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Despite all the navigation systems available to the modern world, even to the United States Navy, we still have gaps in our knowledge of the ocean. Recently a US sub crashed into an undersea mountain! Cold War-era data on the seafloor has been declassified, but still our navigation isn't all that great.

By the way, here is a free oceanography textbook!

Did you read [0050] of the patent? Here's their basic, "original" algorithm:

% ltpdirect.m
% local tangent plane position from range and azimuth
% good for distances less than 10 kilometers
%
function newpos=aproxdirect(pos,range,azimuth);
global DATUM
delta_east=sin(azimuth)*range;
delta_north=cos(azimuth)*range;
n=nphi(pos.lat);
m=mphi(pos.lat);
% convert here changes in meters of easting and northing
% to changes in longitude and latitude
newpos.lon=pos.lon+delta_east(n*cos(pos.lat));
newpos.lat=pos.lat+delta_north/m;
newpos.hea=0;

Yep, basic trigonometry using spherical coordinates. It would never be obvious to "practitioners of the craft".
Their other algorithm is adapted from this 30-year-old software.

"There's a very clear trend of increasing global temperatures, you can check meteorological websites and see it."

weird, After reading your post I decided to do what you say and so I went directly to the NOAA weather website to see this Temperature change that is so "VERY CLEAR" as you put it...

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/image/grapes.jpg

And you wonder why a non-scientist like myself has a hard time believeing all the Climate Change hype/FUD...

But anyway, thanks for pointing out that as soon as CO2 levels rise after coming out of an ice age, so does the temperature increase.

If there is causation then why do paleo climate records show increases in temperature proceeding increases in CO2 levels?

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/vostokco2.html

From the abstract:

"High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 +/- 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations."

You get that? CO2 increased 400-600 years AFTER the glaciers receded.

This is why when certain scientists graph the CO2 data from the Vostok ice cores, they never overlay temperature on the same graph: http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/pale oclimate.htm. It would be too obvious that the temperature changes proceeded changes in CO2 concentration.

The worst case scenario according to IPCC is only a 1 inch sea level rise in 100 years, how is that going to cause a 20% drop in GDP?

No, it's not. They're predicting 4-30, and they've been widely criticised for being too conservative on the issue - ignoring unusually fast melting in Antarctica and Greenland, for one thing.

Sure if sea levels rise 6m it will displace quite a few people, but I still don't think it would cause that much upheaval.

10% of Bangladesh would be under water with a 1 meter sea rise. That's about 15 million refugees in one nation alone, and you can be sure Bangladesh can't afford to pay 10% of their population's land just to let it get eaten up by the ocean.

A 6 metre sea rise would also destroy Miami and a number of other major cities on the East Coast of the US. We're talking about pretty huge repercussions with that big of a sea rise.

The Stern report isn't just pulling numbers out of their asses.

As far as the asteroid is concerned what would your recommendation be?

You're missing my point. The OP stated that the Earth had seen much higher CO2 in the distant past. My point is that just because it has happened previously doesn't mean it'd be fine if it happened again - after all, the Earth started up molten and airless, but that wouldn't be conducive to human survival today.

That is what you environmentalists don't get, you never factor in risk/reward

Again, read the Stern report. For a 1% cost of GDP we protect 10-20% of GDP. How is that not factoring in risk and reward?

On the CO2 front I guess Scientific American got it wrong then I'm just quoting their article verbatim... So either they are lying, or you are, but whatever.

If you have the article in front of you to quote from, surely you can provide a citation?

I'm reasonably sure I'm not lying, and so is NOAA: Vostok's 420,000 years of data and EPICA's 650,000 years of data, for your perusal

The IPCC did not state anywhere any sort of statistical probability as you state.

http://www.google.com/search?q=IPCC+90%25+certaint y&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:off icial&client=firefox-a

" The scientists said it was "very likely" -- or more than 90 percent probable -- that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years.

That is a toughening from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) last report in 2001, which judged a link as "likely", or 66 percent probable." - http://in.today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx? type=worldNews&storyID=2007-02-02T212335Z_01_NOOTR _RTRJONC_0_India-286068-7.xml

How does that not support my statement, quoted as follows: "there's a 90% certainty that human activity is causing warming at least in part"?

I don't see #1 - the 60% chance figure - in the 2006 IPCC report. Sure you're not looking at the 2001 report?

The worst case scenario according to IPCC is only a 1 inch sea level rise in 100 years, how is that going to cause a 20% drop in GDP?

No, it's not. They're predicting 4-30, and they've been widely criticised for being too conservative on the issue - ignoring unusually fast melting in Antarctica and Greenland, for one thing.

