Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

CO2 Emissions Link to Temperature Trends: A Quandary?

Two scientists from the Netherlands have published a paper in the International Journal of Climatology with results not consistent with models predictions (this paper is a follow-up to an earlier paper the authors had published that we covered a few years ago). de Laat and Maurellis note that greenhouse gas (GHG) warming should be observed at the surface, and indeed, such warming appears in the surface record of the past 25 years. However, they observe that “Climate models and theory predict that enhanced GHG warming should occur throughout the troposphere” but far less warming has been observed in the free troposphere than at the surface. They write “This discrepancy between surface and free tropospheric warming is a well-documented phenomenon” and “This discrepancy opens the possibility that other anthropogenic near-surface processes may have contributed to the observed surface temperature variations.”

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... Whatever the cause, the pattern of increasing temperature in places with the greatest emissions of greenhouse gases shows up prominently in both the thermometer-based surface temperature measurements and in the satellite-based measurements of lower-tropospheric temperatures. No such pattern is suggested by the numerical models of climate.

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In this current paper, the authors apply different statistical techniques to be certain the pattern is not some peculiar artifact of a particular procedure, but not matter what technique they use, the pattern shows up over and over in the empirical records. Furthermore, they find the pattern is stronger in winter than in summer and stronger at night than in the daytime.

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The explanation is elusive at this time, but the authors conclude “Anthropogenic heat is not the only process that can or may explain the correlation between temperature trends and industrial CO2 emissions. There are a few other possible processes that may play a role: changes in land use that could change the surface albedo and also soil moisture and thus the surface energy balance and also groundwater levels; absorbing aerosols like soot, cloud cover or cloud optical properties all are potentially plausible explanations.”

The pattern the uncovered is a reminder that not all warming in a record can be ascribed to the buildup of greenhouse gases. Something is happening in areas with high CO2 emissions that is causing the surface and lower-tropospheric temperatures to rise far more quickly than other areas of the earth. Whatever the cause, it is inflating the rise in temperature observed for the planet and should be considered in any attempt to identify the temperature response to elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases.

Surprisingly, the link spatially between CO2 emissions and the rise in temperature is not consistent with model predictions!

Source: World Climate Report » CO2 Emissions Link to Temperature Trends: A Quandary?

I'm not a climatologist, and I don't play one on television either, but I see something that seems a little obvious here. Maybe someone else can point out where my logic is flawed...

Could it be that the fact that the pattern is stronger in winter than in summer, and that it is stronger at night than in the daytime might actually reflect how people in urban and suburban areas heat their homes?

My limited experience seems to indicate that it's usually colder in the winter, and that despite the insulation of my home some of that coldness creeps into it, causing me to turn up the heat in the winter. Not only that, but I've also noticed that it's generally colder outside at night than during the day. And since I'm at home during the night, I keep the heat on then as well.

I heat my home with natural gas and with a fairly efficient wood stove. Both of these heating methods produce an abundance of CO2. They also produce an abundance of comfortable heat that wouldn't otherwise be introduced into the atmosphere. I mean really, if I wasn't burning those logs to produce heat the air wouldn't be getting any warmer now... would it? I'm forced to ask, is the comfortable warmth that I feel when I sit in front of the fire in my living room caused by the chemical energy released by the burning of the wood or is it caused by the CO2 that is being released into the air by that burning?

I think that this could explain why the temperature record around my home might show a trend toward warming, as compared to say the deep woods several miles away where I'm not burning wood to produce CO2 and excess heat. I think the fact that I don't heat my home during the summer might also explain why the temperature record around my home would reflect more unnatural warming during the winter than during the summer, and why there would be more relative warming at night than during the day.

If we want to consider areas with increased industrial CO2 emissions, we could simply note that a lot of power plants that produce electricity burn fossil fuels and thereby produce CO2. And people use the generated electricity for the same reasons I burn natural gas and wood during the winter and at night.

After all, if you are actually generating heat, say by making some electrical wires get very hot and warm a home through radiance, convection and conduction, that heat has to go somewhere. My bet is that some of it goes into the air in the home, and then leaks out through windows, and that some of it escapes even through the insulated walls and roof of the home.

Could it be that part of the warming trend might actually be caused by people trying to keep warm?  Or is that just "crazy talk"?

I guess their code worked.

11/16/2006

Source: Day by Day Cartoon by Chris Muir

Or, could it have been the code Clint Curtis claims to have written for Tom Feeney? No, I don't really think so, but the cartoon reminded me of it again.

Twenty Percent of King County Absentee Ballots Mishandled

The Seattle Times reports that slightly more than 20% of absentee ballots dropped off at polling stations on election night were improperly handled. 

Out of 550 bags filled with absentee ballots, 116 were improperly sealed by poll workers on election night last week, King County election officials said Tuesday.

The canvassing board, which certifies elections, voted Tuesday to count most of the estimated 13,400 ballots. It also recommended the office change how it trains poll workers to secure absentee ballots dropped off at polling locations. The bags are supposed to be sealed at 8 p.m. to prevent ballots from being added after the polls close.

Officials said the bags could not be sealed in many cases because more voters than usual dropped off absentee ballots at polling places and all the ballots could not fit in the bags. But, the officials added, it was not unusual for such a high percentage of absentee-ballot bags to be returned without proper security seals in previous elections.

Board member Julia Patterson, who represents the Metropolitan King County Council, called the situation unacceptable.

"That indicates to me there are changes that need to be made to the process," she said.

That's an understatement. How about starting by rolling back the plan to move to all-mail balloting in King County that the King County Council voted to approve along party lines on June 19th? Time and time again King County proves to the world that it can't handle ballots correctly, and yet government officials call the system a "model to the rest of the nation and the world at large."

An absentee-ballot bag from Innis Arden Clubhouse in Shoreline was accidentally left in a polling inspector's car on election night and turned in a day later, the elections office reported Tuesday. The board is waiting for a statement by the poll judge before deciding how to handle the ballots.

Is this really the way you want your ballots to be handled? Is this a model for the rest of the world?

I don't think so. I think it's more proof that King County Elections can't be trusted.

Patrick Fitzgerald Went Too Far

"Plamegate" was a travesty of justice. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation should have ended almost as soon as it began. When Richard Armitage was revealed to have been the "leak", something that happened early in the investigation if reports are to be believed, the investigation should have been closed.

Instead Mr. Fitzgerald continued with his politically charged investigation, even though the facts of the case were known. When he finally managed to bring an indictment, it was for an alleged crime that could never have been committed if not for Mr. Fitzgerald's own abuse of power.

WASHINGTON - Classified information will be key evidence in the CIA leak trial and Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald went too far in his proposal to limit its release, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is charged with lying to investigators in the case and wants to present classified material at his trial in January to show jurors that he had a lot on his mind and couldn't remember details about the leak.

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In a ruling Monday, Walton said Fitzgerald's proposed redactions were too restrictive. The memory argument is a key part of Libby's defense, Walton ruled, and he must be allowed to use classified information to make that case.

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Libby is charged with lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters about CIA operative Valerie Plame. Plame believes her identity was leaked to the press as retribution for her husband's criticism of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Read the whole article in The Olympian.

For readers of the Olympian and others out here on the left coast... The Washington Post has this to say about it all:

Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Unfortunate indeed, and a travesty of justice that the Special Prosecutor assigned to look into this didn't drop the investigation once he knew the truth. A travesty that Patrick Fitzgerald had to prolong a witch hunt until he managed to trap someone into making inconsistent statements, so he could finally bring charges of perjury against an administration official and have some justification for the otherwise colossal waste of the taxpayers money.