Tuesday August 26, 2008, 10:23 pm
To bad we don’t have any records of what the sea ice level was when the Vikings discovered GREENLAND.

Tuesday August 26, 2008, 10:33 pm
Well, we do have 8 independent studies showing that the current tempratures are well above those going back to at least 1,000 years. Here is a graph summarising those eight peer-reviewed studies - the "current" temprature (the dotted red line) in this case only goes to 2004 (temp has increased since then)...

Tuesday August 26, 2008, 10:35 pm
sorry, here is the link:

http://environment.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/mg18925431.400/mg18925431.400-2_752.jpg

Wednesday August 27, 2008, 10:52 am
No, actually temps have decreased since 2002 AND the 1920-1940 period was warmer.

Global Cooling: Global Warming has Ended – Many Scientists Say -

August 21, 2008
Scientists and peer reviewed studies show growing concern for cooling
Marc Morano's Round-Up
2008 So Far Coolest For at Least 5 Years Says World Meteorological Organization – 'First half of 2008 the coolest since 2000'
Scientists and peer reviewed studies agree.
Excerpt: - The first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday. The whole year will almost certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average. […]
The global mean temperature to end-July was 0.28 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, the UK-based MetOffice Hadley Centre for climate change research said on Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008 the coolest since 2000. […] Chillier weather this year is partly because of a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El Nino. "We can expect with high probability this year will be cooler than the previous five years," said Omar Baddour, responsible for climate data and monitoring at the WMO. "Definitely the La Nina should have had an effect, how much we cannot say." "Up to July 2008, this year has been cooler than the previous five years at least. It still looks like it's warmer than average," added Baddour. (LINK)
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49875/story.htm

'This is going to be catastrophic' - Brrr! Farmers' Almanac says cold winter ahead – Associated Press – August 20, 2008
Excerpt: Households worried about the high cost of keeping warm this winter will draw little comfort from the Farmers' Almanac, which predicts below-average temperatures for most of the U.S. "Numb's the word," says the 192-year-old publication, which claims an accuracy rate of 80 to 85 percent for its forecasts that are prepared two years in advance. The almanac's 2009 edition, which goes on sale Tuesday, says at least two-thirds of the country can expect colder than average temperatures, with only the Far West and Southeast in line for near-normal readings.

"This is going to be catastrophic for millions of people," said almanac editor Peter Geiger, noting that the frigid forecast combined with high prices for heating fuel is sure to compound problems households will face in keeping warm. The almanac predicts above-normal snowfall for the Great Lakes and Midwest, especially during January and February, and above-normal precipitation for the Southwest in December and for the Southeast in January and February. The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions should be getting an unusually wet or snowy February, the almanac said. The forecasts, which are spelled out in three- and four-day periods for each region, are prepared by the almanac's reclusive prognosticator Caleb Weatherbee, who uses a secret formula based on sunspots, the position of the planets and the tidal action of the moon.
http://news.mainetoday.com/updates/031815.html

Low Sun Spots ‘associated with bitter winters known as the little ice age’ - Scientists disagree over lack of sunspots - Wednesday, 20 August 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | By Mark Lawson
Excerpt: The next cycle is taking a long time to start, and this lack of activity has prompted observers to invoke the possibility of another Maunder Minimum - a period from 1645 to 1715 with very few sunspots, which is associated with a sequence of bitter winters known as the little ice age. […] Willie Soon, a researcher at the Harvard Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says he has identified a clear link between the sun's activity - as indicated by its magnetic activity - and temperature variations in the Arctic and Greenland over 130 years.

Soon tells The Australian Financial Review he chose this area for study as it has good temperature records and is an area sensitive to climate change, so that the signal from any one climatic influence should be easier to spot. He also says he can point to a physical mechanism in the circulation of the ocean linking the sun's influence on temperature in the region. Soon was due to present his results at the 33rd International Geological Conference in Oslo this week. He was co-chairing a sun-climate connection session with Bob Carter, a professor at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University and a noted Australian climate sceptic.

