UW Study: No Evidence Global Warming Affecting Cascades Snowpack

First, Mark Albright. Now this. The PC Police at the University of Washington are not doing a very good job of having their meteorologists drink the Kool-Aid.

Despite previous studies suggesting a warmer climate is already taking a bite out of Washington's snowpack, there's no clear evidence that human-induced climate change has caused a drop in 20th century snow levels, according to a new study by University of Washington scientists.

Predictably, the same people who went after Albright (who is a co-author of this new study) are ranting.

"They're trying to forecast the next 20 years or so, and I don't think they can do it," said Alan Hamlet, a UW hydrologist who has written papers about historic Cascade Mountain snowpacks.

Huh? Isn't that what the Goracle has been doing?

Hamlet also criticizes some of the statistical analysis in the new study, saying it could exaggerate the role of decade-to-decade changes in ocean conditions while understating other potential influences, including global warming.

"I just don't think the science is there," Hamlet said.

And yet global warming alarmists have passed off this year's record cold and snowy winter in the Northwest as being a result of an unusually strong La Nina and not a reversal in planetary warming trends.

"Settled" science? Uh huh. Room for reasonable doubt? You bet.

Say What?

The people making those kind of statements are not hydrologists - they're developers and builders. ... That kind of attitude is kind of sticking your head in the sand. Hydrologists and geologists have been studying the basin and they say it's dropping.

- Jim Mital, rural Moscow resident and member of the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee Citizen Advisory Group, "A thirst for answers: Water concerns are a flood of opinions and a drought of facts," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, August 2, 2008

There are a lot of hypotheses, but the frustration is that we just don't know much. There's a lot of gray area. The Palouse isn't going to run out of water anytime soon so communities don't need to dig deeper and deeper or drastically move to a plan B. We're going to run out of oil far before Moscow and Pullman run out of water. It's not a critical situation, but it's something that we need to watch.

- Professor of Hydrogeology, University of Idaho, "A thirst for answers: Water concerns are a flood of opinions and a drought of facts," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, August 2, 2008

...the idea that a community can only thrive with unlimited growth and development is a notion that must disappear, hopefully before the water does.

Post-World War II economy was based on a planned scheme for consumerism —and it worked. The economy grew, people consumed and planned obsolescence became an accepted norm. We become anxious when we consider voluntary reductions of any type. But, we must begin to imagine a “restorative economy” where having less is truly more satisfying, more interesting, and of course, more secure.

In the relatively near future, we must achieve a balance between what we are consuming and the capacity of the earth’s ecosystems to provide, according to author and businessman Paul Hawken. “We need to create an economy… that is not an either/or argument, but a means to create the best life for the greatest number of people precisely because we do not know the eventual outcome or impact of our current industrial practices. In other words, we need an economy based on more humility.”

- April 2003 Moscow Co-Op newsletter

Let's call a spade a spade. The only people calling the water situation on the Palouse a "crisis" are not water experts either. They have a distinct agenda of social(ist) engineering, just the same as those warning of "global warming crisis."

Frost on July 11

Palousitics contributor Mattwi finally sent along these pictures of his car on the morning of July 11, 2008.


As you can see, the temperature in Colton that morning was 33 degrees Fahrenheit.


The official low temperature at Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport was 35 degrees, a record low for July 11. The following morning saw record lows as well. The Whitman County Gazette reported that the 33 degrees temperature at the airport was the lowest ever for July 12. The Gazette reported that crops and gradens were damaged by the unprecedented late freeze.

The ravages of global warming continue on the Palouse.

Mrs. Coggins Goes to Washington

April's mega-post about global warming, "Purposeful Manipulation of Temperature Data or Poor Practice?" is now linked on Senator James Inhofe's (R-Oklahoma) U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works press blog.

Senator Inhofe's blog is a great source of global warming skepticism information and I highly recommend paying a visit there.

Congrats April!

"Port turns to courts to settle debt with biofuels company"

Hopefully, the Losonoco fiasco will dissuade Whitman County from participating any further in the Great Biofuel Swindle, that has caused starvation and driven up food prices worldwide in the name of the Goracle and his Church of the Boiling Planet.

From Friday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

The Port of Whitman County is preparing to take legal action against Losonoco following the biofuels company's continued failure to pay off the remainder of its lease.

The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based company had planned to construct a $10 million oilseed crushing plant at the Port of Wilma, but Port Properties and Development Manager Debbie Snell said it hasn't made a payment on its lease since January.

