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Wrong on both counts.
The Ninth Ward dates back to the early 19th century, and many of the areas that were hard-hit were just or nearly as old as the high-and-dry French Quarter.

Compare:
Historical NOLA Maps
http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/us_states/louisiana/NewOrleans.htm
Katrina Flood Maps
http://www.katrina.noaa.gov/maps/images/katrina-flood-depth-estimation-08-31-2005.jpg

Regardless, the question is sort of moot- inhabited areas have become radically more flood-prone in the last 100 years due to federal and Army Corp damming and canaling projects, which have decimated Louisiana's wetlands, the best defense against large-scale flooding. Ask the EPA: http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/pdf/Flooding.pdf

There's so much light pollution in populated areas that you can hardly see anything unless you drive into the middle of the desert. It bothers me when I look up and can barely make out Orion to think that in some places you can see the Milky Way with the naked eye. Letting less light escape upward and outward where it's unneeded would have positive environmental effects (some animals are led astray by the light), and would conserve energy, but my reasons for wanting darker cities (or rather, darker city skies) are purely selfish.

You are not terribly alone:

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/browse.html

Yes... when it comes to matters the US government is concerned about, the UN has often acted as an extension of the USG in the past.

However, it does not appear one can really say the US government opposes internet censorship or utilizing technical means to control people.

All signs point to a politically strong faction of the US government openly supporting censorship, even towards requiring ISPs proliferate (otherwise scarce) technical measures that are capable of suppressing speech.

Examples: Congress may Require ISPs to block certain fraud sites, CIPA, COPA, Communications Decency Act, Executive Order 13233, the 1943 Surprise Hurricane (and the major loss of lives that resulted from the US Government's censorship of critical Forecast info), California Assembly Bills 1792, 1793 restricting the sale of violent video games, both signed into law

Crackpot here... Your premise is absolutely wrong - we will NEVER run out of oil. It simply won't happen. If you dare read on, I'll explain why...

There is this thing called supply and demand. In general, as supply falls, the price goes up and demand goes down. This has been demonstrated to be true time and time again.

Now, as the total world oil supply falls, the price will rise and demand will fall. Taking it to extremes, you'll find that when oil gets to $1000 or $10,000 per barrel, we won't be burning it anymore. We'll be putting it in a museum, or wearing it for perfume or some other purpose. Maybe we'll make it a crime to sell it like we do with whale oil today. A guy recently tried to sell it for $40 per ounce (which would be $158,000 per barrel)

But at the end of the day, we'll NEVER run out of oil. We'll simply replace it when it gets too expensive.

Moron.

1, 2, 3

But with all this talk of the entire planet harvesting wind I don't think I've seen so much as a single study on what taking the large chunks of energy out of the wind will do to our planet.

You misspelled "insignificantly small chunks". And we've already taken out not-quite-as-insignificantly small chunks by building billions of houses.

It would really suck if we just traded one "uh oh" for another.

Every method of energy production has an environmental impact. That is a red herring. A useful discussion will center around which set of environmental impacts can be most easily tolerated.

Sorry, didn't mean to be a pedant, but I was curious exactly who regulates the fisheries.

There are so many Government agencies that regulate shit, it's hard to keep track and it does occasionally come in handy - like when a bank screws you the folks that they are afraid of is the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. occ.treas.gov

Modern data IS accurate. The report you linked to is not. You are going to LOVE this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_0-gX7aUKk

That weather station location study discussed in the video you linked to attracted the attention of NOAA who wrote a reply:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/about/response-v2.pdf

Those white boxes which make up the old style weather stations that Anthony Watts (the guy who did the video you linked to) is investigating are called "Stevenson screens".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevenson_screen

They form the oldest weather network in the US. They have been replaced with much newer units. The stevenson screen setups don't even have anemometers.

But the data from those stations are only a very small fraction of all of the weather measurements taking place on earth. Satellites have been used extensively:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements

As have radiosondes attached to weather balloons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosonde

as well as many other natural indications.

Quoted from the above linked video:

> In order to test the validity of Mr. Watts' accusations,
> the NOAA scientists made a comparison of
> temperature trends, using Mr. Watts' data. Two graphs
> were plotted using the same technique. One analysis
> was for the full data set of 1221 US weather stations.
> The other used only the 70 stations that Mr. Watts and
> his volunteers classified as "good" or "best". If climate
> denier theories are correct, the temperatures at the
> optimally sited stations should be markedly different
> from the data as a whole. In fact, the curves show
> virtually no difference. That's right. Even using the
> cherry-picked stations listed in Watts' publication, the
> data -- according to leading scientists at NOAA --
> shows no evidence of distortion.

El Nino has not kicked in yet and it is NOT forecast to do so this year [bom.gov.au], this dust has accumulated [bom.gov.au] under El Nina conditions. When ENSO does in fact flip to El Nino conditions the ground is going to get even dryer than it already is.

