Glaciergate: A Prima Facie Case of Criminal Fraud?

From the Mail Online…

Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn’t been verified

By David Rose
Last updated at 12:54 AM on 24th January 2010

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders…

LINK

The IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report asserted that Himalayan glaciers were likely to disappear by the year 2035.

Well… It turns out that this assertion was not drawn from any scientific study. It was drawn from a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report. The WWF had simply made it up.

The lead author of the section which cited the WWF fabrication, Dr Murari Lal, knew that the claim was baseless; yet included it anyway “to put political pressure on world leaders.”

Now… A closer look at the Nobel Prize winning IPCC AR4 reveals that it is riddled with WWF fabrications… Watts Up With That?

How many glaciers are there in the world?

How many are advancing?

How many are retreating?

How many sit still?

The answers to the first three questions are: No one knows for sure. There are at least 400,000 glaciers on this planet. Less than a few hundred (maybe less than 100) have been subjected to mass balance studies over extended periods of time.

The answer to the last question is zero. Glaciers are always advancing or retreating.

How much would humans have to cut back on CO2 emissions to alter alter the rate at which some glaciers are retreating?

At what cost?

If someone is trying to talk you into spending your money on their pet project and they fabricate a horror story to encourage you to go along… They have committed fraud…

Fraud must be proved by showing that the defendant’s actions involved five separate elements: (1) a false statement of a material fact, (2) knowledge on the part of the defendant that the statement is untrue, (3) intent on the part of the defendant to deceive the alleged victim, (4) justifiable reliance by the alleged victim on the statement, and (5) injury to the alleged victim as a result.

[...]

Fraud resembles theft in that both involve some form of illegal taking, but the two should not be confused. Fraud requires an additional element of False Pretenses created to induce a victim to turn over property, services, or money. Theft, by contrast, requires only the unauthorized taking of another’s property with the intent to permanently deprive the other of the property. Because fraud involves more planning than does theft, it is punished more severely.

LINK

“(1) a false statement of a material fact”…

Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate.

10.6.2 The Himalayan glaciers

“(2) knowledge on the part of the defendant that the statement is untrue”…

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti…#ixzz0dl78oA0n

“(3) intent on the part of the defendant to deceive the alleged victim”…

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti…#ixzz0dl7RCrwV

“(4) justifiable reliance by the alleged victim on the statement”…

IPCC (2007b) Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.
Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change [M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden and C.E. Hanson (eds.)]. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

EPA endangerment finding, technical references

“(5) injury to the alleged victim as a result.”

Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill
The High Costs of Copenhagen
Cap and Trade: A Comparison of Cost Estimates

Glaciergate is a prima facie case of criminal fraud on the part of the UN and IPCC.

Q effing ED!

The Latif Controversy:”IPCC scientist: Global cooling headed our way for the next 30 years?”

Mojib Latif is considered to be one of the world’s top climate modelers and a prominent contributor to IPCC reports…

Latif, is a professor at the Leibniz Institute at Germany’s Kiel University and an author of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Latif is a prominent scientist in the UN’s IPCC climate research group.Latif thinks the cold snap Americans, Brits, and Europeans have been suffering through is the beginning of another cycle, this one a down cycle. He says we’re in for 30 years of cooler temperatures.

Watts Up With That?

Apparently, at least some of the scientists associated with the IPCC are no longer able to “hide the decline.”

From NASA Earth Observatory: December temperatures compared to average December temps recorded between 2000 and 2008. Blue indicates colder than average land surface temperatures, while red indicates warmer temperatures.

According to the left-wing blogosphere (Media Matters, Climate Progress, etc.) Dr. Latif says that he is being misquoted, misinterpreted and otherwise misunderstood.   If Dr. Latif was “misrepresented,” it’s due to the fact that over the last two years, he has written and/or said on numerous occasions that the climate will cool for the next 1-3 decades and that at least half of the warming of the 20th century was due to natural climate cycles.

From Nature, May 1, 2008…

Nature 453, 84-88 (1 May 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature06921; Received 25 June 2007; Accepted 14 March 2008; Corrected 8 May 2008

Advancing decadal-scale climate prediction in the North Atlantic sector

 N. S. Keenlyside1, M. Latif1, J. Jungclaus2, L. Kornblueh2 & E. Roeckner2[...]The climate of the North Atlantic region exhibits fluctuations on decadal timescales that have large societal consequences…

[...]

Thus these results point towards the possibility of routine decadal climate predictions. Using this method, and by considering both internal natural climate variations and projected future anthropogenic forcing, we make the following forecast: over the next decade, the current Atlantic meridional overturning circulation will weaken to its long-term mean; moreover, North Atlantic SST and European and North American surface temperatures will cool slightly, whereas tropical Pacific SST will remain almost unchanged. Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming.

LINK

From New Scientist, September 9, 2009…

FORECASTS of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter. We could be about to enter one or even two decades of cooler temperatures, according to one of the world’s top climate modellers.”People will say this is global warming disappearing,” Mojib Latif told more than 1500 climate scientists gathered at the UN’s World Climate Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, last week. “I am not one of the sceptics. However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or other people will do it.”[...]Latif predicts that in the next few years a natural cooling trend will dominate the warming caused by humans. The cooling would be down to cyclical changes in the atmosphere and ocean currents in the North Atlantic, known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Atlantic Meridional Oscillation (AMO).Breaking with climate-change orthodoxy, Latif said the NAO was probably responsible for some of the strong warming seen around the globe in the past three decades. “But how much? The jury is still out,” he told the conference. The NAO is now moving into a phase that will cool the planet.[...]

