bureaucratic delegates from sponsoring governments. Their selection of material need not and may not reflect the priorities and intentions of the scientific community itself. Consequently it is useful to have independent experts read the
underlying report and produce a summary of the most pertinent elements of the report.

Finally, while the IPCC enlists many expert reviewers, no indication is given as to whether they disagreed with some or all of the material they reviewed. In previous IPCC reports many expert reviewers have lodged serious objections only to find that, while their objections are ignored, they are acknowledged in the final document, giving the impression that they endorsed the views expressed therein.

The following concluding statement is not in the Fourth Assessment Report, but was agreed upon by the ISPM writers based on their review of the current evidence.

The Earth's climate is an extremely complex system and we must not understate the difficulties involved in analyzing it. Despite the many data limitations and uncertainties, knowledge of the climate system continues to advance based on improved and expanding data sets and improved understanding of meteorological and oceanographic mechanisms.

The climate in most places has undergone minor changes over the past 200 years, and the land-based surface temperature record of the past 100 years exhibits warming trends in many places. Measurement problems, including uneven sampling, missing data and local land-use changes, make interpretation of these trends difficult. Other, more stable data sets,
such as satellite, radiosonde and ocean temperatures yield smaller warming trends. The actual climate change in many locations has been relatively small and within the range of known natural variability. There is no compelling evidence that dangerous or unprecedented changes are underway.

The available data over the past century can be interpreted within the framework of a variety of hypotheses as to cause and mechanisms for the measured changes. The hypothesis that greenhouse gas emissions have produced or are capable of producing a significant warming of the Earth's climate since the start of the industrial era is credible, and merits continued attention. However, the hypothesis cannot be proven by formal theoretical
arguments, and the available data allow the hypothesis to be credibly disputed.

Arguments for the hypothesis rely on computer simulations, which can never be decisive as supporting evidence. The computer models in use are not, by necessity, direct calculations of all basic physics but rely upon empirical approximations for many of the smaller scale processes of the oceans and atmosphere. They are tuned to produce a credible simulation of current global climate statistics, but this does not guarantee reliability in future climate regimes. And there are enough degrees of freedom in tunable models that simulations cannot serve as supporting evidence for any one tuning scheme, such as that associated with a strong effect from greenhouse gases.
There is no evidence provided by the IPCC in its Fourth Assessment Report that the uncertainty can be formally resolved from first principles, statistical hypothesis testing or modeling exercises. Consequently, there will remain an unavoidable element of uncertainty as to the extent that humans are contributing to future climate change, and indeed whether or not such change is a good or bad thing.