As evidence to the contrary, the NOAA is predicting that the El Niño effect most likely WILL kick in during Northern Hemisphere winter 09-10.

Synopsis: El Niño is expected to strengthen and last through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2009-2010.

A weak El Niño continued during August 2009, as sea surface temperature (SST) remained above-average across the equatorial Pacific Ocean (Fig. 1). Consistent with this warmth, the latest weekly values of the Niño-region SST indices were between +0.7oC to +1.0oC (Fig. 2). Subsurface oceanic heat content (average temperatures in the upper 300m of the ocean, Fig. 3) anomalies continued to reflect a deep layer of anomalous warmth between the ocean surface and the thermocline, particularly in the central Pacific (Fig. 4). Enhanced convection over the western and central Pacific abated during the month, but the pattern of suppressed convection strengthened over Indonesia. Low-level westerly wind anomalies continued to become better established over parts of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. These oceanic and atmospheric anomalies reflect an ongoing weak El Niño.

A majority of the model forecasts for the Niño-3.4 SST index (Fig. 5) suggest El Niño will reach at least moderate strength during the Northern Hemisphere fall (3-month Niño-3.4 SST index of +1.0oC or greater). Many model forecasts even suggest a strong El Niño (3-month Niño-3.4 SST index in excess of +1.5oC) during the fall and winter, but current observations and trends indicate that El Niño will most likely peak at moderate strength. Therefore, current conditions, trends, and model forecasts favor the continued development of a weak-to-moderate strength El Niño into the Northern Hemisphere fall 2009, with the likelihood of at least a moderate strength El Niño during the winter 2009-10.

However, its a question whether the climate reacts to warming by positive feedback, and if so how strongly, or by negative feedback.

There's a debate about how much positive feedback exists, but the case for negative feedback is very weak. For example, events such as Heinrich and Dansgaard-Oeschger events are the best examples of abrupt climate change in the paleoclimate record. These ancient events are worrying because they show the climate has a propensity to shift quickly from one state to another, given even small forcings. That requires positive feedback.

Also, the estimated magnitude of the Milankovitch cycles and other forcings are insufficient to account for the temperature variations observed in ice cores from Vostok and EPICA. This requires positive feedback. In fact, the estimates of positive feedback are too small to bridge the gap.

The decisive evidence for feedback would be if the climate were now genuinely warming faster than or differently from ever before.

Approximately 35x faster, which isn't surprising because of the unprecedented (in the last 2 million years) CO2 levels. Also, the warming is happening after the CO2 increase, which makes this warming qualitatively different from all previous deglaciations.

And this is where the question of the refusal of the climate science community to reveal their data becomes important.

Proxy data are available, Wahl and Ammann have made their code available, the CMIP3 database makes model output public for researchers to perform comparisons, etc. I've previously complained about the (widespread) tendency of scientists to keep their data private to wring every last discovery out of it before making it public. It's worrying, but not a problem unique to climatology. Nor ar all climatologists so hesitant to release their code and data. I publish all my code under the GPLv3, for instance.

However, its a question whether the climate reacts to warming by positive feedback, and if so how strongly, or by negative feedback.

There's a debate about how much positive feedback exists, but the case for negative feedback is very weak. For example, events such as Heinrich and Dansgaard-Oeschger events are the best examples of abrupt climate change in the paleoclimate record. These ancient events are worrying because they show the climate has a propensity to shift quickly from one state to another, given even small forcings. That requires positive feedback.

Also, the estimated magnitude of the Milankovitch cycles and other forcings are insufficient to account for the temperature variations observed in ice cores from Vostok and EPICA. This requires positive feedback. In fact, the estimates of positive feedback are too small to bridge the gap.

The decisive evidence for feedback would be if the climate were now genuinely warming faster than or differently from ever before.

Approximately 35x faster, which isn't surprising because of the unprecedented (in the last 2 million years) CO2 levels. Also, the warming is happening after the CO2 increase, which makes this warming qualitatively different from all previous deglaciations.

And this is where the question of the refusal of the climate science community to reveal their data becomes important.

Proxy data are available, Wahl and Ammann have made their code available, the CMIP3 database makes model output public for researchers to perform comparisons, etc. I've previously complained about the (widespread) tendency of scientists to keep their data private to wring every last discovery out of it before making it public. It's worrying, but not a problem unique to climatology. Nor ar all climatologists so hesitant to release their code and data. I publish all my code under the GPLv3, for instance.

To me, the most interesting point of this discovery is that it should improve our understanding of shortwave radio propagation.