Sure if sea levels rise 6m it will displace quite a few people, but I still don't think it would cause that much upheaval.

10% of Bangladesh would be under water with a 1 meter sea rise. That's about 15 million refugees in one nation alone, and you can be sure Bangladesh can't afford to pay 10% of their population's land just to let it get eaten up by the ocean.

A 6 metre sea rise would also destroy Miami and a number of other major cities on the East Coast of the US. We're talking about pretty huge repercussions with that big of a sea rise.

The Stern report isn't just pulling numbers out of their asses.

As far as the asteroid is concerned what would your recommendation be?

You're missing my point. The OP stated that the Earth had seen much higher CO2 in the distant past. My point is that just because it has happened previously doesn't mean it'd be fine if it happened again - after all, the Earth started up molten and airless, but that wouldn't be conducive to human survival today.

That is what you environmentalists don't get, you never factor in risk/reward

Again, read the Stern report. For a 1% cost of GDP we protect 10-20% of GDP. How is that not factoring in risk and reward?

On the CO2 front I guess Scientific American got it wrong then I'm just quoting their article verbatim... So either they are lying, or you are, but whatever.

If you have the article in front of you to quote from, surely you can provide a citation?

I'm reasonably sure I'm not lying, and so is NOAA: Vostok's 420,000 years of data and EPICA's 650,000 years of data, for your perusal

The IPCC did not state anywhere any sort of statistical probability as you state.

http://www.google.com/search?q=IPCC+90%25+certaint y&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:off icial&client=firefox-a

" The scientists said it was "very likely" -- or more than 90 percent probable -- that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years.

That is a toughening from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) last report in 2001, which judged a link as "likely", or 66 percent probable." - http://in.today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx? type=worldNews&storyID=2007-02-02T212335Z_01_NOOTR _RTRJONC_0_India-286068-7.xml

How does that not support my statement, quoted as follows: "there's a 90% certainty that human activity is causing warming at least in part"?

I don't see #1 - the 60% chance figure - in the 2006 IPCC report. Sure you're not looking at the 2001 report?

How much CO2 is human activity producing?

Google makes possible some rough estimates:

• Annual global coal production: 50,000 million metric tonnes (World Coal Institute)
• Global oil production: 85 million bbl/day, converts to the equivalent of 128 million metric tonnes of coal per year (as reported here and in other stories, with conversion from bbl/day to tonnage/yr here)
• Annual global natural gas production: 2,500,000 million cubic meters, converts to the equivalent of 2 million tonnes of coal per year (UNCTAD estimate of 2000, with conversion factors from above)
• Total annual release of fossil fuels into the global environment: 50,130 million tonnes
• Percentage of carbon in coal (by weight): 90% for anthracite, which is what these numbers are based upon (Encarta)
• Percentage of carbon in CO2 (by weight): 27%
• Annual introduction of CO2 into the biosphere from fossil fuels: 167,100 million metric tonnes
• Estimate of atmospheric CO2: 2,870,000 million metric tonnes (CDIAC)
• This suggests that the use of fossil fuels would have increased atmospheric CO2 by 5% in the last year, disregarding all other factors
• Measurements at Mauna Loa suggest that there is a net increase in atmospheric CO2 of about 1% per year (NOAA Global Monitoring Division).

Evidently something is buffering the increase in atmospheric CO2. While this has been beneficial in the sense that it has limited the impact of burning fossil fuels, it is also very worrisome since homeostatic mechanisms like this one tend to failover very rapidly into alternative stable patterns when the buffering capacity is exceeded. There is no way to determine how close we are to a tipping point. And there is no way to predict the nature of the new stable pattern. For instance, there are mechanisms that could kick in to significantly increase the Earth's albedo and toss us into an ice age, despite the increased greenhouse effect.

This is reintroduction of carbon into the biosphere that had been sequestered away for a hundred million years or more. The last time there was this much carbon in the biosphere was before the age of dinosaurs. It is possible that the last time there was this much carbon in the biosphere was before there was enough free oxygen for chordates.

> (also note that seawater is densest a few degrees above freezing
> (~4 deg C, if I recall)

You are thinking of fresh water.

The density of seawater (e.g. with a salinity of 35) as a function of temperature increases with decreasing temperature (BTW, the article you linked to also mentions this ;-)).

This graph (referenced by an article about arctic sea ice) shows that for seawater with a salinity greater than 24.7 the water freezes before it can get to the density maximum.
(The fact that sea ice floats seems to be related to density change due to phase transformation (sorry, no good source for that one)).

