june 2009 issue
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Readers’ Forum
Dissenters on Climate Change Causes
Introduce Errors
Re: climate change debate, Readers’ Forum, The PEGG.
Several writers in the March and April 2009 Readers’ Forums have introduced erroneous information concerning the basic science underlying global climate change.
Barry A. Moore, P.Eng., questions whether carbon dioxide is harmful and claims that his extensive reading does not support the hypothesis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. After having studied global climate issues for over 40 years, I can assure him and all readers that the present increasing concentrations of CO2 are harmful and will become even more harmful to the environment and all forms of life as its atmospheric concentration increases.
Eric Lougheed, P.Geol., is correct in noting that there has been no correlation between the atmospheric CO2 concentration and the fluctuations in global temperature since 1750. However, increases in both the atmospheric CO2 and the global mean temperature have been highly correlated since about 1980. The earlier lack of correlation arises because the contribution to global warming was not very large and was only one of a number of processes causing both cooling and warming.
After 1980, the CO2 concentration has become the dominant factor in determining global warming and hence the correlation. The global temperature is controlled by the greenhouse gases: if the amount of CO2 decreases below about 260 p.p.m., then the Earth will begin to enter an ice age; if it exceeds about 400 p.p.m., then Earth will be entering a period of serious warming not previously experienced by most existing forms of life. This is the delicate balance between having sufficient and having too much atmospheric CO2.
Another new physical effect has been suggested by both Norm Kalmanovitch, P.Geoph., and Alasdair Robinson, P.Eng., who claim that the relationship between the increase in global warming and the increase in the atmospheric CO2 is logarithmic rather than linear. No such saturation effects are known to exist since the various CO2 atmospheric absorption bands reflect most of the radiation coming from the Earth back to the Earth.
It is notable that those who do not believe in global warming place great emphasis on a relatively small fraction of the knowledgeable scientists in this field of study who are prepared to dissent in various ways. Most dissenters do so because they disagree with the relative emphasis placed on some of the assumptions in the global warming models used to predict future warming or for political reasons. Science is based upon well-established facts and not upon belief. The warming does not wait for the perfect predictive model.
I would suggest that the book Keeping Our Cool — Canada in a Warming World, by Dr. Andrew Weaver, is an excellent primer by a distinguished Canadian atmospheric scientist for those who wish to learn about the basic science underlying global warming. The recently published Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, David MacKay, shows, using simple calculations, how difficult it will be to obtain sufficient energy from such sources.
Harvey A. Buckmaster, P.Eng., P.Geoph.
APEGGA Life Member and
Adjunct Professor of Physics,
University of Victoria
APEGGA’s Publishing
Of Climate Change Opinions
Should Be Applauded
Re: Non-Experts Are Involved in Unproductive Debate, by Jeff Shewchuk, P.Eng., Debunkers Erode Reputation of APEGGA, by David J. Parker, P.Eng., and Writer Lacks Factual Base to Call Others Misinformed, by Josh Kjenner, E.I.T., Readers’ Forum, The PEGG, April 2009.
I would like to congratulate our editor in publishing one of the most even-handed spectrums of opinions on the climate change subject. This is rare on either side of the debate.
It has been stated many times that the opinions stated here are not in any way endorsed by APEGGA. Thus how can an honest presentation of a difference of opinion erode the reputation of the Association — I would have thought just the opposite. I would also refer to the APEGGA opinion poll that demonstrated an even distribution of opinion on this subject.
If anyone knows of an even-handed debate with Dr. Andrew Weaver or anyone representing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, let me know. I will be there with my data and references and a good time will be had by all, except the alarmists.
Speaking of debates, in one by St. Andrews University in Scotland, three noted anthropogenic global warming supporters squared off against three realists. The realists openly admitted that they expected to lose the vote since the audience was made up of students. To their surprise they overwhelmingly won. That is why alarmists refuse to debate. They just waffle with vague generalities and refuse to get into specifics.
