Icemelt

Shift_540 hopefully this may help.

The popular notion of the poison “cyanide” refers to potassium cyanide, although in reality poisoning by cyanide is very rare.

The chemical formula is KCN, which is usually dissociated into K+ and CN- ions when dissolved in water.

The CN- ion is called an anion and it is negatively charged, since it has pinched an electron from the potassium atom, which now becomes the positively charged cation K+.

The potassium ions are not dissimilar to the sodium ions Na+ found in salt water, so a spillage of a solution of potassium cyanide into sea water would I suspect regrettably mix very efficiently !

It is likely that a normal cleanup exercise would be almost impossible due to the rate of dispersal.

However it might be appropriate to hoover up all the dead animals and plants so that the remaining living organisms wouldn’t get secondary poisoning from feeding on them.

The CN- ion is the bit that is highly poisonous.

This cyanide CN grouping can also exist in gaseous form, when combined with a single hydrogen atom to form the gas hydrogen cyanide HCN, which is a very poisonous gas at temperatures >26°C.

The cyanide CN grouping can also combine with itself to form the molecule N≡C−C≡N or (CN)2 which is a colourless gas at NTP, behaving much like a halogen, and is also highly toxic.

Half lives of cyanide gases are between 1 and 3 years, and spillages in tropical warm water will have very different results to spillages in Arctic cold water, so this is something to take into account.

My suspicion is that it could be a KCN solution that is used in mining to extract precious metals by complexing them into a compound such as KAu(CN)2. I would imagine this would then be precipitated out of solution for subsequent efficient shipment as a solid, whilst the solvent would be enriched locally ready for re-use. In this scenario a gold atom combines with the cyanide group to form a complex anion Au(CN)2-. Another example of complex anions are the ferrocyanides. Whilst, when mixed with acid, potassium ferrocyanide K4[Fe(CN)6] could react to release the very toxic hydrogen cyanide, by itself the compound is almost non-toxic. It is therefore important to establish in which form the cyanide is being shipped, and also the surrounding temperatures, before you could accurately predict the effects of a spillage.

So here we have it - temperatures are rising faster than ever

Er - well maybe not in Greenland then

But then who cares what happens to the temperature in Greenland

Current theories suggest that the major ice ages are caused by irregularities in the Earth’s orbit around the sun, it’s polar attitude, and an additional wobble for good measure. Calculations show that, given the Earth’s historical orbit and attitude, these correlate nicely with corresponding periods of glaciation, it would seem providing us with a basis to predict future ice ages. But how sure are we of our facts ?

As with many other factors relating to climate change, we really need to establish which changes lead and which changes lag. It seems very likely that the cyclic variation in the mass of ice building up at each of the poles disproportionately, would inevitably induce wobble and attitude changes, and most probably minor orbital changes.

We have to couple with this that, although the melting of Northern hemisphere ice might at first glances decrease the overall reflected energy and cause warming, if the Earth is tilted with the North Pole away from the Sun, as it is when we enter an ice age, the lack of an Arctic ice cap would have little or no effect. A build up of ice would then begin again, correcting and even reversing the tilt and producing the observed wobble.

130,000 years ago, when global temperatures were almost 4°C higher than at present, most if not all of the Northern hemisphere ice melted. However by 25,000 YBP global temperatures had plummeted to 9°C less than today, and the refreezing of the Arctic Ocean was well under way. Temperatures remained at 8°C to 9°C below current levels until about 12,000 YBP when there was a very rapid rise. During only 250 years temperatures had risen by 6°C (0.024°C pa) to just 2°C below current levels, and by 10,000 YBP they were only half a degree below today’s temperature.

Greenland temperatures rose even more dramatically during this period, dwarfing any increases we currently experience, as can be seen in the chart below.

