IPCC’s Review Panel’s Impartiality Under Fire

Talk about letting the fox into the chicken coop.

After growing concern over the number of errors contained in the IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (FAR) and on the fact that many of its key findings were not peer-reviewed but based on magazine articles and pamphlets from environmental groups, environment ministers from around the world called for the convening of a panel to review the world’s top climate science panel.
The review panel was appointed earlier this month by none other than Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, and Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the United Nations, not exactly paragons of objectivity.
That is the same Dr. Pachauri who has continued to maintain that the worst examples of errors contained in the report are trivial and the same Ban Ki-moon who declared just before the Copenhagen summit that if Copenhagen failed the world was doomed. Furthermore, Dr. Pachauri’s own credibility is under attack due to a perceived conflict of interest: He is accused of making a fortune from his links with carbon trading companies.
Tainted data
So what exactly is the review panel’s mandate? It has been assigned four key tasks:

• analyze the IPCC process, including links with other U.N. agencies;
• review the use of non-peer reviewed sources and data and evaluate its process to ensure quality control;
• assess how the full range of scientific views are managed in fact and to recommend changes; and
• review IPCC communications with the public and the media.

Unfortunately, during their announcement of the review panel last week, Ban Ki-moon reiterated his view “that the case for man-made global warming is sound,” and Dr. Pachauri said, “We believe the conclusions of the IPCC report are really beyond any reasonable doubt.”
In other words, the review panel will be hamstrung from the get go because it must take for granted that the substance of the 2007 report is robust—an idea that many scientists are now questioning. Eighteen key areas—which lie at the heart of the “warmist” science—have now been challenged, the latest, the claim that the Amazon rain forest is especially vulnerable to very minor changes in temperatures, having been thoroughly discredited due to contaminated data and poor analysis.
To further undermine the legitimacy of the review panel, the review is being conducted by the Inter-Academy Council—a representative body for a number of national academies of science, almost all of which are committed to the climate change cause. It will also be headed by the Council’s co-chairman, Professor Robbert Dijkgraaf, a professor of mathematical physics at the University of Amsterdam, who recently suggested on Dutch radio that the science around climate change is settled and that there is nothing substantially wrong with the 2007 report. Read more.

NAV CANADA and Sensis Corporation win 2010 Environment Award at international air traffic control conference

OTTAWA, March 18 /CNW Telbec/ - NAV CANADA's deployment of Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) technology over Hudson Bay was named winner of the Environment Award at the 2010 ATC Global Exhibition and Conference held last week in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The technology, consisting of five ground installations around the Hudson Bay shoreline, was developed and supplied by Sensis.

Presented by Janes Airport Review, this is a new ATC Global Award that recognizes 'green' air traffic management concepts and the aviation industry's contribution to reducing environmental emissions. It is one of six award categories recognizing industry achievements over the last year.
In January 2009, Sensis ADS-B was deployed to provide surveillance of the 850,000-square kilometres of airspace over Hudson Bay. With the ADS-B surveillance, NAV CANADA can now employ 5 mile separation standards rather than the 80 miles of separation that was previously used, allowing aircraft to fly shorter routes and at more efficient altitudes.
Today, 17 airlines operating 425 ADS-B certified aircraft account for over 50 per cent of the traffic over Hudson Bay. NAV CANADA expects the number of ADS-B certified aircraft will double by the end of 2010. This means more than 80 per cent of the traffic transiting this airspace will be flying ADS-B routes.
With ADS-B coverage in the airspace over Hudson Bay, NAV CANADA estimates that between 2009 and 2016, airlines will save $195 million in fuel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 547,000 metric tons. Further savings in fuel and emissions will be realized - especially by oceanic traffic to and from Europe - as ADS-B expands into north eastern Canada and over southern Greenland, a project that is well underway.
"I am honoured to accept this award on behalf of the NAV CANADA employees who did the pioneering work on this exciting deployment of ADS-B in Canada's North" said John Crichton, President & CEO. "And their work continues, with further deployments that will deliver even greater benefits for our customers and for the environment."
"This award honors a landmark system that is improving safety in high traffic airspace while simultaneously delivering tangible and measurable benefits to the environment," said John Jarrell, vice president and general manager of Sensis Air Traffic Systems. "In addition, NAV CANADA is helping their airline customers cut fuel costs and improve the flying public's experience through more efficient and predictable flight routes. We are honoured to share this inaugural award with NAV CANADA."
The award categories are designed to reward new developments as well as collaborative ventures. Winners are selected by a panel of senior representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration, EUROCONTROL, IATA, CANSO, Jane's Information Group and ICAO. Read more.