I live close to the San Diego area, where one of the local weathermen dedicates a page to explaining local weather conditions and forecasts http://www.kfmb.com/weather/index.php. The guy bases his reports on simulations run at a computer at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla and on NOAA information http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sgx/display_special_produc t_versions.php?sid=SGX&pil=AFD, proving to be close to 90% accurate in the years since I discovered his web page.
However, I don't know if weathermen in other cities are as thorough, but I will say that since I discovered the guy, I haven't used The Weather Channel or any other weather page, except when he's on vacation (and he does take about six breaks a year).

What you are referring to has been done and is still a very large work in progress, it's called the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis Project. There is a problem with divergence of these models over time as far as the specific weather predictions for a given day (hence they are averaged in ensemble and reinitialized when they begin to diverge from actual data) due to the problem of incomplete coverage. Because climate is a non-linear system, if your initial conditions don't exactly match (which they never can) your model will eventually diverge (i.e. the "butterfly effect"). But given that, the models still get the general trends correct even if they can't predict it will rain 2" on Tuesday Feb. 14 2010 in Seattle.

First, how forecasts are generated. All forecasts are a result of numerical weather prediction. There are around a dozen different models in operation around the world, and most of that data is retained by the operators of the models (usually the national forecasting office). However, all data from the US GFS model, operated by the NWS, released as works of the government are public domain.

What all the sites in this sample (bar the BBC) do is take the data files the GFS produces and reprocess them into a webpage. No human is involved at any stage. (The BBC get their data feed from the UK Met Office).

As the models only produce data points for every 40km or so spatially and every three hours temporally all the sites interpolate to some extent to produce a point forecast. The GFS also runs four times a day but these sites might take all four runs or just one a day. Combined, that's why differences between sites exist in these results. Nothing else.

REAL performance statistics are available here and here.

Actually the statement from that article is meaningless since 7 years is not an adequate span to see a trend, however 1999 had a lower temperature than 2006 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2006 /ann/glob_jan-dec-error-bar_pg.gif and the slope is steeper that the 1970 to 2006 trend.
--
Solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

If you look at the archive for May 31, 2004,
the forecast map seems to have indicated a risk for thunderstorms
in the area for that day.
http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/noaa/noaa_main.html

Weather guessers here are rarely, if ever accurate as the mountains and Palmer Ridge play havoc with the weather. This caused me to ask, If his reference is flawed, then would the entire report be flawed?

The Weather Underground has numerous (4) weather stations in my zip code and they are usually right on top of each other regarding wind, temperature, barometrics, humidity and such. While the Weather Underground may not have the future down pat, their current readings are usually the most accurate I've found since these are weather stations where I live that are on line and reporting in near-real-time.

I would have liked to see the same report using other services as the reference to achieve some sort of correlation to his report. Maybe NWS, NOAA, Unisys or at least one more.

Another thing I do is bring up the NOAA maps in loop mode so I can see the direction of cloud travel, density and other things that may give an indication for short-term weather changes.

We get tons of lightning around here in the summer so this kind of accuracy is important around here. One source for lightning probability: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/tdl/radar/SW_probltg.gif. There are other lightning sources that can show current and recent past (1 hour) lightning strikes by type and frequency and on a map (see Strike Star network. Some individuals even have Boltek lightning monitors running with StormVue software on the net.

Interesting report. Questions still exist.

Somebody better write them an email and tell them they have a bug on their website!
For some reason, they have alway given me a 7 day forecast.

Oh, and by the way, they also give credit to where they get their forcast from:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ndfd

First off, the predicted temperatures take into account many factors, and try to come up with a low-precision laymans "flagpost", useful for someone who doesnt want to understand what makes up a weather system or event. So this analysis based on a low-precision value is falsely presenting an "evaluation", as the resulting precision is closer to 1-10 degrees at best.
Second, yes most of the data comes from NOAA/NWS. Using anything else for the highs/lows means not using the accurate tools that the forecasters us, particularly the comment about sometimes not getting the data until 5:00pm.
Third, I live in Houston, and no-one is accurate about this stuff.
Lastly, to get a much better idea about what is going to happen, go to NOAA/NWS at http://www.srh.noaa.gov/
use your zip code, and get your local page. Then scroll down the page and find "Hourly Weather Graph" under "Additional Forecasts and Information."
Here you get the next two days worth of data, updated hourly, and several pieces of information you should be using to "plan your day". If the temperature drops about the same time that the wind shifts, a front is coming in. If the dewpoint converges with the temperature, expect fog. Start watching THIS tool, and you'll be much less surprised. You'll never get true accuracy, but this picture can at least suggest likely variations. And before you use excel to graph things, find out what you're graphing.