Now the CO2 level during the Arctic refreezing years varied between 230ppm to 185ppm, as compared to the current ~380ppm today. Whilst the volume of water produce from Arctic ice is small in comparison to all the oceans, might it be reasonable to suggest that, if all the Arctic ice should melt, this should provide an additional sink into which a significant proportion of CO2 might dissolve without increasing the current CO2 concentration in the oceans and closing the gap to saturation. Let’s not forget that really cold water loves to gobble up CO2 really quickly.

Taking this one stage further, if the atmospheric CO2 concentration should begin to decrease under these circumstances, and as a result temperatures begin to fall, perhaps the combination of this and other factors, such as the interruption of the ocean pumps, might indeed reverse the current trend and herald our entry into the next glacial period.

As can be seen in the chart above, the falls in temperature have historically been almost as sudden as the increases.

Posted by: Doug Alder | May 1, 2007 06:17 PM

"My overriding concern is with the thermohaline pump because if the polar ice cap is melting at a much faster rate then it stands to reason that so are Greenland's glaciers and that means a much greater influx of fresh water into the northern Atlantic, reducing salinity and halting or at least severely slowing down the great Atlantic "conveyor belt". The result of that will not be pretty - that will be "interesting times" a la the old Chinese curse indeed"

I seem to recall, a while ago a large frozen lake in Canada melted, discharging a massive amount of fresh water into the North Atlantic and stopping / slowing the conveyor belt / pump. I believe the result was a fairly rapid entry into a glacial period.

Surely the global warming enthusiasts should therefore view the possible "halting or at least severely slowing down the great Atlantic "conveyor belt" resulting in a reversal of the current trend as our salvation, although the effects in Northern Europe could I suspect be disastrous.

So are we back to worrying about a rapid descent into next glacial period ? Whilst this is what many have been suggesting for some time, it would seem that this might happen rather sooner than expected if these calculations are correct and the thermohaline pump stops.

- having said that, if you click on 1veedo's username, then on 'view profile', then 'add to ignore list', you can filter his posts out

Thanks for the info and the warnings

Honest discussion and arguments from those with differing points of view are always very welcome, and that's my purpose in participating, to contribute and to hopefully learn from others and modify my views when appropriate. However abrupt authoritarian inflexible dismissals from the above have now become a regular occurrence, in my view discouraging contributions and suppressing discussion, so I think I'll take the risk and apply the filter.

yeah the temp variations couldn't be the fact that britain used to be a lot further south and then experienced an iceage along with the rest of earth. oh no its got to be a CONSPIRACY theres no way the official story is the truth.

I'm unaware of any significant continental drift involving Britain during the past 150,000 years. And I was referring to temperature changes in excess of the global average which obviously changed during the ice ages, so I'm not sure your comment is valid.

Well that seems to have stirred up a hornets' nest

My apologies if I've offended anyone, but I do rather object to being stifled on as soon as I kick what was intended to be an information seeking thread.

(Part posted in another thread)

My original post was stimulated by what appears to be a significant lack of global temperature data for the Pleistocene period (10K to 1.5M YBP) and it would be great to get more data if anyone knows of a source.

The apparent lack of detailed data seems very strange since it is such an important period, including as many as ten similar cycles to the one we are currently experiencing.

The available charts, which do include this period, are for much longer intervals and these dedicate less than 5% to the Pleistocene.

Exploding the available 5% to acquire more detail, produces fuzzy results with wild variations, some showing significantly faster warming and cooling than we have now. As much as 10C warming in only 50 years !

There's one interesting detailed chart I've discovered though and, even maiking allowances for the fact that it relates to Greenland, it shows significantly faster warming than at present (see below) but it would be great to acquire more detailed data for say 10K to 50K YBP as, from the data I've accumulated so far, I'm fairly certain this will confirm faster warming than we have now.

This chart comes from: http://

earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Paleoclimatology_Evidence/printall.php

and the article includes some interesting stuff on wobble too.

I don't know - - - - scientists are covering up data is completely ridiculous.

Same old crap regurgitated from you as usual, yet again missing the point.

You’re just in so much of a hurry to shout down and dismiss anything that doesn’t fit your own little insulated fairyland that you can’t, or more importantly won’t, see below the surface.

