Qohel

Archive for the ‘Science’ Category

Computer gaming and Facebook cause rickets.

Well, no.

There seems to be a a widespread rise in vitamin D deficiency. This could be a lack of sun or shortcomings in diet.

It is a long stretch to say that gaming or Facebook are responsible, expecially when rickets usually starts to appear before age two. Most online gamers and Facebook users are a little older than this.

Even in very young children vitamin D deficiency can be caused by lack of sun as well as diet. But if computer games are not to blame, what is?

Last night I saw on TV a terrifying ad that showed a young man at a beach. As soon as he took his shirt off, deadly rays from the sun struck his skin. As the rays penetrated inside, one skin cell turned black and then began taking over other cells and turing them black. A stern voice said something like ‘A tan is your body’s way of protecting your skin against cancer. There is nothing healthy about a tan.’

This was a government sponsored announcement to warn people that even the smallest amount of exposure to the sun will give you melanoma and kill you. You never know, so it is better to wear a burqa every time you go outside.

That was the message I got, anyway. And incidentally, vitamin D deficiency is a major problem for women in Saudi Arabia.

No wonder people are scared to go outside without ’slip,slop,slapping’ themselves or their children to the point that not one bit of ultra-violet gets through. As a consequence of which the body cannot manufacture any vitamin D.

Half the advice given by doctors and scientists is wrong and should be ignored.

The problem is working out which half.

According to Monday’s Australian:

The peak UN body in climate change has been dealt another humiliating blow to its credibility after it was revealed a central claim of one of its benchmark reports – that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 because of global warming – was based on a ‘speculative’ claim by an obscure Indian scientist.

The 2007 IPCC report included a claim made several years earlier in New Scientist by Syed Hasnain.

Hasnain’s claim was not subjected to any checks. The IPCC did not refer to any other glaciologists before publishing it, nor did they talk to Hasnain.

At the beginning of this year Hasnain admitted the claim was an off the cuff remark made in a telephone interview, and that it was not based on any research.

Nonetheless, Hasnian’s off the cuff remark became a central plank of the IUPCC’s 2007 report. The chief writer of the relevant section, Professor Lal, followed the WWF, which had picked up the original New Scientist story, in claiming the predicted glacier melt was ‘very likely.’ In IPCC parlance, that means a likelihood of greater than 90%.

All this on the basis of no research whatever.

Glaciologists including Julian Dowdeswell of Cambridge University say the claim is inherently ludicrous – no possible level of warming could result in that level of melting – and asked how such an egregious error could have appeared in the report. Professor Lal has admitted he knows nothing about glaciers.

Like Rupert Wyndham at Climaterealists, I have had some clashes with senior clergy over social issues including climate change.

However, I don’t think I have ever written to an archbishop in tones quite like this:

And, dare it be said,  for those such as yourself, in the vanguard of so called “faith communities”, who arrogate to themselves the role of moral leadership, this gives rise to serious questions,  does  it  not? Indeed,  in many ways,  “Climategate”  is  less about   the “science” – which anyway  is garbage – than it is about the integrity of the scientific process, an issue of immensely greater ethical significance for all who value truth as well as democratic accountability.  AGW science has been exposed as a fraud, by far the gravest in the entire history of science. The AGW hypothesis itself is no better than a glib and distorted misrepresentation of a 100 year old speculation relating to the so-called Greenhouse Effect allied to invented evidence concocted within the guts of a computer by  individuals with a predetermined agenda coupled with huge personal  vested  interests – financial  and otherwise …

That, of course,  leaves you in a quandary,  does it not? Either you repudiate this ethical obscenity and, in a spirit of Christian repentance,  exercise moral authority or you continue to promote it and abrogate moral auhority.  Although religious leaders often seem to find the concept seductive, what you cannot do is both to wolf your bun and hang on to your penny.  Your predecessor thought he could. He was wrong.

Ouch! But quite right.

