The Lapse Rate . . .A 'Scientific' Projection. The seed of skepticism Adiabatic lapse rate is the ten dollar term for how fast it gets how much colder as you go how much higher. Mountain climbers learned long ago that air temperature dropped 2° F with each rise of 1000 ft. in elevation (3.675°C per km). World War II flyers extended that knowledge to higher altitudes and high flying post-war jets confirmed it further, encountering temperatures as low as -50°C or colder.               That reality led to the 'scientific' projection,               then said to be fact, that cooling continued               at a constant rate until the temperature               reached absolute zero in outer space. So it surprised many when space travel revealed the error in that so-called 'scientific' fact; when it was found that fifteen km up (above the troposhere where we live) the temperature becomes steady at about -50°C, then rises almost 50° as altitude increases, until it hovers just below freezing (-3°C). Above that, the trend reverses and the temperature falls to -93°C at about 85 km above the earth. Then again, the trend reverses, and in the Thermosphere, temperature can reach more than 1120°C before finally falling off to absolute zero in outer space.               Those facts, along with other discoveries               and experience, have shown that when               'scientists' venture into conjecture and               offer  projections or  forecasts as fact,               they can be totally wrong, regardless of               the merit of their credentials.

Coal

Coal. . . A Burning Issue Skepticism takes root The age of coal was launched in the mid 1700s when James Watt's steam engine enabled miners to dig huge amounts of that flammable black rock from deep in the ground, and simultaneously created a huge market for its consumption in industry and transportaion, as well as production of gas for heating and lighting.               Prophets of doom feared that the supply               would soon be exhausted, and in the mid               1930s, those fears spawned a lengthy               series of articles in a Toronto newspaper,               based on 'scientific' predictions that the               world was running out of coal. Statistics were cited, defining the known supply, the amount used in trains and ships, consumption in homes and commercial buildings for heating and in industry to drive factory machinery. The newspaper painted a bleak picture of disaster to come when our coal fires would die down to ash. But despite those warnings, the world is not running out of coal. Millions of tons of coal are consumed annually, primarily for generating electricity, and the known supply is measured in billions of tons, enough to last for centuries. Not to be discouraged however, doomsday predicters shifted their focus to oil. The world is now running out of oil, they say.

Oil

Oil. . . On a Slippery Slope to Exhaustion Skepticism grows Predicting exhaustion of the world's oil supply was legitimized as a 'science' with the 1949 publication of the Hubbert Peak Theory in the trade journal, Science; and further, when Marion King Hubbert, an American geophysicist and author of that theory, presented it before the American Petroleum Institute in 1956.               Hubbert observed that oil output from               any well increased rapidly until it peaked,               then decreased at a directly opposite rate               until no more could be drawn from that               source. Geometrically plotted, this forms a               bell curve, (known as the Hubbert curve)               in which the downside mirrors the upside. Hubbert then applied his finding to entire oil fields, and ultimately extended it presumptuously to define the world's total supply. From that, he predicted that USA production would peak in 1970,and worldwide production would peak in 2006. Many others agreed with him in principal, but chose different end-dates; 1989, 1995, etc. Significant oil production began in about 1900. Hubbert's projected peak, 2006, was just about 100 years later. Thus, it follows that in 2010 we've ridden out the predicted rise, and are now into the following hundred year decline, leading to the end of oil production in about the year 2100.   Then there will be none. But, in 1956, how could Hubbert have anticipated the 1968 Prudhoe Bay discovery, the largest oil field in North Amarica? How could he have considered North Sea oil that came on stream in 1970? Or Hibernia in 1979 with reserves of 1.24 billion barrels? Or the Beaufort Sea in 1981? Or Hebron, that same year? Or the Terra Nova and White Rose discoveries in 1984 and 1988? How could he have predicted oil at the North Pole in the Lomonosov ridge? or Brazilian offshore discoveries in 2007? or Cuban oil that is now coming on? How could he have anticipated that horizontal drilling, CO2 injection, electro-thermal extraction and other new technology has increased extraction by 35% or more?               In 2005, the Cambridge Energy Research               Associates reported that oil production in               the lower 48 of the United States alone,               was 66% higher than Hubbert's projection. There is no doubt that oil and natural gas (as well as coal) are finite resources and may eventually be exhausted. But those who would pick a date-certain when that will occur might be likened to clairvoyants. Such predictions debase the word 'scientist' and raise this pertinent question; Are today's predictions of oil exhaustion any more valid than the 1930s predictions of the end of coal.