To get a grasp of where the forecast is coming from, you first need to read the NWS forecast discussion for your local area. It tells you what the weatherman is really thinking

Second for the long range, look at the NWS Spaghetti Maps, which can give you a true appreciation of how consisitent the models are, the difficulty in making a prediction, and an advance warning of what may be coming your way

As, in NOAA???

The absolute most reliable place to go for weather prediction (and emergency information) in the US is the Nation Weather Service.

I wasn't able to find in the mirrored version of the article what stations in Houston he was using to compare the forecasts against.

I wasn't able to find in the mirrored version of the article what stations in Houston he was using to compare the forecasts against.

I wasn't able to find in the mirrored version of the article what stations in Houston he was using to compare the forecasts against.

Almost completely wrong. They take current conditions/observations and then use the physical sciences of how an atmosphere behaves to produce a numerical model of what the atmosphere would look like. Run a bunch of different ones of these and compare the results and you have an "ensemble".

Now, add in historical statistical data to the numeric data and you get a statistical model. In the shorter time frames, the statistical models are often the most accurate and often can match or beat the human generated forecast.

Almost completely wrong. They take current conditions/observations and then use the physical sciences of how an atmosphere behaves to produce a numerical model of what the atmosphere would look like. Run a bunch of different ones of these and compare the results and you have an "ensemble".

Now, add in historical statistical data to the numeric data and you get a statistical model. In the shorter time frames, the statistical models are often the most accurate and often can match or beat the human generated forecast.

I'll second that. Personally, I love the 48 hour graphs for being clean, simple, and easy to understand. And quick to load.

The only reason to keep Netscape alive is brand recognition. Look at how many websites are still "best viewed"/"tested" or have bookmark or printing directions for only Netscape and IE, or just haven't been updated to say anything different: NOAA, part of NASA, NIH sites, govts of Utah and Minnesota, the IOC, a Consumer Reports site and college after college after college. If people keep seeing these notices, especially on government sites, there's no way they'll switch to some "other" browser, and keeping Netscape as a brand will be worthwhile. I mean, do I really have to mention AOL?

Judging from ssec and noaa info, it looks like a high north, a low to the south are almost straddling the bay. Some sea fog and/or low clouds extends well past the farallons. I would've expected a W-NW wind gradually clocking around to N NE but depending on day/night temperatures, near shore sea or land breeze might counter this and extend out 5 miles or so. Can any sailors in the area give local conditions for the past 48 hours? People have already speculated on things that can go wrong but quite a few failures can put you out of touch but still be surviable:

Cell phones really can't be expected to work 26 miles offshore, my old analog toshiba didn't even make it 1/3 across lake Michigan.

If as this NOAA bouy indicates, the wind has been moderate NW-westerly, we can hope that he'll be found in a raft or disabled boat along the shore. It might even be worth slashdotting highway 1 from Pt. Reyes to Monteray and look for him. I once called in a dismasted catameran I found with a telescope I'd just picked up at a FL rummage sale. It was dusk and the crew were on the horizon paddling furiously against an offshore wind.

If the wind/currents were moving offshore, he could be well over 100 miles offshore, trying to get back. VHF radio is basically line of site, you might get 50 miles on a good day from a high coast guard tower, if his radio were working well. But more typically I only get 5 miles boat-boat.

If something went wrong with the boat, fire, dismasting, rudder break... he might be busy heaving to and doing whatever he can to keep from running aground. The bushing which attaches the rudder to the tiller on my 24' C&C eventually went bad. We replaced it, but offshore failure wouldn't have been fun. A larger sailboat sank near scotland when its wheel steering cable broke and the rudder slammed hard enough to crack its housing.

But it wouldn't take a sinking to be lost, if the wind took him out of VHF range, it wouldn't matter if he knew exactly where he was, no one else would unless he had a working activated EPIRB.

There is a small chance that his navigation equipment went wrong and he doesn't know where he is. The california coast is very unforgiving. I think I heard that Francis Drake sailed right past SF bay because from offshore it looks just like another pices of rocky unforgiving shoreline.

There is still hope. My prayers go out to his family and friends. Any computer expert interested in sailing and astronomy must be a good guy, even if he works for Microsoft.

Do you have any idea what the average dewpoint is in the fucking desert?
Keep an eye on this. A forty-degree F difference between ambient and dewpoint is not uncommon, and I've seen it as high as 60F.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/obhistory/KLAS.html

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html

You can't expect someone to understand something if their paycheck depends on them not understanding it.

Sounds like we need more plankton.

