[edited transcript]
RUSH: Dr. Spencer [ climatologist from the University of Alabama in Huntsville] , thanks so much for joining us today.
DR. SPENCER: You’re welcome, Rush.
RUSH: Now, refresh people’s memories. You called the program once a few weeks ago discussing why you deviate from the established belief of manmade global warming. Your hypothesis basically is that precipitation is one of the primary factors and the computer models don’t measure precipitation because we can’t figure out — we don’t have the equipment, sophistication to even measure — total precipitation on the planet on a daily basis. Correct?
DR. SPENCER: Well, let’s be a little more specific than that. Basically, precipitation systems act as the atmosphere’s air conditioner. It’s kind of like in your house, the air is constantly being recycled, right? Well, precipitation systems constantly recycle the atmosphere’s air. The air you were breathing was probably, in the last few days, going through a precipitation system. Those systems are what cause most of the earth’s greenhouse effect, which is water vapor and clouds.
RUSH: Precisely. I remember. When you say “most,” could you attach a percentage of greenhouse-gases to water vapor?
DR. SPENCER: Over 90%. Our addition of CO2 has enhanced the greenhouse effect by maybe 1% so far.
RUSH: Okay. So that’s automobiles, exhalation of human breath, factory smoke stacks, all these things that we’re being told are really polluting the planet are really such a small percentage of the so-called greenhouse gases. By the way, is it a bad thing the planet might warm up?
DR. SPENCER: I don’t know. I think that’s a toss up.
RUSH: If you go back and look at — I forget what it was called, but back in the days of the Vikings, they were able to grow crops and so forth in Greenland, able to traverse the North Atlantic and come to North America. The Northern Hemisphere was a lot more fertile than it was. My point is that the idea that global warming is destructive, calamitous and deadly is a bit absurd.
DR. SPENCER: Yes. I think a little bit warmer would actually be better and I think the extra CO2… They estimate crop productivity has gone up 15 percent just because of the extra CO2 we’ve put in the atmosphere.
RUSH: So it’s a good thing in ways. All right. Now, I’m titillated here. Cold air, unusually cold air is responsible for the subtropical storm off the coast of Georgia?
DR. SPENCER: Yeah. The hint there is it’s not a tropical storm; it’s a subtropical storm. These things don’t usually form. It’s been a few years since we’ve had one like this. But it didn’t happen because of unusually warm ocean water. It happened because there was unusually cold air that came unusually far south, and there was such a contrast between that cold air mass and the sea surface temperatures which are running about normal in that area that then that can lead to a storm. Remember, most storminess on the earth is related to temperature contrasts.
RUSH: Right. Unusually cold air that came unusually far south.
DR. SPENCER: Right. If we’re going to start blaming that on global warming, then you can explain anything with global warming.
Emphasis mine.
RUSH: No, they do! You didn’t hear it, I don’t think. Laurie David is blaming the Malibu wildfires on global warming. With every weather calamity, they do two things: they portray it as unique. They try to convince people that we’re experiencing severe weather today unlike we’ve ever known or the planet has ever known, and that then is because of manmade global warming. It’s a perfect political agenda the way they’ve got it set up.
DR. SPENCER: Right, and you just reminded me of a news story that came out yesterday. You may not have noticed it. Do you remember the name Chris Landsea?
RUSH: No.
DR. SPENCER: Well, he’s one of the Hurricane Centers lead researchers and forecasters. He had quit the IPCC because he thought it was becoming too political.
RUSH: The UN body.
DR. SPENCER: The UN bunch, right. Anyway, he’s now convinced that 2005 wasn’t a “record year” for tropical cyclones, and it’s mainly because we’ve only had satellites which can see the Central and Eastern Atlantic since 1970s. I’ve got a graphic I can e-mail you that maybe you want to put up. The previous record year was 1933. I’ve got this graphic that shows how all of those storms were in the Western Atlantic, and then the new supposed record year, 2005, they’re everywhere. In other words, if we had satellites back in ’33, there probably would have been five or six more storms that would have been seen, and 2005 then wouldn’t be a record.
