All weather observations, outside of the laboratory are based on temperature readings.
The devices used to measure these temperatures have a measurement uncertainty of plus or minus 0.5 degrees Celsius - a one degree spread. (Adding other uncertainties within the full measurement system, brings the total measurement uncertainty a lot higher.) The global warming proponent have stated the temperature rise in the last century is one degree Celsius. This one degree rise is the basis for their whole argument - and it is absolutely false.
In my 35 years in industrial measurement and control I have gained a extensive experience in how accurately physical conditions (especially temperature) can be measured.
Other factors that will affect the temperature measurement are -
1 - Number of measuring points relative to the whole. 99% of our weather is monitored within 100 feet of the earths surface and within 5,000 ft of sea level. The vast bulk of the atmosphere is measured only periodically using balloons and rockets. Satellite measurements tend to measure only the upper level of the stratosphere, mostly heat reflection.
2 - Calibration - The measuring device (RTD) itself is very stable. The electronics attached to the device, interpreting the readings for we humans to understand, does drift. How much and how often it drifts is a direct function of the initial cost of the system. Weather departments never buys the most costly systems. Most measurements are taken in remote sites where technicians seldom venture. (My son works for the Canadian weather service).
3 - The three factors, RTD inaccuracy, number of measuring points and calibration can add up to a plus or minus one degree (or more) uncertainty, which means a two degree spread in uncertainty. With this level of uncertainty in today's devices it is not very likely that the devices of 100 years ago were any better at providing an accurate reading.
No one knows if the atmosphere has increased in temperature by one degree in the last hundred years. For all anyone does know, the atmosphere could very well be colder now than it was a century ago.
How can so many 'scientists' be so wrong? Remember back in the early part of the twentieth century, all scientists, every last one of them, except one, were convinced that there was only one more fact to understand and everything in science would then be known. Unfortunately for this myth, along came Neils Bohr.
I have asked myself how so many so-called scientists can get on the global warming bandwagon when there is so much doubt about the very basics of accurate measuring. I think the answer lies in the fact that people in general look at a reading, any reading, and accept that reading at face value. This has become even more prevalent since the advent of digital readouts.
Of course, most scientist are in the laboratory using highly accurate, therefore expensive, measuring systems. They probably have never considered a lesser value, therefore lesser quality system, being used in the real world weather services.
I also know that a lot of otherwise very smart people do not have a sound grasp of what measurement uncertainty entails.
I suggested my global warming and measurement uncertainty on an e-mail list of 2,000 of my compatriots in the industrial measurement and control industry. Of the tens of people who responded only one or two had any grasp of the factors involved in determining what a reading meant. The most common argument that came up was - if you average all of the readings somehow this improves the accuracy of temperature measuring systems. Of course, when the reading are averaged you merely obtain an average of the readings - not of the temperature. And, these are people whose job it is to understand these principles.
Since global warming, by definition, has as its basic the real world measuring of temperature, it is quite clear that we are being taken in by the largest, most expensive scam in the history of civilization.
Restored from Archive.org
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Five things every Canadian should know about Kyoto: It ain't just a city in Japan
It should be enough to turn Canadians against the Kyoto accord to know it will kill tens of thousands of existing jobs, prevent the creation of as many as a quarter-million new jobs over the next decade, and in the end do little or nothing to save the environment. Ratification is a bad idea – all pain, no gain. Ottawa mustn’t proceed. End of story. But in case you won’t take my word for it, here are five things you should know about Kyoto:
1. The Earth isn’t warming
Or, at least it hasn’t warmed much in the past 25 to 60 years.
It warmed a bit more than half a degree Celsius between the late 19th Century and the 1940s, mostly before the large-scale industrialization and emissions that are supposed to be responsible for global warming, or GW.
Surface temperature readings taken with thermometers indicate more warming since the 1970s, perhaps an additional half degree. However, such readings are taken over less than half of the Earth’s surface. A disproportionate number are taken at weather stations in the midst of major cities and thus are subject to artificial warming from the “urban heat island effect.” There are also concerns (or should be) about the reliability of the humans who take some of the 7,000 daily readings around the globe. And it’s possible some of the thermometers being used are as much as half-a-degree off the mark.
