Shelter From The Storm

In a bold display of editorial independence the NY Times rains on the CW embraced by their Upper West Side readership:

An ‘Increase’ in Big Storms May Just Be Better Detection
By CORNELIA DEAN

Since the mid-1990s, hurricanes and tropical storms have struck the Atlantic Ocean with unusual frequency — or have they? Two new studies suggest that the situation may not be so clear.

One, by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, suggests that the high number of storms reported these days may reflect improved observation and analysis techniques, not a meteorological change for the worse. The second, by researchers at Pennsylvania State University and elsewhere, suggests that there were as many storms a thousand years ago, when Atlantic Ocean waters were unusually warm, as today.

The work does not suggest that people should stop worrying about whether global warming increases the threat of bad weather on the Atlantic Coast. But it offers new evidence that predicting what lies ahead may be difficult.

Predictions are always difficult, especially about the future. 

Comments

[LUN for Steve's dismantling of Nature and Mann.]

Accumulated Cyclone Energy is at a 30 year low. H/t to Ryan Maue in Florida.

The Penn State stuff is Michael Piltdown Mann on the loose again with more hockey stick nonsense.

[matt]

the Stormchaser planes and satellites were not looking as far out into the Atlantic up until not long ago and didn't know what they were looking at. Perhaps that perhaps would explain some of it.

That this has been discussed extensively in the meteorological field shows how on top of the story the NYT is.

[Veeshir]

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

Don't worry, they have it covered.
Apparently, global worming is going to increase, decrease and make the same amount of hurricanes.

It's all scientifical and stuff, you wouldn't understand.

[LUN for Pielke Fils's dismantling of Mann and Nature.]

Check out also Roger Pielke Jr's demonstration of the inconsistency of the Piltdown Mann's reasoning.

[The science is unsettling.]

The cognitive dissonance in the alarmist community is approaching lethal levels. Really, they are no longer making any sense.

[We'll get climate catastrophe from crop failure from cooling. And millions will die..]

Dropping temperatures and CO2 levels continuing to rise have revealed the hoax, and not a minute too soon. The Australian Senate just voted down their equivalent of Cap and Trade called the Emissions Trading Scheme, but many commenters think it is a temporary victory.

If China and India weren't being recalcitrant about Copenhagen, in hopes of gaining competitive advantage from Western guilt about past CO2 use, we'd still be in big trouble, but I believe Copenhagen is going to be a catastrophe for the warmistas. The globe is cooling, folks; for how long nobody knows, but it's thrown a monkey wrench into the works of the tranzi's hoping to enslave the world with energy policy.

I call that Western guilt the 'precious conceit of a Western elite'.

[What that means, not even kim knows, but it's not business as usual.]

And the sun remains spotless, Solar Cycle 24 gradually coming on, but much slower and lower than generally expected. And the spots will become invisible in 2015.

[Jack is Back!]

Living in Florida smack damn on the Atlantic coast gives me pause to reflect on all the hull-a-baloo regarding 'canes and whether we will have less or more each year. They are inevitable and most predictable depending on how "el nino" is performing in the western pacific. Since I am on the First Coast between Daytona and St. Augustine we get deflected blows - not straight on as they do in the panhandle and south florida or the gulf cities. We also get the tail-end charlies - rain squalls and winds as the deflections pass through. If you go to LUN you can follow the birthing of tropical depressions through full blown 'canes. Of course, science and technology have improved forecasting and instant analysis that the politicians like Ray Nagin just can't keep up with to save lives. What is amazing about the story in the Times is that we are finally figuring out that there may be more of something than previously thought because we have better models? Gee, are we getting smarter too?

[Neo]

Climate change is very real. Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I’m flying. The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes. -- Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow

She must be feeling "hot flashes"

[However, there is something brand new off the West coast of Africa.]

Right Neo; she's not sensing anything real. As mentioned above, Accumulated Cyclone Energy, the total energy in cyclones and hurricanes worldwide is at a thirty year low. Note that two months into the Hurricane Season we've yet to have a named storm?

