The latest 60 Minutes seems to indicate that any science that fails to pay political dividends is suppressed by the Bush administration - based on NASA's chief climatologist scientist saying that he is not allowed to report his findings without editing by Whitehouse lawyers. If we're going to make a mistake, wouldn't it be better to err on the side of self-restraint when it's possible that our greed could bring about catastrophe? And while water vapor is indeed 95% of the green house gases, water vapor is the result of warming - and is not an originator of the change.
Fred Thomson bases his report on Univ of Maine research - but it is 2004 research - and is not the 2007 position of the University of Maine.
FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF MAINE IN 2007
http://www.climatechange.umaine.edu/UMaine researchers welcome new report on climate change
Saturday, February 03, 2007 - Bangor Daily News
Maine climate researchers and environmental groups applauded an international report released Friday that pinpoints humans as the most likely cause of global warming and cited the report as proof for continued vigilance on reducing local greenhouse gas emissions.
For scientists at the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were neither shocking nor surprising. After all, the report’s findings were based on research performed at UMaine and hundreds of other institutions around the globe.
FROM THE MOUTH OF THE GOP'S FRED THOMPSON IN 2007 AND FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF MAINE IN 2004:Public release date: 22-Dec-2004 and from a Russian Scientist's "controversial" overstatement:
Paul Mayewski paul.mayewski@maine.edu
University of Maine - Evidence for sun-climate link reported by UMaine scientists
A team led by University of Maine scientists has reported finding a potential link between changes in solar activity and the Earth's climate. In a paper due to be published in an upcoming volume of the Annals of Glaciology, Paul Mayewski, director of UMaine's Climate Change Institute, and 11 colleagues from China, Australia and UMaine describe evidence from ice cores pointing to an association between the waxing and waning of zonal wind strength around Antarctica and a chemical signal of changes in the sun's output.
<snip>The researchers' goal is to understand what drives the Earth's climate system without taking increases in greenhouse gases into account, says Mayewski. "There are good reasons to be concerned about greenhouse gases, but we should be looking at the climate system with our eyes open," he adds. Understanding how the system operates in the absence of human impacts is important for responding to climate changes that might occur in the future.
<snip>Since at least the 1840s when sunspot cycles were discovered, scientists have proposed that solar variability could affect the climate, but direct evidence of that relationship and understanding of a mechanism have been lacking.
The ice core data show, the authors write, that when solar radiation increases, more calcium is deposited at Siple Dome and at one of the ITASE field sites. The additional calcium may reflect an increase in wind strength in mid-latitude regions around Antarctica, they add, especially over the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Calcium in West Antarctic ice cores is thought to derive mainly from dust in Australia, Africa and South America and from sea salt in the southern ocean.
That finding, they note, is consistent with other research suggesting that the sun may affect the strength of those mid-latitude winds through changes in stratospheric ozone over Antarctica.
THEN THE GOP'S FRED THOMPSON ALSO RELIES ON OUR RUSSIAN FRIEND WHO OVERSTATES THE SOLAR CONNECTION (POLITELY CALLED MAKING A "CONTROVERSIAL" CONCLUSIONS):
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.htmlMars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says
Kate Ravilious for National Geographic News February 28, 2007
Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.
Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures. In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun. "The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said. Abdussamatov believes that changes in the sun's heat output can account for almost all the climate changes we see on both planets.
CAN WE UNDERLINE THE WORD "ALMOST" ABOVE - "ALMOST" ALL CLIMATE CHANGE BEING SOLAR BASED SEEMS A GIVEN.
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