I don’t know how recent this is, but it’s appalling. At least they don’t say that 97% think it’s catastrophic, or that we have to take action (as many ignorant, or demagogues do). But it cites the long-discredited Cook paper. Shameful.
10 thoughts on “NASA Promoting Junk Science”
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Forget the climate-change scolding.
The scolding they offer for browsing their Web site with IE 8 tells you that they are wieners . . .
I’ve seen pro AGW programs aimed at children on NASA TV – which likely makes it’s way into the schools – after all it’s “educational programming”. I was happy to see congress cutting NASA climate change studies funding – something the Republicans finally did right for once. Of course, I’m sure they’ll say it’s only because NASA is encroaching on NOAA territory. Heh.
May I commend to your readers R. Revelle and H. E. Suess (1957) Carbon Dioxide Exchange Between Atmosphere and Ocean the Question of an Increase of Atmospheric CO2 during the Past Decades, Tellus IX, 1, pp. 18-27.
Read the first page, and then read Table I on p. 19. Those were the days, my friend, when science wasn’t so gol durn polemical-political. A scientist could ask and answer questions.
One of the papers that cited this reference sought to reconcile the discrepancy between atmospheric CO2 due to human and other natural sources and the actual CO2 content of the atmosphere (as a function of ocean uptake and release), a worthy task. The idea was to precisely nail down the anthropogenic content. They hit on the idea of looking at changes in atmospheric O2, relying on the fundamental assumption that any changes in atmospheric O2 must be directly related to humanity burning fossil fuels, because the ocean doesn’t absorb/desorb oxygen. The problem with this is that there is a significant O2 sink that doesn’t involve fossil fuels, or even carbon: volcanic hydrogen sulfide.
Mount Pinatubo alone injected 17,000,000 tons of H2S into the atmosphere. All of it was eventually oxidized, changing the O2 content of the atmosphere by as much as 0.124 ppm. CO2 is changing at a rate of about 2 ppm per year. I think they need to revisit this technique.
Next, go here. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/outreach/isotopes/c13tellsus.html
What is the much shallower slope of the C13 curve in relation to its annual wiggles telling us in comparison to the much steeper slope on the total atmospheric CO2 curve?
Capture a screen shot, save it on some long term medium, and give it to your kids. They’ll need it in 30 years when the panic will, once again, be about Global Cooling, and the necessity of handing more power to the government to deal with it.
Whatevers. There is a large majority of climate scientists who agree on a small subset of questions. There is no consensus at all on a whole bunch of essential questions (how much will the temperature go up, what will be the impact, is there any real chance of successful mitigation, what will it cost, will adaptation be a better use of resources…). There is a shell game between the two of them, with activists trying to stretch the consensus from the first group to cover the second group.
Until I read the second sentence I thought you were talking about the EMDrive nonsense 🙂
If the EMDrive worked you’d think it would be a simple thing to give a public demonstration of it. But no, endless talking is the fashion of the day.
It doesn’t matter if 100% agree. It’s the 1 (not 1%) that moves science forward.