Christine, here is the actual article from the magazine Nature. Nowhere is Global Warming mentioned as being confirmed or not. This is a perfect example of how a liberal tabloid like the Washington Post makes one of those "religions (Greepeace) leaps of left wing environmental faith.
Christine, I am much more worried that my children's economic future is going to get sucked away by an 80% tax rate that these socialist one government spinmisters will force on them. Because of the media's one-sided view of this issue, most people are completely unaware of the 18,000 scientists who have gone on the record disputing the Global Warming scare. Where is your list of scientist Christine?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
The Nature Article
Climate: Satellite climate record in error
Henry Gee
A record of cooling in the lower troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere, seems to have more to do with changes in the orbits of the satellites making the measurements, than any real climatic effect. Once these changes are accounted for, the trend turns from a cooling to a modest warming trend. This conclusion, which is likely to be controversial, is presented in a study in the 13 August 1998 issue of Nature by Frank J. Wentz and Matthias Schabel of Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, California.
Since 1979, a series of eight satellites put into polar orbit by the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have carried instruments called microwave-sounding units (MSUs). These instruments measure a certain frequency of microwave radiation emitted by atmospheric oxygen. Changes in the strength of this radiation can be related to changes in the internal energy of the oxygen molecule, which in turn provide a guide to the temperature of the atmosphere.
In a report in 1990, Roy Spencer of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and John R. Christy of the University of Alabama, in Huntsville, Alabama, combined MSU observations from the NOAA satellites to produce the first satellite-derived dataset on global atmospheric temperatures [see Science 247, 1558-1562; 1990]. This report marked a real advance: to get a clear picture of global trends, climate researchers needed a truly global measurement system. Until then, researchers had to rely on combining records from a large number of local sources (such as surface stations and weather balloons.) Because data from these sources may have been gathered by a variety of different instruments and methods, it was not always clear how (or even whether) they could be assembled to give a reliable global picture.
Between 1979 and 1995, the MSU record showed that the lower troposphere - the lowest layer of the atmosphere - was cooling at a rate of 0.05 kelvin per decade. This change, a fall of five hundredths of a degree Centigrade - may seem small, but it ran counter to measurements gathered from the surface that indicated a rise of 0.13 kelvin per decade over the same period. Even though the data sets are not directly comparable, and that the warming trend seen at the surface is expected to diminish with altitude, some have regarded the cooling trend in the lower troposphere as suspiciously excessive. In the meantime, the discrepancy has sparked a lively debate in the climate community about possible instrumental problems, and even the existence of global warming.
Wentz and Schabel now show that the cooling trend seen in the lower troposphere is an artefact caused by a previously neglected effect: that satellites in orbit tend to lose altitude as a result of atmospheric drag. The original analysis used to derive temperature from the MSU data assumed that the satellites, once in orbit, stayed where they were put. But by taking the effect of altitude loss (or 'orbital decay') into account, the corrected estimate shows a temperature rise of 0.07 kelvin per decade in the lower troposphere, rather than a fall of 0.05 kelvin per decade. This is in closer agreement with the trend observed in surface temperatures. The researchers also show that a previously reported - and difficult to explain - cooling of the lower troposphere, relative to the middle troposphere, is another artefact of uncorrected orbital decay effects.
The problem stems from the way in which MSU measurements are made, which is more than a simple matter of flying a satellite and poking a thermometer out of the window. The question is easily stated: how can a satellite in orbit more than 800 kilometres above the surface measure the temperature in the lower troposphere (centred at an altitude of just 3.5 km above the ground) and the middle troposphere (7 kilometres); and tell the two records apart, both from each other and from the radiative effects of the Earth's surface and other atmospheric layers, such as the stratosphere, immediately above the troposphere?
What the MSU does is measure microwave emission from a number of different angles. By pointing the instrument more or less straight down at the ground from orbit (at the 'nadir'), the signal is dominated by emission from the mid- and upper troposphere, and also a part of the stratosphere.
