Articles Tagged &quot;Willie Soon&quot;

BOB CARTER WILLIAM M. BRIGGS WILLIE SOON WORLD TEMPERATURES HEADLINE STORY

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Bob Carter: William M. Briggs: Willie Soon: Changing Sun, changing climate

Saturday, March 9th 2013, 4:13 AM EST

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Scientists have been studying solar influences on the climate for more than 5000 years.Chinese imperial astronomers kept detailed sunspot records, and noticed that more sunspots meant warmer weather. In 1801, celebrated astronomer William Herschel, the first to observe Uranus, noted that when there were fewer spots the price of wheat soared. He surmised that less “light and heat” from the sun resulted in reduced harvests.

It is therefore perhaps surprising that Professor Richard Muller (University of California, Berkeley) recently claimed that “no component that matches solar activity” could be identified in his newly reconstructed BEST global land temperature record. Instead, Professor Muller said, carbon dioxide controls our changing temperature.

Can it really be true that solar radiation, which supplies Earth with the energy that drives our weather and climate – and which, when it varied in the past, is known to have caused major climate shifts – is no longer the principal influence on climate change?

Consider the charts that accompany this article. In locations as widely separated as US, the Arctic and China, they show a strong and direct relationship between temperature and incoming solar radiation -- the data for the US coming directly from Professor Muller’s own BEST data! That such a tight relationship between temperature and solar radiation holds for many disparate geographical areas indicates that the US result cannot be dismissed as just a local aberration.

A strong sun-climate relationship requires mechanisms to exist whereby our sun can both cool and warm the Earth. One such mechanism is fluctuations in the total amount of incoming solar energy, but measurements suggest that this is not a dominant effect. Another cause, and probably a more substantial one, is modulation of the amount of solar radiation that reaches earth’s surface by changes in total cloud cover.

Source Link: quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet

NILS-AXEL MÖRNER WILLIE SOON

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Willie Soon: Nils-Axel Morner: Sea-level rise data based on shoddy science

Tuesday, December 18th 2012, 5:25 PM EST

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Stemming the tide of political fear-mongering

There is much concern over rising sea levels and disappearing coastline. Yet how are such changes really measured?

Satellites can measure tiny changes in sea levels referenced to a known baseline, but those measurements have only been available since 1993. Two other methods used for changes occurring over more than 100 years are tide gauges and efforts by the United Nations‘ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in computer modeling.

A tide gauge monitors water level changes in relation to a local reference height. They are simple devices, not too different from a pingpong ball floating in a tube. Tide gauge data are available for more than 1,750 stations around the world and are the longest time series available. In the case of Delaware, records go back to the early 20th century, while in places such as Amsterdam they go back to the late 17th century.

How reliable are such data?

In Atlantic City, for example, coastal engineer Cyril Galvin says the tide gauge data may be too sensitive to local and regional activities that aren’t ultimately related to “natural” changes in sea level — including any that might be related to greenhouse gas-induced global warming.

Source Link: washingtontimes.com

OPEN LETTER/FAX LORD MONCKTON WILLIE SOON WILLIAM GRAY FRED SINGER

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Open Letter to Congress by (Professor) Fred Singer, (Dr.) Bill Gray, (Dr.) Willie Soon and Monckton of Brenchley

Sunday, November 11th 2012, 4:11 AM EST

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To The Honorable Fred Upton: Chairman Committee on Energy & Commerce

To The Honorable Ed Whitfield: Chairman Subcommittee on Energy & Power

U.S. House of Representatives

From Professor Fred Singer and others

Dear Chairman Upton and Chairman Whitfield:

The recent election should be a time to return to fact-based policy making. This is especially true in energy policy.

Last week, a tropical storm intensified by meeting two other storms struck the East Coast. The storm battered the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states, devastating portions of New York and New Jersey and resulting in more than 8 million homes losing electricity from the Carolinas to Wisconsin. Experts are projecting $10 bn in damages and lost business.

WILLIE SOON WILLIAM M. BRIGGS BERKELEY EARTH SURFACE TEMPERATURE (BEST) PROJECT

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Willie Soon & William M. Briggs: Tattoo this: “It’s the Sun, stupid!”: With additional comments and charts

Monday, September 10th 2012, 11:34 AM EDT

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New Berkeley BEST project temperature records confirm: changes in solar radiation influence climate

Willie Soon and William M. Briggs

Scientists have been studying solar influences on the climate for over 5000 years.

Chinese imperial astronomers kept detailed sunspot records. They noticed that more sunspots meant warmer weather. In 1801, the celebrated astronomer William Herschel (discoverer of the planet Uranus) observed that, when there were fewer spots, the price of wheat soared. He surmised that less “light and heat” from the sun resulted in reduced harvests.

Earlier last month Professor Richard Muller of the University of California, Berkeley's BEST project announced that, based on their newly constructed global land temperature record, “no component that matches solar activity” was related to temperature. Instead, Professor Muller said, carbon dioxide controlled temperature.

Could it really be true that solar radiation, which supplies Earth with the energy that drives our weather and climate – and which, when it varied, caused the climate to shift over the ages – is no longer the principal influence on climate change?

Consider the charts that accompany this article. They show some rather surprising relationships between solar radiation and daytime high temperatures, taken directly from Berkeley’s BEST project. The remarkable thing about the graphs is that these tight relationships hold for areas as large as the USA, to areas as small as the Sunshine state, and even as minor as our nation's capital.

This new sun-climate relationship picture may be telling us that the way our Sun cools and warms the Earth is largely through the penetration of incoming solar radiation in regions with cloudless skies.

