Came across this nice little bit.
Explains why the "measured" surface values do not agree with sat
data. No one actually measured the surface value.

Turns out the data does agree, except in remote regions where
the GW crowd guessed at the values. The sat data showed general
temp increases except in the area of the guessing, where the
sats measure record cold values. The overal results were no
warming, in contrast to the GW results.

(URLs embedded in text)


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One other observation: While it is clear that the Earth has
warmed since the 1880s, as we recovered from the Little Ice Age,
the observed Arctic warming during the last two or three decades
does not mean that global warming is continuing.

As I am sure you know, surface temperature measurements
allegedly show a cooling trend from about 1940 to 1970 and
warming since then, but satellite measurements since 1979 show
little or no warming. In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences
convened a panel to explore the reasons for this discrepancy,
and their results were published in a book (Reconciling
Observations of Global Temperature Change (2000)), which you can
read online at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309068916/html/35.html
.. The group was unable to give a convincing explanation, but I
suspect that the problem was ideological differences between GW
true believers and skeptics on the panel. The reason is in fact
obvious from the data they present.

A map on p.34 of the online book shows surface temperature
trends during the 20 years 1979 to 1998, indicating warming
nearly everywhere. The map was created by dividing the planet
into 5 deg X five deg (curvilinear) squares, and plotting the
average of temperature measurements in each square. Where
measurements were rare or non-existent (especially in the
Southern Ocean), the values were assigned by interpolation from
adjacednt squares -- i.e., by guesswork.

Page 43 of the online book has a map showing temperature trends
during the same period, as measured by the satellite Microwave
Sounding Units (MSUs). It agrees with the surface map in showing
warming in Alaska and northern Canada, in northern Europe and
southern Siberia -- but it shows strong cooling almost
everywhere in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica, and also in
Arctic Siberia. These are all areas largely lacking surface
measurements, where the surface map is based on guesswork,

I suggest that anybody interested in climate change go look at
these two maps, at the URL cited. They show conclusively that
the folks preparing the surface record simply guessed wrong
about the areas where they had inadequate data. When the surface
record is corrected for these mistakes, the alleged average
warming trend essentially disappears.

In other words, despite all the cries of alarm and the demands
that we accept draconian limitations on US industry, the overall
climate was not warming significantly during the last two
decades of the 20th Century. It is certainly warming in the
Arctic from Alaska to Sweden, and that may have regional effects
(conceivably including shutting off the Gulf Stream), but there
are no grounds for believing that the Earth as a whole will warm
in coming decades.

When asked to forecast what the stock market would do, J.P.
Morgan famously replied, “It will fluctuate.” That is the only
credible forecast about climate as well. Anybody who claims to
know for sure whether the climate in a decade or two will be
warmer or cooler is either a charlatan, an ideologue pursuing an
ulterior agenda, a scientist more interested in grant money than
in science, or a fool.

The consequences of modest warming are mostly beneficial (longer
growing seasons, milder northern winters, increased arable land
in Canada and Siberia, etc,), but those of cooling could include
the onset of the next ice age, which would be a castrophe far
beyond any disaster in recorded human history. The Precautionary
Principle therefore demands that we err on the side of warming
rather than cooling. Until such time as we can make real
predictions about climatic trends, we should therefore encourage
rather than curb anthropogenic emissions of CO2.

Phil Chapman




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Why should environmentalists assume the burden of fighting for population
control, when the politicians and the Catholic Church are so short-sighted.

The Population crowd already tried to take over the Sierra Club, and the
Club members said "No way".

What are you doing to control population, Connie?

Most interesting research. To me, it is very egocentric of the
environmentalists to insist that something that humans do can influence
climate. It may happen in the future that humans affect the climate,
but the environmentalists do nothing about the greatest danger, which
is too many people.

I observe here in California that the environmentalists may create a
lot of noise about the red-legged frog, but say nothing about too many
people, which is the real harm to our environment. Someone said that
the ideal population for the US for the environment would be what we
had at the end of WWII. California now has a stable population except
for immigration.