We are challenged to produce proof. Then when we do, we are criticized for “data regurgitation.” New data is pouring in every day, 100 per cent of which is verifying that the IPCC hypothesis is wrong and all the computer models are hopelessly inaccurate.
The concept that if you are not an expert you have no right to express an opinion violates the very fundamentals of democracy and free speech. It is another method by which the alarmists try to muzzle opposition.
I have been very active in researching this subject for over 10 years. I have read literally thousands of research and technical papers and articles on the incredibly broad range of scientific disciplines involved in the study of our climate, its history and the motivating forces that change it. Every day I log on to websites and blog sites to stay abreast of the latest research, data, expert opinion, economic impact and political developments.
I also download data that’s as close to raw as I can get from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of Alabama at Huntsville and other credible sources, and then I plot my own graphs or perform my own calculations to verify or refute published articles.
I have found biased presentations on both sides of the debate, but I must admit considerably more on the alarmist side than the other. Many articles supporting anthropogenic global warming, particularly emanating from AP and Reuters, are blatantly false. Whether this is due to a lack of understanding by reporters or falsehoods in the original press releases I cannot say.
I submitted a technical evaluation to the Reuters blog on the so-called melting of the ice sheets. Needless to say it did not pass adjudication and I have been banned from posting there. So much for freedom of the press.
For those who place so much trust on the front pages of newspapers, you may just as well be reading the National Enquirer. Wake up and smell the coffee, folks. Newspapers are profit-driven and alarmism sells.
Unfortunately space constraints preclude my listing the vast library of references which form the basis of my remarks. Thus I must pass on responding to Mr. Kjenner’s list of cherry-picked quotes out of context.
With respect to the solar energy reference, please consider the angle of incidence. The energy arriving at the tropics per square metre is far greater than at 60 degrees. In addition, the argument regarding solar energy in higher latitudes is centred on the storage of energy during the long, dark periods. The cost is astronomical.
Please visit http://icecap.us, www.friendsofscience.org and www.climate4you.com. If nothing else, visit http://earth.rice.edu and find the NOAA depiction of sea surface anomaly, which is updated daily.
The oceans are by far the greatest immediate influence on the world’s climate. What causes the oceans to react the way they do is a complete mystery. The oceans are a massive storehouse of heat, and they develop warm and cold currents and upwellings in a cyclical fashion that has not been explained to date but has been proven, without question, to be a major factor in our changing climate.
The information will show that the incredible complexity of temperature distribution around the world that makes all attempts to derive a “global average” prior to the satellite era meaningless. It should be noted that the first satellite data was available in 1979, and the IPCC was formed in 1988. So there was only nine years of data available, which were inconclusive. Now we have 30 years of data — still insufficient but considerably more than the IPCC had when it formulated its hypothesis.
The reason a large number of scientists remained silent is that they did not have sufficient accurate data to oppose the IPCC. Now they do.
Barry Moore P. Eng.
Calgary
Quantitative Statements
Abound in Anti-AGW Camp
Re: Debunkers Erode Reputation of APEGGA, by David J. Parker, P.Eng., and Non-Experts Are Involved in Unproductive Debate, by Jeff Shewchuk, P.Eng., Readers’ Forum, The PEGG, April 2009.
My letter in the March 2009 PEGG made several quantitative statements about the greenhouse effect and global warming. The first letter cited does not make a single quantitative statement or question any of the numerical values that I presented.
The letter states, “Yes, there are flaws in the theory and the simulations are lacking, but the underlying thesis is sound.” This is contradictory to the most fundamental principle of science, which states that “even if there is only one observation that is not explained by a hypothesis, the hypothesis must either be discarded or modified to accommodate the observation.”
There are four global temperature datasets, and all four — including those of the Goddard Institute for Space Study and Hadley, both used by the IPCC — clearly show that the Earth has been cooling since 2002 in spite of the continued increase in CO2 emissions. Until the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming can explain this straightforward observation, the AGW premise can no longer be considered to have any scientific validity.
The Iron Ring is a reminder of what happens when engineering is based on this level of “sound” science.