It has always frustrated me that the same space program that is producing the data needed to understand the physics needed to make accurate, day-to-day predictions of ionospheric propagation -- a hundred-year-old mystery -- is also the same space program that replaced commercial HF communication with satellites, greatly reducing the economic value of such predictions (and, therefore, the science funding to make them). So now that we have the ability, we no longer have the desire . . . unless one is an amateur radio operator, and it's harder to think of an entity lower on the economic value chain than that.

The most difficult path for shortwave links is one that passes near the magnetic poles, like the path from Southeast Asia to the US East Coast that passes over the north magnetic pole. Energy from the solar wind couples into the Earth's magnetic field; in particular, charged particles are directed parallel to the field. This is great for propagation over most of the planet; however, near the poles the magnetic field becomes vertical and these particles are directed perpendicular to the ground, where they form a ring of radio wave attenuation and refraction in the upper atmosphere that closes this path for many days out of a given month. To open this path there has to be minimal energy coupling from the solar wind, and there is very little understanding of when this will occur. Even the best propagation prediction software (e.g., VOACAP and Proplab Pro) is based on statistics, giving one the probability of a given path being open.

This discovery should add to our understanding of how and when these paths will open. Until then, we have to survive on "Space Weather" web sites like these, and turn on a radio to see for ourselves what the day brings.

(Those interested in an accessible introduction to HF propagation can check out K9LA's propagation site.)

To me, the most interesting point of this discovery is that it should improve our understanding of shortwave radio propagation.

It has always frustrated me that the same space program that is producing the data needed to understand the physics needed to make accurate, day-to-day predictions of ionospheric propagation -- a hundred-year-old mystery -- is also the same space program that replaced commercial HF communication with satellites, greatly reducing the economic value of such predictions (and, therefore, the science funding to make them). So now that we have the ability, we no longer have the desire . . . unless one is an amateur radio operator, and it's harder to think of an entity lower on the economic value chain than that.

The most difficult path for shortwave links is one that passes near the magnetic poles, like the path from Southeast Asia to the US East Coast that passes over the north magnetic pole. Energy from the solar wind couples into the Earth's magnetic field; in particular, charged particles are directed parallel to the field. This is great for propagation over most of the planet; however, near the poles the magnetic field becomes vertical and these particles are directed perpendicular to the ground, where they form a ring of radio wave attenuation and refraction in the upper atmosphere that closes this path for many days out of a given month. To open this path there has to be minimal energy coupling from the solar wind, and there is very little understanding of when this will occur. Even the best propagation prediction software (e.g., VOACAP and Proplab Pro) is based on statistics, giving one the probability of a given path being open.

This discovery should add to our understanding of how and when these paths will open. Until then, we have to survive on "Space Weather" web sites like these, and turn on a radio to see for ourselves what the day brings.

(Those interested in an accessible introduction to HF propagation can check out K9LA's propagation site.)

It looks to me like the earth has been going through warm spikes for a lot longer than we've been around. Our current spike started well before mankind was doing much of anything. One could even conjecture that we're around because it got warmer...

1. We're talking about spikes in CO2, not temperature. One way to see that the current climate change is artificial is that the spike in CO2 is happening before the temperature spike rather than centuries afterwards like in the natural record.
2. I've already said that the climate varies on long timescales but that Meehl 2004 shows the current warming can't be accounted for by natural forcings. Greenhouse gas emissions are the only way we can explain the temperatures over the last ~40 years. And as I've said, it's quite easy to measure our emitted CO2 because governments tax oil and coal. Those estimates are easily high enough to account for the sudden increase in CO2. We're definitely causing the CO2 spike, and it's very likely causing the temperatures to increase at a rate that's likely to be dangerous.
3. Again, as I've repeatedly stressed, events such as Heinrich and Dansgaard-Oeschger events are the best examples of abrupt climate change in the paleoclimate record. These are well known in the climatology community, but they're different from what's happening today for reasons I just mentioned. These ancient events are worrying, though, because they show the climate has a propensity to shift quickly from one state to another, given even small forcings.

As far as "rates of change" go, I'm not certain you can say much at all about the long term history without better resolution in the data. For instance, the rate could vary quite wildly in the blink of 100 years, but that would be blurred in the long term record. These ice and sediment cores implement a nice low pass filter based on how they accumulated and are measured.

Yes, ice core data are smoothed by diffusion and compaction, but studies like Delmotte 2004 and Jouzel 2007 have examined the data at a resolution of ~100 years and largely support the conclusions in the original Vostok and EPICA papers.

Of course, you could respond that decadal variations could exist, but to the best of my knowledge no known natural mechanism exists that could allow CO2 to fluctuate so wildly so quickly. Actually, the Siberian traps may qualify as a plausible natural source, but what sink could possibly have absorbed the CO2 quickly enough to drive the level down far enough below the average for the low-pass signal to record no evidence of this event?

I have doubts about using government resources for a memorial.

