Turns out we may get very little warning before big bang

European scientists think they’ve found the trigger mechanism for the eruption of supervolcanoes, the most violent and dangerous natural disasters on Earth.

Unlike traditional volcanoes, which are easily identifiable by their mountainous shape, supervolcanoes lurk far underneath the Earth’s surface. They contain huge bulbs of molten magma, some over 100km long, which periodically explode, covering huge areas with ash hundreds of meters deep which scars the lungs of any animal breathing it in.

Around 20 supervolcanoes have been discovered under the Earth’s surface (and at least one suspected site on Mars), and when they blow the results can be catastrophic. The Lake Toba supervolcano in Indonesia erupted around 74,000 years ago and is estimated to have wiped out over two thirds of the human population at the time and dropped global temperatures by 10 degrees Celsius for a decade or more.

It had been thought that you’d need a large earthquake to set a supervolcano off, but according to new research from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility this may not be the case. According to its paper, published in the latest issue of Nature Geoscience, that they can erupt spontaneously under their own internal pressure.

A Tribute To Freeman Dyson On His 90th Birthday

Freeman Dyson, one of the world’s most eminent theoretical physicists, recently celebrated his 90th birthday. Born in England on 15 December 1923, Freeman Dyson graduated from Cambridge University in 1945 with a BA in mathematics.  In 1947, he moved to the USA where he went to work at Cornell University and, later, at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Professor Dyson is a member of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council. On the occasion of his 90th birthday, we republish an CCNet-interview he gave Benny Peiser in March 2007.

Benny Peiser: Let me start with your essay, “Sir Phillip Robert’s Erolunar Collision,” that you wrote in 1933, aged 9. Your first ever piece of science fiction, a story about asteroid Eros, is very charming from a historical perspective. Eros plays a significant role in the history of modern astronomy. It was the first discovered near Earth asteroid and, with a size of circa 13 x 13 x 30 km, is the second largest known NEO. Evidently, your narrative about the asteroid’s close approach was written in the aftermath of the Eros fly by in 1930/31.

What I find intriguing in your account is the conspicuous cheerfulness of the astronomers. When the fictitious president of the astronomical society, Sir Phillip Roberts, announced that Eros may one day collide with the Earth, the reaction of his fellow astronomers is enthusiastic: “Three cheers for Eros!” and “Hip, Hip! Hurrah! They all shouted.” After more calculations revealed that Eros would collide with the Moon in as little as 11 years, the astronomical society decided to organise an expedition to the Moon so that they would witness the collision in situ, “instead of through a telescope.”

It would appear that the perception of a collision by a large asteroid with the Earth was still regarded as something of a challenge rather than a global catastrophe. Today, we know that the impact of an asteroid the size of Eros would wipe out more than 90{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of all terrestrial forms of life. This, then, raises the following questions: Why was the potentially existential threat at the time of your writing greatly underestimated? Looking back at your own intellectual development, when did you yourself begin to realise the severity of the threat posed by asteroids and comets?

Freeman Dyson: Certainly as a nine-year-old I considered the Erolunar collision as a great lark and did not worry about the dangers. That is the normal reaction of nine-year-olds to adventures of all kinds. I remember an excellent film called Hope and Glory‘ portraying World War Two as seen through the eyes of a nine-year-old kid in England. For the kid, the war was a great lark. That was true. That film gave the most accurate picture of the war that I have seen.

To me it came as a complete and wonderful surprise when Luis Alvarez discovered the iridium layer that showed a connection between the dinosaur extinction and an extraterrestrial impact. There was no doubt that the two events occurred at the same time, and that many species of plankton in the ocean became extinct at the same time too. And still, I was always skeptical of Alvarez’s theory explaining how the impact caused the extinctions. And I am still skeptical. We now know that the other major extinctions do not have iridium layers associated with them, and we know that the dinosaur extinction has a major volcanic eruption (Deccan Traps) associated with it. So it is plausible that volcanic eruptions are the main cause of extinctions, with extraterrestrial impacts giving an additional push if they happen to occur at the same time.

