Relevant

4 Feb 2011:  Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University and CSCA Technical Advisory Board member, has written an excellent article on climatic changes over the last 25,000 years that are evident in the GISP2 Greenland Ice Core data. The article discusses the findings from ice cores and also climate changes recorded in mankind's historical records over the last 3,000 years.  Dr. Easterbrook concludes:

"Temperature changes recorded in the GISP2 ice core from the Greenland Ice Sheet show that the magnitude of global warming experienced during the past century is insignificant compared to the magnitude of the profound natural climate reversals over the past 25,000 years, which preceded any significant rise of atmospheric CO2.  If so many much more intense periods of warming occurred naturally in the past without increase in CO2, why should the mere coincidence of a small period of low magnitude warming this century be blamed on CO2?"

The article was published by the Science and Public Policy Institute and can be found here.

4 Jan 2011:  Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu of the International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, has published a paper in the Journal of Natural Science titled "On the recovery from the Little Ice Age." Dr. Akasofu demonstrates that the global warming of the 20th Century is well explained by a combination of a recovery from the Little Ice Age and natural cycles of Earth, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

Dr. Akasofu concludes and predicts:

1) The Earth experienced the Little Ice Age (LIA) between 1200-1400 and 1800-1850. The temperature during the LIA is expected to be 1 degree C lower than the present temperature. The solar irradiance was relatively low during the LIA.
2) The gradual recovery from 1800-1850 was approximately linear, the recovery (warming) rate was about 0.5 degrees C/100 years. The same linear change continued from 1800-1850 to 2000. In this period, the solar irradiance began to recover from its low value during the LIA.
3) The recovery from the LIA is still continuing today.
4) The multi-decadal oscillation is superposed on the linear change. The multi-decadal oscillation peaked in about 1940 and also in 2000, causing the temporal halting of the recovery from the LIA.
5) The negative trend after the peak in 1940 and 2000 overwhelmed the linear trend of the recovery, causing the cooling or halting of warming.
6) The view presented in this paper predicts the temperature increase in 2100 to be 0.5 degrees C +/- 0.2 degrees C, rather than 4 degrees C +/- 2.0 degrees C predicted by the IPCC.

See the article here.

20 Dec 2010:  After two weeks of meetings and negotiations, delegates to the United Nations Climate Conference meeting in Cancun reached modest agreement on global climate policies. The major issues of extension or replacement of the Kyoto Protocol and specific industrialized national responsibilities were not addressed. Nevertheless, participants at the conference hailed the "Cancun Agreements" as validation of the UN process and a mandate to continue, including next year's scheduled meeting at Durban, South Africa.  Read an optimistic article here.

The key items of agreement include:

1. Negotiations on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions levels will continue under the Kyoto protocol during 2011.
2. The parties recommitted to GHG reductions in efforts to limit the increase in global temperatures to a maximum of 2 degrees Celcius. Industrialized nations will agree to reduce emissions 25 to 40% below 1990 levels by 2020.
3. A Green Climate Fund will be created to distribute funding to developing nations for climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Developed nations will provide $30 billion by 2010, rising to $100 billion per year by 2020. The fund will be controlled equally by developed and developing countries.
4. Establishment of a framework for global reduction of emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD).
5. Creation of a Technology Mechanism to transfer "low-carbon" technologies.
6. Establishment of a monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) framework to track GHG emissions.

1 Dec 2010:  In the mid-1990s, Henrik Svensmark and others at the Danish National Space Center developed the theory that variations in sunspot activity caused variations in Earth's climate. Svensmark pointed out that low-level cloudiness closely tracked the level of cosmic rays measured at Earth's surface. That is, the higher the level of cosmic rays, the more low-level clouds. It has been known for many years that the received level of cosmic rays is inversely related to sunspot activity on our sun. Svensmark proposed that sunspot activity varied the strength of the solar wind reaching the Earth, affecting the level of cosmic rays that entered our atmosphere, affecting low-level cloudiness, which then changed Earth's climate. His theory is a natural alternative to the IPCC's assertion that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant cause of global warming.

