Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

[santafe2]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

Again, the 'oil companies are evil' thread.

That's your characterization of course. If someone criticizes your boys at Exxon because they'll do anything to maintain their turf, we're calling them "evil". Hardly. We're calling them self serving and too loosely regulated but no criticism is allowed.

Federal spending on global warming research: $30 billion - including the all the American leaders of AGW: Hansen et al.

Amuse me with the details. Sorry to be so flippant, but the number is ridiculous.

[c1ue]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

Amuse me with the details. Sorry to be so flippant, but the number is ridiculous.

First the $30B I mentioned: (actual spending $79B)

Official report to Congress of the US Climate Science program

http://downloads.climatescience.gov/...cpfy2009-8.pdf

Since 1989, the annual report,Our Changing Planet, has been submitted to Congress by the Federal agencies charged with coordinated research on global environmental change.

US Fed funding for climate science.bmp

Another part of the $79B: more than $25B for the Climate Change Technology Program, the National Climate Change Technology Initiative, the Energy Tax Provisions that may reduce Greenhouse Gases since 2003.

Yes, that Bush, such an oil company stooge yet passed so much Climate Change spending...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/legisl...ate_change.pdf

US CC technology spending.bmp

I won't bother going further, you can examine the rest of the data yourself:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/im...mate_money.pdf

Energy Climate fed spending.bmp

Now that you see this - and I hope you don't dispute the government's own publications - then you might understand better that Al Gore wasn't spearheading a new movement. He was monetizing it.

[santafe2]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

First the $30B I mentioned: (actual spending $79B)

Ah, you're talking about actual spending over the last 20 years. That makes sense. Both your numbers are in line with mine. Unfortunately, it's a drop in the bucket, about $6 per US citizen per year. I'd be happy to pay $12 so you don't have to pay c1ue.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/im...mate_money.pdf

Mmmm...The Third Viscount Lord Monckton of Brenchley again...let's just cozy up to big oil. And the site founder, Ferguson came out of right wing politics and Frontiers for Freedom, a big oil funded climate change denier group.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

Hi,

Interesting.

So if we assume that Human-caused Climate Change is one big conspiracy and we should do nothing then what are the benefits of doing nothing? Would switching over to carbon-emission-free sources of energy be so expensive that it would cause a massive global depression?

But what if the scientists are right and that humans have the ability to negatively impact the global climate? Would doing nothing cause the collapse of nations and the death of millions?

We can't know with metaphysical certainty if human-caused climate change is true or not, but we can decide whether to act or to not act, right?


There are three reasons why I think acting to prevent further emission of greenhouse gases is the prudent course of action:

1. It's not fantastic to believe humans have the ability to impact the environment around them. If you've ever been to a third-world country, you will see the enormous amounts of pollution a typical third-world city makes. Go to Los Angeles, Mexico City, Manila, and a dozen other crowded cities and you will experience the choking smog created by the collective outputs of millions of vehicles. Humans are actually quite good at screwing up their environments (See: "Collapse" by Jared Diamond).

2. EVEN IF human-made climate change is false, and the scientists are wrong, it would be beneficial to invest in new
technologies to get us out of our dependence on expensive and foreign sources of energy, afterall, the wind and sun are free. The initial investment is expensive but it is likely that it will be beneficial over the long-term.

3. The failure to act is more costly than the failure to do nothing. Would I rather have my grandchildren experience a temporary great depression due to overinvestment or experience something worse due to a human-made global catastrophe? I know they are extreme causes but you have to prepare for extreme cases. That's why I have fire extinguishers in my house, why I buy accident insurance, why I buckle my seatbeat, and why I own gold -- better to have a margin of safety and to have taken active precautions than to be left unprepared.

Anyone have thoughts on why we shouldn't act and the consequences of not acting? Can anyone refute the logic of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg

Paul
Norridge, IL

There is no choking smog now in the Los Angeles Basin, at least when brush fires are not raging in the adjacent hills. The old smell of gasoline vapours in the air in California is a distant memory from the 1950s. Cars burn clean, almost so clean that actual water is emitted from car tail-pipes.

Pollution from fossil fuels is mostly an issue long past. Even coal burns clean in power plants with scrubbers for particulates.

The issue to-day is where is the world going to get its fuels for the future, and more importantly, what are these fuels going to cost?

