JohnB

Two things come to mind. 1. There is hope for America yet. Insanity is alive and well. 2. This ends forever the concept that nations with "non compulsory" voting have better informed electorates. The only way this could get better is if SCs next Governor was "Aaron A. Aardvark". On a more serious note, does this show that anti-incumbancy feelings are running way too high?

Stealing?? You are too kind. It's more like "Demanding money with menaces".

Possibly a silly question, but why do you need a powerful pump? Since the oil is coming out under presuure and is generally lighter than water, it's trying to rise anyway. If you placed a large inverted funnel over the leak with a pipe leading to the surface, wouldn't the oil come up the pipe? Granted the pressure might not be enough to displace all the water in the pipe, but that could be pumped out allowing the oil to rise. The more water pumped out of the top of the pipe, the more the oil will push up from underneath. If you are pumping out the pipe, then the pressure inside the pipe will be lower than outside the pipe and the oil would preferentially stay inside and rise. After that you just pump the oil into tankers at the surface. It's not a fix, but a stop gap while you get the equipment in place to plug the leak. Or am I missing something?

Which is why the paleoclimate record is so important. Using good direct measurements we can only go back to 1880 or so, the paleo record allows us to compare with longer timelines. BTW. One of the best descriptions of the difference between climate and weather that I've seen is; "Climate is what you can on average expect, weather is what you get."

Charon, again i do see where you are coming from. Involved in this debate are three items that the paper attempts to correlate. 1. The extinction time line. 2. The drop in methane concentrations time line. 3. The temperatures. I'll get back to you with a fuller explanation of the problem, including references to show why there are problems with the concept behind the paper.

Actually AP, there seems to be some interesting stuff around along those lines. How good it is and whether or not it pans out is a different question. Ignatiev, I echo what Phi said. Read, read and read. Our own opinions count for nothing, it is the data that matters.

They make the point in the video that the hay doesn't actually absorb the oil, rather it gets coated with the oil. This means effectiveness would be a function of surface area as opposed to volume. That might bring the requirements down a bit. It's certainly an interesting idea.

CharonY, I do take your point. However, the use of "could" is getting very old in the Climate Change debate. Yes, it "could have contributed", however the Iceman found in a glacier years ago "could" have contributed too. Just about anything is allowed under the "could" banner. It "could" have been an Act of God. It's about perspective. Firstly the Americas, as we have so oft been told are only a small part of the planet, so any effect caused by the exinction of Megafauna there would be limited. Bison used to roam in the millions, where is the global drop in methane when they were pushed almost to extinction? Nowhere. So on what logical or reasonable grounds can somebody argue that a loss of American Megafauna leads to a drop in Global methane? Secondly the large temp drop during the YD period is for Greenland. It is reasoned that the lower latitude temps fell far less, probably on the order of between 2 and 5 degrees C. However, using the IPCC figures, even if the researchers are correct and the extinction did have an effect, it would be in the order of .080C. The world cooled by 30C and they might have found the cause for .080C of that drop? Wow, they may have a cause that explains 2.6% of the cooling of the YD. Earth shattering news? No. Joke? Yes. Thirdly. The extinction of Megafauna both in the Americas and worldwide was over a period of some thousands of years. The drop in methane and temps were in decades. About 70 years IIRC. If Megafauna produced methane was a significant contributor to Global methane levels, then the levels should have shown a drop over a much longer period. They do not. So there isn't even good correllation between the two events. Lastly. The precipitous drop of methane levels at the start of the YD event was matched by an equally sharp rise in methane levels at the end of the YD. Again we are talking mere decades here. Were the Mammoths reincarnated? Was there a sudden explosion of other ruminants? Not that we know of. So why did the methane level rise? As a paper purporting to explain some to all of the Global methane decrease it fails miserably as a hypothesis because it ignores the recovery totally. Something caused temps and methane levels to drop very sharply, we know that. The full blown Ice Age conditions lasted for just over 1,000 years. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the YD ended. Temps and methane levels skyrocketed. Those are the historical facts of the YD event. A paper seeking to link Mammoth farts with the YD event is in direct contravention of the simple facts of the event. The Megafauna weren't wiped out worldwide in a space of 70 years, nor was there a sudden resurgence of ruminants in the 70 year period at the end of the YD event. So yes, it is a joke. It reflects very poorly on "Nature" and on the reviewers that looked at it.

