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Reefer Madness Forever

By FRED GARDNER | CounterPunch | January 25, 2011

“Marijuana’s Role in the Tucson Shooting” was the extremely misleading headline on an article by Joe Califano that the Huffington Post ran Jan. 21. Why is that supposedly liberal site disseminating propaganda by a leading Drug Warrior? There is no evidence that marijuana had any “role” in the Tucson shooting. Readers who only glance at the story will assume otherwise.

Califano begins by blowing politic kisses towards Barack Obama and John Boehner. Then he changes tone to sneer at “the thousands of pundits, left and right, arguing about the meaning of the tragedy in Arizona,” who missed a lesson “as important as any other lesson to come out of this tragedy. It’s about the relationship of marijuana use to psychotic illness.”

After another shot at commentators preoccupied with laws that allow automatic weapons and super-size ammo clips, Califano makes his pitch: “I haven’t seen press reports or talking heads discuss their concern about how easy it has been for this mentally ill young man to get marijuana. And there has been no mention of the potential of marijuana to spark latent psychosis and exacerbate schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.”

Califano cites a study in … the Lancet and two other studies suggesting that using cannabis leads to psychotic breaks. Califano does not allow that these studies are considered inconclusive at best by many psychiatrists, including Lester Grinspoon, whose textbook on Schizophrenia has been the standard text.

Califano quotes reports that Loughner once used marijuana; but he ignores other reports that Loughner quit three years ago and that his drug of choice was Salvia Divinorum. Califano wants the question settled: “If the police have any of the hair shaved from Loughner’s head, they can easily find out if marijuana was in his system at the time of the shooting. They may even be able to do so from hair that grows back in.”

It seems like an easy test to rig if one were so inclined. And we know Joe Califano of old, he has few qualms about manipulating the facts. The following is from O’Shaughnessy’s report on the Prop 215 campaign (the ballot initiative by which California voters legalized the medical use of marijuana on November 4, 1996):

In the final weeks of the campaign some leading drug warriors from Back East -stunned that the people of California were on the verge of rejecting a lifetime of their propaganda-decided to step in. Joseph Califano, president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, flew out to Los Angeles on Tuesday, Oct. 28 to warn Californians that they did not understand the open-endedness of Prop 215. Califano had hired two pollsters to query 800 residents over the weekend. He must have been very confident of the outcome because arrangements for his press conference were made before the questions had been asked. “It was a push-pull,” explains Paul Maslin, a San Francisco pollster. This is a type of survey in which the questioner, after getting an initial response, provides additional information and then asks again, evoking a changed response. Califano announced at his press conference that 46 percent of the respondents supported Prop 215 when first asked, but only 36 percent after its inherent looseness had been pointed out to them. Califano’s goal in commissioning the poll, according to Maslin was to make voters think that the “no” side still had a realistic chance on Election Day and to minimize any bandwagon effect that would magnify the “yes” vote.

Flash-forward to the Huffington Post, Jan. 21. Califano concludes:

“we should be asking this question: Is Jared Loughner an individual whose psychosis was prompted or exacerbated by the use of marijuana? Whether or not he is, it is important for the press and parents to see this horrendous incident not only as a teaching moment about the easy availability and dangerous potential of automatic weapons, but also as a teaching moment about the easy availability and dangerous potential of marijuana to spark and exacerbate psychosis and schizophrenia in individuals with latent mental illnesses.

“The missing story line in existing news reports and television chatter shows is about the terrible trinity of easy availability of guns, easy availability of marijuana and mental illness. The question for all of us, especially parents of teenagers, to ask is this: Is the media’s failure to acknowledge this tragic trinity due to its tendency to overlook or underplay the dangers of marijuana use?

“Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Founder and Chair of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, was Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Carter Administration, and served from 1965 to 1969 as chief domestic affairs assistant to president Lyndon B. Johnson.”

More on CBD opportunism.

January 25, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Normal Seasons of the Sun

By Ira Glickstein, PhD | WattsUpWithThat | January 23, 2011

We had joy, we had fun, we had Seasons of the Sun.
But the mountains we climbed were but whimsies of our minds.

That song (apologies to Terry Jacks) could well be the theme for the official climate Team as they hike to the airy peak of Mt. Hansen on the supposed 0.8ºC warming since 1880, only to look out at the bleak prospect, for them, of level ground, and the possibility of some cooling over the coming decades.

This is the third of my Tale of the Global Warming Tiger series where I allocate the supposed 0.8ºC warming since 1880 to: (1) Data Bias, (2) Natural Cycles, the subject of this posting, and (3) AGW, which will be the subject of a subsequent posting. Click Tiger’s Tale and Tail :^) to see my allocation and read the original story.

NATURAL PROCESSES AND CYCLES

This posting is about how natural processes and cycles have dominated the global warming experienced since 1880. The base chart for the above graphic is the NASA GISS Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index that indicates the official climate Team estimate of about 0.8ºC net warming, the majority of which they allocate to human activities. In contrast, according to my annotations, the actual net warming is closer to 0.5ºC (0.8ºC – 0.3ºC Data Bias), and most of that, 0.4ºC, is due to natural cycles and processes over which humans have no control or effect.

The violet curve in the graphic is my estimate of the effect of natural cycles from 1880 to the present. There are many natural processes that affect the surface temperature of the Earth, but nearly all of them gain their energy from the Sun which is why I call them Normal Seasons of the Sun. In the following three sections, they are divided into three groups, according to their time scales and effects.

GRADUAL PROCESSES AND CYCLES LESS IMPORTANT ON HUMAN TIME SCALES

Biological life is thought to have existed on Earth for about 3.5 billion years. Over that enormous time period, natural processes and cycles have affected the evolution of life. Absent those processes, we would not be here, or at least not in our current condition. However, some of these processes and cycles operate ponderously slowly, to the point they are barely noticed on the time scale of an individual human life or even on the time scale of ten lives. Therefore, they are of virtually no concern:

(a) Brightening Sun The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old, and about halfway through what is called the main sequence evolution for a star of its type. It has been getting brighter, but very slowly and nearly imperceptibly. In about 5 billion years, the Sun will become a Red Giant, and life as we know it on Earth will no longer be possible. However, the rate of brightening is so small that we may ignore it.

