It used to be that scientists communicated their knowledge through reliable professional journals, which then communicated to the media.
Apparently climate scientists are getting increasingly desperate, and so they are now going directly to the very bottom of the media chain and giving interviews to the mass-market, most sensationalist of the tabloids. Such is the latest with James E. Overland and Germany’s no. 1 tabloid Bild in a story titled:
Climatologist: Deadly Weather Chaos Will Be A Permanent Condition
Who would have ever thought it? Scientists from (once) one of the the world’s most prestigious scientific organisations, now have to go to the yellowist of tabloids to be heard.
Bild, the flagship publication owned by Axel Springer, has a circulation of over 4 million, more than the Wall Street Journal and USA Today combined. It is the paper of choice among the lesser educated in Germany.
In the Bild interview James Overland warned: “Things are going to get a lot worse.”
In the past, warm events were cited as mounting evidence of man-made global warming. But as these events diminish and cold events start piling up, desperate global warming scientists like Overland have been forced to concoct dubious science theories, and now claim the cold events are suddenly sure signs of warming. This is what Overland tells Bild over and over. Bild starts with:
Now a US climate scientist warns: ‘This turbulent weather is only the beginning!’ “
Overland claims that all the cold weather can be explained by a newly found theory: The melting of the Arctic sea has led to a complete collapse of Arctic and Northern Hemisphere air patterns – “the biggest collapse since the start of weather records 145 years ago.”
Overland warns:
The disappearance of the currents paired with the extreme winters are signs of something bigger and organised. It is almost frightening.”
It obvious by now that Overland’s “climate science” and tabloids were made for each other.
No absolute evidence!
Bild asked if there is any data to support this. Overland says:
We still don’t have any absolute evidence, but we have clearly measured that there is 30% less ice cover in the Arctic.”
Therein lies the beauty of tabloid science. Proof? Evidence? Data? That’s for scientific journals. Tabloids don’t need that sort of stuff. Bild then asks Overland about what to expect in the future.
In 30 years 80% of the Arctic ice may be gone. The extreme weather will intensify further. And the dramatic changes of the atmospheric system are obvious.”
And adds:
All our climate models show that the unpredictability of the weather is increasing dramatically as our planet heats up.”
He claims the models show it. They all but confirms the science. But then he adds the models are not able to detect surprises. For example, he was surprised by the 2007 Arctic ice shrinkage. And now they have just found the latest surprise – unforeseen by their models:
And now we are experiencing the next surprise, the collapse of the Arctic current and the flow of cold air to the south. It is alarming. We are entering new meteorological territory: The extreme weather is going to get a lot worse.“
Rahmstorf’s snowjob.
PIK snowjob
Everyone in Germany knows who is behind this Bild snowjob – Stefan Rahmstorf of the alarmist, science front-group Potsdam Institute For Climate Impact Research (PIK).
That’s the institute that came out with a similar bogus theory to explain the cold winters, read here. But later even Rahmstorf backpedalled on this dubious Arctic sea ice – cold winter connection, read here. Yet Overland thinks even science rejected by Rahmstorf is good enough.
If you can’t make the case in the professional journals, then you take it to the tabloids and the masses and hope that mass popularity will win the day for your alarmist views.
It really is sad to see a scientist fall to that level of scientific destitution. Postulating is one thing, but calling postulates fact without evidence is quackery. Period.
In case there are any remaining questions as to the seriousness of Bild, here’s what they wrote in 2007:
But the heating of the earth is accelerating! If it gets 2 degrees warmer than today, then hundreds of millions of people will thirst and starve to death. Or they’ll drown in flood waves from swelling oceans.”
Like I say, made for each other.
Hello Pierre,
Did you have a good look at the picture of the guy.
He looks a bit senile to me.
Just like our political establishment keen to replace Mubarak from Egypt for the Brotherhood of Islam.
Chaos could be a permanent state all right but not in regard to our climate.
I don’t know about his appearance, but his science certainly indicates some level of senility.
The book that all alarmist scientists should read:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/06/on-being-a-scientist-a-manual/
Overland also postulated in June 2010 that cold and snowy winters through loss of ice in the Arctics will be the rule in the future.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100611093710.htm
I think they’re losing it fast now.