Indeed, in no small part because the acidification of the oceans from increased CO2 (quite independent of the warming effects) is dissolving the calcareous exoskeletons of many varieties of sea life, the base structure of coral, and much more. The reduction in CO3-- ions compared to HCO3- reduces their access to building material in the first place.

Note that we are not on the verge of running out of oil.

The "peak oil" claim is not that we are about to have no oil. It is that the world's production rate of oil is about to peak and decline (just as the USA's production peaked in 1971 and declined, and any individual oilfield of significance you care to name). What this means is that prices will be much higher and more volatile, and the key to managing energy costs is cutting demand.

I doubt we are on any verge of the ability of the earth to absorb co2 either.

Tell it to the climate scientists who are measuring uncomfortable trends like rapidly rising methane emissions from former permafrost in Siberia, and the rumored rise in methane alerts from tanker detection systems along undersea gorges such as the one at the Hudson River. Former sinks are becoming sources.

Whats more, all that fossil fuel carbon came out of the atmosphere to begin with anyway. Burning it just returns it back to the atmosphere to be absorbed again by life for the cycle.

Coal strata mostly date from the carboniferous, about 300 million years ago. Oil and oil shale dates as far back as the Cambrian, over 500 million years ago. This carbon has been out of circulation for as much as half a billion years, and no extant ecosystem or living species is adapted to the conditions which prevailed at that time.

As I mentioned before, the last time we had a surge in atmospheric CO2 (end of the Paleocene) we had a mass extinction. What sort of delusion lets you think that it wouldn't do the same thing all over again?

If you want to get technical, O2 is the real culprit.

I highlighted that in case anyone reading this had doubts that you are delusional or dishonest.

As for man and his technology - we're a tertiary effect at best

Humans with mere axes and muscle-powered saws denuded the forests of Michigan in just a few years. (One consequence was the extinction of the Michigan Grayling, which required cold water in streams protected from direct sun. These ceased to exist, and the fish along with them.)

That was over a century ago (the fish finally died out in the 1930's). Since the late 19th century, our ability to change the environment has increased many-fold. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 tracks human emissions. In short, anyone who says what you're saying is either lying or delusional.

If it suited the alarmist industry, we'd be back to expecting the next ice age and probably trying to put lamp black on the glaciers to melt them - like they wanted to do back in the 1970s.

You are confusing a media-driven phenomenon of the time with scientific discussion which never claimed that glaciation was about to recur; this shows the shallowness of your knowledge. The scientists were looking at the historic climate cycles and noting that the current orbital fo

Puny human, ocean huge! Anyway, for starters:

http://www.noaa.gov/questions/question_082900.html

Perhaps more interesting than anything else is that it states that a hurricane puts out about 1/2 the global electrical generation capacity; figure out how tiny a hurricane is compared to the ocean and you just have to be careful not to pull to much energy out in one particular place.

An old estimate system found that it was slightly warmer than 1998, but a newer estimate system, currently undergoing testing, finds that 1998 was slightly warmer. See this NCDC discussion.

In any case, average temperature for a single year doesn't prove anything, and it's not the sort of thing that scientists rely on. If we relied on single years, then we would've concluded that there was significant global cooling between the 1930s and the 1980s, because 1934 was warmer than any of the years of the 1980s.

I know people desperately hate the idea of analyzing data to separate trends from random fluctuations, but that's what scientists actually do. The pop-science version where you say "oh it was warm this winter---must be global warming!" is not science.

I'm all for research into global climate, but it's very clear that the models we currently have are not up to the task of telling us if we have cause to be alarmed yet.

Be alarmed. Greenhouse gas levels are greater than at any time in the past few million years. Temperatures will certainly rise rapidly to levels greater than at any time in the past few million years. The consequences of this are very dire. I such cases you don't wait for an exact description of the consequences, you get alarmed and act, because delaying worsens the consequences. The temperature takes about half a century to respond to greenhouse gasses increases, so most of the disaster is in the post. So waiting until it gets bad is not going to work.

The planet has been warmer than it currently is plenty of times before.

Possibly at a couple of points in the last 7 ice ages. But we are within 1C of the warmest that humanity has ever co-existed with.

Obviously there's a cycle, and it's possible humans have added (or even subtracted) from various aspects of the cycle.

Utter bollocks. Have you not heard of the greenhouse effect? It causes warming!
Greenhouse gas concentrations are increasing. It's caused by humans.
This is not a mystery. The greenhouse effect is very well understood.

Since 1967, the estimated total worldwide reduction in O3 in the upper stratosphere is approximately 2%. This very slow trend has not changed.