RUSH: We’ve been naming storms since 1951. Before 1951 they were called “wind” and “rain.” Now they’re called Hurricane X and Y and all of this. Well, something else about that. We say that hurricane season starts June 1. Now, this is a statistical thing, but it’s only because of humans’ desire, and probably necessity in some places, to name things and to create boundaries for things. Something that happens like this subtropical storm in April is said to be “unusual,” when there have been — since we’ve been paying attention to recording these things — I read today, 17. This is the 17th named storm — obviously, since 1951 — in May. So it’s not unusual.
DR. SPENCER: Right, and even if it were unusual, it’s unusual from the standpoint that it was caused by unusually cold air —
RUSH: Well, I appreciate that.
DR. SPENCER: — not because it’s unusually warm out.
RUSH: In fact, I was watching this thing on Saturday on an aviation website, and I saw this big lull out there, and they had it graphically turning like a cyclone. I’m looking on various weather sites and nobody is saying anything about it or mentioning it. It looked pretty intimidating to me even though it was way offshore. It wasn’t a couple, three days later that it happened to be categorized and named. But what’s the difference in a subtropical storm and a tropical storm?
DR. SPENCER: Well, like I said, a subtropical storm forms from a contrast between sea surface temperatures that are just warm enough, but then with a cold air mass, there’s such a big temperature contrast there that it can really feed the convection. So it starts out as sort of a high latitude, a regular low-pressure area, and it can sort of transition into a tropical storm. You might have remembered a few years ago there was the supposed “first-ever hurricane” off of Brazil.
RUSH: Yes, I do remember that.
DR. SPENCER: That was supposedly due to global warming. That was another one of those things. It formed in an unusually cold air mass and the water it was sitting over was not unusually warm.
RUSH: Now that you mention this, I played golf on Sunday, and it was unusually humid and sweltery. It was, “Drink a lot of water,” on the golf course. Monday and Tuesday here, down here in south of Florida, we had lows in the low 60s, barely got to 70. Humidity was gone. It was unusually cold air that made it even this far south, farther south than the storm is. I’ve lived here since 1997. (Here we go with the same anecdotal stuff that the global warming people use, “I lived here since 1997.”) I don’t remember ever the lows — inland here they got here to the high 50s in the first part of May. That’s unheard of to me since I’ve been here for 10 years.
DR. SPENCER: It’s been unusually cool here in Alabama. I’ve been here 23 years, and a couple of weeks ago, for the first time that I saw in 23 years, we had a late freeze that froze not just the flowers but half the trees. The new foliage died, and a lot of these trees are not going to come back. I’ve never seen that happen before. Some of them are 100-year old oak trees.
RUSH: We’ll pray for them. The Gaia has been unkind to some of her subjects. Dr. Roy Spencer from the University of Alabama at Huntsville. Thanks for your time. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you, and it’s enlightening. So the subtropical storm out there, Andrea Mitchell, is the result of unusually cold air coming unusually far south.
RUSH: From the left coast to the right coast, here on the EIB Network. Loveland, Colorado and Doug.
CALLER: I was raised in south Louisiana and I’m in Loveland now. My wife was laughing while reading the newspaper this morning, because of the story about the tropical storm.
RUSH: Subtropical storm.
CALLER: Well, that’s what got her attention. We started talking. I even called some friends of mine that still live there. None of us could remember any press coverage about a subtropical storm. I went online and started doing some research into it here, and they used to call them “Alpha, Beta, Charlie,” et cetera, all the way down the list back in the ’70s, but they never really reported or talked about them until 2002 when they gave them regular names.
RUSH: Yeah, tropical storms are usually the first things named, not subtropical storms. –
CALLER: Well, it got my attention because, well… Due to you, I went ahead and purchased and read Michael Creighton’s “State of Fear.”
RUSH: Ahhh! Good book.
CALLER: Excellent book. Excellent book. I plan to make copies of all the graphs in it, et cetera — and it brought to mind how things are misreported all the time, and because now that we can name subtropical storms, we can have more storms to blame! I don’t know why they didn’t call this one “AlGore.”
RUSH: (laughing) Well, because these things are destructive.
CALLER: That’s true.
RUSH: I think we need to start naming thunderstorm systems.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH Every low-pressure system that starts in the west and moves east needs a name.
