A few days ago I blogged about a letter signed by over 100 experts of various fields to the United Nations, which said that attempting to stop global warming was futile and that the IPCC process was flawed (see below). There was also another letter to the United Nations, that was signed by nearly 200 scientists which strongly urged immediate action by leading goverments to combat global warming. To be fair, I should have linked to both letters in the initial blog, which would have provided a more balanced post in which you could compare the letters. To make up for my mistake, here is a summary of what was written in that letter......

The letter starts out by addressing the 2007 IPCC report which states that we are now at least 90% certain that human activities are contributing to a warming planet and that many millions of people will be at risk from extreme events if the trend is not halted soon.

--The letter states that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by 50% below their 1990 levels by 2050.

--Greenhouse gas emissions in the long run need to be stabilized at a level well below 450 ppm.

--Global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10-15 years in order to stay below the expected 2 degrees celsius increase.

TalkClimateChange.com did a nice post a couple days ago in comparing the two letters. Here is the link.

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Here is the earlier post from Saturday which I titled "Attempting to stop Global Warming is Futile and a Mistake, says letter to the UN

Global warming is a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages and it is not possible to stop climate change. The Bali and the IPCC process is a mistake, and will ultimately be futile. These are the conclusions from an open letter to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, which was signed by more than 100 specialists from around the world with expertise ranging from climate science to economics and biology.

The letter, which was assembled by Robert M. Carter, professor at the Marime Geophysical Laboratory of James Cook University in Australia, argues against the existence of consensus and rejects claims of abnormal climate change. The letter also disputes the IPCC process and claims new research has emerged making the IPCC reports "materially oudated".

The IPCC's Summaries for Policy Makers are the most commonly read IPCC reports among politicians and non-scientists, yet, according to the letter, these summaries are prepared by a small core writing team with final drafts approved by government representatives. A great majority of IPCC contributers, reviewers and other qualified scientists are not involved in the preparation of the documents.

The letter, which was posted on the National Post from Canada, also states that the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. Also, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions.

By the way, one of the signers to this letter was Dr. Fred Singer, who is featured today in a video question and answer with our own Katie Fehlinger just below. Here is the link to all of the signatories of this open letter.

Satellite view of dust moving off the coast of western Africa

Evidence from the MODIS instrument on NASA satellites has determined that it was indeed Saharan dust that was responsible for one-third of the drop in North Atlantic sea surface between June 2005 and 2006. This drop in sea surface temperature may have contributed to the difference in hurricane activity between the two seasons. There were 15 hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin in 2005, but only 5 in 2006 as the sea surface temperatures remained relatively cool. By the way, this past season also saw less activity than what was earlier predicted.

Satellite view of Saharan Dust covering the Caribbean

According to the study by William Lau and Kyu-Myong Kim from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the dust effectively blocked sunlight from reaching the sun's surface and accounted for a 30-40% drop in temperature during the period. The actual drop in the North Atlantic was between 0.37 and 0.72 degrees F., or one-third of the total sea surface cooling of the North Atlantic.

"Previous studies have looked at how hot, dry air associated with a Saharan dust outbreak affects an individual storm, but our study is the first to focus on dust's radiative effect on sea surface temperatures, which may affect storms for the entire season. Nobody had suggested that link before," Lau says.

Scientists are also studying a possible link between the African dust and a high incidence of respiratory diseases and bronchial asthma on the island of Cuba.

This post was taken from AccuWeather.com expert senior meteorologist Joe Bastardi's column, which is available on AccuWeather.com Professional.. Joe specializes in hurricane and long-range forecasting at AccuWeather.com. I thought his post from Tuesday would be of interest to the global warming crowd. Here is the full unedited post...

Historic La Nina in the Making

The current La Nina has briefly leveled off at -1.5 is about to turn down once again. The CFS model is catching this as it can see the renewed charge of cold water in Nino 1.2 region that is coming west. This is the revenge of the Thermohaline circulation and the big implication is that it is a kick in the teeth of people pushing man-made global warming.

Why?

Because this is exactly what should be happening in the natural cycle that develops when the AMO is in its warm state. It is the reason for why we see such powerful La Ninas; they are counterweights. But this one is very important for three reasons.

1) We may see the lowest recorded three-month mean in 3.4. The lowest I can find in the three-month running mean is -2.0. The CFS is forecasting -2.5. Since farther away from 0 it gets, the tougher it is, the forecast is suspect as -2.5. If it were baseball, it's like pitching back-to-back perfect games, possible, but not likely. First of all it has to hit -2.1, which would be the lowest and a record, that is perfect game one, then to keep falling is even more miraculous. However there is reason to believe it COULD happen, as we are seeing a pick-up of the easterlies and renewed cold water is coming from the east. I did not see the report mention the extremity of the forecast by the CFS, in terms of the La Nina, you are looking at the extreme let's say that the 1993 super-storm attained, an extreme COLD event, not ever recorded before.