A fair question. Unfortunately I'm not a subscriber to Nature and their asking price for 1 article is a bit steep. I'm going by the quotes from the researchers at "Science Fair", to which I linked. Actually, the disappearance of the Megafauna is interesting and this isn't the first time it's been linked to human occupation. Against the idea is the disappearance of the Megafauna in areas that weren't inhabited by humans until some time after the extinction. The fact it occured all over the world at roughly the same time would imply a natural explanation. The simple causal relationship of Humans moved in--> Megafauna died out is missing a vital and more basic point. "Why did the humans migrate?" Hunter Gatherers just don't up stakes and wander around for no good reason. They are tied to a particular region because they are hunters. They know the land and they know the animals and their habits, so moving a long distance will make them less effective as hunters. Ergo there must have been compelling reasons for the migration. Historically there has only been one reason for large scale migrations and that is climate change. The climate changes and the animals migrate, so the hunters have to migrate to find new prey or to find where the old ones went. Note also that climate change will effect their ability to raise or find crop foods. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that rather than human migration causing the extiction of the Megafauna, both the migration and extinction were the result of a single cause. In this case, I believe it was large scale, worldwide climate change. This is not to say that the appearance of the hunters didn't have any part in the extinction, just that they not have been the primary cause. You might be interested in Willis Eschenbachs take on the paper and the changes in methane levels at the time. The salient point being; (Emphasis mine) Sometimes some perspective is required.

Sorry, what? I think you put this in the wrong thread.

Not quite correct. It deals with blockades between belligerents. From reading up on blockades' date=' your interpretation is roughly correct and the argument has been put forward that declaring a blockade gives de facto "State" recognition. For example, during the American Civil War the North blockaded certain Southern ports. As a nation cannot blockade it's own ports, it "closes" them, this has been used as an argument that the blockade declaration by President Lincoln was a defacto recognition of the Confederacy as a separate State. It appears to be a bit of a grey area. A point that has also been missed in this discussion is that there are 4 requirements for a blockade to be legal. The biggy is that to be considered legal, a blockade must be [i']enforced[/i]. This was brought in to prevent the so called "Paper Blockades". The upshot is that you have to put warships in the area and you have to intercept vessels entering or heading for the blockaded area. If you choose not to intercept a vessel heading for the blockaded area, then you are no longer considered to be "enforcing" the blockade and it is declared void. In this respect, the Israelis had no choice. They either had to intercept or raise the blockade, those are the only two options available. I suspect that this was well known to the "protestors" on board and the whole point of packing so many people on board was to force a confrontation between the ferry and the IDF. "Presumption of Innocence" was brought up earlier. In the case of blockades, once the blockade is announced it is assumed that all ship masters are aware of it. (Given reasonable time) You can't declare a blockade and start intercepting ships the next hour. However it is based on the assumption that it would be a pretty poor Captain who didn't know that he was sailing for a blockaded port. Assuming the blockade is legal, and there seems little doubt that it is. (Many people don't like it, but that doesn't effect the legality.) Then the bloodshed is entirely on the hands of the "peaceful" activists who attacked armed soldiers with pick handles.

Aside from an ad for a website, is there anything you would like to, I don't know, actually talk about?