(b) Milankovitch Cycles. The Earth’s orbit around the Sun is affected by slow, cyclic variations in eccentricity (100,000 years), axial tilt (41,000 years), and precesssion (21,000 years). Changes in the Earth’s orbit do not affect the quantity of average yearly solar radiation, but the distribution between equatorial regions and polar regions is affected. This may be the cause of the approximately 100,000 year cycle of ice age glaciations. However, the contribution of these effects over a period as short as that from 1880 to the present is so small we may ignore it.

(c) Heat from Earth’s Core. About 0.01% of the energy responsible for heating the surface of the Earth is due to energy from the decay of radioactive materials in the Earth’s core. This source has a half life measured in billions of years. This is such a tiny fraction of the Earth’s heat budget that we may ignore it.

PROCESSES AND CYCLES OF IMPORTANCE ON HUMAN TIME SCALES

(d) Normal Seasons of the Sun. The nominal 11-year Solar Cycles, during which Sunspot counts vary from low numbers to a peak and then down again, may be as short as 9 years or as long as 14. Magnetic polarity changes for every pair of cycles, so there is an 18 to 28 year magnetic cycle. Often there are series of three or more cycles, spanning periods of 30 to 150 or more years where solar activity may be very low (below 50 spots per month) and series of similar lengths where activity may be very high (above 100 spots per month).

Low Sunspot series are historically associated with decades of unusually cold climate and vice-versa for high Sunspot series. Total Solar Irradiation (TSI) does not change much during a single Sunspot cycle, but, over a series of high (or low) cycles, it may change enough to result in an increase (or decrease) of 0.1ºC. This TSI effect of Solar Cycles accounts for about a quarter of the of 0.4ºC I have allocated for natural cycles.

(e) Henrick Svensmark’s Global Cosmic Ray (GCR) Theory. GCRs have a positive role in the formation of clouds. Low-lying daytime clouds tend to cool the surface of the Earth. Therefore, all else being equal, the more GCRs, the more clouds, and the cooler the surface of the Earth. Increased solar magnetic activity, which coincides with higher Sunspot numbers, may divert some portion of GCRs from reaching the Earth, thereby reducing cloud formation and thus lessening their cooling effects.

Via this mechanism, a series of high Sunspot cycles may indirectly cause surface temperatures to rise, and a series of low cycles may cause them to fall, which is consistent with the historical record. Svensmark’s theory, if correct, could account for some of the 0.4ºC I have allocated to natural cycles and processes.

(f) Multi-Decadal Ocean Oscillations. There are a number of ocean oscillations, with periods of from less than a decade to multiple decades, that affect sea surface temperatures and therefore have climate impacts worldwide. These include the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and others. The ENSO, for example, has a warm phase, called El Niño, Spanish for “the boy”, and a cool phase, called La Niña, “the girl”. The El Niño that started in 1998 caused global warming of 0.1ºC to 0.4ºC for a couple years.

While the net effect of any cycle on temperature anomalies is zero, they have significant effects during their high and low durations. Given the existence of several, somewhat independent ocean oscillations, their high and low times may tend to reinforce or cancel each other out, and that may explain multi-decadal episodes of positive and negative anomalies. There may be some correlation of these cycles with solar activity, which is, of course, the main source of their energy. Thus, ocean cycles could account for some of the 0.4ºC I have allocated to natural cycles and processes.

POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE FEEDBACKS OF IMPORTANCE ON HUMAN TIME SCALES

(g) ATMOSPHERIC GASES (net positive feedback). Long-wave radiation from the Earth extends from about 4 to 25 microns, with maximum energy around 10 microns. See the absorption spectrum for “greenhouse” gases. Note that the absorption spectra for water vapor (H2O) in the range of interest extends from about 5 to 8 microns and from around 12 to 25 microns. Note also that the absorption spectra for other atmospheric gases, such as methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (NO2), and oxygen/ozone (O2/O3), partially overlap H2O such that the atmosphere absorbs (and re-emits) nearly 100% of 4 to 25 micron radiation, except for two nearly transparent windows in the 8 to 9 and 10 to 12 micron regions.

Nearly all the carbon gases in the atmosphere are from natural sources, mostly respiration and digestive gasses of living animals and the decay of dead plants and animals. (The small proportion of carbon gases due to human activity, mainly burning of previously sequestered coal, oil, and natural gas, will be discussed in a future topic here on WUWT. For the purposes of this posting, only natural carbon gases are considered.)

When an atmospheric gas absorbs longwave radiation in its spectrum, that radiative energy is re-emitted in a broader spectrum and in all directions, about half towards the Earth and the other half out towards space.

When atmospheric CO2 absorbs 4 to 5 micron radiation from the Earth, or CH4 absorbs 7 to 8 micron radiation, and that energy is re-emitted, some will fall into the nearly transparent windows and head out to space nearly unimpeded. About half of the remaining energy will be re-emitted back towards the Earth’s surface and will add to warming.

The same is true for H2O, NO2, O2, and O3. Thus, increases in any of these gases will tend to increase warming of the Earth, all else being equal. That means, should the surface of the Earth experience a temperature increase, due to natural solar effects or any other cause, and if that increases emission of carbon gases from equatorial and summer temperate oceans, and reduces absorption of carbon gases by the polar and the winter temperate oceans, that will consititute a positive feedback. The inverse is also true. Should surface temperatures decrease, and if this reduces the amount of CO2, CH4, or H2O gases in the atmosphere, that will reduce the “greenhouse” effect, and tend to further cool the surface. Thus carbon gases and water vapor represent a positive feedback to surface warming.