By contrast, NASA’s eight polar-orbiting weather satellites have been taking over 300,000 readings each day since 1979, covering the entire Earth’s surface, in the middle of oceans and jungles as easily as downtown Toronto and the Fraser Valley. And these satellites have recorded no appreciable warming in all that time.
About two years ago, environmentalists crowed that the satellites’ data was illegitimate. Not enough adjustment had been made, they clucked, to account for the way “the birds’” orbits decay a few millimetres each year. But even after the necessary recalculations, these sophisticated and highly accurate weather satellites still showed no significant warming.
2. If the Earth is warming, it is not necessarily a bad thing
Since about 1860, the Earth has been emerging from what is known as the Little Ice Age, a 500-year-long epoch of especially cold climate. Just as no one frets when his hometown warms in springtime, following an especially bitter winter, it would be irrational to worry too much about a warming that follows a prolonged period of cold. The warming of the past 140 years may just be a return to normal.
Moreover, a millennium ago the Earth was four degrees warmer, on average, than it is today. That’s just as warm as environmentalists claim it will become if we don’t stop driving our SUVs and start ratifying Kyoto.
Yet this era of much warmer weather was hardly a time of agricultural or human catastrophe. In fact, before the thought of a warming climate became politically incorrect, the period from about 900 AD to 1300 AD was known as the Medieval Optimal. Crops flourished in Europe and Asia. During this time of plenty there were relatively few wars and most of the major Gothic cathedrals were built.
The coasts of Greenland were habitable. Southern England boasted lush vineyards.
The great plagues, the disappearance of ancient Central American cultures did not occur until after the Little Ice Age replaced this medieval warm period.
Yet say the satellites are wrong, and the Earth is warming, so what? A little warming might well be a boon.
3. Even if warming is real, there’s a good chance humans are not the cause
The Earth has warmed before. Of the last 19 periods of great and (relatively) sudden warming, 17 have corresponded precisely to periods of increased solar activity – solar flares, sun spots, cosmic winds, and so on. Increased solar activity in the past 100 years could, by itself, easily account for all of the warming alleged to have taken place so far.
Increased cosmic radiation, as an example, reduced cloud cover by seven per cent during the 20th Century. More heat and energy from the sun is making it to the Earth’s surface, something that would go a long way to explaining any warming.
Try to prevent a natural and beneficial warming by curtailing human activity would go beyond the futile. It would the modern equivalent of sitting on a throne in the surf and commanding the tide to stop.
4. Even if it’s real and bad and humans are causing it, Kyoto won’t halt warming
Never mind that Kyoto negotiators focus mostly on carbon dioxide emissions and that even James Hansen, the NASA scientist who is the godfather of GW alarmists, now believes methane, nitrous oxide and soot – the last of which isn’t even covered by Kyoto -- are more likely than CO2 to be causing GW. And never mind that there have been times in the climatic past when carbon dioxide concentrations in our atmosphere have been 10 times greater than they are today, without temperatures soaring.
Or that after the most exhaustive study ever of the alleged link between historic CO2 levels and temperature records, Canadian researcher Jan Veizer concluded in 2000 that “carbon dioxide concentrations are not the principal driver of climate variability,” indeed CO2 levels seem to rise AFTER temperatures have risen.
Forget all this scientific evidence that Kyoto’s CO2 limits amount to barking up the wrong pollutant’s tree. Let’s pretend CO2 is driving climate change. Even if we make that assumption, fully implementing Kyoto won’t halt GW. It can’t.
At least 95 per cent of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – and more likely 99 per cent – comes not from man, but from nature. Decomposing trees and plants, gas released from the oceans, even just the natural nocturnal release of CO2 by all living vegetation, swamps human CO2 production.
Kyoto does not seek to reduce human production of CO2, but rather merely to slow its rate of increase. Were Kyoto to be fully implemented, over the next 10 to 15 years, anthropogenic (manmade) CO2 levels would increase by 25 per cent, instead of by 35 per cent, if Kyoto is not implemented.
In a nutshell, with Kyoto, human CO2 might be limited to 3.75 per cent of the total in the atmosphere. Without Kyoto, it might – MIGHT – rise to four per cent. If such a reduction has any impact at all (and it seems highly unlikely it would), it might mean temperature rise by 2050 would be reduced by 0.02 degrees C – that’s 2/100ths of one degree.
