Russell Cook: History of PBS previous lack of climate skeptics on PBS’s ‘Newshour’

This is a repost of a 2009 American Thinker article by Russell Cook documenting his attempts to find out why PBS’s ‘Newshour’ programme, famous for its ‘tell both sides’ approach to controversial issues, stopped interviewing man-made climate change skeptics for a long time after 2002, until the recent interview with Anthony Watts. PBS deserves some credit for reintroducing skeptics to the media presented ‘debate’ though they still have some way to go in ‘deprogramming’ themselves from the years of agenda setting of talking points by the AGW propaganda pushers in my opinion. Nonetheless, I wrote to PBS ombudsman Getler to thank him and PBS for re-opening mainstream media presented debate on climate related issues.

The lack of climate skeptics on PBS’s ‘Newshour’
Russell Cook -2009

I stopped watching commercial network news in the ’80s, but still had PBS’ MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and its trademark two-side analysis of major news. Gradually after 2002, the lack of global warming skeptic scientists offering rebuttal to their IPCC guests began bothering me, so I wrote and asked about it, starting in 2007. I also started writing to the Media Research Center this year, asking them to include PBS when they criticized broadcast news outlets’ lack of balance in global warming stories. Long  story short, the PBS Ombudsman answered on 12/17 (here, 2/3rds down the page at the headline “Hot About Warming”), and Tim Graham at MRC’s NewsBusters also wrote a nice 12/21 analysis of PBS’ response.

How the temperature datasets tell us extra CO2 has little effect

It came to me this morning that the trends in the surface and lower troposphere datasets contain information about the strength of the ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’ caused by the extra co2 in the atmosphere which has been building up more rapidly over the last five decades of measurement at Mauna Loa. Here are the trends since mid 2006:

The reason the satellite gathered lower troposphere trends are rising over the last six years while the surface temperature trends are falling is due to the phenomenon I first identified around five years ago by examining the sea surface, land surface and lower troposphere datasets and comparison of the Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR)dataset, and the solar activity dataset tells us about the rate that energy is headed back into space compared to the rate it is coming in at. I’ll go through some background for new readers, so bear with me.

Andrew McKillop: Russian “expert​ise” in nuclear wast​e management​

Alexander Yemelyanenkov, Russia Now
02 Jul 2012

Rosatom, the Russian nuclear energy giant, is to apply for a licence in the
hope of winning contracts to build power stations in North Wales and
Gloucestershire.

The state atomic energy corporation, is holding consultations over
its possible involvement in the British nuclear programme, according to
deputy director general Kirill Komarov. He was speaking on the sidelines of
Atomexpo-2012, a nuclear power trade fair in Moscow, attended by 1,300
company heads and specialists from 53 countries.

RUSSIAN WASTE MANAGEMENT EXPERTISE
The Norwegian environmental group Bellona Fondation reported in August
that Russia has admitted that it dumped 19 radioactive ships plus 14
nuclear reactors – some of them containing fissible material – into the
ocean:

More history from 1991: Revelle co-wrote with Singer “Look before you leap into climate action”

Roger Revelle is frequently cited as one of the pioneers who alerted the world to global warming from co2 emission. What isn’t so well known is that he co-wrote a paper with S Fred Singer a few months before his death which cautioned against precipitous action until more research was done on the issue. Even then, real scientists were well aware that the science was not settled. This didn’t prevent Stephen H Schneider from smearing Singer and other scientists and economists who warned about uncertainty and the possible disbenefits of hurrying to action though. Indeed, an associate of Al Gore’s tried to force Singer to remove Revelle’s name from the paper, a fascinating story with Orwellian overtones you can read here later. – TB

Roger Revelle 1909 — 1991

What To Do about Greenhouse Warming:
Look Before You Leap
by S. Fred Singer, Roger Revelle and Chauncey Starr
Cosmos: A Journal of Emerging Issues Vol. 5, No. 2, Summer 1992

Greenhouse warming has emerged as one of the most complex and controversial environmental and foreign-policy issues of the 1990s.

It is an environmental issue because carbon dioxide (CO2), generated from the prolific burning of oil, gas and coal, is thought to enhance, by trapping heat in the atmosphere, the natural greenhouse effect that has kept the planet warm for billions of years. Some scientists predict drastic climatic changes in the 21st century.

It is a foreign-policy issue because, for a number of reasons, the United States has taken a more cautious approach to dealing with CO2 emissions than have many industrialized nations. Wide acceptance of the Montreal Protocol, which limits and rolls back the manufacture of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to protect the ozone layer, has encouraged environmental activists at international conferences in the past three years to call for similar controls on CO2 from fossil-fuel burning.