This has nothing to do with covering up data or conspiracy, it has to do with balancing selectivity evenly between past and present measurements and interpretations to arrive at more accurate conclusions.

We are all very aware that local changes are not necessarily reflected globally, but Europe and Greenland are not small places and I don't think I'm being unrealistic to suggest that these anomalies probably exist globally.

Maybe, if as you say you haven’t read the IPCC report, or studied temperature anomalies outside of Narnia, perhaps you should before making your own interpretations or what they have reported.

I guess it’s time to ignore you again, which is becoming rather tedious.

Hmm - I wonder if it’s possible to filter you out!

It seems that, as with many other scientific analysis, only those temperature measurements conforming reasonably with the norm during the past 150,000 years are being considered for this period. Spurious or wildly fluctuating results would appear to have been excluded from consideration when reaching conclusions, presumably on the basis that they were considered to be unreliable and perhaps, I suspect, because they did not conform to the current argument.

In principle it might seem reasonable to analyse a significant sample of results, were it not for the fact that other evidence indicates there were indeed some very dramatic fluctuations during this period, dwarfing any changes we may have experienced in the past century or two.

Recent, and not so recent evidence, shows that 15,000 YBP the average temperature in Central Europe may have increased by as much as 10°C in a period of only 50 years (Yet to be confirmed). However excavations have uncovered the bones, not fossils, of polar bears which at -20°C happily roamed the British Isles during the past 125,000 years, which were then of course joined to mainland Europe and buried under a mile of ice. It was not until 8,000 YBP that the sea rose sufficiently to flood the North Sea and English Channel, separating Britain from the rest of Europe and, prior to this, animals were free to seasonally migrate in and out of Britain.

During the construction of London’s Trafalgar Square hippopotamus bones dating back 125,000 years were also uncovered indicating sustained Thames Valley temperatures of +30°C, yet also found were Woolly Mammoth bones dating back to 60,000 indicating a much cooler climate. During the past 125,000 years we have consequently seen a variation of at least 50°C in average temperatures in Britain, yet these are not reflected in the charts of our temperature measurement analysis. One can’t help but wonder why !

However this year’s IPCC conclusions were based on results which were “A subset of about 29,000 data series was selected from about 80,000 data series from 577 studies. These met the following criteria: (1) Ending in 1990 or later; (2) spanning a period of at least 20 years; and (3) showing a significant change in either direction, as assessed in individual studies.”

So perhaps here we may have identified a serious problem with the validity of their conclusions. The recent IPCC analysis does include, and even favours (3) erratic results, yet our earlier analysis seems to suppress anything straying too far from the norm. It is therefore unsurprising it is being reported that the environment is changing faster than ever, when in fact it isn’t !

Whilst searching for another chart to verify my data, it became apparent that for some strange reason there is a significant lack of global temperature data for the Pleistocene period (10K to 1.5M YBP).

This seems very strange since it is such an important period, including as many as ten similar cycles to the one we are currently experiencing.

The available charts, which do include this period, are for much longer periods of time and dedicate less than 5% to the Pleistocene.

Exploding the 5% produces wild variations showing significantly faster warming and cooling than we have now. As much as 10C warming in only 50 years !

There's one interesting chart I've discovered for Greenland (see below) but it would be great to acquire more detailed data for say 10K to 50K YBP.

Can anyone provide a source ?

This chart comes from: http://

earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Paleoclimatology_Evidence/printall.php

and the article includes some interesting stuff on wobble too.

There are records in ice core samples. The only gases that they include are usually methane and CO2 but if you look at one of the more popular reports it might have with it a data set of various other gases. I wouldn't know where to begin looking though, except if anyone wants I can hunt up a couple titles. One I know is in nature and it costs like $6 or something to get full access to (if you don't subscribe to Nature which is like $100 or something).