Interestingly, the second letter cited above recommends a face-to-face encounter with Dr. Andrew Weaver. It just so happens that Dr. Weaver gave a presentation titled Keeping our Cool: Canada in a Warming World, at the University of Calgary on Nov. 27, 2008. On page 16 of the April issue of The PEGG is an announcement of a talk by Dr. Timothy F. Ball, former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, titled Recent Theoretical and Observational Evidence for a Cooling Atmosphere.
Just the titles of these presentations show that one side is presenting physical data as support for a hypothesis in the tradition of science, and the other is just promoting a hypothesis in the tradition of politics. The physical evidence shows that the globe had been cooling for over six years when the talk with “warming world” in the present tense was included in the title.
Dr. Weaver stated explicitly that in 2007 parts of the world had record high temperatures; a fact which he backed up with observational data. Science informs; it does not promote, yet he failed to inform the audience that globally, 2007 was cooler than 2006, which in turn was cooler than 2005. Essentially Dr. Weaver used what should be taken as proof of “global cooling” to convince the audience that the world was not only warming, but warming more rapidly than expected.
Dr. Weaver was a lead author of the 2007 IPCC report. In a section on modeling to support the statement that there’s “90 per cent confidence that global warming was caused by humans,” the report contends that the models showed that a “forcing” of 3.71 watts per square metre from a doubling of CO2 was between the five percentile and 95 percentile of the outputs.
When I questioned this modeling, the formula behind it and its factual base, Dr. Weaver shut me down. After my second attempt, he went on to the next question, avoiding this simple question from even being asked. Yet it is fundamental to the entire AGW argument, which is based solely on the correlation of CO2 and global temperature and supported only by these models.
Later in the talk as Dr. Weaver was trying to answer another question in a way that would not compromise the hypothesis, I answered for him in a way that did. I then confronted him with the point that clouds represent over 77 per cent of the greenhouse effect and CO2 represents less than 10 per cent. He would not criticize my comment but instead criticized me by asking for my qualifications. When I asked him to simply state if this was correct or not, he would not answer, instead playing to the audience by discrediting me as a “denier.”
In the end Dr. Weaver was able to convince about 400 people of the urgency of fighting global warming that the global thermometers say no longer exists. More importantly, all these people were further convinced that anyone disputing AGW is an unqualified fringe scientist.
I came away with about 400 witnesses who saw that Dr. Weaver never answered my questions and even prevented me from asking a question, because the question itself exposes the fallacies of the climate models.
The global warming issue will go away by itself because the Earth is cooling and there is no evidence that this will change in the foreseeable future. The damage that the global warming issue has caused will not go away by itself, because it has undermined the very essence of science’s integrity, and reduced science to just another tool to be manipulated by those with self-serving interests.
It is for this reason that scientists need to confront those promoting AGW and demand physical evidence for their position.
Norm Kalmanovitch, P.Geoph.
Calgary
Three Writers
Work Against
Each Other’s Cases
Re: Writer Lacks Factual Base To Call Others Misinformed, by Josh Kjenner, E.I.T., Non-Experts Are Involved In Unproductive Debate, by Jeff Shewchuk, P.Eng., and Debunkers Erode Reputation of APEGGA, by David J. Parker, P.Eng., Readers’ Forum, The PEGG, April 2009.
It is quite entertaining to read these three letters together, because their authors effectively disprove each others’ arguments.
Mr. Shewchuk calls writer Barry A. Moore, P.Eng., a “non-expert” since he “does not have comparable academic knowledge to those within the global scientific organizations.” On the other page, Mr. Moore, a seasoned professional in the energy industry, is taking a lecturing from Mr. Kjenner, an engineer-in-training. Academic professionals, we shall say, often have a hard time staying in touch with reality in their aerial castles of pure thought.
Mr. Kjenner says that “with data verifying the IPCC’s findings and hypotheses accruing on a daily basis, I have to wonder exactly how much evidence Mr. Moore requires.” Mr. Parker says: “It seems that because the IPCC has given us computer models containing some anomalies and the average temperature seems to be doing the opposite of what it is supposed to, we are to throw the entire hypothesis out the window.”