Esa's Cryosat ice mission given launch date

Hopefully further funding for this project is not contingent on finding an alarming result.
Europe's Cryosat-2 spacecraft is set to launch on its mission to map the world's ice fields on Thursday 8 April.

The satellite was due to fly in late February but was held on the ground while engineers investigated concerns about the operation of its rocket.
Cryosat will ride into orbit atop a Dnepr vehicle, a converted Russian-Ukrainian nuclear missile.
The satellite is designed to make detailed measurements of the shape and thickness of Arctic and Antarctic ice.
Its data will help scientists to assess better how changing polar ice conditions affect ocean circulation patterns, sea level and global climate.
The Dnepr will lift off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Russian authorities overseeing the flight have advised the European Space Agency (Esa) they are ready to proceed with the mission.
The launch is timed for 1357 GMT (1457 BST; 1557 CEST).

Re-attachment task

Earlier worries that the rocket's second-stage steering engines might not have enough margin on their performance have been allayed.
Richard Francis, the Esa Cryosat project manager, said software changes had been introduced to ensure the Dnepr managed its supplies of fuel and oxidiser in the most efficient way possible, giving the engines sufficient room for contingencies.
Cryosat had already been installed on the rocket when the order came to stand down, and was removed during the delay.

We took it off the day after the call was made and moved it back to the cleanroom, and it's been in a secure area ever since. We have a man who goes and monitors it every day," explained Richard Francis.

"The planning we have at the moment is to put it back on the rocket on 31 March," he told BBC News.
Cryosat carries the "2" designation because it is actually a rebuild of a mission that was destroyed in 2005 when its then launcher (also a converted missile) failed just minutes into its flight.
Esa member-states considered its polar ice measurements to be so important to the assessment of climate change that they approved the construction of a facsimile spacecraft within months of the accident.
Cryosat's radar instrument will make detailed maps of the ice that covers both the sea and land at the poles.
Data from other satellites, such as the US Icesat and European ERS/Envisat missions, has already indicated that some of this cover is diminishing at a rapid rate, with the biggest changes occurring in the Arctic.
Cryosat will add significantly to the information scientists already possess, making observations that are beyond the current generation of spacecraft.
The mission is part of Esa's Earth Explorer programme - seven spacecraft that will do innovative science in obtaining data on issues of pressing environmental concern.
The first in the series, a gravity mapper called Goce, was launched in March 2009. The second, known as Smos, is measuring soil moisture and ocean salinity, and was launched in November. Watch Videos.

Scientists create hydrogen fuel from sound waves

It sounds like a strange combination: zinc oxide crystals, water, and noise pollution. But scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered that the mix can efficiently produce hydrogen without the need for a dirty catalyst like oil. By submerging a new type of zinc oxide crystal in water, the scientists claim to be able to harvest hydrogen using vibrations from passing traffic and crashing waves.

To generate the clean hydrogen, researchers produced zinc oxide crystals that absorb vibrations when placed in water. The vibrations cause the crystals to develop areas with strong positive and negative charges–a reaction that rips the surrounding water molecules and releases hydrogen and oxygen.

The mechanism, dubbed the piezoelectrochemical effect, converts 18% of energy from vibrations into hydrogen gas (compared to 10% from conventional piezoelectric materials). And since any vibration can produce the effect, the system could one day be used to generate power from anything that produces noise — cars whizzing by on the highway, crashing waves in the ocean, or planes landing at an airport. That sounds like a good deal to us! Read more.