After looking at the evidence, I do not agree with your statement, “we know that an impact of an asteroid the size of Eros would wipe out more than 90{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of all terrestrial forms of life”. I would say that this statement is an exaggeration, similar to statements of the same kind that are made about global warming. Certainly the danger from asteroid impacts is real, and certainly it makes sense to study ways of deflecting asteroids when the opportunity arises. But I find much of the rhetoric about asteroid impacts to be exaggerated. It seems likely that the real dangers to the survival of the biosphere come more from inside the earth than from outside.

“We are not capable of addressing climate change.” Such was the lead sentence of climate-change guest columnist Gregory Willits, in the Dec. 24 edition of the Orlando Sentinel (“Let’s accept climate change and deal with it in a big way”). It was an accurate statement to be sure, but for all the wrong reasons.

Willits, an avowed “green” enthusiast, went on to strongly support the building of sea walls to keep out the predicted rising sea levels that the world’s greatest climate scaremonger, Al Gore, has said will swamp most of Florida with 21 feet of sea water by the year 2100. Yes, we are not capable of addressing climate change — the truth about climate change, that is.

The truth of what is really happening to the climate versus the United Nations and current U.S. government version is, however, a bit hard to accept after two decades of global-warming propaganda. I know. It was for me in April 2007, after finishing some research into solar activity.

I had concluded that global warming was ending and a potentially dangerous cold climate was beginning. Such was my first public climate prediction with several more to follow.

My announcement then to the White House, Congress and the mainstream media was, of course, greeted with the expected indifference, ridicule and even slander.

Now, it’s almost seven years later, and the track record of my Space and Science Research Corp. in making major climate-change predictions is one of the best in the United States, according to public records.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) set climate research back thirty years, mostly by focusing world attention on CO2 and higher temperature. It was a classic misdirection that required planning. The IPCC was created for this purpose and pursued it relentlessly. Through the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) they controlled national weather offices so global climate policies and research funding were similarly directed.

IPCC’s definition of climate change narrowed the focus to human causes, but they exacerbated it by ignoring, downgrading or misusing variables. Most important and critical was water in all its forms and functions. The obsession restricted focus to higher temperatures and increased CO2, which directed funding of impact analyses, whether economic or environmental to cost only, instead of cost/benefit. Climate studies only considered temperature, usually and incorrectly attributing changes caused by precipitation to temperature. This practice was most evident in paleoclimate reconstructions, either done by IPCC participants or chosen for inclusion in the IPCC Reports.

It is almost a maxim that if the people at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), who effectively controlled IPCC science, were looking at a topic it was because it posed a threat to their predetermined hypothesis.

Tom Wigley took over from Hubert Lamb as Director of the CRU and guided much of the early research and then remained the major influence as the leaked emails revealed. He completely redirected CRU from Lamb’s objective, which was the need for data before any understanding could occur;

“the first and greatest need was to establish the facts of the past record of the natural climate in times before any side effects of human activities could well be important.”

Lamb was at odds with and appears to regret hiring Wigley and wrote about the different direction Wigley took the Unit. He wrote,

“Professor Tom Wigley, was chiefly interested in the prospect of world climates being changed as a result of human activities, primarily through the burning of wood, coal, oil and gas reserves…”

That became the focus of the CRU and subsequently of the IPCC. It was a predetermined hypothesis that led to manipulated climate science. The leaked CRU emails disclose Wigley as the eminence gris to whom all his old pupils and colleagues at CRU turn to for advice and direction.

A classic danger in climate research and an early threat to claims of a human signal was that they could be dismissed as a result of auto-correlation. The issue was identified in 1944 in Conrad’s classic Methods in Climatology. A 1999 article The Autocorrelation Function and Human Influences on Climate by Tsonis and Elsner commented on Wigley’s attempt to prove a human influence was not due to autocorrelation.

You will be familiar with lithium-ion batteries, the little knob-sized things that keep your wrist watch and other small electronic devices going for years. Slightly larger lithium batteries power cell phones, cameras, walkie-talkies, and other small portable devices.  So, why should such batteries not be able to power your electric car as well?

The Khaleej Times reports that you’ll soon be able to hide – perhaps even make your shadow invisible – with the headline: Coming soon: Invisibility cloaks! But that’s not all. The article’s writer goes on to say the new research “may in the not too distant future protect a building from earthquakes by bending seismic waves around it.”

