Ephemera

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If you want to see an interview of Steve McIntyre on his work examining and criticising the MBH "hockey stick" and Briffa's dendroclimatology, here you go

( warning: I am well aware that there are multiple cases of Fox-phobia around here; as this is the first link I have ever posted to anything connected with Fox, it's fair to give a warning to anyone afflicted with the phobia— I don't recall having ever watched anything on Fox previously but I was curious to see Steve McIntyre. By the way, Michael Mann declined to be interviewed for the program. Oh— in addition, there is also an appearance by Patrick Michaels. Some of you don't like him; that's your privilege. ):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnCLQIYNYgo

 

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By: Willis Eschenbach

...Hansen started this whole thing with a scam, opening the windows and turning off the air conditioning when he gave his 1988 Senate testimony so people would be sweating and hot and more likely to believe his fantasies, and now he wants to call for honesty and decency? Spare me. He has cried wolf far too often.

Sorry, but it’s too little, too late. He, not people on my side of the dispute, is the one that has publicly called for committing crimes to support his drastic world view. But when the crimes involve him, suddenly being a criminal is a terrible thing. He sowed the wind, and now that he is reaping the whirlwind he wants to whine and complain about how wrong and unfair it all is. He’s like the guy who killed his parents and now wants our sympathy because he is an orphan.

He asks “How did we devolve to this state” … grab a mirror, Jim, the answer’s not out here. Here’s a clue for you. When your side claims to have all the answers, when your side of the dispute is conniving to prevent the publication of opposing scientific views, when you and your mates besmirch the reputations of those who disagree with you, when your side prevents some scientific papers from being included in the IPCC reports and cheats to get papers you approve of included in the IPCC reports, when people get fired because they won’t sign on to your worldview, when those who agree with you call your scientific opponents vile names and attack our motives, people take it personally.

That’s how we devolved to this state, Jim, because your side tried to dominate and intimidate and denigrate and crush the other side rather than hold a scientific discussion about the issues.

I hate D.C. I hate big bureaucracies. I hate all the people who have come here to feed on the government trough. They've ruined the state and the region.

Sixty years ago, Maryland and NoVa were largely rural, agricultural and possessed some of the most gorgeous countryside on the face of the earth. Today, it's all been paved over with horribly ugly developments. The regional culture has been all but effaced by the influx of people with no understanding of what they've destroyed. Many of them are horribly impolite and possess no manners. What was once a paradise is now a mess. My ancestors lived in what was an Eden and would be disgusted by what has occurred.

The Chesapeake Bay has been destroyed by the pollution from all the development:


Byproducts Of Washington, D.C. Smother Chesapeake Bay
by Elizabeth Shogren


When Anne Croft fertilizes her tiny lawn in Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill neighborhood, she has no idea that she's contributing to the pollution that still vexes the Chesapeake Bay after 25 years of cleanup.

The federal and state governments have spent several billion dollars to meet a pledge to restore the bay's health, but the nation's largest estuary is still one of the country's most polluted waterways. Pollution so starves the Chesapeake Bay of oxygen that each summer, a stretch of it dozens of miles long is unsuitable for fish or most other creatures. And crab and oyster populations are at tiny fractions of historic levels.

President Obama is launching a new cleanup strategy and warns that if states do not reduce pollution, the federal government will take over the job.

Byproducts Of Modern Living Affect Waterways
But experts say a big part of the problem is that each of the almost 17 million people living in the Chesapeake's huge watershed contributes to the bay's bleak condition. Exhaust from their cars, detergent from their dishwashers, fertilizers from their yards, and waste from their septic and sewage systems are some of the many sources of the nitrogen and phosphorus that plague the bay.

These nutrients stimulate too much algae to grow. Bacteria that eat the algae suck so much oxygen out of parts of the bay that fish and creatures have to swim away to survive. The algae and sediments in the runoff also make the water murky, killing underwater grasses that provide safe nurseries for the bay's famous crabs and many fish.

Many people, like Croft, are unaware that their ordinary activities have this harmful effect.

On a crisp fall day, Croft is trying to make sense of the directions on a bag of fertilizer.

"That's not very clear," she says as she fills a fertilizer applicator. "So I'm going to have to sort of just wing it. I'll just put a bunch in there, and I'll go back and forth over it a couple of times, and I'll just call it a day."

Croft knows the bay is polluted. She used to teach fourth-grade history in Maryland, and spent about two weeks each year focusing on the Chesapeake. Still, she didn't think she could be part of the problem.

"I guess I don't think about where the water runoff goes in the city," she says.

Raw Sewage And Fertilizer-Spiked Stormwater
Dottie Yunger thinks a lot about it — a lot.

On a rainy autumn day, Yunger is in Croft's neighborhood watching water run into a sewer.

"The stormwater that's collected from last night and through today is running down the street and into this storm drain," she says. "And if anybody has used any pesticide or fertilizer on their lawn, that gets picked up with the rainwater."

Yunger is the "river keeper" for the Anacostia River, which flows through the east side of Washington, D.C. She's the chief advocate for one of the shortest and dirtiest tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay.

Two kinds of pollution are the prime culprits for robbing the bay of oxygen — nitrogen and phosphorus. Ten percent of the nitrogen and even more of the phosphorus in the Chesapeake come from fertilizers that wash off lawns and golf courses.

And fertilizer isn't the only problem.

In the District of Columbia and lots of other cities across the bay watershed, stormwater flows through the same pipes as the sewage. When it rains hard, sewage treatment plants can't handle all the volume. So they divert the stormwater and the sewage into the rivers.

"So every time it rains really hard in the district and you flush your toilet, you're flushing your toilet directly into the Anacostia," Yunger says.

It is cold and raining heavily when Yunger takes me out on the Anacostia in a small boat. As we approach the ballpark where the Washington Nationals play, Yunger remembers a conversation she once had there.

"It was after a particularly large rainstorm. And I remember something really smelled, and I turned to my husband and said, 'What stinks?' And he said, 'Your river stinks.' And he was right."

It can take as little as a quarter of an inch of rain for the local utility to release raw sewage and stormwater into the Anacostia, according to the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority. The district's sewer system sends about 2 billion gallons of the untreated stuff into bay tributaries each year. All together, about a fifth of the nitrogen and phosphorus in the bay come from wastewater treatment plants throughout the bay's huge watershed, which includes parts of six states and Washington, D.C.

'When It Rains, I Panic'
The Anacostia is an urban river, surrounded by asphalt, cobblestone, cement and other hard surfaces. In undeveloped areas, the earth soaks up the rain and filters the pollution. But in urban areas, there's nothing to absorb the rain or pollution.

As we motor past the Washington Navy Yard, Yunger points out a big drainage pipe funneling runoff into the river.

As we ride under bridges packed with cars, trucks and buses, Yunger explains that a lot of the water pollution comes from vehicles. They leak gasoline and oil onto roads, and the rain washes it into waterways. They also pump exhaust into the air, and when it rains, the rainwater brings the pollution into the water.

About a quarter of the nitrogen pollution in the bay comes from the air — much of it from exhaust from factories, power plants and vehicles.

Yunger says most people think rain has a cleansing effect on the environment, but she knows differently.

"I used to love a rainy day. Now when it rains, I panic. Because I know that here in the Anacostia, if it rains very hard, that water is going to end up untreated into the river. The Anacostia is going to flow into the Potomac, and the Potomac is going to flow into the Chesapeake Bay, and we're going to be adding more pollution into the Chesapeake Bay," Yunger says.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121588652



Original Chesapeake Bay Foundation bumper sticker ( c. 1966 ):
SAVE THE BAY

More appropriate Chesapeake Bay Foundation bumper sticker ( 2010 ):
PAVE THE BAY

Suggested future Chesapeake Bay Foundation bumper sticker:
Where are you from? Go back

 

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Would someone please explain to me what Iran hopes to accomplish by holding these bin Laden children?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Bin Laden Daughter Escapes Iran Arrest, Hides in Saudi Embassy
By Henry Meyer

Dec. 25 (Bloomberg) -- A daughter of Osama bin Laden escaped house arrest in Iran and made it to the Saudi Embassy, which is seeking permission for her to leave the country, according to Iranian government and Saudi media reports.