(h) CLOUDS (net negative feedback). Short-wave radiation from the Sun extends from about 0.2 microns (ultraviolet light) to 2 microns (near infrared light), with maximum energy around 0.5 microns (green light in the visible spectrum). Moderate warming of the surface has a net effect of increasing the extent of cloud cover. Daytime clouds reflect much of the short-wave radiation back out to space, which is a powerful negative feedback. However, both day- and nightime clouds also absorb long-wave radiation from the Earth and re-emit about half of it back down, further warming the surface, a positive feedback. There is disagreement over whether the net effect of clouds is warming or cooling. Most of the official climate Team models assume the net effect is positive, others, including me, assume it nets out as negative.

(i) SURFACE ICE (net positive feedback). Ice, having a high albedo (reflective quality of white or light-colored surfaces), reflects much of the short-wave radiation from the Sun back out to space, which has a cooling effect. Warming of the Earth’s surface may thin and ultimately melt the ice and expose the underlying sea water or land. Water and land are less reflective. Thus, warming that causes melting has a net positive feedback.

(j) THUNDERSTORMS, HURRICANES, ETC. (net negative feedback). These tend to mix the atmosphere and, since the surface is generally warmer than the lower air masses, storms and other disturbances of the atmosphere tend to be a cooling influence. Thunderstorms, in particular, tend to lift warmer air from the surface to higher elevations where the heat energy may more readily radiate out to space.

Thus, if warming of the surface causes more water vapor in the atmosphere, and if this causes more thunderstorms and hurricanes, or makes them more intense, they have a negative feedback effect.

(k) PRECIPITATION (net negative feedback). Water vapor in the atmosphere cools by radiation of its heat energy in all directions, including out to space. The vapor condenses, forming liquid (rain) and solid (snow) water precipitates. Since the radiating tends to take place high in the atmosphere, where the heat energy may more readily radiate out to space, this precipitation constitutes a net cooling effect. Rain and snow tend to be cooler than the surface, and that is also a net cooling effect. Thus, if warming of the surface causes more water vapor in the atmosphere, and if this causes more precipitation, that is a negative feedback effect.

(l) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS. These spew hot gases, liquids, and solids from the bowels of the Earth onto the surface and into the atmosphere. In the short-term, this tends to heat the surface. However, the aerosols from the volcano, basically sulphur and other mineral compounds, are driven high into the air and tend to remain for years, which tends to reflect Sunlight back into space, which, in the longer-term, tends to cool the surface. The net effect is cooling. For example, the eruption at Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 cooled global temperatures 0.1ºC to 0.3ºC for a few years thereafter.

CONCLUSIONS AND REQUESTS

I believe I have hit on and briefly described all the major natural processes and cycles that affect average global temperatures. However, if readers have additional information or corrections to what I said about any of them, or if there are some I missed, I would appreciate detailed comments to improve my summary.

It seems to me that my estimate of 0.4ºC for Normal Seasons of the Sun is fully justified, but I am open to hearing the opinions of WUWT readers who may think I have over- (or under-) estimated this component of the supposed 0.8ºC rise in global temperatures since 1880.

In my first and second postings in this Tale of the Global Warming Tiger series, I asked for comments on my allocations: to: (1) Data Bias 0.3ºC, (2) Natural Cycles 0.4ºC, and (3) AGW 0.1ºC.

Quite a few readers were kind enough to comment, either expressing general agreement or offering their own estimates.

Some commenters claim that the actual Data Bias is larger than my estimate of 0.3ºC. Some think Data Bias may be responsible for the entire amount of the supposed 0.8ºC rise in global temperatures since 1880, meaning that net warming over that period is ZERO. I accept that Data Bias may be 50% more (or less) than my estimate, which would put it between 0.15ºC and 0.45ºC, but I doubt it could be as large as 0.8ºC.

Other commenters claim that AGW is ZERO. In other words, they believe that rising CO2 and land use changes due to human activities have no effect on temperatures or climate. They believe the lack of effect is due to the negative feedback from cloud albedo and other natural negative feedback processes. I agree clouds have a net negative feedback (most official models assume a net positive feedback) but I do not believe this cancels out all the effects of CO2 on the Earth’s surface absorption of Solar radiation nor of albedo changes due to land use. I accept that AGW may be 50% less (or more) than my estimate, which would put it between 0.05ºC and 0.2ºC, but I doubt it could be as large as 0.8ºC.

What do you think? I have been keeping a spreadsheet record of reader’s opinions, which I appreciate and value greatly, along with their screen names, and I plan to report the results later in this series.

This is what you may look forward to:

Some People Claim There’s a Human to Blame – Yes, human actions, mainly burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, are responsible for some small amount of Global Warming.

Is the Global Warming Tiger a Pussy Cat? – If, as many of us expect, natural processes lead to stabilization of global temperatures over the coming decades, and perhaps a bit of cooling, we will realize the whole Global Warming uproar was like the boy who saw a pussy cat and cried tiger.

January 23, 2011 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Sea level may drop in 2010

By John Kehr | Watts Up With That | January 17, 2011

Based on the most current data it appears that 2010 is going to show the largest drop in global sea level ever recorded in the modern era.  Since many followers of global warming believe that the rate of sea level rise is increasing, a significant drop in the global sea level highlights serious flaws in the IPCC projections.  The oceans are truly the best indicator of climate.  The oceans drive the world’s weather patterns.  A drop in the ocean levels in a year that is being cited as proof that the global warming has arrived shows that there is still much to learned.  If the ocean levels dropped in 2010, then there is something very wrong with the IPCC projections.

The best source of sea level data is The University of Colorado.  Only government bureaucracy could put the sea level data in one of the places farthest from the ocean, but that is where it is.  I use both data sets that includes the seasonal signal.  So with and without the inverted barometer applied.  This is the source of the data that is used to show that the oceans are rising.  Of course the rate of rise is greatly exaggerated and if the rate from 1993-2010 is used there will be a 1m rise in the year 2361.