[Scroll to 9:19 AM in the 'Older Comments']

Gad, I hope a climate troll shows up.

[C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. Batter Batter.]

All dressed up and no place to go.

[I love you, Sue.]

::grin::

[larry]

OT, but Tiger and Paddy are tied for the PGA lead at the moment. I'd love to see a rematch.

[Amongst a passel of fools, Mann just has to be the giant..]

As another commenter has pointed out, Michael Mann finds a Medieval Windy Period, from unusually warm Atlantic waters, in a Medieval Warm Period that he denied with his hockey stick.

[sylvia]

That is amazing the NYT ran that. Maybe the warmistas are finally coming to their senses. They have to, if they are not blind. And noticing that Manhattan is still above water, just like it always has been for over the last 100 years.

[Boatbuilder]

Oh my God, Kim! What did the capitalist world do to cause the decline in sunspots, and why didn't George Bush do anything to stop them?

[Dissonance clangs around the crew like tidal waves.]

Another amazing thing, and granted that it is short term, is that the steady rate of sea level rise from the end of the LIttle Ice Age a couple of hundred years ago, has not ameliorated. There is little to no sea level rise in the last three years.

[Who has time to proofread while scuffling with imaginary opponents?]

Uh, that was supposed to be 'has now ameliorated'.

[It's just the most marvelous natural mystery of our age. Interesting times, indeed, and these may well get lethal.]

Heh, the decline in sunspots is now worse than we thought when we took office in January.

Seriously, just what the sun is doing is unknown. I believe it is presaging a new Grand or Lesser Minimum like the Maunder and Dalton Minimums. The globe cooled then and the spots got absent or wanky, but there were also a series of volcanos, and absent a mechanism for the sun effecting our climate, that such dearth of sunspots leads necessarily to a cooling globe is just speculation.

[Fresh Air]

Bail out the sun!

[Google Livingston and Penn for the Cheshire Cat Spots.]

It's important to remember that what the sun is doing is not physically apocolyptic. The dynamo that is the sun is not dying or anything like that, and the magnetic structures which are represented by the sunspots will continue. It's just that the inherent magnetism of the surface manifestations will be come weak enough that they'll fall out of the visible spectrum.

The social consequences of a century of cooling may well be apocolyptic, however. A holocaust of starvation will follow the inevitable crop failures. It is impossible that the conceited western elite can be insulated from the consequences of such events. A five percent die-off of humanity is 350 million people. Right, Charlie?

[Dave (in MA)]

The globe is cooling, folks; for how long nobody knows, but it's thrown a monkey wrench into the works of the tranzi's hoping to enslave the world with energy policy.

Not really. The Branch Algorians just changed the terminology to "climate change", which can't be disproved. If temperatures trend upward: evidence of climate change. If they trend downward: evidence of climate change. If they don't change, well, that's never happened before: evidence of climate change.

[Yes, man does effect regional climate with land use changes. LUN for Pielke Pere's site.]

Right, Dave, and that little trick has fooled a lot of people. But even the densest among us can figure out that the cooling part of climate change can't be done by CO2, hence man is not responsible. So long as the globe cools, and even kim can't answer that one, the understanding that natural forces predominate in climate regulation will become ever more widespread.

Unless I'm dead wrong, and the well funded propagandists win after all. It is still a close run thing.

[Boatbuilder]

I'm still pretty sure it's all Bush's fault.

[hit and run]

There is little to no sea level rise in the last three years.

No, no, no. I don't believe that for one second.

The rise of the oceans began to slow at precisely 9:21 pm on June 3rd, 2008.

I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that that was the moment.

Which raises a very interesting question. Have we finally found that rarest of creatures? The elusive campaign promise that Obama has actually not broken?

[Barry Dauphin]

New NHL franchise-- the Pennsylvania Piltdowns, a throw back team like from the days gone by, who play old time hockey. Michael Mann GM.

[Jim Ryan]

I knew kim would be stopping by.

[glasater]

kim is awesome!