CALLER: Fronts, anything. Warm front, cold front should probably be named and we should be warned about it.
RUSH: (Chuckling). Cold front, yeah. We could make a mockery of this. I’ll tell you, you know what’s going to happen? I want to prepare you. The traditional beginning of the hurricane season, of course, is June 1st — and this is only because we say so! God didn’t decree it. Mother Nature didn’t decree it. Now we’ve got a subtropical storm out there. Why don’t we move the start of hurricane season to May 1st? Think what the bureaucrats can do that! Think of how they could encroach on our freedom and raise taxes by expanding the hurricane season, and help the insurance companies charge even more money, and help the people that sell siding. Yeah, you gotta get that siding and shutters and so forth. Anyway, I guarantee you (I know this is going to happen) on June 1st — let me check. I want to find out here what day of the week June 1st is. June 1st… Oh! Perfect! It’s a slow news day: Friday! June 1st is a Friday!
So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to have network and cable network camera crews out there on the coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico, scanning the horizon, on the first of June. They know there won’t be anything out there to see, because if there is something they can see, it means the hurricane is at least a week old. So they’re going to go out there June 1st. There will not be any hurricane. They’ll scan the horizon, and in a little box there will be a running b-roll of the destruction from Hurricane Katrina — and they’ll sneak in a couple blips of the destroyed town Greensburg, Kansas, even though that was a tornado. They’ll have their reporters out there monitoring the circumstances and the situation, and we’ll get all the statistics about how the death and destruction has occurred since 2005, “the peak hurricane year” — which, of course, is BS — and they’ll be out there, and it’s all to create a climate of fear. It’s all to create tumult and chaos, and to get everybody all ratcheted up and ready for destruction, death and disaster — and it will go on. They’ll make a big deal out of it Friday June 1st since it is a Friday.
kate:
this kind of crap is exactly the reason why NO ONE (apart from the same 20 assholes who comment here everytime you fart) take you seriously.
this dumpsite becomes increasingly toxic as you scramble to find ways to increase the dope levels in your posts.
you’re a pusher. plain and simple.
Well, you’ll just have to go surf one of those 200 visits per day voices of authority on the progressive blogroll.
Nice knowing ya!
[deleted – keep it civil, please – ED]
Every time the weather changes…
Jeffrey: Wow! Why the hissy fit? Either something in the post really poked you hard … some truth perhaps … or else you got sand in your … never mind.
Sorry. Its just that I get tired of these lefties coming into Kate’s house and crapping on the carpet.
Kate, must say I enjoyed reading the post. I know that Jeffey thinks I’m just a common everyday a$$hole, but I agree with Dr. Spencer. It would be nice to have the world a wee bit warmer! My wife and I had company tonight and we thought it would be nice to sit and have coffee in the front yard with a fire going. Well, we had the fire, but we had to get blankets and a propane heater as well because it was so cold. Lots colder than normal. Must be all that global warming, eh!
Gee, do you think we could be headed for another “cooling” period on this planet? Wouldn’t that be a hoot watching all those Kyoto-ites, trying to explain that as “Global Warming” at it’s worst. Heh.
That’s an interesting commentary by Dr Spencer.
One of the questions that has always puzzled me about this global warming is where does the COLD air come from, that sets the new record low temperatures which we see regularly?
Add weather phobia to the long list of urban liberal fears.
When the going gets tough, “climate change” pitch-hits for “global warming”. So, yes, you *can* explain anything and everything with global warming — it’s a very convenient truth!
The main thing to remember is this: Man is bad. Seinfeld finger-man: “very, very bad”. Except for environmentalists. They are good. And, because they are good, they must be exempt from the lifestyle constraints they wish to impose on the rest of us.
Jeff, leave them alone they are comfortable in their delusions and they would prefer stay ignorant to reality. These people are by far out number by other Canadians who do care about the environment and through the electoral process will eventually be forced to conform to save the planet, whether they like it or not.
I’ve found out that trying to teach one of these people about global warming is like trying to teach a dog to play the violin. No matter how patient and understanding you are of its limitations, it’s simply not equipped to handle the task.
that funny alby. coming from a troll with a mind the size and ability of a flea.