In November, an article was pubished in the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics that supports Svensmark's theory. Laken, Kniveton, and Frogley, researchers from England and Spain, found a strong correlation between mid-latitude cloud changes and cosmic ray flux. See an excellent discussion by Anthony Watts here. 

4 October 2010: More than 1,000 temperature stations of the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN), are meant to be the high quality network used to determine surface temperature trends in the U.S. The USHCN is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and is a subset of a system of approximately 12,000 data collection sites across the country. "To be included in USHCN, a station had to be active in 1987, have at least 80 years of mean monthly temperature and precipitation data, and have experienced few station changes (e.g., changes in location). Numerous concerns have been documented regarding NOAA's data collection and processing within the USHCN.

Interestingly, the U.S. Department of Commerce's own Office of the Inspector General (OIG) weighed in with a letter to U.S. Representatives Joe Barton and Dana Rohrabacher recently made public. We quote:

NOAA acknowledges that there are problems with the USHCN data due to biases introduced by such means as undocumented site relocation, poor siting, or instrument changes. The agency has taken steps to improve data quality by implementing enhanced quality control steps and algorithms (referred to as USHCN Version 2) and having them peer reviewed. According to the peer reviews we examined, the resulting dataset improved upon the algorithms in the prior Version 1 data.

NOAA has also embarked on an effort to modernize 1,000 stations in the Historical Climatology Network (HCN). NOAA’s goal was to have several of its climate monitoring networks "work in tandem to feed consistently accurate, high-quality data to scientists studying climate trends."

The full OIG report (only 12 pages, limited references) was supposed to be a review of the USHCN "to determine whether NOAA has taken appropriate steps to ensure quality climate data." It advocates for Congress to fund the new network sites. The report also supports historical procedures with regarding to data collection and manipulation, publication reviews, etc. Interestingly, the report notes that evidence that such procedures (e.g., the formerly required peer-review process for articles being published) was not generally available, and that the new electronic process was not reviewed.

What remains to be seen is if NOAA will ever release details of its "adjustment" algorithms and the justifications for how those are applied and when. Of course, another challenge will be that we now have a new network being implemented, if NOAA can get Congress to give it the money it's seeking, a process that will take until 2020. Meanwhile data known to have gaps and other problems, stations with historical influence of an Urban Heat Island effect, and other complications will remain in use. Finally, unless NOAA or NASA create a time machine, the old data are going to always remain a subject of debate, at least until NOAA can fully explain why its adjustments are correct.

Read more:

Full OIG report: (http://www.oig.doc.gov/oig/reports/correspondence/2010.07.29_IG_to_Barton_Rohrabacher_STL-19846.pdf), which includes a breakdown of budgeting expenses for the requested $100,000.

"NOAA/NCDC – USHCN is broken please send 100 million dollars" H/T WattsUpWithThat.com (Sept. 2010)

"What the modernized USHCN will look like" H/T WattsUpWithThat.com (April 2008)

A few links regarding UHI:

• http://www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm
• http://www.urbanheatislands.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island

19 Sep 2010: "Climatism: Redoubling Misguided Efforts" by Steve Goreham, American Thinker magazine, El Cerrito, California, U.S.A.  Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of Climatism! Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century's Hottest Topic.

"Undaunted by Climategate disclosures and the failure to pursue climate legislation in the Senate, the climate movement is stepping up the attack. At an August 10 virtual town hall held by Repower America, former Vice President Al Gore stated, "We are not defeated. We are redoubling our efforts ...We need to solve the climate crisis." Thousands of supporters listened to the call. Inspired by Mr. Gore, they intend to "roll up their sleeves" and "turn their attention to the future." Unfortunately, the climate movement is long on enthusiasm and ideology, but short on science and economic sense."

Read whole piece.