It is one thing to have gangs of scientists saying ‘We’re scientists. The world is ending. Give us billions of dollars and we’ll fix it.’

It is another thing entirely to have religious leaders telling people they are stupid or immoral if they disagree.

Yeah, yeah. I know. Weather is not climate. Unless it’s warm, then it is.

But the National Snow and Ice Data Center (University of Colorado) reports that Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 (via Watts Up With That).

And compare a photo image of current Northern Hemisphere snow and ice cover with an image of the same area a year ago.

When will the world listen to science that works, as opposed to what does not work?

That is the question posed by astrophysicist and long range weather forecaster Piers Corbyn:

It is certainly hot in South Australia – over 40 degrees on Kangaroo Island. Adelaide is even hotter – about 43 degrees.

One or two very hot spells in a season are not unusual, however. The hottest day I have ever lived through was 46 degrees in the early 80s, also in Adelaide.

Has the last decade been the hottest on record in Australia, as Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology says? I noted a couple of days ago that even it were, this is no reason to assume that human activity is responsible.

In fact, there is no correlation between human production of CO2 and changes in climate, but very strong correlation between solar activity and global temperature change.

I also noted that there have been no new temperature records, hot or cold, in the last decade.

Warwick Hughes has shown that in the case of Darwin and Alice Springs, the temperature data do not supprt the BOM’s claim.

There is also considerable doubt that the BOM has adequately taken into account the Urban Heat Island Effect.

These graphs, also from Warwick Hughes, demonstrate the IPCC orthodox warming of about 0.6 degrees in large Australian cities over the 20th century, but no warming at all in rural centres:

Australian Capital City Temperatures 1882 -1982

Australian Regional Temperatures 1882 -1982

Then there is the fact that data has been carefully ‘corrected’, almost always so that older temperatures are lowered, and more recent temperatures increased.

This graph from Watts Up With That shows adjusted data versus raw data for Darwin over the period 1880 to 2000:

Darwin Raw vs Adjusted Temperatures 1880 to 2000

Then there is the fact the even the warming alarmists at East Anglia CRU found the Australian temperature records so poor they are almost incomprehensible. A couple of quotes from the Climategate emails:

I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that’s the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight… So, we can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!

OH F%*# THIS. It’s Sunday evening, I’ve worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I’m hitting yet another problem that’s based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found.

Getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. so many new stations have been introduced, so many false references.. so many changes that aren’t documented. Every time a cloud forms I’m presented with a bewildering selection of similar-sounding sites, some with references, some with WMO codes, and some with both. And if I look up the station metadata with one of the local references, chances are the WMO code will be wrong (another station will have it) and the lat/lon will be wrong too.

So how much confidence can we have in the BOM’s claim that this has been the hottest decade since records began?

Very little.

According to the Australian BOM the last decade has been Australia’s hottest since record keeping began.

Even if this were true, this in itself is no reason to jump to the conclusion it is all our fault and the world is going to hell in a handbasket. No matter what the ever amusing Minister for Rabbits Peter Garrett has to say.

In fact, as I noted a couple of posts ago, there is no evidence this is the case at all.

But the BOM’s clams are doubtful for a number of reasons.

I’ll say more about this tomorrow, but for today I just note that not one Australian temperature record, high or low, has been set in the last ten years:

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

Highest Recorded Temperature:

 Canberra  42.2 C  (108.0 F) on the 1st February, 1968

Lowest Recorded Temperature:

 Canberra  -10.0 C  (14.0 F) on the 11th July, 1971

NEW SOUTH WALES

Highest Recorded Temperature:

 Wilcannia  50.0 C  (122.0 F) on the 11th January, 1939

Lowest Recorded Temperature:

 Charlotte Pass  -23.0 C  (-9.4 F) on the 29th June, 1994

NORTHERN TERRITORY

Highest Recorded Temperature:

