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Skeptic Confirms: The Heat Is On
As we have discussed often on this page, there remains a very small,
extremely vocal contingent of scientists who don't believe the earth is
getting warmer. One such prominent skeptic, geophysicist Richard Muller
has worked for the past several years analyzing climate data under a
grant endowed by a major funder of anti-global warming research. Dr.
Muller gathered over 200 years worth of temperature measurements. He
fully expected to find two results from his rigorous statistical
analysis. First, he expected to find that the quality of the data, a
function of the equipment used, measurement procedures, and record
keeping was so variable over the decades, that the expected variance,
and thus the possible error, was too great to produce a meaningful
trend. Second, he expected to prove that the urban heat island effect
produced a false statistical signature, further biasing the results in
favor of warming. The urban heat island effect occurs because all of the
concrete and steel in cities retains heat, producing warmer
microclimates around cities' weather stations. No one doubts the
existence of the heat island effect, and it increases as cities grow
with time. But it can be corrected for in the analysis.
After two years of number crunching, Dr. Muller has now concluded
that his original two hypotheses, and a few lesser ones, as well, have
now been conclusively disproven. When the data is corrected for quality
variation and heat island effects, global warming was confirmed, and the
rates of warming were in complete agreement with mainstream climate
researchers, including NASA, despite the use of different analysis
methods.
As we go to press, the remaining climate warming skeptics have not
responded to a major defector from their ranks.
Journal Faux Pas
Sometimes even the best scientific journals get things wrong. The
November, 2011, issue of the "Journal of Coastal Research" has a lengthy
paper on the feasibility of harvesting Antarctic glacial meltwater and transporting it to the freshwater-starved areas of Western Australia. It
is my understanding that international treaties prohibit the
exploitation of Antarctica's considerable natural resources, but that is
another matter. My gripe is with the cover photograph, or, more
precisely, its caption. The gorgeous color photograph shows three
Emperor Penguins launching out of the ocean onto the pack ice. The
caption states that during the austral winter, the accumulation of pack
ice makes it very difficult for penguins to get from nesting colonies to
open water to feed and return to feed their chicks. It goes on to state
that the penguins shown are in "a celebratory state" because a Russian
icebreaker had cleared a channel through the pack ice. Celebratory
state? Ridiculous! I have no doubt that penguins are smart enough to
avail themselves of a cleared channel, as long as there are no predators
present, but they evolved to live with the pack ice, and did just fine
before any icebreakers ever arrived. Most importantly, however,
researchers all agree that Emperor Penguins are most threatened by a
SHORTAGE of pack ice, which is another continuing trend brought about by
global warming. So I'm calling a foul on the "Journal of Coastal
Research" for excess anthropomorphism.
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