March 11, 2003
SOMEWHERE, HARRY IS LAUGHING.
Icy Weather Freezes Surface of Three Great Lakes (Rajiv Sekhri, Reuters)Three of North America's Great Lakes -- Lake Huron, Lake Superior and Lake Erie -- have frozen over for the first time in nearly a decade after icy weather lasting more than a month, experts at Environment Canada said on Tuesday.This will, of course, get every bit as much attention as the supposed thawing of the north pole. I look forward to reading the New York Times editorial arguing that, given the risks posed by a new ice age, we can't wait for proof but must start mandated air pollution schemes at once. Posted by David Cohen at March 11, 2003 8:37 PMA month of temperatures below minus 4 Fahrenheit has caused an ice blanket averaging as much as 24 inches on the lakes . . . .
I have been saying, seriously, for the past 15 years that the time will come when the Greens will be building giant plants to burn coal for the sole purpose of restoring carbon dioxide to its rightful place in the atmosphere.
Actually, though, it now appears that CO2 will not do the job. Hope there are enough baby seals for everyone to have a warm coat.
Methane is a better "greenhouse gas", and one excellent source comes from grazing cattle. Can you see the Greenies who used such slogans as "Cattle Free by 2003" changing their little minds?
All this shows is that climate is a statistical process, and like all statistical processes, there can be long runs that run counter to the trend, so drawing ANY conclusion by a period of data as short as a century is folly.
I thought Austrailia was going to put its carbon dioxide underground.
And, we're in a drought. I'm glad they froze.
Six-sevenths of greenhouse gases consist of water vapor, not something you want to mess with.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 12, 2003 3:33 PMHarry -- more than 6/7 -- closer to 98%.
Posted by: pj at March 12, 2003 5:50 PMI believe the CO2 equivalents -- which is how these things are reported -- makes water vapor more like 6/7 of total effect. Methane gets more weight per molecule in the equation, because it is a better infrared trapper, but whichever way you cut it, its water vapor that does the heavy lifting.
I have never, ever (ever being the 15 years I have written on global climate) met anyone except actual research scientists who even know that water vapor was a greenhouse gas, much less that it was the most important one.
Everything I said earlier about myths about natural immunity goes double for global warming, an international crisis that is not tethered to a single ascertainable fact.