For the next two hundred years, heavy oil is available and plentiful for up-grading into light oil, diesel fuel, and gasoline. The main source of heavy oil is Alberta--- hardly a terrorist state.

Atomic power is available and plentiful if only eco-nuts would allow atomic power plants to be built in America. There is plenty of uranium to be harvested from atomic weapons which can be converted to uranium fuel in for the fuel-rods of atomic power plants. One source of uranium fuel to be taken from atomic weapons would be the Rocky Mountain Weapons Arsenal in Boulder, Colorado.

We also have plentiful natural gas reserves in America, and these reserves can be harvested for fuel for power-plants and also for use in vehicles. Coal is also plentiful, especially lignite coal in North Dakota.

And the U.S. can build more hydro-electric dams, especially in the West. For example, the Eel River of California can now be dammed, and hydro-electric power could be produced and sent southward to SF and LA.

We can solve America's addiction to foreign oil from terrorist states like Iran and Lybia. But we have to get-on with a plan that is realistic and without regard to demands and lawsuits from extremist environmental groups.

If I were President Obama, I would sign an executive order from the White House which would mandate the building of hydro-electric dams, atomic power, importation of Alberta up-graded oil, the mining of lignite coal in N.D, the full development of natural gas reserves throughout America, and the and the drilling of new oil wells offshore in American waters now. This executive order would over-ride all lawsuits from environmental groups. This would be a five-year plan with goals to be met by specific dates. This plan would be administered through the Pentagon by the U.S. military--- just the same as the Manhattan Project was in WWII.

The energy crisis would be solved by 2015, and the issue would be settled. Those who failed to co-operate with this emergency energy plan would face criminal charges in the courts, just as they would have during the Manhatten Project of WWII.

[c1ue]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

Ah, you're talking about actual spending over the last 20 years. That makes sense. Both your numbers are in line with mine. Unfortunately, it's a drop in the bucket, about $6 per US citizen per year. I'd be happy to pay $12 so you don't have to pay c1ue.

Excuse me, but you're changing the subject.

My assertion was that there was so much money being spent on AGW that the money itself provided an incentive for a 'positive' result.

Furthermore that this money was far more than being spent by the 'deniers'.

You implied that the 'evil oil companies' were somehow altering the AGW debate by funding the deniers - yet for some reason don't consider that the federal government is somehow different for funding the AGW proponents literally thousands of times more than the deniers - billions vs. millions.

You asked, and I've provided proof that literally BILLIONS are being spent each year, with the sums being $70B+ over the last 20 years.

Yet you still refuse to acknowledge that there is at least a possibility of an agenda in action?

Secondly the money spent thus far is COMPLETELY WITHOUT MANDATE.

Your assertion that 'only' $12 per person spent over the last 20 years is both irrelevant and inconsequential.

You might also note that this money wagon started even before the first IPCC report in 1990 much less the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.

The clearly 'oil driven' Bush White House, if not also the Republican Congress, was no different than the so called 'liberal' White House of Clinton. It started in fact with the FIRST Bush White House and Congress.

Thirdly we're not even talking now about the money spent before. We're now talking about NEW money being spent. The Cap & Trade bill is estimated by the CBO to cost $175 per household per year.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/103xx/doc...TradeCosts.htm

I await the next installment of rhetoric vs. the facts I keep on laying out.

So far you and the other AGW faithful have yet to refute a single statement I've made.

Even the scurrilous offhand remarks have been shown to be wrong.

I'll conclude with a graph from Hansen employee Gavin Schmidt:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...8-projections/



Scenario A is clearly wrong. Scenario B is the so called 'mainstream' one - now that A is so clearly off.

Scenario C is the one where NO action is taken.

The page where this is taken from tries to obscure the actual temperature effects by focusing on how the so called CO2 forcing modeling is correct. The implication is that if the forcing is correct, then the model is correct even though the actual temperature record is BETWEEN B and C - and that is even with NASA's own temperature record data being possibly contaminated by urbanization of temperature recording stations.

Of course what is also left out is that the above graph only extends to 2005.

The latest data available that I can find is up to 2008, and the graph looks like this:



Of course with centering the last 3 or 4 years is only slightly under 'Scenario C', but certainly lends itself to the strong possibility that Scenario B is wrong - as well as Scenario C possibly being wrong. Certainly the actual record is no longer between B and C but rather under C.