Their Own Worst Enemies

Sorry Sharon, as an Atheist Libertarian I cannot get over the galling fact that condescending climate scientists have biased their findings by deleting or losing raw data, excluding scientists that disagree and publishing errors that always seem to promote a worst case scenario. They are not appealing to my intellect – they are trying to scare the hell out of me. Seeing how I am the one who is going to have to pay the bill to combat AGW, I want to make damn sure that I don’t smell a rat. By the way – please stop comparing AGW scepticism to creationism. Creationism in any form will not change my way of life or destroy the national economy.
Why scientists are losing the PR wars.
Scientists are lousy communicators. They appeal to people's heads, not their hearts or guts, argues Randy Olson, who left a professorship in marine biology to make science films. "Scientists think of themselves as guardians of truth," he says. "Once they have spewed it out, they feel the burden is on the audience to understand it" and agree.

That may work if the topic is something with no emotional content, such as how black holes form, but since climate change and how to address it make people feel threatened, that arrogance is a disaster. Yet just as smarter-than-thou condescension happens time after time in debates between evolutionary biologists and proponents of intelligent design (the latter almost always win), now it's happening with climate change. In his 2009 book, Don’t Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style, Olson recounts a 2007 debate where a scientist contending that global warming is a crisis said his opponents failed to argue in a way "that the people here will understand." His sophisticated, educated Manhattan audience groaned and, thoroughly insulted, voted that the "not a crisis" side won. Read more.

Climate science: Let’s follow the money

By LORRIE GOLSTEIN
One of the favourite tactics of global warmists is to set up “straw man” arguments and knock them down.

For example, they’ll say the growing number of people skeptical about claims of imminent, catastrophic, man-made global warming — including many scientists — are insanely claiming all climate science is a hoax.
That might be a valid point if that’s what most critics were saying. But it’s not.
Rather, they’re arguing that since it’s only human to “follow the money” and the big money, to say nothing of scientific prestige in the climate change field, at least pre-Climategate, was in predicting imminent, worst-case, catastrophic, man-made global warming, that might have skewed the science somewhat over time.
How do we know it’s human nature to follow the money? From the warmists.
Take Greenpeace’s widely quoted 2007 report that ExxonMobil spent almost
$23 million between 1998 and 2006 funding skeptics who questioned man-made global warming, part of, they say, the oil giant’s campaign to sow confusion with the public.
So, Greenpeace’s argument goes, these skeptics’ views were influenced by money.
Okay. Let’s say that’s true. And, since ExxonMobil is only one company, albeit the biggest and baddest on this issue according to the warmists, let’s say Greenpeace’s research into ExxonMobil uncovered only 1/100th of the total funding the fossil fuel industry and others paid to skeptics. Let’s say it was
$2.3 billion. That would certainly be a lot of money.
But as Joanne Nova, an Australian climate blogger (www.joannenova.com.au) and author of The Skeptics Handbook recently noted, it pales beside the $79 billion the U.S. government alone has spent on climate research and technology since 1989. (Nova rejects the science of anthropogenic global warming, which doesn’t change her point.)
Given that kind of public mega-money invested in climate science and technology in just one country, it makes you wonder about some things.
For example, about why the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) still apparently doesn’t have the resources to double-check facts, so that it doesn’t end up doing stupid stuff such as predicting Himalayan glaciers will disappear by 2035, or getting the amount of land below sea level in the Netherlands wrong by a factor of over 100%. (The list of IPCC errors grows almost daily.)
Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist magazine, explained the heady effect all this public cash, starting decades ago, had on scientists in the U.K., a hot-bed of climate hysteria, in the British documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle. Read more.

Monckton on Bonn climate conference: they're at it again

Lord Christopher Monckton issues a warning to America that the UN will try again to pass their treaty in Bonn, Germany.

