Saturday, October 22, 2011

Don't You Wish Scientists Understood Science?

Scientist speaks out after finding ‘record’ ozone hole over Canadian Arctic
"David Tarasick was among four Canadian authors of the international study, published Oct. 2 in the British scientific journal Nature, that reported on the hole — twice the size of Ontario — in the ozone layer that protects life on Earth from the sun’s harmful radiation."
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"“We’ve been doing this [for] about 45 years now,” Tarasick said in a telephone interview supervised by Environment Canada officials. “The Canadian stations have been the backbone of the global network [of monitoring] ever since we started measuring ozone.”"
Forty-five years, eh? And how old is the earth? About four and a half billion years, right?
"A senior Environment Canada scientist whose job may be eliminated through budget cuts has highlighted the importance of maintaining the country’s world-leading atmospheric monitoring network after new research showed a record hole in the planet’s ozone layer above the Arctic."
So, your job is on the line.
"Tarasick also indicated that the warning about his job was not rescinded and lightheartedly said that it was increasing his “stress level.”"
Why not give them a good scare? Maybe that'll save your job.
"We started measuring ozone back in the 1950s because we were trying to understand the circulation of the atmosphere better and to improve weather forecasting . . . and it was fortunate that we had a long data set when people started to notice that the ozone was changing.”"
So 61 years out of 4.5 billion. Hmmmm. My calculator won't even handle that, but I do know it's miniscule.
"“It’s really a global problem, which is why there is so much interest in our data from around the world,” said Tarasick. “To be trite, the atmosphere is a global atmosphere.”"
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"Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government introduced new rules to control interviews with journalists by Environment Canada scientists in 2007, resulting in an 80 per cent drop in media coverage of climate change science, according to an internal analysis that was released in 2010."
Well, they are government employees, after all. If they can't stop the scare mongering, maybe it is time to pull the plug.
"Tarasick said the Nature study also discusses some uncertainties in existing models about global warming in the Arctic. He also noted other research that shows how the increasing concentration of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere is trapping heat in the lower part, and resulting in cooling temperatures in the upper atmosphere, which can contribute to ozone depletion."
Yup. Damned if we do and damned if we don't. The AGW freaks are a moving target, that's for sure. Gotta go back to something that worked in the past. Before long, we'll be back to global cooling hysteria.
"“If we didn’t have the Montreal Protocol (signed in 1987) . . . we would have seen a rather permanent ozone hole, which would have flushed, in the spring, low levels of ozone to lower latitudes,” Tarasick explained. “It appears we really did save the world in 1987.”"
Oh. What would we do without periodic hysteria coming from paid civil servants!

Seriously, folks, how can anyone believe this isn't 9 parts self-serving  and 1 part science?

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