Australian climate change professor who warned about melting East Antarctic remains trapped in thick ice

“there is an increasing body of evidence, including by the AAE members, that have identified parts of the East Antarctic which are highly susceptible to melting and collapse from ocean warming” The Australasian Antarctic Expedition 

The House of Commons Energy and Climate Committee have now published the submissions of the review of the IPCC and what an impressive collection it is. It is great to see so many citizens putting in their own time and effort to produce these superb submissions.

In one of the numerous pages that didn’t make it to my submission I introduced the idea of the “citizen scientist” which is the scientific equivalent of the “expert patient”. Reading the submissions, I regret not including it.

The Expert Patient is the phenomenon in medicine, that more and more, doctors are coming across patients, that not only know more about their own illness than the doctor, but even know more about the latest medical research. Initially – and for obvious reasons – many doctors were quite hostile to this phenomena: it fundamentally changes the balance of power and therefore the relationship between doctor and patient.

However, after some initial resistance, it has now been accepted in medicine, as a de facto outcome of the internet, that many patients will be experts in their own condition. This phenomenon is one which doctors have not only learnt to live with, to the extent there are now numerous papers, but some are now encouraging patients to become their own experts.

America could actually use some global warming right about now.  It is being projected that low temperatures across the Midwest could be 30 to 50 degrees below average on Monday morning.  On Sunday, fans that attempted to tailgate before the playoff game between the 49ers and the Packers at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin were discovering that their beers were actually turning to ice before they could drink them.  That is cold. 

But things are going to get really chilly when nightfall arrives.  In fact, it is being projected that much of the nation will experience wind chill temperatures of more than 40 degrees below zero, and wind chill temperatures of more than 50 degrees below zero are expected in parts of North Dakota and Minnesota.  The weather is expected to be so cold that the governor of Minnesota has actually decided to close public schools statewide on Monday. 

The last time that happened was back in 1997.  The reason why the governor of Minnesota did this is because when temperatures get this low they can literally be life threatening.  When wind chill temperatures get down to about 50 below zero, if your skin is exposed you can literally develop frostbite in about five minutes.  This is being called the coldest day in America in 20 years, and these cold temperatures have many Americans wondering what ever happened to all of that “global warming” that Al Gore and other “climate scientists” have been warning us about for so many years.

This is just in case you are wondering about the current state of “negative global warming.” Relax; it’s just the polar vortex creating some mayhem; everything else is just fine.

The temperatures plunging throughout this continent, the Arctic, and the Antarctic are unforeseen thermometer excursions into minus territory. Relax, everything else is just fine.

The global warming / climate models could not have possibly predicted a severe winter. After all, the current stream of cold air and snow is just one of nature’s aberrations. Relax; everything else is just fine.

Polar Vortex

The polar vortexes (PVs), also known as Arctic cyclones are persistent, large-scale cyclones located near one or both of a planet’s geographical poles. They occur quite frequently, especially over Antarctica, but are rarely noticed in mid latitudes of North America. However, this year is different – as you may have noticed by now.

Some research has linked the appearance of the PVs to the regularly appearing and disappearing “ozone holes” in the troposphere. Now, what’s that?

First, we saw an ill-fated crop of climate scientists embarrassingly rescued from the fast-freezing waters of an Antarctic summer in their abortive attempt to prove the ice caps are melting. Now the latest satellite data provides the reason why this ill-fated polar expedition became trapped: our planet is currently enduring the largest extent of polar sea ice since records began (January 2, 2014, stevengoddard).

In the southern hemisphere the summer melt should be in full swing. But the doomsayers’ plan to trumpet fears of global warming have been cruelly crushed not only by four meters of obstinate pack ice but also by the cold, hard facts of the official satellite data, graphically depicted by Goddard’s graph (right).

With our planet’s sea ice now at record highs it is little wonder that Aussie expedition leader, Professor Chris Turney, came a cropper.

Turney and his doomsaying adventurers were today ignominiously airlifted by helicopter to a nearby Chinese ship, then transferred on a barge to the Aurora Australis rescue icebreaker. The climate scientists had been trapped in deep pack ice off Commonwealth Bay since Christmas Evesome 100 nautical miles (185 km) east of French Antarctic station Dumont D’Urville. Attempts by three icebreakers to free their Russian vessel all failed due to persistent ice packs, some over four meters (12 feet) thick.

Turney’s lavishly funded $1.5m expedition was “to answer questions about climate change.” The unequivocal answer provided by Mother Nature is that the ice is in very rude health, thank you very much!