LINK

From The Guardian, January 11, 2010…

Latif said his research suggested that up to half the warming seen over the 20th century was down to this natural ocean effect…

LINK

From The Telegraph, January 11, 2010…

The world could be in for a spell of cooler temperatures, rather than hotter conditions, as a result of cyclical changes in ocean currents for the next 20 or 30 years, it is predicted.Research by Professor Mojib Latif, one of the world’s leading climate modellers, questions the widely held view that global temperatures will rise rapidly over the coming years.[...]He told a UN conference in September that changes in ocean currents known as North Atlantic Oscillation could dominate over man-made global warming for the next few decades.Controversially, he also said that the fluctuations could also be responsible for much of the rise in global temperatures seen over the past 30 years.[...]

LINK

Dr. Latif has repeatedly said that the shift of the NAO from positive to negative will lead to 10 to 30 years of global cooling and that as much as half of the late 20th century warming was due to natural climate oscillations. He has only become misquoted, misinterpreted or otherwise misunderstood since the story was picked up by Fox News and Watts Up With That?.

You can view Dr. Latif’s presentation to the September 2009 World Climate Conference here: LINK.

This is slide #3 from his presentation…

Latif, 2009 World Climate Conference, Slide #3

Here is a zoomed-in view of three decades of cooling…

Latif's "Three decades of cooling."

Latif is predicting that after the NAO switches back to warm mode (~2030) global warming will resume… Which it will; although it won’t warm anywhere near as much as Latif predicts.. The unanswered questions are, “How much will it cool over the next 25 years? And how much will it warm during the next ~30-yr warming leg?”

The key point is that just a few years ago, people like Latif were not taking these decadal and multi-decadal natural climate oscillations into account when making their model projections. This is one of the reasons that the climate models always forecast more warming than actually occurs. The lack of warming since 1998 has forced modelers like Latif to incorporate the cycles into the models.

This is drastically different from the IPCC’s most recent assessment report. IPCC AR4 Summary for Policy Makers (2007) stated that…

“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

And that…

“For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of 0.1°C per decade would be expected.”

The IPCC defines “very likely” as having a greater than 90% probability.

-In 2007 most of the late 20th century warming was due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
-In 2009 less than half of the 20th century warming was due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases according to Dr. Latif.

-In 2007 a warming of 0.2°C per decade over the next twenty years was projected for a range of emissions scenarios and 0.1°C per decade of warming was projected for the ideal emissions scenario.
-In 2009 a cooling trend was projected over the next twenty years by Dr. Latif, irrespective of emissions scenarios.

Here’s the “kicker”…

If I assume that all of the warming trend since 1850 was due to CO2, an equation can be derived to relate CO2 to the low-frequency component of temperature change and I can project a maximum possible warming from CO2 over the next 100 years. Assuming a steady increase of 1.95 ppmv CO2 per year (the average over the last decade) over the next 100 years, I get a maximum possible warming of 0.1°C per decade…

Maximum possible CO2-driven warming over next century at a constant increases of 1.95 ppmv CO2 per year.

It’s mathematically impossible for a 1.95 ppmv/yr growth of atmospheric CO2 to cause more than 1.0°C of warming over the next 100 years. Since we know that CO2 caused far less than half of the warming since 1850, the maximum warming over the next century will be a lot less than 1.0°C.  It will actually be immeasurably small.

But… For the sake of argument… Let’s compare the maximum 100% CO2-driven temperature change to Dr. Latif’s new projection which supposedly accounts for natural climate oscillations…

Latif model vs. maximum possible CO2 warming.

Latif is projecting three times as much warming over the next century than is mathematically possible for a world in which all of the warming since 1850 was CO2-driven.

Latif must be employing on or more of the following to derive so much warming:

1. An exponential annual increase of atmospheric CO2… A wild guess.
2. A higher climate sensitivity to CO2… Provably false.
3. Positive feedback loops… For which there is no evidence of ever having previously occurred.

I will be running a series of models to see just how much CO2 would have to be added to the atmosphere to achieve Latif’s degree of warming… So… Stay tuned!

The Hansen Model: Another very simple disproof of Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Dr. James Hansen is the Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.  Dr. Hansen is right up there with Al Gore, Michael Mann and the Climategate CRU on the list of people helping the UN to swindle the United States and other western democracies out of trillions of dollars through his promotion of the Anthropogenic Global Warming fraud.

Hansen kind of got the ball rolling in 1988 with his publication of a climate model that predicted dire global warming over the next 20 years if mankind did not stop burning fossil fuels… Hansen et al. 1988.

Hansen constructed three scenarios… “Scenario A assumes continued exponential trace gas growth, scenario B assumes a reduced linear linear growth of trace gases, and scenario C assumes a rapid curtailment of trace gas emissions such that the net climate forcing ceases to increase after the year 2000.”

Abstract Hansen et al. 1988 Hansen, J., I. Fung, A. Lacis, D. Rind, Lebedeff, R. Ruedy, G. Russell, and P. Stone, 1988: Global climate changes as forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies three-dimensional model. J. Geophys. Res., 93, 9341-9364, doi:10.1029/88JD00231. We use a three-dimensional climate model, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) model II with 8° by 10° horizontal resolution, to simulate the global climate effects of time-dependent variations of atmospheric trace gases and aerosols. Horizontal heat transport by the ocean is fixed at values estimated for today’s climate, and the uptake of heat perturbations by the ocean beneath the mixed layer is approximated by vertical diffusion. We make a 100-year control run and perform experiments for three scenarios of atmospheric composition. These experiments begin in 1958 and include measured or estimated changes in atmospheric CO2, CH4, H2O, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and stratospheric aerosols for the period from 1958 to the present. Scenario A assumes continued exponential trace gas growth, scenario B assumes a reduced linear linear growth of trace gases, and scenario C assumes a rapid curtailment of trace gas emissions such that the net climate forcing ceases to increase after the year 2000. Pricipal results from the experiments are as follows: (1) Global warming to the level attained at the peak of the current interglacial and the previous interglacial occurs in all three scenarios; however, there are dramatic differences in the levels of future warming, depending on trace gas growth. (2) The greenhouse warming should be clearly identifiable in the 1990s; the global warming within the next several years is predicted to reach and maintain a level at least three standard deviations above the climatology of the 1950s. (3) Regions where an unambiguous warming appears earliest are low-latitude oceans, China and interior areas in Asia, and ocean areas near Antarctica and the north pole; aspects of the spatial and temporal distribution of predicted warming are clearly model-dependent, implying the possibility of model discrimination by the 1990s and thus improved predictions, if appropriate observations are acquired. (4) The temperature changes are sufficiently large to have major impacts on people and other parts of the biosphere, as shown by computed changes in the frequency of extreme events and comparison with previous climate trends. (5) The model results suggest that some near-term regional climate variations, despite the fixed ocean heat transport which suppresses many possible regional climate fluctuation; for example, during the late 1980s and the 1990s there is a tendency for greater than average warming in the southeastern United States and much of Europe. Principal uncertainties in the predictions involve the equilibrium sensitivity of the model to climate forcing, the assumptions regarding heat uptake and transport by the ocean, and the omission of other less-certain climate forcings.