Another scientist who says he has identified a link between the sun's activity and climate - in particular between rainfall in Australia and sunspots - is Robert Baker, an associate professor at the University of New England's School of Human and Environmental Studies. Baker tells the AFR he has identified a strong correlation between sunspots, the sun's magnetic activity and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). He says variations in the earth's magnetic field account for about half of the variation in the SOI, and that changes in sunspot activity as an indicator of magnetic activity can be correlated with rainfall patterns in south-east Australia.

The Bureau of Meteorology has rejected Baker's reasoning and a paper by him was not accepted by the Australian Meteorological Magazine. But Baker says his analysis has been accepted by the peer-reviewed journal Solar Terrestrial Physics for publication in December.
CO2Skeptic LINK & AFR LINK

‘Global warming of the past 30 years is over’ – July 20, 2008 - By Geologist Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University, who has authored eight books and 150 journal publications.
Excerpt: Addressing the Washington Policymakers in Seattle, WA, Dr. Don Easterbrook said that shifting of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) from its warm mode to its cool mode virtually assures global cooling for the next 25-30 years and means that the global warming of the past 30 years is over.

The announcement by NASA that the (PDO) had shifted from its warm mode to its cool mode (Fig. 1) is right on schedule as predicted by past climate and PDO changes (Easterbrook, 2001, 2006, 2007) and is not an oddity superimposed upon and masking the predicted severe warming by the IPCC. This has significant implications for the future and indicates that the IPCC climate models were wrong in their prediction of global temperatures soaring 1°F per decade for the rest of the century.
Whats Up With That LINK

ALERT: Mexican scientist warn Earth will enter 'Little Ice Age' for up to 80 Years Due to decrease in solar activity! – August 16, 2008
Excerpt: An expert from the National Autonomous University of Mexico predicted that in about ten years the Earth will enter a "little ice age" which will last from 60 to 80 years and may be caused by the decrease in solar activity. Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the UNAM, as argued earlier during a conference that teaches at the Centre for Applied Sciences and Technological Development. […]

Velasco Herrera described as erroneous predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), pursuant to which the planet is experiencing a gradual increase in temperature, the so-called global warming. The models and forecasts of the IPCC "is incorrect because only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity," said the specialist also in image processing and signs and prevention of natural disasters.

The phenomenon of climate change, he added, should include other kinds of factors, both internal, such as volcanoes and the very human activity, and external, such as solar activity. […] "In this century glaciers are growing", as seen in the Andes, Perito Moreno, Logan, the highest mountain in Canada, and with Franz-Josef Glacier, New Zealand, said Velasco Herrera. […] The prognosis on the emergence of a new Ice Age has little uncertainty as to their dates. The latest, according to Victor Manuel Velasco, could arrive in approximately two years. In another lecture he gave at the beginning of last December, the same expert had said that the cooling would arrive within 30 or 40 years. And in early July, Velasco Herrera said that satellite data indicate that this period of global cooling could even have already begun, since 2005.
Original Spanish language website:
Google Translated link from Spanish:

# #

Sampling of scientists and scientific studies predicting global COOLING – Updated August 21, 2008 – (Text below or word document attached)

[Note: Many of the scientists and studies cited below first appeared in the December 2007 U.S. Senate Report of over 400 (now 500 dissenting scientists and growing) (For Full Senate Report see: ) See also U.S. Senate Report released in July 2008: ‘Consensus’ On Man-Made Global Warming Collapses in 2008]

Sampling of scientists and scientific studies predicting global COOLING:

Australian astronomical Society warns of global COOLING as Sun's activity 'significantly diminishes' – June 29, 2008 – (LINK ) Excerpt: A new paper published by the Astronomical Society of Australia has a warning to global warming believers not immediately obvious from the summary:

Based on our claim that changes in the Sun’s equatorial rotation rate are synchronized with changes in the Sun’s orbital motion about the barycentre, we propose that the mean period for the Sun’s meridional flow is set by a Synodic resonance between the flow period (~22.3 yr), the overall 178.7-yr repetition period for the solar orbital motion, and the 19.86-yr synodic period of Jupiter and Saturn. Or as one of the authors, Ian Wilson, kindly explained to me: It supports the contention that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 - 30 years. On each occasion that the Sun has done this in the past the World’s mean temperature has dropped by ~ 1 - 2 C.
LINK
& (LINK )

NEW JASON SATELLITE INDICATES 23-YEAR GLOBAL COOLING - Canada Free Press, 1 May 2008 – By Dennis Avery, Environmental Economist and Global Warming Co-author
Excerpt: Now it's not just the sunspots that predict a 23-year global cooling. The new Jason oceanographic satellite shows that 2007 was a "cool" La Nina year-but Jason also says something more important is at work: The much larger and more persistent Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has turned into its cool phase, telling us to expect moderately lower global temperatures until 2030 or so. […]All of this defies the "consensus" that human-emitted carbon dioxide has been responsible for our global warming. But the evidence for man-made warming has never been as strong as its Green advocates maintained. The earth's warming from 1915 to 1940 was just about as strong as the "scary" 1975 to 1998 warming in both scope and duration-and occurred too early to be blamed on human-emitted CO2. The cooling from 1940 to 1975 defied the Greenhouse Theory, occurring during the first big surge of man-made greenhouse emissions. Most recently, the climate has stubbornly refused to warm since 1998, even though human CO2 emissions have continued to rise strongly. […] How many years of declining world temperature would it take now – in the wake of the ten-year nonwarming since 1998 - to break up Al Gore's "climate change consensus"?
Canada Free Press LINK

http://www.rightsidenews.com/200808211777/energy-and-environment/global-cooling-global-warming-has-ended-scientists-agree.html

Wednesday August 27, 2008, 2:16 pm
2008 was a cool YEAR - one year does not make a trend (its called weather, not climate)- even with the "cool" 2008 the trend is UP since 1900...

Climate Skeptics Undoly Seize on Cold Spell

According to a host of climate experts, including some who question the extent and risks of global warming, it is mostly good old-fashioned weather, along with a cold kick from the tropical Pacific Ocean, which is in its La Niña phase...

http://www.care2.com/news/member/537645068/656962

Wednesday August 27, 2008, 2:24 pm
and as per your "article" above:

"The whole year will almost certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average. […]
The global mean temperature to end-July was 0.28 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, the UK-based MetOffice Hadley Centre for climate change research said on Wednesday."

There is NO DOWNWARD trend - the trend is UPWARD...

Wednesday August 27, 2008, 5:00 pm
Simply repeating the same long post is harrassment - nothing more - sowes desperation on your part...

Wednesday August 27, 2008, 7:31 pm
That was a mistake. I'm sorry, but you should try reading the information.

Yes, the general trend is up, but over a period starting in 1854. Within that long term trend was the warming of 1980-1998 the peak year. Since that time the lesser trend is down. It started going down from the peak in 2002.

With the lack of sunspots now, we may be headed into a longer period of cooling. If we are lucky, it will be short. Many experts are expecting a long cooling period though which means less food produced and more heating fuel consumed. I prefer it warm.

Wednesday August 27, 2008, 7:48 pm
You cherry pick 1998 as the high (unusually warm due to El Ninio events) and 2008 as your low (unusually cold due to La Ninia events) to "force" a cooling trend. You are simply manipulating the information to fit your view. Long-term trends are up:

Climate of 2007
Annual Report

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/ann/global.html#trends

Wednesday August 27, 2008, 8:10 pm
Judy,
You can post long stories all you please, but as a person living in the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska the climate has changed in such drastic measures that it doesn't take a scientist to comprehend that what the human species has done to the planet is coming right back at us.
And contuning to ignore it, deny it and just continuing to just damaging it more isn't going to make it go away.
Do you think the pollutants that have been dumped in every water source on the planet just disappear and there are no end results?
Well you just keep the denial going dear, cause its atitudes that exist in denial who are the very ones doing the damage.
You say your against corporate run governments, but you who do you think are the biggest polluters? You can't support one without supporting the other.