Uh-huh. Sure you do.

Are you really skeptical that the NOAA is "scientific"?

Yup. In addition to problems with some of their science, I have doubts about using government resources for a memorial.

Disclaimer: I am an employee of NOAA

Your words on "having to test many high-risk technologies in a single prototype, instead of validating the technologies individually" are true. That is very similar to what is happening with the joint NASA/NOAA/DoD program, The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).

NPOESS' gigantic cost overruns are mainly from an experimental imager named VIIRS being placed onto the constellation. The type of contract used for the acquisition doesn't help either..

Disclaimer: I am an employee of NOAA

Your words on "having to test many high-risk technologies in a single prototype, instead of validating the technologies individually" are true. That is very similar to what is happening with the joint NASA/NOAA/DoD program, The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).

NPOESS' gigantic cost overruns are mainly from an experimental imager named VIIRS being placed onto the constellation. The type of contract used for the acquisition doesn't help either..

I did put some effort into understanding NOAA's role in this campaign, and apparently, a good deal more than you did. See NOAA here where the agency explains how it got from the "50,000 to 90,000" quote to their "100,000" propaganda number. Interestingly, if you had indeed taken the time to do exactly as you suggested, i.e. to google "NOAAA 100000", you would have seen this reference as the third link down. I took a much lengthier route, not looking to prove or disprove anything, but simply to understand the basis of the 100,000 estimate.

As NOAA's explanation indicates, they took the only loosely related range of "50,000 to 90,000", and from there, the 100,000 number emerges without further explanation. Your metaphorical characterization exactly matches my thinking when I saw it: they pulled it out of their asses.

I have high regard for the scientists of NOAA and their work products. I say this with great sincerity, and not to patronize your point. But in stark contrast with the genuinely authoritative works of NOAA, there are the political ways in which Presidential administrations and non-scientifically motivated high-level administrators of NOAA use its good name to advance political positions. In doing so, they besmirch NOAA's well-deserved reputation for good science, and cause people like me to use quotes around the word "authoritative" when describing the agency's "work" such as this. The politicians are simply taking NOAA's well-earned trust for a lowly political joy ride.

It occurs to me that I prefer the Bush administration's strategy of suppressing publication of NOAA work products that they found objectionable. If this ocean debris campaign is any indication of the Obama administration's approach, it looks like they will be using the NOAA moniker to publish political opinions as if they are the science of NOAA. This latter approach will be much more damaging to NOAA's scientists; it blatantly misrepresents their voices instead of just making it more difficult for them to be heard.

So garbage is not randomly distributed throughout the oceans, but not surprisingly, it collects in areas of significantly increased density due to prevailing currents. How dense? Not dense enough to be visible to the casual onlooker. Only dense enough to be identified through careful study. So is that the story here?

No. The truth isn't good enough for a story. The truth isn't good enough to drive political action. So "scientists" lend their names to "authoritative" agencies like NOAA to come up with the story of a 1,700 mile "patch" of garbage. Alternatively (and dramatically), it has been called a "flotilla".

Yes, there's "a lot" of garbage in the ocean. And, it's a "big" ocean. Look carefully and you'll see that these stories don't do much to help you gauge what this "patch" really is.

"It's pretty shocking," said Miriam Goldstein.

"We're afraid at what we're going to find in the South Gyre, but we've got to go there," said Tony Haymet.

Thank you, researchers Goldstein and Hayment, for your contributions.

Look carefully through the photographs surrounding this story. Look for the 1,700 mile flotilla of garbage. By my understanding, this thing is a whole lot less dense than the stories would have you believe.

Here's a good one that I tried to track down:

"...one paper cited by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates 100,000 marine mammals die trash-related deaths each year."

This little "factoid" apparently comes from a non-peer-reviewed paper (page 270 here) published in 1985 that cites another un-reviewed paper in 1984 (can't find this one...Fowler) that estimated that 50,000 seals had died that year due to "entanglement" primarily in nets, as best I can tell. There's no more on methodology for determining that number, nor how it should be related to overall mammal population and more general "ocean debris."

Judge the quality of the "science" here for yourself. If you're a critical thinker, it should be apparent that this isn't science at all...it's just another story of human waste.

AGW = Anti-Global Warming? Are you implying that the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration is saying that humans have no effect on their environment? Because point #2 here states otherwise.

I looked at the first one. It actually shows the opposite of what you are saying. According to that graph the mean for polar sea ice is dropping, and recent years have been worse than less recent years.

The third one is from NOAA statistics you say. But it is only one month (August, unless I am mistaken?), compared against a mean of the previous years. That shows August 2008 was cooler, on average in most areas (and in others, quite neutral), to the mean global temperature of the previous decade. If you look at this data for 2008, it shows the opposite of what you're trying to show http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/ . And here's one of the NOAA saying that 2008 was one of the warmest years on record: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20081216_climatestats.html .