Temperature in the lower troposphere is gauged in a more round-about way, by gathering data from angles closer to the apparent horizon (or nearer the 'limb'), and subtracting it from near-nadir data, according to a prescribed formula. The rationale is that near-limb observations are more sensitive to temperature in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, so subtracting near-limb from near-nadir observations gives an estimate of temperature in the lower troposphere.
So far, so good - but only if the MSU, and the satellite carrying it, stay at the same altitude. But the satellites have been slowly falling, their orbital decay being most marked between 1979-83, and 1989-92. These were times of high solar activity, in which increased ultraviolet radiation heated the upper atmosphere, expanding it more into space, and subjecting the satellites to aerodynamic drag. In response to which, the satellites dropped to lower and lower altitudes. Over the period between 1979 and 1995, the satellites experienced a net fall of 20 km, equivalent to an average annual fall of 1.2 km.
Altitude affects MSU measurement by distorting data from near-limb measurements compared with near-nadir measurements. A drop in altitude will not influence the angle at which the instrument looks at the ground directly beneath - the ground will simply appear a few kilometres closer. But it will have a more marked effect on measurements made on the limb, because the angle of incidence on the Earth's surface at the horizon changes with the altitude of the observer. This is a simple consequence of the Earth being round.
Because the temperature of the lower troposphere is not measured directly, but is an estimate derived from a standard formula in which near-nadir and near-limb measurements are combined, a change in one relative to the other will distort the outcome, unless the change is corrected. This is how, by accounting for orbital decay, Wentz and Schabel show that the lower troposphere has experienced a slight warming, rather than a slight cooling.
This finding will force researchers to look much more closely at data derived from satellites, especially if the results are achieved indirectly, with the potential for error to creep in at every step. It could be that other errors, as yet unaccounted for, could swing the balance the other way once more, to give, once again, a cooling, rather than a warming trend in the lower troposphere. Time will tell.
Problems with satellites may prompt researchers to make more use of instruments borne on weather balloons, which are closer to the ideal of sending an instrument to a prescribed height and simply poking a thermometer out of the window. But this raises the problem of the local nature of such records, and their unsuitability for estimating global trends - which is why Spencer and Christy's satellite data set was so important in the first place.
"The crux of the matter" says Dian J. Gaffen of NOAA in a commentary accompanying the Wentz and Schabel paper, "is that climatologists are relying on systems that were never designed for climate monitoring. Various groups have advocated improved observational networks, but they have yet to be realized."
_____________________________________________________________________
Now here's an article probably a lot closer to the truth.
There is no global warming. Period.
You can't find a real scientist anywhere in the world who can look you in the eye and, without hesitation, without clarification, without saying, kinda, mighta, sorta, if, and or but...say "yes, global warming is with us."
There is no evidence whatsoever to support such claims. Anyone who tells you that scientific research shows warming trends - be they teachers, news casters, Congressmen, Senators, Vice Presidents or Presidents - is wrong. There is no global warming.
Scientific research through U.S. Government satellite and balloon measurements shows that the temperature is actually cooling - very slightly - .037 degrees Celsius.
A little research into modern-day temperature trends bears this out. For example, in 1936 the Midwest of the United States experienced 49 consecutive days of temperatures over 90 degrees. There were another 49 consecutive days in 1955. But in 1992 there was only one day over 90 degrees and in 1997 only 5 days.
Because of modern science and improved equipment, this "cooling" trend has been most accurately documented over the past 18 years. Ironically, that's the same period of time the hysteria has grown over dire warnings of "warming."
Changes in global temperatures are natural. There is no proof that temperature is affected by anything that man has done.
In fact, recent severe weather has been directly attributed to a natural phenomenon that occurs every so often called El Nino. It causes ocean temperatures to rise as tropical trade winds actually reverse for a time.
The resulting temperature changes cause severe storms, flooding and even draught on every continent on earth.
It's completely natural. El Nino has been wreaking its havoc across the globe since long before man appeared.
How about the reports that the polar ice cap is melting?
Well, yes it is. In fact, it has been for about a million years or so. We are at the end of the ice age in which ice covered most of North American and Northern Europe.
