Sensor Drift, A New Weapon In The Green Scare Or Just Henny Penny Coming Home To Roost

Why is it that every time there is a malfunction of some kind in environmental science methods, the error is always on the side of global warming? I'm just saying, from the hockey stick graph to forgetting the role of the sun in the Earth's climate, a conspiracy-minded individual might start to get suspicious.

The problem is that it's not the environmental scientists that are catching the errors...it's everyday folks looking at the data. OK, by folks I mean science geeks who work in windowless rooms and can looks at thousands of fields of data without getting drunk first.

Case in point. The National Snow and Ice Data Center was forced to admit that the maps they have been making this year of Arctic sea ice were grossly underestimating actual sea ice. The problem, something called sensor drift. The really big problem. A 5-year old could draw the edge of the sea ice better than the NSIDC.

A statement from the NSIDC clears things up:

As some of our readers have already noticed, there was a significant problem with the daily sea ice data images on February 16. The problem arose from a malfunction of the satellite sensor we use for our daily sea ice products. Upon further investigation, we discovered that starting around early January, an error known as sensor drift caused a slowly growing underestimation of Arctic sea ice extent. The underestimation reached approximately 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) by mid-February. Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality control measures prior to archiving the data. See below for more details.

We have removed the most recent data and are investigating alternative data sources that will provide correct results. It is not clear when we will have data back online, but we are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

So by quality control, you guys at the NSIDC mean the random chance that a reader catches your mistakes.

The money quote from NSIDC:

On February 16, 2009, as emails came in from puzzled readers, it became clear that there was a significant problem: sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as open ocean...Sensor drift is a perfect but unfortunate example of the problems encountered in near-real-time analysis.

In other words, real-time data is great when it is used to gin up end-of-the-earth stories in the New York Times, but real time data "is what is is" when it makes you look like Henny Penny.



Obviously environmental scientists just don't get the BIG PICTURE. Credibility is king for researchers. Eventually, eventually the truth wins out. Real science will win out. And if you are not willing to participate in the actual scientific process, someone else (probably with a lot less grant money and fewer Hollywood friends) will expose your research for what it is. And when that happens, sensor drift (and all of the other excuses) will be exposed for what it is.

Researcher bias.

And by Henny Penny, I mean Henny Penny. Check out Prof Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) and his "death spiral" - global warming hyperbole.

Whatever Happened To Acid Rain And Why Didn't It Have Any Staying Power

I saw some dead trees on the edge of a swamp the other day and recalled the iconic "acid rain" forest pictures in the 1980's. Back then, anywhere there was a patch of dead trees, people automatically thought...hmmm acid rain is killing the earth...making us sick.



Looking back, acid rain hysteria ended up as a footnote sandwiched between global cooling and the ozone hole. A lousy place historically if your job required research money. (Side note: An interesting bit of research would be finding out what those acid rain PhD's are publishing today...any guesses?)

I'll admit, I'm a child of the 80's. So looking back at that era can be tough sometimes. The clothes were awful. And now I have to admit that our attempts to terrorize the public through research were just as bad as the hair.

It started well enough with articles such as Likens (1984), "Acid rain: the smokestack is the smoking gun." That's good stuff on the face of it, Al Gore used the same imagery to great effect.



We had people out there chasing acid rain snowstorms and acid rain thunderstorms. We had tipping points, mass extinction predictions. Everything was in place. My generation was about to do something that would be remembered forever. Then...

The 1990's.

That first big Nirvana CD should have been a clue. The public was craving something more serious. We offered them the death of a salamander and the 1990's gave the public the whole damn world in peril.

I can't blame the public for taking to global warming the way they did. You are not going to make movies with acid rain showers chasing frogs. But ice hurricanes chasing actors! Whew. That's good stuff.

I guess acid rain never really stood a chance. Sure, the data never matched the claims. And the earth has natural balancing systems we didn't know about when we chose acid rain in the first place, but that has never stopped global warming. I'm not bitter (OK, a little). I just have to admit that global warming is a better product and we had a nice little run back in the day.

Just don't expect me to be sorry when you fail global warming.

Arctic Ice Cap Refusing to Melt...the Green Scare Continues

...global warming alarmists devastated.

After many predictions in June and July that the artic ice cap would be ice free by August, well, the facts just don't support the Green Scare alarmists.

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center data shows 2008 ice nearly identical to 2002, 2005 and 2006. Maps of Arctic ice extent are readily available from several sources, including the University of Illinois, which keeps a daily archive for the last 30 years. A comparison of these maps (derived from NSIDC data) below shows that Arctic ice extent was 30 per cent greater on August 11, 2008 than it was on the August 12, 2007.

The earth warmed. And now it's cooling. The media and headline seeking scientists blamed everything on global warming before the facts carried this hypothesis to a theory. Anthropomorphic, or man-only caused, global warming is almost certainly wrong yet we are constantly bombarded with this garbage, as science is manipulated for political and financial gain.

Pope of Environmentalism Speaks

And he wants some nonbelievers sent to the tower.

Proving once again that environmentalISM has turned into a cult-like movement that is completely unfounded in science, James Hansen today called for crimes against humanity trials for CEO's of energy companies.

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Ugh, where to begin? First, scientists trying to test a hypothesis do not usually try to stop competing ideas and experiments by having those people executed - political thugs and religious cult leaders trying to silence opponents do.

Second, comparing studies from serious researchers to that of tobacco company hacks is the science equivalent of calling a politician "Hitler" or "racist."

But again this is not about science. It's about settling an issue before the science is complete.

To turn a phrase, zealots like Hansen are the McCarthy's of science: shouting down those who dare oppose him with slurs that damn without rebuttal. The Hansen's of the science world have always bowed to the most powerful political masters of their time: whether it was to support the sun revolving about the earth, to prove that evolution did not happen, or to help devise the solution for the "Jew" problem; men like Hansen will always find a lucrative and comfortable spot within the embrace of tyrants looking for legitimacy.

If he is so sure about his science that he is willing to call for the execution of others: why not put his own neck on the line? Let's say that if the man-made component of global climate change turns out to be less than 25%, would he be willing to take his own life. Of course not, because it's no longer about being right, it's now about being on the right side.

Supply Side Environmentalism

Barbara Boxer (D. CA), the main author of the hideous S. 2191 climate bill defends a new concept - supply side environmentalism, defined as: Shrinking the economy to get less environmental impact. The idea is that if we are not working, we are not creating green house gasses. Of course the upside (less global warming) is undefinable and not practical using this approach, but the actual science is no longer important: it's the belief that we are doing something based on assumptions made by people who choose to fail when success is an option.

I, like many others, have been covering S 2191 for a while because this is the most far reaching legislation since the War on Poverty in the 1960's. And this legislation is the perfect vehicle to have the BIG discussion about the role of government, good intentions and all of the unintended consequences created by legislation like S.2191.

Unfortunately, the current political environment probably means that we have this discussion after we are in the middle of a nasty depression. So for now I can have hope that some day, the adults will have a seat at the table of power again - and 2191 certainly brings that date closer to fruition.