Wednesday August 27, 2008, 8:22 pm
Oh and Judy...how surprising it is that Canada has one of the biggest coal mines in the world? The coal company that doesn't give a damn aboutall the pollutants it is pumping into the environment? It is bad enough that Alaska is selling out to mining...damage to water and fishing forever, but Canada is just as gulity in being a large part of the problem of global warming....you reap what you sow...and its all comng home to roost one day...even to your own front door...and no amount of denial will ever erase it from the books........and you have the adacity to say that global warming does not exist? It's time to wake and smell the coal, oil and damage done by ALL.


http://paguntaka.org/2008/05/15/canadian-mining-regulation-slowing-conservation-effort/#more-9041
Canadian Mining Regulation Slowing Conservation Effort
Environmentalists say Canada’s antiquated mining regulations are slowing conservation efforts and aboriginal land claims by allowing prospectors first dibs on Crown land.

A new report by the International Boreal Conservation Campaign says Canada’s 150-year-old system of free-entry access needs to be replaced.

The campaign is a privately funded initiative supporting boreal forest conservation.

“The free-entry system hearkens back to the bygone days when prospectors roamed the land with pickaxes and shovels,” Larry Innes, director of the Canadian Boreal Initiative, said from Toronto.

The current rules allow any licensed prospector to establish a mineral claim without first consulting with nearby communities or taking into account unique ecosystems or wildlife habitat. Environmental oversight doesn’t come until later.

That claim then supercedes other proposals for the land such as conservation. It can also complicate aboriginal land claim negotiations.

The report says there are now about 583,000 square kilometres of mineral claims staked within Canada’s boreal forest - about 10 per cent of the region’s total area. It finds conflicts right across the country - from British Columbia, where most resource development occurs on land still in a claims dispute, to Quebec where the number of claims has doubled since 2004.

Although mining companies have long suggested that small, temporary exploration camps have little environmental impact, Innes begs to differ.

“The reality is most exploration is an intensive activity over a short period of time,” he said. “We know low-level airplane activity can have a startle effect on sensitive species like woodland caribou.”

As well, he said, pre-existing mineral claims make it difficult to develop long-term land-use plans that determine in advance which areas are environmentally significant.

“They do create conflict with conservation goals and community values.”

The report calls for rules that would require some kind of advance permit before mining companies could get onto the land for a look. That way, Innes said, all parties would know right at the start where mining would be allowed.

Innes said he believes the industry is ready for a change.

“We expect the prospectors and mining companies are ready for the conversation,” he said. “It’s not a question of whether change is necessary, it’s what change is necessary.”


http://paguntaka.org/2008/05/02/canada-gov-investigation-accident-oil-mining-distribution/#more-8953

Canada Gov. Investigation Accident Oil Mining Distribution
Canada’s government was investigating an oil sands company after hundreds of ducks that landed on a partially frozen pond filled with toxic waste died.

A flock of about 500 migrating mallards landed on the pond owned by the oil sands company Syncrude Canada Ltd. earlier this week in Alberta. Only about five of the birds that landed were saved, officials said Wednesday.

The oil sands project sits along a major flyway for migrating waterfowl, and the province requires that all such ponds have the noisemaking devices to scare the birds and prevent them from landing.

But Syncrude spokesman Alain Moore said a recent snowstorm delayed the deployment of 13 propane-powered cannons, which are used from spring to fall to deter birds from entering ponds.

“We had a rapid spring thaw on the weekend and we were beginning to deploy (the cannons), but that’s when we came across the tragic occurrence of these ducks landing,” Moore said.

Cabinet ministers said the government investigation will focus on why Syncrude didn’t move more quickly to deploy the cannons.

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach said he was concerned that Syncrude did not report the incident. The government was alerted only after a tipster called in Monday night to report that the ducks were in the pond.

