Real Climate Science

According to his (Romney’s) website, one of his policy goals now is to amend the Clean Air Act, the critical law under which the EPA is now acting, “to exclude carbon dioxide from its purview.”

EPA findings, global-warming rules pass court test | Nation & World | The Seattle Times

Meanwhile, the morons on the Federal Appeals Court have determined that there never used to be extreme weather prior to the invention of the SUV, and that warm weather is bad for humans.

“Relying again upon substantial scientific evidence, EPA determined that anthropogenically induced climate change threatens both public health and public welfare,” the judges wrote in Tuesday’s unsigned opinion. “It found that extreme weather events, changes in air quality, increases in food- and waterborne pathogens, and increases in temperatures are likely to have adverse health effects. The record also supports EPA’s conclusion that climate change endangers human welfare by creating risk to food production and agriculture, forestry, energy, infrastructure, ecosystems, and wildlife.”

Congrats to Jim and Mike! Your persistence with the big lie has been effective. You have made America stupid.  Goebbels would be proud.

I am going to use some Rahmstorf/USGS logic to prove that Sarah Palin will soon be able to ride her snowmobile to Russia.

Sea level at Churchill has dropped by more than half  a metre!

http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/447.php

Sea level at Yakutat has dropped by almost a full metre!

http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/445.php

Sea level at Seldovia has dropped almost a metre

http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/1070.php

If we ignore isostasy and tectonics (like USGS and Rahmstorf did) it is easy to prove that sea level is plummeting. Similarly, University of Texas geniuses declared that East Antarctica was losing ice – by ignoring the fact that the ground underneath the ice was falling.

Most of the apparent sea level rise seen along the Atlantic Coast of the US is due to post-glacial rebound. The area around Lake Superior is rising as the coastline falls.

Rahmstorf and the USGS have been trying to blame global warming, but as usual have no idea what they are talking about. One might expect that the USGS would understand the fundamentals of geology, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

The geological evidence for postglacial rebound is mainly based on tilted or uplifted shoreline features. Shorelines of ice-marginal lakes or seas are assumed to have formed horizontally. Where such features are now tilted, this reveals crustal warping associated with rebound–see Fig. 9-7. Uplifted marine deposits are particularly important for establishing the amount of postglacial rebound of coastal sites since deglaciation–see Figs. 9-8 and 9-9. In like manner, the glacial forebulge subsides when the ice mass is reduced or removed. For example, the Atlantic Ocean is encroaching on the Chesapeake Bay region at a rate of about 30 cm per century (Colin 1996). Similar subsidence is taking place in southern portions of the Baltic and North Seas in Europe.

ES 331/767 Lecture 9

h/t to Ben

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) seized on the portion of the decision that upheld EPA’s “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health and welfare.

Waxman, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, called the decision a “resounding victory for science.” The court found that EPA “relied on a substantial record of empirical data and scientific evidence.”

“Today’s ruling is a message to Congress that it’s time to stop denying science. Extreme events like the wildfires in Colorado and the floods in Florida are going to get worse unless the Republican-controlled Congress changes course soon,” Waxman said in a statement.

EPA, Dems cheer climate ruling – The Hill’s E2-Wire

Waxman is a typical global warming idiot. Colorado just went through a decade of unusually low fire activity, and had record snow in the mountains at this time last year. Florida is currently experiencing the longest period on record without a hurricane landfall.

US CO2 emissions are on the decline, while Chinese emissions are increasing. Even if you believe the climate models, there is no indication that there is anything the US could do to have a significant impact on climate, much less directly impact Colorado fires or Florida floods.

According to the University of Colorado, sea level along the North Carolina coast is rising at  a rate of 1.4 mm/year. This is less than one half of their measured global rate of 3.1 mm/year.

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

The graph below plots the grid cells at (32.5, 281.5) (33.5,282.5) (34.5,283.5) (34.5,284.5) and (35.5,285.5)

Over the next 88 years, sea level would be expected to rise five inches in North Carolina.

The NC Coastal Resources Commission created a reporting saying that North Carolina will have one metre of sea level rise during the rest of the century – which would require an acceleration of 800% over current rates. In response, the North Carolina Senate passed a bill requiring that only historical data be used – and proposed a rise of 8 inches.

This has caused a huge backlash from people with a vested interest in spreading climate misinformation. The one metre number is ridiculous, unsupportable and has no evidence to back it up.