Sounds like governments worldwide should be socking away a whole bunch of food and whatnot to keep the younger folks going for a time until they learn how to adapt to the cooling climate.

[Thomas Collins]

Is it kim who is posting under stage names longer than Russian novels? C'mon kim, come out of the stage name closet! I've been wondering where you've been (now I realize you might have been here all along).

[Like Pielke Pere, who's gone to war.]

Thanks, g, but I've ruined my life with obsession over this for the last three years. We face big trouble ahead, and it is exactly the opposite of what we're being led by the nose to believe.

Just in the last few months the urgency of my obsession has relaxed; better advocates than me are now on the scene.

[Jim Ryan]

Actually, kim, you've been quite inspiring. I've been lurking at WUWT a lot and reading up.

[I wouldn't have it any other way.]

OK, Jim, so I've enhanced my life. Yes, that's the ticket.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

absent a mechanism for the sun effecting our climate,

Uh, the Sun's that big bright shiny warm thing, right? I can think of a couple possible mechanisms....

[bgates]

the Sun's that big bright shiny warm thing, right?

No, they were just talking about that on CNN. What you're describing is the feeling of embracing Barack Obama's hopes and dreams for America.

[I think Leif Svalgaard is a miracle of the blogosphere.]

Right, Chaco, it seems obvious, doesn't it. But the mechanism, if there is one, eludes us. The big changes, like in and out of the ice ages, are Milankovitch cyclic, having to do with changes in the inclination and the orbit of the earth, and not with solar changes. That lesser changes are determined by the sun is probably so, but not yet shown and big prizes await those who show it. Personally, I lay a lot of stock in Svensmark's thesis about cosmic rays affecting cloud formation, because clouds can dramatically affect the albedo, or reflectivity of the earth. This is a mechanism for Richard Lindzen's 'iris theory' to change the amount of energy captured by the earth. In Svensmark's idea, the cosmic rays are affected by magnetic and other manifestations from the sun, not just total solar insolation, which varies by too little to explain widely varying climate.

I think I've never heard so loud
The quiet message in a cloud.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

A five percent die-off of humanity is 350 million people. Right, Charlie?

Well, yeah, but the notion that a new Dalton Minimum, or even a Maunder Minimum, will cause a five percent die off seems to presuppose that we don't have any way to deal with any of the effects in the 200-400 year time scale we're talking about. Considering that the second derivative of population is already negative, it probably would show up in a small change in increase. And — I had to work this twice to believe it — a difference of 5 percent over 200 years is a difference of one ten millionth of a percent per year.

So, in other words, your notion of a five percent die off means a difference of less than one birth per year.

[JM Hanes]

Thomas Collins:

I love reading those voluminous screen names! It's like a regular walk on the lighter side in a cold (colder, coldest) world

hit:

"The elusive campaign promise that Obama has actually not broken?"

I'd check with the SEIU for the answer to that one.

[If I can amuse JMH, I'm well amused, too.]

Inteesting, Charlie, but your manipulating of the time scale may mask the problem. First of all, five percent die-off is utterly conjectural; it was meant to be illustrative. Second of all, mass starvation by crop failure is not going feel like one less birth per year.

[JM Hanes]

I believe I read somewhere that a global drop of 1° (F or C?) would eliminate wheat growing in Canada & Russia. Perhaps someone with a fractal screen name knows whether that stat is accurate?

[war and piece and crime and punishment]

The egotism involved in thinking that humans can really fundamentally alter the ecosystem is massive

BTW that provision that didn't exist in the Senate bill dissappeared like 'the flying dutchman"

[Bill in AZ]

It's more like a 20-40 year period for either a Dalton or Maunder minimum event. These aren't ice ages. They occur roughly every 187 years, some are colder than others. This one looks like it might be somewhere between a Dalton and a Maunder in magnitude, based on what the sun is doing - er, not doing.

[Thomas Collins]

Oh, I think they are just fine, too, JMH. I still wish that, on occasion, the commenter formerly known as kim would reprise "kim."

[caro]

Where did the recent comments go from the right hand column?