Or in other words, the science isn't settled.

In just 2 or 3 years we will have a much better idea if the so called hockey stick is real. Perhaps that why the urgency and pungency with which AGW fanatics demonize critics is so high.

[jiimbergin]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

C1ue,

I want to thank you for all the time you have put in here to try to convince the AGW group, but I think it is hopeless since they refuse to even discuss all of the data you provide (and McIntyre etc.) I have found in my own discussions with them in person and at other web sites that there only replies are always the same. Big Oil, Fox News, science is decided etc. They don't even realize that Steve McIntyre is anything but a right wing extremist.

jim

[c1ue]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

C1ue,

I want to thank you for all the time you have put in here to try to convince the AGW group, but I think it is hopeless since they refuse to even discuss all of the data you provide (and McIntyre etc.) I have found in my own discussions with them in person and at other web sites that there only replies are always the same. Big Oil, Fox News, science is decided etc. They don't even realize that Steve McIntyre is anything but a right wing extremist.

jim

Jim,

Thank you, but I am happy to do it.

I'm not saying AGW is not a possibility.

What I am saying is that the science is far from settled and that there are clear reasons why AGW might be more than just science based.

What I have been doing and will continue to do is point out those many many contradictions, red flags, warning signs, and so forth which the entire AGW movement exhibits.

You'll note I do not initiate these discussions in anywhere but Rant 'N Rave, but will contribute wherever they pop up.

I will continue to provide data, facts, and documentation on the 'denier' side - and every discussion in which the AGW fanatics resort to ad hominem, argument from adverse consequences, excluded middle, argument from authority, appeal to authority/anonymous authority/false authority, confusion of correlation and causation, causal reductionism, argument by inconsistency/double standards, argument by changing the subject/misdirection, appeal to complexity, and possibly a few others which I have seen in just a few short months only serves to show that AGW at least as exhibited by these people is more a belief system than a logically derived understanding.

Full list: http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/s...ts.html#burden

[santafe2]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

Excuse me, but you're changing the subject.

My assertion was that there was so much money being spent on AGW that the money itself provided an incentive for a 'positive' result.

There are grounds on which we'll never find, well, common ground. The government money your talking about is spent on peer reviewed research. The Exxon money you're talking about is spent on propaganda, right wing think tanks, misinformation and junk science. As the cigarette companies proved in the 80s with their "doubt is our product" marketing, it works.

Thirdly we're not even talking now about the money spent before. We're now talking about NEW money being spent. The Cap & Trade bill is estimated by the CBO to cost $175 per household per year.

I'm not joining this 50 cents a day debate with you. Cap and Trade is what the FIRE economy will allow. Don't pretend it has anything to do with the environmental movement. We want a carbon tax. Simple as that. A carbon tax, moves us away from OPEC oil, air pollution and oil wars.

The latest data available that I can find is up to 2008, and the graph looks like this:



Of course with centering the last 3 or 4 years is only slightly under 'Scenario C', but certainly lends itself to the strong possibility that Scenario B is wrong - as well as Scenario C possibly being wrong. Certainly the actual record is no longer between B and C but rather under C.

Or in other words, the science isn't settled.

You demonize Hansen regularly but that was the state of climate science 20 years ago. You should enjoy this moment in 2009. We're 10 years into the PDO cooling cycle, we're just now, (most likely), experiencing the end of an 11 year cycle solar minimum. Both are thought to contribute to global cooling. We also have an ozone hole over Antarctica which causes more localized cooling. We could get lucky and the sun will under heat while we humans continue to create green house gas, but it's not a smart bet.

It's likely that we have 20-25 years before these 30 year and 11 year cycles line up with rising CO2 to create the disaster Hansen foresaw in 1988.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

I live in Thailand, but my wife and I own a house in Virginia on the Potomac River just as it dumps into the Chesapeake Bay. My neighbor to the left used to be a 96-year old retired school teacher who talked state representatives into coming to the homeowner’s picnics and then skewered them with demands on why she was paying property taxes on land the river had reclaimed. She spent most of her time on her porch. She left the house to a gaggle of grandchildren who enclosed the porch. They installed a heat pump the size of a dumpster. It cools or heats the house to a perfect 72 degrees 365 days a year. They use the house 40 days a year. We already tax the hell out of behavior. (A deck of plastic playing cards in Bangkok costs ten dollars.) Tax carbon!

