Article: "UN climate change panel based claims on student dissertation and magazine article"

The link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7111525/UN-climate-change-panel-based-claims-on-student-dissertation-and-magazine-article.html

" The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming. "

Which, you might recall, contained five factual errors in the first paragraph. Could you imagine you or I presenting such a 'paper' to our professors? We'd quite literally be laughed off campus.

Their 'conclusions' you'll also recall weren't based on the raw data. It turns out that they'd already destroyed the raw data! Google this, you'll find it. Again, try doing that in a paper for a professor. You and your paper would be dead in the water.

But this is climate change we're talking about, so what the hell, right?

Right?

Turns out that in examining the fossil record, there have been 15 mass-extinctions in the Earth's history. One of the most severe (killing the most species) was 250 million years ago. Called "The Great Dying" it occurred at the end of the Permian Era. There are two prominent theories as to what caused that particular E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event.) (Sorry to channel the movie Deep Impact, but it does fit.)

Theory 1: An asteroid between 6 and 12 km (kilometers) across. Although they have found C60 molecules (carbon-60) in the rocks of that time, they have yet to find definitive proof of this theory. Such proof would either be shocked quartz or iridium.

Theory 2: A massive flood-basalt of lava from the Siberian Traps. This would release an enormous amount of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and many other gases into the atmosphere.

Indeed, in looking at the fossil and geological records we find only one E.L.E. which was definitively caused by asteroid impact: the KT event of 65 million years ago (yes, the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.)

That leaves 14 other E.L.E.'s which were caused by ... global warming. No humans around 250 million years ago to cause "The Great Dying."

But to scare the pants off of people reading this (that is, if anybody actually is reading this) the fossil record supports an ongoing mass extinction happening right now. Seriously. It's called "The Holocene Extinction Event." Honestly.

" However, modern climatology suggests the current Holocene epoch is no more than the latest in a series of interglacial intervals. Furthermore, there is a continuum of extinctions since 11,000 years BCE. If only considering human impact, the vulnerability and extinction rate of species simply rises with the increase in human population, so there would be no need to separate the Pleistocene extinction from the recent one. Nevertheless, the Pleistocene extinction event is large enough and has not been resolved completely. " (Emphasis added.)

But let's go back to the article I linked to at the start of this entry. It turns out that the 'proof' that the UN climate guy was referring to had two sources:

1) Anecdotal reports from mountaineers about the changes they were observing. Two problems with this: These cannot be taken as scientific measurements and therefore are invalid. Each person might see the same event differently and thus use different words to describe it. Again, it is not scientific.

2) The other source was a paper written by a geography student who was studying for the equivalent of a Master's degree.

Neither of these was peer-reviewed. And as already stated, it contained five factual errors in just the first paragraph.

Global warming?

Yes. It is happening. No, mankind is not the only cause.

" ... modern climatology suggests the current Holocene epoch is no more than the latest in a series of interglacial intervals. "

But they have an agenda, so what the hell, right?

Right?