From Appendix B, pg. 9361 of Hansen’s 1998 paper…

“Specifically, in scenario A CO2 increases as observed by Keeling for the interval 1958-1981 [keeling et al, 1982] and subsequently with a 1.5%/yr growth of the annual increment.”

“In scenario B the growth of the annual increment of CO2 is is reduced from 1.5%/yr today to 1%/yr in 1990, 0.5%/yr in 2000 and 0 in 2010; thus after 2010 is constant, 1.9 ppmv/yr.”

“In scenario C the CO2 growth is the same as scenarios A and B through 1985; between 1985 and 2000 the annual increment is fixed at 1.5 ppmv/yr; after 2000, CO2 ceases to increase, its abundance remaining fixed at 368 ppmv.”

If I take the average annual increment from 1958-1981 and increase it by 1.5% per year until 2008, I get 385.35 ppmv.  The Mauna Loa Observatory’s value for 2008 is 385.57 ppmv.

When I constructed CO2 curves using Hansen’s scenario assumptions and I compare his scenarios to the actual CO2 data recorded since 1988, I get an almost exact match to Scenario “A”…

1988 Hansen Model CO2 vs. Mauna Loa Observatory

Here is a copy of Hansen’s 1988 model with the actual satellite derived temperature (UAH Lower Troposphere) data from Dec. 1979 to November 2009 overlaid…

1988 Hansen Model vs. 2009 UAH Lower Troposphere (13-month mvg. avg.)

  Hansen’s scenarios “A” and “B” predicted a temperature anomaly about 1.0°C by 2009. Scenario “C” predicted an anomaly of about 0.7°C by 2009. Since Hansen’s publication, atmospheric CO2 levels have tracked Scenario “A” and CH4 levels have tracked Scenario “C”. Even though CH4 is a more potent greenhouse gas, it accounts for only a tiny fraction of the greenhouse effect:

CO2 is the “Big Kahuna”. Even if CH4 has 20X the greenhouse effect of CO2. 1800 ppb is 0.46% of 390 ppm…20 X 0.46% = 9.2%. At most, CH4 accounts for only about 10% of the greenhouse effect of CO2 in Earth’s current atmosphere.

So, according to Hansen’s 1988 predictions, the global temperature anomaly should be about 90% of the way from Scenario “C” to Scenario “A”… ~0.97°C.   In reality, the global temperature anomaly is about half of what Hansen predicted for a similar rise in greenhouse gases.

The actual warming has been slightly less than Hansen’s Scenario C…

“In scenario C the CO2 growth is the same as scenarios A and B through 1985; between 1985 and 2000 the annual increment is fixed at 1.5 ppmv/yr; after 2000, CO2 ceases to increase, its abundance remaining fixed at 368 ppmv.”

In most branches of science, when experimental results falsify the original hypothesis, scientists discard or modify the original hypothesis.  In Hansen’s case, he just pitches the story with zealotry rarely seen outside of lunatic asylums…

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A little known 20 year old climate change prediction by Dr. James Hansen – that failed badly

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Dr. James Hansen of NASA GISS arrested

Jim Hansen calls Cap and Trade the “Temple of Doom”

Is this an example of Jim Hansen’s endorsed “civil disobedience”?

Leading climate scientist: ‘democratic process isn’t working’

A Simple Refutation of an Enhanced Greenhouse Effect?

The Earth’s greenhouse effect is due to the fact that some components of the atmosphere (water vapor, CO2, CH4, etc.) are effectively transparent to incoming UV radiation and opaque to certain bandwidths of outgoing IR radiation.  This greenhouse effect causes the Earth’s atmosphere to be about 30° C warmer than it would be without greenhouse gases.

If anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet through an enhanced greenhouse effect, the Stratosphere should cool as the Troposphere warms.  At first glance it does look like the Stratosphere has cooled and the Troposphere has warmed a bit over the last 30 years…

But this impression is misleading.  Two very large, low-latitude volcanic eruptions caused a very significant warming of the  Stratosphere in 1982 (El Chichón, Mexico) and 1991 (Pinatubo, Philippines) and a very powerful El Niño warmed the Troposphere in 1998.  These three phenomena caused the appearance of concurrent stratospheric cooling and tropospheric warming in the satellite temperature data.

The problem is that the stratospheric cooling and tropospheric warming have never been simultaneous.  I calculated the monthly differences of the stratospheric and tropospheric temperature anomalies from the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) satellite data to get d-Strat and d-L Trop.  Then I multiplied d-Strat times d-L Trop.  A negative d-Strat * d- L Trop means that d-Strat and d-L Trop are moving in opposite directions and should indicate an increased greenhouse effect.  A positive d-Strat * d- L Trop should mean that d-Strat and d-L Trop are moving in the same direction and should indicate a decreased greenhouse effect.  If the Stratosphere is cooling due to a progressively increasing retention of heat in the lower atmosphere (enhanced greenhouse effect), d-Strat * d-L Trop should exhibit a measurable negative trend… But it doesn’t…

The slope is actually very slightly positive; which is consistent a very slight decline in total greenhouse warming over the last 30 years.  This would mean that negative feedback mechanisms in the atmosphere are offsetting the increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration.