In other words, it is admitted that the much-acclaimed IPCC evidence is a puff. However, it is proposed that we act on this concept nevertheless, even though there is no verifiable evidence of it. What kind of argument is this, Mr. Parker?
Mr. Shewchuk says that “entities ranging from EnCana to Exxon Mobile to Suncor are continually a part of the Carbon Disclosure Project.” True, they have to do it, bowing to the pressure of the “public opinion” embodied by the media. But wouldn’t Suncor and others be further ahead if they used these funds on tailings technology?
Says Mr. Parker: “Letter writers expound their pet theories on why it cannot be happening whilst ignoring the front pages of national newspapers…” It is well known that newspapers should be recycled after use, Mr. Parker, and some newspapers should be recycled before use. Don’t give any credit to what you read there.
Mr. Parker says some believe climate change theory is “a vast conspiracy cooked up by communists who hate capitalism and freedom.” That’s right, Mr. Parker! Except communists have nothing to do with it, but the competing capitalist states do, those that don’t have the oil resources we have and are trying to steal away our competitive advantage.
Says Mr. Kjenner: “Could he [Mr. Moore] find evidence to back his contentious claim that Kyoto compliance would result in tens of billions of dollars worth of negative economic impact?” Please note that we don’t have to prove anything. We have created a viable economic organism that has been functioning fine so far (show me one practical and functioning thing created by the green movement for comparison). If you believe that things need to be changed, then the onus is on you to prove your point such that even your opponents are convinced. Until then, it is business as usual.
According to Mr. Parker, the current crisis has happened because of the economy’s failure to develop in a sustainable way. Not at all! The crisis happened because we have lost our traditional pragmatism and common sense, and allowed liberal demagogues to drive us to believe that economic problems are a fact of the past, that we can start chasing hot air balloons instead.
Hopefully this crisis will turn our faces from imaginary problems like global warming to things that are really of substance.
Konstantin Ashkinadze, P.Eng.
Edmonton
Writer Seeks Correlation Coefficients
Re: Writer Lacks Factual Base To Call Others Misinformed, by Josh Kjenner, E.I.T., Readers’ Forum, The PEGG, April 2009.
Good note, Mr. Kjenner. Let’s get back to data and away from tribalism and credentialism, on both sides.
I think we can all agree that for at least the last 250 years there has been a general warming trend to the climate. To help my understanding of the statistics of the issue: Does anyone know of or have access to a statistical analysis, including R-squared correlation coefficients, of greenhouse gas concentrations (H20, CO2, CH4, etc.) to average temperatures over that time?
I’d appreciate anyone who can direct me and your other readers towards that data and analysis.
Gary Bunio, P.Eng.
Calgary
World’s Climate Impossible to Predict
The great deserts of the Earth can be roughly grouped into seven areas. The Asian group stretches from the Gobi in the east, across the continent, embracing the Turkestan desert and ending in the West with the Arabian. Australia is almost entirely covered by desert. In North America, we have the West Coast deserts stretching inland into the Great Plains area, south into Mexico and north into Alberta.
South America’s principal desert group is concentrated just inland from the Pacific Ocean, from the Peruvian in the north to Patagonia in the south. One town in Chile’s Atacama, the world’s driest desert, has never recorded rain.
In South Africa, the Namib and Kalahari deserts cover a large area in the south of the continent, but to the north lie the Sahara and Sahel desert — the largest in the world, and the area that most immediately comes to mind when discussing desertification. The seventh great desert is, surprisingly, the vast Arctic Desert, classified as such because its average annual precipitation is less than 250 millimetres.
The Sahara was not always a desert area. Between 3000 and 2200 BC a great drought swept through a large area of Asia and Africa and the inhabitants of a once wet Sahara disappeared into dry oblivion. Since that time incursions by various groups from the south resulted in the development of the Sahel as the Sahara spread southward.
