How Hurricanes Help Regulate (Cool) The Earth's Atmosphere

Earth Cooling Mechanism: Hurricane's
Sunday, August 26, 2007

Earth Cooling Mechanism: Hurricane's
Do hurricanes play a major role in cooling the Earth's atmosphere? Here is a fantastic satellite image and description of a major hurricane cooling the Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere. Is the Earth's atmosphere going to heat up due to global warming beyond control? No. Can man intervene and control the weather? Totally improbable.

Peter

From: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17392
Super Typhoon Ioke's Cool Wake
On Saturday, August 26, 2006, the National Weather Service’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu issued its final advisory report for Hurricane Ioke—not because the storm had fallen apart, but because the long-lived and well-traveled storm had passed outside of its monitoring area. As Ioke headed farther west in the Pacific, the storm—called a typhoon after it crossed the International Dateline—was monitored by the Japanese Meteorological Agency. Ioke formed on August 19, and rapidly intensified into a hurricane. Eventually the storm would hit the top of the hurricane intensity scale, becoming a Category 5 “super typhoon.”

Ioke was at this strength when it plowed over tiny (completely evacuated) Wake Island. On September 6, a Coast Guard ship was en route to the island carrying a team who would assess the damage to the island’s airport and other structures.This image shows the cool-water wake that Ioke left behind as it traveled across the Pacific Ocean from its birthplace south of Hawaii on August 19 to within several hundred kilometers of Japan as of September 5, 2006.

Based on sea surface temperature data from Japan’s Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E), which flies onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite, the image shows waters that are warm enough to fuel tropical cyclones in shades of yellow, orange, and red, while areas that are generally to cool to fuel cyclones are blue. The black crosses mark the position of Ioke at the start of each day (0:00 Universal Coordinated Time). A ribbon of cool water cuts through the broad swath of yellow in the central Pacific along the path of the storm. Shallow coastal areas where data were not collected are light gray.

The primary cause of the cool-water wake along the path of the storm is that powerful winds circling inward toward the low air pressure at the eye of the storm force surface waters outward, away from the storm. Deeper, cooler water wells up to replace the surface waters. A secondary cause of the cool-water wake is evaporation of water vapor from the sea surface.The hurricane “heat engine” converts the heat energy that is latent in water vapor into air movement. This heat loss adds additional cooling in the hurricane’s wake.For more images of Hurricane/Typhoon Ioke during its trek across the Pacific, please see the Tropical Storm Ioke event in the Natural Hazards: Severe Storms section of our Website.

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using Sea Surface Temperature data from the Advanced Microwave Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E), provided courtesy of Chelle Gentemann, Remote Sensing Systems.

NASA, Jim Hansen, And The Politicization Of Science

This information reveals nothing new, but the subject of scientific credibility in the continuing debate over the causes of global warming and climate change, keep surfacing. This warrants a revisit to sad exposure of the underhanded behavior of NASA's top climate scientist, Jim Hansen. This is information worth keeping.
Peter

Source:

NASA, James Hansen, and the Politicization of Science
Michael Asher (Blog) - September 26, 2007 11:04 AM
New issues swirl around controversial NASA branch NASA's primary climate monitoring agency is the Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Operating out of a small office at Columbia University, GISS is run by Dr. James Hansen. Official NASA climate statements come through GISS ... which means they must get by Hansen.

Many other scientists and agencies make climate predictions, but Hansen's top the list for scare factor, predicting consequences considerably more dire than his colleagues. Hansen specializes in climate "modeling" -- attempting to predict future events based on computer simulations. In 1971, Hansen wrote his first climate model, which showed the world was about to experience severe global cooling. NASA colleagues used it to warn the world that immediate action was needed to prevent catastrophe.

Most research papers are rather dry reading, written to be as unemotional as possible. Not so with Hansen's reports, whose works scream alarmism even in their titles: "Climate Catastrophe," "Can We Defuse the Global Warming Time Bomb," and "The Threat to the Planet." Hansen was most recently in the news when an amateur blogger discovered an error in his climate data, a mistake Hansen later discounted as unimportant to the "big picture" of compelling public action on climate change.

But who is James Hansen? Is he an impartial researcher seeking scientific truth? Or a political activist with an axe to grind? In 2006, Hansen accused the Bush Administration of attempting to censor him. The issue stemmed from an email sent by a 23-year old NASA public affairs intern. It warned Hansen over repeated violations of NASA's official press policy, which requires the agency be notified prior to interviews. Hansen claimed he was being "silenced," despite delivering over 1,400 interviews in recent years, including 15 the very month he made the claim.

While he admits to violating the NASA press policy, Hansen states he had a "constitutional right" to grant interviews. Hansen then began a barrage of public appearances on TV, radio and in lecture halls decrying the politicization of climate science. Turns out he was right. Science was being politicized. By him.

A report revealed just this week, shows the 'Open Society Institute' funded Hansen to the tune of $720,000, carefully orchestrating his entire media campaign. OSI, a political group which spent $74 million in 2006 to "shape public policy," is funded by billionaire George Soros, the largest backer of Kerry's 2004 Presidential Campaign. Soros, who once declared that "removing Bush from office was the "central focus" of his life, has also given tens of millions of dollars to MoveOn.Org and other political action groups. Certainly Soros has a right to spend his own money. But NASA officials have a responsibility to accurate, unbiased, nonpartisan science.

For Hansen to secretly receive a large check from Soros, then begin making unsubstantiated claims about administrative influence on climate science is more than suspicious -- it's a clear conflict of interest. But the issues don't stop here. Hansen received an earlier $250,000 grant from the Heinz Foundation, an organization run by Kerry's wife, which he followed by publicly endorsing Kerry. Hansen also acted as a paid consultant to Gore during the making of his global-warming film, "An Inconvenient Truth," and even personally promoted the film during an NYC event.

After the the GISS data error was revealed, Hansen finally agreed to make public the method he uses to generate "official" temperature records from the actual readings. That process has been revealed to be thousands of lines of source code, containing hundreds of arbitrary "bias" adjustments to individual sites, tossing out many readings entirely, and raising (or lowering) the actual values for others, sometimes by several degrees. Many areas with weak or no rising temperature trends are therefore given, after adjustment, a much sharper trend. A full audit of the Hansen code is currently underway, but it seems clear that Hansen has more explaining to do.

