Noble Peace Prize

[kristoff]

Hey, I'm in Florida and don't know how to swim!

Suggest you move!

[Tclosetgirl (imported)]

Don't forget Al Gore also invented the internet!

Taylor's got a point - there was a study done that showed how inaccurate the ONE and only temperature graph being used is...

Then they showed fossilized rocks and did the science there and yep, every 11,000 years hte earth goes into a circular orbit from an eliptical orbit - things warm up - and then 11,000 years later we go back to eliptical and things cool down.

Funny, NASA came out and showed the temperature extremes since we put orbitors on mars - what 10, 12 years now? 4 degrees average temperature rise..

Must be all those greenhouse gases there too.......

Global Warming *IS* occuring, there's no question about it.

I just don't think there's squat we can do about it except quit cutting down rain forests.

Just my opinion

[mrt (imported)]

I'm also old enough to remember the issue of "Global Cooling" that experts said was just around the corner and some of the wacky plans they were making to reverse this. Spray Painting the ice caps black was my favorite.

In the planets history the cycles of warmth are the minority and ice sheets covering most of the land surface are the "norm"

If we are indeed headed to warmer weather I wonder why these egg heads think this is a bad thing when you consider the alternative.

What royaly pisses me off is the lack of "science" in this psudo religion they are shoveling. Is it 1 degree? Is it 2? Will it change in 10 years or 100 years or what? Will the oceans rise a inch? or 12 feet? Is it caused by "man" or is it just part of a cycle that we have no control over. Do "all" rational scientists agree (if so on what) or is it only scientists that are being buggered by Al Gore? And if they REALLY know so much about global weather changes why can't they predict the weather a day away?

As to "who is to blame" I think your quite right. The idea that driving a SUV full of kids to school has little to do with global temps and those that insist it is are either deluded or just very very political. And by that I mean in a bad way. Nobel is probably spinning in his grave.

[Pueros]

Some of the comments in this thread truly sadden me and again demonstrate to me what is wrong with the USA today. There are simply too many Americans who cannot recognise global reality when it stares them in the face, preferring to view issues without proper study and in a parochial and frankly rather selfish manner.

I don’t believe that I can change the views about the fact of global warming of the ostriches here who obstinately want to leave their heads in the sands. However, for those who do care to look around, I suggest that they listen to some wise words of some politicians who are correctly enlightened about the issue:-

“I think it's crazy for us to play games with our children's future. We know what's happening to the climate, we have a highly predictable set of consequences if we continue to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.” - Bill Clinton

“All across the world, in every kind of environment and region known to man, increasingly dangerous weather patterns and devastating storms are abruptly putting an end to the long-running debate over whether or not climate change is real. Not only is it real, it's here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster.” – Barack Obama

“We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late. The science is clear. The global warming debate is over.” - Arnold Schwarzenegger

“Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it.” – Tony Blair

Nobel Prizes have been awarded for over a century and in that period there have been a few controversial and perhaps unworthy winners. However, I do not believe that Gore is one. He is perceived internationally as someone who was robbed of the US Presidency in 2000 but bravely picked himself up to campaign on a topic that he knew would be unpopular and subject to ridicule in his homeland. Despite snipes from the likes of some contributors to this thread, he had done a very good job.

Gore is perceived internationally as a man of statesman-like vision, who would have made a much better President than the present incumbent and the World a safer rather than more dangerous place.

Gore deserves his Nobel Prize and the status that goes with the award, whilst the winner in the 2000 US election will never go near to qualifying for any such achievement but will instead go down in history as the worst-ever US President.

I finish with a quote from Gore himself:-

“Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well organised scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have produced long-since a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming.”

And one from Inuit leader, Sheila Watt-Cloutier:-

“For the first time in history, my community has had to use air conditioners. Imagine that, air conditioners in the Arctic!”

PUEROS

[BossTamsin (imported)]

For the record, let me say:

I am for reducing pollution and pollutants (CO, NOx, particulates, etc).

I am for reducing the use of energy and non-renewable resources.

I am for recycling and reducing waste.

I am against massive deforestation, dumping toxins into landfills and oceans, the destruction of the ozone layer, Hummers, etc, etc, etc.