Just doing a bit of background checking. Firstly the IDF Statement about the blockade found here; Provided that 3 above is correct, then all the rest follow correctly. Concerning 3 above. I hope people will accept the word of the ICRC. Regarding "International Waters"; (Emphasis mine) But yes, blockades are legal in International Waters. Section III Article 47 lists certain vessels as exempt from attack including; So you could claim exemption under this rule except that Section 48 says that the exemption doesn't apply if; (Emphasis mine) BY failing to stop when ordered, the flotilla lost exemption. Section V which pertains to merchant vessels states; (Emphasis mine) Again, International Law favours the Israelis. Part IV, Section II deals with Blockades; It would appear that Israel was quite winthin its rights under International Treaties and Laws. A blockade had been declared and was being enforced. The flotilla was a self described "blockade runner" and as such was legally liable for search and seizure. Blockade running is inherently dangerous and has been recognised as such for hundreds of years. I would point out that the Israelis would have been within their legal rights to sink the blockade runners, instead they showed restraint. Concerning the vids posted. I really wish there was a timeline for bascules long one, as it appears to be pasted together from the footage of a number of cameras. So we a group of masked and armed men, at least 1 is wearing a gas mask about to repel the commandos, yet this is after the footage claiming that a white flag had been raised. So either the timeline is messed up or the activists were preparing to attack the Israelis after the white flag was raised. I also note that at 2:41 into that vid, the man on the stairs appears to have a handgun in his left hand. I note that around :48 into Mooeypoos first vid, the man weilding the bar appears to be wearing a gasmask. It is possible that the group on deck is the one we saw on the stairs in bascules vid. Whichever way you look at it, the flotilla was in contravention of International Law in attempting to run a declared blockade. The vids also show that they intended to resist those enforcing the blockade by actively using force against the IDF. The IDF vid also indicates that the activists initiated the violence. Given that it is not unknown in the Gaza conflict for persons to deliberately kill themselves with explosives, it remains quite possible that those who attacked the commandos did so in the knowledge that live or die, they would further the cause. A further note on weapons. The IDF is not a police force. Like military forces worldwide, when boarding a vessel they carry military, not police weapons. Which means that they don't carry batons, they carry assault rifles. In this case, they also carried paintball guns. When attacked with staves military personnel cannot respond in kind as they don't carry staves or batons. The choice is barehands or firearms. I doubt that anybody would reasonably suggest that military personnel defend themselves against an attacking mob using only their bare hands, so that leaves only one option. This simple fact of weapons and tactics is lost on most civillians. "They are using live fire" the announcment said. Well what did they expect, blanks? Given the stated intent of the flotilla to break a blockade in contravention of International Law. And given the large number of people on board. 600? Is this a supply ship or a cruise ship? And given the media with cameras at the ready. And given the attack on IDF personnel in the sure knowledge that the only way the IDF could respond is with live fire. And given the refusal to follow the request to travel to a different port where the cargo could be checked and then sent to Gaza under the eyes of those on board the supply ships. (A demand that is also within the constraints of International Law) It is not unreasonable to conclude that this was a staged event with the sole purpose of propaganda to bring the IDF into disrepute. It is unfortunate that people still fall for this sort of thing. BTW, I predict that neither weapons or munitions will be found on board these vessels. Which the organizers of the event will claim as "proof" of their humanitarian desires.

I think we need more information. The IDF is claiming the activists started the violence. If this is true, then tough luck for the activists, but only idiots bring iron bars to a gunfight. However, if the activists did not start the fight, then the IDF is seriously in the wrong. There is also the point that the flotilla was trying to break a military blockade. A question for our American friends. If the National Guard has sealed an area and you try to drive in with a truck, what would happen?

I wonder a bit about whether it is simply cause and effect. In times when money is tight, the higher profile Universities have a stronger case for funding. They can show more "relevence". Given the large number of organizations putting out press releases, it must be a bit of a fight to get reported in the MSM. A good press officer would know this and plan his/her releases with that in mind. Rather than poor reporting (although that does happen) it's a case of "That is how the funding system works" and people are just doing what the system requires them to do to get funding. You mean like the mammoth fart article in Nature? Doesn't the fact that this paper can now claim to be "Peer reviewed and printed in the most prestigious journal on Earth" make you cringe? Sorry, but it's carrying articles like that that reduce Nature from "leading journal" to "joke."