Yeah, methane has just a few months half life though, so not really too interesting. I'm thinking that the percentage of oxygen has radically changed in the past 50 or 100 million years, so I guess all the other constituents have too. And the water vapour figures would be very interesting if they are available. How much is the subscription to nature and what's the url ?

if billion, maybe yes; however a million years is a fraction (55 Million) which mammals have existed, even man. surely the basic content have moved in favor of life forms of today but probably no major changes...

Yes I would agree that we should examine a longer period, but I've been criticised in the past for producing 550 million years charts, so I thought a million might be more acceptable.

From the chart below you will see there would obviously be a very dramatic change in the percentages of constituents over the past 500 million years.

1/ on the right, you're comparing a low taken from proxy-data to a high taken from thermometers. why?

 

2/ on the right, if you measure from the green trough just to the left of the pink trough that you measured from, it looks like it would report a sharper increase.

 

3/on the left, you measure from an anomolous trough to an anomolous peak; on the right, you measure from a non-anomolous trough to a possibly anomolous peak (taking anomolous to mean sharp deviation from the trend, not a deviation from what the trend should be). this gives a false represenation of the temperature increase on the left.

I'm not going to disagree with your observations or argue the finer points. We can easily move the periods around to suit our arguments, and I just took a convenient period of the last 80 years, since this appeared to be the maximum recent rate of rise in temperature.

Obviously we are well above the mean for the last one or two thousand years, that point is not being contested. However what I am contesting is whether the claim that temperatures are rising faster than ever before is valid.

Taking different comparative intervals on the chart will clearly produce different results, but my point is that it will not show that the rate of warming is dramatically faster than ever before !

Yes but this is what you did when you compared the temperature rise 8k to 12k years ago against current temperatures back through 4k years ago. Temperatures decreased for almost that entire 4k years and only increase for the last 200 or so years. You were the one not being sensible here, I was just correcting your conviction that global warming has been occurring for 4k years when in reality global warming has only been happening for about 200 years.

OK I seem to found a better example verifiable on the Internet at:

http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/images/northern_temp.jpg

During the period 700 to 780 years ago the temperature rose by 0.42°C in 80 years, which equates to 0.01475 per annum

Examining the recent temperature rise on the same chart below, we see a rise of 1.15°C during the past 80 years, which equates to 0.01438 per annum

This indicates that we only have to go back 800 years before we find a warming period similar to today, and I have no doubt at all that we will find many instances over the past 100,000 years.

Temperatures are therefore not rising faster than ever before !

Q.E.D. I think !

That said I'm on the side of the fence that believes solar flares, and general natural change is the primary reason for increased warmth.

I agree too !

Are you familiar with the concept of a non-sequitur?

I am now !

However it would be rather interesting to see a chart depicting the atmospheric makeup over say the past million years.

I can't help feeling there could be a surprise or two hiding there.

I'm just eyeballing this, and thus I'm taking upper bounds, but it looks like it took 24 thousand years for temperatures to rise less then 14C which is about.000583C/year while it only took the previous 100 years (1905 to 2005) for the temperature to increase by .8 = .008C/year, 1900-2000 of .6C = .006C/year, and 1975 to 2005 of .6C = .02C/year. We're talking a difference in magnitude of more then 100, and in the case of recent warming 1000, -- they're hardly comparable.

And I thought you said you were going to play fair !

I think we need to be sensible about comparisons, otherwise I could just as easily conclude that there is zero rate of temperature increase, since the temperature 10,000 years was exactly as it is now, which would be ridiculous.

However here is a interesting comparison if you want one

In 366 AD the temperature was 0.15C less than today

In 318 AD the temperature was 0.90C less than today

So the temperature rose by 0.75C in 48 years

which by my reckoning is 0.016C per annum

This doesn't sound too different to today's rate of increase and I'm not sure the Romans had internal combustion engines in their chariots or had one or two per family !

It would be interesting to know to what we attribute this little sustained temperature rise, and how many extinctions resulted - out of the arena that is !

In the past 4,000 years the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increased from 277ppmv to 379ppmv which increased its atmospheric percentage concentration from 0.053% to 0.054%. It therefore follows that that the concentration of some or all of the other constituents must have reduced by a compensating amount.