 Finke  48.3 C  (118.9 F) on the 2nd January, 1960

Lowest Recorded Temperature:

 Alice Springs  -7.5 C  (18.5 F) on the 12th July, 1976

QUEENSLAND

Highest Recorded Temperature:

 Birdsville  49.5 C  (121.1 F) on the 24th December, 1972

Lowest Recorded Temperature:

 Stanthorpe  -11.0 C  (12.2 F) on the 4th July, 1895

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Highest Recorded Temperature:

 Oodnadatta  50.7 C  (123.3 F) on the 2nd January, 1960

Lowest Recorded Temperature:

 Yongala  -8.2 C  (17.2 F) on the 20th July, 1976

TASMANIA

Highest Recorded Temperature:

 Hobart  40.8 C  (105.4 F) on the 4th January, 1976

Lowest Recorded Temperature:

 Shannon  -13.0 C  (8.6 F) on the 30th June, 1983

VICTORIA

Highest Recorded Temperature:

 Mildura  47.2 C  (117.0 F) on the 10th January, 1939

Lowest Recorded Temperature:

 Mt Hotham  -12.8 C  (9.0 F) on the 13th August, 1947

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Highest Recorded Temperature:

 Mardie  50.5 C  (122.9 F) on the 19th February, 1998

Lowest Recorded Temperature:

 Booylgoo Springs  -6.7 C  (19.9 F) on the 12th July, 1969

Figures from an amateur site on world temperature extremes. Some readings not yet verified.

I have ‘un-stickied’ the article about the Easy Guide to the Politics and Science of Global Warming.

You can still find it by clicking on the link.

It is clear to all except the most violently irrational or funding dependent warming alarmists that there is no correlation between human produced CO2 and changes in global temperature over the last century.

However there is general agreement that there has been some warming, about 0.6 of one degree Celsius, over the last century.

If human activity has not caused this temperature increase, what has?

If we can learn what has caused past temperature change, we should be able to predict future change, and prepare for it.

Neither the UK Met Office nor the Australian Bureau of Meteorology have had much success in predicting recent seasonal changes.

This is because both Met Office and BOM predictions are based on ideology – theories about what the weather should be doing – rather than observations of what the weather really is doing.

Has anyone got it right?

Yes. In a letter posted on Jon Ray’s Greenie Watch, astrophysicist Piers Corbin writes:

Further to Newsnight tonight (7th Jan 2010) where the Met Office and BBC so-called expert lied about the reality of long-range forecasting:

We at WeatherAction predicted this very cold weather SIX months ago using solar activity (nothing to do with CO2) and added extra detail weeks ahead. Our forecasts of EXTREME events are consistently 85% reliable.

There is no need for the UK and Europe to be unprepared and run out of salt. The consequent suffering and road deaths are a direct consequence of the Met Office and BBC failed science and litany of lies.

Would the BBC care to hear from us as to why the Met Office fail, fail and fail again in medium and long range forecasting and when this cold weather will end and then return? I Suspect not. Would you care to consider the following -

1. The Met Office statement on Newsnight that they ‘verify’ their climate forecasts against past dates

2. That the said past data was fraudulently produced by, for example, the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and exposed in the CLIMATEGATE files..

3. It is therefore unsurprising that the Met Offices climate and season ahead forecasts fail fail and fail again. They are rooted in failed science and falsified data.

- The world has been cooling for at least 7 years while CO2 has been rising – contrary to their foreacst.

- The floody ‘non barbecue’ summers of 2007, 2008 and 2009 and the cold winter 08/09 and now 09/10 were ALL the opposite of the Met office forecast and ALL as predicted by WeatherAction months ahead. Met Office scored 0/5 and WeatherAction scored 5/5.

4. The failed Met Office forecast for this winter and the consequent unnecessary suffering and road deaths should be laid at the feet of the University of East Anglia, the Met Office and the BBC — and charges of collective manslaughter be issued.