The second link you provided has been much better refuted than I could do on khayman80's blog. (Look up his links about water vapour).

A little googling found the following.

Odds of being...
-killed in school shooting: 1,700,000 to 1 (*1)
-struck by lightning in entire life: 5,000 to 1 (*2)
-a boy sexually abused before adulthood: 6 to 1 (*3)
-a girl being sexually abused before adulthood: 4 to 1 (*3)

Without even delving into it or doing any research at all, you could probably already construe that your child is more likely to be molested by a teacher than struck by lightning or killed in a school shooting. If there are an estimated 50mil school aged children right now, fewer than 30 will be killed in a school shooting, fewer than 10,000 will be struck by lightning (in their *entire* life), and 10mil will be sexually abused.

So even if only one-tenth-of-one-percent (.001) of molestations are ever committed by teachers, that is still 10,000 -- which is more than are struck by lightning in their entire lives and far more than are killed in school shootings.

Sexual abuse is often an issue of proximity. Family, friends, mom's boyfriend, trusted authority figures with opportunity, etc. Far more often than just being abducted and molested by some random stranger in a scary white van.

Now, while exact statistics on sexual molestation done by teachers are hard to come by, the anecdotal evidence is aplenty. And remember that a lot of teachers are never reported or caught. And often when they are, the school district covers it up (you can google plenty of stories where that has happened). And, while sometimes it may be the only single offense, there are plenty of those who have molested MANY times over their careers and either never got caught at all or eventually got caught for just one. Who knows how many they molesed before being caught.

Hell, simply count how many stories you see about a teacher molesting a student in a year versus being hit by lightning. And then remember that everyone is likely to come forward about being struck by lightning, but far fewer will report molestation. Hell, I even new girls who were involved with teachers when I was in school. And even as a young adult, I still knew at least one girl who wasn't even old enough to drive but was involved with a phys-ed teacher in her district. I suspect almost everyone knew of at least one kid in school that was involved with at least one teacher.

You could spend days finding story after story about it. Here's just one drastic example of a teacher who admitted to molesting more than *200* students in ONLY THREE YEARS: http://crime.about.com/b/2006/08/06/teacher-claims-he-molested-200-students.htm

Here's a google search for "teacher accused of sex with student": http://tr.im/uYYk

Go ahead and browse through page after page after page of the 2.5 million results.

(*1) http://www.arsafeschools.com/Files/ProbabilityFactSheet.pdf
(*2) http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/medical.htm
(*3) http://www.darkness2light.org/KnowAbout/statistics_2.asp

North Dakota has about 22 tornadoes a year. Kansas has about 200 a year. Then you have to take into account differences in intensities of those tornadoes, I'd imagine.

And yet when they did a study it showed no bias based on the locations of the stations.

issue a press release: "yes, there is a possibility that your iPod will burst into flames. that possibility is 10,000 times less likely than being stuck by lightning."

odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime is about 1 in 5000

Also... according to the National Weather Service, you are 200x times more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime than be struck by a flaming iPod.

The rise of wind farms has already led to complications with current NEXRAD weather radars, and these radars don't even scan that close to the surface â" 0.5 degrees is the lowest tilt. I can only begin to imagine the complications of wind farms interfering with military radars which scan much closer to the Earth's surface.

Now they want to point some sort of radar at a complicated source of ground clutter that's already difficult to detect and remove? I don't see how that's going to fly (no pun intended).

For more information: http://www.roc.noaa.gov/windfarm/how_turbines_impact_nexrad_user.asp

Meanwhile, every public pool has a policy of emptying everyone if thunder is heard. ... It's like people take all these precautions against the least likely dangers, while the more likely risks are ignored.

Being in or on the water in a thunder storm increases your chance of being injured or killed by lightning. When it strikes water, the current spreads out in all directions and dissipates within about 20 feet. And as the highest object on the water, you increase your risk. 13 percent of all lightning fatalities nationwide involve boats and water.

Still, the chance of injury or death is tiny. So why do people take all these precautions? The answer lies in just who these people are. If someone does get injured by lightning while swimming and the people who own or protect the beach or pool hadn't taken any precautions, they could be sued. So these people aren't taking precautions for your safety, they're taking precautions for their own good.

Sources: http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_pls/indoor_pools.html http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/sd/annsum2005.pdf

Do we have data on the solar wind for prior to 25 years ago

Indirectly, yes. NOAA makes available the Sunspot record from 1874 - present, and given you freely admitted that sunspot rates and the solar wind are directly correlated, you can use the former to infer the intensity of the latter.

Has anyone considered the meteorological effects of removing all that energy from the atmosphere?

Yes, and it's insignificant.

