Geee Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Investors Business Daily: Environment: James Hansen is sounding the climate-change alarm again, asserting that record summer heat and drought are caused by global warming. But a grade-school kid could find problems with his claim. In a news release that goes with the NASA paper primarily written by Hansen, the agency's top climate-change scientist says, "We now know that the chances these extreme weather events would have happened naturally, without climate change, is negligible." "This is not some scientific theory," Hansen told the media. "We are now experiencing scientific fact." The paper compares the period from 1951 to 1980 to 1981-2010. According to Hansen and his two co-authors, summers that they consider extremely hot went from covering just 1% of the earth in the first era to 10% in the latter period. Forget, for the moment, that the temperature record isn't reliable. We'll get back to that in a moment. Let's start out by asking why Hansen picked those years and left out the 1930s, which were even warmer? We'd also like to know, as prominent skeptic Anthony Watts asks, where is the comparison for the southern hemisphere data? Hansen compares northern hemisphere summers only. Watts accuses Hansen of cherry-picking the data to prove his point. Don't think that he wouldn't. He might be a NASA scientist, but he's also a political activist, and it was university scientists with strong political views who not so many years ago conspired to "hide the decline" in temperatures as they tried to construct the record. Subscribe to the IBD Editorials Podcast And then there are the problems with the temperature record itself. As we have documented before, many of the weather stations that record the temperatures that are used to construct the record are placed in areas that artificially increase the reading. Some gauges are located near air conditioner exhausts, asphalt parking lots, streets, rooftops, diesel generators and other sites and equipment that produce or magnify heat. We've even seen one report of a gauge located in the same box as a halogen light bulb. In so many cases, urban growth around in-place thermometers has created heat islands of extreme temperatures. And what about the lack of weather stations in Asia, Africa and South America? The readings come almost exclusively from the U.S. and Europe. Are the data from just these two regions reasonable representations of the global temperature? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RidesAPaleHorse Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 "But a grade-school kid could find problems with his claim." Problem is, the state of "education" in this country and in this day and age, it would depend on what grade school the kid came from. A private school maybe then that statement would hold water. A college student perhaps? OMG......what am I saying? Nevermind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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