hurricane

Hurrican Disasters and Forecasts Skepticism flourishes When hurricane Katrina slammed into Louisana from the Gulf of Mexico in August, 2005, it should not have been "unanticipated" by weather forecasters who have access to voluminous records that long predate their living memory. For hurricane Katrina was not "unprecedented." Equally ferocious storms have been a regular part of weather patterns in that part of the globe since time immemorial. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, more than a century ago, is said to have been the deadliest weather disaster in United States history.   It killed 6,000 to 12,000 people. Five other hurricanes killed 240 to 350 each before 1928, when 1,840 people died in Florida near Lake Okeechobee. Others, including the Labor Day hurricane in 1935, Hazel 1n 1954, Camille in 1969, Hugo in 1989, and Andrew in 1992, have been similarly furious although, thanks to better warning systems, not quite so lethal. Likewise on the other side of the world, violent tropical storms rage out of the Indian Ocean. In 1963, 22,000 people were killed and a million homes were damaged by a cyclone in Bangladesh. In 1965, at Chittagong, 300,000 to 500,000 people met the same fate, long before it became fashionable to blame every climatic aberration on man-made Climate Change.               Nonetheless, 'scientists' and the news media               quickly linked Katrina to Global Warming,               citing the connection to warm wter in the               South Atlantic, as though that contributing               factor was a new discovery. At the NOAA Climate Center (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) 'scientists' and technicians gathered a mountain of data from Katrina, combined it with prior data, and boldly predicted that the 2006 hurricane season would be as bad, or worse than that of 2005. But that prediction fizzled out. In the 2006 season, Zero hurricanes made landfall in the USA. Zero. Scientists' were quick to explain that an "unexpected" El Nino caused the forecasting error. Undaunted, they predicted a 75% chance of above normal hurricane activity in 2007 with 17 named storms. Contrarily, in December 2007, climate records showed an average hurricane season. It appears that 'scientists' regularly make insufficient allowance for unexpected or unanticipated, irregularities, raising the question: How can we believe 'scientific' predictions of Global Warming disaster in future centuries, when local hurricane forecasts for just one year can be so wrong?

Greenland

The Greenland Ice Cap Melting away... or Not On October 13th, 2005, the Washington Post, quoting NASA's Goddart Institute for Space Studies, reported that 2005 would be the hottest year on record. They stated that in the seven (7) years from 1998 to 2005, the average global temperature climbed by 1/10 of one degree. That's .0142° per year; little more than half the rate of cooling that occurred in the earlier 1945 to '68 period. Ignoring the confliction in that data, 'scientists' focused on the tiny temperatue rise and cited it as evidence of Global Warming. They declared that Arctic sea ice and the the mile thick Greenland ice cap were melting away and that coastal areas around the world would be submerged by rising ocean levels.               Meanwhile, radar measurements by the               European Space Agency's ERS satellite               revealed that in an eleven year period of               observation, the ice sheet in Greenland's               interior grew two feet thicker. A concurrent NASA study confirmed that during that period, the ice sheet gained more from snowfall in the interior than it lost from melting around its perimeter. Norwegian researchers attribute that increased snowfall to a well known inter-decadal climate pattern known as the North Atlantic Oscillator which affects climate over that zone. When Greenland has an extremely cold winter, the weather in Scandinavia is relatively mild and vice versa. These decadal variations have prevailed for centuries. As snow builds up in Greenland's interior, it packs down and becomes ice. Its growing weight causes a continuous, gradual movement outwards. Long tongues of glacial ice extend out over Baffin Bay, the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic. From time to time those ice tongues break off in a process called calving, and form icebergs that drift south in the Norht Alantic.               Each year, for centuries past, 10,000 to               15,000 icebergs have been calved from               Greenland's glaciers without exhausting the               supply. It is perhaps noteworthy that the               Titanic collided with one such iceberg almost               one hundred years ago, long before the idea               of Global Warming was conceived. As to Arctic ice disappearing; In 2009, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Centre was quoted in the Washington Post as stating that from early January to mid February of that year, defective performance of satellite monitors that measure sea ice had caused the area of Arctic ice to be underestimated by 193,000 square miles. That's about the size of California.