[santafe2]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

For the first time, two commercial shipping vessels have completed a journey along Russia’s Northeast Passage without the need for icebreakers.

Maybe big business is going to embrace this global warming thing...but, but..how is it possible that there's a new northeast passage when the warmest year was 1998?

Bound for the Netherlands from South Korea, the route will cut 4,000 nautical miles from the typical 11,000-mile route through the Suez Canal, helping realize a “considerable” reduction in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, said Niels Stolbert, president and CEO of Beluga.

Mmmm...Exxon could sell this. Yup, we were wrong, there is global warming but it's a good thing.

http://ecoworldly.com/2009/08/27/rus...cial-shipping/

[santafe2]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

And more fun...

New research indicates that polar bears in the western Arctic are finding it increasingly difficult to find food during the critical spring season.

But as c1ue pointed out on another thread, they're not dead yet so why worry? Let's wait for the evidence.

Not only is the early melt affecting the bears ability to hunt, it could also have significant impact on the prey for which they hunt. The diminishing sea ice impedes the seals' ability to nurse and build dens for their pups, causing their numbers to drop.

I seem to remember c1ue wringing hands over seals the other day...:rolleyes:

http://www.globalwarmingisreal.com/b...-going-hungry/

Fun stuff. There's no proof yet from denier POV but lucky us, we'll likely see it in our lifetime.

[santafe2]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

New research, released by the Catlin Arctic Survey and WWF, provides further evidence that the Arctic Ocean sea ice is thinning, supporting the emerging thinking that the Ocean will be largely ice-free during summer within a decade.

Overstated? Yup...It's going to take 30 years.

The data...collected by manual drilling and observations on a 450-kilometre route across the northern part of the Beaufort Sea...suggests the survey area is comprised almost exclusively of first-year ice.

Scurrilous I guess, but accurate.

“That means you’ll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer and have transport across the Arctic Ocean.”

See previous post...Exxon should pay me for this stuff. They'll be switching sides in 10 years.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1015203837.htm

[c1ue]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

There are grounds on which we'll never find, well, common ground. The government money your talking about is spent on peer reviewed research. The Exxon money you're talking about is spent on propaganda, right wing think tanks, misinformation and junk science. As the cigarette companies proved in the 80s with their "doubt is our product" marketing, it works.

Again, you assert that Exxon's $1M or so per year outweighs the government's $2B to $3B per year - much like the cigarette companies.

Well, let's see now: since I've shown that your spending assertion was thoroughly wrong, how about you show me that cigarette company spending in the 60s and 70s was 1/1000th of the federal government's spending on lung cancer research. If so then I might be more inclined to believe your story - although this seems more like a bad analogy argument: lung cancer rates were going up in the 60s and 70s whereas global temperatures have been going up and down from Ice Ages to Warm Periods for thousands of years.

I'm not joining this 50 cents a day debate with you. Cap and Trade is what the FIRE economy will allow. Don't pretend it has anything to do with the environmental movement. We want a carbon tax. Simple as that. A carbon tax, moves us away from OPEC oil, air pollution and oil wars.

To start with, an argument by misdirection: again what does 50 cents have to do with anything? Your water bill costs less than 50 cents a day - is that irrelevant?

As for the rest, well, at least the truth is coming out: 'We' want a carbon tax.

How about a national referendum on this Waxman-Markey bill then?

Because I don't want it. And apparently a lot of other people don't want it. But equally apparently YOU want it.

The difference here is that I'm not advocating forcing everyone to do something I want. AGW fanatics are. And as I've said before - those advocating radical action *for everyone else* are the ones with the burden of proof.

You demonize Hansen regularly but that was the state of climate science 20 years ago. You should enjoy this moment in 2009. We're 10 years into the PDO cooling cycle, we're just now, (most likely), experiencing the end of an 11 year cycle solar minimum. Both are thought to contribute to global cooling. We also have an ozone hole over Antarctica which causes more localized cooling. We could get lucky and the sun will under heat while we humans continue to create green house gas, but it's not a smart bet.