The following NOAA report directly contradicts your statement:
INTERNATIONAL TREATY DESIGNED TO RESTORE/PROTECT OZONE LAYER WORKING, SAY SCIENTISTS

The following FAQ from the EPA contradicts your underlying implication that human activity may not be the primary cause of the depletion of "good" ozone: Brief Questions and Answers on Ozone Depletion

If you continue to research the issue, you'll find these same basic facts stated and supported over and over: 1) The depletion of "good" ozone was and is caused by man-made chemicals. 2) Treaties were signed to reduce and eventually eliminate the chemicals that cause said depletion. 3) The reduction in emissions has resulted in a measurable slowing in the rate of depletion and should eventually lead to the restoration of the ozone layer. 4) There are no alternate theories of the cause of this depletion (i.e. the significant man-made part) that are supported by evidence, including natural cyclic variations or solar activity.

An important point to keep in mind is that, even though action was taken relatively quickly to curb our ozone-depleting emissions, it is estimated that we won't see a full recovery for roughly another 60 years. I really don't know of a more poignant example of how important it is that we recognize the damage we are causing to the environment and take action to change course quickly. Time is not on our side when it comes to climate change.

As for the Kyoto treaty, people are very naive if they think there were no politics involved. Less industrialized nations are very eager to put limits on the US industry because is helps close the technology gap.

Well, a treaty is a political construct pretty much by definition, right? Anyway, I think I know what you meant. The problem with getting caught up in the political winners and losers here is that our choices sort of boil down to this: refuse to give an inch economically but suffer a worldwide economic catastrophe later (at the very least) or work seriously towards a relatively smooth transition to new sources of energy. And by "work seriously" I mean be ready to give up a few things to acheive that goal. The U.S. has enjoyed a lot of advantages over other countries by not having to pay the costs of our pollution. Giving up some of those advantages to keep our overall economic prosperity and security sounds like a reasonable political compromise to me.

The reality is that the treaty called for a meager 5.2% reduction in industrially produced CO2 world-wide.

That's better than the 0% reduction we're engaged in now, isn't it? Look, no one is going to agree to curtail emissions by 20% over night. The important thing is to get the ball rolling. Get people and governments to accept our role in climate change and to start thinking about the changes in behavior and technology that will be required to assure our survival in the future (and hopefully a comfortable survival at that!).

I'm skeptical of both sides and believe the truth is somewhere in the middle. It's not the doom-gloom that environmental groups preach, or the rosy-nothing-is-wrong view espoused by our current administration.

A couple of problems with that. First, it's the scientists and their climate models that are predicting doom and gloom if we don't make drastic changes soon. The environmentalists simply bring as much attention to the issue as they can. Second, being "somewhere in the middle" on this issue is tantamount to saying that nothing needs to change. *Not* advocating for meaningful reductions in greenhouse gasses is, in practice, not much different th

Except that climatologists mostly have discounted the idea of a Medieval Warm Period altogether. Here is a article from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association. There never was a "Medieval Warm Period", it was bad interpretations and theories with little actual evidence to ever support them. Of course now people who have a political agenda to defend are siting it as evidence.

"This is definitely the mildest summer I can remember."

We have had a few Antartic blasts, I had my first "white christmas" because there was an inch or so of hail on the ground early in the morning and the ski resorts had a layer of snow. Australia as a whole has had fairly average rainfall throught the drought becase the north has been much wetter than normal, our weather pattern is continuing to shift in the direction predicted by the CSIRO but anecdotally the whole thing seems to have sped up a notch or two over the last couple of years.

I don't for a second doubt what you say about Qld, the sea surface temprature (SST) on the east coast of Qld is 2-4C below the west coast SST. But for hard facts and stats I highly recommend exploring our own weather service. The service has archives going back to 2000 easily accessible via the web, the oldest entry in each archive sumarises the trends of the pre-2000 archives. For tempratue and rainfall maps look here you can also navigate to archived predictions (outlooks) and climate statements via the menu directly above the table. There is literally tons of this kind of thing availble on the site.

As an example, these maps show neither of us is "bullshiting". What they say is that NE & SE coast has seen colder than average minimum tempratures but only the tropics and the east coast have seen cooler maximums, other than those cold spots the rest of the country has been warmer at both ends. This is closely following the trend that the CSIRO has predicted, but observations support the notion that the prdictions are in fact somewhat conservative. On a brighter note the next three months have a 60-65% chance of being wet ones in the SE due to the building El Nino.

Incedently the current El Nino event is predicted to make 2007 the warmest year on record yet again, it is also said to be largely responsible for the "missing" US hurricanes. If the last two US hurricane seasons is not a demonstration of "extremes", I am not sure what is?

