Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change. Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind.

REPLY: Really??? Something is more powerful than the evil CO2??..Bu-bu-but Brett, I thought that if we pass more taxes and regulations on our breathing and breaking wind, that we can control these things???....Gee, there are actually some things more powerful than Al Gore. Go figure!

LOL!!!

This is indeed bad news for Mark, Brookline Tom and all the other AGW devotees. There seems to be a new theory everyday reguarding warming, cooling etc. I think the bottom line is: we just don't know.

Has oceanic cloud cover increased or decreased in recent decades? Sorokhtin says it should have increased, while cosmic ray supporters say that a decrease in cloud cover has led to warming.

It is very true that clouds are not well handled in global climate models. What about his comment about heat transport being more due to air currents than radiation flux? It could be. It is true that the radiation flux model is used because it is mathematically far simpler than an air current model. We may never have the computing power to model earth's real climate. I believe that accurate observations are the key to solving this great mystery of our time.

Thanks for posting this article. The earth and atmosphere is a system so large that man cannot control the condition. It is predetermined by the Divine Creator who established the system at creation.

I wish the global warming advocates would read this article.

Interesting article, thanks Brett. All of the information cited was observational, not computer generated. Dr. Sorokhtin said what I have always believed, namely, that an atmospheric trace gas like CO2 simply could not have the global temperature influence ascribed to it by those supporting the AGW theory.

What part of "solar system" don't the AGWers understand?

I note your final comment:

"let me say, there were a large number of links to this story on the web."

I have noticed that denialist sites are very quick at echoing stories they find conformable to their opinions. Just yesterday, I saw the story about a gentleman claiming to be the director of a prestigious-sounding research institute in Florida, in which the fellow asserts that his theory shows imminent global cooling. It turns out that this is either a fraud or a hoax. The fellow in question has no apparent history of scientific publications, his address appears to be a drop box, and there's no further explanation of his theories. As of Sunday morning, his press release had appeared on 95 distinct websites. I didn't check every single one of these, but the sample I did check was entirely denialist sites.

Whether intended or not, the fellow has certainly demonstrated just how gullible the denialist sites are.

As to Dr. Sorokhtin, I can only say that outliers such as he continue to provide science with a valuable service by keeping everybody honest. He would likely have accomplished more by participating in the IPCC process, but there's no harm in his doing an end run -- so long as the public understands how science really works and doesn't give Dr. Sorokhtin any more credence than he deserves -- which in this case, isn't much.

For those of you alarmists in the US and Europe who believe that the rest of the world shares your neurosis, this article might give you a hint about how wrong you are.

The attendees in Bali mainly came from three camps.

1. Guilty westerners.
2. People hoping to attain money and power.
3. People hoping to see the fall of western civilization.

I wasn't aware that EXXON supported Russian Scientists as well. Clearly, one of our resident AGWers will point out this link in short order.

South Pole in a meltdown. It has already made it up to -13F during this peak week of summer!
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/NZSP/2008/1/8/MonthlyHistory.html

If the earth's temperature warms up only another fifty or sixty degrees, Antarctica will melt down. According to the Steve Bloom/IPCC rule (5F per CO2 doubling) that will only require a 2^10 (1024X) increase in CO2 - up to about 4,000,000 ppm.

You need to be able to type Russian into a Russian search engine. :)

http://www.gao.spb.ru/russian/staff/dsp/lsp.html

GAO is actually the chief astronomical observatory, in St Petersburg, although I only ever get "server stopped responding". Pulkovsckaya appears in parentheses in its name.

The article appears to have been published in Novosti on 28th September last year. If genuine (remember that their footage of a Russian sub depositing a flag at the North Pole came mostly from "Titanic") it's odd that nobody picked up on it earlier.

It's worth noting that Gazprom's (and therefore the Kremlin's) position on warming is that it exists and is generally A Good Thing. With temperatures reaching -37�C in the pipeline town of Surgut early last month you can almost see their point....

Chris wrote: "As to Dr. Sorokhtin, I can only say that outliers such as he continue to provide science with a valuable service by keeping everybody honest. He would likely have accomplished more by participating in the IPCC process, but there's no harm in his doing an end run -- so long as the public understands how science really works and doesn't give Dr. Sorokhtin any more credence than he deserves -- which in this case, isn't much."

Chris, I wholeheartedly disagree here. Since when is the IPCC the gatekeeper of science? Your implication is that because the IPCC somehow is the official info merchant of AGW, unless he's acknowledged by the IPCC he shouldn't be acknowledged at all. That my friend, is NOT how science works. All Science needs is ONE person showing a solid, experimentally based theory that when modelled and *tested* predicts climate forwards and backwards correctly, and the AGW camp (or the non-AGW camp) is out of business. Concensus is not the arbiter of truth.

