Wow,why didn't we think of this sooner. probably because we have no clue if it will work and it's a quick fix?

Besides the author's inability to distinguish between CO2 and "global warming," this seems like an interesting idea. How do you dispose of the seaweed?

But how can Katie interview Dr. Hansen? I though he has been gagged, silenced and repressed by George W. Bush. He must have somehow snuck away from the federal agents who constantly monitor and control his activities. I wonder if he also has regular meetings with John Nash?

It just keeps getting worse for the AGW religion...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316566,00.html

Interesting article about "climate" and models

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071211101623.htm

"The usual discussion is whether the climate model forecasts of Earth's climate 100 years or so into the future are realistic," said the lead author, Dr. David H. Douglass from the University of Rochester. "Here we have something more fundamental: Can the models accurately explain the climate from the recent past? "It seems that the answer is no."

Another hit to AGW believers....
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3982079

""Anyway, speaking of seaweed, a group of scientists at the Climate Conference in Bali believe that seaweed could be a potent weapon against global warming""

another perfect example of "scientists" that do not have a clue.

Anyone that wants to really learn, you're looking for "algae scrubbers". They will not work for this.
Addy tried to kill everyone in BioSphere with algae scrubbers.

Fred: Climate change skeptics (even designated as skeptics by Fox News! Hardly an unbiased source!) put out a report saying that they are skepitical about Climate Change and that factoid is supposed to change my world!? And then it turns out to be a discrepency over a point that was already the source of another discrepancy that was cleared up, i.e. night and day measurements. Another big deal that turns out to be nit picking. I think I'll go down to the beach, collect some sea weed and use it for mulching my garden. The Irish have been doing for generations.

The subject of Fred's and PaulB's posts is something which has been said at different times in different ways. And now we have an even more compelling peer reviewed scientific statement by Douglass, Singer and Christy of a most relevant subject: one of the major criteria for AGW is not there -- namely, that tropical tropospheric heating rates should significantly outstrip surface heating rates (2-3X). The authors' tactic of seeing what the models said about the troposphere AFTER getting them to mimic surface temperature trends is, as the English would say, simply splendid. Nothing like operating within the real world to get a real world answer.

This absence of an AGW signal in the tropical troposphere makes as strong and significant a statement about the absence of AGW as the lack of significant Antarctic warming.

The line I liked best in Paul's post concerned another study that came to a different conclusion by bypassing reality altogether (they didn't try to match surface temps). And I quote The findings of this study contrast strongly with those of a recent study that used 19 of the same climate models and similar climate datasets. That study concluded that any difference between model forecasts and atmospheric climate data is probably due to errors in the data.

FLASH: models more reliable than reality. Well, we suspected as much, and now we're sure of it.

Brett: I have been enjoying your blog for the last six months and find yolur comments and member's comments very informative and interesting. Until reading this article today, "The Seaweed Weapon", I have not had the desire to leave my own comment. All of a sudden after reading this I feel compelled to mention a few things. First of all I am a retired airline pilot (out of the old, old, old, school) with a major in Agronomy, minor in Aviation Education, and a minor in Meteorology. After my nearly 45,000.00 hours of flying in my aviation career, reading this article made me realize what I could really be when I grow up. Yes,you guessed it; I can be a "Seaweed Scientist". I have thousands of hours flying over the Sargasso Sea and I fully understand the history and genetics of the seaweed "sargassum", My Agronomy major qualifies me for the cultivation and management of a sargassum crop. All I have to do is trade a tractor for a boat. I would not have to use my meteorology experience because sargassum is hydroponically grown foregoing any rain or irrigation concerns. I would also have to acquire land to build a processing plant in North or South Carolina to process harvested sargassum into "kitty litter" thereby sequestering the CO2 forever. Marketing the kitty litter will be the easiest part of the whole project.