Disclaimer: I'm 47 and have closely followed the weather and the climate debate since I was a deck hand in Bass straight in the early 80's. If you have been in Bass straight in a 20m fishing trawler on a "choppy" day you will understand why I became interested in weather and climate prediction. Many people would label me with the currently trendy "alarmist" slur, as if somehow the prospect of rapidly changing weather patterns effecting our food & water supply is not "alarming".

/rant

Um, with respect, have you read anything about how far climatologists have gone back? Most studies go back at least 600,000 years, and some about double that. Using core samples of ice from Antarctica and correlating oxygen isotopes within that ice, we get a very good sense of what the mean temperature of the Earth have been for the last 1 million years. Read, ok? Here's just a few: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icgate.html http://www.esf.org/esf_article.php?activity=1&arti cle=85&domain=3 http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/News____9220.asp x

After a cold start to December, the persistence of spring-like temperatures in the eastern two-thirds of the country during the final two to three weeks of 2006 made this the fourth warmest December on record in the U.S., and helped bring the annual average to record high levels. For example, the monthly average temperature in Boston was 8F above average, and in Minneapolis-St Paul, the temperature was 17F above average for the last three weeks of December. Even in Denver, which had its third snowiest December on record and endured a major blizzard that brought the city to a standstill during the holiday travel season, the temperature for the month was 1.4F warmer than the 1971-2000 average.

BOSTON... Winters may be frigid, but at least there are lots of single nerds to hibernate with.

It was in the low 60s today here in Boston. Great timing, Wired.

Actually, low 60's is fairly cold, at least compared to here in Austin, TX (another city on the list), where the KATT weather station measured 80.1F as the high today.

Also, aren't you guys up in the Northeast having one of the mildest winters on record in something like 100 years?

June 8th, 2006 (email text below)

THIS PAPER SOURCE IS DESTINED TO BECOME FAMOUS:

Levitus, who has become one of the old men of oceanography and related earth history, cited in oceanography lit. and esp. related to global warming, is very soft spoken but is clearly telling his colleagues in the backhanded way academics often say things that greenhouse gas theory is a crock. The climate change mostly is being induced by the heating of the ocean, he says....which he does not explain directly in this latest article, but he sure does lay the ground work for a lot of other oceanographers who are very very close to getting bold enough to talk about the extensive underwater volcanism they have found during the last 15 years.

For those of technical bent, get his article and try letting it frame your thoughts about how global warming really does work.

Warming Of The World Ocean 1955-2003
S. Levitus, J. Antonov, and T. Boyer

National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
Received 22 September 2004; revised 24 November 2004; accepted 8 December 2004; published 22 January 2005.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L02604, doi:10.1029/2004GL021592, 2005

notes taken from article, some verbatim, going into my books:

• Did you also believe the Penis Enlargement mail you got?
• Why didn't anybody else notice this increase in underwater volcanic activity (there seems to be no increase in overwater volcanic activity) - and what the heck causes it?
• Last but not least, why does this guy quote an article that does not mention volcanos, but instead says:

Discussion and Perspective
[10] In terms of the causes of the increase in ocean heat content we believe that the long-term trend as seen in these records is due to the increase of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere [Levitus et al., 2001].

June 8th, 2006 (email text below)

THIS PAPER SOURCE IS DESTINED TO BECOME FAMOUS:

Levitus, who has become one of the old men of oceanography and related earth history, cited in oceanography lit. and esp. related to global warming, is very soft spoken but is clearly telling his colleagues in the backhanded way academics often say things that greenhouse gas theory is a crock. The climate change mostly is being induced by the heating of the ocean, he says....which he does not explain directly in this latest article, but he sure does lay the ground work for a lot of other oceanographers who are very very close to getting bold enough to talk about the extensive underwater volcanism they have found during the last 15 years.

For those of technical bent, get his article and try letting it frame your thoughts about how global warming really does work.

Warming Of The World Ocean 1955-2003
S. Levitus, J. Antonov, and T. Boyer

National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
Received 22 September 2004; revised 24 November 2004; accepted 8 December 2004; published 22 January 2005.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L02604, doi:10.1029/2004GL021592, 2005

notes taken from article, some verbatim, going into my books:

During 1955-1998 world ocean heat content (0-3000 m) increased 14.5 X 10x22 J correspoinding to a mean temperature increase of 0.037 Celcius at a rate of 0.20 Wm-2 (per unit area of Earth's total surface area).

confirms long held suspicion that the ocean heat content is the dominant factor in the variability of the Earth's heat balance.

world ocean responsible for 84% of the increase in world heat.

up and down within in early 80's shows increase decrease
this variability in the global heat system is large, significant, and COMPLETELY unknown
may be underestimating the heating going on in the oceans

significant impact on earth's heat balance (climate} within five year time spans

ocean holds 1000 times as much heat as the atmosphere

or a 0.1 celcius increase in water temp is equiv to 100 celcius increase in atmosphere

"Our discussion here has not been to minimize the impacts of warming of the lower atmosphere due to increasing greenhouse gases, we are simply placing Earth's heat balance in perspective. The response of the Earth's climate system to changes in radiative forcing is often cast as the response of the Earth's surface temperature to these "forcings". This is understandable because we live at the Earth's surface and there has been a lack of subsurface ocean data with which to conduct Earth system heat balance studies.