WORLD TEMPERATURES WILLIE SOON WILLIAM M. BRIGGS HEADLINE STORY

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Willie Soon & William M. Briggs: Global-warming fanatics take note (Sunspots do impact climate) - Washington Times

Friday, September 7th 2012, 11:23 AM EDT

Co2sceptic (Site Admin)

Scientists have been studying solar influences on the climate for more than 5,000 years.

Chinese imperial astronomers kept detailed sunspot records. They noticed that more sunspots meant warmer weather. In 1801, the celebrated astronomer William Herschel (discoverer of the planet Uranus) observed that when there were fewer spots, the price of wheat soared. He surmised that less light and heat from the sun resulted in reduced harvests.

Earlier last month, professor Richard Muller of the University of California-Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project announced that in the project’s newly constructed global land temperature record, “no component that matches solar activity” was related to temperature. Instead, Mr. Muller said carbon dioxide controlled temperature.

Could it really be true that solar radiation — which supplies Earth with the energy that drives our climate and which, when it has varied, has caused the climate to shift over the ages — is no longer the principal influence on climate change?

Source Link: washingtontimes.com

WILLIE SOON REPLY TO ARTICLE

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Reply to article: Willie Soon: Was “Good Science” Really Applied in the Recent Mercury Report Issued by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection?

Monday, June 4th 2012, 6:45 PM EDT

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The following article is in response to letter from Florida DEP: Lead letter: State will use good science for environment by Drew Bartlett, director, Division of Environmental Assessment and Restoration, Florida Department of Evironmental Protection

Was “Good Science” Really Applied in the Recent Mercury Report Issued by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection?

By Willie Soon

As a scientist who has spent the past ten years studying the science of mercury (Hg) and the biologically toxic form of mercury, methylmercury (MeHg), I was taken aback by the clear misuse of the phrase “good science” in a recent letter by Florida DEP’s director of the Division of Environmental Assessment and Restoration (published in the Florida Times-Union newspaper).

The director referred to FDEP’s draft report (http://www.dep.state.fl.us/water/tmdl/docs/tmdls/mercury/florida-merc-tmdl-draft-052412.pdf) in setting a strict mercury limit in Florida’s river, stream, lake, and coastal waters, which was released May 24. After a careful examination of the draft report, however, I have come to the conclusion that it contains serious flaws such that the strict mercury limit proposed by FDEP is not scientifically defensible.

First, FDEP’s notion that mercury “pollution” in our air, water, and land is a new, manmade phenomenon is simply wrong. While FDEP cited a 2008 paper that reported mean mercury levels of 0.25 parts per million (or ppm) in the hair of a group of women of childbearing age (16 to 49) in the Florida Panhandle, a study of 550-year-old Alaskan mummies reported average hair mercury levels of 1.2 ppm for four adults and 1.44 ppm for four infants. One mummy had hair mercury levels as high as 4.6 ppm!

PAUL DRIESSEN WILLIE SOON HEADLINE STORY

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Willie Soon & Paul Driessen: Agenda-driven "science" at EPA

Friday, February 3rd 2012, 4:41 PM EST

Co2sceptic (Site Admin)

Despite growing concern about the high costs and minimal benefits of the Environmental Protection Agency’s mercury, particulate, MACT, cross-state and other air pollution rules, the EPA has pushed forward with numerous rulemakings.

Dr. Willie Soon and I have followed this situation closely and written a number of articles about it. Indeed, Willie is one of the few people who have carefully analyzed EPA’s rulemakings; examined its analyses, assumptions, assertions and conclusions; and scrutinized the agency’s attempted medical and scientific justifications for the rules. Simply put, we vigorously disagree with EPA.

Our latest analysis strongly contests EPA’s methodologies, its latest rulemaking – and its most recent claims that the agency’s expensive “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants” will somehow protect Americans’ health.

Thank you for posting the article, quoting from it, and forwarding it to your friends and colleagues.

Best regards,

Paul

Agenda-driven “science” at EPA

KESTEN C. GREEN WILLIE SOON SCOTT ARMSTRONG

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Scott Armstrong, Willie Soon & Keston C. Green: Research on Forecasting for the Manmade Global Warming Alarm

Wednesday, April 13th 2011, 1:35 PM EDT

Co2sceptic (Site Admin)

Abstract

The validity of the manmade global warming alarm requires the support of scientific forecasts of (1) a substantive long-term rise in global mean temperatures in the absence of regulations, (2) serious net harmful effects due to global warming, and (3) cost-effective regulations that would produce net beneficial effects versus alternatives policies, including doing nothing.

Without scientific forecasts for all three aspects of the alarm, there is no scientific basis to enact regulations. In effect, the warming alarm is like a three-legged stool: each leg needs to be strong. Despite repeated appeals to global warming alarmists, we have been unable to find scientific forecasts for any of the three legs.

We drew upon scientific (evidence-based) forecasting principles to audit the forecasting procedures used to forecast global mean temperatures by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC)—leg “1” of the stool. This audit found that the IPCC procedures violated 81% of the 89 relevant forecasting principles.

Click source to read FULL paper

Source Link: forecastingprinciples.com

WILLIE SOON BARUN S. MITRA ENERGY & FUEL

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Willie Soon and Barun Mitra: What really threatens our future?

Saturday, April 2nd 2011, 10:30 AM EDT

Co2sceptic (Site Admin)

Beware of anti-energy policies claiming to prevent climate change

Energy sustainability is not about resource availability and pollution. Capitalism and human ingenuity have already addressed “sustainability” in these regards, if the statistics are to be believed.

The real sustainability challenge and threat concerns government intervention in the name of “sustainability,” because it is political and bureaucratic intervention that reduces the availability, reliability and affordability of energy. The real sustainability challenge is also about overcoming the forces of nature, via with ever stronger energy infrastructure around the world. That is a job for capitalism, not central planning.

Consider these worldwide examples….