Gee, do you think we could be headed for another “cooling” period on this planet? Wouldn’t that be a hoot watching all those Kyoto-ites, trying to explain that as “Global Warming” at it’s worst. Heh.
Oh, but you see, they now have an all encompassing term called CLIMATE CHANGE. The enviro-nuts once thought that an imminent ice age was upon us. Since that was debunked, they needed something new so they came out with “global warming”. And since “global warming” has been laughed out of credibility, they now have CLIMATE CHANGE, which can conveniently range from cooling to warming to suit whatever they want to “prove”.
jeff, alby…
I come to the comments section at SDA for the comics — like you 2 guys. If Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton ever put pen to paper, it would have come out just like you 2 write.
You know, the science is turning 100% against that weird pie-in-the-sky manmade global warming balony that dough heads like you like to believe in. I’ll bet you 2 idiots vote New Democrat… my sides are splitting!
“You know, the science is turning 100% against that weird pie-in-the-sky manmade global warming…”
All that coming from a guy who can’t spell “to”.
“two”
I am sorry, that other guy is an embarresment to all the “jeff’s” in the world.
I had a friend who said the climate was changing.
I said yup it was and asked why.
He said global warming caused by humans.
I asked if the last ice age melt was caused by humans.
He saw that climate changes over time.
Does anyone really think we could change the climate even if we wanted too?
Well Alby…I must say.You have truly proven your “higher level” of education. I guess nobody has informed you in your pre-kidergarden class that “two” means 2,as in a number. Are you off your meds,or just on cheap drugs??
Kate, I’m just glad to see you survived mini-tornado Tiffany.
Well Alby…I must say.You have truly proven your “higher level” of education. I guess nobody has informed you in your pre-kidergarden class that “two” means 2,as in a number. Are you off your meds,or just on cheap drugs??
Yeah, I saw that too
Don’t you just love it when holier-than-thou types make smug little comments about spelling, then promptly screw it up?
Kinda like climatologists making smug proclamations and then get proven wrong by actual events and actual science.
No wonder they are getting defensive — nobody enjoys being made to look like a bloody fool.
“I asked if the last ice age melt was caused by humans.”
Do you pretend to know what caused the last Ice Age to come to an end? Do you think it’s the same thing that caused Venus’ atmosphere to end up with run away greenhouse effect? Venus 97% CO2, Average temperature: 464 C
Well thanx alby for helping me understand how to spell the number 2.
Y’see its just that I can’t seem to get a handle on complicated worldly concepts like that ’cause I think I’m a mouthbreather and I’m sure I drag my knuckles.
It is reassuring for us challenged types however ,that there are guys like you out there to spell out what we aren’t able to grasp.
That, Alby, was the funniest set of comments I’ve seen all week. Bravo!
It was a bad (and admittedly failed) attempt a humour, deal with it.
The murderous “caring” of the left like Alby and Jeff have decided that their “moral cause” based on fraudulent science trumps the suffering of the developing world’s poor.
They are despicable human beings.
Well Alby,I will give credit where it is due.Sorry if I missed the humour that you tried to get across. It is late.
“Well Alby,I will give credit where it is due.Sorry if I missed the humour that you tried to get across. It is late.
Posted by: Justthinkin at May 13, 2007 12:44 AM”
Well to be honest it did look funnier before I pressed the “post” button. I think you’re right, it is late.
jeff, alby…what a pair of bozos.
Are you trying to make lefies look like fools, alby? If so, you are doing a good job. Keep up the low-brow humor; we all need a good laugh – along with the spelling lessons – what a hoot!
alby….climate does change
it has and it will.
if you want, I will debate weather humans are the cause of global warming on Mars too.
jeff you will debate whether, not weather, humans are a cause of bad spelling?
There is no spell check on the posts.
You can spell better than me. You win.
Sorry Kate
How does my spelling weaken my argument climate change is a hoax?
How do my weak spelling skills lesson mypoint that the climate does and will change and humans could not affect it even if we wanted too?
And how bout(spelling) the argument that a warmer planet might be good?
Attack spelling and grammer all you want. Makes all of you look like intellectual blowhards.
