My condolences to all our friends in Europe freezing their booties-off, but the
skiing must be great. ;>)


When I asked the significance of the 1867 date from the posting on 2001 being
the 2nd hottest year "on recored" - Karsten Schischke opined "I think there is
no recorded worldwide data before the 1860s / 1870s, thus, you can't make
quantified statistical year-by-year statements for the time before."  Perhaps,
but then neither should the global climate change advocates.  In 1999 they said
that was the hottest year in "700 years", an article last year said it was the
warmest in 20,000 years, (or some such nonsense).  The thermometer and the
scales for measuring temperature have been around since the 17th century -
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686-1736), Anders Celsius (1701-1744).  The modern
thermometer has been in use since early in the 19th century. I checked a handful
of station data and found there is weather station temperature data going back
to 1853 in Hungary and Gibralter, and some temperature readings back to 1720 in
England, so there really is no technical reason to use 1867 as the basis.

One of the items of "proof" offered up by many in the climate change camp is
work done by Dr.  Michael Mann of the Department of Geosciences, University of
Massachusetts.  He created a chart of "global" temperatures going back one
thousand years.  His chart showed a "hockey stick"  like rise in temperature in
the last half of the 20th century.  Where did he get temperature data going back
that far?  He looked at tree rings (from trees almost exclusively in the
northern hemisphere, by the way).  Tree rings are a very poor proxy for
temperature.  As John Daley (http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/hockey/hockey.htm)
points out

 "Tree rings are only laid during the growing season, not the whole year, and so
they tell us little or nothing about annual climate.  For example, this year
(2000) there was a warm winter and early spring in the north-eastern USA,
followed by an unusually cool summer and fall.  Since the two events are largely
self-cancelling, the year may finish as fairly average, but the tree rings would
only record the cool summer and thus give a completely false impression of the
full-year temperature.  Tree rings do not even record night temperatures since
photosynthesis only occurs in the daytime.  Yet winter and night temperatures
are an essential component of what we understand by the concept annual mean
temperature'.

     All a tree ring can tell us is whether the combined micro-environmental
conditions during the growing season were favourable to tree growth or not.
This is because tree rings are influenced by numerous factors other than
temperature, such as rainfall, sunlight, cloudiness, pests, competition, forest
fires, soil nutrients, frosts and snow duration.  Thus they are not even a good
daytime temperature proxy for the few months of the growing season.

     Trees only grow on land.  Since 71% of the planet is covered by oceans,
seas and lakes, tree rings can tell us nothing about the maritime climate, even
though the oceans are known to be the prime determinants of climate conditions
throughout the world."

Climate change advocates do not hesitate to reference a variety of dates and
factors, to make their arguments, so when the dates, references and bases are
constantly changing, I become very suspicious of data manipulation, So I still
ask the question, why use 1867 as the start date for the claim made in the
original article.

Brian Ellis said "You are confusing climate and weather."  True, but then so
does everyone else, including many who claim to be scientists.  Every time there
is a warm summer somewhere or a local heat wave, the advocates of global warming
(more on that in a bit) start touting that as evidence of global warming.  If we
can agree that stories about one or two particularly warm years are not evidence
of global climate change then I can go along with that.

Brian goes on "The unfortunate thing about this is that we talk of global
warming and this is misleading.  The experts don't use this term, they talk of
climate change.  Hence the international body studying this is called the
International Panel on Climate Change."  True, and I would be happy to use that
term as long as everyone else does as well.  The popular advocates of "global
climate change" consistently (nay exclusively) use the term "global warming"
when discussing the subject.  So if we can decide which term to use but then
let's all be consistent.

"This means that radiation forcing at any given time at a particular part of the
earth may be positive and negative at another part, but the average may be
higher.  These unofficial studies, and the official ones, average the
temperature over the whole earth and, whereas Nov and Dec may be the coldest
months where you are, they may be the warmest in Oz or Peru."  Again true, in
part, if one accepts that radiative forcing is responsible for any higher
temperatures.  There IS a greenhouse effect, otherwise earth would not be so
hospitable to man and most other life forms.  So that is not the issue.  The
issue I take is with the "mean temperatures".  It is also true that the
temperature records that serve as the basis for the claims of "climate change"
are averages or means (but hardly global - more on that in a bit, too) but as
Disraeli (not Mark Twain) once said, "There are lies, damned lies and
statistics".  If we assume, arguendo, that the average or mean temperatures
around the globe are increasing that can mean many things.  It could mean either
that 1) the day's high temperatures have actually increased (i.e July 4th's
daytime high is hotter than ever), or 2) the day's high temperatures have not
increased, but there are just more hot days (more regular hot days in July and
August than normal), or 3) the day low temperatures have increased (January
20th's night time low is warmer than ever before) or 4) January and February had
fewer really cold nights.

 So if the high temperature is 100 degrees F and the low is 40 degrees F the
mean is 70 degrees F.  But if the low temperature increases to 42 degrees F and
the high is unchanged then the mean increases to 71 degrees.  But is it
"hotter"?  Since the temperature "record" involves many points it could mean
that more stations than normal are reporting higher lows but the same highs.
But all the popular and political hype wants us all to believe that the world is
heating up and that we will soon all be burnt to a crisp.  Can anyone tell me
with any authority that the reports of positive "global climate change" really
mean that the earth is getting hotter in the absolute sense (i.e.  scenario 1)
above)?