In this video from 2010, Dr. Overland explains his theory. The AGW-warmed oceans release their heat in fall, leading to warm air temperatures and high air pressure in the arctic, forcing the relatively cold air from the pole southwards in winter. Or something like that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pxXb_xkk5U
Thanks Dirk
Maybe there’s some truth…but a postulate needs to be supported by data, which Overland admits is not there.
Did you notice what this Thailand “Supreme Commander” lady said about bad weather:
“These are almost always a consequnece of humans’ violent actions. The number one action is meat-eating!…And all the bad climate will go away if we all eat organic food!”
Pierre, i am deeply convinced that Overland has completely lost it. And we will see Schmidt, Dessler, Rahmstorff etc go down the same road. And yes, the “Don’t eat meat” commandment… beautiful, just beautiful. I didn’t want to give it away in my comment; kind of like a surprise gift.
She probaly has a big steak, er stake, in the organic food industry.
“The melting of the Arctic sea has led to a complete collapse of Arctic and Northern Hemisphere air patterns”
So the sea ice will not recover then?
“If it gets 2 degrees warmer than today”
So it cannot going to get colder then?
“Climate Scientists Discover That Water Freezes Below The Freezing Point”
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/climate-scientists-discover-that-water-freezes-below-the-freezing-point/
“Steffen Tietsche, lead author of the study that appeared this week in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters, said that he was quite surprised when he found this result: “It seems so obvious that a tipping point for Arctic summer sea ice exists[…]”
There still seems to be hope for Steffen.
Climate scientists are in panick mode. They fear that a cooling phase will wipe out their research grants as the people of the Northern Hemisphere grow weary of bitterly cold and snowy winters.
Look at the past and you will find out that what has happened at the Arctic is not unusual.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice-tony-b/
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/during-the-warming-of-the-early-1900s-variations-in-the-mean-area-of-arctic-sea-ice-were-roughly-10-to-15-per-cent/
What was Dr. Overland saying in this past decade about the Arctic being ice free along with other warmist, an Gore too. Gore said if i remeber correctly that by 2013or 2015, the Artic would be ice free. Hansen, Schmit, IPCC, Mann, Jones, Trentbreth, Biffa. Well the hockey team! R. Haan had put up the site on an article fromm the 20s about massive ice loss in the Arctic. There will be yrs. where the ice will melt back as in 07 or worse but it always grows back in winter around the “Baseline”. It will grow back more or less from that but you can not expect it to stay stoic in its melt and growth every year. Unfortunatly some scientist are grasping at straws.
Grayman… Do you realize that now winter ice extent in the Arctic is down to about where Summer minimum ice extent was in the 1980’s?
Also, the return of the winter ice each season is meaningless with regards to global warming because there is virtually no albedo effect. The Arctic is in total darkness in the winter. The lost of summer ice is very important because open water absorbs heat instead of ice reflecting it back. Loss of summer ice is a very serious situation. It’s a key feedback response to a warming planet.
Overland does get one thing wrong. It’s unlikely to take 30 years to lose summer ice. It’s more likely to be gone with in the next 15 years.
Stop!
“Grayman… Do you realize that now winter ice extent in the Arctic is down to about where Summer minimum ice extent was in the 1980′s?”
You serious? Are you okay today?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.jpg
My mistake. It was volume not extent.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Plot_arctic_sea_ice_volume.svg
Re-adjust, Rob, as i already posted above, your priests (in this case the warmists from the Max Planck Institute) have issued a new fatwa.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110204092149.htm
Stop with the inflammatory rhetoric already, Dirk.
2011/02/06 08:00 Day four spotless. February is off to good start for those betting on a grand minimum. The solar wind is showing some form and there does look to be some activity on Stereo Behind heading our way but overall the cycle remains weak.
Yesterday’s adjusted F10.7 flux figures measured at 20:00 UTC recorded 78.7 (79.8), remaining low. The DSN value for today is 53 with the previous measurement at 132.
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50
James Overland works for NOAA. This is the winter forecast by NOAA from Oct 2010.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101022072152.htm
Looks like they got it completely wrong.