It's likely that we have 20-25 years before these 30 year and 11 year cycles line up with rising CO2 to create the disaster Hansen foresaw in 1988.

I demonize Hansen regularly because he is the one who most vocally has given up his scientific credentials in favor of a politician's. But more importantly Hansen's scaremongering tactics are now falling apart as his projections increasing show to be inaccurate.

As for your assertion on what's going to happen in 20-25 years - it is amusing that Hansen's testimony before Congress 20 years ago made NO mention of PDO, ENSO, solar cycles, etc etc - only Green House Gases.

He also explicitly tossed out the 1950 to 1980 period because it was a global cooling era.

The assertion you are putting up is as much as admitting that AGW is at best a secondary effect on actual global temperatures. Furthermore it is still unproven that the rise in "base" temperatures is due to CO2 or to some other as yet unproven effect or effects. If there can be an Ice Age with CO2 at 4000 ppm, why would CO2 going from 250 ppm to 360 ppm make a dramatic difference?

Maybe big business is going to embrace this global warming thing...but, but..how is it possible that there's a new northeast passage when the warmest year was 1998?

Another bad argument: confusing correlation with causation.

For one thing, how is it known that never before have both Northeast and Northwest passages been open at the same time?

Oh yeah from the link:

Last year, for the first time in the era of satellite monitoring, both Arctic passages were briefly open at the same time.

That's what, 30 years max? But of course for the AGW - only the last few years count.

A more clear understanding of the ice is shown below:

http://www.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/com/ele...fossil-eng.php

The most common cause of death for the bowheads studied by Art and his colleagues was entrapment in the ice as it expanded in autumn. Because the whales followed the ice edge so closely, the location of their fossils indicates the extent to which the ice had previously retreated. By using radiocarbon dating, Art can determine the age of the fossils. Since fossils are only found where the ice edge once existed, their age tells Art how far the ice extended at a certain point in history.

...

With all this data, Art and his colleagues have been able to determine when the Northwest Passage was open, and what conditions would be required for it to happen again. Art and his colleagues have found a significant number of bowhead fossils scattered throughout the length of the Northwest Passage dating from approximately 10,000 years ago. This abundance of fossils coincides with the warmest part of the Holocene era. At that time, it was approximately three degrees warmer than average temperatures in the mid-twentieth century.

New research indicates that polar bears in the western Arctic are finding it increasingly difficult to find food during the critical spring season.

The return of the polar bears - Save the Cuddly White Teddies!

Maybe they're hungry because there are too many of them:

http://www.aksenateminority.com/arch...ate/2007/03/29

According to University of Alaska Fairbanks Research Associate Professor Matt Cronin

...

“We don't know what the future ice conditions will be, as there is apparently considerable uncertainty in the sea ice models regarding the timing and extent of sea ice loss. Also, polar bear populations are generally healthy and have increased worldwide over the last few decades. Recent declines in sea ice and indications that polar bears in some areas may be negatively impacted are cause for concern, but in my opinion do not warrant designation of the species as threatened with extinction,” Cronin said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...elieve-it.html

'It's the photo that became a symbol of global warming: polar bears stranded on a melting ice-floe in mid-winter. The truth? It was taken in summer'

...

After almost three months of working with those who know the Arctic best - among them Inuit Indians, who are appalled at the way an animal they have lived beside for centuries has become a poster species for "misinformed" Greens - Nigel Marven finds himself in broad agreement.
"I think climate change is happening, but as far as the polar bear disappearing is concerned, I have never been more convinced that this is just scaremongering.
"People are deliberately seeking out skinny bears and filming them to show they are dying out. That's not right.
"Of course, in 30 years, if there's no ice over the North Pole, then the bear will be in trouble.
"But I've seen enough to know that polar bears are not yet on the brink of extinction."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7132220.stm

We have this specimen that confirms the polar bear was a morphologically distinct species at least 100,000 years ago, and this basically means that the polar bear has already survived one interglacial period," explained Professor Ingolfsson.

"And what's interesting about that is that the Eeemian - the last interglacial - was much warmer than the Holocene (the present).

"This is telling us that despite the ongoing warming in the Arctic today, maybe we don't have to be quite so worried about the polar bear. That would be very encouraging."