However, I am also against declaring CO2 as pollution. Name me one item in your home (including yourself) which was produced without creating CO2 somewhere along in the process. Ultimately, therefore to reduce CO2 emissions, we must essentially give up most of modern society and retreat into the darkness. Screw that. As far as I'm concerned, we need to move further faster, not slow down. We're running on limited time here, folks, and when you're racing the clock you have to pick up the pace as best as you can.

As for the quotes from politicians, show me one, just one (excluding "carbon offset" BS) who's put his money where his mouth is on the topic and truely lives a green lifestyle. Does Arnie still drive his Humvee? If so, I snigger at any mention of "global warming" that passes his lips.

And for the Inuit leader: "Wow, really? And you can prove that ten thousand, one hundred thousand, one million years ago there was ice there?"

The big issue that isn't being mentioned is that plans like Kyoto are useless. Look at the list of countries who haven't signed on. Or even better, look at the list for those who aren't required to reduce emissions under it. Then look at the amount of pollution they're producing. And while you're at it, look at the timetables planned for those countries who have ratified it and are planning to do something about it.

[A-1 (imported)]

I really hate to wade into this one again.

But once more, FOR THE RECORD...

There is NO statistical proof for global warming. The correlational studies between increases in carbon dioxide and mean global temperature DO NOT generate statistical poof that a relationship exists between the two, even if a statistical correlation is proven. So far, a statistical correlation has not been proven with correlations.

For such a correlation to exist there has to be only a 1 in 20 chance that the correlation DOES NOT exist. That is, to say, that there can be only a 5% chance that global warming does not exist.

CHECK THIS OUT. (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1779316/posts)

Statistics needed, The Deniers -- Part I (Proof 'global warming' based on sloppy research)

National Post ^ | 2/2/07 | Lawrence Solomon

Posted on 02/05/2007 12:38:25 AM PST by LibWhacker

In the global warming debate, there are essentially two broad camps. One believes that the science is settled, that global warming is serious and man-made, and that urgent action must be taken to mitigate or prevent a future calamity. The other believes that the science is far from settled, that precious little is known about global warming or its likely effects, and that prudence dictates more research and caution before intervening massively in the economy.

The "science is settled" camp, much the larger of the two, includes many eminent scientists with impressive credentials. But just who are the global warming skeptics who question the studies from the great majority of climate scientists and what are their motives?

Many in the "science is settled" camp claim that the skeptics are untrustworthy -- that they are either cranks or otherwise at the periphery of their profession, or that they are in the pockets of Exxon or other corporate interests. The skeptics are increasingly being called Deniers, a term used by analogy to the Holocaust, to convey the catastrophe that could befall mankind if action is not taken. Increasingly, too, the press is taking up the Denier theme, convincing the public that the global-warming debate is over.

In this, the first of a series, I examine The Deniers, starting with Edward Wegman. Dr. Wegman is a professor at the Center for Computational Statistics at George Mason University, chair of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, and board member of the American Statistical Association. Few statisticians in the world have CVs to rival his (excerpts appear nearby).

Wegman became involved in the global-warming debate after the energy and commerce committee of the U.S. House of Representatives asked him to assess one of the hottest debates in the global-warming controversy: the statistical validity of work by Michael Mann. You may not have heard of Mann or read Mann's study but you have often heard its famous conclusion: that the temperature increases that we have been experiencing are "likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years" and that the "1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year" of the millennium. You may have also heard of Mann's hockey-stick shaped graph, which showed relatively stable temperatures over most of the last millennium (the hockey stick's long handle), followed by a sharp increase (the hockey stick's blade) this century.

Mann's findings were arguably the single most influential study in swaying the public debate, and in 2001 they became the official view of the International Panel for Climate Change, the UN body that is organizing the worldwide effort to combat global warming. But Mann's work also had its critics, particularly two Canadians, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who published peer-reviewed critiques of their own.

Wegman accepted the energy and commerce committee's assignment, and agreed to assess the Mann controversy pro bono. He conducted his third-party review by assembling an expert panel of statisticians, who also agreed to work pro bono. Wegman also consulted outside statisticians, including the Board of the American Statistical Association. At its conclusion, the Wegman review entirely vindicated the Canadian critics and repudiated Mann's work.