Of course the rate is not constant.  The rate of rise over the past 5 years has been half the overall rate.  At the rate of the past 5 years it will be the year 2774 before the oceans rise a single meter.  Of course a decrease in the rate is technically an negative acceleration in the rate of rise, so technically the rate of rise is accelerating, but in a negative direction.  That statement is misleading though as most people consider acceleration to be a positive effect.

The Inconvenient Skeptc
Sea Level Change

Even more interesting is the fact that from 1992-2005 there was an increase each year.  2006 was the first year to show a drop in the global sea level.  2010 will be the 2nd year to show a decrease in sea level.  That is correct, 2 of the past 5 years are going to show a decrease in sea level.  2010 could likely show a significant drop in global sea level.  By significant I mean it is possible that it will likely drop between 2-3 mm from 2009.  Since the data has not been updated since August it is difficult to guess more precisely, but the data ends at the time of year that the seasonal drop begins to show up.  If the drop does show up as expected it is possible that 2010 will show the largest drop in sea level ever recorded.

The Inconvenient Skeptic
2010 could show a significant drop in sea level from 2009.

Of course what will happen won’t be known until the data for the past 5 months is made available.  I have been patiently waiting for the data to be updated for several months now, but I got tired of waiting and decided to put the information I have out there.

One fact is certain.  A drop in sea level for 2 of the past 5 years is a strong indicator that a changing sea level is not a great concern.  In order for the IPCC prediction of a 1m increase in sea level by 2100 to be correct, the rate must be almost 11 mm/yr every year for the next 89 years.  Since the rate is dropping, it makes the prediction increasingly unlikely.  Not even once in the past 20 years has that rate ever been achieved.  The average rate of 2.7 mm/yr is only 25% of the rate needed for the IPCC prediction to be correct.

This is yet another serious blow the accuracy of the official IPCC predictions for the coming century.  The fact that CO2 levels have been higher in the last 5 years that have the lowest rate of rise than the years with lower CO2 levels is a strong indicator that the claims of CO2 are grossly exaggerated.

January 17, 2011 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

Is the Brazilian flooding catastrophe evidence of another global warming era extreme ?

By Alexandre Amaral  | METSUL Communications Director, Brazil | January 15, 2011

Corpses are still under tons of rocks and mud in the hills of Rio de Janeiro, but some experts are already rushing to the microphones here in Brazil and abroad to declare the worst natural disaster in the Brazilian history as a clear and unequivocal evidence of global warming (a.k.a. global climate disruption).

The Brazilian media is not immune to the frenzy on global warming and extreme weather events. The Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, one of the most important media outlets in the country, published a report connecting the Rio de Janeiro disaster to the Queensland flooding in Australia and the recent snowstorms in the United States and Western Europe.

To establish the ongoing catastrophe in Brazil as a global warming product is a bogus claim in the view of the staff of MetSul Meteorologia. The same can be said to the events of cold snaps and snow in the Northern Hemisphere – strong negative Arctic Oscillation related – and the massive flooding in Australia, a direct result of the strong and natural derived La Niña event.

Rio de Janeiro is subject to heavy or extreme rainfall every year, but this time the amount of precipitation was very heavy and in a short period of time, creating an inland tsunami-like torrent. The risk of major extreme rain episodes this summer was widely anticipated by MetSul meteorologists as analog years strongly pointed to a summer similar to the ones with disastrous events in the past. Rain gauges in Nova Friburgo measured 300 millimeters (12 inches) of rain in just 24 hours from January 11th to 12th. The tragedy happened in the Sierras of Rio de Janeiro (Região Serrana) where major topographical forcing is usually present in extreme rainfall. Moisture flow from the ocean (SSTs are above average in the South Atlantic) find a natural physical barrier in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro, making the region prone to extreme rainfall during summer months and early autumn.

The most affected cities (Petrópolis, Teresópolis and Nova Fribrugo) are located between mountains as high as 5 to 6 thousand feet and besides rivers cross these towns. The only way the water can take are the valleys and the regional rivers. Due to the regional terrain, the major menace to the population is landslide. For many decades Brazilian authorities allowed construction of homes and buildings in the slopes, so every single year landslides with numerous deaths are recorded in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais.

The front page of the Extra newspaper from Rio de Janeiro (click over the picture for a wider view) published on January 13th 2010 showed that every single year in the last decade witnessed tragedies caused by rain in the state of Rio. The newspaper headline is “Até quando?” (When will it end?). The paper argues: “The government excuse is always the same…it rained an equivalent to…”. The dominant opinion in the Brazilian media and public arena is that these repeated tragedies must be above all attributed to poor risk management and ridiculous urban planning instead of only blaming nature. Despite recognizing the ferocity of the rain, many are calling this week’s tragedy a manmade disaster.

In the state of Rio de Janeiro, there is massive occupation of the slopes and the hills, so landslides tend to be much more devastating and tragedies much more frequent. If this week’s rainfall had happened in the same region 35 years ago, the consequences would have been incredibly less dramatic. Satellite pictures released by the Brazilian Global TV Network show clearly some of the risky areas that concentrate most of the victims (Caleme, Posse and Meudon) as heavily populated nowadays in contrast to low or no land occupation 35 years ago.

There are anecdotal and historic accounts of extreme rainfall in the state of Rio de Janeiro since Brazil was a Portuguese colony in the 1600’s and 1700’s, but meteorological records are not available for that period. Great tragedies caused by rain and landslides in Rio de Janeiro began mainly in the second half of the 20th century coinciding with the demographic explosion and the massive and unorganized occupation of the hills. The risky areas of today, where the tragedies of the modern times use to happen almost every year, were not occupied 100 years ago, and for that reason the vast majority of the tragic events concentrate in the last 50 years.