Losonoco signed a 10-year lease with the port in 2007, agreeing to pay $24,150 per year for rights to 10.5 acres, and an additional $2,300 a year for the right of first refusal on an additional 10 acres of land at the site. The company also expected to hire a local staff of about 20 full-time employees, in addition to employing many temporary construction workers to build its facilities.

Snell said the company still owes approximately $12,000 on the lease.

"Basically, we just have not been able to put the economics together to close out the lease," she said.

The port sent a default letter to the company in early May, giving Losonoco a June 30 deadline for payment. The port extended the deadline to July 8 after company officials indicated they would not be able to make payment at that time.

Snell said the company has now failed to meet the new deadline, forcing the port to initiate the legal process to recover the money.

"If they make payment soon then this will all mean nothing," she said. "They've assured me that they are trying to make the payment, but have to wait until they receive proceeds from an equipment sale before they can do so."

Snell said she believes the company has acted in good faith but that economic conditions in the commodities market have turned the Port of Wilma plans into an unrealistic option.

"They just got broadsided," she said. "Now it's just a matter of moving on and finding the right fit for a new tenant."

Daily News calls to a number listed for the company's Fort Lauderdale headquarters were not answered.

Kill Your Television

For the eco-chic who have been watching the new "Planet Green" channel, I hope you haven't been doing it on a flat-screen TV:

Booming demand for flat-screen televisions could have a greater impact on global warming than the world's largest coal-fired power stations, scientists warn.

A greenhouse gas called nitrogen trifluoride, used to make the TVs, is 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide, said Michael Prather, director of the environment institute at the University of California, Irvine.

So does that mean those of us without flat-screen TVs can sell carbon credits? Oh brother.

Oh, What a Day

With apologies to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (and for dating myself, I used to roller skate to this song):

Oh, what a day.
Late June back in '08.
What a very special time, it was great,
'Cause I remember what a day.

Oh, what a day.
With five Men in Black tellin' me,
The Second Amendment was everything I believed it to be.
What a Constitution. What a day.

Oh, the hit counter got a funny feeling when April's post was viewed
Around the world and I,
As I recall it the readers of JunkScience.com thought it ended much too soon.

Oh, what a day,
PARD finally figured out that their case was lame,
Now Pullman ain't ever gonna be the same.
Sweet surrender, what a day!

Global Warming Story of the Day

Chilly spring delays strawberries, other local produce; The calendar may say summer, but it's still spring to crops confused by this year's unusually cold temperatures and rainy weather

And yet the Governor of Washington wants our farmers to grow food to burn as gas to reduce "global warming."

Consensus on Global Warming at WSU?

Not if you saw the June 10 edition of WSU Today online. The original headline of a photo story by Shelly Hanks and Robert Frank on Tuesday's Pullman snowstorm read "Global Warming? R-i-g-h-t." You can view the Google cache of that version here.

After the story was linked to Tom Nelson's blog (a well-known global warming skeptic site,) and a link to Tom Nelson's blog was surreptiously embedded into the WSU Today headline, the headline was changed to read "Global warming? Not today." See for yourself here.

As April commented on the Tom Nelson blog:

Recheck the headline at the WSU site. It's been politically corrected. I'm not surprised, just sickened. The writer probably has to go through retraining so as to embrace the "empirical evidence" that the morally corrupt leftists at WSU have to offer. We wouldn't want any dissent, now would we?

Global Warming Quote of the Day

Greg Koch, a forecaster at the National Weather Service in Spokane, said Pullman received 1.5 inches of snow [on June 10], which is the latest snowfall on record dating back to 1940, when weather records were first kept. It also was the first time measurable snowfall was recorded in the month of June.

-"'Crazy' snowfall causes problems in Pullman," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, June 11, 2008

Yep, It's The Year Without a Summer

As of 9:00 AM PDT, there is 1/2 inch of snow on the ground in Pullman and it is still falling hard.

Paging Mr. Al Gore, please pick up the white Frosty the Snowman courtesy phone....

UPDATE AT 10:00 AM PDT: Just got a call from home. About one inch of now there now. My daughter, who lives with her mom in South Carolina, is enjoying her "summer" vacation from school here in Pullman.

The Year Without a Summer?

My daughter, who recently moved from Virginia to Pullman, asked me the other day, "When is it going to get warm?"

According to an article in Sunday's Seattle Times, not until July...maybe.