Bin Laden’s daughter Iman must leave the embassy to apply for travel documents in person, state-run Press TV cited Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast as saying late yesterday.

Iran has held Iman, 17, and five other children of the al- Qaeda leader, as well as one of his wives, under house arrest since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Asharq al-Awsat reported Dec. 23, citing Omar bin Laden, the fourth son.

The Saudi-owned newspaper, which is based in London, said it learned of Iman’s escape from 29-year-old Omar. The family was living in Afghanistan when the U.S. military began air strikes on the country following the Sept. 11 attacks. They were held by Iran after crossing the border, Asharq al-Awsat said.

Al-Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim group, is hostile to Shiite- dominated Iran. Sunnis who follow Wahabbi beliefs, such as bin Laden, don’t consider Shiites to be true believers in Islam.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aJIFHoXMfnpI

 

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Alfa Romeo Leads Fleet in Sydney to Hobart Sailing Race
By Iain Wilson

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Alfa Romeo surged down the Tasmanian coast in the lead today in a bid to claim a line honors victory in the Sydney to Hobart sailing race.

Alfa Romeo, skippered by 2002 Rolex Sydney Hobart winner Neville Crichton, was leading ICAP Leopard and Wild Oats XI, which began the 628-nautical mile (1,163-kilometer) race as the favorite.

The race, which takes competitors down Australia’s southeast coast and across Bass Strait to the island state of Tasmania, attracted 12 overseas entrants in the 100-boat fleet.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601079&sid=a8Z7aptP0BtI

 

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Alfa Romeo Leads Wild Oats XI in Sydney to Hobart Sailing Race
By James Paton and Iain Wilson

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Alfa Romeo remained ahead of Wild Oats XI as they surged down the Tasmanian coast in the lead today in a bid to claim a victory in the Sydney to Hobart sailing race.

Wild Oats XI, which began the 628-nautical mile (1,163- kilometer) race as the favorite, passed ICAP Leopard to sail closer to the leader. Wild Oats XI was about 18 nautical miles behind Alfa Romeo, the New Zealand boat skippered by 2002 Rolex Sydney Hobart winner Neville Crichton.

The race, which takes competitors down Australia’s southeast coast and across Bass Strait to the island state of Tasmania, drew 12 overseas entrants in the 100-boat fleet. Wild Oats XI, owned by Australian billionaire Bob Oatley and skippered by Mark Richards, is vying for a fifth straight line honors.

The leaders are currently expected to finish between 10 p.m. today and midnight Hobart time, Lisa Ratcliff, a spokeswoman for the race, said by phone.

Wild Oats XI sailors, who have communicated with organizers, “haven’t written themselves off yet,” she said. “They believe there’s a tricky part of the race still to come. Their spirits are pretty high, but at the same time it’s a sizeable gap.”

Last year, Wild Oats XI tore a spinnaker soon after the race began and had to stop after it collided with a two-meter shark. Even so, it led Skandia to the finish line, recording a time of 1 day, 20 hours, 34 minutes and 14 seconds.

 

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Tanker Glut Signals 25% Drop on 26-Mile Line of Ships
By Alaric Nightingale and Alexander Kwiatkowski

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- A 26-mile-long line of idled oil tankers, enough to blockade the English Channel, may signal a 25 percent slump in freight rates next year.

The ships will unload 26 percent of the crude and oil products they are storing in six months, adding to vessel supply and pushing rates for supertankers down to an average of $30,000 a day next year, compared with $40,212 now, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 15 analysts, traders and shipbrokers. That’s below what Frontline Ltd., the biggest operator of the ships, says it needs to break even.

Traders booked a record number of ships for storage this year, seeking to profit from longer-dated energy futures trading at a premium to contracts for immediate delivery, according to SSY Consultancy & Research Ltd., a unit of the world’s second- largest shipbroker. Ships taken out of that trade would return to compete for cargoes just as deliveries from shipyards’ largest-ever order book swell the global fleet.

“The tanker market has been defying gravity,” said Martin Stopford, a London-based director at Clarkson Plc, the world’s largest shipbroker. Stopford has covered shipping since 1971.

More than half of the ships are in European waters, with the rest spread out across Asia, the U.S. and West Africa. Lined up end to end, they would stretch for about 26 miles.

Storing Crude
Traders are storing enough crude at sea to supply the 27- nation European Union for more than three days. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company; London-based BP Plc; JPMorgan Chase & Co.; and Morgan Stanley were among those that sought vessels for storage.

By the end of November, 168 tankers were storing crude or refined products, according to data from Simpson, Spence & Young Ltd., the world’s second-largest shipbroker. Their combined carrying capacity of 23.8 million deadweight tons is equal to 5.9 percent of the tanker fleet. That exceeds the previous record, set in 1981, when Japanese refiners used tankers with a combined 19.5 million deadweight tons.

The storage helped prop up tanker rates this year as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, accounting for 40 percent of global oil supply, made the deepest-ever output cuts in response to the worst global recession since World War II.

The storage trade is profitable so long as the spread between energy contracts exceeds ship rental, insurance and financing costs. A year ago, the spread between the first and sixth Brent crude-oil contracts traded on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange was 23 percent. Now, it’s 4 percent.

Supertanker Fleet
Daily returns from leasing supertankers on the industry’s benchmark route from Saudi Arabia to Japan advanced to $40,212 on Dec. 24, compared with $1,246 on Sept. 11, data from the London-based Baltic Exchange show.

“If tanker rates go up, everybody will get rid of ships,” said Andreas Vergottis, Hong Kong-based research director at Tufton Oceanic Ltd., which manages the world’s largest shipping hedge fund. “It’s going to be a market that’s worse than 2009.”

Vergottis expects the global tanker fleet to expand about 12 percent next year, of which 5 percentage points will come from ships returning from storage. That compares with the Paris- based International Energy Agency’s forecast for a 1.6 percent gain in global oil demand.

Crude-oil storage will slump to 40 million barrels in six months and 19 million barrels in a year, from about 50 million barrels now, according to the Bloomberg News survey. Oil-product storage will shrink to 69 million barrels in six months and 29 million in a year, from 98 million now, the survey showed.

‘A Lot Longer’
Brent crude will average $75 a barrel next year, about 1.7 percent less than the closing price of $76.31 on Dec. 24, according to the median of 37 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Gasoil will average $679 a metric ton next year, compared with $628.50 now, forecasts compiled by Bloomberg show.

Storage “already lasted a lot longer than most people anticipated,” said Jonathan Chappell, an analyst at JPMorgan in New York with “underweight” recommendations on Frontline and Overseas Shipholding Group, the largest U.S.-based oil-tanker owner.

Ships unloading their cargoes will rejoin a fleet set to expand 3.5 percent next year, according to London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd. The order book for tankers stands at 121 million deadweight tons, or 32 percent of the existing fleet, it estimates. Deadweight tons are a measure of a ship’s capacity for carrying cargo, fuel and supplies.

Oil-Tanker Owner
Frontline dropped 17 percent in Oslo trading this year, and was 1.8 percent higher at 165.8 kroner as of 1:41 p.m. in Oslo. Overseas Shipholding gained 6.8 percent in New York this year. The MSCI World Index of equities in 23 developed nations advanced 28 percent, heading for its best year since 2003.

Five out of 27 analysts covering Frontline recommend buying the stock, while for New York-based Overseas Shipholding it’s three out of 17, recommendations compiled by Bloomberg show.

