Stupid Gobal Warming Tricks

Timothy Birdnow

Two of the top stories at Physorg today are about global warming, and both are stupid beyond words. (I suppose they are running them because of the great big super delux climate protest and taffy pull, but I digress.)

The first article argues that coal fired power plants in Asia will not be able to find water to cool down because of "climate change".

From the article:

"One of the impacts of climate changeis that the weather is changing, which leads to more extreme events—more torrential downpours and more droughts," said Jeffrey Bielicki, a co-author of the study and an associate professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University.

"The power plants—coal, nuclear and natural gas power plants—require water for cooling, so when you don't have the rain, you don't have the stream flow, you can't cool the power plant."

This is just fearmongering. First, what do we mean by Asia? It's only the largest continent on the planet, with a huge diversity in climates and geography. To paint with such a broad stroke is not the signs of a serious scientific endeavor. There is not going to be any water problems in Indochina, or Bengladesh.

So much is being ignored in this; the impact of teh Himalayas, the river basins, etc. Very little water is dependent on rainfall in one particular region.

This is nothing but pseudo-science.

The second article is about Antarctic glaciers, and how meltwater is making them speed up.

From the article:

The new research, published today in Nature Communications, shows that accelerations in Antarctic Peninsula glaciers' movements coincide with spikes in snowmelt. This association occurs because surface meltwater penetrates to the ice bed and lubricates glacier flow.

The scientists expect that as temperatures continue to rise in the Antarctic, surface melting will occur more frequently and across a wider area, making it an important factor in determining the speed at which glaciers move towards the sea.

Now the average temperature in Amtarctica is well below freezing, even in the summer. The notion that the air has warmed and is melting the glaciers is silly. At most you may have a small amount of melting on the Antarctic Peninsula, which is much warmer than the rest of the continent and is affected by maritime currents.

Actually, they are correct in that meltwater IS accelerating these glaciers, but the melting is happening under the glaciers, not on the surface. There is considerable volcanic activity in Antarctica, and active volcanies heat the underside of much of the icecap. The result is water below and ice above - and the ice moves. That's why West Antarctica is losing so much ice; the ring of fire down there has become more active in recent years, probably because of the impending reversal of the Earth's magnetic field.

It should be pointed out that there is no statistically significant planetary warming. Hasn't been for decades.

They just won't let this thing go, despite a complete lack of evidence to support the theory. There is no tropical tropospheric hot spot - as is required by the models. They can't explain the "pause". They can't find the "missing heat". In short, they have a nice sounding theory but no evidence. When you have no evidence you have to surrender the theory, no matter how much you wish it were so.

But this is too important to too many people who have big political and economic reform plans. It's all about the socialism.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:59 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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