George Deutsch, the NASA intern who resigned over the censorship fallout, said he was initially warned about Hansen when starting the job, "People said ... you gotta watch that guy. He is a loose cannon; he is kind of crazy. He is difficult to work with; he is an alarmist; he exaggerates.'" Hansen's office did not return a request from DailyTech for an interview for this article.

The Law and Jim Hansen's (NASA) Temperature Data

It seems Jim Hansen of NASA and his manipulated temperature data would not be recognized in a court of law in the United States. It seems this means the theory that man is causing global warming is invalid, and any laws, or legal actions based upon it must be negated. Any lawyers out there who can comment on this?
Peter


from: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1891#more-1891

Will Richardson says:
August 11th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Re: 2&3 Bigcitylib.
No. The point is that substantial and material adjustments are being made to the temperature “record” relied on by climate scientists, the adjustments support the hypothesis of AGW, and the adjuster (Jim Hansen of NASA) refuses to disclose the data and calculations which he assures the public justify his adjustments.

In law, this would not be allowed. Let me quote from Florida Rule of Evidence 90.705 (actually Section 90.705, Florida Statutes):
90.705 Disclosure of facts or data underlying expert opinion.–
(1) Unless otherwise required by the court, an expert may testify in terms of opinion or inferences and give reasons without prior disclosure of the underlying facts or data. On cross-examination the expert shall be required to specify the facts or data.
(2) Prior to the witness giving the opinion, a party against whom the opinion or inference is offered may conduct a voir dire examination of the witness directed to the underlying facts or data for the witness’s opinion. If the party establishes prima facie evidence that the expert does not have a sufficient basis for the opinion, the opinions and inferences of the expert are inadmissible unless the party offering the testimony establishes the underlying facts or data.

The Federal Rule is similar. In other words, Hansen’s “adjusted” temperature “record” would be inadmissible in a court of law almost anywhere in the United States, as would any evidence based on his temperature “record”.

Jim Hansen, NASA Temperature Data, and Lies

I have to post this dialogue and save it for posterity because I have a feeling it will be important. I'm somewhat involved in a personal way, so it warrants my saving it. The debate over global warming is not "over", as many people want us to believe. Perhaps it is just beginning.
Peter

from: http://boards.msn.com/MSNBCboards/thread.aspx?threadid=388913&boardsparam=page%3D44


GCB Stokes
Message #52209/26/07 12:36 AM
Sky Hunter,

"So are you getting paid to post Marc Morano's disingenuous garbage he calls the
Senate EPW blog all over this forum?"

Classic pro-warming, you've been train very well. I'm sure Al Gore and Big Dad Jim and very proud.

"Is Steve McIntyre slipping you a little extra to cut and paste his lies onto
these threads?"

For some as smart as you, that's a really stupid statement and it put you in the same class as Rabid Roy. Tell us, just what is he lying about? Fact is Sky Hunter, his "lies" exposed Hansen's flawed data and method. Hansen has been forced to change them because Steve McIntrye was not lying, he was right. Have you seen Hansen changing things on the NASA Web Site? It's hard keeping up, but if you check in daily, you can see it yourself, and you won't have to read it from Steve McIntyre.

"All this effort to discredit Hansen and then you guys scream fouls whenever
someone questions the credibility of bloggers that are not even scientists, Like
Moarano, who is a political hack, and McIntyre, who is an advocate for the
mining industry."

Hansen is the political hack, the whiny little candy a$$ would call Al Gore to report on what the others at NASA were doing and saying. He would set with people and ask them questions pertaining to their research, and he would gain their trust. Then when he had the information, he would run into his office and call Al Gore on his cell phone and rat people out, "Al guess what! This person did this, and he saying that and put this and that into his research, you got to stop him Al, you got to do something!" He even pasted Al Gore notes the night before he gave his testimony at the Senate Hearings in 1998, on what to ask and how to ask it, when it was his turn to question him in the hearing. Give me a break Sky Hunter, you don't know the first thing about what your talking about here, you only know what you hear in the warming cycle. And your being a hypocrite.

"I am terribly disappointed in both you and GeoPeter
for a total lack of original thinking on this issue of late. Posting the climate
deniers talking points is what I would expect from lesser intellects."

This is not attempt at original thinking, it an informative threat, and I'm
posting the updates and posting/reporting what the liberal news media and
Al Gore lovers won't in order to protect Al Gore and his trained pet rat
James Hansen

.

GCB Stokes
Message #52309/26/07 12:37 AM

"All this effort to discredit Hansen and then you guys scream fouls whenever
someone questions the credibility of bloggers that are not even scientists, Like
Moarano, who is a political hack, and McIntyre, who is an advocate for the
mining industry."

Hansen has discredited himself way back, form his flip-flop from raving about the new ice age coming within 50 years and we must act now before it too late, and then not 10 years later started raving about global warming and we must act now before it too late. And his numbers, data and methods speak for themselves. I don't have to discredit him, he's doing a fine job of that on his own. Advocate of the mining industry? Oh, you mean his an advocate of Al Gore's mining industry with that zinc mine of his?

"I can refute every single example you have posted, most are just Morano
misrepresenting the studies. But for instance the Joseph D'Alio is an example of
distorting the facts beyond recognition."

I'm sure in you mind you can. That's interesting Sky Hunter, because many of the climate researchers from NASA, NOAA and Met Office can't. Perhaps I'll put in the good word and get you a job, and you can get in there and tell them how things are to be done.

"What he is doing is dishonest and he knows it. So here you have another proven
liar and yet you are willing to trust him because he is on your side of the
argument."

Sky Hunter, don't take me for a fool, and don't think I don't run things past my people on these matters. And the fact is, McIntyre has expose errors and flaws, Hansen had to concede to this fact, and had to make the corrections and now has change his method. Some, of the studies reported my Morano have some question, just as the warming studies and Hansen's claims, other many don't. And they are based on peer-review research and just because Morano report them, does not change the fact, like him or not. If things are really as bad as you say, then the global warming thread has even less to stand on, being that some much garbage gets through the peer-review process.

