Hi Tom,
couldnt agree more about the general need to cut down the conspicuous consumption, but I think sometimes folks get carried away and take the principle a bit too far.

Personally speaking, Ive stopped using a car, I grow vegetables, have installed a solar hot water panel, built a battery powered bicycle and walk a lot.

Not going to stop cooking on open fires though, some luxuries are just too good to give up.

My U.S. geography is really poor, isnt MA one of those itty bitty little counties up on the eastern seaboard? :-)

Hi Rog,
Yep, it's the one that has the dubious distinction of being the first one that we invaded, long before Saddam was even a gleam in his daddy's eye. ;)

I was raised and still live in the county through which the Humber runs, and have both walked to its source and worked on cargo barges through its estuary.

Time for a brew. Tea, coffee, or anything you like. Should we boil up on alcohol, brewed from the grain grown on forest cleared land, or some dry twigs from the foot of some pine or oak?

Or, focus the benevolent rays of the sun through my reading glasses onto our pot and sip contentedly, with clear consciences, knowing that we have used the most sustainable/widely available of energy sources. Twigs in the early AM and late PM, I'll grant you.
By the way, as one gardener to another, you Brits produce the finest Purple Sprouting Broccoli seeds I have yet to lay my grubby paws on. The sprouting broccolis are the mainstay of the late winter/early spring greens section of my garden: Cold hardy, impervious to club root, and prolific beyond belief.

What has sustainability have to do with carbon emissions? Any kind of combustion (including our own respiration) will produce carbon dioxide, so surely it's best to drink you tea cold, or heat it with solar energy??

Where can I get these magical broccoli seeds?

Hi Alison.
I !ike cold tea, but haven't found way of infusing it with cold water yet.

It's true that we emit carbon dioxide (or as I prefer to call it, Plant Food Gas) when we exhale.

Maybe you'll have to make do with N.Z. broccoli seeds, british ones would have to be shipped to you on a nasty evil aeroplane. :-)

A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions
David H. Douglass 1 *, John R. Christy 2, Benjamin D. Pearson 1, S. Fred Singer 3 4
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA
2Department of Atmospheric Science and Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899, USA
3Science and Environmental Policy Project, Arlington, VA 22202, USA
4University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA

Abstract
We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 Climate of the 20th Century model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data.

" “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming. Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that Greenhouse models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapour, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”

Where was this article published? If it was in "Science", that is one thing but if it was in the "Transylvanian Journal of Social Science" that is another thing entirely. Please inform us so we can check it out. Thanks.

A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions

http://www.isepp.org/Comparison.pdf

Edited by jshann on 04/11/2008 11:01:53 MDT.

A web search will quickly lead you to

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf

Happy Reading

Hi Allison,
You can buy them over the web from Thompson and Morgan, a venerable British seed company, but you'd still have to live with the burden of knowing that they arrived in your mailbox courtesy of some nasty old CO2 spewing airplane, as Rog so puckishly noted. On the other hand, the broccoli plants are quite robust and sop up CO2 with great vigor, probably more than their share of the airplane's exhaust. Myself, I've learned to live with ambiguity and enjoy the
broccoli. If you can't locate any for some reason, PM me and I'll send a care package your way. :))
BTW, there's an old time American favorite called "sun tea". It's made by putting tea in a glass jar full of water then placed in the sun all day. It's a leisurely process that produces a very mellow brew, probably due to the relatively low temperature and length of steep time. It originated long ago, in an era when Americans still knew the value of a dollar and were actually quite ingenious at devising ways to hang onto them, while still enjoying a few simple pleasures.

Rog, I can pull out several papers that claim that sunspot activity has much less effect than anyone used to believe. I just a couple a few days ago while researching for my last post. As I recall there were some predictions on high atmospheric temperature changes that would support a greenhouse hypothesis versus a solar hypothesis for recent warming, and when the data were collected it came out favoring greenhouse.

Really, we can go back and forth on this forever.

Regarding your claims that Arctic ice is accreting faster than it is receding:



This is from Maslowski's paper, out of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. He comes to some, frankly, unbelievable conclusions, but his data collection is considered in high regard.

Edited by acrosome on 04/12/2008 10:51:25 MDT.

Hi Dean,
I believe I referred to antarctic ice, not arctic ice. Temperatures in the southern hemisphere have been dropping for much longer than they have in the northern.

If as you say, sunspot activity has little effect on climate, what do you think is causing the drop in temperatures as our collective CO2 output continues to increase?

For an interesting take on sunspots/temp correlations, check this:

http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/tilmari/tilmari5.htm#spots

Dean said: I can pull out several papers that claim that sunspot activity has much less effect than anyone used to believe. I just a couple a few days ago while researching for my last post. As I recall there were some predictions on high atmospheric temperature changes that would support a greenhouse hypothesis versus a solar hypothesis for recent warming, and when the data were collected it came out favoring greenhouse.

A couple of posts ago you asked me to provide a properly referenced source for an anti man made global warming paper, which I did above. Perhaps you could provide the source for this data you refer to, since it is at variance with NASA's satellite data, and the weather balloon data.

Thanks

Rog.

Edited by tallbloke on 04/13/2008 12:14:20 MDT.

Hi Rog

> Temperatures in the southern hemisphere have been dropping for much longer than they have in the northern.
I don't think that applies for *all* the southern hemisphere. Here in Australia the snow pack has been steadily decreasing each year for the last 40 years. Sigh. And recently on the E coast we have had a 7 year drought, which for some areas has still not ended.

