Greetings all!!! I have a powerhouse update for you this time...it is full of hot air.

YEAR ONE

That's right! Last week marked the first anniversary of my move to Alaska...can you believe it has been a year already?! What a year it has been, and I am glad to have all of you along for the ride as year two begins.

I was lucky enough to have my first real visitors of my tenure here in Fairbanks. Bob and Inez Schoeler were here last weekend. They weren't here to see me specifically...they lived here back in 1973 and decided that they would like to see the little city again. Of course, in the last 29 years, Fairbanks had grown out of its "little town" status by quite a bit. They were very surprised at the changes, and even more surprised by some of the things that did not change. For example, the family who lived in the house next-door to their's still lived in the same spot, and they were able to stop in an see them.

We had a wonderful touring the city and surrounding area. They got to see the pipeline in a finished state...when they lived
here, the pipeline was a big pile of pipe lying in heaps out at the airport. We enjoyed lots of fun, sun, great food and great
company. It was certainly a pleasure to see them again.

Oh, yeah, perhaps it might benefit the other 97% of my email list if I were to actually fill you in as to who Bob and Inez
are...duh, Hartmann!

Inez is the older sister of my brother Keith's mother-in-law, Linda Frazier, and Bob is her husband, unless that is not painfully
self-evident.

Ok, well, my next task is to prepare for the visit of my older sister Ruth and her husband. They arrive on June 18th for a week of exciting and fun adventures!

MUCKED UP BEYOND ALL RECOGNITION

WARNING: This is a diatribe-prone area. The following selection will probably bore some of you to tears, so I will not be
surprised when most of you skip over this section. However, despite this, I would please ask that you read this, think about it, and for the love of Pete, ask me any questions that you have about it.

For those of you who are still with me, hang on...it is going to be quite a ride!

Oh, what a game!

And to be part of it, all the more exciting. The "Bush Administration", by way of the "Bush" EPA issued their UN mandated US Climate Action Report. Of course, the day it was release, it was seen as a major about face, a 180° turn in the sentiment of the Bush Administration. Too bad it wasn't the Bush Administration speaking. The next day, Bush came out and dismissed the report that had been "put out by the bureaucracy" of the EPA, which is staffed with career people.

It came out Wednesday, via one of my colleagues, Dr. Patrick Michaels, the State Climatologist of Virginia. He reveals the
following in an article released yesterday:

WASHINGTON-Today, President Bush downplayed a recent EPA report on global warming. According to the Associated Press, "'I read the report put out by the bureaucracy,' Bush said dismissively Tuesday..."

Patrick J. Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies at Cato Institute and reviewer of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said, "The report, the so-called 2002 Climate Action Plan, drew heavily from a previous report, the U.S. National Assessment of global warming, which was rushed to publication 10 days before the 2000 presidential election. That report was commissioned by Vice President Gore and Clinton science adviser John Gibbons, who hand-picked the senior scientists constituting the 'Synthesis Team.'"

Michaels, also a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, reviewed both reports. He found that the two climate models used as the bases for each performed worse than a table of random numbers when applied to the history of United States temperatures as the greenhouse effect has changed. Michaels concluded, "Continued use of a scientific model that cannot replicate reality is counter to the most basic principle of science."

Even so, the National Assessment "Synthesis Team" chose to publicly ignore Michaels' criticism. In private, however, they repeated his calculation and found that the models indeed were no better than random numbers applied to the U.S. temperature history.

Of the 2002 Climate Action Plan, Michaels says, "It is clear that the integrity of science would have been better served if this
report had never been released. But now that it has, it should focus public discussion on whether or not it is appropriate to use computer models that demonstrably do not work when making public policy."

Just for the record, Pat was even LESS forgiving in some of the statements that he made within another private climate forum.

Now, the anybody who keeps up with the in's and out's of this debate should know that it comes as no surprise that this argument exists. I have, for a long time, been of the mindset that computer model simulations occupy a status which is grossly and unjustly inflated. The models themselves offer us a wonderful opportunity to test our knowledge and understand of natural systems, and can help us to identify problems in our understanding. However, at this point in time, the models are so incredibly crude.

To suggest that we sufficiently understand the complex forcing mechanisms, feedback mechanisms, and other interactions of all of the variables within the climate system is ridiculous.

To suggest that a computer program calculating a finite number of calculations on a set of equations that have been simplified
well below their true nature can produce results which are sufficient for creating logical policy is beyond ridiculous.

One major problem within the entire debate is a sad reality that faces most issues in the realm of science...that being an
uncomprehending and apathetic public.

I don't mean to turn this into a sanctimonious rant (It may be too late), but I feel that this is an issue on which everyone
should be, at the very least, well-informed. After all, the United Nations is pinning a good amount of the "blame" of "potential
catastrophic global climate change" on the United States.

The term "global warming" has come to mean something more than what the two words plainly mean. In the purest meaning, it simply refers to the notion that the mean global temperature is getting higher with time. Now, before I continue, in the very purest sense, the idea of a single global temperature is really not a sound idea, scientifically speaking. But putting that aside for the sake of argument, the question remains...is the "globe" warming.

The simplest answer? Yes, it is. Based upon satellite observations, which are not susceptible to bias, the global mean
temperature has been rising. According to the observations taken at thousands of surface weather stations, the local and regional temperatures have generally been on the rise. However, a problem exists within many of the long term temperature archives taken at weather stations around the world. Stations are often relocated, placed in an environment which is conducive to producing erroneous readings, or the environment around the stations changes. These are all referred to as bias.

