Climate & Environment Review: February 10, 2006

Climate & Environment Review
February 10, 2006

Climate & Environment Weekly is brought to you by The Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP). CSPP is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy organization.

CSPP relies on scientific experts in many nations and the vast body of peer-reviewed literature to help lawmakers, policy makers, and the media distinguish between scientific findings that are agenda-driven and those that are based on accepted scientific methods and practices. In a timely manner, the Center's Science Watch Team alerts policy makers, the media, and the public to unreliable scientific claims and unjustified alarmism which often lead to public harm. We strive for a fair and balanced examination of science.

No Nukes Is Good Nukes?
Oil is expensive, and some oil-states are causing more and more trouble. Regardless of whether you think the earth is warming -- or that, if it is, it's the result of burning fossil fuels -- lots of people do think that... >>Read More<<

The case for nuclear power by a former protestor
[CSPP note: It seems inconsistent to politically condemn high energy prices as hurting the poor, while at the same time demanding as a permanent policy prescription punitive federal gasoline taxes to intentionally achieve exactly the same outcomes.] Also, some environmentalists are protesting non-CO2 emitting nuclear and hydro – and increasingly even wind, solar and hydrogen – for ideological reasons, not efficiency or science-based ones... >>Read More<<

Solar Activity and the Abundance of Sardine Catches
Guisande et al. report that annual sardine landings from 1906 to 2002 off the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula "vary according to solar activity." More specifically, they report that "when the solar cycle is short, there is a trend towards increasing water transport onshore, which favors larval retention in areas close to the coast and, hence, sardine catches increase," while "when the solar cycle is longer, the trend is toward increasing water transport offshore, carrying eggs and larvae into areas where there is not enough food to survive and, therefore, decreasing sardine catches."... >>Read More<<

Scientists hail discovery of hundreds of new species in remote New Guinea
An astonishing mist-shrouded "lost world" of previously unknown and rare animals and plants high in the mountain rainforests of New Guinea has been uncovered by an international team of scientists... >>Read More<<

Abrupt climate change - An alternative view
Hypotheses and inferences concerning the nature of abrupt climate change, exemplified by the Dansgaard–Oeschger (D–O) events, are reviewed. There is little concrete evidence that these events are more than a regional Greenland phenomenon. The partial coherence of ice core d18O and CH4 is a possible exception... >>Read More<<

CLIMATE MAY NOT BE LINKED WITH CIRCULATION SLOWDOWN
Sir: Your News Feature "A sea change" states that evidence for the huge effects on climate of past thermohaline shutdowns is "near indisputable". You then claim that the best such evidence is the coincidence of thermohaline slowdown with the flooding of the North Atlantic following the collapse of Lake Agassiz, about 12,000 years ago at the beginning of the Younger Dryas cold period... >>Read More<<

Climate Models (Inadequacies of Precipitation) – Summary
One of the basic predictions of atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs) is that the planet's hydrologic cycle will intensify as the world warms, leading to an increase in both the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events... >>Read More<<

Religion, science and blarney
Activists recently had breakfast in hoary Senate chambers and a briefing at the National Press Club, in an attempt to convince America and the world that the evangelical Christian community is united in concern about global warming and the need for immediate federal action. Don’t be deceived... >>Read More<<

Evangelicals Will Not Take Stand on Global Warming
The National Association of Evangelicals said yesterday that it has been unable to reach a consensus on global climate change and will not take a stand on the issue, disappointing environmentalists who had hoped that evangelical Christians would prod the Bush administration to soften its position on global warming... >>Read More<<

Freshening of the Kara Sea - A Sign of CO2-Induced Global Warming?
Simstich et al. calculated 1996 to 2000 trends in the mean salinity of the whole Kara Sea (surface to bottom) by means of combined modeling and hydrographic data derived from measurements of temperature and salinity made with deep-sea thermometers, electrical salinity meters, and titration and conductivity-temperature-depth probes, as well as same-period bottom-water salinity trends based on oxygen and stable carbon isotope profiles derived from bivalve shells, which they say "reliably record all important aspects of the bottom water hydrography in the shallow southeastern Kara Sea."... >>Read More<<

Global Warming, Antioxidants, Disease and Longevity
In a comprehensive review of the negative impacts of reactive oxygen species and other free radicals that promote oxidative stress in humans, Willcox et al. (2004) report that this condition (oxidative stress) "has been related to cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases that account for a major portion of deaths today." In addition, they discuss the role that exogenous antioxidants play in controlling oxidation and review the evidence for their roles in preventing disease... >>Read More<<

HOCKEY STICK PARADOX
Dear Benny,
The concern over the hockey stick has always struck me as weird. There are several reasons for my impression:
1. There is no doubt that Europe and the North Atlantic were warmer than they are today for several centuries during the high middle ages. This is more than enough information to tell us that major climate changes can occur without the present level of industrialization -- regardless of what happened to the global mean temperature... >>Read More<<

Hundreds of new species found in New Guinea
Issue: An international team of scientists found hundreds of new species of plants and animals while exploring a mountainous region of New Guinea that could only be reached by helicopter... >>Read More<<

Medieval Warm Period proof - New Zealand Cave
Temperatures derived from an 18O/16O profile through a stalagmite found in a New Zealand cave (40.67°S, 172.43°E) revealed the Medieval Warm Period to have occurred between AD 1050 and 1400 and to have been 0.75°C warmer than the Current Warm Period... >>Read More<<

More Evidence of a Solar-Climate Link
Many researchers have examined historical proxy temperature changes over the past millennia and beyond in an attempt to quantify the magnitude, frequency and causes of natural climate variability. However, temperature is not always the best measure of climate, and it is certainly not the only measure. Few studies, for example, have examined the millennial range and rate of change of hydrologic and atmospheric circulation; yet changes in these parameters are important because they are involved in more than half of the earth's poleward transfer of heat (Peixoto and Oort, 1992)... >>Read More<<

RUSSIAN ASTRONOMER PREDICTS MINI ICE AGE
Analysis of the long-term dynamics of World Fuel Consumption (WFC) and the Global Temperature anomaly (dT) for the last 140 years (1961-2000) shows that unlike the monotonously and exponentially increasing WFC, the dynamics of global dT against the background of a linear, age-long trend, undergo quasi-cyclic fluctuations with about 60 a year period... >>Read More<<

Tony Blair on Kyoto before House of Commons
Chairman: Welcome yet again, Prime Minister, to the eighth session. There has been speculation, of which I am sure you are aware, but I assume that we can expect to at least see double figures together in these meetings! As usual, there are three themes and you have been notified of those in advance and, as everyone knows, you are not told the questions. Today's three themes are, firstly, the outcome of the UK Presidencies of G8 and EU; secondly, the Government's reform agenda, primarily health and schools; and, finally... >>Read More<<

Canada likely to withdraw from Kyoto Protocol
Greenhouse gas emissions have ballooned by 30% above the levels Canada agreed to meet by 2012 in the Protocol, leading many in government to say that the targets can’t be achieved... >>Read More<<

Abrupt Climate change - TESTING THE LAKE AGASSIZ MELTWATER TRIGGER FOR THE YOUNGER DRYAS
Meltwater drainage from glacial Lake Agassiz has been implicated for nearly 15 years as a trigger for thermohaline circulation changes producing the abrupt cold period known as the Younger Dryas. On the basis of initial field reconnaissance to the lake’s proposed outlets, regional geomorphic mapping, and preliminary chronological data, an alternative hypothesis may be warranted... >>Read More<<