But I think that the amount of snow-fall over parts of the Antarctic has been increasing due to the greater evaporation from the oceans as the mean temperature goes up. No, I can't quote a reference off the top of my head, sorry.

Hi Roger,
the mean temp has been going down not up. The increased evaporation causing increased snowfall may be due to a regional increase though.

Dean will be glad to know it's a similar story in Greenland

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1115356v1

It looks like these extra snows due to regional warming may be the big glacier flows of the future. It was warmer in the arctic in the 1930's than it is now.

While we're on the subject of arctic temperatures, here's a graph of arctic air temp and it's correlation with solar activity for any polar bears logged on to BPL.



I'm still hunting for the NASA tropospheric temperature graphs on my hard drive now I'm home.

Edited to add, it was the NOAA not NASA, here's the 1979-2002 graph for the northern hemisphere:



And the southern hemisphere over the same period:

Edited by tallbloke on 04/13/2008 14:34:47 MDT.

Dean Wrote:
"Regarding the Urban Heat Island argument, I can name papers disputing that the effect is real. For example:

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&
amp;doi=10.1175%2F1520-0442%282003%29016%3C2941%3AAOUVRI%3E2.0.CO%3B2&ct=1

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&
amp;doi=10.1175%2FJCLI3730.1

Sorry, those are links to an abstracts only, as I do not subscribe to the journal in question. Of course, these papers have attracted criticism, so before you post it, I will. McIntyre:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1859

I would point out, however, that McIntyre was never published on this subject in any way, let alone peer-reviewed. A better criticism is Pielke:

http://climatesci.org/publications/pdf/R-302.pdf

But, these dissenting opinions are definitely a minority"


Heres another up to date one for the minority then.

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 112, D24S09, doi:10.1029/2007JD008465, 2007

Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data

Ross R. McKitrick
Department of Economics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Patrick J. Michaels
Cato Institute, Washington, D. C., USA

Abstract
Local land surface modification and variations in data quality affect temperature trends in surface-measured data. Such effects are considered extraneous for the purpose of measuring climate change, and providers of climate data must develop adjustments to filter them out. If done correctly, temperature trends in climate data should be uncorrelated with socioeconomic variables that determine these extraneous factors. This hypothesis can be tested, which is the main aim of this paper. Using a new database for all available land-based grid cells around the world we test the null hypothesis that the spatial pattern of temperature trends in a widely used gridded climate data set is independent of socioeconomic determinants of surface processes and data inhomogeneities. The hypothesis is strongly rejected (P = 7.1 × 10 -14), indicating that extraneous (nonclimatic) signals contaminate gridded climate data. The patterns of contamination are detectable in both rich and poor countries and are relatively stronger in countries where real income is growing. We apply a battery of model specification tests to rule out spurious correlations and endogeneity bias. We conclude that the data contamination likely leads to an overstatement of actual trends over land. Using the regression model to filter the extraneous, nonclimatic effects reduces the estimated 1980-2002 global average temperature trend over land by about half.

Received 26 January 2007; accepted 8 November 2007; published 14 December 2007.


I note that reducing the ground measured trend by half brings warming into line with NASA data for the troposphere and improves the correlation with solar irradiance data too...

Edited by tallbloke on 04/13/2008 14:09:20 MDT.

Aaaah yes, I remember good old 'sun tea'. Yummy.

I'd be OK with the carbon burden of mailing broccoli seeds to NZ since I would collect seed from the plants and have an endless supply of future CO2 sucking broccoli plants in perpetuity. However, I'm not sure NZ agriculture inspectors would be thrilled with imported seeds, so it might have to be a covert operation! Of course, the tea in NZ also has to be imported, so there's just no way around the carbon emmision dilema unless I just live off of kiwi fruit, sheep, milk, honey and locally grown produce. Now that I write it out in black and white, that doesn't sound half bad ;) I have a rather large veggie patch and plenty of fruit trees...maybe I'll get myself some laying hens.

At least global warming is good news for your crops Alison, whatever it's true causes. ;-)

Hi Allison,
On the off chance you are serious about saving seed, Thompson and Morgan would be a poor source; Most of their seed is hybrid. Of course you could always grow it out until it bred true....
A much better bet in that case would be a US outfit called Bountiful Gardens. They are heavy into Biodynamic-French Intensive gardening techniques and sell only organic, open pollinated seed. Their sprouting broccoli varieties are excellent and very vigorous. I regularly get specimens nearly 4 feet high with very high yields of sprouts. Their website is www.bountifulgardens.org. Look for Late, Early, and White Sprouting Broccoli varieties. Their Purple Cape Cauliflower is also excellent. All of them do well in cool to cold weather, and the broccolis must overwinter to produce(from ~early March through mid-May, here in Seattle).
With these varieties you can happily save seed, and even experiment with your very own hybrids if you get the itch!

Hey Tom, thanks a million for those tips. Not sure about global warming being good for my crops though, Rog. If the drought in these parts continues, we will not only run out of our Hydro generated electricity, but water restrictions will make it difficult to grow many crops that we used to take for granted. Not to mention that a very small increase in sea level will turn my back yard into a salt-water swamp and all I'll be able to grow will be mangroves :( Guess I could always just live off of fish, plankton and seaweeds! At least I'd get plenty of omega 3s...