I thought I might add a bit more for fun. One is decent science and reporting, the other is just plain pseudo-scientific mush. All spin aside, I honestly think that much of trouble in the reporting of Climate Science is that when in a newsarticle, most people don't read past the first paragraph. On April 29th, the University of Leeds issued a Press Release. The title being; "Melting icebergs causing sea level rise." The headline was repeated in the MSM and as far as I can find out by google search, the body was reproduced faithfully. So somebody skimming news reports would see something like this; That would look pretty worrying if you didn't read the full article. Because you would have missed this bit. Not exactly earth shattering news is it? Not being part of a University I don't know, but does the press office (or whoever it is that issues releases) need to go for the attention grabbing headlines to publicise the Universitys work? While totally factual, the headline seems a bit extreme considering the findings. Now for the fun one. I got pointed to it earlier this week and frankly couldn't believe that such tripe could make it to Nature/Geoscience. Many of those who look at the paleoclimate record have wondered what caused the Younger Dryas period, a sudden drop into full blown Ice Age conditions that lasted for a thousand years before reversing itself. Well, we need wonder no more as the mystery has been solved. http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n6/full/ngeo877.html An article on the paper can be found at Science Fair. Put bluntly, man caused the Younger Dryas event. That's right, it was anthropogenic. You see, with the advent of the Clovis people into America many thousands of years ago, those nasty humans killed off all the megafauna. Now since methane is a potent GHG, and grazing megafauna produce a lot of methane, killing off the mammoths meant less mammoth farts, and therefore lower methane levels and so the climate crashed back into an Ice Age like temperature regime. (The methane levels did drop rather precipitously, but nobody has previously linked the levels to mammoth farts, so I guess her work is "new".) See, you knew humans were responsible, didn't you? For the further entertainment of our American friends, Felisa Smith was coauthor of a 2006 paper entitled "Pleistocene Rewilding: An Optimistic Agenda for Twenty-First Century Conservation." From the abstract; Reintroduce megafauna to North America? Good idea, but what species? So far so good, but; Won't that make camping fun? Sing it with me; Oh give me a home, Where the elephants roam And Holarctic lions Visit the schools.... Keep your guns America, if these people get their way, you're gonna need 'em. Okay, I've had my fun for now.

Could we reach a decision on this soon, please? I'm writing an article on "Perceptions on Time Travel in the Early 21st Century". It will be due yesterday.

swansont, I thought that at absolute zero all motion ceases? Would that not then be "duration without change" and therefore time stopping? Obviously there isn't a sliding scale for this, but isn't that how it works at absolute? Time doesn't slow down as you approach absolute zero, it just stops when you get there. Or am I misunderstanding something? (As usual;))

Do we want to know the context of that comment?

Please do so. I must admit that I found following the trail and reading some of the standards to be quite enlightening. If you find things that do tend to confirm your suspicions I'd love to read them. There is always the possibility that any commission that includes "interested parties" will have trouble excluding the "ruled by self interest" parties. I take it that that is the main area of concern for you? It's something I tend to look at a lot. Who makes up the commission, do they gather evidence from all sides, what potential conflicts of interest are there, that sort of thing. Cheers.