Along the line of some of your other posts-
No other scientific debates use monikers like "Denialist" to describe someone who does not ascribe to a certain scientific way of thinking. Heck, even in the Evolution "debate" the opposing camp are branded "Creationists" or some other variation of that term which describes what they think. The only place where I see something similar to the word "denialist" is in the word "heretic". Interesting, huh?

Oh, and unscientifically speaking, if you were to look into the words used to describe those that don't subscribe wholeheartedly to AGW just on this list, over the last 6 months, you'd find the word denialist showing up with increasing frequency while the word "skeptic" is falling into disuse. Also interesting considering all scientists should be skeptics....

Brett, in the full article I noticed the following passage about direct CO2 effects on weather. He seems to be proposing a whole new organizing principle for meteorology. Does it sound right (or even possible) to you? Reply: Certainly a new one to me. Is it possible, I guess perhaps, but I would have to do a lot more reading on that principle.

"Carbon dioxide has quite a different pernicious influence?not on the climate but on synoptic activity. It absorbs infrared radiation. When tropospheric air is warm enough for complete absorption, radiation energy passes into gas fluctuations. Gas expands and dissolves to send warm air up to the stratosphere, where it clashes with cold currents coming down. With no noticeable temperature changes, synoptic activity skyrockets to whip up cyclones and anticyclones. Hence we get hurricanes, storms, tornados and other natural disasters, whose intensity largely depends on carbon dioxide concentration. In this sense, reducing its concentration in the air will have a positive effect."

OTOH maybe marine geologists should be consulted about weather more often!

Some really bad news for AGW worriers. The persistent warm area in the North Atlantic is disappearing rapidly. Without warm water on either end of the Arctic, their hopes for a complete Arctic meltdown within seven years may have to go on hold.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/ani-weekly.html

I wonder if the sun has anything to do with temperature?

Aaron,

I am a global warming "advocate." I have read the article. The only thing I have to say is, time will tell.

BTW, Brett, I've noticed the cold pool over northern Canada has broken somewhat. That usually seesm to happen when there is a discharge of air into the lower latitudes, but the zonal flow has supposedly bottled al the arctic air up north, and there has been no arctic blast into southern Canada or the lower 48 lately. What gives?

If the earth's temperature warms up only another fifty or sixty degrees, Antarctica will melt down. According to the Steve Bloom/IPCC rule (5F per CO2 doubling) that will only require a 2^10 (1024X) increase in CO2 - up to about 4,000,000 ppm.

Don't feed the troll.

Isn't it ironic how our resident deniers, most of whom are paranoid right-wingers that believe government so much as lifting a finger is a form of Communism, are quick to reference a Russian scientist when he says something agreeable to their views? LOL

Our backyard weather observers aren't talking about the numerous record highs being set east of the Mississippi. It's 70 degrees here. Gonna play basketball outside this evening. Not that it proves or disproves AGW because, you know, Colorado is the center of the universe and the Sun revolves around Denver.

Hi Mark,

It is much easier to trust a Russian who has survived and escaped living under Communism, than an American who doesn't appreciate how good he has it - and is willing to throw it all away over a bunch of nonsense.

I think different scientists, let alone different organizations are going to have different results based on what they figure and study. One says we and CO2 is a reason, another says it's not because of some other mechanism. It's funny how people seem to fight over the subject when it's clearly obvious that earth does go through these cycles and yet this current phase is accentuated by human processes. Think of it because we are at our most advanced stage ever and it's obvious we are part of its problem. By saying that cutting costs hurts an economy for example is just stupid! That's what Bush said, it's sick! All the governments have a pretty good idea at how to fix the problem and yet a couple are completely ignorant and just blatantly wrong on what's going on. And no, there is no divine control on what is happening. There can't be. It's impossible. If there was don't you think all the bad and good would be as extreme as possible to make it the strongest it could be. If it was desired to end life, why wouldn't it? If it wanted to create, why not give the cure for every disease now? I doubt some Being would put all this trouble for us. Personally and you have to look at the evidence, we are a huge reason to global warming and those who ignore it, need some help. I guess we will see what happens because to some degree, everyone's wrong!

