One of the standards used to determine whether something is “science” by the strict definition of the word is whether a theory can be used to make accurate predictions.  In light of the President’s ill-advised cheerleading at the UN yesterday, we should ask ourselves whether global warming actually meets this definition of science.  Global warming fanatics have proposed that as carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere increases, we will see proportional increases in temperature coupled with other climatological effects.  As Tony Watt at Watts Up With That points out, one of the key arguments  for global warming – that sea ice coverage continues to decrease (which in GreenSpeak translates into “RISING SEA LEVELS WIPING OUT COASTAL CITIES AND KILLING MILLIONS!!!!!”) is failing the prediction test,

2009 Arctic Sea Ice Extent exceeds 2005 for this date

Those that have been watching the IARC-JAXA Arctic sea ice plot, and noting the slope of gain, rather expected this to happen. Today it did.

Here’s the current IARC-JAXA Sea Ice Extent plot:

 

While 2009 minimum on 09/13 of 5,249, 844 was just  65, 312 sq km below 2005 in minimum extent, which occurred on 9/22/2005  with 5,315,156 sq km, it has now rebounded quickly and is higher by 38,438 sq km, just 2 days before the 9/22/05 minimum. On 9/22/2009 it may very well be close to 60-80,000 sq km higher than the minimum on the same date in 2005.

While by itself this event isn’t all that significant, it does illustrate the continued rebound for the second year. The fact that we only missed the 2005 minimum by 65, 312, which is about one days worth of melt during many days of the melt season is also noteworthy.

At the rate this is going, Al Gore’s tithe check is going to start getting mighty small.  This time, the German Helmhotz Association of National Research Centres  has left the flock, issuing a short position statement about the correlation between solar activity and climate change – Small fluctuations in solar activity, large influence on the climate,

Sun spot frequency has an unexpectedly strong influence on cloud formation and precipitation

Our sun does not radiate evenly. The best known example of radiation fluctuations is the famous 11-year cycle of sun spots. Nobody denies its influence on the natural climate variability, but climate models have, to-date, not been able to satisfactorily reconstruct its impact on climate activity.

Researchers from the USA and from Germany have now, for the first time, successfully simulated, in detail, the complex interaction between solar radiation, atmosphere, and the ocean. As the scientific journal Science reports in its latest issue, Gerald Meehl of the US-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and his team have been able to calculate how the extremely small variations in radiation brings about a comparatively significant change in the System “Atmosphere-Ocean”.

Katja Matthes of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, and co-author of the study, states: „Taking into consideration the complete radiation spectrum of the sun, the radiation intensity within one sun spot cycle varies by just 0.1 per cent. Complex interplay mechanisms in the stratosphere and the troposphere, however, create measurable changes in the water temperature of the Pacific and in precipitation”.

Top Down – Bottom up

In order for such reinforcement to take place many small wheels have to interdigitate. The initial process runs from the top downwards: increased solar radiation leads to more ozone and higher temperatures in the stratosphere. “The ultraviolet radiation share varies much more strongly than the other shares in the spectrum, i.e. by five to eight per cent, and that forms more ozone” explains Katja Matthes. As a result, especially the tropical stratosphere becomes warmer, which in turn leads to changed atmospheric circulation. Thus, the interrelated typical precipitation patterns in the tropics are also displaced.

The second process takes place in the opposite way: the higher solar activity leads to more evaporation in the cloud free areas. With the trade winds the increased amounts of moisture are transported to the equator, where they lead to stronger precipitation, lower water temperatures in the East Pacific and reduced cloud formation, which in turn allows for increased evaporation. Katja Matthes: “It is this positive back coupling that strengthens the process”. With this it is possible to explain the respective measurements and observations on the Earth’s surface.

Professor Reinhard Huettl, Chairman of the Scientific Executive Board of the GFZ (Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres) adds: “The study is important for comprehending the natural climatic variability, which – on different time scales – is significantly influenced by the sun. In order to better understand the anthropogenically induced climate change and to make more reliable future climate scenarios, it is very important to understand the underlying natural climatic variability. This investigation shows again that we still have substantial research needs to understand the climate system”. Together with the Alfred Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research and the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum the GFZ is, therefore, organising a conference “Climate in the System Earth” scheduled for 2./3. November 2009 in Berlin.

What a novel idea….the sun has an impact on the earth’s climate???  It’s so crazy it can’t be true!

Besides, this report is easily dismissable.  The “Helmholtz Association” is probably just a creationist front group funded by Mark Sanford, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck.

Great by a guest climatologist over at Watts Up With That discussing the relationship between temperature and CO2 concentration in the atmosphere based upon some historical data obtained from ice cores.   Read the whole thing to get the nitty gritty of the science.  His conclusions are below, post

The last 5,000 years are trivial compared to the 420,000 years of the Vostok record; of even less significance are the last 1,200 years. However, climate science has put great emphasis on the features of this interval, even though they fit within the noise-envelope. The “medieval warm period” spanned 800 CE to 1,200 CE; Vostok shows it wasn’t really warm, but wasn’t really cold either. The “little ice age” followed (although average T was barely lower), and ended after the low of -1.84 °C around 1,770 CE. By the early 1800s, T was higher than it is at present, and it has fluctuated within levels typical of the last 11,000 years since then. It is remarkable that climate hysteria should be based on noise-level changes in T over the last 200 years, which is an eye-blink in the Vostok record. It seems to be the superstition of our time.