ecoli, sorry but I don't see it. Any man that dates women knows that the first thing she takes off at home are her heels. (And often asks for a foot rub) He's heard her complain about the sore feet on many occasions. Then a study comes along and tells the world "Wearing heels causes sore feet!". It's not hindsight bias, it's a study that simply confirms what 90%+ of either men or women would have told the researchers if they had asked. This is not to say that hindsight bias doesn't exist, but to lump everything into it is, I think, a problem. To me, "Obvious" science falls into 3 areas. 1. The results are obvious to most people. These are going to sociological studies (like the heels one) rather than "straight" science. They get their results by asking people questions. It's basically a poll, "Do your feet hurt more after wearing A, B, or C?" Since it is the experience of every woman and every man who has dated a woman that heels cause sore feet, why should the results be a surprise? 2. The results are obvious if you think about it. Obese people and seatbelts. As I said earlier, most people just don't think about it. However, when asked they would reply "Yes". Again, not hindsight bias, simply an extension of a general rule. In this case the general form of the question is "Is it hard to fit a large object into a medium sized container?" Since the answer to the general question is "Yes", then all the study is doing is looking at a specific case of the general rule. 3. Actual hindsight bias. Because right now it looks like "hindsight bias" is the excuse being used to justify bleedingly obvious science. "No, it wasn't obvious Mr. Grant Commissioner, it really was a subject worthy of your money. It's just that people are suffering from hindsight bias." IOW, it's not that my science was garbage, there is something wrong with the people who read the reports. Transference, anybody? An easy way to work this out would be to get a list of sociological etc studies that are about to be done and get a set of predictions of what the studies will find. Actually, I think it would be an interesting experiment in it's own right. Get the subject question of the study boiled down to something simple. eg "The connection between the eating habits of parents and their chidren." (I'd suggest at least 20 upcoming studies.) Then get a group (say 30 people) not connected to the research to write a quick paragraph about what they think the study will find. An interesting discussion, either way. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedA thought that has recently occurred. Is the concept of "hindsight bias" a rationalization for some researchers to avoid facing the fact that their research is actually useless or obvious? It allows them to classify their own work into one of two possible outcomes. 1. My research is new, useful and valuable and is accepted as such. 2. My research is new, useful and valuable but is not accepted as such because of hindsight bias. Note that both outcomes reinforce the researchers attitude towards his own work, (who doesn't want to feel that their work is valuable?) while transferring any negative connotations onto the person commenting on the work. Your statement can cut both ways.

Actually, most don't. It is a common error to equate Judeo/Christian stories with "most". The Creation myths of our society are a subset of a much larger group. I say this as someone who has read many creation myths from all over the planet. The "clay" or "mud" might be very close to the mark though. It might be a very accurate description of the conditions after the possible flood event of circa 2800BC.

A few words on the boxes used in the Reference Station method. I screwed up a bit. As I noted in an earlier post, Hansen and Lebedeff divide the world into 80 regions or boxes. However, each of these is further divided into a 10 x 10 grid, giving 8,000 sub-boxes. Each of these is around 200 km on a side and as bascule noted, is quite a fine grid. I can see some pluses and minuses for this compared to the standard "Grid Box" method. Obviously the resolution is much finer at first glance, however in the more undeveloped areas or the more sparsely populated, there would be a larger number of sub-boxes that have no stations in them and therefore would require extrapolation. It also means that while the sub-box is smaller than the 50 x 50 Grid Box, since it draws it's data from all stations within 1200 km, it actually used a larger area than the other method which is constrained by latitudinal and longditudinal limits. So is it really a finer grid? They really are two very different methods. swansont, good questions. I'll try to provide meaningful answers. Elevation. No, the calculations used by GISS do not compensate for elevation. The way the calculations are done makes elevation differences between stations irrelevent as it is based on station means over time. At the most basic level. If there are two stations A and B, and we have records for A for 50 years and records for B for 30 years. (The most recent 20 years of B being missing.) The mean for both stations for the common period is calculated. The mean for B is then subtracted from the mean for A. (It can be the other way around, the lesser is subtracted from the higher, but it makes no practical difference which way you go.) This results in the "Bias" between the two stations. For the purpose of this exercise, we'' call the bias +.20. So for the reference period, (30 years) station A read, on average, +.20 higher than station B. This bias is then applied to the missing period in station Bs records, to give a complete record for station B for the entire period. Hansen and Lebedeff note that (obviously) the correlation drops off as the stations get further apart and drops to .5 at 1200 km. Hence the 1200 km limit. As can be seen, because the process uses the bias between the means, then differences in elevation shouldn't matter. In the long term records, we are comparing and averaging the biases. Elevation differences would only matter if station A was moved to a different position at a different elevation, as that would change the bias. Even though I have trouble with the method, on a logical basis it does seem reasonable. The following makes it more so. Weighting. Yes, weighting is done. As the records are combined they are weighted. This is done on a sliding scale from 1 to 0. A weight of 1 is given to a station 0 km from the sub-box centre and a weight of 0 is given to a station 1200 km from the sub-box centre. So as two stations get closer together, the correlation of the bias approaches 1. Entirely reasonable if constrained by latitudinal limits. This is the point of H & L, they do not try to find correlations between stations at largely different latitudes. A correlation between stations at say 400 North is reasonable, a correlation between stations at 400 North and 100 is not. Which is a reason I'm concerned about the extrapolation being done in the Arctic, it covers too many degrees of latitude for the correlation to be good. It may all be "The Arctic", but I wouldn't want to extrapolate Australia from 10-12 stations, even if it is all "Australia". On the whole, and I think anyone who reads Hansen and Lebedeff would agree, conceptually the "Reference Station" method should be the superior method. However, as I think I have reasonably shown in the above calculations, when compared to the actual temperatures, the infilling "Bias" method is not as accurate as it should be. I freely admit that I have no idea how to improve it. An interesting check would be to take the CCC code and remove all data from the source file for the US States of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, those 4 States being roughly the size of Bolivia and roughly in the centre of the US. Or perhaps Utah, Colorada and Wyoming to see the effects of mountains? A comparison between the two results, one using the full dataset and the other using the truncated dataset would perhaps show if the extrapolation tends to artificially create a warming bias. It appears to do so in Bolivia, but one example does not a bias make. While I'm also concerned about the GISS "Nightlight" method of Rural/Urban station weighting, that is a different question.