The 2010 average tanker rate of $30,000 in the Bloomberg survey would still be 30 percent higher than this year’s average of $23,130, according to data from the Baltic Exchange. In May, July, August and September, charter rates fell so low that ship owners were contributing toward fuel as well as paying the crew, insurance, repairs and other running costs.

Frontline, based in Hamilton, Bermuda, announced last month its first quarterly loss in seven years. Its supertankers need $32,900 a day to break even, the company said. Ship owners usually hire their vessels out in the spot market and on longer rentals at fixed prices.

Single-Hull Tankers
Unprofitable tanker rates may encourage owners to scrap more ships, according to Nikhil Jain, a Delhi-based editor for Drewry’s Tanker Forecaster report. A global ban on single-hulled tankers is scheduled to be phased in from next year, potentially further shrinking vessel supply. Single-hulled supertankers, deemed “more accident-prone” than double-hulled vessels by the European Union, account for about 17 percent of the total fleet, according to Lloyd’s Register-Fairplay data.

The elimination of single-hull tankers will lead to “negative fleet growth” and rising charter rates in 2010, said Jens Martin Jensen, chief executive officer of Frontline’s management unit. “I still believe in increased oil demand compared to today,” he said.

The Federal Reserve will likely keep interest rates low, curbing financing costs for those storing cargoes, said Morten Arntzen, chief executive officer of Overseas Shipholding.

Global Recession
“I don’t see this collapse as tankers come out of storage,” he said. Oil consumption will strengthen next year and the additional demand will require ships to travel further, buoying freight rates, Arntzen said.

Demand for ships may also improve after governments spent at least $12 trillion to lift their economies out of recession. U.S. gross domestic product will expand 2.6 percent next year, compared with a 2.5 percent contraction this year, according to the median estimate from 58 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The eurozone will advance 1.1 percent, rebounding from a 3.9 percent decline this year, the survey shows.

The recovery may not be smooth. The announcement on Nov. 25 that state-controlled Dubai World would seek to freeze or delay debt repayments stoked concern that a default would add to the $1.7 trillion of credit losses and asset writedowns posted by global financial companies since 2007.

“There are a lot of things to worry about on the economic front,” Clarkson’s Stopford said. “You don’t get over body shocks like that overnight. You get run over by an 8-wheeler truck and you don’t go back to work the next day.”

 

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Decade’s Worst Funds Never Recovered From Technology-Stock Bust
By Charles Stein

Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock mutual funds with the biggest losses in the past 10 years, a list topped by Fidelity Growth Strategies and Vanguard U.S. Growth, were crushed by the market sell-off at the start of the decade and never recovered.

The Fidelity fund fell 67 percent and Vanguard’s lost 50 percent, according to data from Morningstar Inc. The 10 worst- performing diversified funds that still manage at least $1 billion tumbled an average of 43 percent in the decade through Dec. 28, about five times the decline of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, a benchmark for the biggest U.S. stocks.

The group’s performance underscores the lasting damage from the March 2000 to October 2002 bear market that followed the collapse of Internet stocks. Fidelity Growth Strategies, which oversees $1.93 billion, hadn’t recouped the 86 percent loss incurred during the technology bust when stocks started falling again in October 2007 amid the onset of the housing crisis.

“A lot of funds and fund companies suffered mightily and haven’t come back,” Geoff Bobroff, a mutual-fund consultant in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, said in a telephone interview.

The 10 worst funds all focused on shares of growth companies, so designated because their sales or earnings are rising faster than their industry’s or the overall market. The group fell 71 percent on average after the technology bubble deflated. That compared with the 47 percent decline by the S&P 500 index from March 24, 2000, to Oct. 9, 2002.

A bear market is typically defined as a decline of at least 20 percent from peak to trough.

Differing Reactions
The Internet debacle didn’t dampen investor enthusiasm for stocks. Equity mutual funds attracted $166 billion in 2003, roughly four times the cash that flowed into bond funds, data from Chicago-based Morningstar show.

Investors shunned stocks in favor of bonds following the second bear market of the decade, when the S&P 500 index fell 55 percent from Oct. 9, 2007, to March 9, 2009. The 10 worst funds dropped 51 percent in that period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Bond funds attracted $329 billion in the first 11 months of 2009, compared with $3 billion for stocks funds, Morningstar found.

“The enormity of the disaster in 2008 turned people off to equities,” said Burton Greenwald, an independent fund consultant based in Philadelphia.

Job Cuts, Takeovers
Mutual-fund companies, including Fidelity, Los Angeles- based Capital Group Cos. and Boston-based Putnam Investments, eliminated jobs as assets under management shrank in 2008 and early 2009.

The slump also triggered consolidation among money managers. Invesco Ltd., based in Atlanta, agreed to buy Morgan Stanley’s investment-management business in October. Minneapolis-based Ameriprise Financial Inc. said in September it would acquire the Columbia stock and bond funds from Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. In June, New York- based BlackRock Inc. agreed to buy Barclays Global Investors from Barclays Plc in London.

Fidelity Growth Strategies had a portfolio “clustered in some of the most exciting parts of 1999’s technology driven market,” Morningstar wrote in an analyst’s note in December 1999.

The fund, originally called Fidelity Aggressive Growth, more than doubled in value in 1999, Morningstar data show. The manager who produced those results, Erin Sullivan, left Boston- based Fidelity Investments in February 2000 to run a hedge fund.

As technology shares fell during the next two and a half years, Robert Bertelson managed the fund.

Failure to Adjust
“It was a classic case of a manager not changing his stripes,” said Jim Lowell, editor of Fidelityinvestor.com, a newsletter, in a telephone interview.

Bertelson, who currently manages the $4.03 billion Fidelity Independence Fund, faced “tremendous challenges” early in the decade, Sophie Launay, a Fidelity spokeswoman, said in an e-mail, because he took over the fund in 2000 at the peak of the market for aggressive growth stocks. Launay said Bertelson had a “solid long-term track record.”

The fund underperformed about three-fourths of its peers in the most recent five years, Morningstar data show. Fidelity Growth Strategies has been managed since 2005 by Steven Calhoun. It gained 41 percent in 2009, better than 73 percent of similar funds, Bloomberg data show.

Launay said Fidelity funds outperformed about two-thirds of their peers in the past 10 years.

Vanguard Too Late
Vanguard U.S. Growth underperformed rivals in 1999 because it owned less technology than its peers, Morningstar wrote in an August 2000 analyst’s note. Between August 1999 and August 2000, the fund boosted its technology holdings to 56 percent of the portfolio from 35 percent, according to the note.

The fund fell 70 percent during the market sell-off that ended in October 2002, Bloomberg data show. It now oversees $4 billion.

“The fund has suffered from lousy stock-picking; there’s no other answer,” said Daniel Wiener, editor of Independent Adviser for Vanguard Investors, a newsletter, in a telephone interview.

John Woerth, a spokesman for Vanguard Group Inc., said in an e-mail that the fund’s technology holdings early in the decade continues to “weigh on its long-term record.” The fund beat 56 percent of its peers over the past three years, Morningstar data show.

The fund has been managed for Vanguard since 2001 by AllianceBernstein Holding LP, a New York investment firm, Woerth said. William Blair & Co. of Chicago has run a portion of the fund since 2004.

John Meyers, a spokesman for AllianceBernstein, declined to comment. John Jostrand, who works on the fund for William Blair, and Tony Zimmer, a spokesman for the company, did not respond to e-mails and phone calls seeking comment.

Vanguard, based in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, is the largest U.S. manager of stock and bond funds, with $1 trillion in assets, excluding money-market funds, Morningstar data show. Boston-based Fidelity manages $721 billion.

