Tag Archives: Chicken Licken

A Funny Thing did not happen in the Cambrian and Late Ordovician Periods

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Posted by JJ on January 17, 2010 – 8:47 pm
Filed under Global Warming
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Climate Change scientists warn us to act right now to limit our CO2, or our climate will tip over irreversibly, and there will be a disaster for marine life.

The climate tip-over is foretold in a study reported by “Scientific American” on 12 January 2010.  It finds that “even if the world’s governments manage to cut global emissions in half by 2050 and then do everything possible to limit emissions from 2050 on, society has only even odds of limiting global temperature increases to 2º, a goal noted in the recent Copenhagen Accord“.

The article says that “The science is not clear what level poses a threat, but some research suggests concentrations must remain at or below 450 parts-per-million to prevent drastic climate change.”  And it says that “emissions today are on the path to 550 ppm and beyond”.  The last quote in the article is from Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan University (an economist – what’s he doing here in “Scientific American”?)  He says that “Tip an ecosystem or planetary process – such as the atmosphere – too far in one direction, and it may suddenly and irreversibly “flip” into an altered state that precludes any notion of going back to the unaltered version”.

The marine disaster is foretold in a report published by the EU-funded European Project on Ocean Acidification.   The report says that levels of aragonite, the type of calcium carbonate which is essential for marine organisms to make their skeletons and shells, will fall by 60% to 80% by 2095 across the northern hemisphere.  Dr John Baxter, a senior scientist with Scottish Natural Heritage, and the report’s co-author, says “The bottom line is the only way to slow this down or reverse it is aggressive and immediate cuts in CO2.  This is a very dangerous global experiment we’re undertaking here.”

Now, let’s put what they are saying into perspective:

Consider the geological history of Earth from the Cambrian period that began 600 million years ago.  In the latter part of the Cambrian period, about 530 million years ago, the proportion of atmospheric CO2 was nearly 7000 parts per million.  In the Late Ordovician period, about 430 million years ago, CO2 was at 4400 parts per million.

Today we are in the beginning of the Quaternary Period.  In all of the past 600 million years, CO2 levels have been less than 400 parts per million in only the Carboniferous period and the present.  For about 70 percent of the whole 600 million years, the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere has been above 1000 parts per million.  1000 ppm – that’s well above the 550 million ppm they are rabbiting on about, up to peak of nearly 7000 ppm!  For 420 million years out of the last 600 million.

And guess what.  A funny thing didn’t happen in all of those 420 million years.  The sky did not fall.  That is, the ecosystem did not flip over to an irreversible state.  The Greenhouse Effect did not run away.  And, in the waters beneath an atmosphere containing 7000 ppm of CO2, the marine acidity did not kill the marine animals and plants that teemed in the Cambrian oceans.

P.S:

It’s a wonder the two “studies” didn’t say outright “Be afraid…  Be very afraid”.  They don’t use the words “Runaway Greenhouse Effect”, and they avoid any specifically testable conclusions,  but they want us to be afraid, all right.  Penn & Teller would love them.

In accord with good literary manners, I have enclosed the name of the scientific publication in quotes – viz: “Scientific American”.  I have no hesitation in also enclosing my final comment on the reported studies in quotes: “Yeah Right!”

References:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/10/ocean-acidification-epoca

The “Guardian” article “Ocean Acidification Rates pose Disaster”, reported on the Copenhagen Summit.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html.  They quote:

Temperature after C.R. Scotese http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
CO2 after R.A. Berner, 2001 (GEOCARB III)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-policy-analysis-goals-long-mid-term.

The study they quote was published by scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, and the Energy Research Center in the Netherlands, under the auspices of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Icebergs – Global Warming or Local Cooling?

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Posted by JJ on January 5, 2010 – 12:41 pm
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In the southern spring of 2009, hundreds of icebergs drifted from the Antarctic toward New Zealand.  This had occurred only twice before – in 1931 and 2006.  The event prompted a sombre warning from an Australian glaciologist on 23 November 2009.