Balotelli will score the winning goal, to defeat Spain in the final 3-2.

Rahmstorf is a real piece of work. When it comes to global sea level, he happily chucked the tide gauge data and instead used the 1992-2005 subset of the satellite data. But when it comes to local sea level data like the northeastern US, he happily ignores the satellite data and sticks religiously to tide gauge data.

But it is worse than it seems. When calculating future sea level rise, he ignores both the tide gauge data and the satellite data, and instead just makes numbers up. Never mind that none of the data sources show a positive acceleration in sea level rise rates. He knows that all hell is about to break loose.

Rahmstorf continues displaying his ignorance today on RealBadClimateBS

Nature Climate Change publishes two new sea-level papers today. One, by Sallenger et al., is an analysis of US tide gauge data. The main finding is that there is a “hotspot” of acceleration in sea level rise over the past sixty years on the US Atlantic coast, with the largest acceleration found between Cape Hatteras and Boston. The authors argue that this pattern is consistent with a weakening of the Atlantic overturning circulation (and hence their first reference is to our 2005 paper where we show this sea-level pattern in our model). In my opinion an intriguing possibility that warrants further investigation. There could be other causes, like interdecadal changes in the wind field.

RealClimate: Far out in North Carolina

Tide gauges show significant sea level rise in that region ….

but satellites don’t ….

Satellites measure the absolute elevation of the sea surface, whereas tide gauges measure the height of the sea relative to the land. If tide gauges show a large increase in sea level, but satellites don’t – the only rational explanation is that the land is sinking.

This is very basic science, and the failure of the experts to realize this is yet another indication that these people are incompetent.

I did some more math to check the claims that last July in Oklahoma was the hottest month in US history. The BS is worse than it seems.

Meeker Oklahoma USHCN Temperatures
Month    Year   Average Max   Mean   Average Min
August   1913         106.4   89.5          72.2
August   1936         105.8   90.1          73.7
July     2011         101.9   89.0          75.6

Meeker is the closest USHCN station to Oklahoma City. Daytime temperatures were much higher in both 1913 and 1936, mean temperatures were higher in both 1913 and 1936, and UHI made nighttime temperatures warmer in 2011.

But it gets worse. August 1913 had five consecutive days over 110 and a total of 22 days over 110. August 1936 had six consecutive days over 110. July, 2011 had zero days over 110 degrees.  1913 and 1936 were both much hotter than 2011.

1913 was also the year that California set the hottest temperature ever measured this side of the Atlantic – 134F.

docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/050/mwr-050-01-0010.pdf

According to Hansen, every year since 2000 has been hotter in the US than 1913, and 2011 style heatwaves were impossible below 350 PPM. He is completely incompetent.

Interesting story in the NYT explaining how fire suppression has caused big forest fires.

Using data from tree ring studies, scientists have reconstructed a history of fires in the Southwest. The wildfires of the past were frequent and massive, but they stayed close to the ground and mainly helped prevent overcrowding. Take 1748. “Every mountain range we studied in the region was burning that year,” Dr. Allen said. “But those were surface fires, not destroying the forest but just keeping an open setting.” Cyclical wildfires were the norm.

But beginning in 1900, when railroads enabled the spread of livestock, cattle devoured the grassy surface fuels and the fire cycle stopped. A decade later, a national policy of forest fire suppression formalized this new normal. Over the next century, forest density went from 80 trees per acre to more than 1,000.

Then in 1996, the climate emerged from a wet cycle into a dry one — part of a natural cycle for this region. Winters became drier. And “we immediately began seeing major fires,” Dr. Allen said.

With so many trees crammed into the forest, fires climbed straight to the canopy instead of remaining on the ground.

“These forests did not evolve with this type of fire,” said Dr. Allen. “Fire was a big deal in New Mexico, but it was a different kind of fire.” The result, he said, is that the species that now live there — ponderosa pines, piñon, juniper — cannot regenerate, and new species are moving in to take their place.

“Ecosystems are already resetting themselves in ways big and small,” Dr. Allen said. The challenge for managing these ecosystems, he said, is to try to help them adapt.

Seeking to preserve existing systems is futile, he said.

Goodbye to Mountain Forests? – NYTimes.com

In other words, environmentalists wrecked the forests by insisting that all forest fires be put out, and then blamed the consequences  of their stupidity on global warming.