Meanwhile, in today's Seattle Times, it is reported that:

Seattle just experienced the coldest first week of June, according to climate records dating to 1891, said Cliff Mass, University of Washington meterologist. Both 1999 and 2008 share the record, with 1917 falling in second place, he said. "Just wait until tomorrow," he said, when temperatures are going to be even colder.

<-snip->

"In 30 years I can only remember two other times when it snowed this late in the season," said Sam Krahenbuhl, Snoqualmie Pass assistant maintenance superintendent. "One time it snowed on a Fourth of July weekend. This is really rare."

While it won't snow in the Puget Sound area, records for the lowest high temperature may be broken today and Tuesday. Forecasters said the high temperature today should be 57 degrees, 1 degree below the record set last year. On Tuesday, under windy and rainy skies, the temperature should only get to 54 degrees, 2 degrees below the record set in 1972.

Mountains in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho are also expected to see snow above 3,500 feet.

Remember, there's only 7 years, 7 months and 19 days until the The Goracle predicts the Earth will melt......

Headed Over to Western Washington This Weekend?

Might want to carry chains.

Summer starts in two weeks.

From the National Weather Service:

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SEATTLE WA
430 AM PDT FRI JUN 6 2008

WAZ513-518-519-062230-
OLYMPICS-WEST SLOPES NORTHERN CASCADES AND PASSES- WEST SLOPES CENTRAL CASCADES AND PASSES- 430 AM PDT FRI JUN 6 2008

...A STRONG LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL BRING SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL TO THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS OF THE CASCADES AND OLYMPICS TODAY..

RAIN AND SNOW WILL INCREASE OVER THE MOUNTAINS OF WESTERN WASHINGTON THIS MORNING...BECOMING HEAVY AT TIMES THROUGH THE DAY. THE MAIN SNOW LEVEL WILL HOVER NEAR 3500 FEET BUT TEMPERATURES WILL BE MARGINAL FOR ACCUMULATING SNOW BETWEEN 4000 AND 5500 FEET. THE HEAVIEST PRECIPITATION IS EXPECTED LATER THIS MORNING AND AFTERNOON WHEN UP TO 3 INCHES OF SNOW COULD FALL AT THE HIGHER PASSES. ABOVE 5500 FEET...COLDER TEMPERATURES WILL ALLOW ALL THE FALLING SNOW TO STICK WITH UP TO 2 FEET EXPECTED BY THIS EVENING. THIS WILL RESULT IN A HAZARD FOR MOUNTAINEERING AND TRAVEL IN THE HIGH BACKCOUNTRY WITH POOR VISIBILITY...WINDY CONDITIONS...COLD TEMPERATURES...AND THE POSSIBILITY OF RENEWED AVALANCHE ACTIVITY.

PEOPLE DRIVING OVER THE HIGHER HIGHWAYS INCLUDING STEVENS PASS..CHINOOK PASS...WASHINGTON PASS...THE ROAD TO PARADISE...AND THE ROAD TO HURRICANE RIDGE...WILL LIKELY ENCOUNTER SNOW...POOR VISIBILITY...AND SOME WIND. HOWEVER ACCUMULATIONS ON THE ROADS WILLGENERALLY BE THREE INCHES OR LESS.

Quote of the Day

In a campaign stop in Oregon, Obama called for the U.S. to "lead by example" on global warming. "We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say 'OK.' … That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen," he said.

A President Obama apparently would decide how to regulate the pantries, thermostats and modes of personal transportation of his fellow Americans based on the emotional temperature of every non-American who happens to harbor an opinion on how we should live.

Steven Milloy, "Global Warming's New 'Consensus'", May 23, 2008

Losonoco Follow-Up

Just a follow-up to the story about biofuel firm Losonoco deciding not to build a canola oilseed crushing processing plant at the Port of Wilma in Whitman County.

According to the Associated Press, this decision was made because Palouse farmers are not going to grow canola when wheat recently traded around $20 a bushel.

Ironically, this surge in wheat prices is being cause by wheat growers in other states switching their crops over to corn to make ethanol.

"Biofuels firm fails to make lease payments to port"

I wonder if nationwide we're going to see the wheels start to come off the biofuel craze as the starvation that results from burning food spreads.

I normally support any business in Whitman County, but I can't say I'm sad to see this deal fall through.

From yesterday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Plans to construct a $10 million oilseed crushing plant at the Port of Wilma in Whitman County appear to be shelved for now.