  • April 1756 – Three days of heavy rainfall caused flooding, home collapses and “lots of victims” all over the town – still small – of Rio de Janeiro.
  • February 1811 – Between February 10th and 17th heavy rains caused a “catastrophe” in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Hills collapsed, the city was flooded and landslides were widespread with a torrent of water and mud invading town. Historical accounts tell of many victims, but there is no official number. The regent prince – designated by Portugal – ordered the churches to be open to serve as shelters.

  • April 1883 – Eleven inches of rain (220 mm) in a matter of four hours flood the city of Rio de Janeiro.

  • April 1924 – Heavy flooding and landslides with fatalities.
  • January 1940 – Flooding and landslides in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Santo Cristo district was the most affected.

  • January 1942 – Flooding and landslides in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The Salgueiro Hill was the the main disaster area.

  • January 1962 – Heavy flooding and several landslides in the city of Rio de Janeiro after 242 mm of precipitation during a storm.
  • January 1966 – The storm of January 2nd, 1966, brought record rainfall to the city of Rio de Janeiro. Flooding and massive landslides caused 250 casualties. Other 70 people died after the storm due to diseases.

  • January 1967 – Heavy rain and landslides provoked the collapses of buildings in the city of Rio. 200 people died and 300 were injured. 300 people died in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Guanabara (today Guanabara and Rio form the state of Rio de Janeiro).

  • November 1981 – Landslides in the Sierras of Rio kill 20 people in the city of Teresopolis.
  • February 1987 – Flooding and landslides kill 292 people. The city of Rio de Janeiro and the Sierras of the state concentrate the damages and the victims.
  • February 1988 – 277 people died in flooding and landslides in the Baixada Fluminense region and in the city of Petrópolis in the Sierras. In the rest of the month hundreds more died in new landslides and flooding. A hospital collapsed, killing 18 people. Damages topped 1 billion dollars.

  • Summer of 1996 – Dozens of deaths in flooding and landslides.
  • January 1999 – Dozens of deaths in flooding and landslides.
  • 2010 – Nearly 100 people died in the cities of Angra dos Reis and Rio de Janeiro due to landslides on January 1st. In April, record rainfall caused over 200 deaths in massive landslides in the cities of Rio and the neighboring town of Niteroi.

Tragic events will happen again in the future, but can be less dramatic if some steps are taken urgently and seriously: improvement of risk management, urban reorganizing, investments in weather forecast and monitoring equipments and staff, a new media approach to weather warnings’ importance and a good public governance. History proves these areas will be hit again, but we as society have the power to mitigate the consequences. It is a matter of serious and urgent public priority for our authorities and the population’s will.

(note there’s much more here at METSUL’s blog)

January 16, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

Crete yields earliest sea travel evidence

Press TV – January 4, 2011

Archaeologists have found some ancient tools on the Greek island of Crete which they believe might be evidence of one of man’s earliest sea voyages.

The Greek Culture Ministry said in a statement that the tools are between 130,000 and 700,000 years old, about the same age as the shelters on the island’s south coast.

“The results of the survey not only provide evidence of sea voyages in the Mediterranean tens of thousands of years earlier than we were aware of so far, but also change our understanding of early hominids’ cognitive abilities,” the ministry statement said.

The tools were discovered during a survey of caves and rock shelters near the village of Plakias by archaeologists from the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the Culture Ministry.

Such tools were mostly used by Heidelberg Man and Homo Erectus, two extinct precursors of the modern human race, which evolved from Africa about 200,000 years ago.

“Up to now we had no proof of Early Stone Age presence on Crete,” said senior ministry archaeologist Maria Vlazaki, adding that it was not clear where the hominids had sailed from, or whether the settlements were permanent.

“They may have come from Africa or from the east,” she said. “Future study should help.”

The island of Crete separated from the mainland about five million years ago, so whoever made the tools must have reached there by sea travelling at least 40 miles.

The finding does not support the popular theory that human ancestors migrated to Europe from Africa by land, the Associated Press reported.

The previous earliest evidence of open-sea travel dates back to 11,000 years ago in Greece and about 60,000 years worldwide.

The Greek-American archeology team has asked permission to conduct a more thorough excavation of the area. Greek authorities say they will answer later this year.

January 4, 2011 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

Bangladesh, the Poster Child

By B.Quartero | WattsUpWithThat | January 3, 2011

Bangladesh, the largest Delta in the world

Bangladesh, the largest Delta in the world, has been the poster child of a scary sea level rise story ever since “An Inconvenient Truth”. There is much to be concerned about in Bangladesh, and flooding is most certainly one of the seasonal hardships Bangladesh has to put up with. Sea level rise just happens to be not one of them.

Some Geology:

The Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers flow through the Himalaya Foredeep and end-up dumping their sediment load in the Gulf of Bengal, forming a huge delta at the ocean edge. Deltas have one common characteristic in that they are actually formed by the rivers bringing the sediment to the ocean, in this case a huge load coming off the largest and highest mountain range in the world, the Himalayas. The proto Ganges and Brahmaputra have been active for millions of years, and have been filling the fore deep, a sinking part of the crust caused by tectonic loading of the Himalaya thrust belt. The collision of the Indian Plate with the Asian Plate has resulted in a structural complex deformation of the rock layers, which in itself is a most fascinating and only partially understood process. The net result however is a pile of rocks (The Himalayas) on the north side of the Indian plate, bending this plate down under its weight. The resulting trough is almost simultaneously filled with sediment eroded from this same pile of rocks. The mechanism of deposition is mainly by fluvial processes (river sediments) and alluvial fans directly shedding off the incipient mountain range into the fore deep. The rivers have been finding their way, following the natural law of water flowing to the lowest point. In this case the bay of Bengal, where the subsidence of the earth crust is also influenced by the Arakan-Yoma foldbelt of Myanmar. The resulting depression is filled with sediments transported for more than 20 million years by the proto Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers, and has possibly been an active centre of sediment deposition for more than 60 million years.