Kyoto is at most symbolic and at worse utterly meaningless; certainly not worth putting our economy and standard of living at risk.
5. Kyoto’s targets will not apply to the U.S. or developing countries
Neither the United States nor developing countries will be saddled with Kyoto’s emission restrictions. Kyoto applies only to the developed world, to rich nations – except the U.S., which has refused to ratify.
Even the UN admits emerging economies will not be required to limit their emissions until 2012. Developing nations will be permitted to “catch up” to industrialized nations economically, while the latter’s economies are hobbled by Kyoto’s restrictions. If the architects and supporters of Kyoto were truly desirous of saving the environment, you would think they’d be equally concerned about pollution regardless of the per capita income of the source country.
Far from just aiding the environment, though, Kyoto is nothing more than crass, old-fashioned socialist income redistribution. Kyoto is as anti-capitalist as it is pro-environment.
With the Americans refusing to abide by Kyoto, and with nearly 90 per cent of our exports going to the U.S., Canada’s industries will be put at an extreme disadvantage vis-a-vis their American competitors.
With both the U.S. and the developing world unhampered by emission targets, where do you think Canadian jobs and plants will relocate?
Finally, just imagine how many bureaucrats and tax dollars will be needed to support a worldwide regulatory regime that will measure emissions, seek to limit their production and somehow punish those nations that fail to comply. Such a vast expansion of government, alone, should worry taxpayers in the developed world.
Then there will be the billions governments will spend subsidizing research into “green” technologies and underwriting “sustainable” development at home and in the developing world. Kyoto’s direct and indirect price tag will be measured in the tens of billions, maybe even the hundreds of billions. And for what? An ineffective solution to a non-existent problem? Good luck.
Restored from Archive.Org
1. The Earth isn’t warming
Or, at least it hasn’t warmed much in the past 25 to 60 years.
It warmed a bit more than half a degree Celsius between the late 19th Century and the 1940s, mostly before the large-scale industrialization and emissions that are supposed to be responsible for global warming, or GW.
Surface temperature readings taken with thermometers indicate more warming since the 1970s, perhaps an additional half degree. However, such readings are taken over less than half of the Earth’s surface. A disproportionate number are taken at weather stations in the midst of major cities and thus are subject to artificial warming from the “urban heat island effect.” There are also concerns (or should be) about the reliability of the humans who take some of the 7,000 daily readings around the globe. And it’s possible some of the thermometers being used are as much as half-a-degree off the mark.
By contrast, NASA’s eight polar-orbiting weather satellites have been taking over 300,000 readings each day since 1979, covering the entire Earth’s surface, in the middle of oceans and jungles as easily as downtown Toronto and the Fraser Valley. And these satellites have recorded no appreciable warming in all that time.
About two years ago, environmentalists crowed that the satellites’ data was illegitimate. Not enough adjustment had been made, they clucked, to account for the way “the birds’” orbits decay a few millimetres each year. But even after the necessary recalculations, these sophisticated and highly accurate weather satellites still showed no significant warming.
2. If the Earth is warming, it is not necessarily a bad thing
Since about 1860, the Earth has been emerging from what is known as the Little Ice Age, a 500-year-long epoch of especially cold climate. Just as no one frets when his hometown warms in springtime, following an especially bitter winter, it would be irrational to worry too much about a warming that follows a prolonged period of cold. The warming of the past 140 years may just be a return to normal.
Moreover, a millennium ago the Earth was four degrees warmer, on average, than it is today. That’s just as warm as environmentalists claim it will become if we don’t stop driving our SUVs and start ratifying Kyoto.
Yet this era of much warmer weather was hardly a time of agricultural or human catastrophe. In fact, before the thought of a warming climate became politically incorrect, the period from about 900 AD to 1300 AD was known as the Medieval Optimal. Crops flourished in Europe and Asia. During this time of plenty there were relatively few wars and most of the major Gothic cathedrals were built.
The coasts of Greenland were habitable. Southern England boasted lush vineyards.
The great plagues, the disappearance of ancient Central American cultures did not occur until after the Little Ice Age replaced this medieval warm period.
Yet say the satellites are wrong, and the Earth is warming, so what? A little warming might well be a boon.
