Rudy Baum is still out of his tree

("Baum" is German/Yiddish for "tree").

In 2009 the rude one was editor-in-chief for the American Chemical Society (ACS). He wrote an editorial which asserted a consensus in favor of global warming. This caused a derisive uproar from ACS members which actually seemed to shake him a little. It didn't shake him enough, however, as he is now, three years later, pushing the same old barrow in a new editorial. He now prophesies that the year 2012 will be the hottest year on record but offers no estimate of how much hotter it will be. But his reasoning is so woeful one has to wonder if he is now just going through the motions of supporting Warmism --JR

The year 2005 surpassed 1998 as the hottest on record; it’s now clear that 2012 will surpass 2005. Each of the past 11 years (2001–11) is one of the 12 hottest years since instrumental temperature records began in the 19th century. The 20 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1987. These are facts—not speculation, not the result of a climate model—recorded from several thousand meteorological stations around the world.

Even if we concede that the tree-man is perfectly right about all the facts asserted above, it proves nothing. What matters is the trend and there is none. Temperatures are just going up and down from year to year by tiny amounts. All the results he points to are explicable as temperatures having reached a plateau wherein they differ only in hundredths of a degree from year to year. A plateau will produce lots of warm years too. It doesn't need a warming trend -- JR

On Aug. 27, scientists at the University of Colorado’s National Snow & Ice Data Center reported that Arctic sea ice extent fell to 1.58 million sq miles, 27,000 sq miles below the record low daily sea ice extent set on Sept. 18, 2007 (C&EN, Sept. 3, page 11). According to a University of Colorado press release, “Since the summer Arctic sea ice minimum normally does not occur until the melt season ends in mid- to late September, the CU-Boulder research team expects the sea ice extent to continue to dwindle for the next two or three weeks.” Again, this is a fact, not speculation or the result of a climate model.

But the Antarctic is not shrinking at all, so clearly there is no GLOBAL warming going on -- JR

More HERE

It may seem strange that I, as a psychologist, am correcting an eminent chemist in these matters but I DID teach statistics at a major Australian university for a number of years --JR

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).