"The simple truthis that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are
increasing as a result of human activity, and this increase in greenhouse gases,
particularly CO2 is causing an increase in radiative forcing, and as a result
the planet is warming. All the tricky arguments and lies told by the right wing
media and industry funded deniers does not change the physics. The Earth is
warming, and human activity is the cause."

I hate to break the news to you, but there many people, researchers including some of the world's best climate researchers who are vastly more knowable then you who disagree. And that list is growing.



GCB Stokes
Message #52409/26/07 12:38 AM

"Well I think that is your problem, you see this as a political issue, not a
science issue, so you are willing to believe people who support your
confirmation bias, even though as a trained scientist, you should know
better."

Yeah, that coming from a Hansen fan, that sure gives you a whole lot of creditability! Don't you think he should know better.

"I guess perhaps I gave you guys more credit for objective thinking than was
deserved."

The feeling is mutual, Sky Hunter.

Like it or not, the science is far from settled, and there are many researchers from around the world who agree, people you could not put a patch on the A$$ of. Including those who run the models.

And one more thing.

"I know he is only a meteorologist, but even a meteorologist knows that this is
not a logical argument, since isotopic fractionation of the carbon atom proves
that the additional CO2 in the atmosphere is from fossil sources."

Now that was stupid, and I'll give you some breaking news Sky Hunter. The overwhelming majority of climate researchers, include more then 75 percent of the climate modellers are just that, "only meteorologist." I really did take you for someone who knew what they were talking about, this prove that wrong. Fact be known, Hansen is not even a meteorologist, or an atmospheric researcher at all for that matter. Hansen was trained in "physics" and "astronomy." And it shows in his work.

I don't know what came over you, maybe you had some bad beans or something. Or perhaps you feel like the kid who was just told there really is no Santa, but here are the facts as science know them:

Global Warming is a radical theory proposed by a few scientists several decades ago. This theory was captured by environmentalist, antihuman ideologists and politicians and elevated into the status of a fear based religious belief. In science, theories are grounded by the evidence that supports the theory. Even though the Global Warming Theory has been under the microscope for the past few decades and even though billions of dollars have been thrown into research on this subject, the work has not been able to accumulate a strong foundation of data supporting this theory. On the contrary, the analysis by hundreds of top scientist indicates the evidence has been building up over the past few years to reject this theory. And all the temper tantrums in the world won't change the facts.



Massagatto
Message #52509/26/07 12:46 AM
Thank You, GCB, for cramming sense into Sky Hunter's empty head. I really could not abide his attack so I reprinted your posts. Instead of adhominem attacks by SKy Hunter, I would like to see him take each of your posts one by one and rebut them. I am sure he could never do that. Therefore, he descended into an adhominem attack. But you hit him right on the nose...Bravo!!!!

Message #526
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GCB Stokes
Message #52609/26/07 01:39 AM
Massagatto,
I really don't like having to do things like this, and having to deal with some of the want-a-be's out on this message board is one thing, but I really didn't expect Shy Hunter to go all hysterical and going into an Al Gore automated attack mode as some may true believes do. They don't like what their hearing and things don't go there way, and faced with facts contrary to their beliefs and all they have been conditioned to accept and it hurts. So, they attack and insult even people who called them a friend.

Some of the **** he was saying was absurd. I work with climate researchers, some of whom are IPCC contributors, one was a lead authors, and three are considered some of the very best in there field. And the guy I'm working with tonight, is a pro-warming researcher and he read over the reports that I posted, some he disagrees with, some he and other's don't have an answer for. He concedes that he believes in his models, but accepts their flaws, and there are opposing views that nobody can explain away. And what Sky Hunter said about McIntyre, was ludicrous. And when he read Sky Hunter's post, he laughed and said, "McIntrye sure knows enough to make an A$$ out of Hansen before the whole world. Let's hear him refute that fact!" And the part were he can refute everyone one of the studies, he just shook his and rolled his eye and said, "I can't wait for his reply and for him to refute each of those studies. Then I'll take them into work and give some pointers to all of the armatures." I guess Sky Hunter was a little full of himself tonight, or he was just acting hysterical, but that was a ridiculous statement as if he mastered these professional researchers and their peer-reviewed research. I could see if these guy wrote papers without supporting data or some other silly B.S. researchers put out there, but that's not the case here, at all.

And the fact is, this thread is a report of a researchers findings, the very findings that made Hansen concede flawed data, and forced him to even change his method along with some dirty tricks. I'm reporting findings that were proven correct, along with peer-review research. It's too bad he doesn't get so worked up over the ridiculous B.S. some of these guys post in support of his warming beliefs. Such as when CuriousPete, after getting a Peterson Field Guide and did some googling, and today tried playing ornithologist with me over some unsupported global warming hysteria regarding birds. I did my best not to insult him, even after he got all cocky. And after dealing with this ****, then SkyHunter had his spell, and I was just not in the mood for it, and I got the impression he thought he was talking to one of his fans who doesn't know any better or something. But he's not dealing with an idiot here, or some fool who doesn't know the difference between the hole in their backside and a gopher hole and try to play scientist on the message board.

I'm just upset/pi$$ed off, and I'm sure GeoPeter will tell me, "Your a trained researcher, don't conduct yourself in this manner!" And he'll be right of course. I guess people just got on my last nerve and I said things I should not have, and I'll feel bad about it later.
Well, I'm home now and need to take a hot shower, and then get into bed. Take care

NASA Interfering In Study Of Climate Data

Here is a brief summary of the unfolding saga of Jim Hansen of NASA and the recording and interpretation of temperature data as it relates to the theory of man-caused global warming.
Peter


from:

GCB Stokes
Message #109/14/07 02:10 PM

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/AmandaCarpenter/2007/08/17/nasa_blocked_climate_change_blogger_from_data?page=full&comments=true
Despite the fact that NASA tried to block him from accessing U.S. temperature data, persistent efforts by a climate change blogger forced the government to amend U.S. temperature data. Because of the blogger’s efforts, NASA now recognizes 1934 as the hottest year in U.S. history, not 1998. Steven McIntyre, a former mineral exploration executive and policy analyst for the governments of Ontario and Canada who blogs at ClimateAudit.org, wrote to NASA on August 4. He had found miscalculations in the NASA’s U.S. temperature recordings made after January 2000. “For Detroit Lakes, Minnesota,” McIntyre wrote “this introduced an error of 0.8 **** C.” NASA responded on August 7 to tell McIntyre data was “changed correspondingly with an acknowledgement of your contribution.”