It is well known by agriculturists that there are three steps to desert in animal husbandry in marginal lands. In order of destructive capacity they are cattle, then sheep, then goats, and the end result is desert. Yet, even to this day, well-meaning non-governmental organizations encourage the poor on the desert fringes to depend on goats as a source of milk and meat. Yes, goats will thrive where the other animals can not survive, but not for long.
In the past, the near desert areas were the home of nomadic peoples who moved their few animals frequently to avoid over-grazing, but increased population pressures led to the clearing of the natural vegetation adjacent to desert areas for crop cultivation, especially short season cash crops like peanuts and cotton. Crop failures leave the land bare, susceptible to increased wind and water erosion.
With increased foreign aid to the Sahel in the 1950s and 1960s, large areas of grazing land were converted to such cash crops to the restriction of nomads and their herds. Expanding human and animal populations coupled with decreased grazing area to ultimately cause severe overgrazing of marginal land leading to more desertification.
Of course, the local leaders live in a world of denial. One chief has been quoted as saying: “The problem is that the weather has changed in the last 50 years. The herders do not think 12,000 cattle are too many.” Perhaps the IPCC could use a new recruit?
In desperation, nomads with few animals resort to pulling down the branches of trees to allow their goats to feed on what may be the last green thing that can be seen. Survival means today. Collection of firewood for heating and cooking, sometimes requiring days’ journeys on foot, results in complete removal of all trees and shrubs from ever-increasing areas. Trees and shrubs trap blowing sands, but once they are gone the desert takes over.
NGOs have often promoted the digging of wells, which can be counterproductive. Human and livestock activity around a well strips away any vegetation and the resulting bare areas merge with the adjacent desert. If water from these wells is used for irrigation it may cause soil salinization, making it impossible to grow crops at all, leaving the soil to the winds of desertification.
With all these pressures on the desert margins, denial of the effects of expanding populations and their animal herds by the local populations and the West’s unwitting contributions to the problems through its financing of uninformed and ill-prepared NGOs, it is questionable how much effect, if any, burning of fossil fuels by Canadians contributes to the problems of desertification.
As noted, the Arctic is classed as one of the world’s deserts. Initially, when the Arctic ice started to show evidence of far more rapid melting, the IPCC expressed surprise, since the rates being observed were much more rapid than their models had predicted. Such an admission must have made the serious global warming advocates too uncomfortable, and the whole matter was swept under the rug and replaced by the simplistic assertion that, of course, it was actually evidence of how rapidly global warming was becoming a problem.
Is there another answer?
Yes, there is and, unlike the flimsy statistical base on which the whole carbon dioxide theory rests, it is experimentally supported. And more importantly, the experiment is repeatable and so simple that anyone can carry it out at home.
Make a tray of ice cubes. Turn them out on an uncovered plate and place it in the freezer compartment of your refrigerator. Check it weekly. You will find that slowly and surely all those ice cubes will disappear. You will never see any evidence of melting.
What you are witnessing is sublimation, the direct change in phase from a solid to a gas without going through any intermediate liquid phase. You could keep your ice cubes from disappearing by adding a handful of snow periodically, just as sufficient replacement snow in the Arctic over many years would have maintained the icecap there.
An important aspect of sublimation is that it continues through darkness and light on a 24/7 basis. It does not vary directly with the amount of global warming that may occur. Even with no global warming at all, the Arctic icecap was still destined to shrink. Since no melting is involved, there is no direct measurable change in world sea levels — it all depends on where the water vapour goes and how it rejoins the hydrological cycle.
For died-in-the-wool carbon dioxide/global warming addicts, here are the inconvenient truths. Accurate prediction of future climate is not presently possible. Our present climate is actually anomalous to the past.
Why we have been so fortunate, and when a more variable and harsher climate will return, are unknown.
Clyde Ovens, P.Eng.