Yes but also Joe Bastardi has been surprised by this winter reality. He says the first Nina winter in US is usually not that cold.
*sigh* Yet another typical ad hominem attack on a climate scientist by Pierre. That seems to be the modus operandi of NTZ these days.
There is at least one peer-reviewed study on this subject, by Petoukhov and Semenov:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009JD013568.shtml
Described thusly:
“Open water in the Arctic Ocean during the winter allows heat to flow from the ocean to the atmosphere, creating the high pressure needed for a negative NAO to materialize.”
http://climatesight.org/2011/01/11/snowstorms-and-sea-ice/
Pretty much just what Overland said.
Negative NAO is nothing unique.
http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/nao.gif
Previous COLD periods with negative NAO were caused by a) global warming, b) less ice, c) I do not know but still believe in scientific consensus.
Just want to let you know of the latest Max Planck study that’s out: No Tipping Point. Just posted their press release in English.
Petoukhov (a PIK resident) is just the EU’s cold-winter-through-AGW apologist.
What’s so funny about is is that people would recognize a cold winter as a cooling event were it not for the confusion spread by the AGW scientists; an intentional campaign to keep up the pressure to pour all our resources into de-carbonization.
The scientists could spare some ridiculous gymnastics if politicians would simply tell the real reason they want to get rid of fossil fuels; namely their fear of being dependant on regimes outside their power blocks.
Ad hominem.
No, just a description of the role of the PIK.
And FYI, even Rahmstorf poured cold water on Petoukhov and Semenov:
https://notrickszone.com/2011/01/02/rahmstorf-backpedals-cold-and-snow-not-due-to-warming-dumps-cold-water-on-petoukhov-and-semenov/
And Overland admits he has no data to back up his postulate. Yet he’s out there hawking it as a fact. That makes him a charlatan.
I can’t even talk to you Pierre. You grossly misrepresented what both Rahmstorf and Overland said.
These guys are climate scientists. You are not (understatement of the year). Yet you constantly insult them, misrepresent what they’ve said, and behave as though you’re some sort of climate expert (an incredibly arrogant one at that). I just don’t know how to communicate with a person who behaves this way. Intelligent discourse seems impossible.
You didn’t read the link- Here’s what Rahmstorf sums up:
“Its quite possible that this month’s extreme snowfall is just a coincidence of the weather. But on the other hand there are indications that the boundary conditions in the Arctic have changed due to the ice melt over the years that could significantly change the weather statistic in Europe. Whether this December remains an outlier or whether more of this will occur in the future cannot be said. It’s an open research question.”
He saying they are only postulating. Yet, Overland is out there claiming it’s a fact. The reason you cannot have an intelligent conversation is because you do not seem to know how science works. First thing you have to realize is that postulates, indications and suspicions are not facts. The last MPI study on tipping point postulations is yet another example.
Of course they’re only postulating. That’s what science is! And you quoted Overland yourself:
“We still don’t have any absolute evidence”
Sure doesn’t sound like he’s claiming it’s a fact to me.
This is the problem with “skeptics”. There is no way to please you. If scientists say there’s uncertainty, you say they’re just guessing. If they say something is certain, you say they’re ignoring uncertainty. Your bias is showing.
========================
PG: In the interview he’s peddling it as fact, then sneaks in his disclaimer. Are we supposed to reorganise civilsation because 12 panicked scientists postulate we should?
Who’s talking about reorganizing civilization? And what 12 panicked scientists? There are literally thousands of climate scientists who agree that AGW is an imminent threat.
Thousands? You’re dreaming again.
Actually I was being conservative. It’s more likely tens of thousands. Almost every climate scientist on the planet agrees about this.
You may think they’re wrong, but please tell me you don’t deny the scientific consensus.
I don’t care how many of them “agree” with it, Dana. I don’t care if you get the whole of the EU and India and China to go along with it.
If something is wrong it’s wrong, it’s been wrong ever since it was debunked in 1910 and it stays wrong to this day and all the wishful thinking on Earth isn’t going to make it right.
The question was not whether the consensus is correct, the question was whether the consensus exists.
I agree. The “skeptics” are wrong because their position is not supported by scientific evidence, not because of the consensus.