Luckily for us brilliant scientists come from everywhere regardless of political affiliation, race, gender, orientation... Listen and look at the work they produce.

cbmclean: I know you live in NC also. We just had a 17,9,1, and 10 degree reading over the 4 nights here on the west side of Asheville last week. That was the discharge of Arctic air. Give it time to reload. It can't do it overnite.

cbmclean:

You had me worried about the no cold air in Northern Canada. Just checked and Eureka is currently at -56. http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/71917.html

Looks like the coldest air in the Northern Hemisphere is currently in Siberia with several stations in the -60's. Better hope that a Cahir's Ridge doesn't develop as this would be just down right brutal cold if it did.

Mark,
If you think AGW is a religion then call those that doubt heretics. Please we are skeptics not deniers.
As for "paranoid right winged toadies of the oil cartel".....you forgot to include "gun toting, tobacco smoking, homophobes" in your mischaracterization of skeptics. I am a little disappointed in your inability to understand that liberals can also disagree with the Universal Church of AGW.

In central NY after a cold snowy cloudy icy December and early January in which we had many below zero mornings it is nearly 55F and still cloudy. The snow cover of 20+ inches is melting giving the wildlife a chance to eat what has been covered for over almost 7 weeks. The bees in my hives have taken a few cleansing flights and it is nice not to hear the furnace kick on so much.
The AGW crowd will now shout “proof of AWG” the same way the Skeptics shouted, “AGW! What a crock!” last month.
My 90 year old neighbor who thinks it is all called weather put it best when he said, “We call it a January thaw! It happens! Enjoy it as long as you can.”

isnt it ironic how similar the AGW scam is to the Bowl Championship Swindle...no matter the evidence that a playoff system will unquestionably decide who is the real national champion, is feasable and probably more economic, there are these money pilfering snake oil dudes who wont give it up and instead invent computer programs that say "trust us, we can calculate the right answer"...just like the Bowl Championship Swindle, the AGW eggheads with nothing better to do on our tax dollars, adjust their figures and reasoning with the latest upset in their theory...each has their own websites promoting their own scam and a dubiously loyal following whose sole intent is to line their own pockets with the spoils, at the expense of the many...they have even learned how to hand out their own mass hysteria trophies at the end of the game like Al Gore's "Peace of ----" prize (what a joke) and hollywood's best picture "Oscar meyer" award...its amazing the parallels and like someone pointed out a long time ago on this blog of Mr. Barnum's famous quote "there's a sucker born every minute"...have a nice day, dudes!!!

plish writes:

"Since when is the IPCC the gatekeeper of science? Your implication is that because the IPCC somehow is the official info merchant of AGW, unless he's acknowledged by the IPCC he shouldn't be acknowledged at all. That my friend, is NOT how science works. All Science needs is ONE person showing a solid, experimentally based theory that when modelled and *tested* predicts climate forwards and backwards correctly, and the AGW camp (or the non-AGW camp) is out of business. Concensus is not the arbiter of truth."

The IPCC is not the gatekeeper of science. I am not implying that Dr. Sorokhtin must be acknowledged by the IPCC. The IPCC process is a big joint effort to pool the efforts of thousands of scientists into one complete, consistent judgement of the state of the science at any given moment. As I said, Dr. Sorokhtin is welcome to walk his own path. But, had he brought his points into the IPCC process, then those points could have integrated into the bigger picture. (Although I strongly suspect that this act of integration would have left nothing of Dr. Sorokhtin's arguments intact.) Instead, he chose to walk his own path. Good for him. It's one man's path and as such is pretty inconsequential.

You're absolutely right that a single person can turn everything upside down. However, in order for that to happen, he has to be right. I am highly skeptical that Dr. Sorokhtin has accomplished so herculean a task. Why aren't you more skeptical about him?

BTW, have you read the IPCC reports?

Patrick Henry asks us "I wonder if the sun has anything to do with temperature?"

As a matter of fact, Patrick, it does. And we have already found that the sun's irradiance varies by about 0.5 W/m**2. Which amounts to less than 0.04% of its total irradiance. Which means that the variations in the sun's brightness should result in a direct temperature change of about 0.037 degrees Kelvin (using the standard blackbody model).

Now that you know, aren't you pleased to see that the sun's effect is so microscopic?

Oh, yes, and have you read the IPCC reports?

If you look carefully at the artic sea ice compared 1980 to current, it appears that the greenland ice is both thicker and greater extent now. The ice above sweden etc appears to be less. What does this say? = uneven, means that it must be localized events probably warmer saltier sea currents (ie gulf stream) melting and colder currents (canada) cooling? see link below:

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=01&fd=06&fy=1980&sm=01&sd=07&sy=2008
BTW at teh rate NH is increasing would not be surprised that NH will be above anomaly soon. ergo solar effects?