"Our committee believes that the assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported," Wegman stated, adding that "The paucity of data in the more remote past makes the hottest-in-a-millennium claims essentially unverifiable." When Wegman corrected Mann's statistical mistakes, the hockey stick disappeared.

Wegman found that Mann made a basic error that "may be easily overlooked by someone not trained in statistical methodology. We note that there is no evidence that Dr. Mann or any of the other authors in paleoclimate studies have had significant interactions with mainstream statisticians." Instead, this small group of climate scientists were working on their own, largely in isolation, and without the academic scrutiny needed to ferret out false assumptions.

Worse, the problem also applied more generally, to the broader climate-change and meteorological community, which also relied on statistical techniques in their studies. "f statistical methods are being used, then statisticians ought to be funded partners engaged in the research to insure as best we possibly can that the best quality science is being done," Wegman recommended, noting that "there are a host of fundamental statistical questions that beg answers in understanding climate dynamics."

In other words, Wegman believes that much of the climate science that has been done should be taken with a grain of salt -- although the studies may have been peer reviewed, the reviewers were often unqualified in statistics. Past studies, he believes, should be reassessed by competent statisticians and in future, the climate science world should do better at incorporating statistical know-how.

One place to start is with the American Meteorological Society, which has a committee on probability and statistics. "I believe it is amazing for a committee whose focus is on statistics and probability that of the nine members only two are also members of the American Statistical Association, the premier statistical association in the United States, and one of those is a recent PhD with an assistant-professor appointment in a medical school." As an example of the statistical barrenness of the climate-change world, Wegman cited the American Meteorological Association's 2006 Conference on Probability and Statistics in the Atmospheric Sciences, where only eight presenters out of 62 were members of the American Statistical Association.

While Wegman's advice -- to use trained statisticians in studies reliant on statistics -- may seem too obvious to need stating, the "science is settled" camp resists it. Mann's hockey-stick graph may be wrong, many experts now acknowledge, but they assert that he nevertheless came to the right conclusion.

To which Wegman, and doubtless others who want more rigourous science, shake their heads in disbelief. As Wegman summed it up to the energy and commerce committee in later testimony: "I am baffled by the claim that the incorrect method doesn't matter because the answer is correct anyway. Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science." With bad science, only true believers can assert that they nevertheless obtained the right answer.

LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com.

- Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute, a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation.

THE CV OF A DENIER

Edward Wegman received his Ph.D. degree in mathematical statistics from the University of Iowa. In 1978, he went to the Office of Naval Research, where he headed the Mathematical Sciences Division with responsibility Navy-wide for basic research programs. He coined the phrase computational statistics, and developed a high-profile research area around this concept, which focused on techniques and methodologies that could not be achieved without the capabilities of modern computing resources and led to a revolution in contemporary statistical graphics. Dr. Wegman was the original program director of the basic research program in Ultra High Speed Computing at the Strategic Defense Initiative's Innovative Science and Technology Office. He has served as editor or associate editor of numerous prestigious journals and has published more than 160 papers and eight books.

Furthermore, a GUST OF HOT AIR... (http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/2007/0 ... of-of.html) does not global warming make, oh, Obie Wan....

Monday, February 19, 2007

Polar Bear bites reporter: proof of global warming

60 Minutes has never heard of bears getting stroppy with intruders. So when one polar bear - normally a cute little zoo animal - bites a reporter they conclude the reason.....of course...global warming. As they report:

"If you still have any lingering doubts about global warming, stick around. We’re off to the Arctic, where Tara Brown found all the proof she needed that there’s something drastically wrong with the world’s weather. It came in the shape of a very large, very hungry polar bear - an angry predator, with us as its prey. Stranded in the middle of nowhere with a three-metre, 300kg bear on the attack is a frightening experience. It’s also a graphic lesson in what happens when we mess with nature. As global temperatures rise, the ice cap melts and the polar bears’ hunting grounds disappear. Now they’re starving, desperate for food - so desperate even humans look appetising."