According to the NOAA, an average hurricane releases roughly 14 Terawatt-hours of energy per day. According to the EIA, annual global electrical production comes to about 20 Terawatt-hours.

To summarize, one single hurricane can power the entire world (with room to grow) for an entire year if captured for two days.

Now consider how many hurricanes and typhoons there are in a year, how long they each last, and do the math. And don't forget about lesser weather phenomenon like thunderstorms (An average thunderstorm releases about 10 gigawatt-hours) and wind in general, which also release a non-trivial amount of energy.

Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon detonated, released 2*10^17 Joules of energy. This is slightly more than the wind energy expended by a huricane in one day, and wayy more than your trivial 10^12 Joules.

For the curious. I'm not going to sit down and read out the data and figure out the standard deviation, but you're not kidding. You'd have to do this for decades to know how effective it was, and if it turns out to be useless, the environmental cost would have been wasted. I'd hate to be the guy who gets to do the risk-benefit analysis on that one.

How about this Honeywell Windgate "personal" turbine, under 6 feet across and under 100 pounds, generating power at as little as 2MPH (about 6W), up over 45MPH (over 2.4KW). It's $4500 at Ace Hardware, but the IRS will refund 30% of its price under the Obama Stimulus programme, $1350 for a net $3150 price (and your state might rebate another 20-50%+). In NYC (average wind speed 12.2MPH at LGA producing about 200W), $3150 takes about 7.5 years to break even. Which is about how long all these consumer-grade energy generation or efficiency products take to break even, except CFLs which pay off after about 8 months.

That means the Windgate is the watershed: it marks the price:generation efficiency point past which harnessing wind through your hardware store is affordable. Further improvements will be in reference to today's breakthroughs.

"If that correlation were indeed true, then the recent solar minimum would have been correlated with low temperatures, and hence would have been masking some of the effect of global warming-- in other words, that greenhouse-effect warming is actually occurring to a greater extent than the data shows."

If that correlation were indeed true (and it is being tested by CERN as we speak), then it is NOT true to say that it would have been 'masking Global Warming'. The correlation would have been the main CAUSE of global warming, and CO2 would have been comparatively insignificant.

The sun is slightly brighter when it is active. More sunspots would mean higher temperatures, and hence the recent low solar activity would have meant slightly decreases in average temperature. This would mask an increase due to other causes.

The correlation is, however, extremely weak, and not statistically significant. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fsd/astro/sunspots.php

If you're proposing that the Maunder minimum correlates with the "little ice age," by the way, you have to be proposing low sunspots correlates with low temperature. If you suddenly start proposing the opposite, in order to explain recent high temperatures, then you have to come up with yetanotherad hoc explanation, on top of that, to explain why low solar activity didn't cause a "little hot age" during the Maunder minimum.

Why is that that true believers in AGW caused by CO2 always take it as proven that CO2 is the 'cause of all our ills'

Don't be silly. Anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of a small, but measurable, increase in average global temperature. This temperature increase is a detectable deviation away from the statistical variations due to natural causes, and is now quite well understood.

It is most certainly not "the cause of all our ills". It is, however, a real effect, and if we continue to add CO2 to the atmosphere, the amount of warming will increase. This is physics.

when in reality that has never been proven, and is now looking increasingly unlikely?

Why is it that AGW deniers will support any theory no matter how wacky if it supports their pre-existing beliefs, but have no interest in paying attention to actual science?

I saw the tag but haven't seen this explicitly mentioned yet: one theory is that lack of sunspots causes Earth to warm up. (There is a very strong negative correlation between sunspot activity and temperature on Earth.

Nope. People have been looking for correlations between sunspots and weather for years, but never found much. If there's a correlation, it's weak. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fsd/astro/sunspots.php

To the extent that there's any correlation, however, it tends to the the opposite of what you said-- positive correlation between sunspots and temperature, not negative. The "Maunder Minimum" period of very few or no sunspots occurred about the same time as the "Little Ice Age" of cold temperatures. (But note that a single period of low temperatures ocurring during a period of low sunspots, however extended, does not mean statistically significance).

If that correlation were indeed true, then the recent solar minimum would have been correlated with low temperatures, and hence would have been masking some of the effect of global warming-- in other words, that greenhouse-effect warming is actually occurring to a greater extent than the data shows.

I can assure you that Dust Devils are quite common on this mudball we call home:

http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=dustdevil&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=

A couple of the more awe-inspiring shots:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/lmk/photo_album/wxdata/dustdevil_LEX1.jpg

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/lmk/Drought/sep07/glendale_med.jpg

I can assure you that Dust Devils are quite common on this mudball we call home:

http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=dustdevil&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=

A couple of the more awe-inspiring shots:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/lmk/photo_album/wxdata/dustdevil_LEX1.jpg

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/lmk/Drought/sep07/glendale_med.jpg

I hear you. You might consider buying a weather radio. They have an instant on alert mode that would listen for a severe weather alert signal being broadcast by NOAA and instantly come on so you can hear the alert. Perfect for people who liven in Tornado Alley. They aren't terribly expensive (though unfortunately they do cost some money you probably didn't plan to spend) at around $20-30. RadioShack. Amazon.