“If there is negligence, there will be prosecution,” said Ted Morton, Alberta’s minister of sustainable resource development.

Syncrude and Ed Stelmach’s Conservative government said this is the first time in the 30-year history of Alberta’s major oil sands projects that an incident of this magnitude has been recorded. Government reports show that usually fewer than two dozen waterfowl are killed annually on the various tailings ponds.

Alberta is home to vast reserves of oil sands, a tar-like bitumen that is extracted using mining techniques. Industry officials estimate the region could yield as much as 175 billion barrels of oil, making Canada second only to Saudi Arabia in crude oil reserves.

But Alberta’s environment Minister Rob Renner said Wednesday the incident has put a major dent in Alberta’s efforts to counter the message being spread by environment groups that the massive northern oil sands projects are taking a major toll on the environment.

“It’s a real blow to our messaging that we are working very, very hard ensure that we do have sustainable development,” Renner said.

Wednesday August 27, 2008, 10:34 pm
Well, I live in British Columbia and the climate change we experienced this year led to a cold wet spring, a lovely July and cold wet again in August. As to Canadian mining, the federal government has little jurisdiction over provincial mining regulation...and yes, here in BC, mining interests keep a system in place where if you do not own the mineral rights on your own land, anybody who pays a fee and gets a license may explore your land and stake it. It is outrageous I agree.

You will also get no argument from me either about the Alberta tar sands.....but remember, that oil flows south and so do the profits.

That all has little to do with the fact that Arctic ice increased this year over last year's low and we have no idea what the Arctic ice conditions were in the 1920s when it last happened.

"On November 2, 1922, The Washington Post published a story on a government report that described “a radical change in climatic conditions,” “unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone,” and the disappearance of “well known glaciers.” These developments are all oddly similar to current claims about what global warming is doing to the Arctic. "Arctic Ocean Getting
Warm; Seals Vanish
And Icebergs Melt*

(By the Associated Press)

The Arctic ocean is warming
up, icebergs are growing scarcer
and in some places the seals are
finding the waters too hot, ac-
cording to a report to the Com-
merce Department yesterday
from Consul Ifft, at Bergen ,
Norway .

Reports from fishermen, seal
hunters and explorers, he
declared, all point to a radical
change in climatic conditions
and hitherto unheard-of tem-
peratures in the Arctic zone.
Exploration expeditions report
that scarcely any ice has been
met with as far north as 81
degrees 29 minutes. Soundings
to a depth of 3.100 meters
showed the gulf stream still very
warm.

Great masses of ice have
been replaced by moraines of
earth and stones, the report
continued, while at many points
well known glaciers have entirely
disappeared. Very few seals and
no white fish are being found in
the eastern Arctic, while vast
shoals of herring and smelts,
which have never before
ventured so far north, are being
encountered in the old seal
fishing grounds.
http://www.cei.org/gencon/003,06235.cfm

Wednesday August 27, 2008, 10:42 pm
And I didn't cherry pick 1998. that was the peak of this last warming cycle.
BTW 1934 was the hottest year in the 20th century followed by 1998

Top 10 GISS U.S. Temperature deviation (deg C) in New Order 8/7/2007
Year Old New
1934 1.23 1.25
1998 1.24 1.23
1921 1.12 1.15
2006 1.23 1.13
1931 1.08 1.08
1999 0.94 0.93
1953 0.91 0.90
1990 0.88 0.87
1938 0.85 0.86
1939 0.84 0.85
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/08/1998_no_longer_the_hottest_yea.html

It all stopped the winter of 1939/40 when it got very cold and stayed that way for years.
The winters were a big contributor to the German fiasco in Russia.

Thursday August 28, 2008, 5:47 am
Here are ALL the data from the GISS data set with no abertrary "choosing" of start/end dates. What kind of trend do YOU see?

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/

Repeating the ONE 1920 news article has no relevants what-so-ever...