Since CO2 is not the most powerful of GHGs, it is very possible that the concentration of other GHGs will have been reduced, dampening the effect of the increase in CO2. For instance if water vapour were to decrease by 0.01% this would more than offset the effect of any CO2 increase.

Do we have any data on this ?

Well the point is that your data appears to support your conclusions because it is represented on a log scale. If you were to include the latest data point at 379ppm then you could see how abrupt of an increase we're really talking about here. On your chart above, this point would quite literally be off the top.

No mate ! My charts do include the latest figure of 379 it's just that you asked to look at the 100K to 400K in detail, so that chart starts at 100K and not today.

The original chart from present day below shows the past 50 years emphasised.

Whichever way you look at it, the bulk of the current increase in CO2 happened during the period 50 to 500 years ago and not in the past 50 years.

the sharpest change (by far) in temperature anomoly in the last 10,000 happening over the last 100 years isn't anomolous?

Sorry mate !

You can't just take a conveniently short period of two or three years to make comparisons, since past records are not accurate to the nearest year or two. It's necessary to take five or ten decades at an absolute minimum.

But take another look at the charts below.

You are correct about CO2, but there's no way that the current temperature and sea level change rates come close to what we experienced 10,000 years ago, when we emerged from the last glacial period.

For ease let's look at 4,000 year chunks of time

In the period 4,000 to 8,000 YBP the sea level rose by 13.1 metres

which is 14 times faster than the rise of 90cms in the period 0 to 4,000 YBP

In the period 8,000 to 12,000 YBP the sea level rose by 52 metres

which is 58 times faster than the rise of 90cms in the period 0 to 4,000 YBP

In the period 4,000 to 8,000 YBP the temperature fell by 0.25C

which is the same amount that it rose in the period 0 to 4,000 YBP

In the period 8,000 to 12,000 YBP the temperature rose by 0.8C

which is 3.2 times faster than the rise of 0.25C it rose in the period 0 to 4,000 YBP

In the period 4,000 to 8,000 YBP the CO2 rose by 8ppmv

which is 12.75 times slower than the 102ppmv that it rose by in the period 0 to 4,000 YBP

In the period 8,000 to 12,000 YBP the CO2 rose by 23ppmv

which is 4.5 times slower than the 102ppmv that it rose by in the period 0 to 4,000 YBP

However we do need realise that, although we are dealing with 100% of the sea water changing its level, when measuring CO2 we are only considering 0.054% of the atmosphere. Whilst the change in CO2 of 72ppmv over the past 100 years seems huge when compared with the total of 370ppmv, we should remember that it is actually equivalent to just 0.01% change in our atmosphere.

- - - - is there any way you can make time increase linearly?

 

I'm slightly puzzled by your CO2 and temperature graphs because they do not represent the 25,40,and 100k year CO2/temperature cycles that have been occurring for roughly 5 million years, and for which we have exceedingly good data of over the past 650,000 years (via ice core measurements).

I just realised what a mammoth task it would be to reformat the chart to linear time scale !

At 100 years intervals it would be 1,000 points to replot, and then of course any variations in say the past 50 years would be unnoticeable.

So we’re gonna have to stay with the log time scale I’m afraid.

However, using my existing data, I’ve changed the scale to display just the data points from 100,000 to 400,000 YBP on the chart below which, although it looks a bit different in log format, shows the peaks and troughs corresponding to your chart, which I hope will be satisfactory enough to convince you of the integrity of my data.

Ok Icemelt I'll play fair game with you. I want to ask you though, sense these charts seem to be made by you, is there any way you can make time increase linearly?

 

Your argument is that current warming is unimportant in the bigger picture because sea levels and CO2 levels are rising slower today then they have 50 to 500 years ago?

 

I'm slightly puzzled by your CO2 and temperature graphs because they do not represent the 25,40,and 100k year CO2/temperature cycles that have been occurring for roughly 5 million years, and for which we have exceedingly good data of over the past 650,000 years (via ice core measurements).