What’s going on in Greenland?

Answer: Nothing out of the ordinary.

This latest gaff from Al Gore inspired me to take a look at climate change in Greenland…

Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don’t add up

[...]

In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

[...]

Perhaps Mr Gore had felt the need to gild the lily to buttress resolve. But his speech was roundly criticised by members of the climate science community. “This is an exaggeration that opens the science up to criticism from sceptics,” Professor Jim Overland, a leading oceanographer at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

“You really don’t need to exaggerate the changes in the Arctic.”

[...]

Richard Lindzen, a climate scientist at the Massachusets Institute of Technology who does not believe that global warming is largely caused by man, said: “He’s just extrapolated from 2007, when there was a big retreat, and got zero.”

There’s not a whole lot in the way of temperature records from the Arctic ice cap… No permanent weather stations nor any millennial-scale ice cores… But there are a lot of temperature data from Greenland… A few weather stations, a few ice cores and a least a couple of ice boreholes.

Let’s look at the GISP 2 ice core, the DYE-3 & GRIP boreholes and the surface temperature records from Egedesminde & Jakobshavn.

GISP 2 and DYE-3 are identified on the  map below, GRIP is just to the east of GISP2 and Egedesminde & Jakobshavn are on the west coast (due west of Milcent)…

NOAA’s NCDC has a library of borehole temperature data… LINK

The resolution of the borehole data is a function of depth (just like any other subsurface imaging method, like seismic reflection data); so the frequency of borehole temperature data decreases with depth – Higher frequency cycles can only be imaged in shallower (younger) sediments.  Borehole temperature data lose resolution with depth (age). This is a measurement of heat flow. Over time, heat flows from warm places to cool places. Shallower (younger) sections of boreholes have far higher temporal resolution than the deeper (older) sections of boreholes. Oxygen isotope ratios (d18O) don’t have the same resolution issue; but they are not useful if firn or snow. They have very close to annual temperature resolution in ice layers as far back as several thousand years ago. In the case of the GISP2 core, the most recent ice was from the late 1800’s. The glacial section above it was still composed of snow and firn.

Borehole temperatures have an advantage over the d18O from ice cores in that they record temperatures all the way up to the present; but there is a loss of resolution with depth.

I haven’t been able to find the Dahl-Jensen DYE 3 borehole data; but I did find Alley’s GISP2 data. I plotted the GISP2 data and digitized the borehole curves onto the plot. The difference in temporal resolution of the two data sets around 1000 AD is obvious…

I then digitized the DYE 3 curve on a plot of two instrumental stations from 1880-2009…

In both cases the borehole data approximate the low-frequency component of the higher frequency d18O and instrumental data.

Borehole temperatures show that the Medieval Warm Period and 1920-1940 were warmer than the late 1990’s.
In no case is there anything anomalous about temperature changes in Greenland in the 20th century vs the prior 2,000 years; nor is there anything anomalous about the late 20th century to early 21st century relative to the early 20th century.

The Medieval Warm Period is part of a 1,470-yr (+/- 500-yr) cycle that is identified in ice cores (Dansgaard-Oeschger Events) and marine sediment cores (Heinrich and Bond Events) and linked to variations of the 87- and 210-yr solar cycles.  It’s also very obvious in borehole data; yet the Climategate Crew keeps trying to erase it from the paleoclimatological record.

References:

Alley, R.B..  2004. GISP2 Ice Core Temperature and Accumulation Data.  IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology  Data Contribution Series #2004-013. 
NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.    
 
Alley, R.B. 2000. 
The Younger Dryas cold interval as viewed from central Greenland. 
Quaternary Science Reviews 19:213-226.

D. Dahl-Jensen,  K. Mosegaard, N. Gundestrup, G. D. Clow, S. J. Johnsen, A. W. Hansen, N. Balling
Past Temperatures Directly from the Greenland Ice Sheet
Science 9 October 1998: 268
DOI: 10.1126/science.282.5387.268

More Coral Reef Shenanigans

How do things like this get published in peer-reviewed journals? Doesn’t anybody ever check the work? 

The January 2, 2009 issue of Science featured a paper, Declining Coral Calcification on the Great Barrier Reef, by Glenn De’ath, Janice M. Lough, Katharina E. Fabricius. This is from the abstract: 

Reef-building corals are under increasing physiological stress from a changing climate and ocean absorption of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. We investigated 328 colonies of massive Porites corals from 69 reefs of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia. Their skeletal records show that throughout the GBR, calcification has declined by 14.2% since 1990, predominantly because extension (linear growth) has declined by 13.3%. The data suggest that such a severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented in at least the past 400 years. 

I have not purchased the article and my free membership to the AAAS does not grant access to it; but I did find the database that appears to go with De’ath et al., 2009 in the NOAA Paleoclimatology library: LINK 

Well… I downloaded the data to Excel and I calculated an annual average calcification rate for the 59 cores that are represented in the data set. This is what I came up with… 

Great Barrier Reef Calcification Rate (after De'ath et al., 2009)

 

There is no decline in the calcification rate of the Great Barrier Reef apparent in these data. The only thing that even remotely looks like a decline is caused by the last point in the series. The data before 1670 and after 1981 are highly erratic; with wide annual swings in calcification rates. These are also periods in which very few cores (<10) are available. 

It is “cherry-picking” of the highest order, if that last data point really is the basis of this claim: “Their skeletal records show that throughout the GBR, calcification has declined by 14.2% since 1990, predominantly because extension (linear growth) has declined by 13.3%. The data suggest that such a severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented in at least the past 400 years.” 