Wolfweeps - I work with endangered species on a professional basis - I am like you, I see the changes going on every day. More and more people are waking up as the changes are becomming more and more obvius. Hopefully enought will awaken before we reach a point "of no return" which commitmits us to extreem disruptions of the ecosystem (some say we have already reached that point, some say we are very near that point)....

Plant trees - stop deforestation - become more energy effecient - move away from fossil fuels - ya know, do those "usless" things the denialists fear so much...

Thursday August 28, 2008, 11:18 am
Since Hansen has been reworking the temperature data upward...and GISS uses data from land-based stations subject to such things as heat from air-conditioning units, data from roof top stations, data from stations surrounded by black top and in one case even subject to heat from an outdoor burn barrel...I wouldn't push that fiction if I were you.

Just take a look at the stations with problems which do not follow guidlines for collecting accurate data.
http://www.surfacestations.org/odd_sites.htm

Thursday August 28, 2008, 11:28 am
I was using the GISS data set because that is WHAT YOU USED in your quotes - funny - you criticise the data set when it does not support your dogma, but when you THOUGHT it did support your dogma you used it - the old doubble standard strikes again LMAO!!!!!!!

from your "top ten" list: "Top 10 GISS U.S. Temperature"

Thursday August 28, 2008, 11:33 am
Hansen has the nerve to say he has a formula for dealing with these problem sites. I bet!
What formula can adjust for the output of a burn barrel?

We don't have a warming problem according to satellite data. It is only when you mix in corrupt land based data, (urban heat island effect) that the problem shows up.

Just look at the circumstances under which this data is collected and tell me that GISS and Hansen are credible.

Forest Grove, OR (air conditioner exhaust blowing directly on temperature shelter, nearby asphalt and buildings)
Marysville, CA (close by parking, air conditioners blowing exhaust near MMTS temp sensor, BBQ used by firefighters, cell phone tower base)
Tahoe City, CA (burn barrel, close by parking, tennis court surface 25 feet away built in early 1980's)
Roseburg, OR (MMTS shelter on roof, near a/c exhaust)
Aberdeen, WA ( large heat source: sewage treatment plant - nearby parking, hot automobile radiators )
Lodi, CA (nearby parking, asphalt, dumpster, nearby building, storage container)

Petaluma, CA (a/c units nearby, MMTS strapped to deck, 6' from building, lots of nearby tarmac, prevailing wind UHI effect from SW)
Redding, CA (lightbulb in temperature shelter, nearby asphalt and buildings, lots of airport tarmac)
Hopkinsville, KY Picture at left is most current, others are from years ago. (MMTS sensor close to house, with air conditioning unit nearby, close-by parking, and near new fireplace chimney built into rear wall. Note BBQ also.)

Thursday August 28, 2008, 11:35 am
other data sets show simular trends - and definately no cooling trend...here the satelite data, whihc you have "pronounced" as incontrivertable":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Satellite_Temperatures.png

Thursday August 28, 2008, 11:37 am
A little background on that. What I quote is the REVISED DATA....done after McIntyre and Watts pointed out the error of GISS ways. They found 1934 (during the last warming period) beat out 1998 as the hottest year.

Ignorance or Obfuscation on your part? Or could it be called a" lie by omission" or at best a STRAWMAN ARGUMENT.

Thursday August 28, 2008, 11:42 am
The correction was to the GISS data was MEANINGLESS (and I linked to the most up-dated version of the data)- so yes, YOU are making a strawman argument...also, as you can see the Satellite Temperatures show a warming trend over the length of the entire data set - there is only a "cooling trend" if you cherry pick 1998 (which was unusually warm due to natural events) as your starting point - is that ignorance or obfuscation????

Thursday August 28, 2008, 11:44 am
the climate section on wiki is notorious for its censorship....
The opinionator

At Wikipedia, one man engineers the debate on global warming, and shapes it to his views.
Next to Al Gore, William Connolley may be the world's most influential person in the global warming debate. He has a PhD in mathematics and worked as a climate modeller, but those accomplishments don't explain his influence -- PhDs are not uncommon and, in any case, he comes from the mid-level ranks in the British Antarctic Survey, the agency for which he worked until recently.