Without any fanfare, the changes were made on the NASA website. The recalculations resulted in an overall decrease in U.S. temperatures since 2000 by 0.15 degrees centigrade. In a phone interview McIntyre said, “That doesn’t necessarily seem that much, but when the entire increase in temperature in the United States had been previously reported to be about half a degree, this .15 degree is not a small number when you are measuring half degree numbers.”
Now, the ten hottest years on record in the U.S., beginning with the hottest year, are: 1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938 and 1939. Before the revision, that list read: 1998, 1934, 2006, 1921, 1931, 1999, 1953, 2001, 1990 and 1938. The re-ranking completely knocked 2001 off the top 10 list.

This U.S. temperature revision could cause problems for former Vice President Al Gore. Assisted by Hansen, Gore asserted in his global warming film “An Inconvenient Truth” that nine of the ten hottest years in U.S. history occurred since 1995.

McIntyre said he began looking at the data because he questioned the reliability of NASA’s U.S. weather stations that recorded temperature data. He said, “Some of them were in places they weren’t supposed to be….one of them was in a parking lot and the trend for the station in a parking lot was way up and a nearby station that was in a proper location in a rural area was relatively flat.” Chris Horner, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism, said McIntyre was able to catch the mistake because he “knew that our surface measuring stations are suspect.”

Horner said the polling stations could be affected by things like the construction nearby asphalt parking lots, tar roofs, AC vents, chimneys, or even a grill restaurant. McIntyre said, “Defenders of the weather station system argued that NASA had software that could fix that data…And, so I wrote to NASA in May and asked them for the source code for the adjustment software that they used to fix these stations and they refused to provide it.”

But, “the adjustments are not small,” McIntyre said. “The adjustments that they make are fully equal the total amount of warming in the United States the past century.” According to McIntyre, when he began downloading data from NASA’s website to compare the adjusted and the raw data from the polling stations, “this led to a bit of a fight with NASA in May. As I started downloading the data in sequence they cut off my access to the data.” “They blocked my IP address,” McIntyre said.

When contacted by phone to verify the computer block NASA spokeswoman Leslie McCarthy said, “This is the first I’ve heard of this.” McCarthy had not yet responded to the full transcript at the time of publication.

“After I was blocked and I explained myself they still didn’t want to let me have access to the data,” McIntyre lamented. He continued: “They just said go look at the original data. And I said no, I want to see the data you used. I know what the original data looks like. I want to see the data that you used. But one of the nice things about having a blog that gets a million and half hits a month is that I then was able to publicize this block in real-time and they very quickly withdrew their position and allowed me to have access.” When he got the data, McIntyre then compared the raw and adjusted data sets for all 1200 U.S. weather stations. “Probably 75 percent of the stations had jumps of at least a quarter degree in the year 2000,” he said. Conservative media personalities like talk radio host Rush Limbaugh and blogger Michelle Malkin blasted the revision that was made quietly.

The Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies James Hansen responded to the critics on the left-wing blog DailyKos. He said that U.S. temperature data change is inconsequential to overall global climate data.. He wrote a diary on their site on August 11 that said, “The effect on global temperature was of order one-thousandth of a degree, so the corrected and uncorrected curves [on global data] are indistinguishable.”

Jeff Kuerter, president of the George C. Marshall Institute, said NASA’s mistake cast doubt on all global climate data because the United States was considered the best at taking analyzing temperatures. “If the U.S. doesn’t get this right what might be happening in other places and why did this error persist so long?” he said. In an August 13 Newsweek cover story, “The Truth About Denial,” Kuerter’s organization was labeled as part of the “denial machine” in cahoots with Exxon Mobil and the American Petroleum Institute. Exxon Mobil spokesman Gantt Walton said Exxon had no comment regarding NASA’s climate change revisions.

Even though the data has been corrected, McIntyre is not satisfied. “They claim that they’re adjustment methodology was capable of fixing bad data, I mean, that’s the point I want people to take home from this,” he said. “What they’ve done now is inserted a patch into an error that I identified for them but they haven’t established that the rest of their adjustment methodology is any good.” He recommended that NASA begin archiving the codes they use to make calculations and subject data to public scrutiny or peer-review.

This isn’t the first time McIntyre has caused a stir by questioning global warming data. The Toronto-based McIntyre joined forces with Canadian economist Ross McKitrick to refute data put forth by United Nations in 2001 that said use of fossil fuels was causing global warming. Included in the report was a graphic that showed 20th century temperatures sharply rising as time went on in the form of a hockey stick, which later became the name of the graph. McIntyre and McKitrick found an error in the mathematical calculation used to construct the “hockey stick.” Their findings led to a congressional investigation led by then-chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Rep. Joe Barton (R.-Tex.).

How To Convince People About Global Warming.....

Here is a consultant speaking about how to convince people about the realities of global warming.......(from a lecture given to employees of NASA), hosted by the Al Gore Committee on Documentary Film-making........for more information, go here.

Jim Hansen, Global Warming Guru or Fallen Saint?

Here is an article worth reading and saving.......I'll just post a portion of it.
Peter


from: http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/02/05/too_hot_to_handle/


Too hot to handle
Recent efforts to censor Jim Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist, are only the latest. As his message grows more urgent, we ignore him at our peril.
By Bill McKibben February 5, 2006
JIM HANSEN, the director of NASA'S Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is a dangerous man. Not a brash man or a rebel-I remember interviewing him many years ago, and when I asked him what he did to relax, he replied, ''mow my lawn." He's spent his whole career on the NASA payroll, but never looked up at the beckoning stars, at least professionally. Instead, from a floor of offices above Tom's Diner, of ''Seinfeld" fame, on New York's Upper West Side, he's fixed an unwavering gaze on our home planet and the narrow envelope of atmosphere that surrounds it.