Piers is understandably angry. Accurate forecasting, that is, forecasting based on observation rather than ideology, saves lives.

You can check the accuracy of Pier’s own predictions at Weather Action.

Piers uses ‘predictable aspects of solar activity – particle and magnetic effects from the Sun – as the basis for forecasting weather many months and even years in advance.’

This works for two main reasons. More solar activity means the sun produces more heat and light.

More solar activity also means fewer cosmic rays reaching Earth.

Cosmic rays encourage the development of clouds. Clouds reduce the temperature. So more solar activity means less cosmic rays, which means fewer clouds, which means higher temperatures.

There is no meaningful correlation between human production of CO2 and changes in temperature. There is a very close correlation between decrease in cosmic rays and increase in temperature:

Cosmic Rays and Global Temperature

Research shows the small amount of electro-magnetic radiation from mobile phones may help prevent Alzheimer’s Disease.

So that’s yet another failed science scare.

Although, to be fair, I’m not sure it was ever scientists who were behind the mobile phones will fry your brain theory. I think that was Richard Branson. The same guy who made a fortune selling mobile phones.

But never mind, even if mobile phones aren’t scary any more, and no one believes the global warming stuff any more, new science scares can always be found.

But scientists in Britain have really excelled themselves with this one.

A star called T Pyxidis 3260 light years away might explode in a supernova some time in the next 100 years. Maybe.

If it does, it might explode with force of a billion billion billion megatons of TNT. Some good highlights to look forward to in the MTV best explosion category that year.

If it does, the explosion could, possibly, in about four or five thousand years, strip away the ozone layer from the Earth.

And then we’ll all die. Perhaps.

Plenty of funding opportunities there, chaps.

Sadly, the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way is not chewing its way through the galaxy as quickly as previously thought.

Ah well, there’s still the Large Hadron Collider to worry about. Or use as an excuse for sex.

Finally, proof of global warming:

Proof of Global Warming

But then, what about this:

A new study shows no change in the proportion of atmospheric and absorbed CO2 for the last 150 years.

Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.

To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.

In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.

The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Oh, hang on. He looked at real world data. The man’s obviously completely unreliable.

Climate changes all the time.

How do we adapt to these changes in a way that assists the most vulnerable – that is, the poor?

One way is to adopt policies which will assist poorer people to develop the resources and strategies they need to buffer them from  rapid climate change.

Another is to make sure we know what is going on, so we can make plans to cope with the changes that are actually occurring.

Because so much data has been lost/manipulated, etc, we have very little idea what has really happened over the last fifty years.

One thing is for sure. it isn’t getting any warmer.

There are record low temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere, from the US and Canada to the UK to China and Siberia.

Bitter Winters in the Andes can no longer be described as an anomaly. Growing numbers of children – hundreds in some small rural districts – are dying each year from cold.

 It’s time we stopped playing global warming computer games, and started dealing with real world changes, and the real world needs of  people who cannot, as Al Gore can, squander 200,000 kilowatt hours of electricity each year.

One of the worrying things about the cherry-picking, data fudging, distorting, lying, fund-grabbing behaviour that has characterised global warming alarmism over the last two decades, is that we now have no idea at all what the climate has been doing.

Much of the original temperature data seems to have disappeared, leaving only value-less ‘value-added’ data.

What data we have, when the Urban Heat Island Effect  is taken into account, along with the fudging and cheating, shows little or no warming, or even cooling.

Climate changes can be and have been devastating in the past, rapid cooling far more so than gradual warming.

There is nothing we can do to stop natural climate change.

We can prepare for it. And that preparation may save millions of lives.

There is no doubt that next major change will be towards a cooler world.

Let’s hope we can quickly get past the hiatus in real climate science caused by well-funded claims of non-existent anthropogenic global warming, and find real world data that will give us real world answers.

In the meantime, it is a deadly cold Winter in the Northern Hemisphere:

A Cold Winter in Europe