Over the last 400+ years the Earth’s climate has warmed ~0.6°, mean sea level has risen by about 9 inches and the atmosphere has become about 100 ppmv more enriched with CO2; and the Great Barrier Reef has responded by steadily growing faster. 

1. Rising Temperature: The Great Barrier Reef likes the warm-up since the depths of the Little Ice Age…

 

2. Rising Sea Level: The Great Barrier Reef likes the slight sea level rise since the depths of the Little Ice Age… 

 

3. Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations: The Great Barrier Reef likes the increase in CO2 levels since the depths of the Little Ice Age… 

 

 

A new paper in Geology (Ries et al., 2009) details the results of experimentally subjecting 18 carbonate shell building species to high CO2 levels. Most of them liked more CO2; particularly Coralline Red Algae and Temperate Coral… 

Coralline red algae calcification response to increased atmospheric CO2 (modified after Ries eta la., 2009)

 

Temperate coral calcification response to increased atmospheric CO2 (modified after Ries et al., 2009).

 

Neither coral species experienced negative effects to calcification rates at CO2 levels below 1,000 to 2,000 ppmv. The study reared the various species in experimental sea water using 4 different CO2 and aragonite saturation scenarios. But the study assumed a linear decline in aragonite saturation with increasing CO2. Higher CO2 can reduce aragonite saturation; but it usually doesn’t… 

CO2 vs. Aragonite saturation depth (from Feely et al., 2004)

 

From Feely et al., 2004 

So, coral building critters would probably take 3,000 ppmv CO2 in stride, just by making more limestone… Kind of like they did during the Cretaceous… 

East Texas Stratigraphic Column and Creatceous CO2

 

 Reef data from: 

De’ath, G., J.M. Lough, and K.E. Fabricius. 2009.
Declining coral calcification on the Great Barrier Reef.
Science, Vol. 323, pp. 116 – 119, 2 January 2009. 

Lough, J.M. and D.J. Barnes, 2000.
Environmental controls on growth of the massive coral Porites.
Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 245: 225-243. 

Lough, J.M. and D.J. Barnes, 1997.
Several centuries of variation in skeletal extension, density and calcification in massive Porites colonies from the Great Barrier Reef: a proxy for seawater temperature and a background of variability against
which to identify unnatural change.
Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 211: 29-67. 

Chalker, B.E. and D.J. Barnes, 1990.
Gamma densitometry for the measurement of coral skeletal density.
Coral Reefs, 4: 95-100. 

Temperature data from: 

Moberg, A., D.M. Sonechkin, K. Holmgren, N.M. Datsenko and W. Karlén. 2005.
Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low-and high-resolution proxy data.
Nature, Vol. 433, No. 7026, pp. 613-617, 10 February 2005. 

University of Alabama, Hunstville 

Sea Level data from: 

“Recent global sea level acceleration started over 200 years ago?”, Jevrejeva, S., J. C. Moore, A. Grinsted, and P. L. Woodworth (2008), Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L08715, doi:10.1029/2008GL033611. 

CO2 data from: 

D.M. Etheridge, L.P. Steele, R.L. Langenfelds, R.J. Francey, J.-M. Barnola and V.I. Morgan. 1998. Historical CO2 records from the Law Dome DE08, DE08-2, and DSS ice cores. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A. 

Dr. Pieter Tans, NOAA/ESRL (www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends) 

  

Other references: 

 

Justin B. Ries, Anne L. Cohen, and Daniel C. McCorkle
Marine calcifiers exhibit mixed responses to CO₂-induced ocean acidification
Geology 2009 37: 1131-1134.

Feely RA, et al.(2004) 
Impact of anthropogenic CO2 on the CaCO3 system in the oceans.
Science 305:362–366. 

 

Another nail in a junk science coffin…

“We were surprised that some organisms didn’t behave in the way we expected under elevated CO2″…

News Release : In CO2-rich Environment, Some Ocean Dwellers Increase Shell Production

December 1 2009
Source: Media Relations

In a striking finding that raises new questions about carbon dioxide’s (CO2) impact on marine life, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists report that some shell-building creatures—such as crabs, shrimp and lobsters—unexpectedly build more shell when exposed to ocean acidification caused by elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).

[...]

The concern is that this process will trigger a weakening and decline in the shells of some species and, in the long term, upset the balance of the ocean ecosystem.

But in a study published in the Dec. 1 issue of Geology, a team led by former WHOI postdoctoral researcher Justin B. Ries found that seven of the 18 shelled species they observed actually built more shell when exposed to varying levels of increased acidification. This may be because the total amount of dissolved inorganic carbon available to them is actually increased when the ocean becomes more acidic, even though the concentration of carbonate ions is decreased.

“Most likely the organisms that responded positively were somehow able to manipulate…dissolved inorganic carbon in the fluid from which they precipitated their skeleton in a way that was beneficial to them,” said Ries, now an assistant professor in marine sciences at the University of North Carolina. “They were somehow able to manipulate CO2…to build their skeletons.”

Organisms displaying such improvement also included calcifying red and green algae, limpets and temperate urchins. Mussels showed no effect.

“We were surprised that some organisms didn’t behave in the way we expected under elevated CO2,” said Anne L. Cohen, a research specialist at WHOI and one of the study’s co-authors. “What was really interesting was that some of the creatures, the coral, the hard clam and the lobster, for example, didn’t seem to care about CO2 until it was higher than about 1,000 parts per million [ppm].” Current atmospheric CO2 levels are about 380 ppm, she said. Above this level, calcification was reduced in the coral and the hard clam, but elevated in the lobster

The “take-home message, “ says Cohen, is that “we can’t assume that elevated CO2 causes a proportionate decline in calcification of all calcifying organisms.” WHOI and the National Science Foundation funded the work.