The only down side to this is that it will disrupt the life cycle of the little Loggerhead Sea Turtles. To refresh your memory, the little turtles, after hatching, jump into the Gulf Stream and ride to the Sargasso Sea to use the sargassum seaweed as cover for predation until they mature. This will give Al Gore an excuse to make another scare movie for little kids. He will say the dirty old carbon users are destroying the little turles. We won't need to worry about that for long however, because the anointed one himself said that the Gulf Stream is going to quit running. I wonder if he knows if the Earth is going to come to a screeching hault or it it will stop turning slowly. I would like to know this so I will know where to go stand and watch in case there is a big slosh of the gulf over Florida.

thanks: JLeon

Hey kevinag, no comment about the bogus story from yesterday.......
White House Manipulated Climate Change Science, says Report

I suppose the liberal/democrat/socialist/communist fools that follow junk political science still think we humans are causing the global warming. So, we need Al Gore and his criminal types to screw us with a carbon tax. Obviously the political science fools have no clue and certainly will not be told by their criminal politicians that all of the planets are heating up somewhat. Maybe we need to impose a carbon tax an all those pesky Plutonians and Martians that drive SUVs and use pop-up toasters. Lets see how many of you fools will look at pieces of real science by real scientists?. You may learn about sun, solar, and galactic cycles. Notice below are a few web sites where you can learn from real scientist. Not Al Gores political scientists. Hey? Isnt Al the same liar who said he invented or created the internet? So, the ice is melting. And a carbon tax for you lib suckers will make it grow back? LOL LOL LOL.

We often speak of the Hubble Space Telescope as a unique window on the most distant and ancient galaxies. But the HST can also tell us things we never knew about our most intimate interstellar surroundings. The 10 January Astrophysical Journal brings us the first of two articles,1 by Jeffrey Linsky, Seth Redfield, and colleagues at the University of Colorado, that offer a three-dimensional map of the ?local interstellar cloud,? derived mostly from ultraviolet absorption spectra recorded by instruments aboard the HST. The LIC, they report, is a rather uniform, egg-shaped cloud of warm atomic hydrogen, only 20 light-years long, in which the Solar System and its surrounding heliosphere of solar wind and magnetic field sit like a tiny, off-center yolk.
http://www.aip.org/pt/jan00/cloud.htm

Observational arguments in favor of such a cloud are presented, and implications of the presence of a nearby cloud are discussed, including possible changes in terrestrial climate.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1978ApJ...223..589V

The sun's path is inclined about 25 degrees to the plane of the galaxy and is headed toward a region in the constellation of Hercules near its border with Lyra. The sun oscillates through the plane of the galaxy with an amplitude of about 230 light-years, crossing the plane every 33 million years?..since the whole solar neighborhood (including the sun) orbits the galactic center once every 250 million years?.. astronomers do not include the sun's galactic orbital velocity when describing its local motion. The interstellar cloud currently surrounding the solar sytem.
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/21173/page/2
Running through interstellar clouds cause a certain amount of friction and produce heat. Now, how about you libs getting togerther and demanding a tax on collisions with comets?

More amazing UHI data-

Downtown Denver is currently above 32F, but the outlying areas (at the same elevation) are 15-20 degrees colder, as of 5:30 PM. It is bitter cold where I live.

http://www.wunderground.com/stationmaps/gmap.asp?zip=80002&magic=3&wmo=99999

So why is it that the keepers of the temperature records (Hansen, etc.) consider UHI to be nearly irrelevant? Do they not have access to the Internet?

There seems to be a pretty extraordinary increase in ice extent in the SH at the moment
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
There also appears to be a slowing down of the increase in arctic ice area
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
However I think both AGW and skeptics are living in lala land if they think any of this is abnormal and try to use these visuals for pro or anti proof. The reason being that it is the first time in history that we are recording visuals of these effects. They have been occurring for millenia without been seen. As they say...., ignorance is bliss.

OK.... I never saw this one coming!!!

The Pope condemns the climate change prophets of doom

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=501316&in_page_id=1811&ito=1490

Whether or not faster growing seaweed makes a difference to the world's carbon budget depends on whether it sinks and is stored or rots and is released.

Recent work on iron fertilization of oceans suggests that tactic has big problems. Similar factors would control the effect (or lack) of seaweed.

'Fix' For Global Warming Discredited By New Research
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071129132753.htm

Do we really have to inject the Pope into this? Aren't our battles already acerbic enough, without getting into the whole religion thing? Please don't force me to start publishing the incredibly long list of stupid things Ratzinger has written.

