Climate & Environment Review: April 6, 2006

Climate & Environment Review: 2nd Edition
April 6, 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.

Insiders Poll Congressional
Do you think it’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made pollution?... >>Read More<<

The regime shift of the 1920s and 1930s in the North Atlantic
During the 1920s and 1930s, there was a dramatic warming of the northern North Atlantic Ocean. Warmer-thannormal sea temperatures, reduced sea ice conditions and enhanced Atlantic inflow in northern regions continued through to the 1950s and 1960s, with the timing of the decline to colder temperatures varying with location... >>Read More<<

Variable solar irradiance as a plausible agent for multidecadal variations in the Arctic-wide surface air temperature record of the past 130 years
This letter offers new evidence motivating a more serious consideration of the potential Arctic temperature
responses as a consequence of the decadal, multidecadal and longer-term persistent forcing by the ever-changing
solar irradiance both in terms of total solar irradiance (TSI, i.e., integrated over all wavelengths) and the related UV irradiance... >>Read More<<

Effects of polar ice sheets on global sea level in high-resolution greenhouse scenarios
[1] Projections of future global sea level critically depend on reliable estimates of mass balance changes on the polar ice sheets... >>Read More<<

Global Warming Hysteria Has Arrived
On April 4, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to discuss a white paper that Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) released on a mandatory cap and trade program for carbon dioxide emissions... >>Read More<<

The Media Heat Up Over Global Warming
So, "the debate is over." Time magazine says so. Last week's cover story exhorted readers to "Be Worried. Be Very Worried," and ABC News concurred in several stories. So did Montana's governor, speaking on ABC. And there was polling about global warming, gathered by Time and ABC in collaboration... >>Read More<<

CAT Finds Schwarzenegger Climate Change Goals Achievable
The California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA) recently announced that a new report from the California Climate Action Team (CAT) finds that governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's goals for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions - established in last year's Executive Order S-3-05 - are achievable and beneficial to the state's economy... >>Read More<<

North Atlantic Regime Shift: Is It Déjà Vu All Over Again?
Drinkwater determined that "in the 1920s and 1930s, there was a dramatic warming of the air and ocean temperatures in the northern North Atlantic and the high Arctic, with the largest changes occurring north of 60°N," which warming "led to reduced ice cover in the Arctic and subarctic regions and higher sea temperatures," as well as northward shifts of multiple marine ecosystems... >>Read More<<

Opinion - WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU MIX RED AND GREEN - A BAD POLITICAL CLIMATE
In our student days, a few of us used to get together, rather self-consciously, to debate philosophical questions. One topic that interested us was how language could mean something and yet, at the same time, mean nothing. Thus, you could frame an English sentence in which the grammar was correct, and every word made sense, but the whole thing was nonsense... >>Read More<<

Sixty scientists call on Harper to revisit the science of global warming
Dear Prime Minister:
As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government's climate-change plans... >>Read More<<

USHCN Temperature Record of the Week - Crater Lake, OR
To bolster our claim that "There Has Been No Net Global Warming for the Past 70 Years," each week we highlight the temperature record of one of the 1221 U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) stations from 1930-2000... >>Read More<<

Expert says it was hotter in 247 million B.C.
CAVE JUNCTION, Ore. - John Roth shined his flashlight on a black streak flowing through the cream-colored marble forming the walls of the Oregon Caves... >>Read More<<

Opinion - America's Oil Weapon
President Bush has bemoaned what he calls the United States' addiction to oil. He has demonized America's oil use in speeches, and talked about the need to move beyond the petroleum-based economy... >>Read More<<

Winter Warming of the Antarctic Troposphere
Using the "new and improved" expanded set of radiosonde records, the British Antarctic Survey team determined that warming had taken place throughout the troposphere, with the maximum increase in temperature occurring in the mid-troposphere (400 to 600 hPa), where they identified a 0.70°C per decade warming approximately five kilometers above the surface... >>Read More<<

Friends of the Earth are Elijah's new recruits. Eco-apocalypticism is the new religion
CHANGE AND DECAY in all around we see. The End of the World is Nigh. "I didna' ken," protests the Scotsman to a thunder-faced St Peter. "Well, y'ken noo," replies Heaven's gatekeeper. How we relish those gleeful lines in John Newton's hymn: "Fading is the worldling's pleasure/ All his boasted pomp and show." Says the Book of Revelation: "Look! He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the peoples of the Earth will mourn because of Him."... >>Read More<<

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
In April of 2005, Elizabeth Kolbert did a series of articles for The New Yorker about climate change. In one of those articles, she tells a very interesting story about some of the effects we’re already seeing from global warming... >>Read More<<