Cliff Mass is a meteorology professor at the UW, and he writes every few days about the weather. His weather blog is religiously followed -- not the least by me -- because he has proven more accurate than anyone else in predicting the weather for me; sometimes to the hour. "It will snow at 3pm" -- it snowed at 3:20pm. Not bad.
Cliff wrote a blog entry about climategate -- a set of controversial private emails that were published on the internet to and from scientists involved in studying global warming. They discuss things like changing data, deleting data and hiding documents from public disclosure requests -- documents that didn't support their personal views. All of which are inappropriate in my opinion.
Professor Mass talks about that, and then talks about the difficulties that he's had in publishing a paper he wrote that notes that snowpack in washington state isn't melting any faster than it ever has, despite theories that global warming would cause it to melt sooner. It just doesn't agree with the current popular view.
Make no mistake; there's an entire industry that is devoted to promoting climate change as a way to enrich themselves. They know they have the "one true vision" and like any religion there is no compromise. As someone who has paid the 'green tax' in the form of various regulations -- like being sued for using wood chips on my farm -- I understand completely.
3 weeks ago
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3 comments:
Bruce:
I read your comment on the Cliff Mass climategate blog. Bravo! I don't know exactly when we stepped through the looking glass but it's been a while. Troubled times and storm clouds rising.
Here's what I find hilarious: fossil fuel burning CO2 is the great eco-sin of our times and yet as a percentage of the atmosphere over the last century CO2 has risen from .032% to .038%. And this is to be our doom? Doesn't pass the smell test.
I read that windless days in the corn belt drive farmers crazy. The corn sucks up the CO2 and it quits growing until a breeze carries in some more of that "poison". When talking about feeding a growing world population, we don't need less CO2 we need more.
OT: Raised a few hogs (not commercially) outside of Olympia a long time ago. Now there's a smell test!
Michael Nordstrom (mnordstrom @ddbroadband.net)
Well...I really enjoy reading your blog and I will continue to, but here is where we finally completely disagree. Living in Canada we are exposed to the reality of climate change and global warming on a daily basis. Two things jump out at me from your post. 1)Just because a very local climate isn't changing (washington's ice cap) doesn't mean that the world's climate isn't changing. From what I've learned, the changes will occur on the poles first...especially the north pole (for whatever reason). We just watched Dr. David Suzuki explaining the other day how the ice cap on Greenland is melting up to 10 times faster than was estimated only a decade ago. One of my best friends is a polar biologist with the Canadian Government. The ice in Canada's north is melting so fast that it is noticeable yearly now. For the first time in recorded history Canada's northern oceans will be a shipping lane witin a few years. 2) There are not nearly as many people profiting from advocating that the climate is changing as there are people profiting by trying to discredit it! (ie. oil companies)
Global Warming doesn't mean that your temperatures will rise. It means that the earth's temp will rise and with that will come more violent weather, less predictable weather and too many other things to discuss. Canada and Alaska permafrost is beginning to melt. With the melting permafrost the organic matter begins to decompose and release more methane than I knew could exist.
People are just afraid that their livestyle will be compromised with the realization that we are harming the planet with that very lifestyle. I won't be 'enriched' by the promotion of global warming but there is not a debate in my mind about its validity. Climate will change slowly at first and then begin to snowball which is what I see happening already. We have experienced droughts in our area that we have never before in history. Our weather patterns have already begun to change and it is very noticeable. Only a few years ago I was firmly entrenched on the side of "the climate has changed before and it will again". Now I see the other side that this time it is far quicker than ever before and is man-made.
Happy Holidays Bruce!
I think that global warming is happening, and I think that it's irreversible at this point.
The issue about the snowpack melt is that various pundits in this area have cited earlier melts of the snowpack as evidence of warming -- but it's just not true. The snow isn't melting any sooner than it has in the past.
There's enough real evidence that we don't have to make more up, or hide results that don't fit anyones agenda. That's the point of his posting, and is also the point of mine. Accuracy, especially when you're using it to base public policy on, is paramount.
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