OK - I have the data, but it will take a while to convert to linear time scale, and of course it will de-emphasise recent data. I have quite a bit of work on this week but I'll do my best and also try to acquire something more dramatic whilst I'm at it !

none of which change the inescapable and scientifically supported fact that, over the last 100 years, we have experienced an obviously anomolous increase in temperature.

 

nor any of the other facts accepted by science.

 

all of them that publish papers on the causes of climate change.

 

have any of these published peer-reviewed papers disagreeing with the scientific consensus?

 

If not, i'd have to assume that they don't actually have any valid arguments/data to back their conclusions up with.

1) I can see nothing anomalous in the past 100 years !

2) "Facts accepted by science" - what do you mean by this ?

There is no consensus, that's just the point !

3) These guys are famous and amongst the leaders in their fields, That's why they were all chosen as IPCC authors. I'm not going to do your research for you. There's tons of stuff available from them and many other colleagues.

You can discard the opinions of these eminently qualified scientists with decades of experience if you wish, but I know my limitations, and I am inclined to take more notice of them than our little group of relatively under-qualified scientists on a discussion forum. I also have personal experience of intimidation, and I am very prepared to believe that there is something rather more sinister afoot. This is not conspiracy theory, but standard government practice.

Here's a nice juicy bit I just found from Richard Lindzen to keep the pot boiling !

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220

Climate of Fear

Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.

BY RICHARD LINDZEN

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?

The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.

But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.

If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.

So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.

Sadly, this is only the tip of a non-melting iceberg. In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.

And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are published, standards shift. When I, with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an "Iris Effect," wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2. Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the journal to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this case (and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming errors in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as "discredited." Indeed, there is a strange reluctance to actually find out how climate really behaves. In 2003, when the draft of the U.S. National Climate Plan urged a high priority for improving our knowledge of climate sensitivity, the National Research Council instead urged support to look at the impacts of the warming--not whether it would actually happen.

Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can stand up against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates and policymakers.

Mr. Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.

OK since you all seem to think that only the past 100,000 years is relevant, I have restructured the charts to span the past 1,000,000 years on a log time scale. This provides us with a good view of the past 100,000 years, placing much greater emphasis on the past 0 - 500 years. As you will see, changing the time frame hasn’t changed the obvious conclusions. The bulk of the CO2 increase is still shown to be 50 to 500 years ago, and both the rise in temperature and sea levels have slowed by approximately 98% over the past 12,000 years.

To say that the carbon dioxide, global temperature and sea levels are rising faster than ever before, is quite simply so untrue as to be laughable. Minor decadal changes in weather patterns do not qualify as climate changes. They are so small as to be absorbed into the bigger picture, and don’t even show up on the chart, even if we reduce the frame of our picture to just a few hundred years.

I know that some of you are convinced that so many scientists can’t be wrong, however it is important that this is put in perspective. What does the term “so many” mean, and how many of these “so many” are actually experts in the CAUSES of climate change ?

Professor John Christy (Lead Author IPCC & Prof Dept Atmospheric Science University of Alabama)

“I’ve often heard it said that there is a consensus of thousands of scientists on the global warming issue, and that humans are causing a catastrophic change to the climate system. Well I am one scientist, and there are many, that simply think that is not true”

Professor Paul Reiter (IPCC & Pasteur Institute Paris)

“This claim that the IPCC is the World’s top 2,500 scientists, you look at the bibliographies of the people and it’s simply not true. There are quite a number of non-scientists”

Professor Richard Linzen (IPCC & Prof Dept of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science MIT)

“To build the number up to 2,500 they have to start taking in reviewers and government people and so on, anyone whoever came close to them. And none of them are asked to agree. Many of them disagree”

Professor Paul Reiter (IPCC & Pasteur Institute Paris)

“Those people who are specialists, but don’t agree with the polemic, and resign, and there have been a number that I know of, they are simply put on the author list and become part of this 2,500 of the World’s top scientists.