GET THE BOTTOM LINE BELOW, DO YOU SEE THAT HE IS POINTING IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DIRECTION THAN CO2? This guy has been studying climate change for 25 years and thinks the climate models are too crude at present for useful results.

"Improved scientific understanding requires that we study the response of all components of the Earth's heat balance, of which the world ocean is the dominant term."

get electronic data at http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/indprod.html.

If 84% of the increased heat in global warming has come from the oceans during the past 50 years, if this is really true (and since it has been directly measured and calculated from real empirical sources it has considerable validity) you can explain ALL the anomalies of the past 40 years, most esp. those of the last ten. The theory of greenhouse gases cannot explain a single one of the current extremes in the Global Warming Syndrome, least of all the warming of the Arctic..

For those technically inclined, have fun with this, it is a lot to chew on. This article has just recently been added to accessible archives so this is relatively new news, though it was published last year.

According to wikipedia:

Well, I'll wager Wikipedia is wrong, because NOAA says Jefferson had been at it in 1776 and that the Smithsonian didn't take the reigns until 1890. And the last time I visited Monticello, they made sure to mention what a weather buff ol' TJ happened to be.

I was just thinking yesterday of doing a paranoia web page, aggregating warnings from various sources.

• US DHS terrorism threat level. ("Code Yellow, or Elevated." today.)
• DoD InfoCon threat level. ("INFOCON level 4, "Increased Vigilance in Preparation for Operations or Exercises." today.)
• California Office of Emergency Services warnings ("...FLASH FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT FROM TUESDAY MORNING THROUGH LATE TUESDAY NIGHT FOR THE NORTHERN AND CENTRAL PORTIONS OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA..." yesterday.)
• California Earthquake Monitor Not much happening today.
• NOAA Tropical Storm Prediction Center. Slow day, not hurricane season.
• California Independent System Operator power grid status. Warns of power shortages and incipient blackouts. No problems today.
• Our local threat monitor, the Palo Alto Creek Level Monitor. Water level low right now.

A web page with a good-looking version of this info, suitable for display on large screen displays, would be useful.

Seabed and currents don't have anything to do with it (well, they can have as they influence the gravity, but that is so weak, that it is not measurable at all).

Not so, the sea level differences due to gravitational variations of the seabed have been used to generate maps of the entire seabed

Not that this has anything to do with rising sea levels.

How about turning that sentence around? Changing human industrial behaviour will impact global warming.

Now tack on your parenthetical This is also largely bullshit because you can't test it.

The difference between the two positions is the burden of proof falls on the global warming proponents. The anthropogenic global warming proponents haven't proved their point and yet they're calling for massive changes in human behavior to fit their world view.

The second half of your parenthetical is meaningless if humans don't bear the responsibility for global warming. In your quest to fix one problem, you may well create another. If we completely eliminate human carbon emissions on the theory that we shouldn't "pollute" the planet with co2 and people start dying from famine (tractors spew co2) have you accomplished anything worthwhile?

In case you're possibly interested in some contrary evidence, drop a ruler on NOAA's interglacial peak sea levels over the last 800,000 years. Notice the upward trend? If you accept sea level as a proxy for global temperature, then something's been going on for the past 800,000 years that's been warming the earth without human intervention.

everyone predicted this would be a quiet season.

Everyone?

For the 2006 north Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA is predicting 13 to 16 named storms, with eight to 10 becoming hurricanes, of which four to six could become 'major' hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2634.htm

Nine named storms and five hurricanes formed this season, and just two of the hurricanes were considered major. That is considered a near-normal season -- and well short of the rough season government scientists had forecast.

I do remember several news outlets taking this story and running it as "Global Warming predicted to cause Busy Hurican season." The resulting below normal season was news on (pretty much) every major news site and is being used by many to demonstrate that political motivations (not science) are driving the global warming debate.

Check out NOAA webpage about this. The most affect areas are going to be the sunlid areas of the planet. But see more here, http://www.sec.noaa.gov/NOAAscales/index.html