The case for a climate treaty is in tatters. We've seen the Climategate emails expose scientists who adjusted their data to suit their politics. We've seen Glaciergate in which we've learned that the famous IPCC climate change report falsely stated that Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035 and based this not on science, peer reviewed or otherwise, but on the unfounded claims of the WWF, an environmental campaigning organization. Now we're learning about Nasagate – that climate researchers at the American space agency concede that their temperature data was inaccurate and inferior to the data used at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia which is the very data that the Climategate emails reveal has been tinkered with. These days we can't seem to go a week without witnessing some further aspect of the climate charade collapsing into a new “gate.”

Well all this has the bureaucrats of the U.N., left-wing climate organizations and the businesses planning to cash in on the climate change scare, racing to restore their position before the gate closes for good on the entire climate change scare.
Polls tell us that the public has seen through the climate scare, but that their governments are not yet listening to them. People of good sense and good intentions need to make their voices heard. Let your elected representatives of every party know that they will pay a handsome price at the ballot box unless they withdraw their support from unwise climate change treaties and legislation and actively oppose them. Tell the U.N. Representatives meeting in Bonn that there must be no new climate change treaty. The science is not settled and the facts simply do not fit. Read more.

Climategate Doesn't Even Phase Al Gore

Chuck Justice is the editor-in-chief for Habledash

Last week's torrential downpour in the northeast was caused by climate change. The earthquake in Haiti was also caused by climate change. Even the herpes virus your ex-girlfriend gave was another result of climate change! Okay, maybe not the last point, but the slob Al Gore isn't stopping at anything to blame each and every rain and snowstorm or high winds on manmade climate change. Despite the damming evidence of Climategate, Al Gore only proves that he's a member of the Party of Adolescence not wanting to hear the truth.

In a recent conference call to Gore's global warming minions, he reiterated his standard talking points, but also placed blame on the cause of recent weather.

"The odds have shifted toward much larger downpours. And we have seen that happen in the northeast, we've seen it happen in the northwest - in both of those regions are among those that scientists have predicted for a long time would begin to experience much larger downpours."

So if you're taking notes, now would be the appropriate time to note that all weather is the result of manmade global warming. But also make note that Al Gore is on track to become the world's first 'green' billionaire, but that has no motivation behind his antics!

Gore is still desperately trying to pass a clean energy bill that he'll handsomely profit from. What liberal lawmakers and climate change alarmists don't tell you is that any sort of climate change or Cap & Trade bill will result in the loss of millions of American jobs. If the unions think that outsourcing is bad now, just wait until farmers are told that their cows are only allowed to fart 10 times a day or else they'll get taxed.

Gore wants to stop our reliance on fossil fuels, yet he opposes offshore drilling and tapping into areas of the United States that hold more barrels of oil than all of the Middle East combined. Gore stated that fossil fuels and the nation's fragile electricity grid pose a significant security threat. But he doesn't explain how he ignores any science that disproves his claims. This man should be forced to return his Nobel Peace Prize and his joke of an Academy Award. Denial is not a river in Egypt, Mr. Gore. Read more.

Electricity generated by wind power may raise temperatures and costs

by Jonathan DuHamel, Economic Geologist
Wry Heat
And the wind turbines chop up birds. A new study from M.I.T. indicates that vast wind farms to generate electricity may raise local temperatures as much as 1degree Celsius (1.8 degrees F) on land, but have the opposite effect over water. That’s significant considering the IPCC was all exercised about a 0.6 degree Celsius temperature rise over the entire 20th Century.