New research, released by the Catlin Arctic Survey and WWF, provides further evidence that the Arctic Ocean sea ice is thinning, supporting the emerging thinking that the Ocean will be largely ice-free during summer within a decade.

You were mentioning right wing think tanks? What would you call the WWF? Perhaps a AGW-wing think tank? But more importantly let's look at the Catlin Arctic Survey: there's already a response

http://therebel.org/science_&_techno...2009101573935/

Top Ten Reasons why the Catlin Arctic Ice Survey data can’t be trusted
10.

High profile news and PR from the beginning, plus an unrealistic vision of self importance related to the mission. The entire venture was publicized well in advance of the actual expedition, and the mission was “too important to fail” according to the January 23rd interview with The Guardian Catlin team leader Pen Hadow said:

“During this mammoth expedition we will gather the essential data that scientists need to more accurately determine when the permanent floating sea ice will disappear altogether. We cannot afford to fail on this mission – there is too much at stake.”

With pronouncements like that, you also can’t afford not to bring home a result consistent with the theme of the expedition.
9.

Reality Show Science as reported here, “The trio will be sending in regular diary entries, videos and photographs to BBC News throughout their expedition.” When you tie science too closely to the media from the beginning, it predetermines some outcomes. That pressure is always there to produce the story rather than focus on the task. This is why most proper science is done well away from the media and the results are reported afterwards.
8.

Hadow, by his own admission, has an unrealistic and biased warmer view of the Arctic that doesn’t match the current data. In his Curriculum Vitae posted here, he writes:

“Twenty years ago, you could walk to the North Pole – now you have to swim part of the way there.”

Only problem is, the satellite data showed a completely different picture of solid ice, and Hadow’s expedition encountered temperatures of -44F (-42C) along the way, and the vast majority of the trip was below 32F (0C). He didn’t encounter vast leads of water along the way, and in fact encountered ice conditions far worse than he expected. This shows his bias for a warmer trip from the start.
7.

The Catlin team’s scientific advisor at the beginning of the trip seemed to already have a predetermined outcome for the Arctic. In this BBC article and interview they write of Professor Wieslaw Maslowski, a science advisor to the survey:

“Ultimately, Professor Maslowski hopes to finesse his forecast for when the first ice-free summer might arrive.
Currently, he has it down for 2013 – but with an uncertainty range between 2010 and 2016.”

So if they already had this figured out from the beginning, why make the trip at all? Is it so the BBC could recycle the headline again today saying Arctic to be ‘ice-free in summer’? Why do “science” at great personal risk when you already are sure of the end game? There’s also another nugget of predisposition wisdom by Catlin’s science advisor Professor Maslowski. Read on.
6.

They failed to advise of major equipment failure in a timely manner, inviting suspicion. The ice radar sounding equipment that was designed to do the thickness survey failed miserably, almost from day one, yet even though they were “sending in regular diary entries, videos and photographs to BBC News throughout their expedition,” the world didn’t learn of that failure until day 44 of the 73 day expedition. When Apollo 13 had a problem, the world knew about it almost immediately. When Catlin had a problem, it was covered up for well over a month, yet that didn’t stop the BBC from paraphrasing Apollo 13’s famous words for a headline ‘London, we have a problem’ as if there was some parallel in integrity and timeliness here.
5.

Hadow and his scientific advisor erroneously believed that their expedition was the only way ice thickness measurements could be done, and they seemed oblivious to other efforts and systems.
From this BBC article and interview:

“No other information on ice thickness like this is expected to be made available to the scientific community in 2009,” explained Arctic ice modeller Professor Wieslaw Maslowski, a science advisor to the survey.

While this was obviously a selling point to sponsors and an ego boost for the team, it was flat wrong. For example, there’s a bouy network that provides ice thickness data,. Then there’s ICEsat which provides mass and balance measurements, as well as ice thickness maps, shown below:


ICESat data for Fall 2008, source NASA Scientific Visualization Studio
As reported on WUWT, another data source of Arctic Ice thickness in 2009 came in the form of an aerial survey with a towed radar array from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. They didn’t have to risk lives, create drama, or bleat constant headlines to the BBC while doing the science. They simply flew the plane over the ice a few times.
Here’s some excerpts of what was reported on WUWT in the story Inconvenient Eisdicken – “surprising results” from the Arctic

At the North Pole ice sheet is thicker than expected

The “Polar 5″ in Bremerhaven
The research aircraft Polar 5 “ended today in Canada’s recent Arctic expedition. During the flight, researchers have measured the current Eisstärke measured at the North Pole, and in areas that have never before been overflown. Result: The sea-ice in the surveyed areas is apparently thicker than the researchers had suspected.
Normally, ice is newly formed after two years, over two meters thick. “Here were Eisdicken up to four meters,” said a spokesman of Bremerhaven’s Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. For scientists, this result is still in contradiction to the warming of the seawater.

