New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism

[The Straight Story]

New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA's Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA's Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.

"The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show," Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. "There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans."

In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.

The new findings are extremely important and should dramatically alter the global warming debate.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

I am sweating like a one armed hobbit in a redwood tree chopping contest right now, wishing we could lose some more heat.

[enki23]

1. "alarmist?" fucking bullshit agenda much?

.

[haikugal]

5. No shit...

I'll wait to decide if this is worth anything.

[Cetacea]

46. LOL. "the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing"

'nuff said.

[Bosonic]

52. why 'nuff said?

The article is from Forbes(which *is* written confrontationally), but the paper is from a legitimate scientific journal (all of which are peer reviewed ; it's the submission process).

[enki23]

53. Removed to post below.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. I wonder if the wording of that article could be any more slanted.

Did Glenn Beck write it himself?

[FormerDittoHead]

21. Here's who wrote it (link):

http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roy_Spencer

and

http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute

[Octafish]

32. Thank you, FormerDittoHead!

Who'd have known, from reading that article, it was written by a guy who wants to get rich and an organization funded by rich bastards who stand to lose money if their taxes go up to pay for de-pollution? As my cousin Victor would say, "Niyee-uhs."

[Ignis]

40. SourceWatch for the win, yet again.

:thumbsup:

[snappyturtle]

3. This is how cynical I've become:

I don't even trust NASA anymore.

[villager]

4. Note Yahoo's headline about "alarmism" was written by Forbes, whose version they run

It's only "alarmism" if it represents a threat to corporate power...

[foo_bar]

11. ...which was written by a "senior fellow" at "The Heartland Institute"

In the 1990s, the group worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question the science linking secondhand smoke to health risks, and to lobby against government public health reforms. More recently, the Institute has focused on questioning the scientific consensus on climate change, and has sponsored meetings of climate change skeptics.

<...>

Speakers have included Richard Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at MIT; Roy Spencer, a former NASA scientist; S. Fred Singer, who was founding dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences at the University of Miami and founding director of the National Weather Satellite Service; Harrison Schmitt, a former NASA astronaut and Apollo 17 moonwalker; and John Theon, a former NASA administrator. In the first conference, for example, participants criticized the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore. The BBC reported that the heavily politicized nature of the Heartland conferences led some "moderate" climate skeptics to avoid them.

<...>

Oil and gas companies have contributed to the Heartland Institute, including over $600,000 from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2005. Greenpeace reported that the Heartland Institute received almost $800,000 from ExxonMobil. By 2008, ExxonMobil had stopped funding to Heartland. Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, argued that ExxonMobil was simply distancing itself from Heartland out of concern for its public image.

The Heartland Institute has also received funding and support from the tobacco company Philip Morris.

The Independent reported that Heartland's receipt of donations from Exxon and Philip Morris indicates a "direct link"..."between anti-global warming sceptics funded by the oil industry and the opponents of the scientific evidence showing that passive smoking can damage people's health."

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

[bullimiami]

6. That is some slanted-ass reporting. It says "alarmist" 13 times. Agenda driven much?

[bullimiami]

7. Amazing. We are all synchronized.

[Cannikin]

8. I've noticed an obvious slant to the right on yahoo news. Who owns them?

[The Straight Story]

16. Here is some info:

Non Board Members
David Filo, Co-Founder, Chief Yahoo, does not sit with board of directors, does not have any role
Roy J. Bostock is the Chairman of the Board

Board of Directors
Carol Ann Bartz is the President and CEO
Patti Hart President and Chief Executive Officer, International Game Technology
Sue James, Retired Partner, Ernst & Young LLP
Vyomesh Joshi, Executive Vice President, Imaging and Printing Group, Hewlett-Packard Company
David Kenny President, Akamai Technologies, Inc.
Arthur Kern, Private Investor
Brad Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer, Intuit Inc.
Gary Wilson, Private Investor, General Partner, Manhattan Pacific Partners
Jerry Yang, Co-Founder, Chief Yahoo, sits at the board but does not have any role

[Vinnie From Indy]

9. Dr. Spencer is roundly criticized by his peers

Here is one debunking and there several others out there. Nice try though!

