Saturday, November 08, 2008

Denier On Denier Action! Lorne Gunter Burned By Climate Change Crazy!

For a climate change denier, the most important thing is getting your case "out there"--floating around the blogosphere, linked to by Drudge, unattached to a particular source and, therefore, irrefutable. Graphs get re-purposed, flawed arguments get re-hashed long after their shortcomings have been painfully exposed.

Perhaps, then, the National Post's Lorne' Gunter will be thrilled to know that his Feb. 25th, 2008 column "Welcome to the new ice age" was given a 2nd life by one F. William Engdahl of the Centre For Research on Globalization.

From Lorne Gunter's "Welcome...":

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

From F. William Engdahl's "Global Warming gets the Cold Freeze ":

China is surviving its most brutal winter in one hundred years. Temperatures in the normally mild south were low for so long that some middle-sized cities went weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

From Lorne Gunter:

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

From F. William:

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has been hurt as home buyers have stayed home. In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, breaking the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in 1950.

From Lorne:

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

From F. William:

Now, as a result of the recent record cold weather, the ice is back. According to Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

Lorne (a long one this time):

According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona -- two prominent climate modellers -- the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong.

"We missed what was right in front of our eyes," says Prof. Russell. It's not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind's effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt.

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.

F. William:

There is also admission by several intellectually honest climatologists that their predictive models are flawed. Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona, two very prominent climate modellers, recently admitted that the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (as in the fictional movie The Day After Tomorrow) are wrong.

In a recent interview Russell said, “It's not ice melt, but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind's effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of man-made warming on polar ice melt.” Now that’s very interesting.

When professors Toggweiler and Russell reprogrammed their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator, then back towards it again, the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the recent Arctic warming.

Russian climatologists believe recent weather changes around the globe are results of solar activity and not man-made emissions. Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, calls the argument for man-made climate change "a drop in the bucket." His research shows that now the recent very active solar activity has entered an inactive phase. He advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

Kenneth Tapping of Canada’s National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon. The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.

Now, the stuff in this last paragraph is a load of baloney, and only demonstrates the maxim that a lie can get all the way around the world before the Truth gets its boots on. What Kenneth Tapping actually said can be found here. The original source of the bullshit version was the Feb. 9, 2008, Investors Business Daily, retailed uncritically by Gunter later in February, and then by Engdahl in April.

As for F. William Engdahl, he is known for (among other things) his theories re the Abiogenic origin of petroleum. An ex-peak oiler, he now believes that oil and gas supplies will never run out.

H/T CW, who did most of the legwork.

4 comments:

Reality Bites said...

F. William Engdahl is wasted in the climate change debate. With his talent for plagiarizing right-wing assholes he should be prime minister.

Ti-Guy said...

Plagiarising from the unlettered Lorne Gunter. Now that's lame.

Steve Bloom said...

The complete intentional hash made of the very interesting Toggweiler and Russell results is a fine example of denialism in action. Here's the original Arizona Star article for comparison.

T and R wrote a nice article explaining their paper and its implications. Confirming work needs to be done, but they appear to have solved one of the major remaining problems in climate science, which is describing a complete mechanism for the glacial terminations.

Unknown said...

Steve, you miss the point. The article demonstrates that climate science is not as settled as AGW proponents would lead the public to believe.

As Joellen Russell said:

"We missed what was right in front of our eyes."