Interesting comment about last week's eclipse. Possibly explains the worldwide cooling of the 1960s as due to volcanic activity.

"This eclipse was so bright because the stratosphere is exceptionally clear," explains Keen. Volcanoes can clog the stratosphere with ash and other aerosols, making lunar eclipses dark, but it has been a while since a major eruption. "The stratosphere has been clear since about 1995 after aerosols from Pinatubo's 1991 eruption settled out, and it appears to be getting more clear with each eclipse."

Keen tracks the brightness of lunar eclipses because they reveal the opacity of Earth's upper atmosphere. "A clear stratosphere means plenty of undiminished sunlight heating Earth"--something climate change models must take into account. "Lunar eclipses are not only beautiful," he says, "they can teach you a lot."

Shadows are supposed to be dark, but when Earth's shadow fell across the Moon last week the result was "rather bright," says atmospheric scientist Dr. Richard Keen of the University of Colorado. On the scale of astronomical magnitudes, "the eclipsed Moon of Feb. 20, 2008, registered -3, almost a thousand times brighter than the classic dark eclipse of Dec. 30, 1963, which followed the eruption of the Agung volcano in Indonesia."

http://www.spaceweather.com/

Great article. Finally some scientists with a brain and a soul. http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289

Snowpack at a 40 year high, ice at the north pole showing no signs of last years melt (article reiterates that wind patterns had everything to do with that) and it has been a brutal winter in china. Now maybe the koolaid drinkers can go find a commune somewhere and leave society alone.

Oh the humanity!!!

I love it, scientists with apparently nothing better to do decide the Earth will become untenable for Humanity in a mere BILLION years. So, obviously the next question is WHAT CAN BE DONE? LOL

The obvious answer is to blame Bush and anyone who is denier, raise taxes, and use those little CFL bulbs.

OOP wait, hold the presses, according to the Goreacle we will all be flooded in 20 years or so, so it won't matter.

Carry on

Seriously, did they really put out a press release for this?

Do we need to start planning for this now? Sure, we don't want to wait 7.6 billion years, but I think we have some time. Or does the precautionary principle require us to act now?

Can we please stop this nonsense, read this article:

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.

But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.

And it's not just anecdotal evidence that is piling up against the climate-change dogma.

According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona -- two prominent climate modellers -- the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong.

"We missed what was right in front of our eyes," says Prof. Russell. It's not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind's effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt.

But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the current Arctic warming.

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.

It's way too early to claim the same is about to happen again, but then it's way too early for the hysteria of the global warmers, too.

lgunter@shaw.ca

Close

Do we need to start planning for this now? Sure, we don't want to wait 7.6 billion years, but I think we have some time. Or does the precautionary principle require us to act now?

NOAA shows NH ice still increasing
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/SNOW/DATA/nhem-1mo-loop.html
but...
cryosphere today shows still decreasing
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
Which is correct?

The headline of the press release screams, "The Sun will vaporise the Earth unless we can change our orbit." When I see things like this from supposedly educated people I begin to wonder if the real problem isn't simply a truly dysfunctional educational system. Even non-scientists can discern that in order for this to actually occur, everything else has to remain constant which, of course, it won't. The same thing holds true for AGW. The models prediciting it have presumed certain constants which are not correct. World Climate Report has an interesting article on this here:

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/21/global-warming-not-so-fast/

But, alas, there is some glimmer of hope that the AGW-controlled press is starting to lose its grip; a couple of very cold winters will do that, you know. From our friends up north comes a report that is not in keeping with the party line on AGW. And since Canadians are not known for political conservatism, it came as quite a surprise. Here is the link:
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289

While interesting, there is so much going on in the world now, this year, in the 10 years, and by the end of the century, that I wonder how 7.6 billion years can be anything but a fascinating side trip. It doesn't appear to me to have anything to do with global warming/climate change as the scientific community understands it. There is plenty of information about weather-related extremes and trends in the present.

Perhaps it is useful to lower the temperature of discussion by discussing something that will not affect us and our descendants by any possible stretch of the imagination! But I cannot help feeling this parallel trivializes the dangers we all face.

Better call Al Gore and pass some mandates that will prevent el Sol from swallowing up the earth. Better do it now before it's too late! Better alter your lifestyle and your driving habits and what you eat, and how many kids you have before it's all over! Better raise taxes and increase the size of the government, because they are the ones who will know how to handle the situation! Oh the humanity!!!!....

The a forth snow storm in the last two weeks is on the way. Oh, yeah, we need to do something about Glo-BULL Warming!!!! Right!!! Sure!!!!

I just spent a couple of hours in the lobby at the dentist's office reading.

First story was from the local paper about the massive snow pack and likely flooding on the Colorado River this spring. Next story was from the March, 2008 Sunset Magazine about how the Colorado River is drying up "due to global warming."

Next I read the February, 2008 Popular Science magazine, in which nearly every article was devoted to global warming. The cover story was about a "carbon free" hydrogen jet which would "eliminate the guilt of travelers." Never mind that the hydrogen was probably inefficiently generated using electricity from a coal fired power station. Another story talked about using "environmentally friendly biofuels" to power jets. Never mind that biofuels are possibly the most environmentally damaging form of fuel.