Attack the message, I can respect that.
Kate:
Thanks for posting the Rush interview with Dr. Roy Spencer. Keep up the good work. I’ve had to cut back on my internet time but still check your site every day. I grew up in NE Alabama and spent 12 years sweltering in classroms in May. If it’s hot there now it sure isn’t anything unusual for May.
Jack
If only there were some old book around that mentioned floods and droughts the people born yesterday might start to believe that weather isn’t something new, that weather has actually been around for a couple millenia or more.
well jeff it was more of a grammar check than spell because while you spelled the word right it wasn’t used in the right context, which is fine unless you’re trying to prove a point…which I believe you were.
jeff you can’t just say “I’m write” and expect people to agree. I’m a pair pear pare tree! say what you mean and mean what you say. spelling is everything in my language
A quick visit to Jeff’s blog shows why he said what he did. He seems to take some glee in trashing both the Conservatives and Liberals although he really has it in for PMSH. He takes exception of Dr. Roy Spencer because he is in a faith based organization. In other words those who are religious are not permitted to have an opinion in Jeff’s world be it based in science or not. My guess is that Jeff is either an anarchist of sorts, an idiot or a card carrying member of the NDP. Actually, being in the NDP would include the other two.
Peter
I think there are two separate people named “jeff” posting on this thread in case some people missed that?
..an anarchist, idiot or card carrying NDP? hell give me full blown idiot any day!
that’s pretty funny peter
..an anarchist, idiot or card carrying NDP? hell give me full blown idiot any day!
that’s pretty funny peter
As I have said many times, I have experienced climate change four times a year for (secret) years. It is called winter, spring, summer and fall. Today we had severe global warming in our house, until someone checked the thermostat and discovered it had accidentally been turned up to 76. And, think of the businesses that thrive on each change in climate, and if the change is late, they are in trouble.
Jeff: “Does anyone really think we could change the climate even if we wanted too?”
That would a damn fine weapon, I’d say.
The new theory on a major weather driver is the amount of cosmic rays that are able to enter the earths atmosphere and cause water vapour to precipitate out into cloud formation!This is no longer a theory but has been proven in a lab by some scientists in europe.
Kate, you’re such a liar. A big ol’ liar. I’m surprised you’ve never been charged with anything…have you?
I guess the paranoia and dementia that keep you locked up in your rural hovel also keeps you out of trouble.
i don’t remember who said this but it seems to appy to what is being attemted with global warming. “men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction”
Jeff’s site, like his photography, does not rise to a particularly high standard. Seems to be characteristic of most of the left. Why are they all so afraid of honest discourse? I have yet to come across a leftoblog that conducts itself in a reasonably intelligent manner, willing to entertain worthwhile discussion with a fact-based consideration of different viewpoints. Bitch all you want, SDA accomplishes this when the participants are willing.
And Alby, when you’ve finished spinning your wheels at U of M, go off to a real university, because you are apparently not getting a higher education there. The purpose of a university education is to open the mind and cultivate the skills that accompany advanced reasoning. You consistently demonstrate neither an open mind nor any advanced reasoning skills.
As for Jeff the snapshooter, Kate, you should consider suing him for his latest web entry – that appears actionable. Nice thing about defamation in Canada is that its not necessary to prove injury.
The purpose of a university education is to open the mind and cultivate the skills that accompany advanced reasoning.
Posted by: Skip at May 13, 2007 7:33 AM
The purpose of a university education is to indoctrinate you into the leftard/dipper/socialist philosophy of following the cult’s reasoning as you get rid of the middle class.
There. Fixed that for ya Skip 🙂
Justthinkin: My age is showing. You may be right. In my day, there actually was a vigorous discourse around all sides of an issue… LOL!
Skip; Wayyyyyyyy back when I attended an institute of higher learning like you, that was what it was, higher learning, with reasoned discourse and seeking to find the answers. Now? My 19 year-old niece just finished her first year at university. Funny as it may sound, she said the main concerns were how to schedule your day for the most time off and not screw up your course load, and what time the Friday drunk-fest started. Hehehhee…sounds familiar,but 2nd year will set her straight..lol