Case closed. However the Wall street journal thinks otherwise:

Apparently so, because there are in fact more polar bears in the world now than there were 40 years ago, as the nearby chart shows. The main threat to polar bears in recent decades has been from hunting, with estimates as low as 5,000 to 10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. But thanks to conservation efforts, and some cross-border cooperation among the U.S., Canada and Russia, the best estimate today is that the polar bear population is 20,000 to 25,000.

It also turns out that most of the alarm over the polar bear’s future stems from a single, peer-reviewed study, which found that the bear population had declined by some 250, or 25%, in Western Hudson Bay in the last decade. But the polar bear’s range is far more extensive than Hudson Bay. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain concluded that the ice bear populations “may now be near historic highs.” One of the leading experts on the polar bear, Mitchell Taylor, the manager of wildlife resources for the Nunavut territory in Canada, has found that the Canadian polar bear population has actually increased by 25%—to 15,000 from 12,000 over the past decade.

Mr. Taylor tells us that in many parts of Canada, “polar bears are very abundant and productive. In some areas, they are overly abundant. I understand that people not living in the North generally have difficulty grasping the concept of too many polar bears, but those who live here have a pretty good grasp of what that is like.” Those cuddly white bears are the Earth’s largest land carnivores.

But hey, I can understand 60 minutes on one side. My next door neighbours car hissed at me the other day, so naturally I thought cats were almost extinct too.

BUT GET a LOAD of THIS! (http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/manmade.htm)

Yes, global warming really is man-made

When you are trying to troubleshoot an instrumentation system (whether it is in examining a PhD thesis or facing a major industrial crisis) there are, self-evidently, two vital areas you need to address:

1. The physical process of data acquisition

2. The computational process of Data handling

The central problem with data acquisition, now that data conversion is largely standardised through advances in electronics, is the housing and siting of sensors. Sometimes the problems are glaring, such as caking with mud or salt, but often they are more subtle and veiled. Particularly difficult are cases where instrumentation interacts with nearby systems (see appendix below for an example where an expensive court case was averted).

Data handling is an even greater problem, especially when “intuitive” or obscurely argued methods are implemented. Even if we discount the possibility of deliberate fraud, the power of the human subconscious to influence outcomes is a known but difficult to quantify hazard, especially in computer programs.

In considering data handling for climate monitoring in these terms, we now have the advantage of new information on siting and a description, though not a perspicuous one, of alterations made to original data.

We have long known that there have been examples of badly sited monitoring stations. The late John Daly showed seven years ago an example of bad siting, while, incidentally, raising the question of whether the surface record was as reliable as we were led to believe and proposing improvements of methodology. Daly’s analysis has not only stood the test of time, but has been vindicated by recent developments. The satellite record continues to show little or no change while the surface record shows what is alleged to be a continued rising trend.

Here is the satellite record:

While here is the surface record:

[global+warming-+glob-jan-jun-pg.gif]

In any other field (with the possible exception of epidemiology) such a discrepancy would result in an international conference to hammer out which version was correct. When you take into account that the difference is responsible for a multi-billion dollar international industry and a world-wide raft of draconian, liberty-crushing legislation, the silence is leaden.

The new development on the siting problem is that a systematic investigation has begun, involving the gathering of photographic evidence. The results so far are disturbing, even shocking.

This for example is a monitoring station at Wickenburg Arizona:

wickenburg_facing_se

The objects in the background are large air-conditioning units.

This is what John Daly wrote seven years ago about surface stations:

The only way surface data can be used with any confidence is to exclude all town/city and airport data - no exceptions. Only rural sites should be used, and by `rural’ is meant strictly `greenfields’ sites where there is no urbanisation of any kind near the instrument. Even when greenfields stations are used, those which are technically supervised (eg. managed by scientists, marine authorities, the military etc.) should be treated with greater credibility than those from sheep stations, post offices and remote motels.

This total and obvious common sense has been completely ignored by the Climate Change Establishment. An industry turning over billions of dollars does nothing to ensure the integrity of the data on which it is based. The fee Al Gore gets for one hair-raising lecture alone would more than pay the annual salary of a warden to look after several such stations. “Insouciance” is an inadequate word for what appears to be a calculated dereliction. You might even suspect that they do not wish to know the truth.