Gosh. Where’s the polar death defying drama in that?
4.

Due to the extreme cold conditions they were not fully prepared for, they completed less than half of the planned trip. Originally it was to be a 1000 kilometer trip to the North Pole which according to early interviews given by Hadow was easily done, yet they failed. The original start point was to be at 81N 130W but they actually started closer to the pole by about 100 kilometers.
Click here to explore the Catlin Arctic Survey in Google Earth (right click and save as)
According to the Google Earth KML file provided by Catlin, they started at 81.7N 129.7W and ended at 85.5N 125.6W for a total distance of approximately 435 kilometers over 73 days. Hardly a broad survey of the Arctic Ice when put into perspective on the Google Earth and ICEsat maps shown below:

Catlin Route Map from GPS data with planned and actual start/end points

Here’s the Catlin Arctic Ice Survey Route overlaid on the ICEsat map. You can see just how little of the ice was actually surveyed.

[ATTACH]2333[/ATTACH]

Catlin Arctic Survey Path over ICEsat map [ATTACH]2334[/ATTACH]

Note that the ICEsat image is from Fall 2008, while the Catlin trip was in the Spring of 2009. Since we all know sea ice moves, often connected to the Beaufort Gyre, it is likely that the path depicted does not represent the ice Catlin actually traveled over. The sea ice may have moved so that the Catlin path traversed some of the thinner ice to the west, though some thickening of the ice would also be expected during the winter of 2009. The point of this map was to put the route in perspective.
3.

There’s very little actual data return for 73 days on the ice, only 39 datapoints. See the dataset they provide in the Excel file here:
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/images/excelLogo.png CAS Snow Ice Measurements – Final 2009
Final surveying results from the 2009 expedition.
The actual number of holes drilled and measured for ice thickness by Pen Hadow is said to be in the hundreds, and what we see in the Excel file is the average of those many holes at each drilling session. While I commend them for providing the raw hole data, problems with potential measurement bias don’t appear to be well addressed in the methodology paper they provide here (PDF) while it is mentioned in the preliminary June report:

“One further consideration, when interpreting the ice thickness measurements made by the Catlin Arctic Survey team, may be navigational bias. Typically, the surface of First Year Ice floes are flatterthan that of multi‐year ice floes and because the team systematically seeks out flatter ice which is easier to travel over and camp on, there is a risk that the ice surveyed will not be representative.”

Since they make no mention of the potential measurement bias in the final report, it appears that there wasn’t anything but lip service consideration given to it in the early report, possibly to appease critics.
2.

One of the most prominent sea ice researchers in the world, Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC said he would not use the Catlin data saying in a post here on WUWT:

“I don’t anticipate using the Catlin data.”

That begs the question then, beyond the use of the data for generating news stories like we’ve seen in the BBC and other media outlets, who will? Even the media outlets have ignored the actual data Catlin made available, preferring sound bites over data bytes.
1.

The Catlin Arctic Ice Survey knowingly presented false data to the public and to the media in their web presentation.

As many WUWT readers recall, it was here that it was discovered that Catlin’s website had bogus telemetry data on it, giving the impression of “live data from the ice” when in fact the data repeated in an endless loop from a short period.

Don't give up your day job.

[Diarmuid]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

Again, you assert that Exxon's $1M or so per year outweighs the government's $2B to $3B per year - much like the cigarette companies.

Here is one example of how the tax payers money is spent in the UK on generating informed public opinion on AGW - government sponsored fear and self loathing UK style. :eek:

[xela]

Re: Cracks in the Global Warming Case?

Bet the same audience wont take the 1h36min to watch this
Lord Christopher Monckton Speaking at Bethel University