Brian said… “it’s been wrong ever since it was debunked in 1910”
I guess that puts you in the camp that rejects that CO2 has any radiative properties.
I guess that indeed does put me squarely in a camp that won’t admit that radiative properties of CO2 or any other damned substance in Heaven or on Earth will move heat from a colder reservoir to a warmer reservoir without expending work, yes.
Brian… You know that puts you well outside the realm of Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Michaels and pretty much every other even remotely legitimate skeptic.
If that’s where you want to reside, that’s your choice.
Rob, see below
Help please Dana:-
“allows heat to flow from the ocean to the atmosphere, creating the high pressure needed for a negative NAO to materialize.”
Is it not the case that the higher the temperature of the air, (heat flow from ocean) the faster it rises losing density and therefore decreasing the barometric pressure?
The cooler that air becomes the denser it is which increases the barometric pressure.
So I don’t get how the heat flow from ocean to air creates the NAO, if it is that high pressure creates the NAO, which I believe to be the general understanding.
I don’t know enough about NAO to answer your question. I suggest reading the study, which probably contains the answer.
“I don’t know enough about NAO to answer your question. I suggest reading the study, which probably contains the answer.”
I have, it doesn’t, and that’s why I asked, you seemed convinced.
I think the implication is “subsidence” hot air up pushes cold air down, but that doesn’t hold as the cycle will continue until the heat flow from the oceans stops.
But hey ho I shall read some more and hopefully learn some more.
Many thanks for the reply.
PS it is not really about the NAO, it is about the physics of the warming and cooling of the atmosphere at the sea surface.
This is some more garbage. What do they mean, “materialize”? Periodic oscillations of barometric pressure between locations CAUSE events, they are not the “response to” the events they are associated with.
Just when is enough junk science enough? How much junk is required to required to relate a non-existent thing (=AGW) to external events?
I get so angry about this crap, but I don’t really need to because ordinary people see right through a fraud so easily.
The sickening thing is the number of young people brought up on a healthy diet of “anything goes science.”
Fortunately I won’t be around to watch them attempt to demolish civilisation on behalf of sacrificial obligation to the goddess of solar panels
This is a good sign. Once extreme CAGW gets rooted in the tabloids, credibility will be lost. The tabloids exaggerate even fearful things. CAGW will become something to happen next week. Then it will be either do or don’t, and on to the next thing, like more Bat Boys in the US of A.
its going to be awful…
http://www.helium.com/items/2083868-magnetic-polar-shifts-causing-massive-global-superstorms
NASA Post – “Our planet’s magnetic field is in a constant state of change, say researchers who are beginning to understand how it behaves and why.”
http://bit.ly/fJMQAb
“Scientists from (once) one of the the world’s most prestigious scientific organisations, now have to go to the yellowist of tabloids to be heard.”
Ouch! Last I checked, scientists are publishing in non-tabloids.
DirkH,
Just check up on the latest science at NTZ. I posted a reply to our last dialog at…
http://bit.ly/ek5GT5
Hats off. The video concluding with the sermon about a vegan diet was cringe-worthy funny. Taking my wife out for a non-organic steak in your honor (in our Prius).
Cheers
OMG! Overland is getting worse quicker than we thought.
The NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) goes through what appears to be a decadal cycle:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Winter-NAO-Index.png
There was a predominately +NAO during the warming cycle of the 80s-90s. The last predominately -NAO cycle occurred during the last cool down from the 1940s to the 1970s. It appears the cycle has gone into a decadal negative phase again. This is not new, it’s natural variability.
Overland should re-visit one of his papers from 2003. A version can be found here: http://seagrant.uaf.edu/nosb/2005/resources/arctic-explorers.pdf
“Accounts from 19th-century Canadian Arctic Explorers’ Logs Reflect Present Climate Conditions by K Wood and J E Overland
However, examination of 44 explorers’ logs for the western Arctic from 1818 to 1910 reveals that climate indicators such as navigability, the distribution and thickness of annual sea ice,monthly surface air temperature, and the onset of melt and freeze were within the present range of variability.