It's in that process that he's acquired the data, including one of the most comprehensive and accurate temperature records for the entire globe, that makes him so unsafe-data he's repeatedly tried to spread to the world, but always against resistance, mostly from politicians but also from scientists.

(continued in the original article linked to above)

NASA Website On Temperature Data

NASA's web site on temperature data. Save and refer back to this.
Peter

from: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

GISS Surface Temperature Analysis What's New
Posted November 2006 data and updated new animations (Dec. 14, 2006)
(July 11, 2005)
The NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP) provides a measure of the changing global surface temperature with monthly resolution for the period since 1880, when a reasonably global distribution of meteorological stations was established. Input data for the analysis, collected by many national meteorological services around the world, is the unadjusted data of the Global Historical Climatology Network (Peterson and Vose, 1997 and 1998) except that the USHCN station records up to 1999 were replaced by a version of USHCN data with further corrections after an adjustment computed by comparing the common 1990-1999 period of the two data sets. (We wish to thank Stephen McIntyre for bringing to our attention that such an adjustment is necessary to prevent creating an artificial jump in year 2000.)

These data were augmented by SCAR data from Antarctic stations not present in GHCN. Documentation of our analysis is provided by Hansen et al. (1999), with several modifications described by Hansen et al. (2001). The GISS analysis is updated monthly.

We modify the GHCN/USHCN/SCAR data in two stages to get to the station data on which all our tables, graphs, and maps are based: in stage 1 we try to combine at each location the time records of the various sources; in stage 2 we adjust the non-rural stations in such a way that their longterm trend of annual means is as close as possible to that of the mean of the neighboring rural stations. Non-rural stations that cannot be adjusted are dropped.

Our analysis includes results for a global temperature index as described by Hansen et al. (1996). The temperature index is formed by combining the meteorological station measurements over land with sea surface temperatures obtained primarily from satellite measurements, the HadISST data. Any uses of the temperature index data, i.e., the results including sea surface temperatures, should credit Reynolds, Rayner, Smith, et.al (2002). (See references.)

We limit our analysis to the period since 1880 because of the poor spatial coverage of stations prior to that time and the reduced possibility of checking records against those of nearby neighbors. Meteorological station data provide a useful indication of temperature change in the Northern Hemisphere extratropics for a few decades prior to 1880, and there are a small number of station record s that extend back to previous centuries. However, we believe that analyses for these earlier years need to be carried out on a station by station basis with an attempt to discern the method and reliability of measurements at each station, a task beyond the scope of our analysis. Global studies of still earlier times depend upon incorporation of proxy measures of temperature change. References to such studies are provided in Hansen et al. (1999).
Annual Summations
NASA news releases about the GISS surface temperature analysis are available for 2006, 2005, and 2004.
We also provide here discussions of global surface temperature trends for 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, and 2001.
Table Data: Global and Zonal Mean Anomalies dTs
Anomaly values indicate difference from the corresponding 1951-1980 means.
Table of global-mean monthly, annual and seasonal dTs based on met.station data, 1880-present, updated through most recent month
Table of N. Hemi-mean monthly, annual and seasonal dTs based on met.station data, 1880-present, updated through most recent month
Table of S. Hemi-mean monthly, annual and seasonal dTs based on met.station data, 1880-present, updated through most recent month
Table of global-mean monthly, annual and seasonal land-ocean temperature index, 1880-present, updated through most recent month
Table of zonal-mean annual dTs, 1880-present, updated through most recent completed year
Table of zonal-mean annual land-ocean temperature index, 1880-present, updated through most recent completed year
Gridded Monthly Maps of Temperature Anomaly Data
Users interested in the entire gridded temperature anomaly data may download the three basic binary files from our ftp site. Also available there are two sample FORTRAN programs, "SBBX_to_1x1.f" and "sbbx2nc.f", which demonstrate how you can extract gridded anomaly files for any month and year from the larger datasets.
Data files for individual years may be obtained from the ftp site's subdirectories: bin for binary format, txt for ASCII text, and netcdf for netCDF. However, these files are updated irregularly and the latest year or two of annual data might not be available.

Anomalies and Absolute Temperatures
Our analysis concerns only temperature anomalies, not absolute temperatures. The temperature anomaly tells us how much warmer or colder than normal it is at a particular place and point in time, the 'normal temperature' being the mean over many (30) years (same place, same time of year). It seems obvious that to find the anomaly, you first have to know the current and normal absolute temperatures. This is correct for the temperature at one fixed spot (the location of one thermometer), but not true at all for regional mean temperatures.
Whereas the individual reading represents just this spot but can be very different from nearby readings, the anomaly computed from those readings is much less dependent on location, elevation, wind patterns etc; it turns out to be representative for a region that covers several square miles. Hence we can combine anomalies from various stations to find regional mean anomalies. Regional absolute temperatures however cannot be obtained from observations alone. For a more detailed discussion, see The Elusive Absolute Surface Air Temperature.

References
Please see the GISTEMP references page for citations to publications related to this research.
Copies of many of our papers are available in the GISS publications database. Re-prints not available there may be obtained by request from Dr. James Hansen.
Contacts
Please address scientific inquiries about the GISTEMP analysis to Dr. James Hansen.
Please address technical questions about these GISTEMP webpages to Dr. Reto Ruedy.
Also participating in the GISTEMP analysis are Dr. Makiko Sato and Dr. Ken Lo.

+ NASA Privacy Policy and Important Notices

GISS Website Curator: Robert B. Schmunk
Responsible NASA Official: James E. Hansen
Page updated: 2007-08-07

Is This The First of NASA's Errors? What Else Are They Covering Up?

This current expose of how NASA handles historic temperature data, which is integral to modeling the climate and making predictions about global warming, demonstrates how easy it is to manipulate data. (See the following article.)