They might be worried that somebody would sue them?

Yes and no. I used the grid method as used by the Hadley Centre, so mine is a straight map grid. The reference station method uses smaller boxes yes, but includes all stations within 1200 km of the centre of the box, so the figures used for each include a large number of stations from outside the box. For example if a "box" was centred on Chimore, roughly the dead centre of Bolivia, it would include all stations within 1200 km. IOW, almost to Lima Peru. Consequently, since the data is missing from the GHCN, it gets infilled from the surrounding stations. Which means that high, cold plains and mountains of Bolivia gets it's data from the Peruvian coast and the Brazillian jungle. I doubt either of these are truly representative of the actual Bolivian climate. However, once the box has it's value decided, it will then be used for calculations concerning temps in every box within 1200 km. Put bluntly, it relies on the concept of "teleconnection" to be actual and real. I've always thought it to be a crock myself. The idea that you can extrapolate temps from stations 1200 km away, just doesn't seem to make sense. Can you really interpolate he temps in Washington based on the temps in St. Louis? "Teleconnection" is the only reason that the GISS maps have a wider coverage than Hadleys. The grid method only used stations physically within the selected grid box but the Reference Station method extrapolates to a 1200 km radius from each station. So the GISS maps extrapolate further into the Arctic than Hadley does. So the Reference method infills data where there is none according to the principles set down in the linked paper. The question is "Does it do this well?" By comparing the actual data from Bolivia with the extrapolated data, I think we can say "No." In many ways it is not surprising that this hasn't been noticed before. The method generally extrapolates into areas where there are no stations, like the Arctic. Where do we expect to see the most warming, whether anthrpogenic or not? The high latitudes. Where do we see the most warming in the GISS maps? The high latitudes. So we are seeing in the maps exactly what we expect to see. Why would we think that there is something amiss? The data is agreeing with the theory. I doubt that there are many areas of the planet where the extrapolations can be checked against records. Bolivia is fortuitously one of them. As to uncertainties, IIRC the Hadley Centre claims an accuracy of .040 on the raw data. I can only say that my data is as accurate as the thermometers taking the temps. There will have been extra, very small uncertainties introduced by rounding the averages to two decimal places. I've done no smoothing, extrapolation, interpolation or any other process. Every step has been shown above. The maths involved in Grid maps is about as basic as it gets. (Otherwise I would have had a lot more trouble.) I suppose the bottom line is that the data does not match the extrapolations as used by the Reference method. Since this has been shown in Bolivia, is it also true in the Arctic? And if so, how far out is it? BTW, here is the latest graph from Hadley. Notice the blanks in South America and elsewhere.