Scientist Neal Young said more than 100 icebergs — some measuring more than 200 metres (650 feet) across — were seen in just one cluster, indicating there could be hundreds more. He said they were the remains of a massive ice floe which split from the Antarctic as sea and air temperatures rise due to global warming.  He also said that he expected to see more icebergs in the area if the Earth’s temperature continues to increase. “If the current trends in global warming were to continue I would anticipate seeing more icebergs and the large ice shelves breaking up,” he said.

That’s rather breathless hype for a scientist, if that’s what a glaciologist is.  Global warming?  In 1931 as well, eh?  Looks like a candidate for a very high Penn & Teller rating!

As a southern hemisphere glaciologist, Neal Young should be well aware that Antarctic sea ice has grown since the 1970s at a rate of 100,000 square kilometres a decade.  (Some scientists who believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming put that down to the hole in the ozone, which supposedly limits the greenhouse effect caused by man-made CO2).

Young should also be well aware of the nature of Antarctic sea ice.  In the Arctic, some sea ice persists for years, but almost all Antarctic sea ice melts away and reforms annually.  That means that the massive ice floes break up every year.  Because every year (at least since mankind became aware of Antarctica), the waters around it have been warm enough in summer to melt almost all of the Antarctic sea ice.  And because it happens every year, the breakup of Antarctic ice floes therefore clearly has sod-all to do with Global Warming!  Every year, there is a greater area of ice shelf waiting to break up into ice floes.   The destination of the remnants (icebergs to you) is up to the winds and currents at the time, and how long they last depends on the temperature of the waters in which they float.  At best, claiming that icebergs getting close to New Zealand is because of Global Warming is nothing but chicken-licken-style poppycock.  And poppycock of that nature can only cause alarm – or is that the real point of it?

It leaves me with two questions:

  • What sort of agencies fund Australian glaciology
  • Have some or all of the funding agencies any connections with the IPCC?

P.S.  Like Neal Young, I also expect to see more icebergs and more large ice shelves breaking up.  But not because of Global Warming.  In fact, quite the opposite – local Antarctic cooling!  Each decade, there are 100,000 square kilometers more winter sea ice in Antarctica – that’s nearly half the area of New Zealand.  100,000 square kilometres more to break up in the summer.  That’s a hell of a lot of icebergs.

Environmentalism is Endangered

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Posted by JJ on January 2, 2010 – 8:46 am
Filed under Endangered Environmentalism, Global Warming
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Wake up, environmentalists!  Your movement is on the road to extinction, and you are your own worst enemies.  Your movement is committing suicide, by hitching its wagon to possibly the greatest scientific scam since Piltdown Man.  Seriously.  You have leapt unthinkingly on the bandwagon of preventing Anthropogenic Global Warming.  That bandwagon is headed for a crash, and environmentalism will be its most serious casualty.  In her Globe and Mail column on Saturday, Margaret Wente had this to say.  It’s worth reading.

The scam has been sold to the world by the IPCC and Al Gore, and environmentalists have swallowed the whole thing, hook, line and sinker.  So have the media.  The ” war”  against Global Warming has become a cause celebre, and those who promote global action to reduce CO2 have become media darlings.  But the world is beginning to wake up to the scam, and when the IPCC, Al Gore and AGW itself are finally discredited, the media will disown them.   Environmentalism will be tarred with the same brush.

Why tilt at the windmill of man-made CO2 and methane emissions when there are real enemies to fight?  Unlike man-made CO2 and methane from farm animals, deforestation and wetland destruction really do have a significant climate impact.  Strip-mining, oil spills, over-fishing, bottom trawling, whaling, industrial, agricultural and urban pollution, land-fill waste disposal, intensive forced farming and the destruction of natural wildlife habitats all diminish the sustainability of life itself.

Stick to your knitting, environmentalists – get back out and concentrate on the real environmental issues.  We need you to do that.  And to do it, you need credibility and respect.  It will be very hard to maintain your credibility when you smell of Anthropogenic Global Warming bullshit.