 

In summary, the Vostok record indicates that CO2 is in lagged equilibrium with T and that, for the range of T in Vostok, the dependency of CO2 on T is essentially linear. Unnaturally high CO2 for the last 5,000 years has had no apparent effect on T. This empirical evidence supports a conclusion that there cannot be any significant feedback between CO2 and T. Such feedback would cause predicted T and CO2 to show fundamental disagreement with the lag, spectrum and amplitudes evident in the Vostok record.

 

It is impossible to say how enduring the feedback fallacy will be. However, any such model proposed in the future can be regarded as qualitative if it does not specify lag, characteristic amplitude and period, and as speculative if it cannot be compared to the Vostok record. Accordingly, any such model can be ignored.

 

If we may depart for a moment from objectivity, any such model should be ignored if its proponents declare that it shows polar bears are in peril, and you can save them by painting your roof white and burning nuts and corn in your car.

Over at Anthony Watt’s excellent blog about climate and global warming – Watt’s Up With That? – we see Peter Sinclair get absolutely schooled for his dishonest and ignorant attempt to substantiate anthropogenic global warming. Who is Peter Sinclair? He’s a radical environut who puts out a (usually) weekly series of YouTube video documentaries entitled “ Climate Crock of the Week” in which he attempts to “debunk” the science that disproves global warming. Generally, while we can give Mr. Sinclair an “A” for effort, his “refutations” amount to little more than handwaving with a little ad hominem thrown in as filler. This should not surprise us, since Mr. Sinclair is not a scientist. In fact, he is an “independent film producer” whose only claim to anything even remotely resembling a relevant background in this field is that he apparently sat in on one of Al Gore’s Climate Project seminars. This didn’t stop him from trying to attack the temperature tracking station work done by Watt (an accredited meteorologist), making a thorough hash of the attempt while he was at it. Watt takes him apart,

….Sitting down Saturday night, to watch the video again, detecting through its exquisite subtleties and nuance, I couldn’t help but laugh, because once again I noticed that everything reported in it was just wrong.

In fact, it probably was the worst job of fact-finding I had ever seen, which as WUWT readers know, is a bold assessment. I’ve been involved in broadcast TV news for 25 years, and have seen some really bad work from greenhorns fresh out of reporters school. This video reminded me of those. It was as if whoever put it together had never researched it, but just strung together a bunch of graphics, video, photos, and a monotone voice-over track with ad hominems liberally sprinkled for seasoning. I figured it was probably just an overzealous college student out to save the world and this was some college project. It had that air of  radical burningman quality about it.

Curiosity piqued, I inquired into just who is this climate Solon? To my surprise, he turned out to be an “independent film producer” working out of his house in Midland, MI under the name “Greenman Studio”, one Peter Sinclair, a proud graduate of Al Gore’s Climate Camp. I still figured him to be a kid and imagined his mom was yelling down into the basement “Peter that’s too loud, turn it down!”

[snip]

….OK. But if Mr. Sinclair had contacted me (like a journalist would) before he made his video, instead of simply reading the NCDC Talking points memo (revised version seen here, PDF) he could have found out a few things, such as:

• NCDC used an old outdated version of my data set (April 2008) they found on my website and assumed it was “current”. Big mistake on their part. Big admission of not overly concerning himself with first-hand knowledge, or even substance, on his part.

• NCDC did not contact me about use of the data. The data, BTW is not yet public domain, though I plan to make it so after I’ve published my paper. So like Mr. Sinclair, technically they are also in violation of copyright. Surfacestations is a private project, I emphasize, what with the public-private concept being one of the major precipitors of the alarmosphere’s angst.

• That data NCDC found had not been quality controlled, many of the ratings changed after quality control was applied, thus changing the outcome.

• When notified of this, they did nothing to deal with the issue, such as notifying readers.

• NCDC published no methodology, data or formula used, or show work of any kind that would normally be required in a scientific paper.

• The author is missing from the document thus it was published anonymously. Apparently nobody at NCDC would put his or her name on it.

• When notified of the fact that the author’s name Thomas C. Peterson (of NCDC) was embedded in the properties of the PDF document (which happens on registration of the Adobe Acrobat program, causing insertion in all output), NCDC’s only response was to remove the author’s name from the document and place it back online. It is odd behavior for a scientist to publish work but not put your name on it.

• NCDC got the number of USHCN stations wrong in their original document document graph, citing 1228 when it is actually 1218 I notified them of this and they eventually fixed it.

• That NCDC original document did not even cite my published work,  or even use my name to credit me. I have the original which you can view here Note also the name in the document properties and the number of USHCN2 stations above the graph.

I’m regularly lambasted for publishing things here that are not “peer reviewed”. But, when NCDC does it, and does it unbelievably badly, not only is the “talking points memo” embraced by the alarmosphere as “truth” and “falsification”, but NOT ONE of those embracing it show the remotest interest in questioning why it fails to meet even the basic standards for a letter to the editor of a local newspaper.

Please read the whole thing, it’s long, but quite revealing about the standards and ethics of the environmental wacko side of the blogosphere and the outfits they rely upon to get their information – shoddy and dishonest use of data, copyright infringement, refusal to actually address pushback from the other side, the whole enchilada. What’s sad is that Peter Sinclair’s “Climate Crock” series has become something of a gold standard for the Church of Global Warming on the internet, if the number of blogs and other links to it from pro-global warming outfits is any indication. So, how seriously can we really take the pro-global warming bloggers and “journalists,” when they rely on such subpar material to support their mythology? I mean, seriously, meteorologist vs. “independent film producer.” For the logical and rational person, the choice isn’t hard.

Is it any wonder that real scientists are abandoning the AGW mythology in droves? Even though the Al Gore epic cycle makes for an entertaining story, it’s simply no substitute for reality.