Currently only about 2% of electricity in the U.S. is generated by wind power, but the Department of Energy estimates that as much as 20% of electricity could be generated by wind by 2030. (That estimate may be just wishful thinking.) To generate 20% of our electricity by wind power would require installation of millions of turbines across the U.S.
The M.I.T. researchers say that “using wind turbines to meet 10 percent of global energy demand in 2100 could cause temperatures to rise by one degree Celsius in the regions on land where the wind farms are installed, including a smaller increase in areas beyond those regions.” The researchers also suggest that the intermittency of wind power could require significant and costly backup options, such as natural gas-fired power plants.
Wind turbines disrupt air flow. The researchers say that the “temperature increase occurs because the wind turbines affect two processes that play critical roles in determining surface temperature and atmospheric circulation: vertical turbulent motion and horizontal heat transport. Turbulent motion refers to the process by which heat and moisture are transferred from the land or ocean surface to the lower atmosphere. Horizontal heat transport is the process by which steady large-scale winds transport excessive heat away from warm regions, generally in a horizontal direction, and redistribute it to cooler regions. This process is critical for large-scale heat redistribution, whereas the effects of turbulent motion are generally more localized.” Read more.

The hysteria of warming

By ED OKONOWICZ
Climate politics driven by panic
Al Gore, Hollywood VIPs and deep-thinking intellectuals are scared we are cooking planet Earth. Their grim reports about global warming's cataclysmic effects (certain to occur anytime between later this afternoon and the middle of the 23rd century) are the latest in a string of disaster scenarios that make great movie themes. But in real life, such frenzied, Chicken Little predictions have posted a solid losing record.

Recent planet-boiling scenarios sound a lot like warnings tossed around during the Y2K hysteria. Remember that scene? The end of life as we knew it was going to occur at the cursed stroke of midnight, on New Year's Eve 1999.

People feared computers would stop functioning and the contents would evaporate. Electrical grids might melt. Bank records could be lost. During the days preceding that definitive disaster date, merchants gleefully sold computer back-up disks, copies of financial statements and gasoline generators. But after the Times Square clock struck 12, lights stayed on, computers functioned without a hitch and banks opened the next workday.
In 2005, the big disaster wasn't going to infect our computers; it was going to end our lives. This invisible threat would spread unnoticed, through the very air we breathe. World Health Organization scientists predicted hundreds of millions of deaths in an impending pandemic from a virulent strain of avian (bird) flu -- the H5N1 virus -- that could mutate so rapidly vaccines would be ineffective. United Nations experts directed governments to prepare for disruptions in sanitation, transportation and power delivery. Paper facemasks were big sellers at drug stores. Reporters liberally compared the unstoppable crisis to the 1918 pandemic that killed nearly 100 million people. In 2005, vaccines were prepared. Emergency management personnel expected the worst. But like Y2K, it was a false alarm. By February 2010, the WHO confirmed a grand total of 478 cases of H5N1, which caused a mere 286 deaths worldwide.
Anyone using a pharmacy this winter noticed large signs offering free swine flu (H1N1) inoculations. Last fall the U.S. government ordered 250 million doses of this hastily produced vaccine to combat the latest killer virus, and drug stores offered more checkout counter specials on paper facemasks. Like following an old script, H1N1 was compared to the 1918 influenza. The military was ready to quarantine sections of cities to contain the advancing plague, and it also developed plans for temporary morgues to deal with an overflow of dead bodies. Emergency personnel were set to react when transportation, sanitation, public services, food and power deliveries were disrupted. Sound familiar? Read more.

World’s Fastest Hydrogen Car, Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999

On Wednesday, August 15th, Ford Motor Company made history with the world’s first zero emissions hydrogen fuel cell racecar when the Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999 went 207.297 mph. Read more.

Artificial leaves for hydrogen production

(Nanowerk Spotlight) Artificial photosynthesis, using solar energy to split water generating hydrogen and oxygen, can offer a clean and portable source of energy supply as durable as the sunlight. Natural photosynthesis uses chlorophyll to absorb visible light and many solar hydrogen cells are imitating this process by using light-sensitive organic dye molecules as light absorbers and then transfer the absorbed energy to a catalyst that reduces protons to hydrogen (read: "Another step towards inexpensive hydrogen production from sunlight").