Port Properties and Development Manager Debbie Snell said Losonoco, an international biofuels company based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is nearly six months delinquent in its biannual lease payments to the port.

Losonoco signed a 10-year lease with the port in 2007, agreeing to pay $24,150 per year to for rights to 10.5 acres, and an additional $2,300 a year for the right of first refusal on an additional 10 acres of land at the site. Losonoco also was expected to pay a 12.48 percent leasehold tax to the state, which basically amounts to a renter's tax.

Snell said the company's most recent lease payment was due in January.

Losonoco's failure to comply with terms of the lease prompted the port commission to have port staff draft a default letter that was sent to the company last week, Snell said.

"We will be pursuing a close out of the lease in some way, shape or form," she said.

Snell said the port is waiting to hear from Losonoco officials before moving forward. It is likely that the two sides will negotiate a lease buyout or transfer to another company that would fit with the port's overall goals and vision.

"The ball's in their court," Snell said. "I am hoping the negotiations can come where it is a win-win for everyone.

"The process doesn't happen quickly," she added. "There's a lot of things to go through."

Losonoco Chief Operating Officer Don Markley declined to comment.

The potential loss of the tenant won't be overly detrimental to the port, although it will mean the county won't benefit from the company's estimated $100 million in expected annual sales.

Whitman County Commissioner Michael Largent said he always is disappointed when development in Whitman County fails, and the county stood to potentially benefit from increased tax revenues.

Largent said the county's budgets won't be affected by the situation.

"Whitman County certainly does not budget on what is expected to come," Largent said. "Certainly one would want to realize those local tax dollars before spending them."

Losonoco expected the plant to be capable of handling 12,000 tons of canola a day in its initial stages and producing 35 million to 40 million gallons of biodiesel per year once it became fully operational.

The company also expected to hire a local staff of about 20 full-time employees, in addition to employing many temporary construction workers to build its facilities.

"It is a disappointment," Snell said. "We lease land to companies like Losonoco to create economic development and jobs in Whitman County. It's unfortunate because what we really want is the increased business."

Eco-Terror Strikes Pullman

Take impressionable young minds. Add extremist rhetoric from left-wing professors. Shake well.

Graffiti today, arson tomorrow.

From today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Vehicles spray-painted with graffiti in Pullman

Graffiti was found on nine large vehicles in Pullman early Saturday morning, linking them to global warming.

Pullman Police Sgt. Dan Dornes said SUVs, trucks and vans in the parking lots of Campus Commons South, Boulder Creek and Cedar Ridge apartment complexes were spray-painted with the words "gas hog." A vehicle owner reported the first incident at 6:19 a.m. Eight other vehicles were found shortly thereafter.

Dornes said fliers about global warming also were affixed to the vehicles.

Anyone with information about the incidents is encouraged to call police at (509) 334-0802.

Quote of the Day

We all have a responsibility to be environmental stewards. But that stewardship requires that science, not political agendas, drive our public policy.

Co-founder and former leader of Greenpeace Patrick Moore, "Why I Left Greenpeace," Wall Street Journal, April 22, 2008.

Attention Scotty Cornelius, Queen Nancy, and King Solomon....

This column by Moore is a must-read.

Myths About Nuclear Energy and Global Warming

Myths About Nuclear Energy and Global Warming
Instead of hearing about global warming from the media, why not hear about it from a scientist who worked with Dr.Teller and his group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory



Detailed Biography of Dr. Bill Wattenburg

UNIVERSITY PUBLIC AFFAIRS



Background Report and

Major Public Service Contributions by

Dr. Willard Harvey (Bill) Wattenburg

Research Scientist, Research Foundation

California State University, Chico,

and Consultant to the

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory


Very few scientists in the U.S have contributed more to public service and national security than W.H. (Bill) Wattenburg has done in the form of simple, sometimes bizarre, but very workable solutions to major national security and public problems. He was raised on a farm and construction job sites in northern California. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, under some of the great physicists of the day, including Dr. Glen Seaborg and Dr. Edward Teller. He was one of the youngest ever appointed to the Berkeley faculty after finishing his Ph.D at Berkeley. He became a lifelong colleague and friend to Dr. Teller. He worked in Dr. Teller’s group at the U.C. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the design and testing of nuclear weapons. At Livermore, he made a discovery of great importance to the underground testing of nuclear weapons and test ban treaty verification. For thirty years, he has had a second profession as one the most popular and controversial nighttime radio talk show hosts in the western United States. His weekly six-hour broadcasts reach millions in eleven western states.

