Senator Responds to CNN Hit Piece On Global Warming

[kallend 2,150]

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Hurricanes are unexpected in northern Europe.

Hurricanes, Gales, call em what you will , but 70 mph gusts are not that rare in northern europe.

Of course if you shove a T.V. crew on top of a mountian you might be able to show some gusts that are a tad higher. But from where I was sitting, apparently in one of the worst hit areas, it did not seem anything like what happened in New Orleans. On the contrary, it seemed like a bog standard windy day in lancashire, north west England.

Well, that'll teach me to try some humor! Apparently it was just normal European weather.

Berlin (dpa) - At least 41 people were killed and transport ground to a halt across Northern Europe Thursday night and Friday morning in one of the worst storms to hit the continent in the last 20 years.

Winds of 200 kilometres-per-hour were reported in some regions, leaving thousands without power, while 800 cubic metres of crude oil spilled into the Dutch harbour of Rotterdam after a container ship broke loose and struck an oil terminal.

Germany suspended rail services nationwide and ferries were halted across the Channel and in northern Germany. More than 100 domestic and European flights were cancelled at London's Heathrow airport and in other parts of Europe.

In Britain, a 2-year-old boy was among at least 10 people killed there, while 26 members of a sinking container vessel had to be airlifted to safety in the English Channel. The crew of the 62,000-ton MS Napoli were rescued by helicopters of Britain's Royal Navy and French rescue helicopters, a spokesman for Falmouth Coastguard in Cornwall, on the tip of south-west Britain said.

Police said a number of people across Britain suffered injuries as gale force winds of up to 160 kilometres per hour brought transport chaos, damaged buildings and made scaffolding and walls collapse.

A two-year-old boy died after a wall collapsed on him in Kentish Town, north London, and four people died on the roads as trees fell on vehicles and lorries were blown off course.

In Stockport, Greater Manchester, a woman in her 60s was crushed to death when a wall toppled onto her in high winds, and another man in Manchester died after being blown into a metal shutter at an industrial estate.

Wind gusts of up to 200 kilometres per hour in Germany uprooted trees, tore down power cables and sent a two-ton steel support crashing 40 metres to the ground at Berlin's new main railway station.

Ferry routes on the North Sea and Baltic Sea were suspended, hundreds of flights were cancelled and German national railways halted all operations for the first time in its history.



Yessir - perfectly normal weather.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[speedy 0]

I am afraid your are easily fooled by media reporting.

Of course they report gusts of up to 200 kmh. As I said, put your reporters on the right mountain.

I was here, right in the middle of it, I know what I saw.

You believe the hype, I'll stick with what I experienced in Dortmund, Germany.

Even my crappy little wooden shed in the garden showed no signs of damage. I really wish the "hurricane" had blown down that damm tree blocking my satelite dish. Ho hum, guess I'll have to get the chain saw out after all.

Dave

Fallschirmsport Marl

[kallend 2,150]

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I am afraid your are easily fooled by media reporting.

Of course they report gusts of up to 200 kmh. As I said, put your reporters on the right mountain.

I was here, right in the middle of it, I know what I saw.

You believe the hype, I'll stick with what I experienced in Dortmund, Germany.

Even my crappy little wooden shed in the garden showed no signs of damage. I really wish the "hurricane" had blown down that damm tree blocking my satelite dish. Ho hum, guess I'll have to get the chain saw out after all.

German national railways halted all operations for the first time in its history. Pretty damn normal, doing something for the first time in its history. Yessir!

More normal weather this week.

Watchout, you'll be next in line for Ming's death beam.


Hands up everyone else who thinks my reference to Ming the Merciless was serious.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[speedy 0]

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German national railways halted all operations for the first time in its history. Pretty damn normal, doing something for the first time in its history. Yessir!

If they maintained their lines properly the would not be so worried about trees falling on them.

The 120 flights cancelled at Frankfurt airport was less than 10% of all flights that went ahead that day. They were short on capacity because they wanted a little more separation on take off/ landing.

It was quoted as the worst storm in 20 years. I don't remember anything about a storm here 20 years ago. Guess there was not so much media hype then. They maybe had more workers to keep the railway lines clear of potentially dangerous trees. They maybe did not have such congested airports. They didn't have 24 hour news channels then.

Dave

Fallschirmsport Marl

[kallend 2,150]

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German national railways halted all operations for the first time in its history. Pretty damn normal, doing something for the first time in its history. Yessir!

If they maintained their lines properly the would not be so worried about trees falling on them.

The 120 flights cancelled at Frankfurt airport was less than 10% of all flights that went ahead that day. They were short on capacity because they wanted a little more separation on take off/ landing.

It was quoted as the worst storm in 20 years. I don't remember anything about a storm here 20 years ago. Guess there was not so much media hype then. They maybe had more workers to keep the railway lines clear of potentially dangerous trees. They maybe did not have such congested airports. They didn't have 24 hour news channels then.

Obviously you're a Ming backer!
Take THAT!

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[warpedskydiver 0]

It is all the fault of the French, because they suck so hard.

[speedy 0]

and you take this.

It's hilarious

Dave

Fallschirmsport Marl

[mnealtx 0]

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Perhaps it was a metaphor.

Wow... Nice cop out. Almost as easy as saying stats provided are done so without knowing if they are true...

I expect the Right's next scapegoat for unexpected hurricanes (Europe) and blizzards (California, Texas) will be Ming the Merciless.