The following is a list of the 10 worst-performing U.S. diversified stock funds based on returns from Jan. 1, 2000 to Dec. 28, 2009:




Fund..........................................AUM.............% Change
.............................................(in billion)

Fidelity Growth Strategies...............$1.9...........-67 percent
Vanguard U.S. Growth....................$4.0...........-50 percent
Putnam New Opportunities...............$2.6...........-46 percent
Columbia Select Large Cap Growth....$1.7...........-41 percent
SEI Large Cap Growth.....................$2.1..........-40 percent
MFS Growth..................................$2.1..........-39 percent
Janus Enterprise............................$2.4...........-38 percent
Putnam Investors..........................$1.6...........-37 percent
Seligman Growth...........................$1.4...........-37 percent
AIM Constellation..........................$3.1...........-37 percent

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aXTiq5Rnr0wg

 

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Major Philippine Volcano May Be On The Verge of Erupting

http://www.phivolcs.dost.gov.ph/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=279&Itemid=1

30 December 2009 7:00 AM
For the past 24 hours, one ash explosion occurred at Mayon Volcano (13.2576 N, 123.6856 E). The explosion produced a dirty white ash column that rose to about 100 meters above the summit and drifted to the northwest. Lava continued to flow down along the Bonga-Buyuan, Miisi and Lidong gullies. The lava front has now reached about 5.9 kilometers from the summit along the Bonga-Buyuan gully.

Mayon Volcano’s seismic network recorded 16 volcanic earthquakes. A total of 150 rock fall events related to the detachment of lava fragments at the volcano’s upper slopes was also detected by the seismic network. Yesterday’s measurement of Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) emission rate yielded an average value of 4,397 tonnes per day (t/d). The volcano edifice remains inflated as indicated by the electronic tilt meter installed at the northeast sector of the volcano.

The status of Mayon Volcano is maintained at Alert Level 4. PHIVOLCS-DOST reiterates that the Extended Danger Zone (EDZ) from the summit of 8-km on the southern sector of the volcano and 7-km on the northern sector should be free from human activity. Areas just outside of this EDZ should prepare for evacuation in the event hazardous eruptions intensify. Active river channels and those perennially identified as lahar prone in the southern sector should also be avoided especially during bad weather conditions or when there is heavy and prolonged rainfall. In addition, Civil Aviation Authorities must advise pilots to avoid flying close to the volcano’s summit as ejected ash and volcanic fragments from sudden explosions may pose hazards to aircrafts. PHIVOLCS–DOST is closely monitoring Mayon Volcano’s activity and any new significant development will be immediately posted to all concerned.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Mt.Mayon_tam3rd.jpg

 

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The U.S. Debt Clock:
http://www.usdebtclock.org

As I write,
if you're a U.S. citizen, you now owe $39,354.
if you're a U.S. taxpayer, you now owe $111,303.

 

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"Shrill, strident, obnoxious and wrong is no way to go through life."
-Trysail

( with appropriate apologies and gratitude to Dean Wormer of Animal House )

The ability to be both loud and wrong without being self-conscious is a requisite talent for a career on Wall Street. God, if the boobs only knew the half of it.

 

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U.S. Stocks Drop as Crisis Causes S&P 500’s First Decade Loss
By Nikolaj Gammeltoft

Jan. 1 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks fell this week, limiting an advance that sent the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its biggest annual increase in six years. The 2009 rally failed to rescue investors from the worst return for any decade.

Ford Motor Co. dropped 1.3 percent for the week, bringing its decade loss to 80 percent after the credit crisis threatened to push the carmaker into bankruptcy last year. Apple Computer Inc., the iPhone maker that beat analysts’ profit estimates for 19 straight quarters, climbed 0.8 percent, extending a 720 percent advance over the last 10 years.

This past year’s rally wasn’t enough to restore money lost in two bear markets after the Internet bubble collapsed in 2000 and more than $1.7 trillion in global bank losses sent the index to a 38 percent decline in 2008. The S&P 500 posted an average decrease of 0.9 percent a year since 1999 including dividends, the first negative return for a decade since data began in 1927, according to S&P analyst Howard Silverblatt.

“This dispelled two myths,” said Robert Arnott, founder of Research Affiliates LLC, which oversees $47 billion in Newport Beach, California. “The notion that investment gains are easy, and the notion that stocks will win for the patient investor, no matter what we pay.”

The S&P 500 slipped 1 percent to 1,115.10 this week, paring its 2009 gain to 23 percent, the biggest advance since it climbed 26 percent in 2003. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.9 percent to 10,428.05, lowering the yearly increase to 19 percent.

Market Recovery
Equities rebounded in March after investors paid an average 11.9 times earnings for S&P 500 companies, a 23-year low, according to data compiled by Yale University’s Robert Shiller. He adjusts valuations for inflation and uses a decade of profit to smooth out short-term fluctuations.

Since reaching a record 1,565.15 in October 2007, the S&P 500 has fallen 29 percent, erasing about $5.3 trillion of stock market value. The index’s 65 percent gain since March 9 cut the loss in half after the U.S. government lent, spent or guaranteed more than $11 trillion to end the recession, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The price of the benchmark index for U.S. equities slid 24 percent over the last 10 years, a smaller loss than the 42 percent retreat suffered during the 1930s. Dividends brought the annualized return during the decade of the Great Depression to 1 percent, according to S&P data.

Relative Value
Investors who put $10,000 in stocks on Dec. 31, 1999, have $9,090 now, while the same amount in 10-year Treasury notes would have grown to about $18,000 following a 6.1 percent annualized return, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A $10,000 investment in the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials increased 3.3 percent a year to $13,803. Gold futures rose 14 percent a year, turning $10,000 into $37,852.

The average annualized return for U.S. equity mutual funds was 1.7 percent during the decade. Only one fund out of 3,833 gained in 2008: Forester Value Fund rose 0.4 percent that year, according to Chicago-based Morningstar Inc.

Hedge funds’ annualized return was about 6.3 percent since Dec. 31, 1999, according to Hedge Fund Research’s HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index. The measure rose 19 percent in 2009 through Dec. 15.

“Those who benefited in the decade were short-term investors who were able to take advantage of the volatility in the stock market,” said Komal Sri-Kumar, who helps manage $118 billion as chief global strategist at TCW Group Inc. in Los Angeles. “That isn’t the signal authorities should give players in the market. You want them to think of it as a place where you can save for your retirement.”

JDS Uniphase
JDS Uniphase Corp. fell the most among companies still in the S&P 500, plunging 99 percent. The ranking doesn’t include Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Bear Stearns Cos., Houston-based Enron Corp., Clinton, Mississippi-based WorldCom Inc. and 207 other stocks removed from the index since Dec. 31, 1999, according to data compiled by Silverblatt.

JDS, the maker of computer-networking equipment based in Milpitas, California, fell every year except 2003 after declines in the value of companies it bought caused a $56.1 billion loss in 2001. Phone and computer companies were the worst-performing industries in the S&P 500, losing 64 percent and 54 percent since the end of 1999. Cupertino, California-based Apple was an exception, surging to $210.73 from $25.70.

Citigroup, AIG Plunge
Banks and brokerages had the third-biggest drop of the 2000s, led by a 91 percent slump in Citigroup Inc. and a 98 percent tumble in American International Group Inc., both based in New York. Lenders were dragged down by $1.7 trillion of global bank losses and writedowns tied to property loans during the credit crisis that began with mortgage defaults and accelerated with the collapse of New York-based Lehman Brothers in 2008.

Ford also fell every year except in 2003 when the U.S. economy recovered from the first recession of the decade. The Dearborn, Michigan-based auto maker plunged as the American car industry lost market share, culminating with the government taking a 61 percent stake last year in Detroit-based General Motors Co., the biggest U.S. automaker.

Investors may experience more subpar returns, said John Bogle, who founded the Vanguard Group mutual fund company. Those counting on a recovery such as the rally that lifted stocks 18 percent a year in the 1980s will be disappointed, said Bogle, who created the $92 billion Vanguard 500 Index Fund in 1976.