3. Even if warming is real, there’s a good chance humans are not the cause
The Earth has warmed before. Of the last 19 periods of great and (relatively) sudden warming, 17 have corresponded precisely to periods of increased solar activity – solar flares, sun spots, cosmic winds, and so on. Increased solar activity in the past 100 years could, by itself, easily account for all of the warming alleged to have taken place so far.
Increased cosmic radiation, as an example, reduced cloud cover by seven per cent during the 20th Century. More heat and energy from the sun is making it to the Earth’s surface, something that would go a long way to explaining any warming.
Try to prevent a natural and beneficial warming by curtailing human activity would go beyond the futile. It would the modern equivalent of sitting on a throne in the surf and commanding the tide to stop.
4. Even if it’s real and bad and humans are causing it, Kyoto won’t halt warming
Never mind that Kyoto negotiators focus mostly on carbon dioxide emissions and that even James Hansen, the NASA scientist who is the godfather of GW alarmists, now believes methane, nitrous oxide and soot – the last of which isn’t even covered by Kyoto -- are more likely than CO2 to be causing GW. And never mind that there have been times in the climatic past when carbon dioxide concentrations in our atmosphere have been 10 times greater than they are today, without temperatures soaring.
Or that after the most exhaustive study ever of the alleged link between historic CO2 levels and temperature records, Canadian researcher Jan Veizer concluded in 2000 that “carbon dioxide concentrations are not the principal driver of climate variability,” indeed CO2 levels seem to rise AFTER temperatures have risen.
Forget all this scientific evidence that Kyoto’s CO2 limits amount to barking up the wrong pollutant’s tree. Let’s pretend CO2 is driving climate change. Even if we make that assumption, fully implementing Kyoto won’t halt GW. It can’t.
At least 95 per cent of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – and more likely 99 per cent – comes not from man, but from nature. Decomposing trees and plants, gas released from the oceans, even just the natural nocturnal release of CO2 by all living vegetation, swamps human CO2 production.
Kyoto does not seek to reduce human production of CO2, but rather merely to slow its rate of increase. Were Kyoto to be fully implemented, over the next 10 to 15 years, anthropogenic (manmade) CO2 levels would increase by 25 per cent, instead of by 35 per cent, if Kyoto is not implemented.
In a nutshell, with Kyoto, human CO2 might be limited to 3.75 per cent of the total in the atmosphere. Without Kyoto, it might – MIGHT – rise to four per cent. If such a reduction has any impact at all (and it seems highly unlikely it would), it might mean temperature rise by 2050 would be reduced by 0.02 degrees C – that’s 2/100ths of one degree.
Kyoto is at most symbolic and at worse utterly meaningless; certainly not worth putting our economy and standard of living at risk.
5. Kyoto’s targets will not apply to the U.S. or developing countries
Neither the United States nor developing countries will be saddled with Kyoto’s emission restrictions. Kyoto applies only to the developed world, to rich nations – except the U.S., which has refused to ratify.
Even the UN admits emerging economies will not be required to limit their emissions until 2012. Developing nations will be permitted to “catch up” to industrialized nations economically, while the latter’s economies are hobbled by Kyoto’s restrictions. If the architects and supporters of Kyoto were truly desirous of saving the environment, you would think they’d be equally concerned about pollution regardless of the per capita income of the source country.
Far from just aiding the environment, though, Kyoto is nothing more than crass, old-fashioned socialist income redistribution. Kyoto is as anti-capitalist as it is pro-environment.
With the Americans refusing to abide by Kyoto, and with nearly 90 per cent of our exports going to the U.S., Canada’s industries will be put at an extreme disadvantage vis-a-vis their American competitors.
With both the U.S. and the developing world unhampered by emission targets, where do you think Canadian jobs and plants will relocate?
Finally, just imagine how many bureaucrats and tax dollars will be needed to support a worldwide regulatory regime that will measure emissions, seek to limit their production and somehow punish those nations that fail to comply. Such a vast expansion of government, alone, should worry taxpayers in the developed world.
Then there will be the billions governments will spend subsidizing research into “green” technologies and underwriting “sustainable” development at home and in the developing world. Kyoto’s direct and indirect price tag will be measured in the tens of billions, maybe even the hundreds of billions. And for what? An ineffective solution to a non-existent problem? Good luck.
Restored from Archive.Org
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