These activists have expressed disappointment with the White House for not supporting immediate action. But should the United States assume “leadership” in a hastily-conceived campaign that could cripple the global economy, or would it be more prudent to assure first, through scientific research, that the problem is both real and urgent?

Livina & Lenton: Consenseless Conclusion – Complete Cock-up

Paul Vaughan has contacted me with information regarding an arctic ice paper which erroneously concludes that a ‘bifurcation’ or fundamental change to a two state dynamic took place in September 2007 when the Arctic ice minimum record was set. He says:

With less old ice there was a qualitative regime shift to a less damped and thus HIGHER AMPLITUDE annual cycle after 2007, BUT THERE WAS NO BIFURCATION.

Livina, V.N.; & Lenton, T.M. (2012). A recent bifurcation in Arctic sea-ice cover.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.5445v1.pdf

Regrettably, the authors SEVERELY (cannot be adequately stressed) misinterpreted the stats they calculated. I sincerely hope this is instantly intuitively obvious to every reader here upon reading sentence 1 of section 1 (“bifurcation detection”).

After removing the mean seasonal cycle, the remaining fluctuations in sea-ice
area include some of order 106 km2 (Figure 2a).

Figure 2: Detection of a bifurcation in Arctic sea-ice area. (a) Sea-ice area anomaly, daily data with mean seasonal cycle removed.

Owen Paterson: Pushing for UK Shale Gas Development – Wind farms are not the answer

In a recent talkshop post I introduced Owen Paterson, the UK’s new energy minister following the cabinet reshuffle. It looks like he’s hit the ground running:

Wind farms are not the answer to solving the climate change problem, Owen Paterson, the new Environment Secretary, has suggested. In his first interview in the job, Mr Paterson has admitted being “sceptical” about climate change policies, such as wind farms that need large subsidies. The Conservative right-winger, who took over the role last week, acknowledged global warming exists but stopped short of saying it is an entirely man-made problem. His comments are likely to alarm green groups as part of his new department’s official role is to help prepare Britain for climate change.
Rowena Mason, The Daily Telegraph, 16 September 2012

Stephen Schneider: Arguing for censorship in 1992

Nice old cutting this, from the ‘Boston Sunday Globe’ 31 May 1992. Click for the full size image. The attempt to remove dissenting voices from the media has been in full swing for 20 years. Lewdandorky’s attempt to get man made global warming sceptics written off as ‘lunar landing deniers’ is just another route to the same goal. These people are unable to convince the public via fair open debate with their intellectual opponents, so they resort to smear tactics and lies.

UPDATE: Geoff Chambers has taken the trouble to transcribe the article to help combat ‘internet amnesia’ of pre millenium events. word doc here.

Anthony Watts: Interviewed on PBS channel

Read about it here:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/09/why-the-global-warming-crowd-oversells-its-message.html

And leave a comment!

Copy it to

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/17/my-interview-with-pbs-newshour-now-online/

Here’s mine

IPCC Reports: Then and Now

visit http://cartoonsbyjosh.com – and buy a mug or something.

Third Assessment Report: 2003

 “Most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations”.

Fourth Assessment Report: 2007

“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

Fifth Assessment Report: 2012 (draft)

“Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.”

It seems that the 95% confidence interval associated with the IPCC definition of “very likely” is now worth no more than a toss of the coin. How much have we been paying these people to produce “Well crafted figures and punchy take home messages“?

Conflation of cloud and volcanic forcing leads to underestimate of solar forcing

Bob Tisdale has a major post up at WUWT. I broadly agree with his analysis, but think he has missed something important. The graph below shows NINO 3.4 SST anomalies scaled to compare with ‘Rest of World’ SST anomalies. The divergences where ‘Rest of World’ drops below NINO 3.4 SST are attributed by Bob to the effects of the El Chichon and Pinatubo volcano eruptions in 1983 and 1991. I think there’s more going on than that though, so I’ve added the TSI record (in red) to the graph and shaded in green the 2003-2006 series of mini El Nino’s too.

TSI in red and extra green shading added to Bob Tisdale’s graph.

Judah Cohen: “bar for seasonal forecasting is set pretty low”

Here’s an entertaining piece from Roger Harrabin of the BBC sci/environment team:
Met Office model ‘better at predicting extreme winters’

UK weather forecasters can predict cold winter weather a season ahead with more confidence, according to analysis of a new computer model.