“The 1990s was the golden decade for stocks, the 2000s was the tin decade and the next 10 years will be the bronze decade,” Bogle said. “Stocks will rise 7 to 9 percent over the next 10 years, below the historical norm but better than the last 10.”

Record Deficit
The U.S. budget deficit reached a record of $1.4 trillion in 2009, pushed up by the cost of bank bailouts and benefits after 7.2 million jobs were lost since the recession started two years ago. The U.S. government’s total debt is now more than $12 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury.

“We need to legitimize the recovery and move beyond the artificial government supports for the economy,” said John Lynch, who helps manage $155.5 billion as chief market analyst at Evergreen Investments in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We have to learn our lessons from the dot-com, credit and housing bubbles.”

‘Decade of Delusion’
Stocks rallied in 2009 after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke held interest rates near zero and launched the biggest expansion of the central bank’s power in its 96-year history. Bernanke pumped money into the economy through the purchase of mortgage-backed debt and U.S. Treasuries and the government pledged more than $200 billion to bail out New York- based securities firm Bear Stearns Cos. and AIG.

Congress authorized the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program to buy toxic assets from lenders including Citigroup and New York-based banks Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. as the crisis escalated. The Treasury invested more than $200 billion of the money in financial institutions.

“It’s been a decade of delusion,” said Richard Tedlow, professor of business administration of Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “In many ways, we’re worse off than the 1930s, we’ve created problems of moral hazard and we’re faced with an astounding public debt.”

 

[trysail]

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/moon/3304131.html?page=1&c=y

What's a Blue Moon?
The trendy definition of "blue Moon" as the second full Moon in a month is a mistake.
by Roger W. Sinnott, Donald W. Olson, and Richard Tresch Fienberg

Recent decades have seen widespread popular embrace of the idea that when a calendar month contains two full Moons, the second one is called a "Blue Moon." The unusual pattern of lunar phases in early 1999 — two full Moons each in January and March, and none at all in February — triggered a groundswell of public interest. Countless newspapers and radio and TV stations ran stories about Blue Moons.

In an article "Once in a Blue Moon", folklorist Philip Hiscock traced the calendrical meaning of the term "Blue Moon" to the Maine Farmers' Almanac for 1937. But a page from that almanac belies the second-full-Moon-in-a-month interpretation.

With help from Margaret Vaverek (Southwest Texas State University) and several other librarians, we have now obtained more than 40 editions of the Maine Farmers' Almanac from the period 1819 to 1962. These refer to more than a dozen Blue Moons, and not one of them is the second full Moon in a month. What's going on here?

Blue Moons and the Seasons
Several clues point to a strong connection between the almanac's Blue Moons and the four seasons of the year. All of the listed Blue Moons fall on the 20th, 21st, 22nd, or 23rd day of November, May, February, or August. These dates fall about a month before the Northern Hemisphere winter and summer solstices, and spring and fall equinoxes, respectively, which occur on similar day numbers.

Although the idea of a seasonal pattern suggested itself to us immediately, verifying the details required a lot of detective work. We found that the Blue-Moon definition employed in the Maine Farmers' Almanac is indeed based on the seasons, but with some subtle twists.

Instead of the calendar year running from January 1st through December 31st, the almanac relies on the tropical year, defined as extending from one winter solstice ("Yule") to the next. Most tropical years contain 12 full Moons — three each in winter, spring, summer, and fall — and each is named for an activity appropriate to the time of year (such as the Harvest Moon in autumn). But occasionally a tropical year contains 13 full Moons, such that one season has four rather than the usual three.

Today we usually mark the beginning of the seasons when the Sun's celestial longitude passes 0° (spring), 90° (summer), 180° (autumn), and 270° (winter). The Sun appears to move along the ecliptic at a variable rate because of the Earth's not-quite-circular orbit, so the seasons defined this way are not equal in duration. Another approach uses the dynamical mean Sun or fictitious mean Sun — imaginary bodies that move along the ecliptic and the celestial equator, respectively, at a constant rate and produces seasons of equal length. The Maine almanac defines the seasons using this alternative method.

The almanac also follows certain rules laid down as part of the Gregorian calendar reform in 1582. The ecclesiastical vernal (spring) equinox always falls on March 21st, regardless of the position of the Sun. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, 46 days before Easter, and must contain the Lenten Moon, considered to be the last full Moon of winter. The first full Moon of spring is called the Egg Moon (or Easter Moon, or Paschal Moon) and must fall within the week before Easter.

At last we have the "Maine rule" for Blue Moons: Seasonal Moon names are assigned near the spring equinox in accordance with the ecclesiastical rules for determining the dates of Easter and Lent. The beginnings of summer, fall, and winter are determined by the dynamical mean Sun. When a season contains four full Moons, the third is called a Blue Moon.

Why is the third full Moon identified as the extra one in a season with four? Because only then will the names of the other full Moons, such as the Moon Before Yule and the Moon After Yule, fall at the proper times relative to the solstices and equinoxes.

Questions and Answers
During the period 1932 to 1957, under the editorship of Henry Porter Trefethen (1887-1957), the Maine Farmers' Almanac consistently listed Blue Moons derived from the convoluted seasonal rule just described. So where did the modern convention — that a Blue Moon is the second full Moon in a calendar month — come from? Sky & Telescope has, and is, the answer!

Laurence J. Lafleur (1907-66) of Antioch College, Ohio, discussed Blue Moons in a question-and-answer column in Sky & Telescope, July 1943, page 17, citing the 1937 Maine Farmers' Almanac as his source. It is clear that Lafleur had a copy of the almanac at his side as he wrote, since he quoted word for word the commentary on the August 1937 calendar page. This commentary notes that the Moon occasionally "comes full thirteen times in a year," but Lafleur did not judge whether this referred to a tropical year or a calendar year. More important, he did not mention the specific dates of any Blue Moons and never said anything about two full Moons in one calendar month.

Oops!
Some three years later, in March 1946, an article entitled "Once in a Blue Moon" appeared in Sky & Telescope (page 3). Its author, James Hugh Pruett (1886-1955), was an amateur astronomer living in Eugene, Oregon, and a frequent contributor to S&T. Pruett wrote on a variety of topics, especially fireball meteors. In his article on Blue Moons, he mentioned the 1937 Maine almanac and repeated some of Lafleur's earlier comments. Then, unfortunately, he went on to say, "Seven times in 19 years there were — and still are — 13 full moons in a year. This gives 11 months with one full moon each and one with two. This second in a month, so I interpret it, was called Blue Moon."

Pruett must not have had the 1937 almanac handy, or he would have noticed that the Blue Moon fell on August 21st (obviously not the second full Moon that month) and that 1937 had only 12 full Moons. But only in retrospect is his error so obvious.

Modern Folklore
Sky & Telescope adopted Pruett's new definition, using it in a note entitled "'Blue' Moons in May" on page 176 of the May 1950 issue. In a bizarre twist, the data on lunar phases for this note came from none other than H. Porter Trefethen of Winthrop, Maine, editor of the very almanac Pruett misread four years earlier! But Trefethen himself never called the second full Moon in a month a Blue Moon. The "'Blue' Moons" headline was likely added by Sky & Telescope's founding editor, Charles A. Federer Jr. Federer agreed that he probably wrote that headline with Pruett's then-recent article in mind and without consulting Trefethen.

As Hiscock explained in the March issue, widespread adoption of the second-full-Moon-in-a-month definition followed its use on the popular radio program StarDate on January 31, 1980. We examined this show's script, authored by Deborah Byrd, and found that it contains a footnote not read on the air that cites Pruett's 1946 article as the source for the information. Byrd now writes for the radio program Earth & Sky, whose Web site contains a note giving her perspective on this modern contribution to lunar folklore.