Are they going to have to do all of their climate calculations over, one more time. Will the United Nations' IPCC do the same? Should we be skeptical about the outcome? I say yes, very skeptical, and suspicious. Should NASA get away with this "slight of hand" trickery? There is politics here folks, going on at the highest levels of government and the media. We've been wondering when the global warming facade will begin to crumble. I think this is just the beginning.
Peter

From:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200708/CUL20070816b.html


NASA's Backtrack on Warmest Year Is Being Ignored, Critic Says
By Randy Hall CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor August 16, 2007(CNSNews.com) -

NASA scientists this month corrected an error that resulted in 1934 replacing 1998 as the warmest year on record in the U.S., thus challenging some key global warming arguments, but the correction is being ignored, a conservative climate expert charged Wednesday. Yet at the same time, announcements that support global warming are considered "front-page news," said H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA).


For his part, James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has called the correction is "statistically insignificant." Burnett challenged that assertion, saying the correction made it clear that NASA's conclusion -- that the majority of the 10 hottest years have occurred since 1990 -- is false. "Time after time, Hansen and other global warming alarmists present their data as 'the facts,' and [say that] 'you can't argue with data,' " he said. "Well, it turns out their data is just wrong. And when it's wrong, they want to say it's not important.

"The controversy began on Aug. 4, when blogger Steve McIntyre of the ClimateAudit.org website, sent an email to NASA asserting that the data collected by the agency after 1999 was not being adjusted to allow for the times of day when readings were taken or the locations of the monitoring stations. According to a blog posting by NASA climate modeler Gavin Schmidt, agency analysts then "looked into it and found that this coincided with the switch between two sources of U.S. temperature data." "There had been a faulty assumption that these two sources matched," Schmidt said. "The obvious fix was to make an adjustment based on a period of overlap so that these offsets disappear. "Schmidt said the data analysis was then adjusted accordingly, and a note of thanks emailed to McIntyre."The net effect of the change was to reduce mean U.S. anomalies by about 0.15 degrees Celsius for the years 2000-2006," which resulted in a "very minor knock" on information from earlier years, Schmidt added.

Burnett, however, called the miscalculation "a serious math error" and noted that according to NASA's newly published data:
The hottest year on record is 1934, not 1998;
The third hottest year on record was 1921, not 2006;
Three of the five hottest years on record occurred before 1940; and
Six of the top 10 hottest years occurred prior to 90 percent of the growth in greenhouse gas emissions during the last century.

'Ignore the man behind the curtain'
The NCPA analyst also charged that because the change does not fit the mainstream media's view of global warming as an immediate and ongoing crisis, the incident was being ignored by television news networks and newspapers across the country. Cybercast News Service conducted a Nexis search for news articles over the past month containing the words "NASA," "1998" and "1934." As of Tuesday, Aug. 14, only eight newspapers had discussed the correction, along with United Press International (UPI) and the Fox News Channel.On Wednesday, however, a dozen major news outlets -- ranging from the Chicago Sun-Times and Tribune to the Los Angeles Times and CNN -- finally ran stories on the change, most emphasizing the resulting controversy that had erupted across the conservative blogosphere.

In the Washington Post, Hansen said that the critics were "making a mountain of a molehill. The change does nothing to our understanding of how the global climate is changing and is being used by critics to muddy the debate." "Hansen said that NASA generally does not release or discuss national weather statistics because it is more concerned with global patterns," the Post reported. "The agency that pays more attention to American temperature trends is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has said that most of the warmest years in the past century have been in the past 12 years."

"Hansen said the revised data do nothing to change that overall trend," the newspaper added. Burnett was highly critical of the Washington Post's coverage of the story. "The Post gave James Hansen -- the one who made the error -- four paragraphs to tell you why it's not important and why it should be ignored," he stated. "Hansen basically said, 'I screwed up, but just ignore the man behind the curtain,' and they let him get away with it.

"Burnett also dismissed the idea that the change is "statistically insignificant" because the numbers concerned were so small. "A few years back, an error in satellite data was found and corrected from 0.04 degrees of cooling per decade to 0.01 degrees, and that was front-page news," he said. "If a change of 0.03 degrees is significant, then what about this, which is five times more? If the one is important for making your case, then the other is important for undermining your case.

"What's really important is not that it shows whether it's warming or not -- because it doesn't," Burnett stated. "But we've supposedly got the best data in the world, and we're relying on data from a lot of places where they're not checking it nearly as closely as our guys. "As for NASA, Burnett charged that "they need mathematicians on their staff, not climatologists. What does it say when we had to have a blogger go in there and discover their error?"

Massive Scandal Over NASA And Global Warming

I had to save this. There will be much more to come over this unfolding scandal. I have more information on Roy Spencer on this blog.
Peter


By Dr. Roy Spencer : 15 Aug 2007
Last week was particularly brutal for the global warming alarmist side of the debate over climate change. What's more, I can predict there are surprises to come. Climate scientists are beginning to question long held assumptions - which is almost always the first step toward a major scientific discovery. In case you hadn't noticed, the global warming debate has now escalated from a minor skirmish to an all-out war. Although we who are skeptical of the claim that global warming is mostly manmade have become accustomed to being the ones that take on casualties, last week was particularly brutal for those who say we have only 8 years and 5 months left to turn things around, greenhouse gas emissions-wise. I'm talking about the other side - the global warming alarmists.
First, NASA's James Hansen and his group had to fix a Y2K bug that a Canadian statistician found in their processing of the thermometer data. As a result, 1998 is no longer the warmest year on record in the United States - 1934 is. The temperature adjustment is admittedly small, yet there seemed to be no rush to retract the oft-repeated alarmist statements that have seared "1998!" into our brains as the rallying cry for the fight against global warming.
Then, the issue of spurious heat influences on the thermometers that NOAA uses to monitor global temperatures has reared its ugly head. Personally, I've been waiting for this one for a long time. Ordinary citizens are now traveling throughout their home states, taking pictures of the local conditions around these thermometer sites. To everyone's astonishment, all kinds of spurious heat sources have cropped up over the years next to the thermometers. Air conditioning exhaust fans, burn barrels, asphalt parking lots, roofs, jet exhaust. Who could have known? Shocking.
Next, my own unit and I published satellite measurements that clearly show a natural cooling mechanism in the tropics which all of the leading computerized climate models have been insisting is a warming mechanism (Spencer et al., August 9, 2007 Geophysical Research Letters). We found that when the tropical atmosphere heats up from extra rain system activity, the amount of infrared heat-trapping cirrus clouds those rain systems produce actually goes down. This unexpected result supports the "Infrared Iris" theory of climate stabilization that MIT's Richard Lindzen advanced some years ago. No one in the alarmist camp can figure out how we succeeded with this sneak attack. After all, there isn't supposed to be any peer-reviewed, published research that denies a global warming Armageddon, right?