The disconnect from reality in the global warming community is a great as the Catholic Church suffered during the days of Galileo and Copernicus.

AND IF WE ACT RIGHT NOW!

we know just enough to be dangerous to ourselves

Hopefully, I say hopefully facetiously, that the loss of solar mass will delay this inevitable earth warming. In the meantime, it's time to reduce co2 to avoid a possibly disatrous albedo warming! On another note, I did view the recent lunar eclipse and was disappointed that it was not darker. So it seems the atmosphere is clearer and the sun's greater warmth to my epidermis has been noticed many years now. I look forward to a cooler sun. I have enough maculae as it is.

Ocean temperatures continue their long-term decline.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/sst/ani-weekly/5.gif

I say we start working on this now. What we do is move all politicians, used car salespeople and anyone with any kind of strong opinion to the peaks of Ecuador and Borneo. Then, every day, between 11am and 1pm local time, have them all talk continuously directly at the sun as loudly as they can. Doesn't matter what they say, just their usual BS. The cumulative force of all that hot air being expelled in the direction of the sun should very gradually push Earth's orbit further out so that, a billion years from now, we'll be all set.

Oh, BTW. Most commenters on this blog (on either side) will surely be drafted into this effort.

Heh.

Old joke:

University of Sussex (UK) astronomers now predict that the earth will be swallowed up by the sun in about 7.6 billion years.

--What!?!

I said, astronomers predict the earth will be swallowed up by the sun in about 7.6 billion years.

--Thank God! I thought you said 7.6 million years!

retain this page for posterity
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
(I have) unless its changed quickly.

Calm down!!!Calm down!!! Oiznop is right, Al Gore can handle this, he is a very well educated trained NASA scien.....wait he's an idiot, how would he know anything. Thats right he pretends he does and his uneducated followers, follow. Anyhow if I come back from the dead, it sure would suck for it to be in 7.6 billion years. Then I'll start yelling Global Warming.

I always wonder when I read the many contradictions to Al Gore's tale of woe, does he ever wonder if he just might be wrong? I mean if the tide turns against him as his predictions fail to come true, will he re-treat with his Nobel prize or keeping fighting the good fight. How about all the elected officials that felt pressured to take a "green" position even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary that man, the arrogant bunch we are, simply doesn't have a clue which end is up. At this point, all theories are just speculations with little hard evidence. I am still waiting for an accurate weekly forecast with no changes. A few days ago we were suppose to get another big snowfall. Instead it went south. I believe Madison, WI is getting hammered once again. They have broken the record for the most snow ever in one year.

Weather Watcher:
Please excuse my eruptive reaction to people like PH. I think that right wing and left wing idea logs do not solve the problems the world faces today. People are so worried about caps on co2 and emissions that they become stagnant and don't want to take modest actions. When AGW is proved, or hopefully disproved, we still have a pollution problem, land abuse, genocide, and in America a new lower class. Below what is now considered to be poor. As a modern poet said it: real tears ,are the rivers that flow,beneath the city streets.
Even if global warming is not effecting us now, what about making money for the sake of each shareholder. Why can't Americans ,conserve, protect their own environment, and waste less energy. Why can't we grow up and stop following the Idealogs who aspire to their greatest good,materialism. What about the human race, with less emphasis on my race, my kind, and what can I buy next. For myself. What maddens me is this callous and old fashioned idea of freedom. Real freedom when you read the federalist papers refers to all of the people. And I don't respect the dirty tricks ,lies and references to this or that group to sound Macho. The machismo complex is not a behavior. It is a Psychological disorder. Slander is also not a good quality. I am sorry that I let my anger get ahead of my intention.
Regards,Kipp

"The disconnect from reality in the global warming community is a great as the Catholic Church suffered during the days of Galileo and Copernicus." - Patrick Henry

Really do yourself a favor and read up on this Galileo thing. The popular view put forth by so many bigots who hate the catholic church is the church is anti-science. That is just plain wrong.

Please go read, your lack of intelligence is appalling.

Mark,

A very important part of that quote is, "during the days of Galileo."

Go read your history book, and you will see that the Catholic Church WAS out of touch with reality.

After this winter, that actually looks refreshing.LOL

Mark,

I think it's pretty fair to characterize the Catholic Church of the middle ages/early Renaissance as anti-science. There's no shame in that, just about every religious heirarchyhas been anti-science at one time or another, because science has, at one time or another, put forth opinions that contradict some piece of that religion's orthodoxy. I am a Protestant, and I freely admit that broad swaths of my co-Protestants are at least, as Orwell would say "objectively" anti-science.

more NH ice data this time reliable
http://www.socc.ca/seaice/seaice_current_e.cfm again goes against current cryosphere today trend especialy latest 22th feb onwards.
BTW Kipp: I think most would agree with your second statement re world overpopulation, pollution, thats not the issue in this meteorological site. I think the main argument the skeptics/critics are having here is the fact that human produced CO2 has not been shown to increase global temps (ever in data records), thats the main argument and most meteorologist seem to agree. Most would agree with your second statement (I do). PH seems to be concerned mainly with the science data like me lol