With two decades of popular usage behind it, the second-full-Moon-in-a-month (mis)interpretation is like a genie that can't be forced back into its bottle. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Rather than argue over whether to celebrate the dawn of the new millennium on January 1st in 2000 or 2001, those with the sunniest outlooks will celebrate twice. Why not treat Blue Moons the same way, marking both the second full Moon in a calendar month and the third full Moon in a season with four? "Even if the calendrical meaning is new," said Federer, "I don't see any harm in it. It's something fun to talk about, and it helps attract people to astronomy."

 

[trysail]

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_gmR8fkmAnjw/Sz6KEVSidJI/AAAAAAAAAT8/uJmVvJvukF4/s800/BrulleCO2tv.jpg

 

[trysail]

Watchdog revises cost of green energy improvements
By Tom Mcghie
Last updated at 9:47 PM on 02nd January 2010

Household gas and electricity bills are expected to rocket fourfold to nearly £5,000 a year by the end of the decade to meet Government-imposed green targets.

And the price heavy industry will have to pay by 2020 is so high that energy-dependent firms could be wiped out, causing thousands of job losses, said an industry spokesman.

A massive rethink on the cost of 'green energy' is taking place in Whitehall among senior regulators and industry, leading some to question whether the public will be prepared to pay increasingly high bills for the UK to become greener than most countries.

Officials at regulator Ofgem now privately admit that a report they issued only last year severely underestimates the cost of cutting carbon emissions by building a new energy infrastructure for the UK.


The watchdog's earlier report suggested that gas and electricity prices could double to £2,000 by 2020 to meet the £233.5 billion cost of going green by investing in nuclear energy and wind and wave power.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said the Government-imposed 2020 target of a 34 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020 and the 2050 target of an 80 per cent cut in greenhouse gases, both from 1990, were among the most ambitious in the world.

Ofgem's worries about those figures are backed up by new research from an energy-switching company that calculates £548 of the average household bill of almost £5,000 in 2020 would be to pay for the investments in nuclear and renewable energy.

This does not take into account payments to keep energy prices low for poorer people and grants for lagging and insulation for the fuel poor.

Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at uSwitch, said: 'The £5,000-a-year energy bill may seem like an outside possibility, but we have to remember that energy bills doubled in the past five years alone and that the huge investment needed just to keep the lights on will alone add £548 a year to our bills.'

Already energy bills are loaded up by five separate charges to help fund the battle to combat climate change and become greener. They are the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target, the Renewables Obligation, the Community Energy Saving Programme and shortly there will be a levy on investing in clean coal projects.

Although householders will be badly hit, the damage to industrial energy users will be even more dramatic. These companies, which range from steel and chemical plants to industrial gas companies, are dependent on reasonable energy prices that can, in some cases, account for 70 per cent of their entire costs.

Jeremy Nicholson, spokesman for the Energy Intensive Users' Group, said the Government's own figures showed that the price of electricity would go up by up to 70 per cent and the price of gas by a further 50 per cent as a direct result of meeting its renewable energy targets.

'We are not against cleaning up the environment, far from it,' he said. 'If every country faces these costs then so be it, but the UK has decided to be greener than any other country. The huge costs involved will make us totally uncompetitive.

'We are already highly efficient and cannot cut our costs further. If we find ourselves faced with these sort of increases, there will not be any heavy industry left in this country. We will be wiped out and with that thousands of jobs will go.'

But despite the pressure for energy prices to go up in the medium and longer term, gas bills are likely to come down this spring. Wholesale prices fell dramatically last year and industry sources said this would finally be passed on to customers...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1240201/Watchdog-rethinks-consumer-cost-green-energy.html

 

[trysail]

I do wish somebody had told me that you're supposed to lie, cheat and steal— everybody does it— it's perfectly alright as long as you don't get caught. Moral scruples are nothing more than an enormous impediment.

We've become a nation of persuaders and carnival barkers; that's all we do in the U.S. other than sue each other and deliver pizzas— we make noise. We're the largest collection of pitch(wo)men the world has ever seen. It doesn't make a damn bit of difference what you're hawking, just keep screaming at the top of your lungs.

Hollywood has been promoting and selling dreams for nearly a century. They convinced the entire world that American streets were paved in gold. Tinseltown, the media and the dreamsellers got everyone asking, "Where's mine?"

 

[Peregrinator]

Hey, didja see this thread?

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=688652

 

[hogjack]

Record Deficit
The U.S. budget deficit reached a record of $1.4 trillion in 2009, pushed up by the cost of bank bailouts and benefits after 7.2 million jobs were lost since the recession started two years ago. The U.S. government’s total debt is now more than $12 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury.

Could the US perhaps lease select tracts of Iraq and Afghanistan lands to the Chinese who would then use the territory to build more factories and ease their overpopulation concerns?

The US could get at least a trillion a year from the Chinese. Easily.

 

[trysail]

Hey, didja see this thread?
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=688652

Not until now. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. See:
http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=32938424&postcount=38

 

[trysail]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/05/times_asa_wrong/

Watchdog smacks Times for bogus climate claim
Inaccurate advert hits iceberg in Russian waters

By Andrew Orlowski
5th January 2010 11:40 GMT

An advertising campaign touting the depth and quality of the Times newspaper's environment coverage has been slapped by an industry watchdog for inaccuracy. The paper has agreed to modify the advertisements, which are based on a false climate change claim.

The Times ads claimed that global warming had caused the North East shipping passage, the icy Arctic route which in summer links Russia's European ports to the Bering Strait, to be opened for the first time. In fact, the North East Passage opened in 1934, and was opened to overseas traffic after the fall of the Soviet Union. Modern technology, specifically radar, has permitted a safer passage in recent years.

News International has agreed to amend the ad, which instead of claiming that "Climate change has allowed the Northeast Passage to be used as a commercial shipping route for the first time," now claims that "Climate change has allowed the Northeast passage to be more accessible as a viable commercial shipping route".

Although that depends on the kind of climate change, though. With the climate cooling, the route is less accessible than it was in warmer times. In the leaked East Anglia emails, scientists who confidently predicted continued warming ahead confess they can't account for the refusal of the climate to conform to their models.

The campaign received 29 complaints to the industry's self-regulator, the Advertising Standards Authority.

In November, The Times promised not to repeat another ad in the same series, which also boasted about its eco-reporting credentials. The paper had claimed that the oceans would be free of fish by 2048 (Not ManBearPig again, but over-fishing). The researcher who made the original claim has now revised it. Oops.

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png

 

[trysail]

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Dec_09.jpg



A conversion table for Farenheit and Celsius Litizens:

Temperature

-40 C = -40 F
-39 C = -38.2 F
-38 C = -36.4 F
-37 C = -34.6 F
-36 C = -32.8 F
-35 C = -31 F
-34 C = -29.2 F
-33 C = -27.4 F
-32 C = -25.6 F
-31 C = -23.8 F
-30 C = -22 F
-29 C = -20.2 F
-28 C = -18.4 F
-27 C = -16.6 F
-26 C = -14.8 F
-25 C = -13 F
-24 C = -11.2 F
-23 C = -9.4 F
-22 C = -7.6 F
-21 C = -5.8 F
-20 C = -4 F
-19 C = -2.2 F
-18 C = -0.4 F
-17 C = 1.4 F
-16 C = 3.2 F
-15 C = 5 F
-14 C = 6.8 F
-13 C = 8.6 F
-12 C = 10.4 F
-11 C = 12.2 F
-10 C = 14 F
-9 C = 15.8 F
-8 C = 17.6 F
-7 C = 19.4 F
-6 C = 21.2 F
-5 C = 23 F
-4 C = 24.8 F
-3 C = 26.6 F
-2 C = 28.4 F
-1 C = 30.2 F
0 C = 32 F
1 C = 33.8 F
2 C = 35.6 F
3 C = 37.4 F
4 C = 39.2 F
5 C = 41 F
6 C = 42.8 F
7 C = 44.6 F
8 C = 46.4 F
9 C = 48.2 F
10 C = 50 F
11 C = 51.8 F
12 C = 53.6 F
13 C = 55.4 F
14 C = 57.2 F
15 C = 59 F
16 C = 60.8 F
17 C = 62.6 F
18 C = 64.4 F
19 C = 66.2 F
20 C = 68 F
21 C = 69.8 F
22 C = 71.6 F
23 C = 73.4 F
24 C = 75.2 F
25 C = 77 F
26 C = 78.8 F
27 C = 80.6 F
28 C = 82.4 F
29 C = 84.2 F
30 C = 86 F
31 C = 87.8 F
32 C = 89.6 F
33 C = 91.4 F
34 C = 93.2 F
35 C = 95 F
36 C = 96.8 F
37 C = 98.6 F
38 C = 100.4 F
39 C = 102.2 F
40 C = 104 F
41 C = 105.8 F
42 C = 107.6 F