2) The time it is forecasted. I have not seen a La Nina or for that matter and El Nino "peak" in the three-month period centered on March. The reason is the driving mechanisms that respond to the seasons can not sustain it. So the forecast is, if you will a third perfect game in a row, if it came true, the triple whammy of strongest ever, strongest by an unheard-of amount, and occurring at a time that has never happened before. The late Norm MacDonald would look at something like this and say ... that won't happen, because he had never seen it happen before, and then it wouldn't. So why should this? Well, that leads us into the next point.

3) Suppose it gets close or breaks it be a little bit. It is still a sign that the oceanic responses to the warming cycle is working! This is what happens in nature, so it's a major thorn in the side of people blaming people. There is not rout and the fight is one to take the earth back to where it was 25-30 years ago when the talk was of ice age (and it will be again). It is simple; look at history and one can see it. But suppose it is right, or close, the implication of this COLD event cannot be underestimated as far as what it means to global temps. This has to be factored into the entire system, and the development of questionable land-based data with suspect thermometers and heat islands has been given unearned credit in the global temps. But it's interesting to note how there is not a lot of attention being given to this La Nina as far as what the LONGER TERM CLIMATIC IMPLICATIONS ARE. It simply gets blamed for everything that goes wrong with the weather, and then somehow it's caused by global warming, which it is, but not human-induced, simply part of the natural cycle.

Now why so strong? Well, the earthquake idea was laid out several months ago and is the reason why in spring, way back the hurricane conference, attendees heard my theory on a LATE STARTING LA NINA that would try to reach moderate levels at the end of the hurricane season. Let's go back and remember, all one needs to do is look at the ENSO archives, until middle and late summer, there was no forecast from the center of a La Nina, as it is now their ideas are still conservative given the audacity of the CFS. It's interesting to note that when the warm cycle of the El Nino was coming on, and we were taking apart the idea it would get that strong and in fact touting the reversal, there was talk of that becoming the strongest El Nino ever. However there is hardly a peep I can hear, though I am banging the drum, for what is looking more and more like an event that may make history.

Now one may say this is all self-serving hogwash, but I say it is part of an idea that has to do with what that earthquake may have meant. Please go back through the archives and read that if you haven't. But let's take this a step further. Suppose the idea that the earthquake in some way delayed this La Nina by helping cause the last El Nino (one has to answer the question on the rapid SOI variances that followed for a year and a half, something jarred the weather) and the result was a damming up of the La Nina so that what should have started a bit earlier and not been as strong, literally snapped back strongly the other way so we are seeing this now. What would happen in the grander, longer-term forecast that lower solar constants that are anticipated as the century matures, increased volcanic activity because the signs are there, and the Earth's natural cycle fighting back, all acted together at once. The threat is the rubberband snaps and there is rapid cooling. The fact is the warmer it gets the harder it is to get warmer, unless there is some kind of increase in the total energy available. It is the huge hole in the cheese of the global warming argument, that there is only so much water vapor that can be held before there is condensation. And the more water vapor and warming, the more it will start to snow, maybe not down to sea level in Atlantic City, but in the arctic deserts (we are seeing that now) and in higher ground. The first step of the warming in the 30s was to dry things out and warm things up so much, there were articles in Denver newspapers in the late 30s that the glaciers would be gone within 10 years! This has happened before. But there was not the amount of rumblings we are hearing from people who study the sun for its possible reduction of radiation, though slight, has a major cumulative effect on a black body such as Earth, such as the opposite in the run up over the past years has had. And the wild card of volcanic activity is also a big problem.

Scoff if you want, or close your mind to this, but these are things to think about. You see we are treading on uncharted ground now, or may be very soon, but it is a COLD EVENT in an ocean that may be the uncharted event, and such an event in the tropical Pacific takes out a major source region of heat, for the decrease of temperatures in a wet bulb area of 80 is far more important than an increase in wet bulb areas that are near and below 0! Years from now, when I have left the playing field, if I am right, then maybe you will be talking about these ideas to your children. But at the very least, what we all should do is constantly look with an open mind and try to reason out what we are seeing.

Now many of you may be wondering, what is the bottom line of the longer-term forecast given this historic (hysteric?) idea? But that is not what this post is all about and this post should have raised enough eyebrows so that at the very least, you are curious enough to examine some of these ideas, and come up with what they may mean on your own. That is what open debate in a free society is all about, and what has made us find the right answer in so many things, even we rumble, bumble and stumble our way to it.