Today, over 130 materials and derivatives are known to facilitate photocatalytic splitting of water to produce hydrogen. Many efforts have been made to design new photocatalysts of different materials such as transition-metal oxides or metal oxynitrides or in nanotechnology research to design photocatalysts with various nanoscale morphologies such as nanoparticles, nanosheets, nanowires, etc for enhanced light-harvesting and catalytic efficiency.
"Using sunlight to split water molecules and form hydrogen fuel is one of the most promising tactics for kicking our carbon habit," Di Zhang tells Nanowerk. "Of the possible methods, nature provides the blueprint for converting solar energy in the form of chemical fuels. A natural leaf is a synergy of the elaborated structures and functional components to produce a highly complex machinery for photosynthesis in which light harvesting, photoinduced charge separation, and catalysis modules combined to capture solar energy and split water into oxygen and hydrogen efficiently."
Zhang, a professor at Shanghai Jiao-Tong University in China and director of the university's State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, points out that the design of efficient, cost-effective artificial systems by coupling of leaf-like hierarchical structures and analogous functional modules under the guidance of the key steps of natural photosynthesis into hydrogen would be a major advance in energy conversion.
Many efforts have been made to develop such systems by constructing a variety of analogous molecular systems consisting of electron donors and acceptors to mimic light driven charge separation or by assembling semiconductor photocatalysts into various nanostructures. However, most of them only focused on the functional imitation of photosynthesis, and neglected the structural effect. Read more.

Air Pollution not as deadly as Once thought.

Air pollution, economic activity and respiratory illness: Evidence from Canadian cities, 1974–1994
Gary Koopa, , Ross McKitrickb, , and Lise Tolea, c,

a Department of Economics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
b Department of Economics, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada
c School of Business, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh UK
Received 6 March 2008; revised 21 December 2009; accepted 8 January 2010. Available online 3 March 2010.
Abstract

Many studies have reported a relationship between urban air pollution levels and respiratory health problems. However, there are notable variations in results, depending on modeling approach, covariate selection, period of analysis, etc. To help clarify these factors we compare and apply two estimation approaches: model selection and Bayesian model averaging, to a new data base on 11 Canadian cities spanning 1974–1994. During this interval pollution levels were typically much higher than the present. Our data allow us to compare monthly hospital admission rates for all lung diagnostic categories to ambient levels of five common air contaminants, while controlling for income, smoking and meteorological covariates. In the most general specifications we find the here-observed health effects of air pollution are very small and insignificant, with signs that are typically opposite to conventional expectations. Smoking effects are robust across specifications. Considering the fact that we are examining an interval of comparatively high air pollution levels, and the contrast between our results and those that have been published previously, we conclude that extra caution should be applied to results estimated on short and/or recent data panels, and to those that do not control for model uncertainty and socioeconomic covariates.

Read more.

Baby It’s Cold Outside

Academics and climatologists are on the defensive about the ClimateGate scandal and errors in UN-sponsored research, especially amid a public growing more skeptical of climate change news hype.

A recent Gallup Poll released March 11 finds that “a record-high 41%” of Americans believe that “the seriousness of global warming” is exaggerated in mainstream media coverage—a 10% increase since 1997. The majority of survey respondents still hold that news reports are “generally correct” about the issues, or underestimate the severity of global warming, down 4% from 1998 and 5% from 2008.
It is not surprising, then, that environmentalists are trying to buttress public support for the theory of anthropogenic global warming. For example, a February Center for American Progress (CAP) event titled “The Science of Climate Change” featured two speakers, Dr. Michael MacCracken and Stanford Professor Christopher Field, who both have helped author reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
During his presentation Professor Field said on February 3 that “it’s extremely unfortunate in the case of the Himalayan glaciers, for example, that there was wasn’t sufficient vetting to identify one poorly substantiated number” and that “our” goal in the IPCC is “that there be 100 percent error-free analysis…,” according to the CAP transcript.
The passage from the 2007 IPCC report asserts that:

“Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005).”

Read more.