Conversely, some organisms—such as the soft clam and the oyster—showed a clear reduction in calcification in proportion to increases in CO2. In the most extreme finding, Ries, Cohen and WHOI Associate Scientist Daniel C. McCorkle exposed creatures to CO2 levels more than seven times the current level.

This led to the dissolving of aragonite—the form of calcium carbonate produced by corals and some other marine calcifiers. Under such exposure, hard and soft clams, conchs, periwinkles, whelks and tropical urchins began to lose their shells. “If this dissolution process continued for sufficient time, then these organisms could lose their shell completely,” he said, “rendering them defenseless to predators.”

“Some organisms were very sensitive,” Cohen said, “some that have commercial value. But there were a couple that didn’t respond to CO2 or didn’t respond till it was sky-high—about 2,800 parts per million. We’re not expecting to see that [CO2 level] anytime soon.”

[...]

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the oceans’ role in the changing global environment.

LINK

Key points…

1) Like Global Warming morphed into Climate Change, Ocean Acidification is morphing into Ocean Carbonation or something similar. The oceans simply aren’t acidifying. The oceans are becoming more saturated with Disolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC) – The stuff most shellfish use to make shells.

2) We now have indisputable evidence that the following things are beneficially affected by elevated CO2:

a) otoliths (fish ear bones)
b) coccoliths (phytoplankton)
c) “crabs, shrimp and lobsters”
d) “calcifying red and green algae, limpets and temperate urchins”

Anyone who ever took a carbonate geology class would have already known this; yet all of the above results were unexpected and contrary to the ocean acidification hypotheses that was being tested.

3) We have clear evidence that the following creatures are not adversely affected by elevated CO2 levels below 1000 to 2800 ppmv:

a) coral reefs, lobsters and hard clams below 1000 ppmv
b) “soft clams, conchs, periwinkles, whelks and tropical urchins” below 2800 ppmv.

4) Gorebot-inclined scientists are desperately looking for some evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are acidifying the oceans and/or destroying carbonate shell building organisms.

5) Gorebot-inclined scientists keep “unexpectedly” finding that carbonate shell building organisms simply used the excess CO2 (in the form of DIC) to build more limestone.

I ponied up $25 to the GSA and bought the paper.

18 benthic species were selected to represent a wide variety of taxa: “crustacea, cnidaria, echinoidea, rhodophyta, chlorophyta, gastropoda, bivalvia, annelida.” They were tested under four CO2/Ωaragonite scenarios:

409 ppm (Modern day)
606 ppm (2x Pre-industrial)
903 ppm (3x Pre-industrial)
2856 ppm (10x Pre-industrial)

7/18 were not adversely affected by 10x pre-industrial CO2: Calcification rates relative to modern levels were higher or flat at 2856 ppm for blue crab, shrimp, lobster, limpet, purple urchin, coralline red algae, and blue mussel.

6/18 were not adversely affected by 3x pre-industrial CO2: Calcification rates relative to modern levels were higher or flat at 903 ppm for halimeda, temperate coral, pencil urchin, conch, bay scallop and whelk.

3/18 were not adversely affected by 2x pre-industrial CO2: Calcification rates relative to modern levels were higher or flat at 903 ppm for hard clam, serpulid worm and periwinkle.

2/18 had very slight declines in calcification at 2x pre-industrial: Oyster and soft clam.

The effects on calcification rates for all 18 species were either negligible or positive up to 606 ppm CO2.

That’s because oceanic pH doesn’t change a whole lot in response to changes in atmospheric CO2.  

Average annual pH reconstructions and measurements from various Pacific Ocean locations:

60 million to 40 million years ago: 7.42 to 8.04 (Pearson et al., 2000)
23 million to 85,000 years ago: 8.04 to 8.31 (Pearson et al., 2000)
6,000 years ago to present: 7.91 to 8.28 (Liu et al., 2009)
1708 AD to 1988 AD: 7.91 to 8.17 (Pelejero et al., 2005)
2000 AD to 2007 AD: 8.10 to 8.40 (Wootton et al., 2008)

The low pH levels from 60 mya to 40 mya include the infamous Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM); a period in which large scale subaerial and submarine flood basalt eruptions probably dislodged a massive volume of methane hydrates into the Atlantic Ocean, causing a shoaling of the lysocline (AKA ocean acidification). Even then, the oceans did not actually “acidify;” the lowest pH was 7.42 (still basic). PETM CO2 levels have been estimated to have been 1000 to 3000 ppmv from pedogenic carbonates… But fossil plant stomata suggest that CO2 levels in North America were not much different than today (300 to 400 ppmv).

6,000 years of pH and atmospheric CO2

 

A plot of CO2 vs pH from the Flinders Reef dataset (Pelejero et al., 2005) shows no statistically significant correlation between CO2 and pH from 1788-1988…

Fliners Reef pH (Pelejero et al., 2005) vs atmospheric CO2

How much of the atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic?

The answer according to a paper just published in the American Geophysical Union journal, Geophysical Research Letters is that about half of anthropogenic CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere and about half are taken up by natural carbon sinks…

New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.

This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had been previously expected.

The results run contrary to a significant body of recent research which expects that the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans to absorb CO2 should start to diminish as CO2 emissions increase, letting greenhouse gas levels skyrocket. Dr Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol found that in fact the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has only been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, which is essentially zero.

The strength of the new study, published online in Geophysical Research Letters, is that it rests solely on measurements and statistical data, including historical records extracted from Antarctic ice, and does not rely on computations with complex climate models.

This work is extremely important for climate change policy, because emission targets to be negotiated at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen early next month have been based on projections that have a carbon free sink of already factored in. Some researchers have cautioned against this approach, pointing at evidence that suggests the sink has already started to decrease.

[...]

Watts Up With That?