I agree it's a shame DTV doesn't have the ability to gracefully degrade rather than be an all-or-nothing deal...

Agreed. I didn't mean to imply that I thought lightning actually downed the plane...Planes are struck often enough that we would be well aware if it tended to knock planes out of the sky.

Our tuna is Robot Safe

Beyond certain vertical apps widespread java use for the average web surfer is D.E.A.D. -- show me a site that delivers anything in java.

Well, not quite dead yet. Admittadly, not an "average" web site, but I imagine it is also fairly popular for a government site. And no, they don't have any plans to change it off Java (I've asked...).

Because the "moderates" view the actual content of the bible as not important.

While there certainly exist parties whose views are that extreme, I worry about those with more severely traditionalist views lumping those with whom they disagree into the category unfairly. That said -- while we may disagree about where exactly to place the line, I think you've given an entirely fair and reasonable answer to my questions on this subject; thank you.

The global warming craze, was ironically preceede by a global cooling craze and will make way for the next idiocy once unmasked for the idiocy that it is.

Funny thing about weather -- it tends to defy attempts at short-term prediction. If (as opposed to cherry-picking a small subset of data selected to make one's point) one uses an adequately-sized dataset, the trends are quite clear. Moreover, as opposed to overstating the effects of climate change in the last few years, the IPCC's estimates for both sea level increase and reduction in mass of the ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica have been far less than what is actually observed.

A basic respect of science would make them at least explain, honestly, exactly how their scheme differs from that in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and the many European states where it's collapsing.

The United States healthcare system is doing horribly in terms of both average life expectancy and annual per-capital expenditure (or, if you prefer, total healthcare expenses as a percentage of GDP). Japan has a universal healthcare system which costs less than half the per-capita spend of the current privatized US system, and almost a full five extra years of average life expectancy.

You speak of applying scientific principals to political decisions; reproducing the Japanese experiment is an action which would do us all quite a bit of good.

Well a good place to start could be the National Geodetic Survey http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/. They are the people responsible for them. They have maps and such for sale. On a map, you'll find that it isn't a neat clean grid, but that it is amazingly close given that most of these were done in like the 1800s using rather simple equipment. There are then of course all sorts of smaller markers placed by all different groups, including private surveyors. However they are all based on the NGS markers. Those are the fundamental references for doing triangulation for surveying.

If you know what to start looking for, you'll find all sorts of lesser benchmarks scattered around in your city. The actual NGS ones are fairly sparse (as I said, the rough goal is the corners of square miles) but lesser ones are all over the place. That's what we'd normally look for. So long as we found two that were in the computer's database and had line of sight to each other, we were in business. Line up a shot form one to the other, and it could then infer where it was and with a great deal of accuracy where any other point from it was.

How you used it then depended on what you wanted to do. There were three tasks that we normally did:

1) Surveying land/trees/buildings/etc. This means we had existing features we wanted to know about. In this case, the gun (digital theodolite) was put in place and the person with the rod (4 foot high rod with reflector on top) would go to the places you are interested in, set it, and you'd take a reading. The computer would then store all this for later output to a desktop computer to make a map or whatever.

2) Laying out a building. The layout for the structure is transferred to the computer attached to the gun and you then go out and get it all set up and triangulated. It then cycles through the points (these'll be things like corners). It tells you the angle to set the gun at, you take a shot of the rod and it'll tell you how much you need to go towards or away from it. When the rod is in the right spot, you mark it with a stake.

3) Making a new benchmark. In the event that there are no benchmarks with line of site to what you need, or if there is just something new that needs to be benchmarked, we'd triangulate a new spot, and put in a benchmark. It was generally just a nail with a little meta disc around it. That could then be used as reference for more surveys.

Moving goalposts already?

In any case, you're welcome: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/data.html

Also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3090279.stm and http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/icecore.htm

The parents in this thread are exactly right - this is NOAA. Beyond that, NOAA also has the authority if the NOAA Corp, one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. This service is lead by Rear Admiral Jonathan W. Bailey, Director of the NOAA Commissioned Corps and Director of the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations and Rear Admiral Philip M. Kenul, Director of Marine and Aviation Operations Centers. The over 300 officers in this corps have access to the further resources of the US Navy and US Coast Guard. This corps provides a diversity of professionals trained in engineering, earth sciences, oceanography, meteorology, fisheries science, and other related disciplines - all experts in their respective fields, all with something to contribute to the "issue" of climate change.

