Japanese Scientists Compare Computer Climate Modelling To Ancient Astrology

It looks like kool-aid sales are down dramatically in Japan. From the people who practically invented doomsday movies, comes this (from the UK Register):

(they)compare computer climate modelling to ancient astrology. Others castigate the paucity of the US ground temperature data set used to support the hypothesis, and declare that the unambiguous warming trend from the mid-part of the 20th Century has ceased.

The report by Japan Society of Energy and Resources (JSER) is astonishing rebuke to international pressure, and a vote of confidence in Japan's native marine and astronomical research. Publicly-funded science in the West uniformly backs the hypothesis that industrial influence is primarily responsible for climate change..

And this:

The report by Japan Society of Energy and Resources (JSER) is astonishing rebuke to international pressure, and a vote of confidence in Japan's native marine and astronomical research. Publicly-funded science in the West uniformly backs the hypothesis that industrial influence is primarily responsible for climate change, although fissures have appeared recently.

Leave it to a much older culture to take a "longer view" of our sketchy climate data.

Busted

This has not been a big story in the US, but the British papers have been covering Obama's Churchill snub all week. From the Telegraph.

A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to George W Bush from the Government's art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back.

The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush's tenure.

But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks."

So it's not really a bust...more of a floating head, but it's the messages sent to the one ally we could count on in the last 7 years that is a bit disturbing. Does it signal an end to the wartime presidency or is it another of Obama's famous middle finger messages?

One clue was mentioned by the Telegraph.

Churchill has less happy connotations for Mr Obama than those American politicians who celebrate his wartime leadership. It was during Churchill's second premiership that Britain suppressed Kenya's Mau Mau rebellion. Among Kenyans allegedly tortured by the colonial regime included one Hussein Onyango Obama, the President's grandfather.

I'm willing to forgive the diplomatic faux pas, since the replacement is now the only Republican with any real power in Washington - Abe Lincoln.

If we keep moving towards socialism at the current pace, the bust in the White House during Obama's second term may look like this.

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.

Subsidizing Irresponsibility

The old adage has never been more true: You want more of something, subsidize, it. Less of something, tax it. This country is subsidizing irresponsible behavior like a meteor is going to wipe out the earth in a matter of weeks.

Self reliance is dead. It's dead as a concept. It's dead as a romantic idea. It's dead dead.

Item. The oct-tot mom from California. The poster child of irresponsibility. She is the this generations' Alex DeLarge of aimless self gratification. A "disabled" worker using a phony settlement check and tons of government assistance who goes on plastic surgery trips so she can look like a fat and very poor man's version of Angelina Jolie. All the while sprinkling the hospitals with a score of her offspring. Which of course means we have to sell several more millions of dollars worth of t-bills to some nameless chi-com.

She has been walking around with her middle finger pointed at the country for years. Sure. Sure. We know you don't have time to read the meter, you are just here for a little invitro.

Maybe Kubrick was right. A sick society is responsible for creating the "little Alex's" and Nadya's of the world. But that really wasn't his point was it?

Maybe Nadya is doing exactly what the government wants her to do? I mean how many tax payers will it take in 20 years to pay for the social programs AND the next handfull of stimulus/bailout programs.

The only way this Ponzi scheme works is if we get hundreds of millions of new suckers to pay taxes. Nadya may just end up being the most patriotic woman in the country.