Barrel Strength

Contemplating the 13C temperature through a rainy weekend in July, I turned to
the google entry “global cooling” and came across this National Geographic
entry of May 2009.

The article notes that solar output has declined somewhat, but then here comes
the kicker:

“But researchers are on guard against their concerns about a new cold snap being
misinterpreted.

“[Global warming] skeptics tend to leap forward,” said Mike Lockwood, a solar
terrestrial physicist at the University of Southampton in the U.K. (Get the
facts about global warming.)

“He and other researchers are therefore engaged in what they call “preemptive
denial” of a solar minimum leading to global cooling.

“Even if the current solar lull is the beginning of a prolonged quiet, the
scientists say, the star’s effects on climate will pale in contrast with the
influence of human-made greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2).

“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher
than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one
percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”

“Even so, Lockwood added, small variations in the sun’s brightness are more
powerful than changes in greenhouse gas contributions. For example, a 50
percent variation in solar brightness would mean the end of life on Earth.
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end of quote from National Geographic

Note, (Dark Lord scrape your brain off the ceiling) that the levels of CO2 and
solar irradiance are absolutely incommensurate things. The earth can and has
happily survived CO2 levels thrice, quadruple what they are now. But the
slightest variation in solar output has cosmic consequences for life on earth.

Besides which, what the “normal” level is of CO2 in earth’s atmosphere varies
over the millennia. CO2 is quite low now, and we are in an ice age.
Coincidence? I think not.

So what sort of game are these scientists playing? Are they issuing their
preemptive denials of global cooling and maintaining the AGW orthodoxy to
protect their asses or do they really believe this nonsense? Is it
doublethink?

Or is it a clever way to get out the major facts with a cover story so
ridiculous that people like us can see through the pro-AGW explanation? The
statement likening CO2 percentages to solar percentages is so transparently
false that it raises the possibility that these people are just saying the
equivalent of: Jesus Christ is part of a triune Deity but his mother Mary was
not a virgin.

Even the National Geographic writer had to cover up the explanation by noting
that variation in solar output was vastly more important than CO2 variation.

It is fascinating to see the contortions scientists are going through to put
facts on the table.

A factual discussion of recent global cooling is found at http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/scarewatch/really_cooling.pdf

I noticed somewhere on the blogosphere the other day someone commenting that all his liberal friends had stopped talking about global warming. I wonder why. The time of reckoning for Al Gore cannot be long off.
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The same entry “global cooling” provided the blog entry of Richard Littlemore, a flack for the Suzuki Foundation, who denies everything at his blog entry, and is taken on by some scientists for his arrogance.