Not content with fouling their nest twice already in the past week, our friends at Hot Topic continue to entertain on climate by scoring yet another own goal.
Commenter Scaddenp tries to raise one of Renowden's favourite scare stories, "methane hydrates", and quotes a study on the imminent dangers of methane release from a warming planet.
Funny thing is, when you read the entire paper, they suggest methane's influence on global warming is probably over-rated (I've italicized the fun parts):
The growth of methane content in the atmosphere already indicates saturation levels as it is shown by the fitting of last century data. The equivalence adopted by the Kyoto Protocol may be inducing countries (including Brazil) to adopt measures for reducing methane emission whose efficacy concerning greenhouse effect attenuation is questionable. Incidentally, this has been the position of the Brazilian representatives in the Convention. Should it be confirmed that the methane content presently observed is not following the evaluations about its evolution then the subject should be revised.
Although the adoption of this equivalence can facilitate fulfillment of commitments by the countries that have taken them on, this practice can become unsustainable vis-à-vis scientific and technical evidence.
Brazil also has projects for obtaining carbon credit based on methane reduction that have been approved. These projects could be impaired if the coefficient presently used for this gas is modified. However, overvaluation of methane emission reduction effects brings down the price of carbon credit by ton equivalent of CO2. So, projects in the biomass area are twice impaired: on one hand the eventual carbon credit by CO2 elimination can be reduced by the simultaneous methane emission, on the other hand the price paid by CO2 emission elimination is reduced. Besides the arguments enumerated above, overvaluation of methane emission may be giving undue relevance to phenomena like emissions from herds of cattle where the Brazilian participation is relevant.
Yup. And here in New Zealand too where Nick Smith is boasting about the need to include cows in the new global climate tax scheme.
UPDATE: AND GIVING…
Truffle and co are now quoting the Clyde River lake midge study as proof of 'unprecedented' 20th century warming:
Gareth October 22, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Let's not take Wrathall at his word, shall we..?
From the press release:
'The past few decades have been unique in the past 200,000 years in terms of the changes we see in the biology and chemistry recorded in the cores,' said lead study author Yarrow Axford of CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. 'We see clear evidence for warming in one of the most remote places on Earth at a time when the Arctic should be cooling because of natural processes.'
The full quote is a little more illuminating than SW's careful selection, is it not?
Unfortunately for Truff, significant doubts are already being raised about other possible reasons for a midge die-off, other than warming, such as, oh, I dunno, DDT and other organopesticides of the 20th century.
But the coup de grace on this study appears to be the inconvenient truth that the weather station closest to that lake hasn't detected any warming trend over the past fifty years, so it can't have been global warming that killed the midges. This from a commenter at WattsUpWithThat:
Relevant to the Yarrow et al paper is the data from the nearby Clyde River weather station (about 50 km away from Lake Ayr). Daily data has been more or less continuous from this station since early 1946. These data show a slight cooling trend to 2008 inclusive. The warmest year ever was 1947, the next warmest 1969 and the third warmest 1998 by the annual average of the daily TMAX parameter.
The point being is that although the area cooled a bit and then warmed again, the warming of the last few decades has still not exceeded the instrumental record for the locale. So tying midge declines and diatom explosions to late 20th century anthropogenic warming isn't logical. There is no strong late 20th century warming in this area according to the instrumental record.
It's possible the lake had a delayed response to warming in the area from the 30's and 40's, but then to attribute this response to anthropogenic causes doesn't seem plausible since it's not agreed the 30's warming is mostly anthropogenic.
More reasons not to take climate change alarmists seriously anymore.
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