But these volleys have not gone unanswered. From the other side of the battlefield, Al Gore and Newsweek coordinated an assault on a few skeptics with all kinds of guilt-by-association accusations. They allege that a few scientists were offered $10,000 (!) by Big Oil to research and publish evidence against the theory of manmade global warming. Of course, the vast majority of mainstream climate researchers receive between $100,000 to $200,000 from the federal government to do the same, but in support of manmade global warming. Apparently, that's okay since we all know that the federal government is unbiased and there to help, whereas petroleum companies only exist to force us to burn fuels that do nothing more than ruin the environment.
Little damage was done by the Gore-Newsweek assault, though, since the attack amounted to little more than a verbal "Well, your mama wears Army boots!" It didn't help matters that the magazine's own columnist, Robert Samuelson, published a follow-up article saying the allegation of bribes offered to scientists "was long ago discredited" and that "the story was a wonderful read, marred only by its being fundamentally misleading." Next, I'm happy to report that we skeptics have been getting a steady stream of new recruits. In the last year or so, more and more scientists have been coming out of the closet and admitting they've had some doubts about this whole global warming thing. In fact, chances are that your favorite TV weather person is a closet skeptic (unless it's Heidi Cullen or Bob Ryan). But please observe the "don't ask - don't tell" rule. Most broadcast meteorologists are not ready for the public embarrassment that would accompany their outing. And lastly, I have been heartened by new scientific intelligence that we skeptics have been gathering. I can predict there are more surprises to come, with some pretty powerful tactical weapons yet to be deployed. Climate scientists are beginning to question long held assumptions - which is almost always the first step toward a major scientific discovery. So stay tuned.
Oh, and by the way, in the interests of a fair fight, the next time someone sees Al Gore, could you ask him to stop calling us "global warming deniers"? I don't know of anyone who denies that the Earth has warmed. I'm sure this has just been an honest misunderstanding on Mr. Gore's part, and he'll be more than happy to stop doing it.
The author is Principal Research Scientist, University of Alabama.

Red Faces At NASA Over Temperature Data, Just A Little "Boo-Boo? Or Major Scandal

Is NASA's admitted mistake in interpreting historical temperature data just an insignificant, minor blunder? No way. This is a HUGE, and scandalous error in data recording and interpretation. Worst of all, it seems likely that top people at NASA knew of the errors and covered up this fact.

What does this mean? It means that everyone, meteorologists who forecast the weather have been using false data. I means the hundreds or thousands of researchers using this data in their computer climate models, have been inputting flawed data. Remember the phrase "garbage in garbage out", that refers to any computer program.

It means that insurance companies using weather models to predict future costs due to storm damage, have been using erroneous data. It means farmers, city planners, indeed anyone with an interest in the weather, has been lied to.

What else might this mean? It means Al Gore's entire book and so-called documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth", is as we have long proclaimed, just simple trash. His Oscar Award for the film should be recalled. He can kiss his Nobel Prize nomination good-bye.

Most significant of all, The United Nation's IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) has been using flawed data in its predictions of global warming, climate change and impending doom. The United States, and other countries have been passing laws costing billions of dollars, based on this flawed data. It means the United Nations has been misled, again.

Every politician, government, corporation, scientist, and citizen should be outraged. Now we'll see who the real "deniers" are. Newsweek, are you paying attention? MSNBC, Brian Williams, are you going to report on this? The Weather Channel, is this going to make your news? What will the public response be? Apathy? Cynicism? Or outrage?

The following article, from the Toronto Star, comments on this un-folding story.
Peter

from: http://www.thestar.com/article/246027

Red faces at NASA over climate-change blunder

Agency roasted after Toronto blogger spots `hot years' data fumble
Aug 14, 2007 04:30 AM DANIEL DALE STAFF REPORTER
In the United States, the calendar year 1998 ranked as the hottest of them all – until someone checked the math. After a Toronto skeptic tipped NASA this month to one flaw in its climate calculations, the U.S. agency ordered a full data review. Days later, it put out a revised list of all-time hottest years. The Dust Bowl year of 1934 now ranks as hottest ever in the U.S. – not 1998. More significantly, the agency reduced the mean U.S. "temperature anomalies" for the years 2000 to 2006 by 0.15 degrees Celsius.

NASA officials have dismissed the changes as trivial. Even the Canadian who spotted the original flaw says the revisions are "not necessarily material to climate policy." But the revisions have been seized on by conservative Americans, including firebrand radio host Rush Limbaugh, as evidence that climate change science is unsound. Said Limbaugh last Thursday: "What do we have here? We have proof of man-made global warming. The man-made global warming is inside NASA ... is in the scientific community with false data."


However Stephen McIntyre, who set off the uproar, described his finding as a "a micro-change. But it was kind of fun." A former mining executive who runs the blog ClimateAudit.org, McIntyre, 59, earned attention in 2003 when he put out data challenging the so-called "hockey stick" graph depicting a spike in global temperatures. This time, he sifted NASA's use of temperature anomalies, which measure how much warmer or colder a place is at a given time compared with its 30-year average. Puzzled by a bizarre "jump" in the U.S. anomalies from 1999 to 2000, McIntyre discovered the data after 1999 wasn't being fractionally adjusted to allow for the times of day that readings were taken or the locations of the monitoring stations.

McIntyre emailed his finding to NASA's Goddard Institute, triggering the data review.
"They moved pretty fast on this," McIntyre said. "There must have been some long faces."

Faulty Temperature Data Linked To Global Warming Creator James Hansen

I have heard about this potentially ruinous and scandalous misuse of temperature data used by NASA and the United Nations IPCC to define and begin all the interest in global warming. I will try to find more on this subject.
Peter



from: http://www.earthchangesmedia.com/

Researcher Blows-the-Lid off Global Warming Creator James Hansen

by Mitch Battros - Earth Changes Media
Canadian research scientist Steve McIntyre, whose expertise is in mineral exploration and author of numerous articles on the made up name 'global warming', the real science of 'climate change'; and the facts and myths which surround it. McIntyre has recently discovered evidence which destroys the hypothetical theories brought on by James Hansen (who made up the name 'global warming' in 1988) and Michael Mann who developed the famous 'hockey stick' chart convincing us so-called global warming is caused by human pollution.