Calgary
Climate Change is Beyond
Our Control and Influence
I have always read the articles on Climate Change in The PEGG with interest. Ever since Al Gore along with the UN’s IPCC got the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, I have become interested in the process of deceit. Mr. Gore used the winning of this prize to warn that global warming is “the greatest challenge we’ve ever faced.”
Now, there is no scientific evidence for global warming but there is for global cooling. Yes, we may well be facing climate change and there is little that we humans can do about it. The hysteria of polar bears stumbling around the Arctic and glaciers caving into the sea appeal only to those gullible enough to think this is due to global warming driven by increasing carbon dioxide emissions.
I have just finished a superb book, Heaven and Earth — Global Warming: The Missing Science, written by Ian Plimer of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, the University of Adelaide. He is Australia’s best-known geologist.
Dr. Plimer shows that climate changes in the world are cyclical and are driven by the Earth’s position in the galaxy, the sun, wobbles in the Earth’s orbit, ocean currents and plate tectonics. I would recommend this book to all interested in global warming, greenhouse gases and climate change.
Dr. Plimer rejects the unscientific idea that the explanation of climate change can be reduced to one variable (carbon dioxide) and the almost religious belief that we will stop climate change by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. It is very heartening to have a reference book so well-written and backed up by references. This man should get a Nobel Prize for his efforts to set the record straight.
Bill Watson, P.Eng.
Bundaberg, Queensland
Australia
Many Members Are Scientists
Re: Let Us Make it More Professional, by Henning Rasmussen, P.Eng., Readers’ Forum, The PEGG, May 2009.
The writer says that an engineer isn’t a scientist. Isn’t a scientist someone with a PhD doing research? That describes a lot of P.Geoph.s and P.Geol.s, and I assume engineers. In fact there is a movement to call us geoscientists.
Many geoscientists make their living studying the ecosystems of the past and how they change with time. If Mr. Rasmussen feels that this doesn’t qualify them to discuss how the ecosystem is currently changing, then he must be livid that a political scientist like Al Gore and a geneticist like David Suzuki make livings doing something they have no formal training in.
Bob Wilson, P.Geoph.
Calgary
Speaking Out
Is a Right And Obligation
Re: Let Us Make it More Professional, by Henning Rasmussen, P.Eng., Readers’ Forum, The PEGG, May 2009, and Debunkers Erode Reputation of APEGGA, by David J. Parker, P.Eng., Readers’ Forum, The PEGG, April 2009.
I congratulate the editors of The PEGG for allowing a spirited debate on the merits of anthropogenic global warming to occur in Readers’ Forum. This is a debate that seldom, if ever, reaches the popular press.
I respectfully disagree with the two writers cited. APEGGA members are citizens of their community, their province, and their country. Part of the APEGGA Continuing Professional Development requirement is public involvement in the community. Governments are developing policy that will affect all of us; responsible citizens have a duty to speak up.
As to whether one should speak up only if one is an “expert,” I note that the prime public figure moving the issue forward in Canada is a geneticist, not a climate scientist. The main public figure in the U.S. is a lifetime politician with no science background. Neither is willing to engage in public debate on the subject.
Contrary to Mr. Parker’s views, more than a few APEGGA members have their doubts about the science. Of those who responded to APEGGA’s membership survey last year, a full 68 per cent disagreed that “the science is settled.”
Much of the political push towards “doing something” about anthropogenic global warming lies within the fields of statistics and simulation. Mr. Parker and Mr. Rasmussen will be relieved to know that I do have some expertise in both areas.
Weather and climate are notoriously variable. Confidence bands tend to be extremely wide and can overwhelm possible non-random fluctuations. The sun, for example, is the most important factor affecting weather and climate. Diurnal variations are in the order of 20 C, and seasonal variations are in the order of 30 C. It is very difficult to impute a non-random change of 0.5 C onto this with any meaningful level of confidence.
Is climate changing right now? Leaving aside the truism that climate is always changing, data shows that there has been no warming at all in the past 60 years! The degree-day data for 2007 is almost exactly the same as it was in 1949. One might say there seems to be a weak trend towards warming since 1979, but this trend is not statistically meaningful.