Do your own research using the GHCN database:
http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X13...//www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climate.aspx

For example, Darwin, Alice Springs and Yamba ( Australia- since 1880 ):

http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarmi...0900310AS50194120000x50194326000x50194589000x

http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarmi...0900310AR50194120000x50194326000x50194589000x


Patuxent, Chestertown, Princess Anne, Royal Oak and Salisbury ( Maryland )
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarmi...72404002x42572404004x42572406005x42574595002x

 

[trysail]

CO2— causation, coincidence or effect of temperature change?



Atmospheric Temperature and Carbon Dioxide: Feedback or Equilibrium?
R. Taylor

For several years, the suggestion that there is positive feedback between atmospheric temperature (T) and carbon-dioxide concentration (CO2) has dominated the scientific literature, and has become a fundamental assumption of climate science. Alternatively, the relationship between T and CO2 might be one of equilibrium. We can test models of each type by comparison with the Vostok record, first published by Petit, et al. (1999). The Vostok record contains about 3,300 determinations of T and 280 determinations of CO2, spanning the last 420,000 years.

Figure 1 shows the Vostok record; for clarity, the dates and measurements of T have been averaged in groups of 10, and those after 0 BCE are not shown (cf. Figure 4).

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/rtaylorfig11.png
Figure 1: Temperature and Carbon Dioxide Inferred from the Vostok Ice-core.

T ranges through about 13 °C in the record, and CO2 ranges through about 120 ppm. There are peaks and valleys of various amplitudes and durations, and changes in T precede corresponding changes in CO2 (Mudelsee, 2001). The resolution of the record improves as measurements become more recent.

The first quantitative model comparable to the Vostok record with feedback between T and CO2 seems to be that of Hogg (2008). Hogg simulated insolation and other factors over a given interval of 500,000 years to predict values of T and CO2. Figure 2 is rescaled from Hogg’s figure 2a, so T and CO2 have approximately equal amplitude.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/rtaylorfig2.png
Figure 2: Temperature and Carbon Dioxide from Hogg’s Feedback-Model.

Feedback systems typically have characteristic amplitude and period. For this model, 1.7 °C is the characteristic amplitude of T, and 100,000 years is about the characteristic period. Adjusting the parameters of the model will change its amplitude and period, but these will be characteristic for any given set of parameters: Other amplitudes and periods will be suppressed.

Since the model assumes that CO2 has a significant effect on T, changes in CO2 happen before corresponding changes in T through a substantial portion of its cycle, viz. the latter portion of the rises to the peaks (cf. Hogg) and through essentially all of the subsequent declines. As previously mentioned, however, the Vostok record shows that changes in CO2 happen after corresponding changes in T. This lag is shown most clearly by large-amplitude features in the more recent portion of the record: CO2 rises hundreds of years after T rises, and falls thousands of years after T falls.

The substantially inverted lag of this feedback model confirms what is self-evident in an equilibrium model: A lagging entity can have no significant effect on a leading entity. For example, CO2 at a given time cannot affect the level of T that existed hundreds-to-thousands of years earlier.

A model of equilibrium between T and CO2 can be based on balance between temperature dependent processes that (i) release CO2 into the atmosphere and (ii) absorb it into the surface of the earth. If the temperature dependency is simply linear, we can express our model as:

CO2(t+l) = mT(t) + b

where t is time, l is the length of time required for CO2 to regain equilibrium after a change in T, m is the number of units that CO2 changes for a unit change in T, and b is the constant offset between units of CO2 and units of T.

Using this equation, we can predict a value for CO2 at some time in the future from each value of T. If we give l a value of 50 years after a rise in temperature and 8000 years after a fall in temperature, m a value of 10 and b a value of 270, and average the times and predicted values of CO2 in groups of 10, we obtain the predicted values shown in figure 3. The figure also shows the measured values of CO2 for comparison.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/rtaylorfig3.png
Figure 3: Carbon Dioxide, Measured and Predicted by Lagged Temperature.

The output of the equilibrium model is consistent with the lag, spectrum and amplitudes of the record. The correspondence between predicted and measured values of CO2 indicates that CO2 is in temperature-dependent time-lagged equilibrium, and that the temperature dependence of CO2 is essentially linear through the Vostok range.

Let us turn our attention to the last 11,000 years, during which humans have disturbed the equilibrium between T and CO2. The most recent CO2 determination from the ice-core has a date of about 340 BCE. We can add an early-industrial-era value of 290 ppm at 1800 CE and a value of 365 ppm at 2000 CE to provide figure 4. The scaling in the figure is consistent with the equilibrium model that fits the overall Vostok record, where a change of 1 °C in T causes a change of 10 ppm in CO2.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/rtaylorfig4.png
Figure 4: Temperature and Carbon Dioxide since 9,000 BCE.

T and CO2 appear to have been in equilibrium until about 3,000 BCE. Over the 5,000 years since then, CO2 has risen increasingly above its natural equilibrium. By 1,800 CE, CO2 had risen to a level comparable to the highest in the Vostok record. During this time, T declined at a rate of 0.1 °C per thousand years, indicating again that CO2 has no apparent effect on T. The trends of this 5,000-year interval of excess CO2 are consistent with the equilibrium model, in which T is independent of CO2.

The last 5,000 years are trivial compared to the 420,000 years of the Vostok record; of even less significance are the last 1,200 years. However, climate science has put great emphasis on the features of this interval, even though they fit within the noise-envelope. The “medieval warm period” spanned 800 CE to 1,200 CE; Vostok shows it wasn’t really warm, but wasn’t really cold either. The “little ice age” followed (although average T was barely lower), and ended after the low of -1.84 °C around 1,770 CE. By the early 1800s, T was higher than it is at present, and it has fluctuated within levels typical of the last 11,000 years since then. It is remarkable that climate hysteria should be based on noise-level changes in T over the last 200 years, which is an eye-blink in the Vostok record. It seems to be the superstition of our time.

In summary, the Vostok record indicates that CO2 is in lagged equilibrium with T and that, for the range of T in Vostok, the dependency of CO2 on T is essentially linear. Unnaturally high CO2 for the last 5,000 years has had no apparent effect on T. This empirical evidence supports a conclusion that there cannot be any significant feedback between CO2 and T. Such feedback would cause predicted T and CO2 to show fundamental disagreement with the lag, spectrum and amplitudes evident in the Vostok record.

It is impossible to say how enduring the feedback fallacy will be. However, any such model proposed in the future can be regarded as qualitative if it does not specify lag, characteristic amplitude and period, and as speculative if it cannot be compared to the Vostok record. Accordingly, any such model can be ignored.

If we may depart for a moment from objectivity, any such model should be ignored if its proponents declare that it shows polar bears are in peril, and you can save them by painting your roof white and burning nuts and corn in your car.