Writing in Environmental Research Letters, scientists say the model is better at simulating phenomena known as sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs).

These happen when the usual westerly winds at 10-50km altitude break down, causing cold weather on the surface.

Developers at the Met Office say it is an incremental advance for forecasts.

Seasonal forecasting is still in its relative infancy, but the report’s authors from the Met Office say that improving their ability to represent SSWs [Sudden Stratospheric Warmings] is a help.

The high-top model was devised in time for the winter of 2010-2011.

Using its data, the Met Office forecast in autumn 2010 that there was a 40% chance of a cold start to the winter, with a 30% chance of a mild start, and a 30% chance of an average start.

However, Judah Cohen, of the US-based Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) said:

Why is the troposphere 8km higher at the equator than the poles?

This is an important question, because it is thought to be due to temperature, convection and radiative physics. But what about other possible factors? I’ve started gathering a list and some notes for discussion on the excellent and still very active Clive Best lapse rate thread. Regulars know that when a post title contain a question mark, there are going to be demands for help… TB

Dr Tim Ball has a good recent article here, which contains some useful diagrams, such as this one:

 

Tim says:

Tropopause height at the Poles varies between 7 km in winter and 10 km in summer, at the Equator the range is 17 to 18 km. The difference in seasonal range is because of the difference in seasonal temperature range. How do you build even those simple dynamics into a computer model?

Answer: the best way to make a start is to quantify the various effects which contribute to the height difference in the polar and equatorial tropopause, using the clues offered by seasonal variation as a guide.

Bute Park, Cardiff

Bute Park, Cardiff

No WMO ID. One of it’s ID is DCNN 8491. A definite photo of the Stevenson screen would be nice if anyone can unearth one although I am pretty sure I am correct.

51.48816688167427,-3.188603677354307 (unofficial, best official is circa 10 metres away)

Estimate Class 5. Fails Class 4 on >50% hardstanding within 10 metres and more than 30% within 3 metres. Probably shadows too.

UHI, local, in parks horticultural compound, near greenhouses, car parking, waste disposal, cold frames, within tall perimeter hedge, distance 1km centre of Cardiff.

Whether they keep the compound gate open or closed… see Google at other times.

This station is an incidental simply out of interest showing local conditions.

BBC written 2nd March 2012, “Warmest place in UK” although in reality this station is isolated from extremes, not very interesting. I think stations such as this ought to be ignored nationally.

Ed Caryl: MODTRAN shows co2 doubling will have almost no effect on temperature

This is a guest post from talkshop contributor Ed Caryl. It is an expanded version of an article he had posted on Pierre Gosselin’s excellent ‘notrickszone’ website a while ago. I think this needs wider exposure. I’m not an expert in radiative physics, but I’d welcome the views of those who are in response to this interesting piece. If Ed is right, there’s some serious ‘splainin’ to do on the part of the atmospheric physicists. I’m not sure widened ‘wings’ on absorption frequencies are going to cover it. – TB.

UPDATE 22-9-2012: The latest version of Ed’s Article is here. He has rerun the online MODTRAN model with the ‘water vapour scale parameter modified in line with suggestions made in comments, and added some other further material and analysis.

Analyzing the Earth’s Heat Radiation Using MODTRAN

By Ed Caryl

The Climate Team has always claimed that a doubling of CO² would add 3.7 Watts/m² to the global climate budget and thus this would fry us all. This fate is their religion’s version of Hell, except we will all suffer this rather than just the “sinners,” thus giving them leverage to force us to do their will. Many bloggers, and some others, notably even the Berkley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) study,^[i] have pointed out that there are many locations that are cooling rather than warming. The warmists would have us believe that these cooling stations are just due to local phenomenon, such as albedo change, land use, site moves, or other changes, and that the warming stations are not due to UHI.

The greenhouse effect is described as an increase in downward infrared radiation due to water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and CFC’s in the atmosphere. But strangely, there are very few measurements of this radiation in the only way that tells us if this is true, measuring the spectrum. Each of the above gases absorbs and re-emits radiation at specific wavelengths. These emission lines should change when the mixture of gases changes. A Spectrometer designed to operate at these wavelengths will tell us if this is true.

MODTRAN is a computer program that was initially developed by the US Air Force in the late 1980’s that does a line-by-line analysis of the IR
spectrum transmitted by the atmosphere. An on-line version is available at the University of Chicago, here.^[ii]

In the 24 year history of MODTRAN, the US Air Force and many other organizations, including climate scientists, have validated the software for their own purposes. The best way to prove that it is valid for climate studies, is to show comparable spectra from other sources.