With all due respect for Ratzinger (and not much is due, in my opinion), surely the Catholic Church is the last source we should seek guidance from on any matter of science.

That is, unless we approve of the treatment of "heretics" like Bruno, Copernicus, and Galileo.

BT -

The problem with Galileo was that his theory - which we know ultimately proved to be correct - was unproven, yet he promoted it as proven. In other words, he went beyond the known science, and was held accountable. He was asked to promote it for what it was at that time, an unproven theory. Only when he refused was he held accountable for going beyond the known science, and only because he caused quite a stir. The proper perspective can only be arrived at by looking at the matter through the lens of the society of that time.

There is not a single balanced comment in the several that you make. Yes, religion has done many things wrong throughout history, and the Catholic Church may be at the head of that list (see Y2000 public apologies). But a balanced view would recognize its contributions, too (as well as the many, many contributions of other religions).

The university system.

The charitable hospital system. More than half of the AIDS care in the US comes through the Catholic Church. Merie Olde England was merry because the Catholic Church actively worked to reduce poverty. Poor people could rent land from the Catholic Church for a pittance, sufficient to feed themselves and make a modest profit. But no one has a monopoly on charity. Seventh Day Adventists run some of the most empathetic efficient elderly homes that I have ever seen.

At one time there were so many world-class Jesuit seismologists that it was known as the Jesuit science. During the earlier years of astronomy the Catholic Church had many of the best observatories, and a number of craters on the moon are named after priest-scientists. Mathematics was another area of excellence.

Go ahead and publish your Ratzinger list. This man courageously provoked Islamic scholars to what is becoming an historic and fruitful dialogue about violent zealotry (something the Catholic Church has done in its history, and has apologized for). It is a dialogue that is essential to peace in our world because Islam will only moderate its violent actions from within. And there are many peace-loving Moslems who fervently want this, but are afraid. Ratz has given them a voice and a way.

The Mail has a long habit of ignoring the threat of global warming.

Their headline is incompatible with Benedict's words, as is easily shown -

"Humanity today is rightly concerned about the ecological balance of tomorrow," he said in the message entitled "The Human Family, A Community of Peace".

The Pontiff establishes there are good reasons for concern about global warming.

"It is important for assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances.

We should not hide from the message of scientific experts of the IPCC, of NASA and the UN. The Pontiff sees the wisdom in the US House of Representative proposal for a 15% Renewable Energy Portfolio from utilities by 2020, (which Bush promises to veto). The Holy Father doesn't want the poor to be crippled by either disasters or high energy bills.

"If the protection of the environment involves costs, they should be justly distributed, taking due account of the different levels of development of various countries and the need for solidarity with future generations.

The Pope supports the Kyoto Protocol philosophy of 'common aims but differentiated responsibilities.' The corporate horizon of next quarter's profit must be expanded to include our responsibilities to the next generation.

"Prudence does not mean failing to accept responsibilities and postponing decisions; it means being committed to making joint decisions after pondering responsibly the road to be taken."

America's do-nothing president and Congress should act.

Efforts to protect the environment should seek "agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances", the Pope said.

The next climate agreement must be a world-wide and not Bush's club of the 17 worst polluters. Even as the world meets in Bali, Bush issued a call for a conference of those countries in Hawaii next month, to attempt to head-off the UN process.

He [Benedict] added that to further the cause of world peace it was sensible for nations to "choose the path of dialogue rather than the path of unilateral decisions" in how to cooperate responsibly on conserving the planet.

The Pontiff supports the UN process involving all nations, not those who suggest that nations should pick and choose which half-measures they like best. The Pope links global warming to world peace, as the Nobel Prize committee did in choosing this year's recipients.

Jay - Your analysis would be spot on for a pope who doesn't have even a simple understanding of the science, but decides anyway that something needs to be done about the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

But such is not the case.

A man of his intellect would understand that AGW would warm Antarctica substantially, and that tropospheric warming would outstrip and drive surface warming. Seeing that neither is happening, he has come to the correct conclusion that AGW is a theory that doesn't even meet all of its key criteria.