Sea

Sea Level Rising The Seven Metre Suurge Prediction that Greenland's ice cap wil melt away is just one of the disaster threats that now confront us. In 2007, the IPCC (UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) warned that we face a vast array of drastic consequences from Global Warming. Along with the thawing of Greenland's ice, they warned that snow on the world's mountaintops will be gone. Shamelessly echoing a flawed report from the WWF, they declared that the Himalayan glacier would be gone by 2035. In early 2010, faced by irrefutable evidence to he contrary, the IPCC back-peddled away fron the conspicuous excess of that prediction but continued to forecast that Arctic and Antarctic ice wil melt and ocean levels will rise seven metres (23 ft) some thousands of years from now.               Considering that such an embarrasing error               failed to moderate the drastic forecasts of               doom in the distant future, skeptics may be               excused for wondering if some measure of               hysteria has not crept into Global Warming               predictions. The most daring fortune teller in a circus tent might be reluctant to make such a bold long-range prediction, but former Vice President Al Gore's panoply of panic, presumptuously titled "An Inconvenient Truth," portrays in full color graphics, New York, California, and other coastal areas under water in the coming catastrophe. Such extreme speculation does of course demand some attention and cosideration. It also evokes some incredulity. Changes in ocean levels are usually measured against mean sea level, but according to the "Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level" based in Liverpool England at the UK Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC), mean sea level is far from being a well established datum line. For years the UK base line has been the Ordnance Datum Newlyn (ODN) observed at Newlyn, Cornwall from May 1910 to April 1921. Mean sea level in the Netherlands, Normal Amsterdam Peil (NAP) is indicated by a mark in the town hall. In France, a measure was taken years ago at Marseille, and many other countries have age-old but different reference points for sea level. Historically, crude tide gauges have been used to measure sea level. These devices consist of a pipe, about a foot in diameter, fixed vertically to the side of a dock with the lower end submerged in the ocean. The bottom of the pipe is closed, save for a small hole that allows water to seep in and fill the pipe to the level of the surrounding ocean. The water level in the pipe rises and falls with the ebb and flow of the tide, but oscillations from waves are largely dampened out. The level is recorded regularly and averaged over months and years. It is clear that sea level measurements made with such primitive devices can be no more than approximations, but they served well for practical purposes for a very long time.               No doubt the instruments and methods used               to measure sea level in this age of satellites               and computers are far more accurate than               those of bygone years, but when a change in               sea level is calculated by comparing today's               precise measurements with past approximations               the results necessarily reflect the inaccuracy               of that historical data. Beyond that however, all measurements of sea level change are compromised by a nnumber of factors: 1. Ocean surfaces rise and fall constantly and unevenly in response to constantly changing atsmospheric pressure in different areas of the globe. 2. Evaporation varies continuously with daylight surface heating, overnight cooling, and seasonal variations. 4.Changes in the level of the ocean floor from earthquakes or shifting tectonic plates cause bulges or depressions in the overlying surface of the ocean. 5. Ocean currents alter surface levels in different parts of the world. For example, the Gulf Stream flows northward in the Atlantic and makes the ocean level higher in the north than in the south. The ocean level at Bermuda is about one metre higher than along the northeast coast of the United States. 6. The Atlantic Ocean on average, is about 40 cm (16") lower than the Pacific. From end to end of the Panama Canal, there is a difference of about 8 inches. 7. Gravitational pull from the moon and other planets create tides, which ebb and flow hour by hour, and change continuously as those bodies change their positions in space, relative to the Earth. 8. Normal intra-day tides throughout the world range from one to two metres (high to low) while that in Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy averages twelve metres high (almost 40 ft.) and can sometimes reach sixteen metres (52 ft.). 