The ship tracks and winter-over locations of Arctic discovery expeditions from 1818 to 1859 are surprisingly consistent with present sea ice climatology. On a number of occasions, expeditions came within 150 km of completing the
Northwest Passage, but even in years with unfavorable ice conditions, most ships were still able to reach comparatively advanced positions within the Canadian archipelago. By 1859, all possible routes comprising the Northwest Passage had been discovered.
…it is misleading to state that the Northwest Passage was not found and
transited during the 19th century, and that the failure was due to an adverse climate. In fact, all of the potential routes that comprise the Northwest Passage were discovered, and nearly the entire labyrinthine coastline was mapped
during this period. And while no ship sailed through the passage in the 19th century, several came within 150 km of doing so, without the aid of an engine, chart, or functioning compass. A similar outcome would be well within the
bounds of probability today.”
Explorers encountered both warm and cool seasons, and generally typical ice conditions, in comparison to 20th-century norms. The early onset of freeze in some instances represents the greatest apparent departure from present conditions, while the timing of melt transition in the spring showed little change. If there had been a shift in mean summer air temperatures of the magnitude
suggested by the melt layer stratigraphy in the Devon Island ice core, indications of colder conditions would have been detected in our analysis.
Gerlich, Tscheushner, Gerhard Kramm, and I like it here. Either an apparent second law violation can be shown to be mistaken or it cannot be.
So you try. Don’t use same argument as Halpern used, because that is readily dismissed.
“Everybody believes in the atmospheric Greenhouse Effect” is not a proof of the possibility of the atmospheric greenhouse effect.
Brian… I’m sorry but your position is so far out on the fringe you’re about to fall off the edge of the earth (if you catch my drift).
For a long time I thought, the radiative effect of CO2 would be damped by most other influences. Note the supposed “feedback” effect on water would be stabilizing, because accumulation of humidity in the troposphere will eventually transfer heat downward via the latent heat of condensation.
Then I realized that the accumulated effect of “greenhouse” gases in the troposphere and in the stratosphere would not result in net heat transferred from the stratosphere to the troposphere. Since the stratosphere has to cool in response to the “greenhouse effect,” it is a contradiction.
Like you, most people just shrug and dismiss the contradiction. It is another matter to produce a rational refutation to it.
Brian… I’d like to point you to a series of articles…
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/12/23/understanding-atmospheric-radiation-and-the-greenhouse-effect-part-one/
Certainly I’m familiar with that, obviously in the long term the radiation in and out has to balance because if it did not, life on Earth would have long been extinct.
The issue is, an accumulation of heat in the lower troposphere as a result of trace gases in the troposphere. In itself, this is within the MOE of the measurements.
My claim is, it cannot be there at all in the long term, because, the atmosphere conducts heat through the tropopause (albeit weakly), and this conduction, however small, would prevent the accumulation of an additional heat from a non-condensable gas, and is why a “CO2 heat effect” is not observed in any geologic record.
Difficult as it may be, people and governments are just going to have to come up with a different story of how civilization is going to bring an end of life on Earth as we know it. The wind is out of the sails in the “greenhouse effect we’re going to die” myth.
I should think this would be easier than inventing mechanisms to overcome second law violations (i.e., invent perpetual motion machines).
Yeah…. I don’t think you read it.
Always the case. Throw someone else’s discussion at objections raised, instead of providing answers of your own, claiming that “answers” the “objections.”
Next up: Attacks on my education, lack of personal knowledge, incapability of understanding,
and if that leaves any room for more objections, it will be followed by character assaults, references to blog discussions about what other people had to say about me, and other things.
Go ahead, try the bullying route, what have you got to lose.
All I said is I think you didn’t read it.
You might save yourself some dismay by chiming in with others on the innumerable global warming blogs.
True, you will be ignored as a voice amongst the chorus, but at least you won’t have to endure the exasperation you must suffer herein.
Overland in 2003: Arctic ice hasn’t changed for 200 years.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/james-overland-2003-arctic-ice-hasnt-changed-for-200-years/
As you pointed out above, he looks like he may have passed an age for which hardening of the arteries could have influenced his “judgment” (if he has any left)
We have gone back to the future. It is now 1984 and the Alarmists are from the Ministry of Truth. Remember Black is White and White is Black and they are even rectifying” historical records to concord with their truth. Hail to Big Brother