The research conducted by Dr Wolfgang Knorr of the University of Bristol shows that since 1850 approximately 54% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are absorbed by natural carbon sinks (i.e. plants, oceans) irrespective of the total volume of emissions…

Figure 1. The annual increase in atmospheric CO2 (as determined from ice cores, thin dotted lines, and direct measurements, thin black line) has remained constantly proportional to the annual amount of CO2 released by human activities (thick black line). The proportion is about 46% (thick dotted line). (Figure source: Knorr, 2009)

The point is that no matter how much CO2 humans emit, from 8 tons to 8 gigatons, 44% of it is taken up by natural carbon sinks. Mankind accounts for about 6 gT’s of atmospheric carbon (primarily CO2) each year. The natural variability of Earth’s carbon cycle is 6 to 7 times as large as current anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

Mankind accounts for 5-6 Gt of CO2 emissions per year. Natural sources account for 190-225 Gt per year. The natural variability of 35 Gt is 6 to 7 times as large as the total anthropogenic emissions.

In other words, there is no such thing as a natural balance between carbon sources and sinks. Most geoscientists already knew that was the case, because there is no such thing as a natural balance of anything. If there was such a thing, the Earth’s atmosphere would have long ago run out of CO2; and we would be on a pathway to running out again in 25 million years…

H/T to Bill Illis for gathering these paleo-climate data into one spreadsheet.

Despite all of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere by humans, a linear regression would predict that we are on a course to run out of CO2.

If I subtract 56% of the annual anthropogenic emissions (the airborne fraction) from the ice core/instrumental record, CO2 would still have climbed to ~350 ppmv due to the warm-up from the Little Ice Age…

Another way of approaching this is to take the CO2 concentration from 1750 (ice core data) and add the cumulative anthropogenic emissions to it. The funny thing is that up until about 1960, atmospheric CO2 levels were lower than the cumulative anthropogenic emissions and that if I subtract the cumulative emissions from the atmospheric concentrations, I get a curve that basically tracks the temperature changes…

The blue dots and green curve are the cumulative annual difference between anthropogenic emissions and CO2 levels recorded in ice cores and at Mauna Loa. This essentially subtracts the net annual anthropogenic component of CO2.

So if mankind never discovered how to burn things, atmospheric CO2 would have risen to 330 to 350 ppmv from 277 ppmv in 1750 instead of the current 385 ppmv. Plant stomata data clearly show that natural warming and cooling episodes over the last 10,000 years have routinely caused atmospheric CO2 levels to fluctuate between 270 and 360 ppmv. Plants “breathe” CO2 through microscopic epidermal pores called stomata. The density of plant stomata varies inversely with the atmospheric partial pressure of CO2. Several recent studies of plant stomata from living, herbarium and fossil samples of plant tissue have shown that atmospheric CO2 fluctuations comparable to that seen in the industrial era have been fairly common throughout the Holocene and Recent times.

Plant stomata measurements reveal large variations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the last 2,000 years that are not apparent in ice core data (Kouwenberg, 2004)…

Kouwenberg (2004) Figure 5.4: Reconstruction of paleo-atmospheric CO2 levels when stomatal frequency of fossil needles is converted to CO2 mixing ratios using the relation between CO2 and TSDL as quantified in the training set. Black line represents a 3 point running average based on 3–5 needles per depth. Grey area indicates the RMSE in the calibration. White diamonds are data measured in the Taylor Dome ice core (Indermühle et al., 1999); white squares CO2 measurements from the Law Dome ice-core (Etheridge et al., 1996). Inset: Training set of TSDL response of Tsuga heterophylla needles from the Pacific Northwest region to CO2 changes over the past century (Chapter 4).

Century-scale fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have also been demonstrated in the early Holocene (Wagner et al., 1999)…

(Wagner et al., 1999)Fig. 1. (A) Mean SI values (±1 ) for B. pendula and B. pubescens from the early Holocene part of the Borchert section (Netherlands; 52.23°N, 7.00°E) and reconstructed CO2 concentrations. The scale of the section is in centimeters. Three lithological (Lith.) units can be recognized (18): a basal gyttja (=), succeeded by Drepanocladus peat (//), which is subsequently overlain by Sphagnum peat ( ). Six conventional 14C dates (in years before the present) are available (indicated by circled numbers): 1, 10,070 ± 90; 2, 9930 ± 45; 3, 9685 ± 90; 4, 9770 ± 90; 5, 9730 ± 50; and 6, 9380 ± 80. Summary pollen diagram includes arboreal pollen (white area) with Pinus ( ) and with Betula ( ) and nonarboreal pollen with Gramineae ( ) and with Cyperaceae, upland herbs, and Ericales ( ). Regional climatic phases after (18): YD, Younger Dryas; Fr., Friesland phase; Ra., Rammelbeek phase; and LP, Late Preboreal. For analytical method, see (13). Quantification of CO2 concentrations according to the rate of historical CO2 responsiveness of European tree birches (Fig. 2). P indicates the reconstructed position of the Preboreal Oscillation.

So… If mankind had never burned any coal, oil or natural gas, atmospheric CO2 levels would only be 30 to 50 ppmv lower than the current ~385 ppmv.  And… There’s no evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emissions have caused any warming in the last decade…

The Earth has not warmed over the last 11 years.

Or in the last thousand years…

The long term temperature trend over the last 2,000 years is flat and the warm-up out of the Little Ice Age began 260 years before atmospheric CO2 levels began to rise.

Ocean Acidification… Another Nail in a Junk Science Coffin

Sponges recycle carbon to give life to coral reefs

Coral reefs support some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, yet they thrive in a marine desert. So how do reefs sustain their thriving populations?