[The guy whose appears to be posting under a stage name resembling an alcoholic beverage but actually is posting under his real name.]

Now actual Russian novel names are appearing in the stage name part of the comments

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Inteesting, Charlie, but your manipulating of the time scale may mask the problem.

I'm going to assume you don't mean "manipulating of the time scale" in the sense that you're suggesting I was being purposefully misleading.

First of all, five percent die-off is utterly conjectural; it was meant to be illustrative.

If you don't like the numbers you made up, make up some more. They're your numbers.

Second of all, mass starvation by crop failure is not going feel like one less birth per year.

Well, since there's currently a general food surplus, I suppose you could suppose I don't find this very believable either. But, again, I was just using your numbers.

In any case, you're talking about going back to the 1820's climate, with modern husbandry. The wheat belt might move south, but both edges of the wheat belt would move south: we'd have more spring wheat in the Dakotas, and more winter wheat in Texas, and even into northern Mexico.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

It's more like a 20-40 year period for either a Dalton or Maunder minimum event. These aren't ice ages. They occur roughly every 187 years, some are colder than others. This one looks like it might be somewhere between a Dalton and a Maunder in magnitude, based on what the sun is doing - er, not doing.

But the temperature variations associated seem to have something more like a 200 year time scale; that variation is part of what Mann et al are having trouble with.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Speaking of Mann et al, our home town boys Roger Pielke pere et fils are pretty much wiping the floor with him today.

Here, the two of them have a paper in press showing a significant warming bias in the way temperature data has been generated.

Here, Roger the Younger shows that Mann makes contradictory assumptions in two recent papers, and that each assumption is necessary to show the respective paper's conclusion.

['One birth a year' is absurd.]

Of course not, Chaco; you do have an interesting point. But you are still missing the point. Crop failures with resultant starvation is not a phenomenon stretching over 200 years, they tend to be discrete events, with bad years intermixed with the good. Now, if we get 200 years solidly of crop failures, it isn't going to be a 5% die-off. I don't know the exact figures that JMH seeks, but less energy getting to earth, and with climate zones moving south, it will become more difficult to feed the world. If the zones move south, the amount of land capable of raising food will decrease. Don't let your bias interfere with your otherwise clear vision.

My big objection to the climate hysteria is that we are being wrongfooted into mitigating a warming trend when we should be adapting to a cooling trend. I certainly don't think it's impossible that we can improve the efficiency of food production, but cheap energy is going to be a big part of that mix. We are trying to solve a non-existent problem and ignoring a potentially far worse one.

[PaulL]

Charlie, do you spin numbers for Geitner or something? The way you play with figures is astounding.

First, Kim mentioned 100 years, then you jumped to 200-400 years. But that's fine, you stated forthright that you were changing the situation.

But then you come up with this nutso statement of "a five percent die off means a difference of less than one birth per year." They're going to have to invent a new grade for you on that one, maybe F to the 100th power.

[StrawmanCometh]

pleeze splain it to me, and it will probably take a couple of tries to make it right :
Storm intensity is a function of low altitude heat and high altitude cool generating the heat engine. This is a Newton's 2nd giving.
Warmistastas tell us the intense storms of the mid ninety's were the result of "Greenhouse Gas" warming.
Well, if the troposphere were warming, which agw predicts, storm intensity would actually decrease. But it increased, which would indicated surface warming.
Now, storm intensity has decreased. Also average global temperatures.
Seems cut and dried to me.
Yes, there are two America's.

storm intensity would DECREASE

[matt]

in the meantime, ChaCo, Canada is screwed.

[BB Key]

Stormy weather:
WRAL-TV Raleigh NC - 2 time Democrat Presidential candidate, former Vice Presidential candidate and 1 term Senator Johm Edwards to admit paternity supposedly related to federal investigation of campaign finances.

[Jesse Jackson]

Yeah,
If the dem's ever run another white guy I will cut his nutz off

[docweasel]

the last line of the post reminds me of Kriswold's line in Ed Wood:

"We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going"

[Pops]

This reminds me of the story that the number of tornadoes was increasing every 10-12 years since the 1950s.