In Canada, July 30 is the warmest day of the year and January 30 is the coldest. Temperatures for both days beginning in 1938 at Lester B. Pearson Airport in Toronto do not meaningfully suggest warming. Any suggestion that winters in Toronto — Canada’s largest metropolitan area — appear to be getting warmer can be as easily assigned to the heat island effect as to any systematic evidence of global warming.
We’ve all heard qualitative reports that the effects of global warming are most profound in Canada’s North. Yet the figures how that, since 1946 in Iqaluit, there has been no systematic trend towards warming.
This brings us to computer simulation. Only 20 per cent of APEGGA’s membership agreed with the statement that the IPCC’s computer climate simulation models give an accurate prediction of the future global climate.
The most important atmospheric greenhouse gas is water vapour. Not only is this gas far more common than carbon dioxide but it is a far more efficient infrared absorber. All models that predict future climate have to make an assumption about water vapour, and particularly clouds.
Will clouds reflect the sun’s energy, and make the Earth colder? Will clouds trap heat within the atmosphere and make the Earth warmer? The sensitivity of this factor in climate models is such that changing this one parameter can induce either runaway heating or another ice age.
We have a very good real-life test of the usefulness of simulation for modeling climate. The U.S. has a very large economic incentive to be able to predict the incidence of hurricanes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that 2005 would see a below-average number of tropical storms. Instead there were so many storms that it ran out of names!
One of those storms — Hurricane Katrina — brought NOAA squarely into the public’s eye. NOAA then predicted an above-average number of hurricanes would make landfall for both 2006 and 2007. It then repeated its 2006 prediction as late as August of that year. In fact, no hurricanes touched mainland U.S. in either year.
Given the importance of an accurate prediction on this one climate subject, and the resources devoted to it, one would think that the computer modeling would be pretty good. Unfortunately, it isn’t. It would appear that climate is too variable to make predictions with any level of confidence, even on an event less than one year into the future and when there is great incentive to do so.
APEGGA’s membership will be tasked with making technological developments such as carbon sequestration work. I am confident that members will be up to the task. However, it is also clear that members are very uncertain about whether their efforts will actually be of any use.
H. Michael Wise, P.Eng.
Calgary
Masters Games
Recruits Competitors
Sydney, Australia, will host the seventh World Masters Games from Oct. 10 to 18 2009. This is the world’s largest multi-sport event by participation, attracting more than twice the competitors than the Olympic Games.
The games are open to everyone, not just elite athletes, with the emphasis on participation. They are where everyday people can have extraordinary experiences. To enter, you simply need to meet the appropriate minimum age, which ranges from 25 to 35, depending on the sport — most are 30-plus.
To date, more than 500 Albertan athletes are registered. Hundreds more — friends and family — will be joining them to cheer, and soak up the spirit of the games and the motto “fit, fun and forever young.”
Games organizers expect 25,000 people from upwards of 100 countries to compete in 28 sports. The majority of competitors will come from Australia and New Zealand, with one third of the total coming from New South Wales, one third from other Australian states and one third from international locations. The top international markets are Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and the U.K.
The 28 sports are archery, athletics, badminton, baseball, basketball, canoe/kayak, cycling, diving, football, golf, hockey, lawn bowls, netball, orienteering, rowing, rugby union, sailing, shooting, softball, squash, surf lifesaving, swimming, table tennis, tennis, touch football, volleyball, water polo and weightlifting.
The games have more than 70 venues throughout the city, showcasing Sydney Olympic Park, which will be the home of the games, as well as well-known Olympic sites in Bankstown, Blacktown, Liverpool and Penrith. Venues also go as far south as Sutherland and Menai, west to Lithgow, east to Rose Bay and north to Mona Vale.
Sydney 2009 World Masters Games competitor registrations are open online at www.2009worldmasters.com. Registrations close on July 31 with the standard competitor registration fee costing $220.
The games have been held every four years since they began in Toronto in 1985.
Heather Kirk
Immedia PR
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