There's at least one environmentalist, named Al Gore, who is panicking over the possibility that we may soon lose Glacier National Park in Montana because the ice is melting.
One hates to tell him that we've already lost the glacier that used to cover the whole country.
Perhaps he'll want to start working for new regulations from the Interior Department to begin immediately restoring this lost historical environmental treasure. Re-establishing a sheet of ice covering the entire continent would certainly serve to stop mining, timber cutting and urban sprawl.
The truth is, someday humans may be able to take tropical vacations at the North Pole - and it will be perfectly natural.
Yet our world is being flooded with the dire predictions of Global Warming.
We are being warned of killer heat waves, vast flooding and the spread of tropical diseases. Ocean levels are rising, they say. America's coast lines are doomed, they tell us. Hurricanes and tornadoes have already become more violent, we are warned. Floods and droughts have begun to ravage the nation, they cry.
Any change in temperatures, or an excessive storm or extended flooding is looked upon as a sure sign that environmental Armageddon is upon us. Diabolical environmentalists are using the natural El Nino phenomenon to whip people into a Global Warming hysteria.
TWO KINDS OF SCIENTISTS
We are assured by the White House that scientists everywhere are sounding these warmings and that we may only have one chance to stop it.
Well, as the debate rages, we find that there really are two kinds of "scientists."
There are those who look at facts and make their judgements based on what they know.
Their findings can be matched by any other scientist, using the same data and set of circumstances to reach the same conclusions. It's a age-old practice called peer reviewing. It's the only true science.
And then there are those who yearn for a certain outcome and set about creating the needed data to make it so. Usually you will find this group of scientists greatly dependent on grants supplied by those with a specific political agenda who demand desired outcomes for their money.
Let's just take NASA, for example - the most trusted name in American science.
A lot of NASA scientists have fallen into this trap. Environmental science has become the life-blood of the space program as the nation has lost interest in space travel. To keep the bucks coming, NASA has justified shuttle trips through the use of earth-directed environmental research. And the budgets keep coming.
At the same time, many of NASA's scientists come with a political agenda in great harmony with those who advocate the green agenda. And they're not above using their position to aid that agenda whenever the chance is available.
This was never more clearly demonstrated than in 1992 when a team of three NASA scientists were monitoring conditions over North America to determine if the Ozone layer was in danger.
Inconclusive data indicated that conditions might be right for ozone damage over North America, if certain things happened.
True scientists are a careful lot. They study, they wait and, many times they test again before drawing conclusions.
Not so, the green zealot. Of this three-member NASA team, two could not be sure of what they had found and wanted to do more research.
But one took the data and rushed to the microphones, with all of the drama of a Hollywood movie, announced in hushed tones that NASA had discovered an Ozone hole over North America.
Then Senator Al Gore rushed to the floor of the Senate with the news and drove a stampede to immediately ban freon - five years before Congress had intended - and without a suitable substitute. He then bullied President George Bush to sign the legislation by saying the Ozone hole was over Kennebunkport - Bush's vacation home.
Two months later NASA announced, on the back pages of the newspapers, that further research had shown that there was no such damage. But it was too late. Remember that when you have to buy a new air conditioner or refrigerator for no reason other than your freon has run out of the old one.
FLAWED COMPUTER MODELS
Then there are those computer models. Night after night Americans watch the local news as the weatherman predicts what kind of a day tomorrow will be. These meteorologists, using the most up-to-date equipment available, boldly give you the five-day forecast.
But it's well known that, even with all of their research and expensive equipment, it really is just a "best guess." There are just too many variables. If the wind picks up here it could blow in a storm, if the temperature drops here it could start to snow. The earth is a vast and wondrous place. Weather does what it wants.
Yet those who are promoting the global-warming theory have the audacity to tell you they can forecast changes in the global climate decades into the future.
The truth is computer models are able to include only two out of 14 components that make up the climate system. To include the third component would take a computer a thousand times faster than we now have. To go beyond the third component requires an increase in computer power that is so large only mathematicians can comprehend the numbers.
Moreover, even if the computer power existed, scientists do not understand all the factors and the relationships between them that determine the global climate.