Totally coincidentally, the US weather detection systems were upgrading and improved their tornado detection systems every 10 -12 years.

I am sure the studies are out there...no time to look right now, but the most amazing stupidity I've witnessed is where the liberals and Obama claim they can get huge savings in health care because they will stop all the unneeded testing, etc. The problem is those statistics are always based on AFTER THE FACT information.

Gee, we tested 30,000 people for such, when we only detected in 7,000 times - therefore we are testing too much.

The simple fact is you still don't know if it's too much ahead of time.

What you end up with is a system that pays for the cheap screening tests and only finally allows the expensive tests when its too late to treat the problem.

[Frau Genug]

ObamaCare: "... waiting rooms replete with back issues of TIME and Newsweek."

That's still better than having TV monitors with reruns of Obama Speeches on a constant loop.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

But then you come up with this nutso statement of "a five percent die off means a difference of less than one birth per year." They're going to have to invent a new grade for you on that one, maybe F to the 100th power.

Check the arithmetic yourself Paul, it's just like compound interest. You've got a 5 percent difference over 200 years. So that's 1.05 times the starting value total. To get the annual percentage, you take the 200th root of 1.05; easiest to do that with logarithms, so that's ((ln 1.05)/200)^e, or 1.51240967 10^-10. Current annual growth rate of the population is about 1.19 percent, and 6 billion × 0.019 is 114 million. 114 million times 1.5 × 10^-10 is what?

[Charlie (Colorado)]

in the meantime, ChaCo, Canada is screwed.

Why? They grow way more food than their population needs, and wheat isn't the only crop in the world, honest. Changing to durum in place of spring wheat would make a diference too.

[drjohn]

The second, by researchers at Pennsylvania State University and elsewhere, suggests that there were as many storms a thousand years ago, when Atlantic Ocean waters were unusually warm, as today.

Who is this newpaper?????

[drjohn]

Since the mid-1990s, hurricanes and tropical storms have struck the Atlantic Ocean with unusual frequency — or have they? Two new studies suggest that the situation may not be so clear.

Except, of course, when the NY Slimes makes the predictions.

Tom, there are only three months and 29 days left....

[matt]

I was being facetious ChaCo....then again, we apparently need more tundra, so maybe it is a good thing.....The Great White North becoming greater, whiter....

[PaulL]

Let's not make this more fancy than necessary, Charlie. Kim suggested 350 million persons would die in a certain period. You suggest this would mean "a difference of less than one birth per year."

Read as straight English, that makes no sense. Did you leave some words out? Like "one birth per family" or something?

[Albert Gore]

If I had my way, we would have death panels for people who doubt global warming. They need killing before the grannys.

['One birth a year' is still absurd except in Chaco's highly particular case.]

It's apples and pomegranates Chaco and I are talking about. He has an interesting point, but it depends on an entirely different meaning of 5% die-off than I intended. His point allows him to believe he's correct in ignoring the threat of famine. He forgets that there were already food riots over the rising price of rice last year.

Our high use of energy in food production in the form of mechanization and fertilizer has allowed our burgeoning population to avoid Malthusian disaster. Whether we can continue to beat the odds in a cooling globe or not is a good question, settled by no one yet, not even kim.

[Georg Felis]

I hope they were wearing sunglasses, or that Blinding Flash of the Obvious might have permanent consequences.

Ayeee!!! I'm blind! Al Gore, Heal me! (provided Laying On of Hands is covered under Obamacare)

[What's with that ship anyway? It underwent repairs in a Russian shipyard just before this voyage.]

His 'die-off' is not even a die-off. It is a failure to propagate at an arbitrary rate. He and I are the Arctic Sea passing the Graf Spee in the night, thousands of miles apart.

[PaulL]

Have we even decided if Kim is female?