References
Hogg, A.M., 2008, Glacial cycles and carbon dioxide: A conceptual model. Geophysical Research Letters, 35, L01701 (5 pp.).

Mudelsee, M., 2001, The phase relations among atmospheric CO2 content, temperature and global ice volume over the past 420 ka. Quaternary Science Reviews, 20, 583-589. Petit, J.R., Jouzel, J., Raynaud, D., Barkov, N.I., Barnola, J.-M., Basile, I., Bender, M., Chappellaz, J., Davis, M., Delaygue, G., Delmotte, M., Kotlyakov, V.M., Legrand, M., Lipenkov, V.Y., Lorius, C., Pépin, L., Ritz, C., Saltzman, E. and Stievenard, M., 1999, Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica. Nature, 399, 429-436. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok_data.html provides on-line data.

=======================================================
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/04/gray-on-agw/


Leonard Evens says:
27 April 2006 at 3:47 PM
Let me see if I understand the general outlines of what Gray is saying. He seems to be saying that atmospheric CO_2 build-up is not a significant factor in the observed record for the 20th century. His argument seems to be that he can explain it by changes in the THC. But, if I understand correctly, naive physics, from Arrhenius and before, suggests that increasing CO_2 (and other greenhouse gas) concentrations should lead to warming. If that is not the case, because something else explains it, then we need a physical explanation for why not.

Now of course, the naive explanation is an oversimplification, and that is the reason why climate scientists design complex computer models. And, indeed, the computer models appear to say that increasing CO_2 concentrations should lead to warming, but they differ quantitatively from what the most naive models would predict. Their predictions seem to be in reasonable agreement with the observed record, although hardly perfect about all details.

Presumably, Gray would argue that the models are unrelable, but, if he believes his THC arguments, he still has left a big gap in our understanding. If the models are unreliable, it is quite possible that CO_2 is more important rather than being less important. It is even possible that his THC argument, when examined carefully ends up having the wrong sign, and reduces warming. In that case, climate is more, not less, sensitive to greenhouse gas increases.

If I understand correctly, those who argued that solar influences were the dominant cause of warming made a similar argument. They claimed they had found a mechanism which explained the great bulk of the warming, so the effect of greenouse gases must be small. But they left open the question of why that was so. It was even worse in their case because they had to explain why one kind of forcing would have an effect and another kind would not.

If I understand correctly, Lindzen has tried to deal with this conundrum. He doesn’t believe that CO_2 increases will lead to significant warming, and he has a mechanism which might explain that. Unfortunately, if I understand correctly, his mechanism doesn’t appear to work.

It seems to me that the difference between the consensus climate scientists and the contrarians is that they do indeed try to take into account all plausible forcings, cycles, etc. And that by itself is a reason why rational non-specialists should listen to them.

Is that a reasonable summary?

[Response: On the whole, I'd say it's reasonable, except that I wouldn't describe Arrhenius' work as in any sense "naive." It was a very sophisticated piece of physics, building on experiments and theory from Tyndall, Stefan and Boltzmann, with a very clever use of Langley's observations of lunar infrared to fill in the gaps in laboratory spectroscopy and radiative transfer theory. Some of his numbers aren't of the best, but there isn't anything essentially wrong in his picture of why infrared opacity would warm the Earth (well, maybe a little bit, in the way he deals with the top of atmosphere energy budget). The biggest thing that the comprehensive GCM's buy for you is that they actually compute the water vapor distribution based on fluid dynamics and thermodynamics plus some approximated effects of convection; they eliminate the necessity of ad-hoc assumptions about relative humidity. They also provide some possibility of dealing with clouds, and they provide the only reliable way of dealing with regional variations, which depend very much on fluid mechanical heat transport. However, the basic underlying mechanism leading to the warming is still very much the one that Arrhenius identified, though bringing in volcanic aerosol and anthropogenic aerosol forcing, as well as solar fluctuations, proved also important in accounting for the 20th century pattern. To add to your remark on Lindzen: Lindzen doesn't have a quantified alternative mechanism that accounts for the observed 20th;21st century warming. What he has is a proposal for a cloud based stabilizing mechanism that, if true, would seem to imply that the Earth's temperature couldn't change much by any means whatsoever. The original empirical underpinnings of that theory were shaky at best, and the physics relating cloud fraction to temperature were never fleshed out. Subsequent studies published in the literature have further undermined the theory, but I don't want to oversimplify a very complex subject by trying to discuss that evidence here. At some point I will probably do a post on it. --raypierre]

 

[trysail]

The best definition of "liberal" that I can think of is a person who is utterly innumerate. They tend to be starry-eyed utopian fools who are expert at and delight in spending OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. That is, of course, a form of theft. Since liberals are so eager to spend money, it strikes me as right, meet, just, proper and true that they should be required to spend their own money rather than mine. Most liberals are frustrated would-be dictators who are absolutely certain the world would be much better off if the rest of us would only acknowledge them as Führer.


___________________________
As the year ends, let's take a look at the U.S. national debt outstanding as reported by http://www.usdebtclock.org this morning. At the moment, it stands at a stunning $12,130,035,400,000 ( for U.S. based innumerates, that's TWELVE TRILLION ONE HUNDRED THIRTY BILLION THIRTY-FIVE MILLION FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS ) or $39,349 per person or $111,290 per taxpayer.



U.S. Debt Clock:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/

 

[trysail]

This is the longest annular solar eclipse of the millennium, and the longest until December 23, 3043, with a maximum length of 11 mins and 7.8 seconds.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/SE2010Jan15A.gif

 

[trysail]

"Ten years after publishing some outrageous claims about disappearing glaciers, New Scientist comes clean:

IT WAS a dramatic declaration: glaciers across much of the Himalayas may be gone by 2035. When New Scientist heard this comment from a leading Indian glaciologist, we reported it. That was in 1999. The claim later appeared in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent report— and it turns out that our article is the primary published source.

The glaciologist has never submitted what he says was a speculative comment for peer review— and most of his peers strongly dispute it. So how could such speculation become an IPCC "finding" which has, moreover, recently been defended by the panel's chairman? We are entitled to an explanation, before rumour and doubt compound the damage to the image of climate science already inflicted by the leaked "climategate" emails.

This sudden burst of inquiry from Britain's premier science magazine is certainly welcome. We've had twenty-odd years of, at best dumb acquiesence and at worst dumber cheerleading. What have the New Scientists been thinking of these last two decades?"

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/1/15/new-scientist-on-glaciers.html#entry6335958

 

[trysail]

Stocks and the 1930s

Assuming you'd put $1.00 in stocks ( as measured by the S&P 500 ) right at the top of the stock market on 1 January, 1929 (which is— of course— the worst case), the closest you came to getting your $1.00 back prior to 1952 was in 1936 when you would have had $0.706 or in 1941 when you would have had $0.713. In 1950, you'd have had $0.838 growing to $0.976 in 1951. You didn't get your money back until 1952.

Since that's the worst case, it's worth considering what the outcome would have been if you hadn't put everything in right at the top. If, for example, you'd put $1.00 into the stock market on 1 January, 1926 you'd have recouped that investment and more by 1933 ( at the end of '33, you'd have had $1.21 ).

Here are the actual percentage total ( dividends and price change ) returns ( for the S&P 500 ):
1951....24.02
1950....31.71
1949....18.79
1948.....5.50
1947.....5.71
1946....-8.07
1945....36.44
1944....19.75
1943....25.90
1942....20.34
1941...-11.59
1940....-9.78
1939....-0.41
1938....31.12
1937...-35.03
1936....33.92
1935....47.67
1934....-1.44
1933....53.99
1932....-8.19
1931...-43.34
1930...-24.90
1929....-8.42
1928....43.61
1927....37.49
1926....11.62