So it's an outrage for Al Gore, Bill Clinton and the Sierra Club to tell you that Global Warming is a fact and that we Americans must now suffer dire changes in our lifestyle to stop it.
SCIENTISTS ARE NOT ON AL'S BAND WAGON
And so too is it an outrage for Al Gore to tell you that most true scientists now agree that global warming is a fact.
What he doesn't tell you is that almost 500 scientists from around the world signed the Heidleburg Appeal in 1992 just prior to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, expressing their doubts and begging the delegates not to bind the world to any dire treaties based on global warming. Today that figure has grown to over 4000. (18,000)
He also doesn't tell you that recently a Gallup Poll of eminent North American climatologists showed that 83 percent of them debunked the global warming theory.
And the deceit knows no bounds. The United Nations released a report at the end of 1996 saying Global Warming was a fact, yet before releasing the report two key paragraphs were deleted from the final draft.
Those two paragraphs, written by the scientists who did the actual scientific analysis said:
1. "none of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases."
2. "no study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to ...man-made causes."
Global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the people of the world - bar none.
THE CLIMATE CHANGE PROTOCOL
Those who have been fighting against the green agenda have been warning that modern-day environmentalism has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting the environment.
Rather it is a political movement led by those who seek to control the world economies, dictate development and redistribute the world's wealth.
They use the philosophical base of Karl Marx, the tactics of Adolph Hitler and the rhetoric of the Sierra Club.
The American people have been assaulted from all directions by rabid environmentalists.
School children have been told that recycling is a matter of life and death.
Businesses have been shut down. Valuable products like freon have been removed from the market. Chemicals and pesticides that helped to make this nation the safest and healthiest in the world are targeted for extinction.
Our entire nation is being restructured to fit the proper green mold. All of it for a lie about something that doesn't exist.
But the lie is about to grow to massive proportions --- and the game is about to get very serious indeed.
In December of this year Bill Clinton will travel to Kyoto, Japan to sign a legally-binding United Nations treaty called the Climate Change Protocol.
The sole argument for this treaty is that Global Warming is a fact and we must take severe action to stop it.
Right now the Clinton Administration is bombarding the airwaves with the sales pitch. Conferences are being held in cities across the country. Special reports, magazine articles and documentaries are all being used to pound home the message - global warming is here - we must stop it.
But the most offensive assault on the expression of free thought by the American people, as the Administration drives to sell you this snake oil, was committed by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. Babbitt said that anyone opposed to the fight to stop Global Warming was "unAmerican."
He accused those opposed to the Climate Change Treaty of engaging in a "conspiracy to hire pseudo scientists to deny the facts." So now, according to Babbitt, to disagree with the Clinton Administration is tantamount to treason.
In fact the Climate Change Protocol is a legally binding international treaty through which signing nations agree to cut back their energy emissions to 15 percent below 1990 levels. And the treaty says this goal is to be accomplished by as early as the year 2010.
That means that all of the energy growth since 1990 would be rolled back, plus 15 percent more in just twelve years.
Yes, there are negotiations, debates and arguments taking place over the exact terms of the treaty as we speak. Perhaps the final version won't be so severe.
But it doesn't matter. Such a massive disruption in the American economy, particularly since it has nothing to do with protecting the environment, will devastate this nation.
To meet such drastically-reduced energy standards will, in the short run, cost the United States over one million jobs. Some estimate it will cost over seven million jobs in 14 years. If the treaty sends the economy into a tailspin, as many predict, it will cost even more jobs.
It will cost the average family $1,000 to $4,000 dollars per year in increased energy costs. The cost of food will skyrocket.
It has been estimated that in order for the United States to meet such a goal the U.S. gross domestic product will be reduced by $200 billion - annually.
To force down energy use the Federal government will have to enforce a massive energy tax that will drive up the cost of heating your home by as much as 30 to 40 percent.
In all likelihood there will be a tax on gasoline - as high as 60 cents per gallon.
There will be consumption taxes and carbon taxes.
The purpose of these punitive costs is to drive up the cost of modern living in order to force you to drastically change your lifestyle. That is the diabolical plan behind this restructuring scheme.