All this sounds very impressive, but what deltas in essence are is the place where a large amount of fine grained sediments are being deposited due to a significant reduction in flow rate when the river flows into a wider oceanic basin. This deposition is cyclical yet continuous in such sense that it has been a continuous process for millions of years but also very much seasonal and thus cyclical. The Himalayas are subject to monsoon rains as well as seasonal snow melt, resulting in variable yet yearly, predictable jumps in run-off, generally resulting in flooding of the “flood plains” that in the dry season are well above water level. Those flood plains are protected by modest natural levees. Natural levees are formed when a river overflows and loses its coarsest sediment first, in proximity to the main channel, thus building up natural high ridges along the main river body. These natural levees have been recognized as effective dikes by some and have occasionally been enhanced and built up by human inhabitants of flood plains (e.g. the “summer dikes” in The Netherlands). Levees are, however, seldom high and strong enough to withstand large floods, in which case they break through with resulting widespread seasonal flooding.

During flooding the fine muds in the now rapidly decelerating river (the same volume of water now flows over a much wider area and even appears to stand still for some time) are deposited and when the flood waters recede, there is a fine layer of mud left behind. This annual or rather frequent flooding allows a delta to build “up” during floods. 1 mm/year still adds up to 1 meter every 1000 years, which is approximately equivalent to the annual subsidence in the Gulf of Bengal, also known as the Patuakhali Depression.

Sea level rise and deltas

Deltas have been extensively studied for many years, partially motivated by pure self-preservation, partially because abundant oil and gas has been found in delta sediments.

One of the interesting things about deltas is that they are very dynamic and by their very nature are building up and out rather than drown and disappear.

When sea level drops, the rivers tend to by-pass their most recently built sediment wedge and incise deeper valleys in their old river beds, then dump their sediment further out into the ocean and build-up a new addition to the Delta complex. When sea level rises, the delta builds-up rather than out into the ocean and thus stays more or less balanced with sea level. When sea level rises very rapidly, and the sediment load can not keep up, the Delta will find a new equilibrium further back, where the available accommodation space balances the sediment load. The Ganges-Brahmaputra delta happens to have not only survived one of the most rapid sea level rises in geological time, post Pleistocene, but has built and built for millions of years thanks to being endowed with one of the largest sediment loads on earth. More than 16 km (vertically) of sediments derived from the Himalayas has been deposited and consistently built and maintained a delta environment. The sea encroaches where the rivers are not, due to sediment compaction; the fine muds deposited away from the main channels during seasonal floods initially hold a lot of water and over time this water is expelled. Rivers change their course when low areas become the preferred place to flow to. This constant shifting of rivers and river mouths to the lowest areas, forms the distributing process by which a delta spreads and builds. Unless sea level rise and the resulting increase in water depth and accommodation space exceeds the sediment supply, deltas will never drown. Bangladesh and the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta will be there for as long as the Himalayas deliver the gravels, sands and mud.

Flooding

So what about the flooding? The seasonal flooding is of course a direct result of the dramatic increase of run-off during monsoon and annual snow melt. The rivers are literally constricting the excessive water flow. It can not unload its water fast enough and as a result the water level rises. The levees overflow and/or break through and the floodplains in between the rivers are flooded. Water level sometimes rises by two or more meters. Sea level has nothing to do with it. One mm more or less has no influence on the massive seasonal run-off. The flooding and resulting deposition of a film of mud actually completely compensates for the estimated annual global sea level rise. The lower the flood plain, the higher the flood water column, the more silt and mud is deposited. It all evens out, hence the very uniform flat nature of delta plains.
Of course deltas can only build up so much, and are therefore always more or less in equilibrium with flood and sea level. Flooding will be a regular occurrence, for as long as there are monsoon seasons. Unless people build dikes and dams to regulate the flow, floods will happen. While dikes seem to be a good idea, it does modify the dynamics of a system that is in balance with sea level and sediment supply. The Netherlands (effectively the Rhine delta) have been building dikes for more than 1000 years and as a result many old settlements are now well below high river level. The absence of regular sediments added to the floodplain requires ever stronger and higher dikes. Sooner or later the imbalance will no longer be sustainable. Wisely, new settlements are now mostly built with adding thick layers of sand, not only to strengthen the foundation of the new housing, but with an added benefit of artificially elevating the country. Al Gore had it partially right to flag the Netherlands as being threatened to drown, not so much by rising sea level as well by having engineered a safer environment from river flooding, thus starving the flood plains of balancing sedimentation.

In summary:

Deltas are formed at the boundary of rivers and oceans. The rivers that build deltas flow to low and slowly sinking parts of the crust, where large volumes of sediment are being deposited. They will always be in balance with sea level but almost by definition increase in size, if rivers are allowed to follow their course. Deltas, by their very nature are building out and up. They also tend to flood frequently and seasonally, often with disastrous effects on the inhabitants. People living in deltas should learn to swim, have a boat and generally be aware of what can happen. Sea level rise is not an issue in large deltas; they have been proven to be able to keep up with any sea level rise. Flooding disasters are seasonally the result of excessive run-off, and occasionally due to unfortunate storm surges that result in breaks through natural barriers, but this has nothing to do with sea level rise. Bangladesh will be there, even if all the ice in the world has melted, with its people still fighting floods while farming the fertile floodplains.

January 3, 2011 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

More than 25 percent of US children now on chronic prescription medications

By Ethan A. Huff | Natural News | December 31, 2010

The rate of prescription drug use among children and teens continues to rise, with a new report from Medco Health Solutions Inc. saying that at least a quarter of all U.S. children are now regularly taking pharmaceutical drugs. And according to the report, many of these drugs were originally intended for adults, and carry with them unknown side effects for long-term use in young people.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports that in addition to taking drugs for conditions like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and asthma, children are now taking things like sleeping pills, diabetes drugs and even statin drugs, which are typically only prescribed for adults. The report cites an eight-year-old boy, for example, who has been taking blood pressure medications since he was a baby.