He was the Parish Councillor for the village of Coton in the U.K., his Web site tells us, and a school governor there, too, but neither of those accomplishments are a claim to fame in the wider world. Neither are his five failed attempts to attain public office as a local candidate for South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridgeshire County Council as a representative for the Green Party.

But Connolley is a big shot on Wikipedia, which honours him with an extensive biography, an honour Wikipedia did not see fit to bestow on his boss at the British Antarctic Survey. Or on his boss's's boss, or on his boss's boss's boss, or on his boss's boss's boss's boss, none of whose opinions seemingly count for much, despite their impressive accomplishments. William Connolley's opinions, in contrast, count for a great deal at Wikipedia, even though some might not think them particularly worthy of note. "It is his view that there is a consensus in the scientific community about climate change topics such as global warming, and that the various reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summarize this consensus," states his Wikipedia page, in the section called "Biography."

Connolley is not only a big shot on Wikipedia, he's a big shot at Wikipedia -- an a dministrator with unusual editorial clout. Using that clout, this 40-something scientist of minor relevance gets to tear down scientists of great accomplishment. Because Wikipedia has become the single biggest reference source in the world, and global warming is one of the most sought-after subjects, the ability to control information on Wikipedia by taking down authoritative scientists is no trifling matter.

One such scientist is Fred Singer, the First Director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service, the recipient of a White House commendation for his early design of space satellites; the recipient of a NASA commendation for research on particle clouds -- in short, a scientist with dazzling achievements who is everything Connolley is not. Under Connolley's

supervision, Singer is relentlessly smeared, and has been for years, as a kook who believes in Martians and a hack in the pay of the oil industry. When a smear is inadequate, or when a fair-minded Wikipedian tries to correct a smear, Connolley and his cohorts are there to widen the smear or remove the correction, often rebuking the Wikipedian in the process.

Wikipedia is full of rules that editors are supposed to follow, as well as a code of civility. Those rules and codes don't apply to Connolley, or to those he favours.

"Peiser's crap shouldn't be in here," Connolley wrote several weeks ago, in berating a Wikipedian colleague during an "edit war," as they're called. In such a war, rival sides change the content of a Wikipedia page from one competing version to another, often with bewildering speed. (Two people, landing on the same page seconds apart, might obtain entirely different information.) In the Peiser case, a Wikipedian stopped a prolonged war by freezing a continually changing page, to prevent more alterations until the dispute was settled. As occurs on such occasions, readers are alerted that Wikipedians are warring over the page, and that Wikipedia was not endorsing the version of the page that had been frozen. To Connolley's chagrin, however, the version that was frozen cast doubt on claims of a consensus on climate change. Although this was done within Wikipedia rules, Connolley intervened to revert the page and ensure Wikipedia readers saw only what he wanted them to see.

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post

Thursday August 28, 2008, 11:46 am
You can follow links to the original data, don't have to rely on wiki...

OK, show me the data - show me a source that shows Satellite Temperatures are decreasing (the WHOLE DATA SET, NOT CHERRY PICKED PARTS)

Thursday August 28, 2008, 12:47 pm
There is no argument that over all temperature increased 0.7 OVER 100 YEARS. It is part of a longer term trend after the Little Ice Age which followed the Medieval Warm Period....which the IPCC tried to pretend never happened..

The short term trend is now down from the peak of this cycle in 1998. The peak of THIS CYCLE is a wee bit LESS than the peak of the 1920-1940 CYCLE.

Warming/cooling are cyclical!

What part of that don't you get?

Thursday August 28, 2008, 12:53 pm
Typical - you scream COOLINING TREND over and over again - can't prove it, so move on to "it's just a little"...ten years is NOT A TREND (what part don't you get of that????) - you simply cherry picked your "trend period"...thanks for the perfect example of how data can be twisted by the denialists LMAO!!!!