Bill Wattenburg’s work in several fields and his publications in scientific journals are listed below. But the public and press know him best for his impressive and often bizarre solutions to highly publicized problems in our society. He typically does basic experiments on his own to prove that his ideas are feasible before he presents them to government agencies and the press. (He actually build a section of a four-lane freeway bridge out of surplus railroad flatcars using construction equipment to prove that freeways could be repaired very quickly after earthquakes. The California Dept. of Transportation adopted his design to open major freeways thereafter.) His public demonstrations often irritate bureaucracies that are left with no excuse to ignore his ideas when the public and the press already know that they are workable. In turn, he has demonstrated a profound impatience with slow-moving government agencies.

Typically, government agencies had failed to solve major problems after spending enormous sums of money and time before Wattenburg was asked to step in by top state and federal officials. His clever creations have saved many thousands of lives and untold amounts of public resources. Dozens of scientific journal articles and major newspaper stories have chronicled his exploits and accomplishments over the past thirty years.

Bill Wattenburg grew up on farms and worked with his father in the heavy construction industry before he was given a scholarship to U.C. Berkeley. He was appointed to the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, at the completion of his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and nuclear physics at the age of 25. He specialized in the design of digital computers for computations in nuclear physics. He took a leave of absence from Berkeley in 1962 to join the physics division at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the nuclear weapons “A Division,” where he worked on the initial designs of some of the nuclear weapons in the U.S. inventory today. He spent a year at the Nevada Test Site where he tested the warhead designs on which he had worked. There he helped develop and improve underground nuclear testing technology. He continued working at Livermore part-time after he returned to teaching at Berkeley in 1964. He has continued as an unpaid consultant to the Livermore Laboratory since 1975. In turn, the Livermore Laboratory has provided equipment and resources for many of Wattenburg’s scientific experiments described herein. Bill Wattenburg was the co-founder in 1966 (along with Nobel Prize winning physicist Dr. Donald Glaser) of Berkeley Scientific Laboratories. Wattenburg was the president of Berkeley Scientific Laboratories from 1966 to 1970 when he returned to university teaching and research.

It is significant that since he left the faculty at U.C. Berkeley thirty years ago, Bill Wattenburg has never taken pay of any sort from government agencies for his public service activities. He has assigned his most significant patents to the university. His often stated position is that the public gave him a free education at two great universities, California State University, Chico, and the University of California, Berkeley. He has said that he can well afford to return a little of the good fortune that the public provided to him.

He does most of his work today as a research scientist at the Research Foundation, California State University, Chico, and as an unpaid consultant for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Many times over the last 25 years he has teamed up with top scientists and engineers at the Livermore Laboratory to test and develop his solutions to national security problems. Dr. Wattenburg is still one of the most active scientists conducting experiments at the former Nevada Nuclear Test Site.

Wake Up and Schuss the Powder

From today's Seattle Times:

The last time Seattle-area residents contended with snow this late in the season was more than three decades ago, when Seattle-Tacoma International Airport reported snow on April 17, 1972, said Johnny Burg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

[...]

"We've had powdery snow practically the whole season," said Duncan Howat, general manager at Mount Baker. "This is a great end for what's already been a record season for us."

[...]

Years ago, Mount Baker used to operate well into May — and even went until July 4 once during the 1970s, Howat said. But now its season concludes in late April, ending this year on April 27.

Eastern Washington will also be faced with snowy conditions this weekend.

It's interesting to note that the last time we had a winter this bad was in the Seventies. It was almost 33 years ago exactly, April 28, 1975, that Newsweek ran a story titled "The Cooling World."

Notice the graph in the Newsweek article of average temperature change from 1880 to 1970. It's a classic sine wave. Since then, the average temperature change swung back up again, peaking in 1998. It has remained stable since then, declining slightly. Could we be at the beginning of another downturn in temperature like in the Seventies? Who knows? The weather and climate are constantly changing. The only thing that is consistent is man's alarm and overreaction at the various trends.


One thing that does not exhibit sinusoid behavior is the amount of global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fules. It is steadily increasing. The level of atmospheric CO2 is now nearly twice that in the Seventies. But we still have a winter like this one? I'm skeptical that one climatological phenomenon (La Nina) could override all that CO2 if that truly was causing the planet to warm so dramatically.