Dr. Danny Benjamin, a professor of pediatrics at Duke University, admitted to the WSJ that prescribing chronic medications to children is a serious problem. “We know we’re making errors in dosing and safety,” he said, noting also that parents must do more to question the safety of medicines their doctors prescribe.

Experts worry that the increasing prevalence of children on prescription drugs is causing these young people serious harm, and that parents should instead seek out dietary and lifestyle changes for their children. But because many doctors continue to dole out the drugs like candy, despite known dangers, many parents just accept them for their children without giving it a second thought.

And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has done little, if anything, to warn the public about the dangers of using chronic prescription drugs, especially in small children. Safety studies in young people are not necessarily required in order for doctors to prescribe adult medications to children, as long as the drug is already FDA-approved.

Sources for this story include:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100…

January 1, 2011 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

New US Department of Agriculture GMO Policy Favors Monsanto

Coexistence With Monsanto? Hell No!

By RONNIE CUMMINS | CounterPunch | December 25, 2010

After 16 years of non-stop biotech bullying and force-feeding Genetically Engineered or Modified (GE or GM) crops to farm animals and “Frankenfoods” to unwitting consumers, Monsanto has a big problem, or rather several big problems. A growing number of published scientific studies indicate that GE foods pose serious human health threats.  The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) recently stated that “Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food,” including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. The AAEM advises consumers to avoid GM foods. Before the FDA arbitrarily decided to allow Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) into food products in 1994, FDA scientists had repeatedly warned that GM foods can set off serious, hard-to-detect side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems. They urged long-term safety studies, but were ignored.

Federal judges are finally starting to acknowledge what organic farmers and consumers have said all along: uncontrollable and unpredictable GMO crops such as alfalfa and sugar beets spread their mutant genes onto organic farms and into non-GMO varieties and plant relatives, and should be halted.

An appeals court recently ruled that consumers have the right to know whether the dairy products they are purchasing are derived from cows injected with Monsanto’s (now Elanco’s) controversial recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), linked to serious animal health problems and increased cancer risk for humans.

Monsanto’s Roundup, the agro-toxic companion herbicide for millions of acres of GM soybeans, corn, cotton, alfalfa, canola, and sugar beets, is losing market share. Its overuse has spawned a new generation of superweeds that can only be killed with super-toxic herbicides such as 2,4, D and paraquat. […]

In just one year, Monsanto has moved from being Forbes’ “Company of the Year” to the Worst Stock of the Year. The Biotech Bully of St. Louis has become one of the most hated corporations on Earth.

Monsanto and their agro-toxic allies are now turning to Obama’s pro-biotech USDA for assistance. They want the organic community to stop suing them and boycotting their products. They want food activists and the OCA to mute our criticisms and stop tarnishing the image of their brands, their seeds, and companies. They want us to resign ourselves to the fact that one-third of U.S. croplands, and one-tenth of global cultivated acreage, are already contaminated with GMOs. That’s why Monsanto recently hired the notorious mercenary firm, Blackwater, to spy on us. That’s why Monsanto has teamed up with the Gates Foundation to bribe government officials and scientists and spread GMOs throughout Africa and the developing world.  That’s why the biotech bullies and the Farm Bureau have joined hands with the Obama Administration to preach their new doctrine of “coexistence.” … Full article

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MorphCity | December 24, 2010

December 25, 2010 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

Preliminary results for the CERN CLOUD cosmic ray experiment

Nature.com | December 15, 2010

An experiment designed to investigate the link between solar activity and the climate has its first results in the bag. At the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco today, Joachim Curtius presented data from the first runs of the CLOUD (‘cosmics leaving outdoor droplets’) experiment at CERN – the European particle physics lab outside of Geneva.

The experiment has a long and bumpy history. The idea is to test the theory that cosmic rays spur the formation of particles in the air that nucleate clouds, in turn making skies cloudier and the planet cooler. Researchers have noted a dearth of sunspots (which is linked to more cosmic rays) during the ‘little ice age’ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and a peak in sunspots (linked to a drop in cosmic rays) during the late 1980s, when global cloudiness dropped by about 3% (see Nature‘s feature on the project). No one knows how big this effect might be, and the idea that it might account for a big chunk of the warming over the last century is highly controversial.

CLOUD uses a particle beam from CERN as a stand-in for cosmic rays, and fires them through an ultra-clean steel chamber filled with select atmospheric gases, to see if and how particles that could nucleate clouds are formed. Project head Jasper Kirkby proposed the experiment back in 1998. But it had a hard time getting off the ground – perhaps in part because Kirkby received bad press for emphasizing the importance of cosmic rays to climate change (see this story from the National Post). CLOUD finally got going in 2006, and they started work with the full kit in November 2009 (here’s a CERN video update about that).

The results haven’t yet been published, so Curtius declined to discuss the details. But the important thing is that the project is working – they have seen sulphuric acid and water combine to make particles when blasted by the CERN beam, for example, in a way that matches predictions of the most recent models. The data should help the team to quantify how much of an impact the Sun is having on climate within 2-3 years, Curtius says – though there are a lot more pieces of the puzzle to fill in.

December 16, 2010  Anthony Watts adds:

Dr. Roy Spencer has mentioned that it doesn’t take much in the way of cloud cover changes to add up to the “global warming signal” that has been observed. He writes in The Great Global Warming Blunder:

The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover. Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming — or global cooling.

See also: Cosmic rays linked to rapid mid-latitude cloud changes

December 16, 2010 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

New NASA model: Doubled CO2 means just 1.64°C warming

By Lewis Page • The Register •  8th December 2010

A group of top NASA boffins says that current climate models predicting global warming are far too gloomy, and have failed to properly account for an important cooling factor which will come into play as CO2 levels rise.

According to Lahouari Bounoua of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and other scientists from NASA and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), existing models fail to accurately include the effects of rising CO2 levels on green plants. As green plants breathe in CO2 in the process of photosynthesis – they also release oxygen, the only reason that there is any in the air for us to breathe – more carbon dioxide has important effects on them.