But there is a vile angle to all this hilarity, as prominent Aussie skeptic, Jo Nova, reports:

“Let there be no doubt, the mission was to document and record scientific changes in Antarctica and to broadcast that to the world. Most scientific missions don’t have a dedicated media team, but this one named a staff of five journalists. There is a journalist and a documentary maker from the Guardian as well as a senior producer from the Science Unit at the BBC world service. (See the media list.) If they’d discovered less sea ice, fewer penguins, or big cracks, we know the images would be all over the mass media and it would be evidence for “climate change”.”

The AR5/WG1 IPCC report, and particularly the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM), conveys an alarmist evaluation of the influence on the climate of anthropogenic C02 emissions that does not properly reflect current scientific knowledge. 

This results in part from the ambiguity inherent with asking scientists to express themselves consensually on what they think is the best message. There is a need to produce a scientific summary addressed to scientists and giving an objective picture of our knowledge and ignorance in climate science, with emphasis on the issues that are less well understood and what it implies to clarify them. 

American congressional representatives, recently permitted to read a controversial 10,000 word section censored from the original official government 9/11 Report, have sensationally asserted that the redacted pages place full responsibility for the planning and execution of 9/11 on one or more foreign intelligence agencies, not “terrorists.” President Bush and Isreali intelligence (Mossad) implicated (full story below).

Principia Scientific International takes the position that the greater community of scientists, engineers and expert analysts would not to shirk from addressing concomitant technical, forensic and logistical details that would prove or disprove what is now palpably beyond the realms of mere “conspiracy theory.”

‘Mossad, Bush planned, executed 9/11’

EPA Nifong and Beales prosecute US hydrocarbons, jobs, living standards and health

Former Durham, NC district attorney Mike Nifong was disbarred for withholding evidence from the defense and lying to the court in the trumped-up Duke lacrosse team rape case. Ex-Boston crime lab technician Annie Dookhan was prosecuted for faking test results and contaminating drug samples, to get accused dealers convicted. In both cases, charges against their victims were dismissed or are under review.

So how should we handle federal officials who’ve become unethical researchers and prosecutors – determined to get convictions, basing their cases on esoteric circumstantial evidence, allowing tainted and fraudulent evidence, hiding exculpatory information, rewriting the law, and denying defense counsel the right to cross-examine adverse witnesses or present their case?

As the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow explains in its amicus curiae brief to the US Supreme Court, that’s what Environmental Protection Agency regulators have been doing with global warming. They’re pulling every dirty prosecutorial trick in the book, to convict fossil fuels, carbon dioxide, and America’s economy and living standards of “endangering” the public welfare.

Since 2009, EPA regulators have shown a single-minded determination to slash hydrocarbon use, drive up the price of energy, and impose huge costs on companies, industries and an economy struggling to stay afloat and retain jobs. They want to control CO2 emissions from vehicles, electrical generating plants, and eventually the sources of nearly everything we make, grow, ship, eat and do. The damage to our livelihoods, liberties, living standards, legal system, health, welfare and life spans will be enormous.

Part 3: Extreme Weather Extinctions Enron Style

Adapted from the chapter Deceptive Extremes  in Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism by Jim Steele

An Illusion of Extreme Climate Disruption

“While clearing larvae were starving in response to destruction of their hosts, survival in the outcrop was higher than previously recorded: an estimated 80% of larval groups survived.” ¹

C. D. Thomas, University of Leeds, United Kingdom

In Part 1, I documented how Camille Parmesan’s 1996 paper (heralded as proof that global warming was forcing butterflies northward and upward) had misread landscape change for climate change, how she failed to publish that “extinct” populations had now recovered and refused to provide the data to permit replication of her iconic paper. In Part 2, I documented how Parmesan hijacked the conservation success story of the Large Blue and the detailed conservation science of Jeremy Thomas in order to again blame global warming for expanding the range of endangered UK butterflies. In Part 3, I document how Parmesan kept half the evidence “off the books” to suggest extreme weather, supposedly caused by rising CO₂, was causing population extinctions in the Sierra Nevada, and our top climate scientists then embraced and spread that myth. 

Problems From Climate Changes Foreseen in a 1974 C.I.A Report – View Article – NYTimes.com