http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/mathematical_analysis_of_roy_spencers_climate_model

[Johonny]

18. +1

[Jim__]

28. Thanks. I've heard of Roy Spencer and I figured this would be debunked. - n/t

[bananas]

47. Thanks - Joe Romm has more

"Climate Scienists Debunk Latest Bunk by Denier Roy Spencer"
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/07/29/282584/climate-scienists-debunk-latest-bunk-by-denier-roy-spencer/

[drm604]

10. I have to say

I'm skeptical of any article that repeatedly refers to scientists and computer models as "alarmist". The use of words like that indicates an agenda.

[mike_c]

12. I haven't seen the paper but it strikes me that there are two ways to look at those data....

The rate of heat loss is a function of the atmospheric heat storage, i.e. the more energy the atmosphere stores, the greater the re-radiation back into space. Now on the one hand, that might suggest that the retention rate is not as rapid as modeled, which might slow warming but would not necessarily prevent it (although it might prevent positive feedback, and THAT would be a very good thing).

On the other hand, estimates of current energy storage might simply be low, which would lead to unexpectedly high re-radiation back to space-- not because energy isn't being stored, but because the model needs to be run forward a bit.

[lumberjack_jeff]

13. Three things:

1) Bullshit slanted writing.
2) Explain melting ice caps.
3) I hope he's right.

[Rex]

14. No thanks...the use of the word 'alarmist' qualifies the article as BS

glad I stopped reading it.

[gratuitous]

15. Yahoo running a hoax

Google their "peer-reviewed science journal" Remote Sensing, and you'll see what I mean. The journal is "open source" which means that the "peer review" process is that its content got posted on-line. The website for Remote Sensing.org is no longer maintained, and has been moribund for years.

This "analysis" of satellite data isn't even worth the electrons it took to organize the Yahoo post.

[JHB]

36. Instead of Googling it, just go to the journal's page...

http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/


It's an open access journal, publishing articles that have been peer-reviewed.

It's not a vanity press.

[arcane1]

17. I scanned through the report, it's a bit dense for me...

So it's hard to tell if it's claiming the things that this Forbes op/ed says it's claiming:

http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/pdf

Anyone else want to take a stab at translating this?

[izquierdista]

30. Dense is a good word to describe the authors

My translation of what the authors are saying: "Golly, this computer modeling stuff is hard! Since we don't understand it, the effects that we see but can't explain must be artifacts."

[SidDithers]

19. The Heartland Institute. LOL...

Funded by Exxon-Mobil and Phillip Morris, among others..

The author certainly seems alarmed about something.

Sid

[silverweb]

20. Bookmarking for responses...

... when the inevitable, gloating emails start arriving from the RW relatives.

Thanks for the fast debunking, guys!

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Boys what you are talking about is Albedo

and that has to do with CLOUD cover, which goes up with global weather change.

[Gormy Cuss]

23. Sourcewatch.org

Heartland takes the "think" out of think tank.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute

[PeaceNikki]

26. Fuck those assholes.

And everything they say about anything.

[Dappleganger]

24. Is this article some kind of a joke??

"alarmist" computer models, etc. What a dead giveaway to the writer's prejudice.

[WhiteTara]

25. I knew the ice isn't melting...those polar bears

are just trying to get a tax break! :sarcasm:

[AmericaIsGreat]

27. The worst part is the comments section

I mean, every single ONE for pages and pages is vile, neocon rhetoric.

[sofa king]

29. It's the "boiling pot" spin!

I believe the argument here is the "boiling pot" analogy, which is simple to most people who remember chemistry class--which I believe is none of us.

Water in its liquid form cannot heat up past its boiling point of 100 deg. C. at sea level. Oh, sure, you'll flay the skin right off of your hand if you hold it above a boiling pot of water for long enough, but that's the steam and water vapor doing that to you. In the liquid itself, the temperature stays constant at the boiling point because it's radiating all additional heat being put into the system.

The same theory should work just as well as the earth as a whole. Once the seas start boiling, they won't get any hotter.

So rest easy, fellow frogs in the pot! All we have to do is make it to the boiling point, and it's just a walk down easy street from there.