U.N. Wrong About Rainforests Being in Imminent Danger

A new study, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) refutes a claim in the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report that up to 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest might disappear imminently. According to the IPCC's assessment, this disaster would be triggered by a relatively slight drop in rainfall of the sort to be expected in a warming world. It now appears that just such conditions have already occurred, and in fact, the Amazonian jungles were unaffected, says Gerald Warner, a columnist with the Telegraph.

That assertion has already been exposed as derived from a single report by the environmentalist lobby group WWF. According to Dr. Jose Marengo, a climate scientist with the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research and also a member of the IPCC:

•The way the WWF report calculated this 40 percent was totally wrong, while the new calculations are by far more reliable and correct.

•These calculations were done by researchers at Boston University and were published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.

•They used satellite data to study the drought of 2005, when rainfall fell to the lowest in living memory, and found that the rainforest suffered no significant effects.

According to NASA-funded scientists analyzing the past decades of satellite imagery of the Amazon basin:

•The rainforests are remarkably resilient to droughts.
•Even during the 100-year-peak dry season of 2005 the jungles were basically unaffected.

"We found no big differences in the greenness level of these forests between drought and nondrought years," says Arindam Samanta of Boston University, lead author of the new study. Read more.

Climate Change: Too Hot for TV?

Is climate change still so hotly debated that ads explicitly warning of what will happen in a warming world should be censored? Britain's Advertising Standards Association thinks so. After receiving 939 complaints about the British government's "Act on CO2" campaign of four print ads and a TV spot, the ASA issued this muddled response:

Because, in a European context, there was a probability of greater than 90% for some events but a probability of greater than 50% for other events and because all statements about future climate conditions were based on modelled predictions, which the IPCC report itself stated still involved uncertainties in the magnitude and timing, as well as regional details, of predicted climate change, we concluded that the claim "Extreme weather events such as storms, floods and heatwaves will become more frequent and intense" in ad (b) and the claim "extreme weather conditions such as flooding, heat waves and storms will become more frequent and intense" in ad (c) should have been phrased more tentatively to reflect that.

In other words, the ASA thinks climate science isn't exact enough to warrant some of the print and TV claims. The government plans to continue the ads, but you can judge for yourself whether this TV spot is too scandalous for television. Read more.

Barrasso praises investigation of IPCC

Washington, D.C. – Last Wednesday, U.S. Senator John Barrasso delivered the following statement regarding the United Nations’ announcement that it will conduct an independent investigation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):

“I’m pleased that the United Nations has finally agreed to shine a light on the IPCC’s internal procedures. Americans deserve straight answers about how the UN collects and uses data to form policies and reports.
“An independent investigation must be truly independent. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri should step down immediately. As IPCC Chairman, he has turned a blind eye to procedures and allowed scientific fraud to occur right under his nose. In the aftermath, he has delivered excuses instead of accountability.
“The Senate Subcommittee on Oversight in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee also has a responsibility to investigate the IPCC. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has relied on the UN’s data for all their energy tax proposals that could cost millions of Americans their jobs. With 9.7 percent unemployment, our nation cannot afford to continue to base our energy and environmental policies on contaminated UN data.” Read more.

"Neuroframing" the global warming issue won't win converts

Last week the Garrison Institute, a retreat center just a few miles down the Hudson River from my home, hosted an impressive symposium on “Climate, Mind and Behavior.” An organizer made the mistake of inviting me to the meeting’s wrap-up session Friday.

As a brochure put it, the symposium brought together 75 “thought leaders and practitioners from the fields of neuro, behavioral and evolutionary economics, psychology, policy, investing and social media to explore how to integrate emerging knowledge on the key drivers of behavior into solutions for solving the world’s most pressing problem: climate change.”

Basically, this was a brainstorming session on how to market “solutions” to global warming more effectively. The emphasis on packaging reminded me of the controversial proposal by journalist Chris Mooney and communication professor Matt Nisbet of American University that scientists need to become more adept at “framing” issues such as global warming to win the debate. The Garrison meeting explored whether neuroscience and other fields that probe the physiological underpinnings of human belief and behavior can help environmentalists frame issues more persuasively. Let’s call it “neuroframing.”