9. Hydrographic observations show that sea level is not rising uniformly throughout the world. Some areas are said to be rising much above the mean (whatever that may be) while others fall below it. The IPCC acknowledges in a report that the future sea level change predicted will not be geographically uniform, and that quantitative projections cannot be made with confidence owing to limited understanding of the relevant processes.               Even assuming that the precision of modern               methodology can compensate for all those               variables; calculations and predictions of               future trends cannot escape being badly               skewed by the inaccuracies, approximations               and paucity of past data. Assuming further that measurement of sea level might be accurate within feet or even inches, measurements and forecasts in fractions of a millimetre, such as those now being published risk being judged absurd. IPCC 'scientists" tell us with a tone of certainty that the mean sea level has risen 1 to 2 millimetres per year for the last one hundred years. That allows a margin for error of 100% on an annual rise roughly equal to the diameter of one drop of ocean spray. Can that have any validity? Meanwhile, Orin H. Pilkey, professor emeritus at Duke University School of the environment, and Rob Young, director of Western Carolina's University Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, are jointly quoted in an article in USA Today on Jan 10, 2010. Citing one tide gauge on a pier in Duck N.C., they pronounced that sea level is rising at the rate of 1.5 ft. per century. That is 0.18" per year or 4.4 millimetres. If that purports to be a measure of the actual rise in past years, it is twice to four times the 1 to 2 mm annual rise reported by IPCC 'scientists'. If 4.4 mm per year is Pilkey and Young's estimate for years to come it disagrees sharply with the predictions of others in the scientific community who predict more than double that; a rise of 10 mm per year (close to 1/2") for the next hundred years. Wisely perhaps, those predicting the 1/2" rise qualify their forecast by pointing out that most of that rise will occur in the second half of the century. That allows them a lag of 50 years before their forecast can be either verified or challenged. Richard Peltier, a renowned professor of physics at the University of Toronto, is likewise reported to be extremely precise in his calculations. Eschewing oceanographers' estimates that ocean levels rose 3 mm per year from 1993 to 2005 (three drops of spray) he narrows that down to 2.8 mm. He attributes 1.0 mm of that to expansion of warmer water; about 0.5 mm to melting glaciers and small ice caps, and one third of a millimetre to melting of the Greenland ice cap. That leaves 1.2 mm ( the diameter of a large grain of rice) to be accounted for. Perhaps the numbers can be reworked. While these tiny fractional measurements of change in the huge mass of the oceans might seem to imply that 'scientists' who generate the numbers possess great knowledge, their bravado in publishing such numbers as factual data undermines their credibility and suggests that their wisdom falls short of their daring. It is easy to conclude that the endless calculations, estimates, predictions and forecasts in all the reports and analyses reflect nothing more than the complex computerized manipulation of a massive array of questionable and constantly changing numbers, with a final result near zero.               As to the computer numbers they may rely               on, it should not be forgotten that GIGO,               the first law of computers, still applies;               Garbage IN, Garbage OUT.

In some respects, 'scientists' are like sportscasters, stock market analysts, and horse race enthusiasts. They can tell with certainty what happened today or yesterday, and explain why, but may be quite wrong about tomorrow. When thousands of them, in cult-like unison, embrace a popular theory based on short term variable data, listen only to evidence that supports that theory, advocate it over-zealously to a credulous public and make extravagant. long-range predictions based on that theory, thay are indulging in a flawed process similar to that which, in the field of law enforcement, has sent many innocent people to jail.                        Nor does their conjecture become more valid                        because it is shared by thousands. Millions of                        well-informed American aficionados called the                        Super Bowl wrong in 2010.