View 613 March 8 - 14, 2010 (original) (raw)
Friday, March 12, 2010
The March column is posted at Chaos Manor Reviews.
I paid the bills yesterday and discovered that beginning in January -- I think it began in January -- an outfit called HelpMeDownload.com in Great Britain began charging me $9.98 per month. Actually it may be 9.98 pounds, since there's a note that this is a foreign exchange transaction. Attempts to reach them by their 800 number phone gets a loop message saying that all their operatives are busy, stand by. Half an hour of hearing this on my speaker phone convinced me they aren't going to answer.
I called my Visa account line and was told that this is monthly, all right, and if I didn't order it I need to call during office hours in Dallas to dispute it, so I will. Meanwhile I looked up HelpMeDownload.com and found there are a lot of complaints posted from people who have been charged and never signed up for it. There are also what purports to be replies from Help.Me.Download, so the company exists and you can get them to remove their charges if you work at it.
I have no idea what "service" HelpMeDownload.com provides. I infer from some of the complaint posts that it may be associated with SKYPE and those signing up for SKYPE have been bitten by this. It may be associated with AVG, but I don't use AVG nor does anyone else here. I'll deal with this through my Visa company but meanwhile you might want to look at your credit card bill to see if there's charge from HelpMeDownload.com. If you did order their service, please tell me what service you ordered and what HelpMeDownload.com did for you.
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Climate Data
I am no expert on climate data. I have been persuaded that NASA's earth surface temperature data from satellite observations is more accurate than the more traditional measurements, but on reflection I don't know why I think that. I would presume that satellite observations of temperatures at various altitudes would be obtained more conveniently than by launching weather balloons, but I'm not sure how we calibrate those observations. I presume they are compared to readings taken by balloon operations so that we can compare satellite observations with the much older balloon data. I also presume that those data have been preserved, and are available to anyone who needs them.
Perhaps my assumptions are wrong. I don't know, really. There are circulating emails about US climate data that raise disturbing questions. Most point to this web site as their source.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/
climategate-stunner-nasa-heads-
knew-nasa-data-was-poor-then-
used-data-from-cru/?print=1#comments_controls
That site quotes Goddard's Hansen as saying
This response was extended later the same day by Dr. James Hansen � the head of NASA GISS:
[For] example, we extrapolate station measurements as much as 1200 km. This allows us to include results for the full Arctic. In 2005 this turned out to be important, as the Arctic had a large positive temperature anomaly. We thus found 2005 to be the warmest year in the record, while the British did not and initially NOAA also did not. �
It should be noted that the different groups have cooperated in a very friendly way to try to understand different conclusions when they arise.
[Emphasis added]
I am still looking for a good textbook at the Climate Science 101 level, because I have only a vague understanding of how we now determine the temperature of large areas such as the Arctic. Extrapolating station measurements by 1200 km seems a bit extreme -- it's a bit like determining the temperature of San Francisco and Phoenix by computing the average temperature in Los Angeles, which is so absurd that I must be misunderstanding something. I know the Arctic is more uniform than California and Arizona, but I can't think it is absolutely uniform. Moreover, does this mean that satellite temperature measurements can't be taken over the Arctic? Don't we have any polar orbit satellites to measure temperature data? If not, why not? I'd think that one of the very first things to demand, a reliable way to measure temperatures at all latitudes.
Now critics of the Climate Consensus are quick to say deception and fraud. I don't leap to that conclusion; but I do think some elementary explanations of just how these temperatures are recorded to an accuracy of fractions of a degree. Was 2005 the warmest year on record? Didn't seem that way to me, and if any large part of it was based on extrapolations of 300 to 600 miles, I'd be even more skeptical since "warmest" refers to a lot less than a half degree.
I do believe it is time for NOAA and NASA to issue a report in comprehensible language on just how these temperatures are determined. How do we determine the temperature of the Arctic in 2005, and how do we determine how much of the Earth's temperature for 2005 is to be determined by the Arctic temperature (what weight is given it in computing the average) and why do we believe that we are justified in giving credence to two decimal places -- to one decimal place -- to a degree, for that matter -- to these measurements.
We know that the world was warmer in the Medieval Warm period. We know that there were dairy farms in Greenland, vineyards in Scotland, longer growing seasons in central Europe, and mild conditions in China during that time. By "know" I mean that we have records and reports. These are gross estimates, and I have no idea how they translate into any single temperature for the Earth; but surely they have some credible weight?
We know that the world was colder from about 1350 to 1830. We "know" this from reports of solid ice in the Hudson and Holland's brackish canals; by the loss of the vineyards in Scotland and nearly all of England; by crop records, including from the Orient and the Middle East. It was just plain colder back then than it is now.
I'm not sure how much more we know, or how accurate is our knowledge; but any climate theory that weighs a 1200 kilometer extrapolation to determine the temperature of the Arctic in 2005 higher than the historical records is subject to challenge, and it would seem to me has the burden of proof to show why anyone should pay attention to it.
The Climate Science consensus is crumbling everywhere except in the US mainstream press. Even the British Left -- the Guardian -- expresses views from doubt to utter rejection. The pendulum is swinging. I don't want it to swing too far: I think we ought to keep tracking things like CO2 levels, ocean ph, glacial retraction and expansion, and all the rest. These are serous matters and ought to be taken seriously. But, as I seem ceaselessly to say lately, before we spend enormous sums on changing trends, we really have to be serious about showing that the trends we want to change really exist.
Does anyone know whether we have a good polar orbit Earth Temperature satellite, and if we don't, why not?
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: presidential candidates are nuts
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240
52748703625304575116091277942862.htmlYe Gods and little fishes.
Phil
Peggy Noonan recalls a time when candidates were neither Nuts nor Creeps. It has been a while. Why does anyone want to be President? Washington called it splendid misery. The Congress, meanwhile, is dominated by long term members with safe seats, some of whom become fanatics. Kennedy, Dodd, Reid, Pelosi all come to mind.
Pelosi is now dedicated to ramming through the health care bill without regard to consequences. This will precipitate a constitutional crisis. It ought to precipitate some thought among sane Democrats -- there are many of them, actually -- over just what it is they want. The voters have rejected the Creeps -- the Republicans who think themselves entitled to public office and embraced weird concepts like 'big government conservatism.' Now they are ready to reject the Nuts -- the fanatical leftist leadership of the Democratic party.
The country is ready for an actual New Deal. It is not ready to transform America into yet another European style socialist state. It is ready for leadership from people who know something of the history of American exceptionalism and are not ashamed of that history. Whether we get that kind of leadership is not certain at all. We will not get it from undiluted populism. We need to restore the Republic.
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide. "
John Adams
It's not too late to remember this.
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Lindy Sisk sends this:
Free Kindle Book Reader
Amazon sent me an offer for a free downloadable Kindle book reader program which runs on a P.C. running Windows 7, Vista, or XP. Here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/
feature.html/ref=pe_70030_1
4452670_fe_txt_1/?ie=UTF8&d
ocId=1000426311Regards, -- Lindy
I haven't had a chance to download and try it yet, but this would seem to me to be a potential game changer; it enormously expands the potential Kindle format readership to include anyone with a PC Netbook among other things.
More when I find out more, but I'll be glad to hear from those who have experience with it.