[ben]

Sign of the times:

http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/item/antiobama-before-it-was-cool-white-tshirt/350455468

[cathyf]

OT note for narcisolator fans -- if you upgrade to bgates' latest, make a copy of your old troll list in another file. Because installing the new file will replace your list with bgates' list.

And bgates, if you see this -- it appeared that I couldn't have more than 40 trolls in the list in the previous version. Is that still true?

[Dave (in MA)]

ben:, my Cafepress custom shirt from July 30th, 2008

[ben]

Very kewl, Dave!

[Elliott]

TC, my theory is that kim is trying tell us it's the end of equality.*
______________
*===========

[bgates]

cathyf - there shouldn't be any limit on the number of trolls you can block. I just put in a bunch of made up names and then yours to test, and your comment is hidden even though I put you at #41 on the list (42 really, since the array counts from 0).

I put your warning up on the narcisolator page. Sorry you lost your troll list.

[Cecil Turner]

I feel it when I’m flying. -- Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow

Ah, luckily we have rocket surgeons like Debbie who'll enact legislation to protect the rest of us. But no nuke power plants, of course. (That'd be icky.)

[It's elementary, my dear Karl.]

From the climate warrior Pielke Pere a splendid study. It demonstrates a warm bias in temperature measurement inherent in landbased surface measuring. The satellite series of tropospheric temperatures, UAH and RSS, are a superior method of measuring global temperature. A landmark point.

[PeterUK]

"Oh my God, Kim! What did the capitalist world do to cause the decline in sunspots, and why didn't George Bush do anything to stop them?"

It was the huge failure of the Bush Administration to invest in sunspot production,research and development that created the current American Sunspot Deficit.
This is why countries,like India and China are racing ahead to become world leaders in the manufacture of sunspots.

[PeterUK]

On second thoughts,cancel my 08:32,the Warmers will believe it.

[PeterUK]

Debbie Stabenow has most impressive scientific qualifications.
The woman is a pardigm of what has gone wrong with western governance.

[PD]

Climate change is very real. Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I’m flying. The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes. -- Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow

I'm sure we'll soon be hearing:

I can see global warming from my plane! -- Tina Fey

Right?

[PD]

"That's still better than having TV monitors with reruns of Obama Speeches on a constant loop."

They're actually not reruns, he makes that many speeches.

[caro]

I feel it when I’m flying. -- Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow

Knowing she is on the plane, the pilots are probably flying into turbulance on purpose to make her uncomfortable.

[Ignatz]

--A five percent die-off of humanity is 350 million people. Right, Charlie?--

--Well, yeah--

--So, in other words, your notion of a five percent die off means a difference of less than one birth per year.--

I'll assume your math is correct Charlie, but it's kind of hard to credit that last statement. Presumably you meant the first year would see the mathematical equivalent of less than one birth. But obviously less than one birth per year will come out to somewhat less than 350 million after 200 years.

And the problem with dwindling or moving agricultural areas isn't felt primarily in Canada or Texas, it's in the Sahel and India and all the other marginal crop lands that primarily sustain the people living on the edge.
That the West's abundance prevents famines from being worse than they otherwise would be usually just means 1,500,000 starve to death rather than 2,000,000.
I doubt it is a coincidence that desertification was more prevalent during the postwar cooling nor was the retreat of the Sahara a coincidence during the warming of 1980-2000.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Read as straight English, that makes no sense. Did you leave some words out? Like "one birth per family" or something?

The figures are right there, Paul. What's one ten-billionth of 114 million? I'll grant its surprising, but then I said I'd tried it twice with different methods because it surprised me. Compound interest is like that.

It it makes you feel better, how about this: five percent in 200 years is like raising infant mortality by 0.0114. So if you have a base infant mortality rate of 12 per thousand, this is like raising it to 12.01 per thousand.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

He forgets that there were already food riots over the rising price of rice last year.

No he doesn't, he just remembers they weren't because of food shortages, but instead were caused by the financial issues making places like Viet Nam stop subsidizing the rice.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

But obviously less than one birth per year will come out to somewhat less than 350 million after 200 years.

I always love it when I do the arithmetic and someone says "but obviously that can't be true."