[Purveyor]

31. I'm glad you posted this article so I didn't have to! Thanks. LOL eom

[spin]

33. I hate to say this but given a choice between a computer model and actual data ...

I have to go with the data.

Hell our computer models can't even tell precisely where a hurricane is going to hit five days before landfall. They really have a hard time predicting storm intensity.

I remember evacuating Tampa Florida in 2004 along with 300,000 other people and heading south to my daughter's home in Lee county. I was sitting watching TV as the storm decided to take a sharp right turn and ran over Captiva Island and then Port Charlotte Florida. I ended up on the outskirts of this very small and intense hurricane.

The rapid strengthening of Charley in the eastern Gulf of Mexico caught many by surprise. Around five hours before its Florida landfall, Charley was a strong Category 2 hurricane predicted to strengthen its strongest winds to 115 mph (185 km/h) upon its landfall in the Tampa-Saint Petersburg area.<18> About two hours before landfall, the National Hurricane Center issued a special advisory, notifying the public that Charley had become a 145 mph (230 km/h) Category 4 hurricane, with a predicted landfall location in the Port Charlotte area.<19> As a result of this change in forecast, numerous people in the Charlotte County area were unprepared for the hurricane, despite the fact that the new track prediction was well within the previous forecast's margin of error. National Hurricane Center forecasting intern Robbie Berg publicly blamed the media for misleading residents into believing that a Tampa landfall was inevitable. In addition, he also stated that residents of Port Charlotte had ample warning,<20> as a hurricane warning had been issued for the landfall area 23 hours before, and a hurricane watch had existed for 35 hours.<1>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Charley

The experts and their computer models appeared fairly certain that landfall would be in the Tampa Bay area and the wind strength would be around 115 mph which is a strong Category 2 hurricane. Instead the hurricane made landfall 70 miles south with a wind speed of 145 mph which is a category 4. It actually passed over Captiva Island with a wind speed of 150 mph, 5 mph short of a category 5.

Here's the latest computer models for tropical storm Don which is only couple of days from landfall. I'm sure that they have improved the computer programs significantly in the last few years by analyzing the actual results compared to the models. Still, they have a ways to go.



Computer models are great and when compared to actual results they can be improved to be more accurate.

By the way, I am not a person who denies global warming or climate change exists. I do value scientific facts more than computer models. All this data might show is that we have a little more time to figure out how to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel. We need to rapidly develop alternative energy sources and there is little time to waste.

edited to correct typo

[cherokeeprogressive]

37. Oops. Gaia's gonna get you for that. n/t

[spin]

43. I believe in global warming but I am not a member of the religion ...

Just as I am willing to accept that a very wise man who we call Jesus may have been a itinerant teacher approximately 2000 years ago. I consider myself a Christian but I do not believe that the Bible is the literal word of God.

[Johonny]

42. believe in the scientific peocess not in scientists

this particular scientist has his own rather iffy way of handling his "data". He has a rather high bar to make is rather minority view on his data convincing. So far (and it's been a while) he has been very unconvincing because his data handling is rather poor. Which is to say he has a low level of credibility on the matter. As poster put up earlier, this scientist reputation and papers aren't held in high regard. This is not because climate science community disbelieves in science and the science process, it's because this mans claims haven't particularly held up to close science examination. He seems more interested in selling books than actually doing good science.

When one mans data looks different than everyone else, you might want to ask why. A lot of people already have, and the answers weren't supportive of this minority view to date. That's how science works.

[spin]

44. To be fair we will have to wait for other reputable experts to voice their conclusions ...

from the data. I'm sure this will take a while.

The important thing is that we base our climate models on accurate data and not on politics or the opinions and interests of large corporations.

[Johonny]

50. not really

this thing was trashed on arrival. He's a well known crank of little influence. This ground breaking effort was little more than a nice retread of bad ideas and data handling. There is no there in this paper.

[AverageJoe90]

34. Well........

I'm against alarmist stuff myself but I'm afraid this could hurt the fact-finders a bit. Doesn't anyone else think the deniers are gonna jump on this?