Steve McIntyre is every bit the tenacious investigator as I wish to be in disclosing the fictional fabrication of this made up name 'global warming'. He has recently discovered evidence while inspecting historical temperature graphs showing a strange discontinuity, or "jump", in many regions all occurring around the time of January, 2000. The graphs, which are used by the IPCC and all other global warming advocates, were created by NASA's Reto Ruedy and James Hansen. After discovering this obvious 'disconnect', McKintyre made contact with Hansen requesting further information as to his findings.

James Hansen, the creator of this myth known as 'global warming' refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data. Not being surprised at Hansen's defensiveness, McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data, hence the discontinuity (or jump) around the time of January 2000.McKintyre notified the Hansen and Ruedy of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an "oversight" that would be fixed in the next data refresh.

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place, with 1921 being the third warmest year in recorded history. In fact, five of the ten warmest years on record now all occur before World War II.

The fact is we are in a "warming trend"; this will be followed by a "cooling trend". It always has been, and it always will be. This fictional depiction of the 1988 made up name 'global warming', of which most people have been conditioned to equate to human pollution, is nothing less than a fraud. No less so than 9-11 = Iraq. It was a lie then, and it is a lie now.

What scares me more than a 9.0 earthquake hitting within 1 mile of my home, is the witnessing of a 'dumbed down' America. What 5th grader has not studied geography history telling of the great 1930's "Dust Bowl". The skill of "critical thinking" use to be taught in our educational system, now it has all but disappeared. But this still does not excuse our God given gift of "intuition" and the use of applied discernment.

How some bone head such as Hansen was able to convince an American public of his "made up" hypothetical graphs is beyond me. Of course Al Gore, US Senator (1985-93) was present at the 1988 US Senate hearing when Hansen presented his made up name 'global warming', and boy oh boy did he bite hook-line-and-sinker. I'm sure Al means well, but then again, there is a lot of money to be made as the leader of the global warming environmental regime.

More on this breaking news story coming---------

NASA Chief Bows To Political Correctness

In a classic example of how a bureaucrat can be pressured into falling into line and only saying what is currently politically correct, NASA Head Michael Griffin says he regrets expressing doubt about the seriousness and hysteria being generated about global warming.

I will be surprised if he manages to keep his job. I'll bet the scientists and engineers he "apologized" to are furious with him for possibly opening the door to cuts in funding to NASA that could threaten their jobs. What a coward Griffin is, a proverbial yes man, by his own admission. It was predictable that he would be forced to retract his statements, but it is still a sad day for science when someone of his stature can not speak the truth.
Peter

from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19058588/

NASA chief regrets remarks on global warming

In a video obtained by AP, NASA administrator Michael Griffin says the debate over climate change "has become far more political than technical and it would have been well for me to have stayed out of it."

LOS ANGELES - The head of NASA told scientists and engineers that he regrets airing his personal views about global warming during a recent radio interview, according to a video of the meeting obtained by The Associated Press.

NASA administrator Michael Griffin said in the closed-door meeting Monday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena that “unfortunately, this is an issue which has become far more political than technical, and it would have been well for me to have stayed out of it.”
“All I can really do is apologize to all you guys.... I feel badly that I caused this amount of controversy over something like this,” he said.

NASA Head Questions Global Warming

This is a perfect example of the politicization of science and how ugly it can get. I have been speaking out on this since the beginning. This NASA official, Michael Griffin will be forced to "step down", "retire", or commit "hari kari". One can not speak out against the status quo in the realm of political correctness. Tensions are high, the stake are high, the pressure is on. Watch closely, listen closely, trust nothing.
Peter

NASA head unsure global warming is a problem
Climate scientist dismisses remarks as showing ‘arrogance and ignorance’

WASHINGTON - The head of NASA said he was not sure global warming was a problem and added that it would be “arrogant” to assume the world’s climate should not change in the future. Scientists called the remarks ignorant.

“I have no doubt that global — that a trend of global warming exists,” NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said in a taped interview that aired Thursday on National Public Radio. “I am not sure that it is fair to say that is a problem we must wrestle with.”
“I guess I would ask which human beings, where and when, are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now, is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take,” Griffin said.

On Wednesday, Griffin’s own agency put out a news release about a research paper written by nearly 50 NASA and Columbia University scientists and published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. The paper shows how “human-made greenhouse gases have brought the Earth’s climate close to critical tipping points, with potentially dangerous consequences for the planet.”

Jerry Mahlman, a former top scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who is now at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said Griffin’s remarks showed he was either “totally clueless” or “a deep anti-global warming ideologue.”
James Hansen, a top NASA climate scientist and lead author of the research paper, said Griffin’s comments showed “arrogance and ignorance” because millions of people will likely be harmed by global warming in the future.

Coincides with Bush's warming proposalWhite House science adviser Jack Marburger said he was not disturbed by Griffin’s remarks, but distanced them from President Bush, who on Thursday announced an international global warming proposal.

“It’s pretty obvious that the NASA administrator was speaking about his own personal views and by no means representing or attempting to represent the administration’s views or broader policy,” Marburger told The Associated Press. “He’s got a very wry sense of humor and is very outspoken.”

In a news briefing Thursday, White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairman James Connaughton also downplayed Griffin’s remarks: “We’re dedicated to action. And, in fact, I think the conversation’s really moved beyond a statement of the problem.”
NASA spokesman David Mould said the radio interviewer was trying to push Griffin into saying something about global warming. NASA’s position is that it provides scientific data on the issue, but policy makers are the ones who decide, he said.

Hansen, director of the agency’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, said the consequences of global warming are dire and Griffin should know better.
“The devastation with sea level rise of several meters, with hundreds of millions of refugees, would dwarf that of New Orleans,” Hansen wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press, referring to Hurricane Katrina. “Is it arrogant to say that such would be a problem?”