Every single product that is produced with the use of energy will increase in price. Including items like aspirin, contact lenses and tooth paste.
Yet just recently Bill Clinton said that compliance with the treaty would not hurt the economy. He said he can "grow the economy and do right by the environment."
The truth is, to date, the Clinton administration has refused to release an economic impact analysis of the effects of the treaty.
But a leaked study by the Department of Energy's Argonne Laboratory finds that the treaty will cripple six U.S. industries including paper, steel, petroleum refining, chemical manufacturing, aluminum and cement. That about sums up the economy.
When Clinton is through complying with the treaty you may find yourself sitting in a dark house after lights have been ordered off early in the evening, unable to drive your car because of gas shortages, unable to walk to the shopping mall because stores will be ordered closed after dark, even if you have a job and money to spend.
GLOBAL RAID ON AMERICAN WEALTH
But perhaps you still are not convinced. Maybe you still cling to the idea that such drastic action is necessary - that our president and the UN delegates are really in a panic over global warming and are trying to find a solution.
Then ask yourselves why the treaty will only bind developed nations to its draconian emission levels.
You see, only developed industrial nations will be bound by the treaty.
Undeveloped Third-World nations will be free to produce whatever they want. These will include China, India, Brazil and Mexico. And guess what? 82% of the projected emissions growth in coming years is from these countries.
Now ask yourself, if the Climate Change Protocol is all about protecting the environment - then how come it doesn't cover everybody? The truth, of course, is that the treaty is really about redistribution of the wealth.
The wealth of the United States is and has always been the target. The new scheme to grab the loot is through environmental scare tactics.
If, today, you were to attend a UN session on the Climate Change Protocol you would find yourself in a discussion with excited delegates from Third-World countries. They would make comments to you like, "when the technology transfer takes place my country will begin producing this or that item."
Translation - when the United States is stupid enough to fall for this scheme, the third world will take up the slack and get rich.
And international corporations, who owe allegiance to no nation, will bolt America and move their factories, lock, stock and computer chip, to those Third-World countries where they will be free to carry on production.
But that means the same emissions will be coming out of the jungles of South America instead of Chicago.
So where is the protection of the environment? You see it's not about that - is it?
Still not convinced? One more thing. Hidden in the small print of the treaty is a provision that calls for the "harmonizing of patent laws."
Now, robbing a nation of its patent protection is an interesting tactic for protecting the environment, don't you think?
CAN IT BE STOPPED?
Bill Clinton, pushed by Al Gore and the massive green lobby, is determined to sign that treaty. The war has been engaged.
Industry is finally beginning to wake up to the terrifying threat of the green monster that it helped to create. For the past three decades industry has given into every outrageous green demand. And it has fueled the monster by filling green coffers with massive tax-deductible donations. Now industry finds itself trapped.
But more frightening is the fact that many prominent proponents of property rights and limited government still fail to see the danger in the treaty. Many say the Senate will never ratify such a treaty.
They point out that, in a vote of 95-0, the U.S. Senate rejected in a "non-binding" resolution the Climate Change Protocol. That overwhelming vote, they say, will stop Clinton in his tracks.
That resolution was presented by Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. He, along with Congressman John Dingle of Michigan have led the opposition against the treaty. Republican leadership, so far, has been silent.
It is, of course, commendable that Senator Byrd and Congressman Dingle have taken the lead to do "something" to protect American interests. But both of them are established liberal Democrats, who have based their opposition solely on the fact that only industrial nations are tied to the treaty.
That's not fair, they say, and so they oppose the treaty - "as now written." Apparently they are taking the stand that if America must be enslaved, then it's only fair that the rest of the world share our misery.
Not once have they said the whole concept is wrong. Not once have they challenged the validity of the science that is based on the supposed fact of global warming.
Is this then the wall of defense that we are to hide behind? Are we now to entrust the very future of our Republic onto the shoulders of Senator Byrd and Congressman Dingle? That appears to be the current wisdom of our leaders on Capitol Hill. (or better yet Al Gore)?? |