John Gowdy, an economist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, noted that “neuroeconomics” is challenging the conventional economics view of humans as “utility maximizers” who make choices based on self-interest and reason. MRI scans show that we assess risks and rewards with brain regions that underpin fear, suspicion, empathy and other emotions, Gowdy explained, and we make choices very differently depending on how they are framed.
The psychiatrist Daniel Siegel of UCLA proposed that we all possess two innate, brain-based “maps” for responding to the world. One is a “me-map” that underpins our obsession with our own interests, but we also have a “we-map” corresponding to our concern for others.
The implications of these presentations were spelled out over lunch for me and other journalists (including Scientific American’s David Biello) by Jonathan Rose, founder of the Garrison Institute and the meeting’s chief sponsor and organizer. Environmentalists must frame issues to appeal to peoples’ “we-maps,” asserted Rose, a green New York real-estate mogul. Read more.

IPCC coordinating lead author’s own paper falsely cited in AR4

From ClimateQuotes.com
Yesterday I posted about a contributing author's own paper being incorrectly cited in the AR4. However, I have now found something worse than that: a Coordinating Lead Author's own paper has been falsely cited.

Recently I posted about an interesting claim and comment made in the AR4. In the Second Order Draft (SOD), the following claim appears (page 43, lines 34-36):
"Relatively few NGOs are directly accountable to members in the same way that governments are to voters or businesses are to shareholders, raising further questions about the extent to which their claims to the mantle of civil society are justified."

Adil Najam

The claim had no citation, which led an expert reviewer to make the following comment, Comment 12-189 (page 78):
"Seems a bold claim - can you substantiate it? ENGOs in most cases are supported through financial contributions from individuals as well as from foundation funding. They are also governed through Boards that in principle represent their consituency. If you leave this, you need to provide a citation. (Jan Corfee-Morlot, University College London (on leave from OECD))"

The reviewer thinks that this claim is bold, and seems to imply it is false. He ends "If you leave this, you need to provide a citation." The writing team responds: "Noted. Will look for references." Read more.

A (Precautionary-)Principled Legislator

By William Tucker
Congressman Edward Markey, co-author of the Waxman-Markey climate-change (read “energy tax”) bill, has come up with a novel reason for being opposed to nuclear power. Even the most rabid environmentalists are willing to admit that, as a powerful source of carbon-free electricity, nuclear energy might be a bit useful in forestalling global warming, if such a thing exists. But Markey has put the cart before the horse. He argues that because of the inevitable climate catastrophes from global warming, nuclear reactors shouldn’t be licensed.

In a letter last week to the Government Accountability Office, Markey, head of the Congressional Committee on Energy and Commerce, asked Gene Dodaro, acting comptroller general, to review the licensing procedures at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission “to evaluate and improve the resilience of the nation’s nuclear power plants to climate change.”
"Severe weather conditions, such as tornadoes and hurricanes, as well as flooding caused by heavy rains, can all impact the status of a nuclear reactor. . . . In addition to discrete events such as a storm or earthquake, climate change has the potential to affect more routine reactor operations. Although [former] NRC Commissioner [Dale] Klein stated in a May 2008 letter that no nuclear power plants — neither operational nor decommissioned — are threatened by rising seas, the estimates of potential rise in sea level by 2100 have increased significantly since then — with estimates now (up to 1.45 m) more than double the 2007 IPCC prediction (up to 0.6 m).
Nuclear power plants also require a very large volume of water for cooling purposes. Consequently, the increasing frequency and severity of heat waves and drought due to climate change will likely lead to more regional water shortages that have the potential to significantly impact their operations."
Apparently nobody has told Markey that those IPCC predictions are now, shall we say, slightly suspect. But there’s no sense in not being prepared. Come to think of it, has anybody checked whether solar panels work underwater? Read more.
— William Tucker is author of Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America’s Long Energy Odyssey.