Marine biologist Fleur Van Duyl from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research is fascinated by the energy budgets that support coral reefs in this impoverished environment. According to van Duyl’s former student, Jasper De Goeij, Halisarca caerulea sponges grow in the deep dark cavities beneath reefs, and 90% of their diet is composed of dissolved organic carbon, which is inedible for most other reef residents. But when De Goeij measured the amount of carbon that the brightly coloured sponges consumed he found that they consume half of their own weight each day, yet they never grew. What were the sponges doing with the carbon? Were the sponges really consuming that much carbon, or was there a problem with De Goeij’s measurements? He had to find out where the carbon was going to back up his measurements and publishes his discovery that sponges have one of the fastest cell division rates ever measured, and instead of growing they discard the cells. Essentially, the sponges recycle carbon that would otherwise be lost to the reef. De Goeij publishes his discovery on November 13 2009 in The Journal of Experimental Biology at http://jeb.biologists.org.

[...]

The sponges were shedding the newly divided cells, which other reef residents could now consume. ‘Halisarca caerulea is the great recycler of energy for the reef by turning over energy that nobody else can use [dissolved organic carbon] into energy that everyone can use [discarded choanocytes],’ explains De Goeij.

EurekaAlert!

In other words… Anthropogenic CO2 emissions help feed the critters that build coral reefs.

Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (CO2, bicarbonate, etc.) are consumed by shell building organisms to build shells (bicarbonate) and photosynthesis in the photic zone (CO2). DIC constitute about 97% of the carbon in the oceans.

Dissolved Organic Carbon (non-colloidal bits of carbohydrates, proteins, etc.) are the mostly the product of photosynthesis. DOC can come from land or, marine sources. This is consumed by sponges which secrete food for reef building organisms.

Both DIC and DOC are part of the carbon cycle.

Anthropogenic carbon emissions (primarily CO2) constitute about 3% of the Earth’s carbon budget (~6 Gt/yr).

More CO2 in the atmosphere leads to something called “CO2 fertilization.” In an enriched CO2 environment, most plants end to grow more. The fatal flaw of the infamous “Hockey Stick” chart was in Mann’s misinterpretation of Bristlecone Pine tree ring chronologies as a proxy for temperature; when in fact the tree ring growth was actually indicating CO2 fertilization as in this example from Greek fir trees…

Figure 1. Annual precipitation totals, annual air temperature anomalies, atmospheric CO2 concentrations (from Mauna Loa and Antarctica’s Law Dome ice core), and the mean standardized tree-ring series of the Greek fir trees. Adapted from Koutavas (2008). LINK Koutavas Abstract

Enriched atmospheric CO2 “feeds” reefs in two ways: 1) Enhanced photosynthesis for the symbiotic algae; and 2) More DOC to feed the sponges that also feed reef builders as the result of enhanced photosynthesis of land and marine vegetation.

Coral reefs can only grow in the photic zone of the oceans because zooxanthellae algae use sunlight, CO2, calcium and/or magnesium to make limestone.

The calcification rate of Flinders Reef has increased along with atmospheric CO2 concentrations since 1700…

Flinders Reef calcification rate has increased along with atmospheric CO2 since 1700.

As the atmospheric CO2 concentration has grown since the 1700’s coral reef extension rates have also trended upwards. This is contrary to the theory that increased atmospheric CO2 should reduce the calcium carbonate saturation in the oceans, thus reducing reef calcification. It’s a similar enigma to the calcification rates of coccoliths and otoliths.

In all three cases, the theory or model says that increasing atmospheric CO2 will make the oceans less basic by increasing the concentration of H+ ions and reducing calcium carbonate saturation. This is supposed to reduce the calcification rates of carbonate shell-building organisms. When, in fact, the opposite is occurring in nature with reefs and coccoliths – Calcification rates are generally increasing. And in empirical experiments under laboratory conditions, otoliths grew (rather than shrank) when subjected to high levels of simulated atmospheric CO2.

In the cases of reefs and coccoliths, one answer is that the relatively minor increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last couple of hundred years has enhanced photosynthesis more than it has hampered marine carbonate geochemistry. However, the otoliths (fish ear bones) shouldn’t really benefit from enhanced photo-respiration. The fact that otoliths grew rather than shrank when subjected to high CO2 levels is a pretty good indication that the primary theory of ocean acidification has been tested and falsified.

In the field of geology, when we falsify a hypothesis or a theory, we trend to start looking for a new hypothesis or theory. That’s why we rely very heavily on Chamberlain’s Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses. In the junk science of ocean acidification and anthropogenic global warming, it appears that the process is to simply discard any data that deviate from the ruling theory.

Senate Democrats: No Cap and Trade Vote This Year!

NOVEMBER 11, 2009

Climate Bill Likely on the Shelf For Rest of the Year

By IAN TALLEY
WASHINGTON — Key Senate Democrats Tuesday said it is unlikely there will be any more major committee action on climate-change legislation this year, the strongest indication yet that a comprehensive bill to cut greenhouse-gas emissions won’t be voted on until at least next year.

Although the Senate Environment Committee last week approved a version of the bill, the proposal will face strong revisions from moderate Democrats, particularly from senators on the Finance and Agriculture committees.

“It’s common understanding that climate-change legislation will not be brought up on the Senate floor and pass the Senate this year,” Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus said on the sidelines of a caucus lunch.

Mr. Baucus, a Montana Democrat, said he planned to hold a number of hearings on climate legislation and eventually mark up a bill in his panel. “But I don’t know that I can get a bill put together by this year, as important as climate-change legislation is,” he said.

Mr. Baucus was the lone dissenting Democratic vote on the Environment Panel last week because he wanted weaker emission-reduction targets and stronger provisions to protect energy-intensive industries and encourage clean-coal technologies…

[...]

Wall Street Journal

Since next year is an election year, it’s a decent bet that this goes nowhere next year either. The results of next year’s congressional elections will probably forestall any climate change legislation for the foreseeable future.

The avowed goal of Al Gore and his ilk is an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 from 1990 levels, the so-called “80 by 50″ scheme. This would require a reduction of per capita CO2 emissions to levels not seen since the 1860’s…

Red China, India and the rest of the developing world have rejected any binding targets for emission reductions, despite the fact that the fastest growth in CO2 emissions is occurring in the developing world.

So any reductions of US emissions are pointless.