Moreover, to address the issue raised by Brian and Karsten Schischke on avoiding
the "Northern Hemisphere bias".  The problem is that humans are the ones that
read thermometers, humans tend to reside on land and the northern hemisphere
contains most of the land, and the northern hemisphere contains most of the
advanced countries that have bothered to measure temperature for any extended
period of time.  So the numbers, by default, have a Northern Hemisphere bias
because most weather stations have historically been in the northern hemisphere.
 So the notion that "the mean temperature of November and December should be as
high as the rest of the year" is not true because historically and currently we
do not measure the southern hemisphere to the same extent we measure the
northern hemisphere.  In other words, all things are not equal.

There is one (actually two) exceptions to my preceding statement, but it is
something that the global climate change advocates want to ignore.  Since 1971
satellites have been taking truly global temperature readings. In addition,
during that same time, radio sonde readings from twice daily weather balloon
releases have been taking global temperature readings.  These two sources are
highly reliable, their readings confirm each others data and they have shown
virtually no global warming.


Brian went on "Here, in Cyprus, ....  We do have accurate temperature records
going back about 120 years and a moving average curve clearly demonstrates a
mean temperature increase over the 20th century of about 1.8C and, more
catastrophic, a rainfall decrease of about 100 mm in a country which was never
rich on water resources.  This is climate change."  I have no basis to doubt
Brian's statement about the recorded temperatures, but how much of that increase
in RECORDED temperature is due to the urban heat island effect (i.e. the
tendency of concrete and asphalt, and other inidicia of modern, metropolitan
life, to hold and release more heat)?


"The problem is that, if we wait for a 100% certain scientific proof that
climate change is anthropogenic and we do nothing about it in the meanwhile, it
will be too late - the quality of life will become intolerable."  The problem
here is the same as with going lead-free in electronics.  Sure there is SOME
benefit to being lead-free, but is the cost of doing that worth the benefit.
The costs of complying with Kyoto will be astronomical, it will mean loss of
jobs around the globe and poorer nations will be hampered in their efforts to
improve the well-being of their citizens, not because Kyoto applies to them, but
because the economic losses in the developed nations will be most hard felt in
the developing nations.  Modern society runs on energy, and the so-called
renewables may be intriguing from a scientific and political perspective, but
they are not sufficiently developed to run a modern economy.  Nuclear is out of
the question because it is politically unpopular (recently Germany announced
that they are going to shut down all of their nuclear energy facilities and many
other EU countries are wanting to do the same).  Before we send the world wide
economy into a tailspin we should be more certain of the facts.

I will leave for another day the benefits of positive global climate change

Brian continued: "Apart from that, we must cut fossil fuel emissions anyway.
They are costing us too much in pulmonary and other disease, world wide.  Here
we have a definite cause and effect, with known mechanisms.  Just consider the
incidence of lung cancers (even among rural non-smokers), emphysema, asthma etc.
 Even more, the HIS is also seriously affected.  Pollution-induced disease is
causing more world hardship and is already costing us twice as much as AIDS.
This is costing the world community much more than reducing the causes to 1950
levels of pollution would.  Can we afford not to do so, before our medical
insurance invoices skyrocket to Mars?  This argument alone should convince the
nosayers who are waiting to be fried or drowned before doing anything. And we
don't have to wait for the proof."

Let's talk about "air pollution".  First, that is not the same as global climate
change or greenhouse gases.  CO2 may be a greenhouse gas (and avery poor one)
but it is hardly a pollutant.  Remember, it is the stuff we and all animals
exhale, so it is hardly hazardous.

"Air pollution" from modern society is made up of particulate matter, CO, SO2,
Ozone (O3), lead, Nitrogen oxides.

With respect to particulate matter:  The amount of fine particulate matter in
the air is already being reduced (in large part due to the move away from power
generation from burning coal).  Mobile sources (i.e.  cars and trucks) do
contribute a large part to particulate emissions, but a study done in the UK
shows that the biggest offender by far is diesel vehicles. get rid of diesel
cars and trucks and a major problem is solved.

"Emissions inventories are well able to quantify sources such as road traffic
exhaust and power station emissions.  They also include such activities as
quarrying and the generation of particles from tyre wear; the associated
emission factors must be far less certain, however.  The inventories attribute
an appreciable proportion of airborne particulate matter nationally to road
traffic emissions and show that in urban areas the influence of road traffic is
very much greater.  Emissions from diesels make up far [sic] the major part of
the particle mass from road traffic."

pg 168, from Airborne Particulate Matter in the United Kingdom May 1966 Prepared
at the request of the Department of the Environment
http://www.aeat.co.uk/netcen/airqual/reports/quarg/quarg_11.pdf

The National Air Quality and Emissions Trends Report, 1996 published by the US
EPA shows decreases (in the case of lead very substantial decreases) in
emissions of nearly all air pollutants from the period 1987 to 1996 (NOx showed
slight increases).  And the trends are estimated to continue downward.
http://www.epa.gov/oar/aqtrnd96/toc.html

And the downward trend in air pollutants are evident across the industrial world
(states of the former Soviet Union, excepted in many cases), not just in the US.

With respect to the toxicity of these pollutants CO is harmful if you stick a
hose in the tailpipe of your car and take deep breaths, primarily because you
are depriving you lungs of oxygen, not because the CO is "harming" you.  You
don't live long enough to suffer from long term exposure.

I would like to see references to studies conducted that will support the health
impact claims made by Brian; the statement "And we don't have to wait for the
proof." notwithstanding. Unfortunately proof, or at least credible evidence,
would be nice. In the meantime I will respond to these assertions about the
health effects "pollutants" with evidence, but that is for tomorrow.

Chuck Dolci