[bvar22]

35. But the Polar Ice Caps and Major Glaciers ARE melting.

THAT is indisputable.

[DreamSmoker]

38. Solar Cycles

Scientist are looking closely at the Sun, its sun spot cycles and Flares..
This may be the hidden Factor over looked previously in the Climate Changes we are facing today...

[Motown_Johnny]

39. Nope, sorry

If you can remember way back when scientists were predicting global cooling that was based (in part) on solar cycles.


They then went and took measurements trying to confirm their prediction. What they found instead was that the planet was heating.

The only possible explanation for this is mankind's interference.


We should be cooling, but we aren't.

[JHB]

41. Noticed something peculiar....

Looking at the download statistics, this article stands out in two ways from the other articles in the issue:

1) it has far and away the most downloads (like, by a factor of 100). Not surprising given the political spin put on it in the Yahoo article and elsewhere.

2) for every other article the abstract views outnumber the full-article downloads. Not with this article. Given the outside buzz, that's a sure sign that lots of non-researchers are downloading the article straight from links like the one in the Yahoo item. Most of whom wouldn't know a Planck response from walking the plank.

I think I'll wait until a few more papers hash this out...that being the way science is done.

[bananas]

48. Probably because the author was on Coast-to-Coast Radio last night

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x306190

[JHB]

49. It was happening even before then. n/t

[NickB79]

45. Here's a little of what you need to know about Mr. Spencer

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x306190

He's in good company on that program.

[PufPuf23]

51. Loss of habitat and subsequent extinctions and narrowed DNA pool is more significant than

Global Climate Change.

Loss of of habitats and biodiversity resiliency in the the face of global anthropomorphic climate change impacts recovery.

There will be a catastrophic decline in humanity by war or plague or scarcity or cruelty or nature is for certain.

Humanity's best bet is to preserve science and the experiences of social science and faiths and recognize that Nature abides.

Hey I am in a negative space.

[enki23]

54. There is an unbelievable amount of ignorance about what a "computer model" is, even here.

Model building is the essence of the Scientific Method. And every time I see some schmuck deride it, I know a) he or she is at best ignorant, and (depending on the context) likely an ignorant schmuck, and 2) probably has some irrational axe to grind about science.

Every experiment, and the stats used to describe that experiment, is a model. Every hypothesis we test, and every theory we come up with to explain our observations is a model. What do we use to build, test, verify, modify or discard those models? "Real Data." Real data is really nice. It's kind of hard to do science without it. But data doesn't explain itself. That's what models do. And that's what science is. The whole "computer model" thing is absurd. These are not "computer models." They're mathematical models which take advantage of the processing power of computers. That allows them to use lots of "Real Data." In order to integrate all sorts of "Real" climate data and understand how it works together, you need a big, computationally costly model. It's a lot easier to make a model with just one set of data at a time. We call that "statistics" usually. Some simple versions of that can be done by hand, if you think "computer modeling" is somehow arcane and frightening. But that would be stupid. And you'd never do the sorts of models climate scientists regularly work with by hand in a million of your lifetimes. But they operate on exactly the same principles. They just contain a whole lot more of that "real data" people seem to imagine "computer models" lack.

And the whole point of all this modeling, "computer" and otherwise? It's to make predictions. Because yes, we can definitely carry out this grand experiment with our atmosphere and continue to collect "real data." We don't really need much science to do that. But I don't think that's the sort of "real data" we really want to end up with. The entire point of this science is to make predictions, and use those predictions to inform our fucking behavior. And to make those predictions? We need fucking Models. Jesus effing christ. If we didn't want to model it, we'd... what... keep a fucking climate diary, I suppose, and have the climate scientists expend the rest of their mental energy on internet porn. Given what I've seen of humanity, it's about as likely to make a goddamned difference in or behavior anyway.

[ljm2002]

55. What a ridiculous headline...

...one might ask, given the documented rise in average temperature over the last 100 years or so, whether we should be even more alarmed, knowing that there was even more extra heat produced than we suspected, which luckily for us had a mechanism to be released into outer space.

[FloridaJudy]

56. Spencer's books are published by the Koch brothers.

'Nuff said. Google can be your friend.