Ian Wilson: LOD, Precip, Temperature and Atmospheric Angular Momentum

Reblogged from Ian Wilson’s excellent website.

The following discussion is based upon a WUWT post
that highlighted a paper called:

Persistence in California Weather Patterns
by Jim Goodridge – State Climatologist (Retired)

which can obtained from:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/10/07/california-climate-pdo-lod-and-sunspot-departure/

In this paper, Goodridge notes that the accumulated departure

from average of 47 Californian de-trended temperature records

(figure 1) shows a remarkable similarity with the accumulated

departure from the average Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)

(figure 2).

Figure 1:

Figure 2:

 

Whimsical WIMPS disappear from view under Planck’s gaze

From the Institute of Physics:

Image courtesy IOP Physics World

The latest results from the Planck space telescope have confirmed the presence of a microwave haze at the centre of the Milky Way. However, the haze appears to be more elongated than originally thought, which casts doubt over previous claims that annihilating dark matter is the cause of the emissions.

A roughly spherical haze of radiation at the heart of our galaxy was identified as far back as 2004 by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). Since then, some astrophysicists have suggested that this haze is produced by annihilating dark-matter particles.

One of the telescope’s main objectives is to accurately map fluctuations in the CMB, so it is well suited to subtracting that radiation to reveal the haze.

With the presence of the haze independently verified, focus has returned to determining its origin. After its original discovery, some researchers, including Dan Hooper of Fermilab near Chicago, US, argued that annihilating dark matter could explain the galactic haze. Dark matter has long been thought to bind galaxies together, but detecting it directly has remained elusive. In Hooper’s mechanism, dark-matter particles annihilate to produce conventional electrons and positrons. These particles then spiral around the Milky Way’s magnetic field to produce the radiation we see as the microwave haze.

WMO03853, Yeovilton

WMO03853, Yeovilton (RNAS Yeovilton)

51 00 23N 02 38 34W
Altitude 23 metres

Estimated Class 1, passes 9.9% hardstanding, limit <= 10%.

UHI, local airbase, distance none.

WMO03840, Dunkeswell Aerodrome

WMO03840, Dunkeswell Aerodrome

50 51 37N 03 14 25W
Altitude 256 metres

Estimated Class 3, fails 1 and 2 on area hardstanding.

UHI, local, former airbase and expanding industrial estate, etc., distance, none.

WMO03839, Exeter Airport

WMO03839, Exeter Airport

50 44 14N 03 24 21W
Altitude 31 metres

Discuss. 8% taxiway within 100 metres, limit 10% for Class 1. Farmland seems to be livestock. This is a recent station which seems badly located, in jet blast area. See supplementary.

UHI, possibly expanding regional airport, 9km centre of Exeter, distance, none.

Poptech: More Shenanigans at SniptopicalScience

The inaptly named man made global warming true believer site ‘skepticalscience’ has been busy with the censors scissors again. I fell foul of their foul policy last year, so I have sympathy with Andrew, who runs the popular technology website and goes under the handle ‘poptech’. Andrew has been doing a sterling job keeping tabs on all the papers in the scientific literature which run counter to the MMGW meme. Something the SKS cheif book cooker John Cook doesn’t like. Here’s Andrew’s account of how a thread trying to deny the existence of these 1000+ scientific papers got out of John Cooks control, and resulted in ‘poptech’ having every comment he’d ever placed at SKS deleted. George Orwell would refer to him as an unperson. Shame on you John Cook.

Skeptical Science: The Censorship of Poptech

“The impact of that ban on PopTech was to silence him.” – Sphaerica (Bob Lacatena) [Skeptical Science]

In March of 2012, the same computer illiterates at Skeptical Science who do not know how to use Google Scholar had their forums hackedand the contents posted online. In these I am mentioned in at least 65 discussions, with 17 forum threads started that specifically mention my name and one forum category devoted entirely to discussing thePopular Technology.net list of papers. These discussion involve almost entirely with how to “deal” with the list. One of the ways they attempted to “deal” with the list was by having a former bike messenger and man-purse maker Rob Honeycutt write a Google Scholar illiterate post. In it Rob failed to use quotes when searching for phrases, is unable to count past 1000 and failed to remove erroneous results such as, “Planet Mutonia and the Young Pop Star Wannabes” – believing it to be a peer-reviewed paper about global warming. After being unable to refute how Google Scholar actually works they resorted to an extensive censorship of my comments and eventually a site wide purge of all of them.