For example, a station may be moved from the airport of a city to a new location when the local National Weather Service office is relocated to a new building. Also, examples abound of weather station instruments being located in spots that produce artificial effects such as too close to buildings, trees, agricultural fields, etc. Or sometimes, the environment around a long-term stations changes: trees grow, cities expand.

The mention of cities brings up a good point, that being urbanization and the heat-island effect. Cities produce heat energy and retain more heat energy from solar radiation than a rural setting does. This was shown quite well in Alaska through a study done by my predecessor Jan Curtis. He examined the long-term temperature records of Fairbanks to that of Eielson Air Force Base, which is 30 miles southeast of the city. The area around Eielson AFB has remained virtually unchanged in the same period as the Fairbanks area has seen tremendous urban growth. The trend from both stations showed an upward trend, but the trend at Fairbanks was increasing at a much higher rate despite the fact that both stations are under the influence of the exact same weather regime.

This is significant when you consider that the majority of weather reporting stations used for long-term archiving are in and
around the major urban areas of the nation. The urbanization bias is a strong factor in the surface temperature archived, which is a major part of the argument of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). By the way, the IPCC does not utilize satellite data much beyond acknowledgment that it is "another method of measurement".

Now for the real semantic fun...

"Global Warming", as it has come to mean, deals mainly with the idea that human activities are far and away the primary reason for climate change. "Global Warming" has more to do with politics and economic than with science and temperatures.

Do human activities have an effect upon climate? Yes. It is in danger of catastrophe? No. As has already been shown,
urbanization has shown its effect upon the perceived long term climate of local areas. This is somewhat of a misnomer in that the climate is not really changing; the meteorological dynamics are not being altered by human activity, but the manner and accuracy and precision in which the climate is measured is being altered.

An analog off urbanization is land use in non-urban areas through loss of and change of vegetation (ie deforestation, agriculture, etc). These changes alter the behavior of the radiation energy budget of the system. Not usually a very noticeable change, but it is a change. Furthermore, as mentioned, the fact that the measurement of the climate is taking place mostly in urban areas, we do not fully understand HOW, WHAT, and WHY the changes are occurring.

The biggest culprit in the witch-hunt is greenhouse gasses...Carbon Dioxide, Methane, water vapor, etc. These are thought to play a part in the greenhouse effect that has been so well documented. Carbon dioxide is, by far, the biggest target, as it is a
by-product of fossil-fuel consumption. Face it, there is never going to be an argument over whether the government should
regulate water vapor. However, the fact is that an increase of 5-10% of atmospheric water vapor has virtually the same effect as a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Now, I am not saying that fossil fuel burning is not having an effect, but I will say that we do not know the magnitude and detail of such effect well enough to make drastic decisions about economics and energy issues that will affect so many.

I am going to be editing this chapter to make a special page on my website regarding this issue, with some graphs and so on. I will, of course, let you know about it when it is up.

A FEYNMAN ANECDOTE

I had a chance to discuss a story with Dr. Syun Akasofu (http://directory.iarc.uaf.edu/FMRes/FMPro?-db=iarc%20directory&-format=zFormVwTxt.htm&-lay=Main&-max=1&-skip=28&-token=25&-find),
who is the director of the Internation Arctic Research Center and is one of the world's foremost experts on the aurora.

Anyway, he was signing his new book on the aurora and I asked him about a story I read.

In a book about Feynman, there was a story about he and his sister. His sister, who also got her PhD in physics, had studied
plasma physics and the aurora. Seeing how "wide-angle" her brother's genius was, how virtually every subject or field in which he applied himself, he succeeded in, she made her famous brother promise to leave the aurora alone. He promised that he would NEVER do any work on the aurora.

Well, it was at a meeting here in Fairbanks that Akosofu approached Feynman and asked why it was that he never did any work on such an interesting subject, and asking him if he would like to.

Feynman, remembering his promise, said that he would have to ask his sister. At first, Akasofu thought it was a joke until
Feynman asked for a phone to call his sister. Feynman used the phone in Akasofu's office and after a short discussion with Joan, Feynman hung up and said "Sorry, she says no."

Well, several weeks later, Akasofu was at a meeting or conference of some kind, and up walks a tall woman, Joan Feynman, with a sour look on her face. She pointed at him and said "You are a trouble maker!"

It was so funny to hear him tell this story. He was very, very taken aback by this. For a diminutive young Japanese man, this
type of forwardness was rare.

Anyway, a great story.

INJECTIONS D'HUMEUR

This edition of the Injections is not a joke...sadly.

Some of you are familiar The Onion ( http://www.theonion.com ), which is classified as "America's Finest News Source". Well, if you consider Mad Magazine as fine literature and National Lampoon's the pinnacle of cinematic genius, The Onion is the standard of journalism.

Well, sometimes The Onion writes such outrageous stories that they can ONLY be true...at least that is what one writer for the Beijing Evening News thought...

Visit this site:

http://webcenter.newssearch.netscape.com/aolns_display.adp?key=200206070142000220533_aolns.src

Well, those who live in cities with major sports team might not think it was so crazy. Here is the link to the original Onion
article:

http://www.theonion.com/onion3820/congress_threatens.html

Well, thanks for wading through that diatribe.

Brian "Hot Air" Hartmann