As to your other point, let's apply similar reasoning. How much would food production have to drop in order to cause a five percent die-off in 20 years?

[Ignatz]

--I always love it when I do the arithmetic and someone says "but obviously that can't be true."--

I very plainly didn't say your math was incorrect, I said your conclusion was.
Using your own example of compound interest, wouldn't there be many thousands and millions of people dying per year in the latter years rather than less than one?

BTW your premise is kind of odd to begin with. Kim's assertion was that there would be 350 million premature deaths primarily due to famine in 100 years.
What does that have to do with the calculation of determining how much the birth rate would be required to decline over 200 years to reach 350 million fewer births?

[boris]

Well the 200th root of 1.05 is 1.000244.

Seems to me that would be the yearly growth rate required to increase population by 5%.

Isn't that a lot more than 1 person per year? (366000 maybe)

[It depends upon how we adapt.]

We are cooling, folks; how many will die from that even kim doesn't know.

[boris]

On the subject of solar effect on Earth climate ... there are electrical interactions between Earth and Sun that are not well understood which some scientists even tend to dismiss.

Sunspots are a visible manifestation of magnetic storms and the electircal connections betwwen Earth and Sun are called magnetic flux ropes and apparently carry massive currents.

it appears that astronomers have taken this presupposition [currents do not exist in the sparse plasma medium of space] so far that they steadfastly refuse to mention electric currents they have detected, preferring to refer only to their magnetic field byproducts in their press releases, except when the evidence becomes incontrovertible. As though simply refusing to mention them by their proper name (much as an ostrich hides its head in the sand when faced with a threat) somehow validates the view that either they're "not there" or "do nothing."

There is no lack of possible mechanisms for solar magnetic activity to affect Earth atmospheric climate. Therefore correlation between sunspots and climate should not be dismissed simply because they cannot be accurately modeled (yet).

[Ignatz]

Got a cite or a link for that, boris?

[boris]

Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth

It's Okay to Call the "Magnetic Flux Ropes" Found Connecting the Sun and Earth an Electric Current!

[Ignatz]

Thanks.

[Annoying Old Guy]

Chaco got his numbers quite wrong.

He starts with a current growth of 1.9% per year. Let's go with that over 200 years. We get a total population increase of ~ 4314%. 95% of that is ~ 4098%. The 200th root of that (to get annual percent increase) is 1.0187 or a 1.87% annual growth rate. That's .03% of the world population difference per year, or about 1.5 million for the first year, increasing thereafter.

[bgates]

Meanwhile, in Pakistan...

Kh'ar Ali (Arabia): Boss! Boss! I have a new plan for the infidels!

Osama bin Laden: Allah be praised! What is it?

Kh'ar Ali (Arabia): We get one of our deep cover guys to talk an infidel whore into joining one of their convents....

Osama: And?

Kh'ar Ali (Arabia): And?!?! Do the math! By removing a kafir woman from the breeding population, preventing her from having the normal 2.1 children, and preventing those children from existing much less reproducing, within 12 generations (and what is 300 years to the Most Merciful?) the American population will be 7,356 less than it would have been. A catastrophe with twice the effect of the blessed events of 9/11!

Osama:

Kh'ar Ali (Arabia): Well, the math is right there.

[Jim Ryan]

Heh.

[PaulL]

I haven't done any serious math since high school, but I know when I see a preposterous figure. Thanks, ya'll.

[Slartibartfast]

To get the annual percentage, you take the 200th root of 1.05; easiest to do that with logarithms, so that's ((ln 1.05)/200)^e, or 1.51240967 10^-10.

Incorrect, Charlie. The 200th root of 1.05 MUST be greater than 1. In fact, it's e^(ln(1.05)/200), or 1.000244, approximately.

[Slartibartfast]

Whenever your result looks wrong, it just might be. When taking the Nth (N some positive real number) root of a nnumber greater than one, the result is always going to be greater than one.

[Slartibartfast]

Oh. Looks like folks have moved on.

Shorter me, then: e^x != x^e