As, I'm sure, there will be those on the Left crowing the "it's all Bush's fault!" mantra

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[mnealtx 0]

An interesting clip from an interview with Dr. Heidi Cullen:

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Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy. If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn't agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns. It's like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather. It's not a political statement...it's just an incorrect statement.

I agree with every meteorologist who says the topic of global warming has gotten too political. But that's why talking about the science is so important!

Evidently, only those that agree with her are going to be allowed to talk about it...

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[NCclimber 0]

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Climate scientists feeling the heat
As public debate deals in absolutes, some experts fear predictions 'have created a monster'


By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Scientists long have issued the warnings: The modern world's appetite for cars, air conditioning and cheap, fossil-fuel energy spews billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, unnaturally warming the world.

Yet, it took the dramatic images of a hurricane overtaking New Orleans and searing heat last summer to finally trigger widespread public concern on the issue of global warming.

Climate scientists might be expected to bask in the spotlight after their decades of toil. The general public now cares about greenhouse gases, and with a new Democratic-led Congress, federal action on climate change may be at hand.

Problem is, global warming may not have caused Hurricane Katrina, and last summer's heat waves were equaled and, in many cases, surpassed by heat in the 1930s.

In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.

"Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.

Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected "tension" among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.

The science of climate change often is expressed publicly in unambiguous terms.

For example, last summer, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: "I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. ... In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history."

Vranes says, "When I hear things like that, I go crazy."

Nearly all climate scientists believe the Earth is warming and that human activity, by increasing the level of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, has contributed significantly to the warming.

But within the broad consensus are myriad questions about the details. How much of the recent warming has been caused by humans? Is the upswing in Atlantic hurricane activity due to global warming or natural variability? Are Antarctica's ice sheets at risk for melting in the near future?

To the public and policymakers, these details matter. It's one thing to worry about summer temperatures becoming a few degrees warmer.

It's quite another if ice melting from Greenland and Antarctica raises the sea level by 3 feet in the next century, enough to cover much of Galveston Island at high tide.

Scientists have substantial evidence to support the view that humans are warming the planet — as carbon dioxide levels rise, glaciers melt and global temperatures rise. Yet, for predicting the future climate, scientists must rely upon sophisticated — but not perfect — computer models.

"The public generally underappreciates that climate models are not meant for reducing our uncertainty about future climate, which they really cannot, but rather they are for increasing our confidence that we understand the climate system in general," says Michael Bauer, a climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York.

Gerald North, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, dismisses the notion of widespread tension among climate scientists on the course of the public debate. But he acknowledges that considerable uncertainty exists with key events such as the melting of Antarctica, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 200 feet.

"We honestly don't know that much about the big ice sheets," North says. "We don't have great equations that cover glacial movements. But let's say there's just a 10 percent chance of significant melting in the next century. That would be catastrophic, and it's worth protecting ourselves from that risk."

Much of the public debate, however, has dealt in absolutes. The poster for Al Gore's global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth, depicts a hurricane blowing out of a smokestack. Katrina's devastation is a major theme in the film.

Judith Curry, an atmospheric scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has published several research papers arguing that a link between a warmer climate and hurricane activity exists, but she admits uncertainty remains.

Like North, Curry says she doubts there is undue tension among climate scientists but says Vranes could be sensing a scientific community reaction to some of the more alarmist claims in the public debate.

For years, Curry says, the public debate on climate change has been dominated by skeptics, such as Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and strong advocates such as NASA's James Hansen, who calls global warming a ticking "time bomb" and talks about the potential inundation of all global coastlines within a few centuries.

That may be changing, Curry says. As the public has become more aware of global warming, more scientists have been brought into the debate. These scientists are closer to Hansen's side, she says, but reflect a more moderate view.

"I think the rank-and-file are becoming more outspoken, and you're hearing a broader spectrum of ideas," Curry says.


(regarding that metaphotic money vault)
Other climate scientists, however, say there may be some tension as described by Vranes. One of them, Jeffrey Shaman, an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at Oregon State University, says that unease exists primarily between younger researchers and older, more established scientists.

Shaman says some junior scientists may feel uncomfortable when they see older scientists making claims about the future climate, but he's not sure how widespread that sentiment may be. This kind of tension always has existed in academia, he adds, a system in which senior scientists hold some sway over the grants and research interests of graduate students and junior faculty members.

The question, he says, is whether it's any worse in climate science.

And if it is worse? Would junior scientists feel compelled to mute their findings, out of concern for their careers, if the research contradicts the climate change consensus?

"I can understand how a scientist without tenure can feel the community pressures," says environmental scientist Roger Pielke Jr., a colleague of Vranes' at the University of Colorado.

Pielke says he has felt pressure from his peers: A prominent scientist angrily accused him of being a skeptic, and a scientific journal editor asked him to "dampen" the message of a peer-reviewed paper to derail skeptics and business interests.

"The case for action on climate science, both for energy policy and adaptation, is overwhelming," Pielke says. "But if we oversell the science, our credibility is at stake."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4487421.html

[kallend 2,150]

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Perhaps it was a metaphor.

Wow... Nice cop out. Almost as easy as saying stats provided are done so without knowing if they are true...

I expect the Right's next scapegoat for unexpected hurricanes (Europe) and blizzards (California, Texas) will be Ming the Merciless.

As, I'm sure, there will be those on the Left crowing the "it's all Bush's fault!" mantra

www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2629254#2629254

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Amazon 7]

AS the climate shifts.. so will the weather patterns in any given area. Warmer sea temperatures mean more evaporation into the atmosphere....the water has to go somewhere. and places that used to get it may no longer get the moisture..and it goes somewhere else.