So, that is the data acquisition – what about the processing? We can get a description of that from the horse’s mouth.

Mental warning lights flicker when the phrase “high-quality” appears in each of the first two sentences. It is redolent of the salesman’s patter – never mind the quality, feel the width. There are other warning phrases such as “several adjustments” or “empirical model”, enough to raise the hackles of an experienced PhD examiner. But any such reservations pale into insignificance compared with the effect of the overall adjustment.

Not only is the total adjustment sufficient to account for a large proportion of the claimed temperature rise, but as a graph against time it is just the right shape to give support to the claim that the rise is post-industrial. Such a coincidence is more than enough to make an old-fashioned scientist feel, to say the least, uncomfortable

Global warming is a new phenomenon in human affairs. Not only is it now a major religion, but it has an associated industrial complex of a wealth sufficient to give it unheard of political power throughout the world. It presides over a virtual monopoly of research funding. The tiny band of critics have to work without resources and under a continual barrage of abuse. Experience suggests that those collectors of photographs had better watch out for dirty tricks, now that they are making an impact.

Clearly, global warming is anthropogenic (man-made). It exists mainly in the human mind and is manufactured from two sources – careless data acquisition and dubious data processing.

Appendix

Example of a case of a system interaction problem (from Sorry, wrong number!)

I was consulted by a company who were having difficulties with their customers over an instrument within their equipment that was giving seriously faulty readings. The company was in legal dispute with the supplier of the instruments, who claimed that, when they were returned, they proved to be in perfect working order. I visited the client with two colleagues from my consultancy practice. When we opened the door of the cabinet the explanation was glaring. The instrument, which was not built to high standards of electromagnetic screening, shared its housing with large switchgear designed to control heavy machinery. Whenever a switch operated it induced large pulses of current within the instrument, causing it to misread. I advised that both parties were at fault in failing to communicate their specifications correctly and the case stayed out of court.

Moral: it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a system to work correctly that all its subsystems work correctly.

John Brignell

July 2007 BETTER PULL UP THE SITE AND LOOK AT THE CHARTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

...AND AL GORE IS STILL FULL OF SHIT...Nobel Prize or NO Nobel Prize...

How tragic for the late Alfred Nobel that science has abandoned the prize given in his memory and that politics has taken it over...

...HAVE A NICE DAY!

[Riverwind (imported)]

I forgot about the earth wobble, 7th grade science class.

Are we in a global warming?

I don't know, but just in case I will try to help any way I can.

Have the scientists proven that the reason is totally man made?

No I don't think so.

Here is why, you can not take 20 years of data, the last 20 and from it determine what the weather will be like 50 years from now if it is not changed. We are most certainly not helping the matter but are we the cause and can we turn it around? I think we are trying to help, we are most likely adding to the cause but can we stop it? I don't think so.

The geologic clock for earth does not work in a 1 year, 5 or 50 year time frame, it works in thousands of years. So the first question that should be asked is, has this happened before? answer yes, about every 10,000 or so.

Next question when was the last time? answer, about 10,000 years ago or so. Does the earths wobble change the weather? Is it in the same time periods as the global warming? I don't know the answer to the last two questions and I have not herd one of this 2000 scientists talk about it either. Remember you can make a computer model do what ever you want, thats what computers do.

So, should we try to help, you bet but has it been proven that these guys are right? not yet.

In the late 70s all the geologist in the western half of the US said we would have a Volcano blow its top. They also said it would be Lassen or Shasta, all but one, one guy said it would be St Helens, all the others said the guy was nuts, did not understand and had no clue or idea what he was talking about. So when experts say, more to the point, when science says this is going to happen, it makes me a little unnerved. What really starts getting me going is when they all jump in the same wagon because that means they have stopped looking.

River

[kristoff]

Gee, this was about Al Gore being awarded the Nobel. Not about global warming.

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

CONGRATULATIONS to Albert Gore winning the Nobel Peace for his work on environmental awareness.

The previous comments are proof "we are aware."

[Riverwind (imported)]

whats interesting is that they gave him the wrong prize, peace prize for ? global warming? or did I miss something>?

A noble prize for humanity? or some other title, if one does not fit, create a special one time prize but just why did he get it for peace?

River