In fact, the NOAA Corps is now recruiting for its 115th Basic Officer Training Class - expanding personnel in key leadership, expertise, and officer roles. Why do we need to waste more government money on yet another pointless, duplicative program? Task these able-bodied professionals with the job - one they are already undertaking.

Want more information?
http://www.noaacorps.noaa.gov/

Wanna join the 115th Basic Officer Training Class?
To be considered for BOTC 115, a complete application package must be submitted to the NOAA Corps Recruiting Unit no later than May 29, 2009. The tentative start date for BOTC 115 is August 30, 2009. More information can be found at: http://www.noaacorps.noaa.gov/recruiting/index.html.

The parents in this thread are exactly right - this is NOAA. Beyond that, NOAA also has the authority if the NOAA Corp, one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. This service is lead by Rear Admiral Jonathan W. Bailey, Director of the NOAA Commissioned Corps and Director of the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations and Rear Admiral Philip M. Kenul, Director of Marine and Aviation Operations Centers. The over 300 officers in this corps have access to the further resources of the US Navy and US Coast Guard. This corps provides a diversity of professionals trained in engineering, earth sciences, oceanography, meteorology, fisheries science, and other related disciplines - all experts in their respective fields, all with something to contribute to the "issue" of climate change.

In fact, the NOAA Corps is now recruiting for its 115th Basic Officer Training Class - expanding personnel in key leadership, expertise, and officer roles. Why do we need to waste more government money on yet another pointless, duplicative program? Task these able-bodied professionals with the job - one they are already undertaking.

Want more information?
http://www.noaacorps.noaa.gov/

Wanna join the 115th Basic Officer Training Class?
To be considered for BOTC 115, a complete application package must be submitted to the NOAA Corps Recruiting Unit no later than May 29, 2009. The tentative start date for BOTC 115 is August 30, 2009. More information can be found at: http://www.noaacorps.noaa.gov/recruiting/index.html.

The parents in this thread are exactly right - this is NOAA. Beyond that, NOAA also has the authority if the NOAA Corp, one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. This service is lead by Rear Admiral Jonathan W. Bailey, Director of the NOAA Commissioned Corps and Director of the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations and Rear Admiral Philip M. Kenul, Director of Marine and Aviation Operations Centers. The over 300 officers in this corps have access to the further resources of the US Navy and US Coast Guard. This corps provides a diversity of professionals trained in engineering, earth sciences, oceanography, meteorology, fisheries science, and other related disciplines - all experts in their respective fields, all with something to contribute to the "issue" of climate change.

In fact, the NOAA Corps is now recruiting for its 115th Basic Officer Training Class - expanding personnel in key leadership, expertise, and officer roles. Why do we need to waste more government money on yet another pointless, duplicative program? Task these able-bodied professionals with the job - one they are already undertaking.

Want more information?
http://www.noaacorps.noaa.gov/

Wanna join the 115th Basic Officer Training Class?
To be considered for BOTC 115, a complete application package must be submitted to the NOAA Corps Recruiting Unit no later than May 29, 2009. The tentative start date for BOTC 115 is August 30, 2009. More information can be found at: http://www.noaacorps.noaa.gov/recruiting/index.html.

Disclaimer: I work for the satellite branch of NOAA, NESDIS

NOAA's current structure is not optimal for executing the climate mission.
http://www.pco.noaa.gov/org/NOAA_Organization.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Oceanic_and_Atmospheric_Administration
http://www.ppi.noaa.gov/PPI_Capabilities/Documents/BOM.pdf
Although many have suggested that the NWS would be the ideal home for this function, NWS is overly focused on operational meteorology in my opinion, and execution of the climate mission is divided between NESDIS, NWS, NOS and OAR.

NESDIS operates three environmental data centers which are effectively the archive for the climate mission, along with the large array data system.
NCDC http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html
NGDC http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/
NODC http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/
CLASS http://www.class.ncdc.noaa.gov/saa/products/welcome ).
Other line offices in NOAA operate systems that are likewise focused on the climate mission, primarily in the NWS, NOS, and OAR.
Some have suggested it would be ideal to take a small part of the NWS, NOS, OAR, the data centers and CLASS, to stand up a new line office, The National Climate Service. This could be performed more as a reorganization of NOAA internally, without the bureaucratic trappings of another new line office, along with dual-hatting of a CIO and CFO from other line offices in NOAA

As an alternative, NOAA could use the matrix goal team structure in order to create the climate service. I believe such an approach would be ineffective, due to the lack of decision-making ability at those levels. NOAA, at the top, has an Executive Committee and an Executive Panel, that are crucial for determining budget priorities from NOAA's small budget. A National Climate Service, to be successful, must have representation at that level.