In particular, green plants can be expected to grow as they find it easier to harvest carbon from the air around them using energy from the sun: thus introducing a negative feedback into the warming/carbon process. Most current climate models don’t account for this at all, according to Bounoua. Some do, but they fail to accurately simulate the effects – they don’t allow for the fact that plants in a high-CO2 atmosphere will “down-regulate” and so use water more efficiently.

Bounoua and her colleagues write:

Increase in precipitation contributes primarily to increase evapotranspiration rather than surface runoff, consistent with observations, and results in an additional cooling effect not fully accounted for in previous simulations with elevated CO2.

The NASA and NOAA boffins used their more accurate science to model a world where CO2 levels have doubled to 780 parts per million (ppm) compared to today’s 390-odd. They say that world would actually warm up by just 1.64°C overall, and the vegetation-cooling effect would be stronger over land to boot – thus temperatures on land would would be a further 0.3°C cooler compared to the present sims.

International diplomatic efforts under UN auspices are currently devoted to keeping global warming limited to 2°C or less, which under current climate models calls for holding CO2 to 450 ppm – or less in many analyses – a target widely regarded as unachievable. Doubled carbon levels are normally viewed in the current state of enviro play as a scenario that would lead to catastrophe; that is, to warming well beyond 2°C.

It now appears, however, that the previous/current state of climate science may simply have been wrong and that there’s really no need to get in an immediate flap. If Bounoua and her colleagues are right, and CO2 levels keep on rising the way they have been lately (about 2 ppm each year), we can go a couple of centuries without any dangerous warming. There are lots of other factors in play, of course, but nonetheless the new analysis is very reassuring.

“As we learn more about how these systems react, we can learn more about how the climate will change,” says Bounoua’s colleague Forrest Hall, in a NASA statement accompanying the team’s scholarly paper. “Each year we get better and better. It’s important to get these things right.”

The NASA/NOAA boffins’ paper Quantifying the negative feedback of vegetation to greenhouse warming: A modeling approach is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (subscription required). ®

December 11, 2010 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

New Scientist magazine plants false story that Pope approves GM crops

By Rady Ananda | The People’s Voice | December 3rd, 2010

Talk about psyops. If you can’t get the people to eat your dangerous, unwanted frankenfoods, just lie and say the Pope approves it. On November 30, the magazine, New Scientist, published “Vatican scientists urge support for engineered crops,” which the Vatican immediately denied.

“The Vatican did not endorse an 11-page final statement in favor of easing restrictions on and allowing more widespread use of genetically modified crops, especially in poorer nations,” a Vatican official said in a statement published by Catholic News Service.

In fact, “the Vatican has never taken a formal position supporting or opposing genetically modified foods,” reported CNS.

More biotech lies.

The study group who issued the report mostly include people with financial ties to genetically modified foods. Four employees of Monsanto graced that panel.

There are an estimated 1.2 billion Catholics in the world who now have more reason to distrust biotech scientists.

The New Scientist also quoted an outrageous lie by one of the report scientists:

“There has not been a single documented case of harm to consumers or the environment,” says Potrykus.

It then links to a 2005 article which says the opposite. Whatever. Ingo Potrykus is a Swiss scientist who developed a variety of GM rice.

There are numerous scientific studies condemning the use of GM foods which have been linked to organ damage and sterility in mammals, while others correlate rising diabetes and obesity rates with GMO introduction. There’s also the question of allergic reaction to GM foods, proof of which is hidden by lack of labeling.

GM crops (trees, too) are genetically modified to produce or tolerate pesticides. Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, has been linked to birth defects, cancer and miscarriages in humans. Pesticides are suspected in causing or contributing to mass bee, bat and butterfly die-off, as well as a pandemic amphibian decline. Their use is also linked to 11 million acres of superweeds in the U.S.

Finally, GM crops cannot be contained. They’ve spread in nations all over the world, even becoming established in the wild.

For any scientist to say that no environmental damage is linked to GM crops is unconscionable. Given the biotech industry’s penchant for suppressing science, it’s not surprising to find them extending their lies to the social realm.

Confronting the oft-quoted malarky that GM crops can solve world hunger, CNS reported:

“The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, said earlier this year that it was not a coincidence that in 2009 the use of genetically modified food crops grew by 13 percent in developing countries and that GM crops covered almost half of the world’s total arable land. And yet ‘the number of hungry people in the world has for the first time reached 1 billion people,’ the paper said.”

CNS further noted that, “Pope Benedict XVI has denounced the continued scandal of hunger in the world, saying its root causes have more to do with problems of distribution and sharing than with there not being enough food in the world.”

December 3, 2010 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

United Nations Bans Journalist from Climate Conference

Economic Policy Journal | November 29, 2010

A veteran journalist and documentary film maker, known for asking difficult questions of climate scientists and politicians, has been denied press accreditation for the Cancun Climate Change Conference. 

The UN has refused access to the Cancun Climate Change Conference to Phelim McAleer, who is well known for asking scientists and politicians difficult questions about Global Warming orthodoxy.

McAleer was notified of the UN’s refusal to accredit him just days before the international conference opening today.

McAleer produced and directed Not Evil Just Wrong, a documentary on Global Warming.

His reports from Copenhagen Climate Change Conference went viral on youtube, so much for that this time around.

“I sent them exactly the same documentation that was acceptable for Copenhagen last year, but it seems they did not like my coverage of Copenhagen and are now trying to silence me and the people who have questions about this process,” said McAleer.

“The message is clear—ask UN scientists and politicians difficult questions and you will be banned from any UN sponsored events. No difficult questions allowed,” he added.

McAleer is a 20 year veteran journalist who covered the Northern Ireland troubles. He has also worked for the UK Sunday Times and as a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times and The Economist. He has worked as a journalist and film maker in countries as diverse as Ireland, Romania,  Uzbekistan , Indonesia, Madagascar, Chile, Indonesia, Vietnam, and many other countries.

November 29, 2010 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

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